Winter time brings lots of family gatherings and big meals. To balance out all the rich dishes, I like to serve a tasty salad. There is the challenge of using seasonal produce and making it look so good that people choose it over a double helping of mashed potatoes. Here are some of the salads I enjoyed this holiday season.
Crunchy Broccoli with Dried Cranberries and Sunflower Seeds
Hardware- knife, cutting board, big bowl to wash veggies, serving bowl, colander,
Software- Broccoli crowns, dried cranberries, shelled sunflower seeds, shredded carrots, fresh cracked black pepper, Brianne’s Poppyseed Dressing, finely diced red onion (optional)
- Wash the broccoli and cut the florets off and cut them lengthwise into bite size pieces.
- Take the remaining thin stems and chop them into bite size pieces. When you have the larger base stem, cut off some of the woody outer parts.
- Set all the chopped broccoli and stems into a big bowl. You have done the hardest part. The rest is easy.
- 30 mins before serving, toss in the shredded carrots, sunflower seeds, cranberries, and onions (if you are using them).
- Pour the salad dressing just til the broccoli is barely coated. You can alway add more later but you can’t take away if you’ve poured too much.
- Give the salad a good mix.
- Add fresh cracked pepper.
- Cover with seran wrap and refrigerate.
Bib Lettuce with Oven Roasted Veggies and Harvest Fruit
Hardware- colander, knife, cutting board, cookie sheet, serving bowl,
Software- Bib/Butter lettuce, baby organic carrots, beets, butternut squash, fuji apple, bosc pear, pomegranate, orange, feta/goat cheese, egg, good balsamic vinegar.
preheat oven to 350 F.
- Wash the veggies. Using dishwashing gloves to protect your hands, peel the beets and cut off the ends. Put them in a cassarole dish with a lid. Drizzle with olive oil and 2 pinches of kosher salt and cracked black pepper and mix altogether so the veggies are shiny.
- Peel the butternut squash and cut into cubes.
- Place all the carrots and squash cubes into a lasagna tray.
- Drizzle with olive oil and 2 pinches of kosher salt and cracked black pepper and mix altogether so the veggies are shiny.
- Bake them without a cover in the oven til you see them getting dark brown. Oven roasting them will bring out the natural sugars in them. I try to oven roast a batch of veggies on the weekend so that putting a salad together is that much faster on school nites. You can put all the beets, carrots, and squash in the oven at the same time.
- Cut the pear and apple into thin slices. Squeeze the orange on top so that the acid prevents oxidation. Plus the orange juice can be used as the dressing.
Wakame with Cucumbers in Rice Wine Vinegarette
Spinach Tortellini Pasta Salad
2 B continued
