My favorite salad ever: Austrian Lentil Salad

I first tasted a version of this salad in 1990, when my boss's wife, who is from Vienna, Austria, brought a large container of her version to my wedding reception, because she said it's a traditional salad to serve at weddings and promises fertility.

She was pouting when no one ate the salad. I thought "What did she expect, she brought Lentils to my wedding reception!"

Fast forward nearly 20 years, and I had a chance to eat her salad again, and my tastes have matured to the point where I thought it was incredibly tasty. I became an instant convert. I updated and significantly improved upon her recipe (she only used 4 ingredients -- lentils boiled with bay leaf, a simple herbal mustard vinaigrette, and minced onion), and now, I am never without a container of this salad in my fridge. I make it every Sunday, and it lasts all week, holds up extremely well in lunches, and fortunately, did not make me fertile, which is a very good thing, because her recipe lasted longer than the marriage.

I don't know what makes a lentil dish "Austrian" but she claims it was a childhood dish she had many times in Vienna. My version is not likely Austrian, but is certainly inspired by hers.  I use Trader Joe's ingredients primarily, which included steamed and cooked lentils, but you can easily cook your own lentils and proceed with those after you've done so.

AUSTRIAN LENTIL SALAD

Base Salad

1 package of Trader Joe's Steamed Lentils (from the refrigerated section)

1 package of Trader Joe's Beluga Lentils (from the pasta section)

1/2 very finely diced red or white onion -or- 1 shaved shallot (shown in this version)

1-2 very finely chopped carrots

Snipped Italian Parsley

The zest of one lemon (use all the juice, below)

Zest an entire lemon into a large bowl. Add both packages of lentils, the diced carrots and onions, and the parsley. Toss all ingredients thoroughly and set aside.

Dressing

The basic dressing is a lemon vinaigrette, but you should feel free to use your favorite oil & vinegar dressing, being certain to add the mucho lemon zest and lemon juice to it, to create the unique flavor. Here is my tried and true method:

1/2 cup of Trader Joe's Olive Oil

1/4 cup of Trader Joe's Seasoned Rice Vinegar (sometimes I use a bit of rice vinegar, and a bit of cider vinegar, when I want it tarter)

1 dollop of TJ's Dijon Mustard

The juice of 1 whole lemon

Salt and Pepper to taste

Combine all in a blender cup to emulsify, and pour over the lentil salad. Toss thoroughly, adjust seasonings to taste, and serve chilled. This salad requires no cooking (unless you've cooked your own lentils) keeps in the fridge all week, and makes a wonderful, healthy, high protein, high fiber very satisfying lunch.

In fact, I'd never once thought I'd say this about a salad, especially one with lentils, but I'll stand in front of my open fridge door at night and eat this salad right from the container, with a spoon. If I worked at a TJ's, I would make this easy dish and demonstrate it, to convert people to the wonder of lemony lentils as a salad.

Personal note to my sister, Weezie: Aren't you proud of me?! I finally figured out a use for my obsessive acquisition of vinegar and oil even though I've always hated oil & vinegar dressing!

Rancho La Puerta Spa Spiced Apple Salad

This was an easy and healthy Spa Cuisine salad, courtesy of Rancho La Puerta Spa in Mexico, and the SpaIndex.com Spa Cuisine collection. You may view the complete recipe here.

I had a couple apples going a bit soft and I remembered I wanted to try a recipe where you shave them thin and make an apple slaw.

This salad has a dressing of yogurt, lime juice, apple juice. It's tossed with raisins or cranberries, coconut, sunflower seeds, vanilla and cinnamon. I made a few adaptations -- cranberries in place of raisins and I omitted sunflower seeds -- because I forgot to add them. It's really tasty, tart, not sweet (although there is a bit of sweet when you bite into a cranberry or piece of coconut), and is both tropical and warm and spicy at the same time. I think it would be great to swap out the coconut with walnuts, for a different taste and crunch.

Since Apple Desserts are my least favorite of all (apple pie, apple muffins, yawwwwn), but I like apples in most savory dishes (sandwiches, salads, curries, stuffings), I was happy to learn a unique and more "savory" way to use my apples. Still, this recipe will appeal to children who will think it's a treat. It's also perfect for those "Ladies Who Lunch" meals.

While the recipe makes six servings. This salad is easily adaptable for one person by just tossing a cut up apple with a handful of the loose ingredients, and then a splash of each wet ingredient, a shake of spice, and you're there, in a few minutes flat.

I have few similar Apple Slaw recipes from other spa resorts, so come this fall, I may need to test each one and see which I like best -- but this one is darn good with that fresh taste of lime.

Barefoot Bloggers: Tuna Salad

This month's first selection for Barefoot Bloggers is mine and I chose Ina Garten's Tuna Salad. This was a tough choice -- I moved up the list so quickly, I had to make new choices repeatedly as the time of year changed, and at the last minute, I just chose something I thought was fresh and simple and relatively healthy.

I also chose this recipe because the best "salad" I ever had was a grilled tuna salad dish at a Todd English restaurant -- Olives, in Las Vegas. It was so memorable I still think about it. Ina's recipe was similar in most respects, so I thought it would be a good stand-in.

Regrettably, I've learned that what I can get very easily -- tuna steaks for $5.69 a pound -- others cannot, so for those who gave this recipe a try, thank you, and for those who couldn't, I'm sorry about that. I trust you used the Barefoot Backtrack feature to choose something more to your liking.

I stared with Albacore tuna steaks -- $4.10 for the package. The steak is brushed with olive oil and grilled in a very hot pan. Ina instructs for just a minute or two on each side. This is essentially the same as the grilled tuna you'd find in restaurants, blackened on the outside and raw on the inside. While I do like this, I prefer my raw fish to be served to me in restaurants, and not handled in my own home, so for my version, I grilled it all the way through (and this is the way it was served in the Vegas restaurant, where I enjoyed it so much).

In the meantime, I'd mixed the dressing and tossed it with a chopped avocado, fresh from the Farmer's Market today. The dressing is very basic -- lime juice, olive oil, soy sauce, wasabi, salt and pepper. I ended up just whirling the ingredients together in quantities that tasted good to me. I didn't add nearly the salt she called for -- soy sauce takes care of that, and I added sesame chili oil in addition to the drops of hot sauce. I'm a hot sauce weenie, I don't like it all, but I know it serves an important purpose in certain dishes, like Asian dressings. I also added a lot more wasabi than called for. Love that stuff.

After the tuna chunks were grilled, I added them to the dressed avocados.

Now, bear something in mind. Ceviche, a traditional spanish dish of cold fish in a citrusy lime dressing, is "cooked" by adding lime juice to fish. The acid cooks the fish, so this tuna salad, which contains a lot of lime juice, cannot be made in advance and stored without the lime juice cooking the fish. If you're making it with a raw interior, don't dress the cooked tuna until you are ready to serve it, and reserve any leftover dressing. Store the tuna undressed, if you want leftovers. For mine, which was cooked all the way through, it was less of an issue, but head's up!

I added chopped scallions, more sliced avocado, and sprinkled with additional chili oil. I didn't bother with the red onions. I thought that a big handful of scallions was adequate for the onion flavor.

And here it is, my tower of Tuna Salad, ready to chill (it's great warm, but I preferred it chilled).

I really liked this. The dressing would be great with chicken, salmon, beef, tofu -- you name it. For those who gave it a try, thank you. Tuna isn't hard to make and it's easy to customize. In fact, I'd encourage you to cook a tuna steak and dress it as you would a traditional tuna salad. There is no comparison to the canned stuff.

About this challenge: The Barefoot Bloggers join forces and cook or bake recipes by Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten each month, chosen in order by members, and present them for discussion on two Thursdays each month. Hungry? Please join us at the table!

My Sister's Coleslaw

I've had non-stop family members visiting me, since late September, and you'd think, with all those people, restaurants, and meals being cooked and served, I'd have a ton of blog posts, but it's actually been the exact opposite. Too busy yakking, laughing, running errands, moving suitcases from one area to another, and pooping out at the end of every day.

I did manage to capture a close up of my sister's cole slaw recipe. She said when she brings this to any potluck or luncheon, the bowl is scraped clean. It's good -- not knock your socks off good, but good -- and better than your typical coleslaw, that's certain.

Weezie's Cole Slaw

1 bag of coleslaw with dressing packet*
1 bunch of diced green onions
1 handful of pecans
1 handful of dried cranberries
1 thinly shaved apple

*I had a bag of shredded cabbage, but no dressing package. I made my own coleslaw dressing.

Toss all together, dump in a bowl, and serve.

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Barefoot Bloggers: Lemon Rosemary Chicken on Panzanella Salad

Two! Two! Two mints in one!

This month the Barefoot Bloggers made Panzanella (tomato bread salad) as chosen by Melissa of It’s Melissa’s Kitchen and Butterflied Chicken chosen by Stefany of Proceed with Caution.

When this month's recipes were announced, my mind did a quick calculation:

1) a big tub of bread salad is too much for one person
2) an entire grilled butterflied chicken is too much for one person
3) I don't have a grill
4) I don't have a patio
5) None of this matters because
6) I can adapt the chicken to a serving for one because it's so basic; and
7) I can make a small portion of the salad; and
8) I can put the chicken ON the salad for a COLD chicken salad!

Jeffrey! Lunch is ready!

When you deconstruct classic and basic recipes such as these, you're left with a concept that is very easy to adapt. Ina's recipe for Grilled Butterflied Chicken is just a paste of lemon, garlic, olive oil, and rosemary, rubbed under the skin and then grilled. I had a container of recently made Moroccan preserved lemons from my bounty of meyer lemons earlier this summer and that is nothing more than lemons and salt. Add some garlic and olive oil, blend it in a blender cup, and you're good to go. I rubbed it on a chicken breast, marinated it, and then grilled it in a panini pan and let it chill.

Onto the salad. I made it almost as called for, although I typically despise cucumbers and bell peppers. Not a huge fan of capers either, but I was game because often, a dish is a success based on the sum of its parts. I made the salad and dressing as written, except I wouldn't budge on the bell peppers -- nasty.

I tossed it all, chilled, layered the grilled chicken on top, and served. This was a mighty fine tasting salad!

About this challenge:The Barefoot Bloggers join forces and cook or bake recipes by Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten each month, chosen in order by members, and present them for discussion on two Thursdays each month. Our Next Challenge: Ina's Smoked Salmon Spread. Hungry? Please join us at the table!

Barefoot Bloggers: Pasta, Pesto and Pea Salad

For my first participation in the fairly new Barefoot Bloggers group, we made Ina Garten's Pasta Salad with Pesto and Peas.

I wasn't expecting this to be an interesting dish for me -- pasta and pesto and peas -- eh, it's okay. For that reason, I actually made a couple of salads tonight, to take to work for my lunch tomorrow. While I wasn't wowed by these traditional flavors, I was pleased with the result of combining traditional pesto with spinach, lemon and mayonnaise. The heavy, oily flavor of just straight pesto on pasta was made more light and lively by mixing in pureed spinach and adding a bit of lemon juice and mayo. I liked it well enough to use it as both a dressing for leaf salads in the future, and a more lively-than-pesto pasta sauce.

Original recipe here, but I modified it by removing a fair amount of the fats (I didn't toss the pasta with oil, and used much less mayo than called for, and I note most of my Barefoot Bloggers did the same), and I could easily scale the recipe down for two persons by just eyeballing it. Finally, rather than tossing it with additional pine nuts, I used chopped walnuts.

My lunch tomorrow: A trio of salads, including Shrimp Louie, Pasta with Peas, and Broccoli Coleslaw, with a few crackers and tangerines.

About this challenge:
The Barefoot Bloggers join forces and cook or bake recipes by Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten each month, chosen in order by members, and present them for discussion on two Thursdays each month. Our Next Challenge: Ina's Parmesan Chicken. Hungry? Please join us at the table!