Grilled Bread Salad

I eat alone fairly often. My roommate and I have different schedules often, I can only impose upon Nic so many times before we get sick of each other, and its not practical to meet up with someone every night to share a meal. Eating alone has never bothered me though, it is the perfect chance to eat exactly what I want- whether it be eggs 4 times in a row or some total random mish-mash of things, with a side of green salad to make it seem legit. 

A while ago I came across What We Eat When We're Alone by Deborah Madison. Madison is a well accomplished vegetarian cookbook writer, who complied this book through interviewing people on what they eat when they are alone (well, yes, but there is no better description.) When there is no one to cook for and no one to please, people come up with some strange concoctions to satisfy themselves. A lot of the meals revolved around toast, all things Mexican, and ungodly things done with peanut butter. 

This salad came from having gone to the farmer's market and looking for a way to fashion a jumble of fresh vegetables into some type of coherent meal. The bread came from a local bread company, H&F Bread Co.,  tomatoes and cucumbers sounded tasty, and as I am now the proud host of Nic's grill, so that had to be put to use. You are more than welcome to simply toast the bread, and ignore grill the scallions though. Its all up to you.

Grilled Bread Salad

Serves 1

2 thick slices of multigrain bread

halved garlic clove

6-7 cherry tomatoes

1/2 cucumber

2-3 tbl chopped herbs- I used basil and parsley

1 green onion

lemon juice

1. Preheat grill to medium high. Grill scallions for 1-3 minutes, looking for grill marks. Rub the slices of bread with olive oil and grill until toasty, and grill marks appear. Remove from the grill and rub with cut garlic clove. This gives the salad some garlic flavor without overwhelming raw garlic flavor/pieces. 

2. Cube bread, mince green onion, and chop tomotoes and cucumbers. Mince the herbs, tear the basil. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, and drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice. Serve after about 10 minutes, to allow flavors to meld. 

Roasted Cauliflower with Cilantro Lime Sauce

The last few days in Atlanta have felt more like summer time than spring. Which after a long, cruel winter is both welcome and not welcome. I'd like some spring, some transition time here. So in honor of the seasons that don't make sense, I made you something awesome that both components live in opposite seasons. 

Roasted Cauliflower with a Cilantro Lime sauce, salsa verde style. Adapted from Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life, which is an excellent book. And since cauliflower is a more winter thing, and cilantro is more summery, here's your mash up of seasons on one plate. We'll call it spring. 

Salsa Verde

1 medium jalepeno, ribbed and seeded, then finely chopped

1/3 cup finely chopped cilantro

2 medium cloves garlic, minced with a pinch of salt

3 T fresh lime juice

4 T olive oil


salt to taste

1. While the ingredients call for all this to be chopped separately, it is entirely possible to chop together. Especially the jalepeno and garlic.

2. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, and let sit for at least 30 minutes while cauliflower roasts. 

Roasted Cauliflower

Serves 1-2

1 head cauliflower

Olive oil to coat

Salt & Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Slice cauliflower into the same sized pieces or slices. 

3. Toss with a few tablespoons of oil to coat, then salt and pepper. 

4. Spread out in a single layer on sheet pan, and roast in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until a deep caramelly brown color appears. You can flip during this, but I didn't.

Drizzle sauce on top and enjoy!

Roasted Beet, Walnut and Goat Cheese Salad

Beets. That's how I thought of them for the longest time. Almost straight refusal, no need to try again because the earthy dirt taste wasn't going to change. My first introduction came from my Grandmother's dark, mysterious basement filled with all kinds of scary delights that kept us cousins occupied while dinner was made.  There were rows and rows of canning jars filled with all kinds of jam; raspberry jam, blueberry jam, applesauce, peaches, vegetables of all kinds including beets.  The scary part came from the Anderson recessive hoarder gene, all the treasures saved over 50 years, old toys, magazines, tools, trinkets, stacks of fabric, and the crowning glory, a stack of styrofoam meat trays.  The A&E show, Hoarders, is a kind of dark family joke.  With grandparents from the Depression era, things were saved. One never knew when stryofoam meat trays would come in handy.  And, Dad, I saw the excess cord you cut off from the blinds sitting in the garage.  There is no use for that.  Throw it away.

So beets and I haven't been on good terms for a while.  But now there's a crack of daylight in my tightly shuttered mind.  It started with a simple salad of roasted beets and a basic dressing at a friend's house, and the word rolled around in my mouth for a few weeks.  I saw this beautiful beet salad on Use Real Butter by the lovely Jen, and was inspired to make my own version.  I hit up a local farmers market for some beautiful deep purple and golden beets, and for oranges I picked up a Cara Cara orange, known for their pinky-red color. This salad brought beets back into the light for me, with the glorious mix of colors, creamy goat cheese and the crunchy walnuts.

Roasted Beet, Walnut and Goat Cheese Salad
Serves 2-3 as a side

2 medium red beets
1 golden beet
1 or 2 cara cara oranges
1/3 cup walnuts, toasted
3 oz crumbled goat cheese

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Scrub beets well and wrap loosely in aluminum foil.  Roast in oven for about 45 minutes, or until easily pierced with a fork.  Set aside to cool enough to handle.
2. Once cool, unwrap and peel off skin from beets.  It should release easily enough, but it will definitely stain anything it comes into contact with- skin, clothing, towels, etc. so be careful what you touch.
3.  Slice the beets into pretty rounds, and set aside.
4.  Supreme the orange.  In other words, slice off a round from the top and bottom until you see orange flesh, then stand on one end.  Cut from the top down to remove the skin and pith (white stuff) while trying to preserve as much orange as possible.  Then, cut out the sections of the orange so they land in pretty slices.  You'll end up with the center of the orange, which is quite juicy. I squeezed this part over the beets.
5.  Assemble.  Layer the beets and orange on a plate, then top with crumbled goat cheese and toasted walnuts.  You can stop here, or I dressed it with a basic vinaigarette.

Basic Vinaigrette
Makes about 1 cup

3 Tbls red wine vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tbls Dijon mustard
1 tsp honey
Salt and pepper

1.  Put all ingredients in a jar and shake until combined.  Seriously.