Romaine Artichoke Salad

For leftover Tuesday tonight we'll be having, well, leftovers. Straight up out of their little Tupperware containers. Considering we had a roast with potatoes yesterday, that's really not so bad. Yet it is not exactly exciting or blogtastic in any way. The good news is that I'll be making a salad to balance out the leftovers.

And this salad is exciting in pretty much every way. It is blogtastic if ever a salad was destined for a life of bloggerdom. It's the kind of salad where someone clearly thought of every lovely salad ingredient they could and threw them together. I could eat it forever and ever and always be happy. It is also super easy and quick to put together.

Unfortunately there is, my friends, one thing this salad is not. This salad is not cheap. I am very sorry about that. However, if you get to thinking about how much those canned artichokes and hearts of palm and pine nuts all cost, you can just remind yourself how much you spent on a salad the last time you went to Chili's. Or even McDonald's (does anybody else get bugged that those McDonald's salads which consist of primarily cheap lettuce are so darned pricey). That should make you feel better about life. You might have to up and get yourself another serving.

Another thing that might make you feel better about the price tag on this salad is that it can stand perfectly well as its own meal. With a slice of rustic bread (come on, you know that that's what all food bloggers eat with their salads) or a breast of chicken or both, it could even feed they type of man who considers salad a side dish no matter how perfectly perfect it is.

Romaine Artichoke Salad
Serves me (maniacal laughter) or about 6 people
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cost: $9.00
(lettuce: 1.50, artichokes: 2.50, hearts of palm: 2.50 (on sale), bacon: .50, Parmesan: .50, pine nuts: 1.00, dressing: .50-1.00)

Note: I like this salad best with just one head of lettuce. However, when I served it to my littlest sister a couple years ago, she felt like it wasn't salad-y enough without more lettuce. I'll let you be the judge.

1-2 head romaine lettuce, chopped into mouth-sized pieces
1 can artichoke hearts (but the kind in water, not oil), drained
1 can hearts of palm, drained and cut into rounds
4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/4-1/2 C grated Parmesan cheese
1 handful pine nuts (use sesame seeds if pine nuts will really break your bank, although the pine nuts are amazing in this)
Caesar dressing (Girard's was recommended when I first got this and I really fell in love with it, although it isn't cheap either)

Mix all ingredients together. Toss with dressing just before serving.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Turkey Cranberry Spinach Salad

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

I cannot tell you how glorious this salad is as a use-up-the-turkey-leftovers meal. For lunch we had leftover roll and turkey sandwiches (aka 'best lunch of the year' sandwiches) and then we may or may not have, um, eaten a couple pieces of pie. By dinner, most of us weren't really ready for more stuffing and gravy. So we made a big bowl of this. Best choice ever.

Turkey Cranberry Spinach Salad
Serves about 6
Cost: $2.20
(spinach: .80, lettuce: .75, cranberries: .25, celery: .15, cheese: .25)

1/2 bag baby spinach
1 head romaine lettuce, chopped into bit sized bits
1 C shredded or cubed leftover turkey (we used white meat, but I added some dark for leftovers today; both were great)
3 stalks celery
1/2 C dried cranberries
1/4 C Parmesan cheese, optional

Serve it with this orange vinaigrette and your holiday salad life will be complete.

Toss spinach and lettuce and then add the other ingredients on the top. If you toss all together, those heavy ingredients will fall to the bottom of the bowl, only to be discovered at the end of the meal. So use a shallow wide salad bowl and put the heavy fixings on top. They'll naturally mix in as you serve up the salad.

Add dressing to individual plates unless you're positive it will all be eaten up (there's a very good chance, but we did have a bit leftover).

Eat. Feel good. Be happy.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Caesar Salad with Kale and Romaine

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

It's been a long day--the kind of day when good ideas are not the ones coming from my own head. So I did what any self respecting food-blogger/human being would do: I stole one from someone else.

A little while ago, I saw a Kale Romaine Caesar Salad on Kalyn's Kitchen and thought (humbly of course) that there was no way that would work for me. I am a great lover of kale, but so far I've mostly made it work in smoothies or cooked to a sound wilting point. Raw kale in a salad? How could this work? Kale is so thick, so ribbed, and so, so kale-y. Kalyn assured us that if you cut the kale small, all would be well.

And then one day I had kale and I had romaine and I had my favorite ever Caesar dressing (Girard's) and I thought, "Well, I guess I could add just a little kale." I removed the ribs and sliced it up good and small (seriously, do not even think about leaving it in any kind of large bite) and I'll be darned if I couldn't even tell it was there. The next time I tried it with more of an equal ratio of kale to romaine as Kalyn suggests and I'll be double darned if I still could barely sense it's presence. And the presence I did sense was most pleasant--not chewy and potentially bitter as I had expected it to be.

So, go ahead, live a little. Maybe live nice and long--this is kale we're talking about after all. Throw some (well chopped) kale in your next salad and see what happens. I highly recommend it in a Caesar as the kale and romaine complimented each other very well and the strong flavors of the dressing really gave those greens what for.

You might even find yourself going back for more. I personally have had this salad or a variation thereof at least 5 times in the last 4 days, and at least once when I would have normally had a dessert. Yeah, it's that good.

Creamy Cucumber Salad

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on $10/day.

The idea of cucumber salad was new to me this summer. Although I embraced tomato cucumber salads several years ago, it never really occurred to me that one vegetable could carry a salad all by itself. And then my friend Sally gave me three large cucumbers well before my tomatoes were coming on. We ate a few with dip. And then they sat there in my refrigerator, looking too big and intimidating to do anything else with. And then I stumbled upon this recipe by Elise at Simply Recipes, and ba-da-boom, a new world opened up.

Because, you see, cucumbers are actually one of those vegetables that more than one person in this family likes. Which isn't to say that everyone in the family likes them. But Kip does. And Mark does. And some days Savannah does too. That's a really good batting average in the veggie department of this establishment.

So I took those cucumbers and made cucumber salads out of them. And they were a hit.

They're easy to make. You can keep it simple and just add some vinegar and salt and pepper. You can add any number of herbs from the garden. You can add mayo and mustard. Or mayo and Ranch powder.

My favorite is this creamy one.

Creamy Cucumber Salad
Serves 2
Prep time: 3 minutes
Cost: whatever a cucumber is--ours have been free; I'm going to say $.70

Note on skins: You can peel your cucumber or not. My advice is to taste a slice and see if the skin is tender or not. If it is, leave it on.

Note on bitterness: If your cucumber is bitter, I've heard you can chop off an end nub and rub the white of the nub against the white of the rest of the cucumber. This should bring out some whitish juice, which tends to be the bitter juice. Dab those off and your cucumber should be less bitter. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, because the cucumbers I've been getting from my garden have been great. Which brings me to a final note: If you grow a garden, just make an effort to pick the cucumbers young and they usually won't be bitter.

1 medium sized cucumber
1 Tbsp mayonnaise
a few shakes red wine vinegar
a few generous shakes salt
pepper
1/2 tsp chopped dill

Slice the cucumber into disks. (If it's really fat, cut it in halves or quarters first. If it's really seedy, cut it in quarters and slice off the seedy bit.)

Add other ingredients, mix, taste, and adjust seasonings.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Tomato Cucumber Salad: A Template

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on $10/day.

When I got married I didn't know how to cook a thing except my sister's cookies and my mother's hot cross buns--you know, the important things. I had spent my life up to that point in low-fat, study hall land, meaning I didn't often eat fat (except for those cookies on occasion) and that I'd been a student for--shall we say--a rather long time. Suddenly, there I was with a husband and some kind of primal desire to feed the man, without any skills whatsoever. So it happened that one day in summer when tomatoes and cucumbers were exploding out of everywhere, I decided to make a tomato cucumber salad. Imagine my surprise when I realized this salad I considered sophisticated (because as we all know any salad that lacks lettuce must be sophisticated) took a whopping 2 minutes and 4 ingredients to prepare (not counting salt and pepper).You'll find recipes galore on the internet, but at their heart, they're singing the same song. And so today I present you with a template.

What do you need for a tomato cucumber salad? Tomato, cucumber, some kind of vinegar, some kind of oil, and maybe some kind of seasoning. You can go as fancy and crazy as you want, using pretty differently colored heirlooms, dressed up in fancy vinegar with finely chopped herbs from the garden. Or you can pull out the Costco tomatoes, douse them with the same white vinegar you use to clean your bathroom sink, throw in some oil, and sprinkle it with salt and pepper.

You can peel the veggies or not. You can chop them large or slice them as thin as a fairy's wings. You can use what you have on hand. You can get creative. And you can pretty much be guaranteed a good little salad no matter what you do (although I really must insist on some type of fresh tomato--don't make this in January and expect it to come out fabulously, unless of course, you live in Chile).

Got fresh herbs? Here are a few that are great in tomato cucumber salads: basil, dill, oregano, mint, mustard. Don't let that limit you--get as creative as you wish. But those are popular add-ins.

Want it creamy? Add a dollop of mayo or a dollop of sour cream.

Tomato Cucumber Salad: A Template
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cost: next to nothing in the summertime

1 large tomato
1 small cucumber
1 Tbsp oil (I prefer olive oil)
1/2-1 Tbsp vinegar (I prefer some type of wine vinegar and I've heard rice vinegar is awesome as well)
salt and pepper
other herbs if desired
1 Tbsp mayo or sour cream if you want a creamy sauce

Chop the vegetables to their desired size. Drizzle oil over them. Add a dash of vinegar. Add other herbs (chopped) if using. Add mayo/sour cream if using. Add salt and pepper to taste.

If you let it sit for 20-30 minutes, the flavors will meld. However, the vegetables might sweat a bit from the salt as well, leaving you with a tasty puddle at the bottom of your bowl that is difficult to get to stick to your veggies. If you'd like you can sweat the vegetables beforehand by salting them and leaving them in a bowl or on a paper towel or two to get some of that excess water out. I know this works well for cucumbers, but haven't tried it with tomato.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Quinoa Black Bean Salad with Citrus Dressing

Cheap Eat Challenge: Watch as our family of 6 tries to eat on $6/day without perishing or complaining too awfully much.

My sister is always sending me recipes containing interesting grains. She's hipper than I am. Thank goodness. (Of course, being hipper than I am is not a tremendous feat, so don't let it go to your head, Bec.)

Months ago she sent me this recipe for Quinoa Black Bean Salad and at least 2 months ago, I bought the quinoa. I knew I had to make it as a side dish for something or as a lunch for myself. If you've been reading this blog pretty much at all, you probably know why. If you haven't, it's because my husband and kids would look at a dish such as this with a name that cannot even be pronounced in the queen's English and then they would barf, right there in their seats. Or at least they would pretend to barf right there in their seats. And then they would whine, unmercifully. Because there is color in this, and a grain with a name that cannot be sounded out, and little black beans, and teeny tiny onions, and--food felony of them all--chunkies; it is, in fact, chunkiness incarnate. (Would they have liked it better if I had pureed it for them? No. No, they would not.)

But perhaps you enjoy something with texture, diversity, vegetables, nutrition. Perhaps you enjoy something with a pleasing mix of sweet and salty, citrus and grain, Perhaps you enjoy a food that was once such a precious commodity that it was called the "mother of all grains" and the "gold of the Incas." What was so amazing about it? For one thing, it contains all the essential amino acids, making it a complete protein. For another, it is a crazy high source of iron for a plant food. For another, it can be sprouted in just a couple hours by sitting it in a clean jar of clean water (I haven't tried this one at home, so we're trusting the internet here). And for one more thing, the birds and bugs tended to leave it alone, which is why it was so valuable to the Incans who, after all, could not just sprinkle some sevin over all their crops.

However, I should warn you that it was undesirable to pests because it has a soapy-tasting coating. This is easily removed and if you buy your quinoa in a box, you'll most likely not have to worry about it at all. However, if you buy your quinoa in bulk (where it is most likely much cheaper), you'll want to rinse it for several minutes in a fine mesh strainer.

You cook quinoa like you cook rice--2 C water to 1 C dry grain--simmered in a pot until the liquid is absorbed.

And do try to find it in bulk (a health food store of a co-op are probably your best bets) because the little boxes on the little shelves of the store are going to leave you thinking it should still be called the gold of the Incas.

Quinoa and Black Bean Salad with Citrus Dressing
Prep and cook time: 30 minutes
Cost: $3.20
(quinoa: 1.00, butter: .15, orange: .25, black beans: .55, tomatoes: .80--this is a guess; I have home-canned ones; onions: .20, cilantro: .25--guessing on onions and cilantro too--mine were home grown)

1 C quinoa
2 C water
2 tsp grated citrus zest (I used orange and it was great)
2 Tbsp citrus juice
2 Tbsp melted butter
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp sugar
1 14 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes, drained (or about 1 C of fresh chopped tomato)
4 green onions, chopped
1/4 C fresh cilantro, chopped (I didn't have fresh, so used 2 Tbsp dry)

Wash quinoa by putting it in a fine mesh strainer and running water through it for a few minutes.

Put it in a pot, cover it with 2 C water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer.

While the quinoa is cooking, prepare your dressing and vegetables. Whisk together zest, juice, butter, oil, salt, and sugar. Chop your onions and cilantro and tomatoes if fresh. Rinse your beans.

When quinoa is ready, add dressing and toss until it is aborbed. Then stir in remaining ingredients and add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve warm.

Note: The leftovers the next day were pretty good, but after that, I felt like they were mushy and not as good.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Classic Potato Salad

Cheap Eat Challenge: Watch as our family of 6 learns to eat on $6/day.

Potato salad season, she comes. So does lots-of-leftover-hard-boiled-egg season. Below we present delicious fusion.

Of course if you use your leftover Easter eggs in the potato salad it will come out more colorful than this. Because the egg dye inevitably bleeds onto the whites of the eggs. So then you can call it Easter Egg Salad, which is just the type of thing parenting magazines promise will make your picky kids want to eat such a food. I make no such promises. But, egg dye or no, the adults will enjoy it. (Well, at least they will without the dye; I guess I can't make promises about your weird tie-dyed Easter Egg Salad.)

Potato Salad
Adapted from The New Best Recipe
Serves: 10-12
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes plus you'll need time for the potatoes and boiled eggs to cool before assembly.
Cost: $3.20
(potatoes: 2.00, eggs: .60, mayo: .05, pickles: .50, other stuff: .05)

3 lb red potatoes (I left the skins on)
6 Tbsp red wine vinegar (you can use any, but the red wine flavor does make a difference)
salt and pepper
6 hard-boiled eggs, diced
dash onion powder (or 2 Tbsp minced red onion if you peeps aren't averse to pieces of onion)
1 C dill pickles, chopped small
3/4 C mayonnaise
3 tsp mustard (Dijon is nice, but not essential)
2 Tbsp parsley leaves or dill

Boil potatoes. (I left mine whole, let them cool, and then cut them, but you can just chop and boil if you wish). Hard boil eggs (Put in cool water, bring to boil, boil 10 minutes.)

Drain potatoes (and cut into 1/2 inch pieces if not already cut). Let cool until just warm and add vinegar and 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Gently toss. I put mine in a bowl with a lid and flipped it over a time or two. (Note: Best Recipe claims that the slightly warm--not hot--potatoes will absorb the flavors better than cold potatoes. I admit that I let mine cool completely before reading this tip. The potatoes still absorbed quite a bit of flavor and were good, but I trust the Best Recipe folks, so try it with the barely warm potatoes).

Let cool completely in refrigerator (20-30 minutes). Once cool add remaining ingredients and gently toss. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Tarragon Turkey Salad

Cheap Eat Challenge Count Down: 32 days

Success!!! Still got turkey? Is it ready for a last hurrah? What's that you say, you can't bear another turkey sandwich. Well, I won't force you, but the flavors in this turkey salad are different enough that I didn't feel like I was eating Thanksgiving dinner yet again. In fact, when I was done with my sandwich I had to stop myself from going at the bowl of remaining turkey salad with my spoon and finishing it off. 

Tarragon Turkey Salad

Serves 2

1 C cubed turkey (or chicken), cooked

1/4 C chopped broccoli (I chop mine super fine, so they are crumb-like)

1 stalk celery (chopped small)

1/4 C mayonnaise

1 tsp vinegar

2 tsp mustard

1 1/2 tsp dried tarragon (or 1 Tbsp fresh)

1-2 Tbsp walnuts (optional)

2 Tbspn dried cranberries (optional)

Combine turkey, broccoli, and celery in a bowl. Add walnuts and cranberries if using. Toss.

To make dressing, combine mayo, vinegar, mustard, and tarragon. Mix. Then mix into turkey/vegetable mixture. Chill if you've got the time. (By the way, don't feel like you have to add all the dressing if you have too much. I came up with a bit extra, which I plan to use on a regular salad some time this week.)

Serve with any bread you think is tasty. I didn't have dried cranberries, but ended up eating mine with a bit of leftover cranberry sauce over the top. That was really good too.

PRINTABLE RECIPE