Quick Cucumber, Tomato, Onion, and Radish Salad

Quick Cucumber, Tomato, Onion, and Radish Salad

It’s that time of year! No, not all the fresh summer produce salad recipes, but my quickie recipes for when we are headed to the coast again to go fishing and/or crabbing. Once again, we’ll be on another extended weekend trip so am posting this one early instead of Saturday.

We didn’t catch any halibut last trip, it was super-windy with 6-to-8-foot horrible wind waves and our bait wouldn’t stay on the bottom with all the rocking and rolling. Then I got seasick as hell, WAHHH! Hubby will attempt again this weekend, while I’ll stay behind and fish the calm river for salmon.

I was wanting to make a Panzanella salad out of what produce I had on hand, but last minute hubby couldn’t help with the prep of this and ran out of time to make the bread cubes since I didn’t have any stale bread on hand. So this is what I came up with. Lively, fresh, and delicious!

The cucumber came from a friend’s garden, the tomatoes from our own, and the radishes from the farmer’s market. The rest came from the store (organic as possible).

And this would also make a great side dish for a Labor Day BBQ or picnic! This no-mayo recipe makes it a snap to store and serve.

Quick Cucumber, Tomato, Onion, and Radish Salad

1 English cucumber, sliced and quartered (about 2 cups, can be more or less)
1 cup fresh diced tomatoes
1/2 cup diced sweet onion
1/2 cup diced radishes
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon rice vinegar, or plain white
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
Salt and ground black pepper, to taste

Prep all the ingredients, toss in a bowl and stir to combine. Refrigerate one hour or more. Serve with a slotted spoon. See? Quick and easy. Yumm!

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

 

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Homemade Sweet and Spicy Chile Sauce and Shrimp Spring “Unrolls”

Sweet and Spicy Chile Sauce with Shrimp Spring Unrolls

I tried. I really really tried. I wanted to make shrimp spring rolls to go with this amazing chile sauce I came up with, but spring rolls were not to be. During the fourth attempt at rolling the same rice paper, it fought back and exploded in the middle, dumping the contents onto the plate below. I threw my hands in the air, added more lettuce to the mix, and used the dipping sauce as a salad dressing. Take that spring unroll!

It was quite delicious, if I don’t say so myself! I wish I made more of the chile sauce, as it really does make an amazing salad dressing and of course would go great with spring or egg rolls too. I let hubby roll his own, and he didn’t have much success either. I think we both tried to put too much in each one. But we both ended up with a lovely meal, mess and all.

Rather than bore you with all the details of what went in my “salad,” I basically used the same recipe that I used another time a made spring rolls, but used medium whole shrimp instead of diced deli shrimp and switched up a few of the veggies/herbs. Recipe here —> Shrimp and Vegetable Spring Rolls with a Spicy Peanut Sauce. OK let’s get to the chile sauce (and double this up if you want more to grace your fridge for future use):

Homemade Sweet and Spicy Chile Sauce
Adapted from picturetherecipe.com

4 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/8 cup water
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon Sambal Oelek
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with same amount of water
3/4 teaspoon fish sauce

Add the sugar to a small sauce pan, then whisk in the rice vinegar and water. Turn heat to medium high and bring to a boil, whisking until sugar is dissolved.

Whisking the Chile Sauce

Add the minced garlic, crushed red pepper flakes, and Sambal Oelek. (You can substitute Sriracha if you don’t have any.)

Adding the Sambal Oelek ~ Shhh! It’s the secret ingredient!

Turn heat down and let simmer for several minutes until it slightly thickens.

Whisk in the cornstarch slurry, then simmer at a high bubble until the sauce clears and thickens. Turn off heat, stir in the fish sauce, then set aside to cool down.

Cooling the Chile Sauce

Once cool, store in airtight bottle in the refrigerator until ready to use. Serve as a dipping sauce with spring rolls, or as a sweet/spicy dressing to any salad.

Sweet and Spicy Chile Sauce with Shrimp Spring Unrolls

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

 

Southwest Taco Salad with Creamy Guacamole Dressing

Southwest Taco Salad with Creamy Guacamole Dressing

Ahhh, where oh where did the summer go? School starts this week in my neck of the woods and temperatures have gone from sizzling hot to almost frosty. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from enjoying this zesty and crunchy salad filled with summer bounty topped with a smooth avocado dressing.

We’ve just returned this weekend from nine glorious days camping and fishing at the beautiful Oregon coast. What a wonderful way to end the summer!

Southwest Taco Salad with Creamy Guacamole Dressing
Adapted from Southwest Salad with Creamy Avocado Salsa Dressing at Carlsbad Cravings

Creamy Guacamole Dressing

1 small avocado, peeled and roughly diced
1 small jalapeño, seeded, deveined, and roughly chopped
1/4 cup cilantro
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/4 salsa, homemade or store-bought (I used my Hatch chile salsa)
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice from 1 lime
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 teaspoon cumin

Southwest Taco Salad

Grilled chicken breast, sliced (or deli rotisserie)
Corn kernels from 1 ear of sweet white corn
Chopped/shredded lettuce of choice
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 large red onion, chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/3 cup roasted pepitas
1/2 cup grated pepper jack cheese
Creamy Guacamole Dressing
Tortilla chips, for serving

Creamy Guacamole Dressing

Add all of the Creamy Guacamole Dressing ingredients to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. You will have to scrape down the sides a few times. Add additional milk, if needed, to thin to desired consistency. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Next, grill the chicken breast, if it isn’t already cooked.

Grilled Chicken

Remove the kernels from the ear of corn, using a Bundt-pan to catch the kernels, if you have one. (That’s a pretty cool tip I picked up from Pinterest.)

Cutting the Corn off the Cob

Add all the salad ingredients except dressing and chips to a large bowl. Toss to combine.

Southwest Taco Salad Ingredients

Add tossed salad to individual bowls, then top with guacamole dressing and serve with tortilla chips.

Download and Print this  Yummy Recipe!

 

 

Shaved Asparagus Salad with Feta and Peas

Shaved Asparagus Salad with Feta and Peas

This is a beautiful spring salad inspired by my wonderful foodie blogging friend Seana over at Cottage Grove House. She inspires me to make a lot of wonderful and healthy dishes. I didn’t have great hopes that my somewhat picky family would enjoy this, but I enjoyed the flavors of this immensely! “I like my asparagus steamed with butter,” said hubby. “It was OK, but there wasn’t much dressing on it,” said daughter. My daughter was at some event when I made this and wrapped a bowl and left it in the fridge for her for later. The lemon juice and oil was in a separate container next to it. She didn’t add any dressing to it! Ahhh, such is the life when introducing new foods and flavors. Nonetheless, I am sharing this recipe for you in hopes that others might see the bright flavors you could enjoy with such a salad.

Shaved Asparagus Salad with Feta and Peas
Adapted from Cottage Grove House recipe

1 bunch asparagus, washed and well-dried (tough ends removed)
1/4 cup green peas, fresh or frozen and thawed
1/8 cup (2 tablespoons) pine nuts
2 ounces feta, crumbled
1 big handful Spring Mix lettuce
Juice from half a lemon
Extra virgin olive oil
Ground black pepper
Sea salt

Shave the asparagus into ribbons using a vegetable peeler by holding the base of the stalk with one hand and running the peeler down to the tip. Leave the tips whole to add to the salad. Rotate the asparagus 90 degrees each time you shave, until each stalk is shaved through. (Hint: buy the thicker asparagus, it’s much easier to shave.)

Bowl of Shaved Asparagus

Toss the asparagus ribbons with the peas, pine nuts, feta, and Spring Mix lettuce.

Asparagus Salad Ready for Spring Mix and Dressing

Drizzle the lemon juice and olive oil over all, and season with fresh ground pepper and salt, to taste. Serve immediately.

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

French Challenge #3 ~ Salads

OK my foodie friends, I’ve dredged up my French Challenge #3 post because way back I ended up in a tie and then life got busy and then, well, you know. So while we are still in limbo from closing on a house, I have a perfectly good (but small) kitchen to cook in now. I’m reviving this post and starting the count all over. Help me out! Which one of these recipes should I make for the the French salad??? Please comment on this repost instead of the original and then I can start a new count. Many thanks!

anotherfoodieblogger

French Classics Cookbook

This is not only a post about my French Challenge going on, but to also say it’s been a challenging week at home with some personal family issues, hence no cooking blog this week. No new recipes or much cooking going on in this household besides microwaving and such, but we are slowly getting back on track. I hope to get you some new recipes after we get over this bump in the road of life.

Now, I present to you three dishes from the third chapter of my French cookbook. I had challenged myself to make at least one dish from each chapter, and this chapter is Vegetables and Sides. I found all the vegetable recipes to be quite simple, and one of them only had two ingredients so I wasn’t much challenged by that! So I picked three of the salads that at least expanded…

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Grilled Steak and Artichoke Salad

Is it toasty hot where you live? It sure is here! Here is a nice main dish salad for you that I made last summer. We’ll be making this again soon!

anotherfoodieblogger

Here is a main dish steak salad that will appease even the heartiest of appetites. Temperatures are still toasty here and I wanted to concoct a cool summer salad that would be filling enough for dinner. I used a thin-sliced top round, which is not as tender as flank steak, but marinating the meat helped tenderize it. I was going to make a homemade vinaigrette, but by the time I finished grilling, chopping, and dicing I decided store-bought dressing would suffice.

Steak Marinade

1/2 pound thin-sliced steak
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1 lime
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon minced garlic
Black pepper to taste

Place the steak in a quart Ziploc baggie. Whisk the rest of the ingredients together and pour over the steak. Seal bag and let marinate for several hours or overnight. Take out and let come to room temperature…

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Grilled Steak Salad with Roasted Tomato Salsa and Cotija Cheese

Spicy Grilled Steak Salad with Roasted Tomato Salsa and Cotija Cheese

I went twice — mind you TWICE — to my local store that caters to the Hispanic community each day this past weekend to find flank steak for this salad, and both times they said they had sold out already! I obviously need to get to the store earlier in the day if I want that cut of meat.

Nonetheless, I didn’t want to travel to another grocery so I settled on super-thin cut bottom round, which was labeled “for Carne Asada” so figured that would work just fine. I was planning on marinating the meat anyways in a lime juice concoction, which helps tenderize the meat. The idea to make steak salad started with wanting to use up the rest of my Roasted Tomato Salsa  from the other day. It’s been in the high 70s/low 80s  here the past few days and just love to grill in this kind of weather.

Beef Marinating in Chile Lime Sauce

There are so many things you can do with a salad like this! Some grilled corn would be great on it,  but it’s not quite yet corn season here yet, but settled on adding avocado, black beans seasoned with cumin and some of the salsa and lime juice, halved grape tomatoes, grilled red and yellow peppers, green onion, and black olives. Oh! And the finishing touches of my Roasted Tomato Salsa, crumbled Cotija cheese, cilantro, and tortilla chips.

Fresh Red Leaf Lettuce and Baby Spinach

This was the first time I’d ever bought Cotija cheese, but had seen it used in many Mexican recipes. It’s a brick of cheese that crumbles up like blue cheese, and my first taste realized why it goes so well with Mexican cooking! Such a fabulous “tang” to it! From what I researched it keeps really well too, so my somewhat spendy purchase for 10 ounces of it should keep in the fridge for quite a while and am looking forward to using it in other dishes.

Steak Marinade

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lime juice
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar or regular vinegar
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon New Mexico Red or Ancho Chile powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
Black pepper to taste
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 pound thin-sliced bottom or top round steak (or flank steak if you can find it!)

Whisk all the ingredients except the steak in a medium glass bowl.  Add the thinly sliced steak and let marinate in the refrigerator for a minimum of 1 hour but up to 3 or 4 hours. Mix around when you can. A half hour before cooking, remove from the fridge and let set to come to room temperature.

Zesty Grilled Southwest Steak Salad

Grilled Steak Salad with Roasted Tomato Salsa and Cotija Cheese

1 bell pepper (we used 1/2 red and 1/2 yellow), deseeded and halved
Spray olive oil
Garlic powder
Marinated steak (recipe above)
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained and seasoned with 1 tablespoon salsa, squeeze of lime wedge,  and 1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 cup of mixed greens per person (we used red leaf lettuce and baby spinach)
1 6-ounce can black olives
3 green onions, chopped roughly
1/2 carton grape tomatoes, halved
1 avocado, peeled and sliced
Roasted Tomato Salsa recipe, for dressing, or any salsa you have on hand
Crumbled Cotija cheese, for garnish
Cilantro, for garnish
Corn tortilla chips, for garnish

Preheat grill to high, spray the bell pepper with olive oil both sides and sprinkle with garlic powder.  Place on grill 20 minutes before ready to assemble the salad.  Meanwhile, mix up the black beans, salsa, lime,  and cumin, and set aside. After 10 minutes flip the peppers over. Now place the thin-sliced marinated steak on the grill and cook each side 3 to 4 minutes, then remove and tent with foil. Remove the peppers from the grill and slice  thin.

Now take the steak and slice thin across the grain. Add your greens to a bowl, assemble the vegetables over it (don’t forget anything, that’s easy to do!), then top with the steak. Add the Roasted Tomato Salsa for dressing, then the cheese, cilantro, and tortilla chips for garnish. This is a great dish to mix and combine any number of fresh vegetables you may have on hand. Olé!

Simple Tuna and Egg Salad Stack

Simple Tuna and Egg Salad Stack

Sometimes I just like simple. And comforting. And quick. That is exactly what I made myself for lunch the other day. A simple tuna and egg salad stacked atop a simple toasted English muffin. Nothing fancy going on here, but I sure enjoyed it! Oh, and so did my husband, who happened to make it home just as I was about to pack away the leftovers, so he got himself a Simple Tuna and Egg Salad Stack too! I hope you enjoy.

Simple Tuna and Egg Salad Stack

2 boiled eggs, peeled and roughly chopped
1 5-ounce can albacore tuna , drained and flaked
Ground pepper, to taste
Celery salt, to taste
Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb seasoning, to taste
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
Small squirt of Dijon mustard
1 green onion, white and light green parts, chopped
1 English muffin, halved and toasted with a light spread of butter

Mix all the ingredients except the English muffin in a small bowl. Mix it up and taste and see if it needs anymore of anything. Plop a few spoonfuls onto your toasted and buttered English muffin and well, eat! You can serve with chips and a dill pickle if you want to round it out a bit more, or eat all of it yourself. I was nice and shared.

Tuna and Egg Salad on English Muffin

Oh! And I added a new Lunch category for my recipes. I don’t know why I never did that as I have plenty of lunch recipes from the past that I just dumped into the Main Dishes category instead, but a lot of them I actually made for lunch.

Cheese-Stuffed Chicken with Black Bean Salad and Cilantro-Lime Dressing

Cheese-Stuffed Chicken with Black Bean Salad and Cilantro-Lime Dressing

I came across this recipe yesterday when browsing through my recipe clippings that have been thrown hodge-podge into a manila folder. I had not made this in upwards of 10 years, and just seeing the recipe brought a flood of memories back of when my mom made this for me. No, this was not as a little kid growing up, this was 13 years ago when I was bed-ridden and almost seven months pregnant. We had moved into our house just a couple weeks before, when I was struck with hypertension and also had placenta previa and ordered on full-time bed rest and various meds. We hadn’t even unpacked everything yet.  My mom immediately flew up from Texas to help us finish unpacking and be with me for whatever I needed. Apparently one day, I “needed” this dish for dinner. So I handed her my photocopy of the recipe to go buy the necessary ingredients, then proceeded to instruct her how to make it from the couch adjacent to the kitchen. I just giggle now at the thought of that evening. You see, I am partially deaf in one ear, and have bouts of tinnitus (ringing in the ears). Well the meds I was taking for my condition started to make me go almost completely deaf in both ears! Thankfully that side effect was temporary. Anyways, since I could barely hear, I had to turn the TV up real loud to hear it. So then my mom is in the kitchen asking me questions during the preparation while the TV was on, and I kept yelling “WHAT?!?” every few minutes. I remember my mom got so exasperated with me, and told me my baby would come out of me screaming “WHAT?” when she was born. It ended up being a wonderful meal, but my mom told me she would in no way ever make it for me again.

Cilantro Onion Cheese Mixture

Now that I am looking at the recipe again after all these years, I am also chuckling over the weight it states for 8 boneless chicken breasts (3 1/2 pounds). I do believe it dates this recipe back a-ways, because I don’t remember the last time I could buy a chicken breast that didn’t weigh almost a pound. The other thing that struck me as funny is that the original recipe is called Relleno-Stuffed Chicken. Relleno in Spanish means “stuffed,” so it literally means stuffed-stuffed chicken. I left the duplicate off my recipe title. I wish I could credit the author and cookbook this came from, but since it’s a photocopy I must not have owned the cookbook myself and have no clue. However, I’ve modified the original recipe a bit so I think it will be OK.

This does take a bit of prep time, but the results are so worth it! You’ll need to make the black bean salad and the dressing first before preparing the chicken if you want any chance to sit down a spell while the chicken is cooking.  I cut the recipe in about half, so this feeds four easily. My daughter did have a friend over for dinner tonight after I had decided to make this, and she went back for seconds for more dressing over it and my daughter went back for seconds on the chicken! It was plenty for all. I do think this could be served at a small dinner party and the guests will be plenty pleased with the “gourmet” flavor this meal provides.

Black Bean Salad

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 Roma tomatoes, chopped
1 avocado
1/4 cup chopped green onion
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice (1 medium lime)
3 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Black pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl and toss to coat. Cover and set aside until ready to serve. (Don’t refrigerate unless you are making it long before dinner. If you do refrigerate it, let it come back to room temperature before serving.)

Cilantro-Lime Dressing

1 cup lightly packed fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 cup sour cream (low-fat is fine)
1/4 cup mayonnaise (low-fat is fine)
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
Black pepper
Salt (optional)

Add all the ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth.  Add black pepper to taste, and a tad of salt if you want. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use

Black Bean Salad

Cheese-Stuffed Chicken

1/2 cup shredded Mexican cheese blend (Pepper Jack and Cheddar)
1 tablespoon minced green onions
1 to 2 teaspoons minced fresh cilantro
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/8 teaspoon cumin
Black pepper to taste
2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
Olive oil
Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb Blend
Lettuce leaves for plates (I used red-leaf, but any kind will do)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine the cheese, onions, garlic and seasonings in a small bowl. Butterfly the chicken breasts and stuff half the mixture into each one. Secure with toothpicks. Spray both sides with olive oil, and season both sides with pepper and Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb. Line a baking pan with foil and lightly spray with oil. Bake for 35-45 minutes until chicken is no longer pink. Remove from oven and let sit for five minutes. To serve, cut each chicken breast into 1/2-inch slices. Arrange the lettuce on each plate, then top with about a cup Black Bean Salad, sliced chicken, and a few tablespoons of the Cilantro Dressing. Absolutely delicious!

Simple White Bean and Tuna Salad

White Bean and Tuna Salad

I am on my way out of town to visit some relatives with my sister, so I’m posting a very simple lunch I made last week when I was in a time crunch and had no leftovers I was interested in warming up. I spied a can of tuna in the pantry, and right next to it was a can of white beans. Bingo! I knew something could be whipped up with that combination. It made way more than I needed for lunch, so the leftovers made a tasty snack with crackers the next few days. Here is what I came up with:

White Bean and Tuna Salad

3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
Black pepper
Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb
1 can cannellini (white kidney) beans, rinsed
1 can solid white albacore tuna, drained
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried basil
Romaine lettuce

In a medium bowl, Whisk the lemon juice, oil and garlic. Season with pepper and Mrs. Dash to taste while whisking. Add the beans, tuna, onion, parsley and basil and mix well. Fresh herbs would be better I’m sure but I didn’t have any. Serve on a bed of romaine lettuce. As said before, this makes great leftovers with crackers. I snacked on it with Triscuits.