SALADS, A NEW PERSPECTIVE

With the heat going on and on with no end, we keep eating salads also with no end in sight. I love salads, but when it becomes your main meal for days, weeks and months, I have to have some variety, just to keep myself from being bored. There are many ways to have variety in a salad, mainly by changing the ingredients and the dressing. But I love to have salad as a meal, so, I always think of new ways to incorporate new elements into my salads to make them healthy and delicious. Another way to change a salad is to have a new perspective on how you serve the salad. Try serving it on a platter instead of the regular bowl, think of new formats instead of just tossing everything together as usual. This is how I got to figure out these new shapes for salads, geometric shapes.

SALAD IN CIRCLES

                                                 

Remember the rotisserie chicken we had the other day? Well, I always have leftovers, so this is a good base to start a salad with. But we just had chicken the other day, so one thing is sure: we have to think of a new way to "cook" the leftovers. Also the idea here is to stretch the leftover chicken a little bit to make a meal that will feed 3 or 4 people, without them thinking that this is the same chicken they had the other day. They will never eat it, or if they do, they will not be very happy about it. Another main concern: if we are "recycling" last night's dinner, we have to add some freshness to it, so cut some fresh herbs and get ready. Remember this recipe is just to give you an idea of what you could do, you can change the ingredients according to what you like and what you have at hand, according to how much chicken you have, how many people you are feeding and the ratio of chicken to the other ingredients you like.  You'll need:

Leftover chicken pieces (I had two breasts, one missing the tenderloin, and some dark meat)

1 (15.25 oz) can of sweet corn

2 (14.50 oz) cans of sliced beets

2 cups of small pasta, cooked (elbows or small shells)

1/2 large carrot

1/2 red onion

4 stalks celery

1 heart of romaine lettuce

4 to 5 sprigs of fresh mint

1 tsp curry powder (more to taste)
1 cup raisins

2 tbsp mustard and 1 tsp mayo

Lemon juice, oil, salt and pepper, all to taste

In the small chop-chop, or the food processor, finely chop the red onion, then the carrot. Transfer each to small bowls. Finely chop the celery. In a large bowl combine the cooked pasta and the chicken pieces after you've cut them into bite size cubes. Add the raisins, some of the celery, the onion and the carrot according to taste and color (I like to have some specks of red, and green in the white mass of the chicken and pasta) and mix. Sprinkle the curry and some salt and pepper. Mix the mustard and mayo in a small bowl. Add some of this mixture to the chicken and toss to coat (start by adding one tbsp, then another if you need). Set aside. Drain the corn, add some chopped onion, carrot and celery to it. Finely chop the mint leaves and add some of them to the corn. Drizzle lemon juice and a drop of oil and mix to combine.

Drain the beets and chop the slices into small bits. Add the remainder of the chopped onion, celery and mint to them with a splash of lemon juice and a drop of oil. Mix. Adjust the seasoning in all three bowls. Chop the lettuce into fine strips and arrange them on a round platter. Spoon the chicken salad in the middle of the platter, making a mound. Spoon the beets around the chicken, then the corn, making sure that you leave a small strip of green all around the platter. Decorate the top with some mint leaves. It looks good in circles, and when it's all mixed up in your plate, it tastes even better.

SALAD IN ROWS

                                             

I noticed lately that my husband, whom I trained with great difficulty to eat salads, started to be very picky with his salads. He now prefers to eat the ingredients separately: he's willing to have a whole tomato or a cucumber or even a heart of lettuce, but not a bowl of mixed salad. He was not a fan of dressing to start with, so for him this became a good solution to my constant nagging about eating right. If you know me, you'll know that I don't give up easily, so I came up with a compromise: we'll have a salad, but not tossed, it will have all the ingredients in rows, so he can pick and choose what he likes. It turned out that this new format is very easy and helpful: it allows you to have variety in the salads you are serving, and the possibilities are endless: you can use crudites, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions etc, cooked veggies cauliflower, peppers, mushrooms, potatoes, canned vegetables or beans, different kinds of olives and cheeses, even pastas or cold cuts and meats, the sky is the limit. I have only one rule: every item should be prepared and seasoned separately, so that when you serve the salad you don't need to add anything to it. It's like having mini individual salads in rows on a bed of lettuce on a platter. This way you are sure that each mini salad is prepared with the best dressing that complements it and brings out its flavors. Also, seasoning every element separately will give it time to absorb the dressing before you serve it, unlike pouring some dressing over the whole thing or even leaving it on the side for each one to add to his plate. One final note: I made this salad once in a large glass bowl. It looked beautiful, but it was very hard to serve because you couldn't reach all the layers in one serving, and you couldn't choose. You had to dig in and get what you find on your way. On a platter, your choices  are there in front of you and you can reach them easily. For today's salad I opted for a variation on "yellow", I chose elements that have various degrees of the color, with specks of red, orange, and black. Sometimes I go for rainbow, with many different colors. You'll need:

1 (15.5 oz can) chick peas
3 strips bell pepper each red, yellow, orange, finely chopped
1 cup cubed mozzarella (the size of the chick peas)
chopped cilantro, about 1 tbsp
1 tsp cumin
Dash lime juice, drop of oil
6 small potatoes, boiled, peeled and cubed
3 scallions, finely chopped, white parts and some green
1 tsp cumin
Dash lime juice, drop of oil
Artichoke hearts in olive oil, drained
Grated Cheddar cheese
Black olives
2 hearts romaine lettuce

In a small bowl combine the drained chick peas with the following 5 ingredients, seasoning the whole thing with salt and pepper  to taste. Set aside. In another bowl, mix the potatoes with the scallions, cumin, lime juice and oil. Season and set aside. Chop the lettuce in small strips and arrange on a platter. Start at one end by arranging the store bought artichokes, then at the other end add the chick peas, making sure that you don't transfer too much liquid from the bowl to the platter, to keep the lettuce crisp. Arrange the potatoes in the middle, then add the Cheddar between them and the artichokes. Add the olives in any pattern you like.
TIP: this salad can be prepared ahead and kept refrigerated overnight.

ON SECOND THOUGHT...

My oven broke down on Saturday. I had prepared a beautiful lasagna for the week-end, and when the time came to put it in the oven, it didn't work. You should have seen the look on my husband's face when he got the news! I told him not to worry, I have a solution. Of course he didn't believe me until I served him the much awaited lasagna. My solution? Simply cut the lasagna dish in two, transfer one part to a microwavable dish and microwave on high for 4 minutes, then two minutes and another two minutes until it's done. Keep the other half refrigerated, or better yet, freeze it for another dinner. You're certainly not going to eat lasagna for two consecutive weeks. Actually, I used to do it in the old microwave oven that took the whole pan to save time. Saturday I did it for necessity.

This made me think of what to do until the oven is fixed, or we get a new one. My husband had asked for stuffed potatoes, and he got the same look when he thought about the impossibility of having them since the oven was not working. Don't worry, I assured him, I'll think of something. So here is what I did.

STUFFED POTATOES # 2

                                                      

You might remember this dish from a previous blog. This time I'm trying to make it without an oven, on the stove. So the main idea is to cook it in a sealed or covered pan, large enough to hopefully hold all the potatoes in one layer. I have a 7 Qt covered non stick pan that I think will do the job. The second problem is preventing the potatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pan, when you cook them in the oven you don't have this problem, since the heat is all around the pan, but on the stove the heat source is on the bottom. So what kind of protective layer can I put on the bottom? The solution is simple: I first thought of putting a layer of the potato shavings, then I said "what if I add some veggies?" And I did. It came out perfect and so fragrant that mom asked from her room upstairs about what was cooking that smelled so good. You'll need:

10 to 12 potatoes large enough to cut in 2 or 3 pieces

About 2 cups of browned ground beef

1 (6 oz) can of tomato paste

1/2 small red onion, finely chopped

4 celery stalks, finely chopped

1/2 large carrot, finely chopped

1 tsp oil

Oil for frying

Salt and pepper to taste

Peel the potatoes and cut them in 2 or 3, depending on their size, crosswise. Put them in salted water to prevent them from changing color. With a vegetable peeler dig a hole in the smaller tip of each potato piece: you'll get small cones of potato, then continue shaving the hole to make it large enough to fill with meat. Just make sure that you don't go all the way to the bottom and pierce it. For the middle parts of potato: start by making the first hole, then another one near it and another one, then connect them to get a large one. Keep the potatoes in the salted water until you brown the ground meat. Just add some onion/garlic mixture to it, plus salt and pepper and let it cook in a non-stick skillet, turning often to prevent lumps, until it absorbs all its liquid and gets browned.

In the large pan, cook the onion, celery, carrot and potato shavings in the tsp of oil until soft. Of course don't forget to add some salt and pepper. Set aside. Drain the potatoes, and start frying them, and the small cones that you got from carving them, in oil until light golden. When you remove them from the oil, make sure that they don't have any oil in their cavity, and put them on paper towels upside down to drain any possible oil left in their cavity. When they are cool enough to handle,  stuff them with ground meat and arrange them in the pan, over the veggies. Add the larger cones of potato around the stuffed ones to fill in the gaps. If you did like I did, I browned a large quantity of beef, so I transferred the meat that I didn't use to a container and refrigerated it for later. In the same pan cook the tomato paste adding 3 to 4 cans of water to it, stirring until it's all dissolved and bring to boiling. You may add a pinch of garlic powder and some salt and pepper, but remember that all the other elements are already salted. 

                                                  

With a ladle add the tomato sauce to the potatoes so that the stuffing doesn't fall out, and just up to the edge of the potato. I had them in one and half rows. Cover the pan, bring it to boiling, then reduce heat to the minimum until the potatoes are fork tender and the sauce reduced and thickened. The only down side of this method is that I had to serve it in the pan, I was afraid to transfer the potatoes to a serving dish for fear of breaking them.  But when I did, I was careful and they came out OK, so I guess it's safe to transfer the cooked potatoes, carefully, to a serving dish and then add the sauce with the veggies on top.

                                      

SUNDAY DINNER MADE EASY

There is something magical about a chicken cooking, turning and turning in a rotisserie. My husband used to sit mesmerized in front of the TV ad with meat and chicken cooking in the rotisserie, until we got one. As you may have guessed, the first two or three month we only ate roasted meats, then we cooled off. But it is still a favorite. I still get a twinkle in his eyes when I announce that today we are having something cooked in the rotisserie. For me it's still a favorite because cooking in the rotisserie, like the slow cooker, gives me all the freedom to do other things around the house. All it takes is for me to marinate whatever I'm cooking for 30 minutes, put it in the rotisserie, turn it on and go on with my life. Since it's Sunday, I am cooking for the whole week, or at least I am preparing a couple of meals to cover two or three days of the week. So, I'll prepare the chicken, cook something quick for today and see what else I can do for the week ahead. I decided to make a quick pasta dish to use the beautiful mushrooms I got the other day from the market. My meal and my blog today are the easiest and shortest ever. You don't need a recipe for that!

ROTISSERIE CHICKEN

                                                    

Next to buying the chicken from the store around the corner, this is the easiest way to cook a chicken (and it's tastier too!!). I know I sound like I am making an ad for the rotisserie, but it is really true. Get a nice whole chicken, clean and trim the fat from the chicken cavity, rinse it under cold running water and pat it dry. Sprinkle the cavity with salt and pepper (I use Adobo seasoning) and a splash of lime juice if you want. Rub the chicken with some more seasoning and let it marinate for 30 minutes. Put the chicken in the rotisserie and set it according to the instructions. I usually give it 15 extra minutes, just the time for the machine to reach the proper heat. When the time is up, let the chicken stand for 5 minutes or so before you remove it. Transfer to a platter and serve.

FARFALLE WITH MUSHROOM SAUCE

                                             

While the chicken is doing its thing in the rotisserie, bring some water to a boil in a large pot. In the mean time, clean the mushrooms with a moist paper towel, and remove the stems, then slice them. For this dish I had some regular white mushrooms, they were huge, firm and beautiful. I also had some dried mushrooms. I put 2 cups in a bowl, added boiling water to cover and let them re-hydrate. You can use any kind of mushrooms you like, fresh or dried. Remember my pasta rule: a handful for each person plus one extra. So I added the pasta to the boiling salted water. In a large non stick pan add 1 tbsp oil and 1 tbsp frozen onion/garlic mixture. On medium high heat, cook the onion mixture until translucent then add the fresh mushrooms. Don't add any salt yet, we don't want them to sweat and render their liquid, I need to brown the mushroom slices. When they are wilted down and browned you can add some salt and pepper. Drain the re-hydrated mushrooms, if you are using them and add them to the pan. Stir for 3 minutes then add the liquid from the mushrooms. Make sure that you didn't add the whole bowl, because usually dried mushrooms leave some particles (like sand) on the bottom, and we don't want to add that to the sauce. If you have some sauce left from a previously roasted meat, add it to the sauce and let it simmer until it thickens. You may add a tbsp of flour to make it thicken quicker.

If you want to cheat a bit because you don't have any leftover brown sauce, you can use one or two tbsp of powdered gravy or some granules or a cube of beef stock. Serve over the pasta.

Toss and add some grated cheese if you want.