southwest caesar salad

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lettuce salmon salads bread avocado pepitas chipotle roasted vegetables roasted garlic salad greens

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This is a favorite salad of mine, and the dressing is based on a recipe in a cookbook called rebar modern food. Often we’ll just eat this salad for dinner. It makes a fantastic main course if you add the salmon, or you can omit the fish for a lighter salad if you want to serve other Southwestern-themed dishes with it.

Because this recipe uses roasted garlic, it takes a little planning ahead. If you can remember to do it, you can roast the garlic up to a few days ahead of time, whenever you’ve got the oven turned on for something else. Just keep the garlic refrigerated until you’re ready to use it for the dressing. The dressing keeps well in the refrigerator for a week or so, so you can eat this for a couple of meals, if you like.

Look for the cans of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce in the Mexican food section of the grocery store. You make the chipotle puree by pureeing a whole 7-ounce can of the chiles and sauce in the blender. Then, just store a jar of the puree in your refrigerator or freezer. Or, if you don’t think you’ll have much use for the puree, just fish out a chile from the can and toss that in the blender with the rest of the dressing ingredients. Make sure not to get a really big chile, though! They are spicy! You can freeze the remaining chiles in a flattened plastic ziploc bag, and just break a chunk off as you need it.

This salad is fantastic with slices of golden, crispy toast made from Rise & Shine Bakery’s golden maize pan loaf! It’s also really nice with black bean chili (don’t add the salmon to the salad, if serving with the chili).

dressing

1 bulb roasted garlic (recipe follows)
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and drained
1 ½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove, chopped coarsely
½ teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
¼ teaspoon cracked pepper
1 tablespoon chipotle puree (see note in recipe introduction, above), or 1 of the whole chiles from the can
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½ cup olive oil

Squeeze out the contents from the roasted garlic bulb and combine with the other ingredients, except the oil, in the bowl of a blender. Blend until smooth. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in the oil until thick and creamy. Correct seasonings to taste.

salad

1 very large head romaine lettuce or 2-3 hearts of romaine, washed, dried, and torn into bite-sized pieces
½ cup pepitas (green pumpkin seeds), toasted in a skillet until puffed and golden
1 avocado
1 cup kippered salmon, flaked (I love to use the buttery-rich Alaskan king salmon) or canned salmon, flaked [optional—use the fish if you want this to be a main dish]
slices of golden maize sourdough bread 

1. Peel and dice the avocado.
2. Toast slices of golden maize sourdough bread.
3. Toss lettuce with dressing to your taste, add avocado and flaked salmon (if using). Toss again.
4. Sprinkle with toasted pepitas, and serve the salad with toast on the side.

roasted garlic
You can make several heads of this garlic when you bake it, and spread the soft, sweet cloves on toast, or add to other dishes, like soups, or hummus, or beans.

whole heads of garlic
olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees (or whatever temperature at which you’re baking something else). Slice the top off the garlic bulb, just enough to expose the tops of the garlic flesh. Center the bulb on a square of aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap the bulb securely and pop it into the oven.
2. After 45 minutes or so (longer if it’s at a lower temperature), you should start to smell the roasting garlic, but depending on the size of your bulb, it may need a bit more time. Test by unwrapping it and slipping the sharp point of a paring knife into one of the cloves. If it slides in effortlessly, or the cloves are starting to poke out of their skins, then the garlic is ready.