Salad Week: Chop Salad

Some folks call this one "garbage salad," but... ucchh. I can't cope with that. Let's never speak of the un-tasty name again. It's too pretty!



The great thing about a chop salad is that you can alter the ingredients easily according to what you have. Change the type of berry, add some cold pasta (like rotini or farfalle) to stretch your lettuce out (seriously), add croutons, use any kind of cheese, switch to beef, whatever. Check out the good stuff in this guy:

chopped Romaine
chopped turkey bacon
green onions
diced breaded chicken
diced avocado
pecans
strawberries
feta cheese

I just whisked up some balsamic vinaigrette (1 part vinegar to four parts olive oil) with lemon juice, Italian seasoning, pinch of salt & pepper and a little sugar to taste, but this would go with lots of different kinds of dressing.

Chop your heart out! (Eyw, that's worse than the other phrase...)

Pesto and Goat Cheese Pasta and Taters

I'm even more eager than before to sell our condo and get into a home, since our last trip to my in-laws home. As if the smallish kitchen wasn't motive enough, my "MIL," Wilma, had a bountiful crop of fresh herbs growin' like crazy in her backyard. She grows a lot of them in pots, so this would technically be possible for us, since we have a large balcony. However, it faces north, so while this is pleasant because the sun is never direct, it isn't great for growing summer herbs, since the sun is never direct. For now, I'll just have to settle for hacking into her large basil and tomato supply, and trucking them home with me.



Pesto is so simple to make with a food processor, and you can use lots of different things as your "base" -- such as artichoke hearts, spinach, or in this case, basil. Layer up your washed herbs, begin with just a drizzle of olive oil, and about a quarter cup of toasted pignolis (I reserve another quarter cup for later.) Add about three cloves garlic, a good shake of parmesan or romano, salt and pepper, a small shake of red pepper flakes, put the top on and give it a few pulses. Then, while whirring continuously, drizzle up to a half cup more extra-virgin olive oil through the opening. I don't measure, I just whir until it looks like the consistency I want. Then I add the juice of one lemon. Lastly, I add the remaining pignolis (pine nuts) and pulse a couple of times (I do this because I want some crunch, and I don't want all the pine nuts completely pulverized.)

Have you ever combined pasta and potatoes? You can, you know. I heated my leftover potatoes and squash, and in a separate pot I boiled whole-wheat pasta. Then I tossed in frozen artichoke hearts and green beans at the last moment, just until they thawed and heated. Then I strained the whole pot, and added the potatoes and squash, and the pesto. I also crumbled in some goat cheese, and added diced tomatoes to the top.



The dish was so rich and yet fresh all at the same time. The buttery cinnamon and coriander seasoning I had used lightly on the potatoes gave the dish such a depth and additional dimension, though I think just using plain boiled potatoes would have been very tasty, too. As another note, you can use toasted walnut pieces if you can't find pignolis.



The leftovers of this dish reheated very nicely, though they did not hang around for long!

BBQ Crockpot Chicken

I've mentioned making BBQ chicken in the crockpot before, when I talked about BBQ chicken and goat cheese pizza. But I've tweaked my formula a little bit, and I thought it might be worth mentioning. Put the following mess into a crockpot, and while you might not believe me to look at it beforehand, this actually comes out as BBQ!



About four breasts of chicken, raw or even frozen
two cups of catsup, or ketchup if ya nasty
one cup of mustard, any kind
one capful of liquid smoke
about a half cup or more of molasses
one cup of brown sugar
as much Red Hot sauce as you think you'll like
a "couple, two-tree" shots of bourbon
half a medium onion, diced finely
two cloves diced garlic
a shake of cumin and a sprinkle of coriander
salt and pepper

Cook that on low for four to six hours, depending on whether the chicken is frozen or not. Go past the stage where it is cooked and will shred, on to the stage where those proteins break and it shreds easily. Shred it all right in the pot with two forks.

The recipe has a high sugar content, as all BBQ sauce does, but no fat. Here I put it on a toasted roll with my beloved banana peppers, and of course, goat cheese. Because if food could have love affairs, goat cheese and BBQ sauce would totally make out like Bogie and Bacall.

Cha Cha Cha!

On the way to the airport, we had our last culinary experience in L.A. over Christmas break. We went to Cha Cha Cha in Silverlake, or Que Cha Cha Cha, depending upon where you read their title. It is Caribbean cuisine in the coolest, most laid back setting. The atmosphere is similar to a couple of places Dave has taken us in L.A.: they seem as though there is little more than a tin roof over your head, and the line that distinguishes "inside" from "out" is definitely blurred. The parking lot outside is tiny, and despite the relaxed and sort of funky-junky atmosphere, the Jags and BMW's are crammed into the little lot. You may even spot a celebrity! I think the word is out about how good this place is.

We started with the empa?aditas and the jerk pork. Both were fantastic. The empa?aditas are stuffed with squash, tomatoes and other veggies, and goat and mozzarella cheeses. The pork was super sweet and syrupy, but just as spicy. We gobbled it all.



David and I followed with the swordfish caesar salads. The fish was chargrilled to perfection.



Chris hadn't had his fill of jerk yet, so he ordered the jerk chicken salad. He said it hit the spot.



I will most definitely request a return visit on our next stop in L.A. And maybe we'll be as lucky as David and his friend Heather were before us, and run into one of our favorite recording artists who may be nice enough to let us take his picture.



But even if we don't see anyone famous (we didn?t on the way to the airport), it'll be well worth it. Who cares about celebrities when you have jerk pork this good? I want to try everything on the menu at this place!

Leftover Fried Chicken Salad

I had stored the leftover chicken limone and the sauce separately. Unfortunately, I made a lot more chicken than I did sauce. Or, not so unfortunately! I gave Chris the rest of the chicken and sauce, and made a really good salad out of what was left for myself.



My favorite salad dressing lately is just balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and a little brown or dijon mustard whisked together. I had some dried blueberries, some goat cheese, and some snow pea pods in there too, and squirted a little fresh lemon over the top.

BBQ Chicken and Goat Cheese Pizza

This is probably my favorite pizza that I've come up with so far. I don't actually remember if I invented it or saw it somewhere else, all I know is that it tastes great.



For the bbq chicken, I usually make my own in the crock pot during the day, and then I assemble the pizza at night. My bbq sauce is a mish-mash of ketchup, mustard (about a cup ketchup to 1/2 cup mustard), brown sugar (a lot -- about 1 and 1/2 cups packed at least), diced onions, about 1/4 cup of beer (no more, or this will be runny), a small can of tomato paste, garlic, salt, cumin, coriander, hot sauce, and a little bit of liquid smoke. Molasses also works well in there, but I don't always have it on hand, so honey will also work. I whisk that all together, then I add four or more chicken breasts. Then I drink the rest of the beer, and go to work for a few hours!

If I haven't had the time to do all that, I have also just coated leftover chicken in bottled bbq sauce (Famous Dave's is my fave) and that works just dandy.

After 6 hours on low, or 4 on high, the chicken should be loose enough to shred with a couple of forks in the pot when you get home. For this pizza, I toasted a whole-wheat crust from Trader Joe's, and then put down some pasta sauce (thinly), and piled on the bbq chicken. Then I crumbled goat cheese all around, and some long-sliced red onions. Drizzle bbq sauce over that, and then add shredded cheese. Then shake a little Italian seasoning on, and just a light drizzle of olive oil, bake at 375 until done, and be careful not to change past and present tenses as often as I have.



This pizza has a rich, deep flavor and Chris and I pretty much eat the whole thing every time!

Goat Cheese Portobello Salad

Wish I had a better pic... this is one from the olden days, when I was still using my trusty camera from junior high. No, Jen, it is not a Disk Camera. But it is the one I got right after that, so if you're sly you can figure about what year that was.

This salad is one I ripped off from the cafe that was downstairs in the office building I worked at in Skokie. It was really the only decent thing they had, but I could eat it just about every day... so that was ai'ight. I chop portobello mushrooms and red bell pepper, and cover them with my own vinaigrette (balsamic, olive oil, Italian seasoning and a little sugar). I keep that mix (peppers, mushrooms, vinaigrette) in the fridge, or bring it along that way so that I can mix it with the lettuce right before I eat it. Then I crumble in goat cheese, and top it with fried chow mein noodles. Oh, and scallions are good, too.

Might be my favorite salad. Until the next salad.