Summer Salads, Hold the Lettuce

When we were in Paris for our honeymoon, we noticed a trend when it came to salads. The lettuce was nowhere to be found. You might find a little hiding at the bottom of the plate (because really, a plate is a far superior vessel than a bowl when it comes to salad), but the French are much more into the other ingredients that make up a "salad" - the meats, the cheeses, the vegetables, the beans, the dressings. While I've been doing my best to consume my greens this summer, I've also wholly embraced this French tradition of Salad: Hold the Lettuce.

I mentioned my potato salad obsession, and here is my favorite rendition. It's Ina's recipe, adapted slightly to whatever I happen to have on hand in my kitchen at the moment. This is an easy thing to whip up quickly and have as a side dish when you're grilling. When I'm making it for just the two of us, I usually cut it in half. It makes great leftovers, too! I made it for a party we had last month, and people were crazy about it.

Ina's Old Fashioned Potato Salad

3 pounds small white potatoes
Kosher salt
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup buttermilk (don't go out and buy buttermilk just for this - use half and half, or whole milk, or sour cream, or even some white wine)
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard
1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped red onion

Directions

Place the potatoes and 2 tablespoons of salt in a large pot of water. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, until the potatoes are barely tender when pierced with a knife. Drain the potatoes in a colander, then place the colander with the potatoes over the empty pot and cover with a clean, dry kitchen towel. Allow the potatoes to steam for 15 to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, buttermilk, Dijon mustard, whole grain mustard, dill, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Set aside.

When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut them in quarters or in half, depending on their size. Place the cut potatoes in a large bowl. While the potatoes are still warm, pour enough dressing over them to moisten. Add the celery and red onion, 2 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Toss well, cover, and refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to blend. Serve cold or at room temperature.

**************

I tend to go easy on the salt in Ina's recipes - I usually cut it in half and then add more if I need to. It's one fault I find with her - she uses way too much salt sometimes!

***************

I continued my summer theme of Salads: Hold the Lettuce at my friend Allison's baby shower that I co-hosted with my friend Stasi. I was in charge of the food, and thankfully my mother (who came to help me) talked me out of my original idea, which was quiches. Getting 3 or 4 quiches baked and hot and ready all at once would have been a nightmare. So, I decided to do salads instead!
Ina's Chinese Chicken Salad, Classic Egg Salad from ATK, "Fancy Coleslaw" (Mom's recipe and handiwork), and pretzel buns from our local butcher shop.

It was a sweltering 94 degrees the day of the shower, so it turned out to be the perfect menu for such a hot summer day. I also made this Watermelon Lemonade from Smitten Kitchen, which is the perfect refreshing beverage for a 7 month preggos lady.

The chicken salad recipe is linked above. A few notes from me: it makes a LOT of dressing, so I found it's best to put about 3/4 of the dressing on the salad and leave 1/4 on the side and allow people to add dressing to their tastes. I'm also a huge fan of her method of roasting bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts and then removing the meat and shredding it - it makes for moist, lovely chicken in your salad.

Classic Egg Salad
Ingredients
1 rib celery, chopped fine
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3 TBSP minced red onion
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley (I substitute dill, because I love dill, but if you don't, parsley is fine)
1 TBSP Dijon mustard
1 TBSP fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper
12 hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped coarse*

*Fool-proof method for hard boiling eggs: Put eggs in pot; cover with water. Bring water to a boil. Once the water comes to a boil, remove from heat, cover, and let sit for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare ice bath. When 10 minutes is up, submerge eggs in ice bath for 5 minutes. Peel.

**I was once eating a hard-boiled egg at work and a co-worker said "Oh that's a great snack idea", and I said "Definitely, I usually boil a half dozen at the beginning of the week to have on hand for snacks", and she said "Oh, I wish I had time to do that, but you know you can buy them pre-boiled in the supermarket", and I said "...it takes 15 minutes...". And then I shut up before I made an enemy. But I have thought about this conversation non-stop since and how it just about sums up everything that's wrong with our country...but I digress...

Mix the celery, mayonnaise, onion, parsley, mustard, lemon juice, 1/2 tsp salt and a pinch of pepper together in a large bowl. Gently fold in the eggs and season with salt and pepper to taste. Will last for about 4 or 5 days in the fridge.

Fancy Coleslaw
(This borderlines Semi-Homemadeness, but it's seriously so good that I don't care. Flavor packets, quel horreur! My mom is slowly but surely turning me into Sandra Lee...I kid, I kid! But she did suggest I get a powdered lemonade mix for the party, to which I replied...start juicing lemons crazy lady.)

Ingredients
1 lb pkg coleslaw cabbage
1 bunch green onion chopped
1 c. slivered almonds
1 c. sunflower seeds
2 pkg ramen beef noodles - not cooked
(save powdered packets for sauce)
Dressing
3/4 c. veg. oil
1/2 c. sugar
1/3 c. red wine vinegar
garlic to taste
2 season packets from noodles

break up noodles into very small pieces
add almonds and seeds.
1/2 hr before serving add coleslaw to the above and
dressing. mix thoroughly.

**************

When you can't bear to turn on your oven, turn to one of these recipes for a refreshing summer lunch or dinner!

Breakfast for the Bean

Schleichy-bean, that is. The golden soprano of St. Louis came to stay with me this weekend to hit up two auditions on Saturday. I wanted to make sure she'd have a nice breakfast before she started belting the high notes... naturally I thought of a quiche! Some protein, some fat, some veggies all wrapped into a buttery crust... what could be better?

I used the quiche recipe from the Williams-Sonoma "Food Made Fast: Baking"Cookbook. I can't praise this book series enough... I have several of the editions and have never been disappointed by their recipes. They sometimes take a little longer to make than the book claims, but everything is still relatively simple and comes out looking exactly like the gorgeous picture.

First, you have to make your pastry shell. I have to admit, I've been using frozen pie crusts for my quiches lately, instead of making them from scratch (SHAME! I'll never be the wife of a French peasant...). It's really not hard to make a crust, though, so I have no excuse for being lazy.

Pastry Dough:

2 cups Flour

.5 tsp Salt

1.5 sticks Butter (6 oz... oh yeah!)

3 oz really cold ice water

In a food processor, combine the flour and salt and pulse until mixed. Add the cubed butter overtop and pulse until coarse crumbs start to form. Then drizzle the water over top and pulse until the dough starts to come together. Roll this out onto a floured surface and then transport to your pie tin.

Long live BUTTER!

Note: The recipe in the book actually makes enough for 3 shells. What you see above is that recipe halved.... so, that makes enough for 1.5 shells. You can easily tweak this to make slightly less, but I like have extra and I'll show you way at the end of this post!

Pop the crust into the freezer for 5 minutes, then throw into a 425 degree oven for 10 minutes, or until lightly golden. Pull out of the oven and let cool while you prepare the filling.

Now the magic! Leek and Asparagus Quiche:

1 Leek, sliced

Half a bundle of Asparagus, cut into half inch pieces (you want roughly 1.5 cups total vegetables... I usually throw in more)

4 Eggs

1.5 cups (6 oz) grated Gruyere Cheese (again, I usually end up using more)

1 3/4 cups Organic Whole Milk (or Half-n-Half, or Cream... low fat milk is for losers)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper (or to taste)

Sauté the leeks in about a tablespoon of butter until they start to get wilty, then throw in your asparagus, and cook until it's all soft, but not mushy, then set aside. Sprinkle half of the cheese into the crust. Then, wisk the eggs until blended and add the milk, salt and pepper. Stir in the veggies and the rest of the cheese. Pour into the partially baked and cooled crust.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and the middle is set. Resist temptation (this is Lent, after all) and wait until it cools before you dig in!

So I said I had extra dough... what to do with it? Make mini-quiches using ramekins, of course! Since I always end up adding more veggies and cheese than I'm supposed to, the filling ends up being too much for the crust. Just make sure you keep an eye on them in the oven, they'll be done faster than the big quiche. With this recipe, I made two extra little guys.

One last note: Nicholas Tonozzi, I need my roller back! I just mushed this dough out by hand and it was a little too thick. I blame you for this.