Bacon, Fig and Blue Cheese Salad

As I make my way up the five flights of stairs every evening I like to play the "whose apartment would I want to have dinner in" game judging by the smells coming out of each one.  I often smell curries on the third floor and fish (in the good way, cooked and yummy) on the fourth floor.  Every once in a while I'll catch a whiff of chocolate or cookies and even bread one random Sunday.  I think the fact I've only smelled bread once is directly related to how small my kitchen is and therefore how small everyone else's kitchen is.  I barely have enough room to put two bowls on a kitchen surface much less flour, knead and roll something onto a surface.

Living on the fifth floor means that you can cook anything you like without offending any neighbors (except the one other poor soul on the fifth floor -- but after an evening playing mediator between the superintendent and this neighbor's temper after painters locked them out of their apartment, I think they owe me one).  However, that also means you can't woo your neighbors from being 'just neighbors' to 'more than neighbors' with enticing aromas.  Smells, similar to heat, tend to rise and therefore, they will never know the wondrous concoctions I am making in Apartment 1E.   

With one exception.  Bacon.  When I fry bacon, I am pretty sure that not only do my clothes smell like bacon for a week but so does the rest of the buildings'.  This could be because I am frying up the entire package of thick, maple glazed bacon and not just a slice or two.  Therefore, it tends to linger.  And the caveat is that, with this recipe, the bacon goes in a salad, full of healthy things like spinach and figs (a new favorite of mine).  So you CAN have your bacon and eat it too.  At least in #1E.  

Bacon, Fig and Blue Cheese Salad

Adapted from #76 here 

This recipe is all about your personal taste so adjust as you see fit.

5 fresh figs

4 dried figs

4-6 (or 8, I'm not judging) slices of bacon

3 tablespoons blue cheese

6 cups of spinach

balsamic vinegar, the nicer the variety the better

Chop the fresh figs and dice the dried figs.  Cook the bacon and reserve some of the fat.  Crumble the bacon once it has cooled.  Put the greens in a salad bowl and drizzle with the leftover bacon fat and balsamic vinegar. Add both the fresh and diced figs, crumbled bacon and blue cheese.  Toss until combined.

Quinoa and Grilled Sourdough Salad

Labor Day is a week away!  How did that happen?  And how did my ‘summer of plenty’ turn into cooking rushed dinners that didn’t take nearly enough advantage of the produce available.  My mango soup even seemed to be autumn-happy since it suspiciously has the color of butternut squash soup . . .

Anyway, speaking of plenty, I picked up this cookbook the other day (Let’s be honest, I ordered it on Amazon.com where I ‘picked up’ two more thanks to their “Buy All-three-together-and-save!” campaign.   And don’t even get me started on the ‘1-click-buy’ option.  Amazon.com knows my weaknesses better than I do).  The book is absolutely beautiful.   As an omnivore, I was hesitant to buy a book featuring only vegetables (or buying three books featuring only vegetables – see previous parenthetical) but I had read a lot about Yotam Ottolenghi and was curious.  He is based in London and, besides holding a billion degrees (comparative literature, philosophy, etc.), he is a trained chef as well. 

 

Everything in this book makes my mouth water and gets me excited about the potential that veggies offer – more so than the frozen peas I usually have.  So I thought I would share one of his recipes, adapted to the folks around my dinner table’s tastes.  This salad is effortlessly sophisticated (quinoa automatically does that to a recipe) and the homemade croutons are a game changer.  It is a chameleon of a salad in that it tastes slightly different a day after it is made as the flavors continue to meld.  If it even lasts until the next day. 

Quinoa and Grilled Sourdough Salad

Adapted from Plenty

¼ cup quinoa

4 slices sourdough bread

1/3 cup olive oil, plus extra to brush the bread

salt

a bit of minced garlic (I used the bottled variety)

4 ripe medium tomatoes

3 small cucumbers, unpeeled

4 tablespoon chopped cilantro

1 ½ tablespoon chopped mint

2 tablespoons chopped parsley (I used regular curly)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

¾ tablespoon red wine vinegar

black pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.   Cook the quinoa by putting the quinoa in a saucepan of boiling water and cook for 9 minutes or until tender.  Drain in a fine sieve and rinse under cold water.  Leave to dry.  Go on and prepare yourself for the fact that sieve will take a while to clean thanks to the curlicues of the quinoa.

Brush the slices of bread with olive oil and smash some minced garlic onto the tops of the slices.  Sprinkle with salt.  Lay the slices on a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, turning them half way through.  Make sure the bread is completely dry and crisp when done.  Remove from oven and let them cool before breaking them into bite-sized pieces.

Dice the tomatoes and cucumbers.  Place both in a mixing bowl.  Add all the remaining ingredients plus the quinoa and cucumbers.  Stir gently.  Adjust seasoning as you see fit.

Orzo, Zucchini and Shrimp Salad

We made it! The past two weeks have come and gone and each new day brings a new experience of the wonder, magic and inconveniences of living in New York City. But I love it and Robbie loves it and we have a home of our own now. And that is what is most important. I have wandered aimlessly for blocks at a time, I have taken the subway to work like 95% of the other New Yorkers, I have dined out more than I have dined in and I have obtained my New York City Public Library card. My goal next week is to reenact the scene from Funny Girl where Fanny belts out Don’t Rain on my Parade on a chug boat as she blows past the Statue of Liberty. Instead of meeting Mr. Arnstein, I will meet Robbie on Governor’s Island who will greet me with a Mister Softee ice cream cone. Fingers crossed the weather cooperates!

Now, about those inconveniences . . . Our brownstone, which is broken up into several apartments, was built in 1900. There is a beautiful wooden staircase that goes up the center of the building, lifting its residents to their respective floors. It’s very Edith Wharton-like. Unfortunately, we are on the 5^th floor. That’s right, don't let the apartment number 1E fool you. At least once a day, I travel up five flights of stairs to get to my apartment, inevitably remember an errand I forgot to run, turn around, sulk down the stairs, run the errand, and return – for another 5-flight walk. At least we won’t have many visitors. Or robbers.

It turns out, unsurprisingly, that FedEx, USPS, and UPS all dislike residents living on the fifth floor of walk ups and conspire to make it an act of Congress to get any item of mail bigger than our 4 x 12 inch mail box/cubby hole delivered. Currently, FedEx holds our new router after an ‘unsuccessful’ delivery on Friday and USPS is holding, since Thursday, the microwave we bought after an ‘insufficient address’ claim. I think it was a ‘no-way-am-I-walking-up-5-flights-of-stairs’ excuse but that was not an option in the electronic thing they carry around. Alas, several calls later and trips to the local FedEx store we still do not have our respective items but we remain optimistic that this week will bring success. And clarity as to how you actually get packages delivered in NYC.

The lack of a microwave has created challenges to my cooking repertoire. I really like to make things that I can get at least an additional meal out of but without the 20^th Century luxury of the ‘reheat’ button on the microwave, I have been limited as to what I can make. So during our first week, I made this easy orzo pasta dish knowing that you could have it cold if in dire straits (which we did, and it was not that dire). It was our first home cooked meal in our home and we raised our Coke Zero’s to New York City.

Orzo, Zucchini and Shrimp Salad
Adapted from Martha Stewart

Coarse Salt and Pepper
1 cup orzo
1 tbs. + 1 tsp. olive oil, divided
2 med. zucchini, quartered and chopped
1 minced garlic clove
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
1 to 2 tbs. white wine vinegar
1 pound of salad ready shrimp (already cooked)

Cooke orzo according to the package instructions. Allow to cool. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Add zucchini and garlic; season with salt and pepper. Cook, tossing occasionally until crisp-tender, about 4 to 6 minutes. Add shrimp and stir for another minute or two. Transfer orzo to a medium bowl, add zucchini mixture, basil, vinegar and remaining teaspoon of oil. Season with salt and pepper and toss. Makes four servings.

Spicy Cucumber Noodle Salad with Edamame

When I first moved back to North Carolina from Washington, DC, I originally moved to Winston-Salem. I could not find a job there -- hence how I ended up in Charlotte -- but my four months there were spent trying to make the best of a somewhat stressful situation (Robbie and I had not lived in the same town since college and then to be living with each other while I was unemployed and he was going through his first semester in law school was not as "Becky-home-ecky as I had imagined). We created our routine and lived happily (most of the time) within the confines of that routine. Part of our Saturday ritual was to eat lunch at the Carving Board. This delightful restaurant that specializes in special salads and sandwich combinations became a favorite -- especially its Spicy Asian Noodle Salad. As Robbie enters the exam period for his second semester of his second year, I figured it would be great to relive those first few months of living together by trying to recreate that favorite dish of his.
The original did not have edamame or cucumber but I thought it added a nice nutritional mix to the salad. The green onions were left out of his batch but you can guarantee I put them in mine.
This recipe also required me to explore my current hometown even more by visiting an Asian Market. Who knew there were such Manhattan-like places in the QC? I picked up most of the ingredients there although I imagine they are available at your local Harris Teeter. Albeit for twice as much and without the excitement of looking through dozens of jars to find the one whose Chinese characters were most likely to mean the same thing as the ingredients on the recipe list.

Spicy Cucumber Noodle Salad with Edamame

adapted from myrecipes.com

8 ounces uncooked soba (buckwheat noodles)

1 cup frozen shelled edamame

1 cup diced English cucumber

1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions

1/4 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

2 teaspoons white miso (soybean paste) -- Note, I got soybean paste but it was not white. I have no idea what that means or if that affects anything.

1 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce

1 teaspoon chile paste with garlic (such as sambal oelek)

1 teaspoon dark sesame oil

Cook soba in boiling water 2 minutes; add edamame. Bring to a boil; cook 2 minutes. Drain; rinse with cold water. Drain; cool. Place soba mixture in a bowl. Add cucumber and onions. Combined mayonnaise with the remainder of ingredients; stir with a whisk. Pour over the soba mixture; toss well.

Cranberry Walnut Chicken Salad

So, here is my first cooking post -- and yes, I realize how unglamorous a chicken salad is but believe me, it's a very versatile and useful dish. Especially for someone who gave up microwaves for Lent and therefore needs a lunch dish that is a little more grown up than the usual peanut butter & jelly sandwich. Enter chicken salad. This Southern girl knows her chicken salad but was hesitant to make her own because of her fear it wouldn't live up to the smoothness of H & W Drugs' legendary salad or the richness of the chicken salad at Heidi's Deli in DC (Chicken Salad Thursday's, hollaaaa!) . . . but I digress. This dish is a little chunkier. A little heartier. A little more wintery, if you will. And is sure to make lunchtime at work a little more satisfying.

Stuffings -- celery, cranberry, shallots.

Toasted walnuts. This wouldn't fly for four-year-old MJ. 26-year-old MJ appreciates the nutrients.

Lunch tomorrow. Chicken Salad Tuesday, hollaaaaa!

Cranberry Walnut Chicken Salad

From Smitten Kitchen -- For those of you who do not know my obsession with this blog, it is the reason for my endeavor into the food blogging world. I started following it about three years ago and have been hooked ever since. Who wouldn't love Deb's honesty and her love for all things New York and all foods delicious. Obviously I need to work on my creativity and getting my hands on a better camera but this is my homage to Smitten Kitchen and all the deliciousness she brings into my life in the form of this, this, this and now this.

4 cups cubed cooked chicken (about 1 3/4 pounds or three fairly large chicken breasts)

1 cup toasted and chopped walnuts

1 cup diced celery (small bits)*

2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot

1 cup dried cranberries

3/4 cup mayonnaise (I used fat free mayo, it still tasted great)

3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (the recipe called for tarragon vinegar, champagne or white wine vinegar; not having any, I used apple cider vinegar)

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh tarragon (I used dried)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Toss together all ingredients in a large bowl until well combined.

*Not being too much of a celery fan, I thought it was a little too celery-ish. I would reduce this a bit the next time I made it.