When the cold of winter comes on, I don’t crave cold salads and raw vegetables, I like my vegetables cooked and my salads warm, or at least want some warmth, and cooked lentil salads are perfect for winter. The thing I like about this lentil dish is they can be a bowl of comfort food unto themselves, with the flavors of the onions and feta and pears balancing out the red wine vinegar, or you can scoop some onto a pile of winter greens for a complete meal. Either way, you’ll have a happy belly.

Recipe Notes

Green lentils are firmer than the more widely available brown lentils and will hold up better, but you may have to look for them in a specialty aisle in your grocery store. You can substitute apples for the pears.

WARM GREEN LENTIL SALAD WITH CARAMELIZED ONIONS, FETA CHEESE, AND PEARS

Serves 4.

Equipment

2-quart pot with lid
8-inch pan

Ingredients

1 cup French green lentils, rinsed clean and picked over
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 medium yellow onion, cut in half lengthwise and sliced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
3 or 4 grinds fresh black pepper
sea salt to taste
1/4 cup crumbled Feta cheese
8 slices Red Anjou pear
8 slices Green Anjou pear

Preparation

1. In the 2-quart pot, cover the rinsed lentils with enough water to make them float, and cover with the lid. Bring the lentils to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until the lentils are tender, about 30 minutes. Drain well.

2. While the lentils cook, sauté the onions in the 8-inch pan over medium low heat in the olive oil until the onions turn brown and caramelize, about 20 to 30 minutes. Reduce heat as necessary so the onions don’t burn, and add a little more olive oil if the pan starts to dry up. After the onions finish cooking, drizzle in the red wine vinegar and stir.

3. Toss the drained lentils and onions together. Season with black pepper and sea salt. Gently toss in the Feta cheese. Serve in bowls or on top of winter greens, and garnish with slices of Red and Green Anjou pears.

More Lentil Recipes

More Recipes with Lentils from around the Blogs

Kalyn’s Kitchen – Curried Red Rice and Lentils

Soup Chick – Lentil and Brown Rice Soup with Preserved Lemon and Garlic Chicken Sausage

eCurry – Dal Palak/Lentils with Spinach

Use Real Butter – Braised Lamb Shanks with Lentils

Thanks for subscribing to this blog! Copyright © 2005-2012 Andrea Meyers: making life delicious.

Oktoberfest in Munich began over the weekend, and we are a little sad that we couldn’t be there. Since this is the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest, the excitement and revelry must be at a high pitch, and of course it would have been a lot of fun to return for our 10th anniversary. We’re just happy to be together with our boys and we’re finding ways to celebrate at home. Last week I shared our recipe for cheese spaetzle, which goes so well with many types of German meats, and today I want to share our German style coleslaw, which has a white wine vinaigrette rather than a mayonnaise dressing. It’s really simple to make and you can serve it warm or chilled. The white wine vinaigrette is cooked to dissolve the sugar, then the sunflower oil is added just before pouring over the shredded cabbage. We play around with the texture of the cabbage, sometimes shredding it fine and other times going for a rough chop, and either way works.

Cabbage is a cool season crop and thrives in temperatures in the 60s, so autumn and spring are perfect times of the year for growing it. If you haven’t started any yet in your garden, there’s still time. Cabbage will keep for months in a cool root cellar or you can make your own sauerkraut.

I specifically mention sunflower oil in the recipe because I’ve found sunflower oil in many German recipes over the years and we have started using it in our kitchen. It has a neutral flavor and is considered a healthy oil for cooking. Some of our local grocery stores have started carrying organic sunflower oil, and I think it’s a great alternative for people who have sensitivities to other oils.

GERMAN COLESLAW

Serves 8.

Equipment

large bowl
small saucepan

Ingredients

16 ounces (454 g) green cabbage, shredded
3 green onions, white and green part, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 cup (120 ml) white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
1-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 cup (60 ml) sunflower oil

Preparation

In the large bowl, toss the shredded cabbage and onions. In the small saucepan, mix the sugar, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil and cook until the sugar dissolves. Add the oil and stir. Pour over the cabbage and toss gently. Serve warm or chill until ready to serve.

More German Recipes

More Coleslaw Recipes From Around the Blogs

101 Cookbooks – Lime and Peanut Coleslaw

The Perfect Pantry – Blue Cheese Coleslaw

East Village Kitchen – Crack Slaw, an Asian Coleslaw Recipe

FatFree Vegan Kitchen – Spicy Grapefruit Coleslaw

Thanks for subscribing to this blog! Copyright © 2005-2012 Andrea Meyers: making life delicious.

Good Bite added another segment to their Real Fast Food series, and this time it’s my Spicy Shrimp Salad, one of my favorite super fast meals.

We just toss the shrimp in chili powder and sauté it, put it in a bowl with lettuce and avocado, drizzle a little of the chili oil from the pan over it all and give it a squeeze of lime. A good fast meal in nothing flat. If you can’t do shellfish, you can substitute a firm white fish that has been cut into bite size chunks.

Thanks for subscribing to this blog! Copyright © 2005-2012 Andrea Meyers: making life delicious.

A few weeks ago our Lifetime Fitness location hosted a Culinary Night that was sponsored by Toyota, and Michael and I thought it would be fun to see the cooking demonstration, which featured dishes from the LifeCafe. There were plenty of samples to go around and everyone received a handout with recipes, so of course we decided to try some at home.

Of all the things we sampled, our favorite was the popular Asian tuna, which the cafe serves on ciabatta rolls or as a green salad topping.

The tuna gets a little kick from Sambal Oelek, an Indonesian condiment made from very hot chiles, vinegar, and salt. Sambals vary between countries and regions, and use a variety of chiles, spices, and many other ingredients, so depending on what you have a taste for and what your local Asian grocery store stocks, you can spice up sandwiches and other dishes in dozens of different ways. Just be prepared because this is spicy stuff.

Other samples we tried included the Santa Fe Salad, Southwest Wrap, Turkey Avocado Sandwich, and the Chicken Pesto Pizza, so it’s a good thing we skipped dinner that night.

Recipe Notes

The recipe as distributed at the demonstration yielded a tuna that was much wetter than the version served in the cafe, plus it was much, much spicier, so we adjusted the ingredients amounts to hopefully come closer to the tuna we sampled. The flavor is very good and it makes a delicious stuffing for lettuce wraps, tortillas, tomatoes, on top of cucumber slices for an appetizer, as well as a salad topping. We’ve been stuffing our homegrown heirloom tomatoes with it, and the combination is terrific. Can you guess what kind of tomato is in the photo? It’s Michael’s favorite and we try to grow them every year. Because these tomatoes are sweet, we omit the honey in the tuna and really don’t miss it.

The tuna salad will keep for a day or so, but it tastes best on the day prepared.

[Disclosure: We are paying members of Lifetime Fitness, and the event was free and open to all members. This post is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Lifetime Fitness.]

ASIAN TUNA SALAD

Adapted from LifeCafe.

Serves 6.

Equipment

3-quart mixing bowl

Ingredients

1/2 cup (120 ml) mayonnaise
1 tablespoon sambal oelek (Indonesian chili paste), or more to taste
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon honey (optional)
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
1/2 tablespoon minced ginger
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional
4 (6 ounce/170 g) cans tuna, drained and chopped (LifeCafe uses white tuna, we opted for light.)
1/2 cup finely chopped carrots
1/2 cup finely chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/4 cup dried cranberries

Preparation

1. In the large bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, sambal oelek, sesame oil, soy sauce, honey, ginger, kosher salt, sesame seeds, and red pepper flakes.

2. Add the tuna, carrots, green onions, cilantro, and dried cranberries, then toss to mix well. Use as a stuffing for lettuce wraps, tortilla wraps, tomatoes, on top of thick sliced cucumbers, or on top of green salads.

More Easy Healthy Seafood Recipes

More Healthy Tuna Recipes From Around the Blogs

Simply Recipes – Seared Ahi Tuna with Avocado

Steamy Kitchen – Sesame Seared Tuna with Lime Ginger Vinaigrette

Farmgirl Fare – Swiss Chard Tuna Salad

Kalyn’s Kitchen – Tuna Stuffed Avocado Salad with Tomatoes, Cilantro, and Lime

Thanks for subscribing to this blog! Copyright © 2005-2012 Andrea Meyers: making life delicious.

Juicy cucumbers are one of my favorite summer vegetables, and I like to slice one up and eat it with a bit of salt for an afternoon snack, but using them as a base for salads is my favorite way to eat them. We’ve been on a cucumber salad binge lately, trying different vegetable combinations and vinaigrettes, and this is by far our favorite to date. The Thai vinaigrette gets a little kick from crushed red peppers (pepper flakes), which you can adjust to your taste. Make sure you use an unseasoned rice vinegar because the seasoned kind has added sugar and salt.

(Print this recipe)

CUCUMBER SALAD WITH TOMATO, BELL PEPPER, AND SPICY THAI LIME VINAIGRETTE

Serves 6 to 8.

Equipment

cruet or small jar with lid

Ingredients

2 cucumbers, peeled and julienned
12 cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1/2 red bell pepper seeded and cut into thin strips
1/2 cup shredded or julienned carrot
cilantro sprigs for garnish

VINAIGRETTE
1/4 cup (60 ml) fresh lime juice
1/4 cup (60 ml) rice vinegar (not seasoned)
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoons palm sugar or brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Preparation

1. Add the lime juice, rice vinegar, sugar, fish sauce, minced garlic, pepper flakes, and sea salt in a cruet or small jar with a lid. Cover and shake well.

2. Toss the cucumber, tomatoes, bell pepper strips, and carrots in a serving bowl and drizzle with some of the dressing. Top with cilantro sprigs for garnish and serve with the remaining vinaigrette on the side.

More Summer Salads

More Thai Salad Recipes From Around the Blogs

What We’re Eating – Spicy Thai Jicama Salad

Apple Pie, Patis, and Pâté – Thai Wild Mushroom Salad

The Perfect Pantry – Thai Beef Salad

Rasa Malaysia – Thai Pomelo Salad

Thanks for subscribing to this blog! Copyright © 2005-2012 Andrea Meyers: making life delicious.

GoodBite.com has a new video series called Everyday Meals with a Twist sponsored by Heinz 57 sauce, and I shared one of our favorite easy recipes for the series. My dish with a twist is Orzo Salad with Pesto, a simple salad that you can serve warm or cold anytime of the year.

We make basic basil pesto and sun-dried tomato pesto with our homegrown basil, but you can also use purchased pesto. Just toss with the cooked orzo, tomatoes, and kalamata olives, sprinkle a little Parmesan on top, and it’s ready to serve.

Thanks for subscribing to this blog! Copyright © 2005-2012 Andrea Meyers: making life delicious.

For us the Fourth of July is about celebrating our nation’s heritage as well as family, friends, parades, fireworks, and of course the annual Fourth of July cookout. Our cookouts vary somewhat from year to year, but we always have some kind of potato salad for the Fourth, and this potato salad recipe is particularly good for summer cookouts because it has no dairy, so you don’t have to worry about it spoiling in the summer heat.

I used to peel potatoes and boil them when making potato salad, but now I steam them and then peel after they have cooled because they retain their nutrients better. They also less likely to get mushy this way.

The flavor comes from the fresh herbs in our garden parsley, basil, and chives, though you can mix it up with other herbs. This year we are growing basil all over the garden, including the tomato bed, herb bed, and in containers on our deck. Basil usually does well for us in containers, we just mix up some potting soil and seed directly into the soil about the third week in May, then we keep it in the sun and water daily. We trim the plants regularly and in a few weeks we’ll be ready to make our first batch of pesto.

Yes, we like our basil.

This summer herbed potato salad is my post for Grow Your Own, the blogging event that celebrates the dishes we create from foods we’ve grown, raised, foraged, or hunted ourselves. This is the fourth year for Grow Your Own, and we hope you will join us! Gudrun of Kitchen Gadget Girl is our host for July, so be sure to visit her blog for more information about submitting your post. You can read more about the event and the rules for participating at the Grow Your Own page. Posts are due on July 31.

(Print this recipe)

POTATO SALAD WITH SUMMER HERBS AND WHITE WINE VINAIGRETTE

Serves 8.

Equipment

large pot or pan, about 12 inches across
steamer basket

Ingredients

3 (1.3 k) pounds small red potatoes, scrubbed
1/2 cup (120 ml) extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup (60 m l) white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper freshly ground
3 tablespoons minced basil
2 tablespoons minced parsley
2 tablespoons minced chives

Preparation

1. Add an inch or two of water to the pan/skillet and insert the steamer basket. Arrange the potatoes around the basket and cover the pot. Bring to a boil and cook until the potatoes are just fork tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. Drain and allow the potatoes to cool until you can handle them. Peel the potatoes and cut them into bite-size chunks. Chill or keep at room temperature.

2. Whisk the oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper together and drizzle over the potatoes. Toss the basil, parsley, and chives with the potatoes and serve.

More Recipes for the Fourth of July

More Potato Salad Recipes From Around the Blogs

Simply Recipes – Potato Salad with Apples and Bacon

Gluten Free Goddess Recipes – Red Potato Salad with Horseradish

Herbivoracious – Potato Salad with Feta Cream Dressing

Kalyn’s Kitchen – Sweet Potato Salad with Green Onion, Basil, Thyme, and Feta

Click the button to save this recipe to your Springpad.

Thanks for subscribing to this blog! Copyright © 2005-2012 Andrea Meyers: making life delicious.

In 2007 we bought two blueberry bushes, the low bush variety that produces small berries like our favorite wild blueberries from Maine. We almost lost them due to flooding both the first and second year, but somehow they managed to survive, though they haven’t produced berries yet. It takes a few years for blueberry bushes to begin producing, and when they do it’s often small amounts at first, but growing as the bush matures. (The photo is a little off because I was trying to shoot through the protective netting.)

We now have seven blueberry bushes, and we deliberately chose a mix of low and high bush as well as a range of production times, so in the future we hope to have early, mid, and late season blueberries harvests. This morning we gathered the first blueberries of the season, though there weren’t as many as I had hoped. We had a little storm come through yesterday which knocked our blueberry cages about, and the birds found an opening and took advantage of it. We were happy to have enough for the salad, but now I have some work ahead to set the cages back in place. The birds and squirrels like ripe blueberries as much as we do, and hopefully we’ll beat them to the next round.

Fruit salads find their way onto our menus frequently during the summer, and we have a lot of fun mixing flavors and trying different combinations. Mangos are also in season and we tossed them with our fresh homegrown blueberries and a ginger syrup with rice vinegar. The boys really liked the sweet and slightly sour combination and devoured it with their afternoon snack. I wrote the recipe with a full batch of simple syrup because I like to keep it on hand, but you can also reduce it by a quarter to make the precise amount for this salad.

This is my post for Grow Your Own, a blogging event that celebrates the dishes we create from foods we’ve grown, raised, foraged, or hunted ourselves. I hope you will join us! I am hosting the June event and you can send your post information to me at andreasrecipesgyo AT gmail DOT com. If you are new to the event, you can read more about the rules for participating at the Grow Your Own page. The deadline for sending posts is June 30.

(Print this recipe)

MANGO BLUEBERRY SALAD WITH GINGER VINAIGRETTE

Serves 4.

Equipment

small saucepan
small heat proof bowl
serving bowl

Ingredients

1/2 inch ginger root, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 mango, peeled and cut into small chunks
1 cup fresh blueberries

SIMPLE SYRUP (Makes about 12 ounces.)
1 cup (175 g) granulated sugar
1 cup (240 ml) water

Preparation

1. SIMPLE SYRUP: Mix the sugar and water in the sauce pan and bring to a boil. The sugar should dissolve completely. Transfer 1/4 cup of the hot syrup to a heat proof bowl and allow the remaining syrup to cool in the saucepan. (Makes about 12 ounces and will keep for up to 1 month in the refrigerator. I have some in the refrigerator all the time for cocktails.)

2. Add the sliced ginger root to the hot 1/4 cup of syrup, allow it to steep for 10 to 15 minutes, then remove the ginger slices. Let the syrup cool to room temperature, then chill.

3. Add the rice vinegar to the syrup and stir well. Toss the mango chunks and blueberries together in the serving bowl, then drizzle the ginger vinaigrette over the fruit. Gently toss again and put in the refrigerator to chill for about 30 minutes. Serve.

More Summer Fruit Recipes

More Blueberry Recipes From Around the Blogs

Use Real Butter – Blueberry Peach Crisp

FatFree Vegan Kitchen – Strawberry-Blueberry Tapioca Parfaits

eCurry – Blueberry Gelato

Kitchen Parade – Blueberry Salsa

Click the button to save this recipe to your Springpad.

Thanks for subscribing to this blog! Copyright © 2005-2012 Andrea Meyers: making life delicious.

Our spring garden is not as full as the summer garden, but each year we add a little more with the hope that eventually we will have a large cool weather garden space. This spring we planted snow peas, sugar snap peas, rhubarb, three kinds of radishes, two kinds of radicchio, butterhead and romaine lettuce, red Russian kale, arugula, three kinds of chard, beets, green onions, shallots, dill, and cilantro. I still have a couple new rosemary plants (Arp variety) to put in the ground, but we need to finish prepping their new home first. And then there’s the blueberries which will finally go into their permanent home now that Michael tackled the enormous job of transplanting a dozen rose bushes to make room for the blueberries.

Tender young greens make perfect salads, which I like to embellish with pencil thin asparagus and young snow peas. The honey Dijon vinaigrette has a little bite to it, but you can sweeten it by using more honey.

[Updated September 9, 2010.]

SPRING GREENS SALAD WITH ASPARAGUS, SNOW PEAS, RADISHES, AND HONEY DIJON VINAIGRETTE

Serves 2.

Equipment

small bottle or cruet with a tight lid

Ingredients

VINAIGRETTE
1/4 cup (60 ml) white balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
fresh ground black pepper
1/2 cup (120 ml)  olive oil

SALAD
4 cups fresh spring greens (romaine, radicchio, mesclun, etc.)
6 pencil-thin asparagus spears, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 radish, thinly sliced
10 small snow peas
1 ounce Grana Padana cheese, shaved

Preparation

1. VINAIGRETTE: In a bottle, shake the white balsamic vinegar, Dijon, honey, sea salt, and black pepper. Add the olive oil and shake until blended.

2. Compose the salad on plates and dress with the vinaigrette. Top with the Grana Padana shavings and serve.

More Spring Recipes

More Recipes with Spring Greens From Around the Blogs

Book of Yum – Portobello Spring Green Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

The Expatriate’s Kitchen – Chard Tart with Grana Padana and Goat Cheese

TasteFood – Bruschetta with Mixed Spring Greens, Lemon, and Ricotta Salad

101 Cookbooks – A Simple Spring Salad

Click the button to save this recipe to your Springpad.

Thanks for subscribing to this blog! Copyright © 2005-2012 Andrea Meyers: making life delicious.

One of my favorite childhood memories is creamy fruit salads made with various combinations of grapes, cherries, mandarin oranges, pineapple, or apples, sometimes with crunchy nuts mixed in. The creamy part also varied, often made with sour cream and cream cheese or whipped topping, but all were sweet and sometimes tasted more like dessert than a dinner side dish. As far as my sweet tooth and I were concerned, creamy fruit salads were as good as it gets.

Don’t judge me.

Mom still makes one or two when we come to visit, and if my brothers and sister are present we inevitably go off on a nostalgic romp of our favorite childhood dishes. This week Mom served a classic grape salad during our visit, lightened up using less sugar. My version uses low-fat Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, and I even tried mixing in some dill which added bright flavor. Some versions of this salad use both granulated and brown sugar, almost 3/4 cup total. Mom cut it back drastically, and we still enjoyed the sweetness without giving us a sweet toothache. I plan to continue playing with this recipe using stevia as a sugar substitute.

[Updated January 18, 2011.]

CREAMY GRAPE SALAD WITH ALMONDS

Adapted from a member of the Lexington County Master Gardeners, Columbia, SC.

Serves 8 to 12.

Equipment

10 cup bowl
hand mixer

Ingredients

8 ounces (226 g) light cream cheese, softened
8 ounces (226 g) low-fat Greek yogurt
1/4 cup (44 g) granulated sugar
2 pounds (908 g) seedless white grapes, rinsed and drained
2 pounds (908 g)seedless red grapes, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup (60 g) sliced almonds (or pecans or glazed pecans)

Preparation

Using the hand mixer, mix together the softened light cream cheese, low-fat Greek yogurt, and sugar. Fold in the grapes and the sliced almonds and sprinkle a few on top for garnish. Keep chilled until ready to serve.

Variations

Use stevia in place of the sugar, though amounts will vary based on the type of Stevia you use. For pure stevia powder, start with a pinch and add to taste. Adjust according to the type of stevia you choose as some forms are more potent than others.

More Light Salads

More Spring Salad Recipes From Around the Blogs

Sassy Radish – Spring Salad with Roasted Asparagus

101 Cookbooks – Spring Wild Rice Salad

Taste Food – Spring Salad Three Ways

Life’s Ambrosia – Apple, Gorgonzola, and Pecan Salad

Thanks for subscribing to this blog! Copyright © 2005-2012 Andrea Meyers: making life delicious.