Tag: Avocado

green salad with garlicky red wine mustard vinaigrette

salad lettuce salmon mustard pepitas avocado dressings salad greens pumpkin seeds smoked salmon

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This dressing is one that I make a lot of at once, and then keep in the refrigerator to use all the time. It keeps really well, is yummy and creamy without any eggs or cream in it (mustard is the emulsifying agent), and is great with a variety of different salads. These are two of my favorites—to eat as a meal, with the fish and avocado, or to make more simply, and to eat as a side with soup, beans, or open-faced toast sandwiches. You can also toss the dressing onto steamed broccoli or green beans and top them with toasted green pumpkin seeds.

dressing

6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
4 medium cloves garlic, chopped coarsely
1 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
1-2 tablespoons honey
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½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Put first 5 ingredients in a blender and blend until completely smooth. Slowly pour in oil to make a creamy emulsion. Taste and season with more salt or honey if it needs it.

salad—for a meal, with smoked salmon and avocado

1 large head lettuce, washed, dried, and torn into bite-sized pieces, or a large bowl of baby salad greens or stemmed baby spinach
½ cup pepitas (green pumpkin seeds), toasted in a skillet until puffed and golden
1 avocado, peeled and cut into cubes
1-2 cups kippered salmon, flaked (I love to use buttery-rich Alaskan king salmon)

1. Toss the salad greens with dressing to your taste, then add the avocado and salmon. Toss again.
2. Sprinkle toasted pumpkin seeds over the salad and serve.

salad—as a side, with toasted pumpkin seeds

1 head lettuce, washed, dried, and torn into bite-sized pieces, or a bowl of baby salad greens or stemmed spinach
¼ cup pepitas (green pumpkin seeds), toasted in a skillet until puffed and golden brown

Toss the salad greens with dressing to your taste, then sprinkle the pumpkin seeds over the salad and serve.

southwest caesar salad

lettuce salmon salads bread pepitas chipotle avocado roasted vegetables salad greens pumpkin seeds

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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.

avocado toasts with balsamic vinaigrette and pickled red onions

avocado vinaigrette pickles toast toppings red onions

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This was the recipe I included in my very first Rise & Shine Bakery Bulletin, in October 2007. This recipe was the obvious choice, since it might just be my favorite food. It’s a great appetizer for a fancy meal, a sandwich for lunch, or part of a regular dinner served with a soup or salad. I can think of at least six reasons to make this recipe.

1. It tastes really good. Imagine creamy, rich avocado with the tangy bite and crunchy texture of the pickled onions, on a crunchy whole wheat sourdough toast.
2. It looks lovely. Beautiful light green avocado on toast, topped with a pile of bright pink pickled red onions, and then sprinkled with a dusting of freshly ground black pepper—this is ART.
3. So much for seasonal food—this toast is great whenever you can find good avocados, and that’s all year ‘round, at Costco. Here’s how to ripen and store the avocados from Costco. Buy a bag of them when they are rock-hard, and set them on your counter. Every day (you must be vigilant), squeeze them very gently to see how soft they are getting. When they have just begun to get soft (don’t wait until they are squishy), put them in the refrigerator RIGHT AWAY—this will more or less arrest their further ripening, and you will have a treasure trove of perfectly ripe avocados for a week.
4. You can make a big batch of all the components ahead of time, and have them in the refrigerator, just waiting for hunger to strike, or guests to arrive. Then you can whip this up in the time it takes to toast your sourdough bread (chopping the pickled red onions and peeling the avocado), and sit and relax with a glass of wine with your guests instead of dashing around in the kitchen trying to throw something together.
5. If you’re cooking for people who don’t eat meat or dairy, you can make this for them and you will be their hero forever, because it’s so yummy and wonderful.
6. If people eat enough avocado toasts, they won’t really care what else is for dinner.

avocado toasts
This recipe is based on one I found in Deborah Madison’s Savory Way.

1 large, ripe avocado (see #3 above)
balsamic vinaigrette (recipe follows)
pickled red onions, chopped coarsely (recipe follows)
4 slices whole wheat sourdough bread
freshly ground black pepper

1. At least an hour before you want to make this, or preferably the day before, prepare the pickled red onions. They will keep for a couple of weeks in your ‘fridge.
2. Whisk together the vinaigrette ingredients. This will keep in your ‘fridge for a couple of weeks, too.
3. Halve the avocado and peel it. Cut the flesh into slices about ¼” thick.
4. Toast the bread.
5. Spoon some of the vinaigrette over the toast, then cover the toast with slices of avocado. Sprinkle the pickled onions over the top of the avocado (or put a mound of them on top—whatever you prefer) and finish with plenty of pepper.
 
balsamic vinaigrette

¼ cup very finely minced yellow onion or shallot
¼ teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

In a small bowl, whisk together everything but the oil. Slowly drizzle in the oil while whisking. Season to taste with salt.

pickled red onions

1 pound red onions
1 quart boiling water, more or less
1-2 cups white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons sea salt or kosher salt
2 bay leaves
10 peppercorns, lightly crushed
2 pinches dried thyme
a pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

1. Halve the onions, peel them, and slice them into half-moons about ¼” thick. Separate the half-ring slices from each other and pile them in a bowl.
2. Bring a kettle of water to a boil, and pour the boiling water over the onions. Stir the onions around in the hot water for 30 seconds, just to soften them, then drain them in a colander (you don’t want to let them sit in the boiling water too long or they’ll lose their crunch.)
3. Put the sugar, salt, bay leaves, peppercorns, thyme, and red pepper flakes in a large jar, and add about a ¼ cup of hot or warm water. Stir to dissolve the sugar and salt.
4. Jam the onions into the jar. Pour in white wine vinegar to cover the onions. If you don’t have enough vinegar to cover, you can add some water. I don’t usually do this, though, because I reuse the vinegar once or twice, so I like the brine solution quite strong. Put the lid on the jar, shake to combine, and keep it refrigerated. The pink color will begin to infuse in about an hour. Taste them after they’ve pickled for a day, and add more salt and sugar to taste, if they don’t have enough zip for you.
5. These onions are great with so many things—as a garnish on salads and vegetables, with refried beans, on top of a toast spread with hummus, and nice as just a little snack as part of an appetizer spread.
6. When you run out of onions, just strain the vinegar (it’ll be bright pink) into a clean jar, and boil up some water to wilt some more onions. Use this same vinegar to pack the new onions in after you wilt them. Add more herbs, and then taste after the onions have pickled for a day or so and make sure there’s enough salt and sugar. Some of the liquid from the previous onions will have diluted the pickling solution, so you might want to add more salt and sugar. This batch of onions will be even pinker than the last ones!