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quick and easy, spinach, vegetarian Hide

Hello friends, remember me?  It’s that old blog you’ve forgotten about. Today I thought I’d post some old-school deliciousness: spinach salad with warm bacon dressing. Here’s my spin on the 100-year-old classic.  Traditionally its a wilted salad, but that’s because the recipe was concocted when there was only one type of spinach readily available: the giant, gritty full grown leaves.  I prefer to keep some of the fresh crispness in the baby spinach to counter the rich, tangy dressing.  BTW, this makes a great, speedy weeknight dinner for two.

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dressing, salad, spinach Hide

I love veggies.  My life/meal/body/face/soul feels incomplete unless I have them several times a day.  Here is a quick and healthy way to get your veg on.

2 medium red potatoes, cut to inch squares
2 medium purple potatoes, cut to inch squares
half a head of cauliflower, divided to bite size
1 zucchini, sliced 1/3rd inch thick
1 teaspoon of olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Put it all in a bowl, mix, put into a baking pan. I like the heavier glass/pyrex ones. Place into the oven for 45 minutes. Toss them half way inbetween. SO EASY!

cauliflower, healthy, potatoes, vegetable, zuchinni Hide

If you’ve never heard of Columbia Restaurant, it means you haven’t spent much time in Florida.  It’s a chain of about a dozen restaurants that to my knowledge is restricted to the Sunshine State.  To be perfectly honest, it’s not a very spectacular restaurant overall.  It definitely caters to the tourists and the snow birds, and as a college student, I found it severely overpriced.

So why is it worth mentioning?  Because they have a spectacular salad on their menu, called the 1905 salad, named for the year their flagship restaurant opened in Ybor City, a district in Tampa.  The 1905 salad is Columbia’s big ta-dah, because all the servers know the recipe by heart and whip it up table-side.  This should clue you in to how simple and fast you can prepare this for a weeknight dinner.  The classic is with ham, which you can swap out for turkey or shrimp.  I like the combo of ham and turkey, but rock it out to your tastes.  Oh and did I mention it was really delicious?

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low carb, quick and easy, salad Hide

Hi friends! It’s me again! This time with an entry for the CSA Super Extreme Ultimate Challenge! As you saw in Gwen’s post, last week we received a whole metric buttload of kale. The trouble is I don’t particularly like kale, and my husband has a hardwired aversion to all things new and leafy and green. What to do?

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baked, gruyere, vegetarian Hide

Alright, here’s the first of my CSA veggie exploits! Sort of a play off of a classic gratin., using squash, potatoes and tomatoes for a fun twist. We ate it as an entree with a spinach salad, but I think it’ll work better as a side dish. On to the recipe…

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baked, CSA, vegetarian Hide

I’m a big advocate for whisking up a super simple salad dressing rather than relying on the fatty, chemically bottled alternatives from the super market. I mean, seriously, it takes all of 3 minutes.   Typically I just rock a vinaigrette on some baby greens.  Tonight, however, I spotted a mixed container of mache and butter lettuce on the refrigerated shelf at Trader Joes, which made me a very happy lady.  If you’ve never tried mache, do it.  Do it now.  It’s tiny, sweet, tender and slightly nutty.  And for a lettuce as mild and gentle as mache, this called for a special dressing.
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dressing, mache, salad, vegetarian, yogurt Hide

Tonight, Firat and I were craving something simple and delicious. I’ve also been spending more time learning about Turkish dishes because I know he misses the flavors of home. I’ve been especially attached to the cookbook “Turquoise: A Chef’s travels in Turkey” by Greg and Lucy Malouf. It’s part travel memories, part photo-journal, mostly killer cookbook. What’s impressed me most about this book, is that the chefs have created recipes that replicate true Turkish flavors, while still using easy-to-find ingredients. So tonight I decided to make tomato pilaf, which has a special place in my heart, because it was the first Turkish dish Firat cooked for me when we started dating.

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pilaf, rice, tomato, turkish, vegetarian Hide

Since we’re in southern California, which is completely devoid of seasons other than hot and warm, I figure the best way to celebrate the fall harvest time is with some deliciously earthy, comforting cuisine. Enter Mr. Acorn Squash.

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acorn squash, baked, brown rice stuffing, thanksgiving, vegetarian Hide

I mean… seriously. YUM.

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couscous, herbs, risotto Hide