Spinach-Apple-Bacon Salad—a have-to-prepare

Beautiful, healthy, colorful salad—as basic as you can get, but we enjoyed the flavorful simplicity. Hints of fall weather, of course, make the apple everyone’s best friend in whatever menu item you might choose. So these lovely, crunchy apples were a natural ingredient for this dish.

The recipe arrived in my Kroger grocery circular. Spinach-Apple-Bacon Salad—It was a have-to-prepare. The honey/Dijon mustard dressing was delightful to toss around it.

Give it a try! It worked for us!

Spinach-Apple-Bacon Salad

1/4 cup water

3 tablespoons red-wine vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons honey

4 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 Royal Gala or Granny Smith apple, cut lengthwise into 16 slices

8 cups baby spinach

sliced red onion

sliced button mushrooms

2 slices center-cut bacon, cooked until crispy (I used turkey bacon.)

In a small bowl combine first 6 ingredients (water through pepper). Stir with a whisk to make the dressing. Place the apple slices in a large bowl. Spoon 2 tablespoons dressing over apples; toss to coat. Add spinach, mushrooms, onions, and remaining dressing. Toss to coat. Crumble the bacon and sprinkle over the top of the salad. Refrigerate any leftovers. Makes 4 servings.

Honey of a salad recalls days gone by

“This is just like a salad my mother used to make.”
“No, this is a perfect imitation of my grandmother’s salad.”

So went the conversation between me and Hubby about the Honey Apple Salad that we tried out at dinner a couple of nights ago. (Lots of chopping was involved, so when Hubby appeared at the door with his genial “What can I do to help?”, you better believe I shoved the cutting board and knife under his nose promptly.)

But on two things about this dish we did agree: (1) It truly was a honey of a salad, and (2) We surely were glad that on our blitz through Oklahoma recently, we had stopped by the Chickasaw Nation Nutrition Services to pick up some of its new, complimentary recipe cards. I get a lot of cooking ideas, such as this one, from that great source.

Apples, grapes, celery, and golden raisins (the recipe called for chopped prunes, but raisins already were on the shelf) with a light, honey-sweetened dressing—summery to the (apple) core. Honey, er Hubby, kept marveling that the dressing prevented the apples from turning brown. Chopped walnuts were dotted on top.

And, to solve the little debate between us, the recipe certainly must have been a throwback to the past. Considering the ingredients, we could be certain that some version of Honey Apple Salad had been on the tables of many family cooks that have gone before. We were glad it was a classic recipe that lived on to brighten the table on this hot summer night in 2012.

Honey Apple Salad

3 1/2 cups diced apples (we used Golden Delicious)

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 cups grapes, sliced

1 cup sliced celery

1/2 cup chopped prunes (I subbed golden raisins)

1/4 cup light mayonnaise

1/4 cup honey

2 tablespoons fat-free sour cream

1/4 cup walnuts, chopped

In a large bowl toss apples with lemon juice. Add grapes, celery, and prunes. In a small bowl combine mayonnaise, honey, and sour cream. Mix well. Pour mayonnaise mixture over the apple mixture; toss to coat. Sprinkle with walnuts. Makes 14 1/2-cup servings.

A salad so splendid, it instantly nets "Thanksgiving-worthy" label

“Thanksgiving-worthy!” That was the pronouncement of both Hubby and me when we began sampling Apple-Pear Salad with Lemon-Poppy Seed Dressing, a new dish I’d put on the table to go with our Turnip Green Stew from a few days back.

After you take a few bites of this combination, you’ll think you’ve been transported to the most elegant multi-fork restaurant on the planet. This truly was one of the best salads I’ve sampled in a long, long time. That’s why we immediately assigned the recipe to accompany the holiday bird—one menu item that I can say without a doubt will be found on our Thanksgiving dining table.

Thinly sliced apples and pears are tossed with dried cranberries and romaine (I subbed with spinach for the greens). A smattering of cashews (what recipe can go wrong if it has cashews in it?) and shredded Swiss cheese are added. The Lemon-Poppy Seed Dressing is divine and makes enough to be stored and be poured over additional salads.

The instructions, furnished by myrecipes.com and listed as springing from a March 2007 Southern Living issue, state that some grilled chicken could be added to transform this salad into a main course.

Thanksgiving, we’re marching toward ya! Only 20 more cooking days left until that dinner of dinners! Gotta get busy.

Apple-Pear Salad with Lemon-Poppy Seed Dressing

1 (16-ounce) package romaine lettuce, thoroughly washed (I used spinach pieces)

1 (6-ounce) block Swiss cheese, shaved

1 cup roasted, salted cashews (I used unsalted)

1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries

1 large apple, thinly sliced

1 large pear, thinly sliced

In a salad bowl toss together all ingredients. Serve with Lemon-Poppy Seed Dressing (recipe follows). Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Lemon-Poppy Seed Dressing:

2/3 cup light olive oil

1/2 cup sugar (or sugar substitute)

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

1 1/2 tablespoons poppy seeds

2 teaspoons finely chopped onion

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon salt (or salt substitute)

Process 2/3 cup light olive oil and remaining ingredients in a blender until smooth. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator for up to 1 week; serve at room temperature. Makes 1 1/4 cups.

Fresh apples, lemon perk up traditional coleslaw recipe

The huge bushel basket of apples (both of the cooking and eating variety) seems to be getting no smaller. I brought it home from our recent farm-stand visit and have used numerous apples for dishes as well as have given several away, but the pile seems to be enlarging! So once again I’m on the hunt for apple recipes—not a bad position to be in, since the apple is the signature fruit of fall.

This recipe for Lemon-Apple Coleslaw from myrecipes.com is an enjoyable mixture that is a cross between traditional slaw and apple-laden Waldorf Salad. Tossing apples and lemon rind into the traditional shredded carrots/cabbage mixture brought delightful results. I love the apple-y crunch that the apple addition brings. With the use of a food processor to do the chopping, this slaw gets done fast. Chilling for 1 hour before you serve is recommended for the dressing to permeate. 

My food-processor blade chopped up the veggies fairly fine; the photo that appeared with the online recipe showed the cabbage and carrots in longer shreds than mine turned out. This is an appearance-only matter; to me, the flavor of the finely ground carrots and cabbage (with the apples still left in fairly large chunks, skin on) was smooth and tangy.  

I’ve never met a variety of coleslaw I didn’t like. I was happy to have this one (which myrecipes.com says appeared in Southern Living in Feburary 2005) to add to my idea stash.

Lemon-Apple Coleslaw

1 small cabbage, shredded (8 cups)

2 apples, chopped (I used the Golden Delicious from my barrel of mixed varieties)

2 carrots, shredded

1/3 cup mayonnaise (I used the lite variety)

1 tablespoon sugar (or sugar substitute)

2 tablespoons minced onion

1 teaspoon grated lemon rind

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon salt (or salt substitute)

1/4 teaspoon pepper

In a large bowl combine cabbage, apples, and carrots. Whisk together mayonnaise and next 6 ingredients; toss with cabbage mixture. Cover and chill for 1 hour.

Fish goes in salad all the time now! A great go-together with our red-leaf lettuce

Still looking for ways to use our harvest of red-leaf lettuce from our garden, I returned to my Prevention.com article suggesting 450-calorie-and-under quick meals, the same source of the unique Salad Pizza a few blogs back. Hubby is always pushing the cholesterol-lowering “more-fish-more-fish” mantra, so I lit on the recipe for Surf or Turf Salad (you have the option of adding strips of fish fillet or flank steak). I had some tilapia fillets in the fridge, so this was a handy idea.

Surf or Turf Salad made for a highly unusual recipe combination—the addition of peeled and chopped apple besides some of the more typical salad ingredients. I don’t know how to describe it other than to say that the sweetness of the apple balanced off the fish (which is found in salads all the time these days) and also the tart balsamic-vinegar dressing. Loved having apple in a tossed salad! Not sure I’ve ever sampled such a mix of flavors before. I had on hand everything the recipe called for except carrots, so I subbed a little red cabbage I needed to use up. When I say I had everything on hand, I’m especially proud to report that two of the ingredients—the red-leaf lettuce and the green onion—were seconds within reach, as I walked out my back door to my garden and was back within two-minutes’ time. As my mother might have phrased it, the produce was so fresh, it could “rise up and slap you.”

Now that’s one slap in the face I don’t mind at all!

Surf or Turf Salad

12 ounces fish fillet or flank steak

1/4 teaspoon salt (or salt substitute)

1/8 teaspoon pepper

4 cups red-leaf lettuce, torn into salad-sized bits

1 cucumber, chopped

1 pint halved grape tomatoes (or 4 Roma tomatoes), chopped

2 carrots, chopped

1 apple (any variety), peeled and chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1/2 small red onion, chopped

3 tablespoons green onions, chopped

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 teaspoon salt (or salt substitute)

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Sprinkle fish or flank steak with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Grill 5 to 6 minutes per side. Combine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, apple, bell pepper, and red onion in bowl. Whisk green onion, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, Dijon mustard, salt, and pepper. Pour over salad and toss. Top salad with thinly sliced fish or steak. Makes 4 servings. (400 calories per serving).

Simple, elemental dish of Apple Salad recalls the quiet, gentle life of recipe's originator

Have you ever sampled a recipe that was simply the embodiment and the essence of the person who created it? Such is the case of my maternal grandmother’s Apple Salad dish that I prepared last night to accompany the remainder of my Creamy Broccoli Soup from an earlier post.

Among my most treasured of recipe files is a brief, typewritten (now slightly yellowing) card on which were typed the few but important ingredients for this salad and then at the bottom noted those valuable words, "Mama's recipe”. This helped me remember that my Nanny in the long-ago was the standard-bearer for this dish.

As I prepared it last evening and stirred the simple, smooth, boiled dressing on the stove before I poured it over some fresh, chopped apples, I envisioned Nanny as the epitome of the Southern cook and homemaker that she was. Her own mother, the legendary Grandma Harris around whom my cookbooks, Way Back in the Country and Way Back in the Country Garden, are anchored, had migrated over to East Texas from Mississippi after the Civil War. Like many who were among the early Texas pioneer families, her people were said to have fled plantation life after war desecrated their way of living. As they founded new communities on the promising Texas soil, they brought their plenteous skills with them.

Grandma Harris, who went on to mother 14 children, taught her girls that inimitable style of country gourmet cooking that I mentioned in an earlier blog about the foods of FBC Longview, TX. Growing up in Delta County in northeast Texas, my Nanny learned from her mother how to take the most elementary of recipes and turn them into a creation fit for royalty. Apple Salad is one of those dishes.

Besides the fresh, crunchy apples I chopped up for the salad, I also threw in a rib of chopped celery, since Hubby is (as I mentioned yesterday) intent on adding celery, for its hypertension-ameliorating properties, into every dish on the planet. Since the dressing is warm as it emerges off the stovetop, best to let the apple and dressing mixture chill in the fridge for an hour or so before you serve.

The sweet, creamy dressing folded around ingredients that most anyone would have on hand epitomized the gentle, simple life of a loving grandmother who made the most of what she had. When I'm gone from this earth 37 years, as she has been, may I still be remembered half so fondly.

Apple Salad

3 tablespoons vinegar

water (see below)

1 heaping teaspoon flour

1/2 cup sugar (or sugar substitute)

1 egg (or 1/4 cup egg substitute)

pinch salt

2 apples, peeled, cored, chopped

1 rib celery, chopped

Into a one-cup measure pour three tablespoons of vinegar. Add water to make a full cup. Pour liquid into a medium saucepan. To the saucepan add flour, sugar, beaten egg, and salt. Over medium heat bring mixture to a boil. Cook until thick. Pour over chopped apple and celery. Pour into airtight container and chill in fridge. If desired serve over greens. Makes 4 servings.

Cranberry show-stopper perfect, healthy jewel for Christmas bring-a-dish evet

Want an absolute show-stopper for a Christmas bring-a-dish event? This one can't be beat—and to think it's been languishing in my Christmas recipe file (untried) for years on end. What was I thinking?

Waldorf Salad was a biggie in my growing-up family, so the very idea of preparing this dish was akin to comfort food for me. But the addition of cranberries lifted this past the prosaic and made it an exceptional creation. Thanks to Mature Living magazine for this recipe that I clipped out and saved for—well, just for this very day.

The cranberries' slightly tart taste are a nice counterpoint to the sweet grapes, apples, and the dressing created simply from nonfat vanilla yogurt, sugar substitute, and cinnamon.

The combination of the greens and reds from the fruit mixture make a perfect Christmas accompaniment. Tucked in a pretty cut-glass pedestal bowl of my mother's, I can't imagine anything more party-worthy.

Cranberry Waldorf Salad

1 1/2 cups chopped cranberries

1 cup chopped red apple

1 cup chopped cleery

1 cup seedless green grapes, halves

1/3 cup raisins

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

2 tablespoons sugar (or sugar substitute)

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

8 ounces nonfat vanilla yogurt

Combine all the ingredients. Toss to coat. Cover and chill 2 hours. Stir just before serving. Makes 8 servings.

Apples make delightful, healthy addition to fall-like Carrot Salad

No coincidence that my spotting a clever new recipe for Carrot Salad, a staple I enjoyed in my childhood, and frequent drives past the setting for that enjoyment--the Casa Linda Shopping Center in Dallas--occurred within the same week.

Hubby and I motored by this east Dallas treasure--in my growing-up days known as Casa Linda Plaza and once home of the revered Wyatt's Cafeteria--on the way to the Dallas hospital which housed our newborn grandbaby.

No, August, did not turn out to be Baby Month as we expected. That little guy, with a mind of his own, must have decided that August was just too hot and that he'd wait until September, that great fall harbinger, to make his entrance.

But once September swept in, Precious Grandboy did, too. As Hubby and I blitzed past Casa Linda (now home of the revitalized Highland Park Cafeteria, a successor to the beloved Wyatt's of former day) to get to our many hospital visits, I again recalled to Hubby the story of my dining on carrot salad there so often that my hair could have turned orange.

Lo and behold, what should appear before me that same week but a delightful new recipe for Carrot Salad--not mimicking the cafeteria legend but an enjoyable one nevertheless. I was drawn to this recipe, featured in my "Celebrating a Healthy Harvest" cookbook from the Chickasaw Nation, because it featured grated apples along with the standard carrots and cabbage. Resembling coleslaw, on preparation this dish immediately was tasty but became even more delectable after it marinated for about eight hours.

Apple days and more apple days are ahead of us. (What says autumn--especially September--more appropriately than does a shiny red apple?) My apple recipes already are getting a dusting off as I shelve my summer recipe binder and replace it with the one that says "fall".

Besides apple crisp and apple cobbler and some of the more expected apple-based menu items, I was happy to find apples in this most unexpected place--"healthening" up Carrot Salad.

Carrot Salad

2 red delicious apples, grated

1 lemon, juiced

1/2 pound carrots, raw, shredded

8 cups cabbage, shredded

Dressing:

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 teaspoon mustard

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon honey

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

salt and pepper

Put the oil, vinegar, mustard, garlic, honey, and oregano in a screw-top jar. In a large bowl sprinkle the grated apples with the lemon juice; toss to coat. Add carrot and cabbage; mix thoroughly. Shake the dressing, pour over the salad, and toss well. Chill and serve. Makes 4-6 servings.