Sassy Radish

It wasn’t enough, you see, for me to marry apples and pears in perfect union at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. I wanted more apples – apples raw and uncooked – to accompany our holiday meal. And when someone suggested the Waldorf salad, I yawned, been there done that. It’s a great and fabulous salad, but we’ve all had it before and it was time to do something slightly different.

For me, the regimented and anal-retentive Thanksgiving menu planning commences sometime in August. I start looking at various recipes, thinking about what to keep and what to toss, and what new recipes to introduce.

And I must admit to enjoying the “coming together” of things rather than the prer work that comes with cooking. All that chopping sometimes can get so monotonous, so I was grateful to have some lovely people around who pitched in and chopped, diced, sliced, separated eggs, mixed, blended and tasted. Without them, I would have been more frenetic and stressed out.

The good part about this salad, found in Bon Apetit of last year, is that it’s deliriously easy to make. Even the chopping is easy. I made it last year and the celery apple combination was so good, people gobbled it up in minutes. The apples serve as a perfect side to the turkey and the stuffing – the fruit cuts through the thick protein and bread adding a bit of that tartness.

Continue reading apple celery salad with walnuts.

Summer and fall months are unusually good to tomatoes letting them ripen until the fruit is so full of sugar, it requires no background on which to rest it. To me, often, salad greens upstage the tomato itself, often the main star of the dish. I’ve been known to bite into a tomato or two and eat them straight up, as one would an apple.

Or at times, I’ve sprinkle a little Maldon sea salt onto it, and relish every bite. The sweet and the salty in one taste.

However, most people think me funny for allowing my summer tomatoes to be divas all on their own. Sometimes, I would be asked if I had run out of mixed greens. I’d say no and then find myself greeted by a confused look. Why just the tomatoes?

Well, for those who cannot imagine the tomato without its leafy friends, this simple salad should do the trick. Mixed greens, tomatoes, and red onions soaked in a solution of apple cider vinegar and sugar. All tossed together with the best balsamic and extra virgin olive oil you can find, and sprinkled with crushed, black pepper.

For those of us who are missing the summer produce – this is the salad to get us through the cold wintry months.

Continue reading heirloom tomato salad with pickled onions.

I was in the mood for a nice, fruity salad a little while back. But I was growing tired of leaves in my salads – arugula, spinach, lettuce. Been there, done that.

I wanted a salad that focused on things other than the green leaves. I wanted it to have a bit more substance and fill to it. And I wanted a crisp bite without the overbearing taste.

Radish never turns down apples in her salad (well, maybe she does, but rarely) but at the same time, I didn’t want to recreate a Waldorf – no blue cheese to overtake the fruit. I liked the idea of nuts, but I wanted them to add some sweetness, so they would have to be candied.

The BF was ecstatic to finish a generous bowl saying that it made for a perfect complement to the baked rainbow trout I made. I was just excited to watching him devour the mix, realizing this was a keeper of a recipe.

Continue reading apple celery salad with candied pecans.