Crunchy Green Salad

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1 medium head romaine lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces, rinsed and spun dry
1/2 English cucumber or any waxless cucumber, deseeded if necessary
4 ribs celery hearts, leaves discarded if you like, sliced thinly (leave unpeeled)

the dressing, whisk all in a bowl:

~1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
4 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
salt and pepper if you like (I didn’t use any)

Toss together and enjoy!

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All Mine: Insalata Caprese with Pesto

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It’s not picture perfect, and I wish I could say I grew the basil that went into the pesto, and the tomatoes… but no. It was still perfectly yummy, and what’s important, it’s all mine :) — well, except for a couple of bites Paco took. My little ones don’t like this particular salad, dad’s allergic to cheese, and Aisa’s sensitive to cheese and didn’t want to try.

The fresh buffalo mozzarella is from EuroPomella Italy, imported by Mozzarella Fresca in California, and locally available at Jungle Jim’s.

I made a batch of pesto, so I’ll be having the rest of that maybe with some penne, chopped up tomato and chopped up rest-of-the-mozzarella tonight. Yum. The baby should like it :)

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Spinach, Shrimp and Mango Salad

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I’m not too fond of most Asian-style salads, because I find some things are usually “off” or the combination of tastes just screams WRONG! This is one exception to the rule.

1 package baby spinach, washed and spun dry
2 cups large shrimp, steamed, peeled and deveined
1 large ripe mango (Champagne mango if you can find it is best), peeled, de-seeded and cut into 1/3-inch slices
1/4 cup red onion, sliced thinly
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon grated zest and 3 tablespoons juice from 1 orage
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/4 cup canola oil, expeller-pressed preferred
1 tablespoon sesame oil

Place spinach, shrimp, and mango slices in a large bowl. Set aside.
In a small non-reactive bowl, macerate onion slices in 1 tablesoon rice wine vinegar for 5 minutes.
Whisk orange zest, orange juice, ginger and remaining vinegar, as well as salt and pepper to taste, in a small bowl. Whisk oils in until emulsified.
Add onion slices to salad bowl. Pour dressing over salad; toss and serve immediately.

a repost of a recipe I wrote for aboutweblogs.com/asianfood, aka noodlesandrice.com

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Salad of Celery Root and Carrots

1/2 cup julienned celery root
1/2 cup julienned carrots
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of sugar

Toss everything in a bowl. Fast, easy, and healthy, you can serve this as a salad or a light craving-food-in-between-meals snack. You can also just run the celery root and carrots using the shredder attachment of your food processor. What could be simpler?

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