Food and Crafts for All Occasions

Green Salad with Smoked Trout, Poached Eggs, Potatoes and Asparagus

This has been one of my favorite salads lately. Sort of a version of Niçoise salad with smoked trout instead of tuna and poached eggs instead of boiled ones. My greens choice for this salad is a mix of frisee (I love ’em bitter!) and Asian greens mix (not to be confused with Asian salad mix!) which includes mizuna, pak choi, baby tat soi and other fancy and very tasty herbs.  If you cannot find Asian mix in stores, go for Spring Salad Mix or something like it.

As for the trout, you can smoke it yourself or buy it in a store. Trader Joe’s carries quite delicious and inexpensive smoked trout. If you want to smoke trout yourself and are a happy owner of a Green egg grill, follow the instructions given here for salmon. The only difference with trout would be that you would need much less salt and shorter time to cure it in the fridge since trout fillets are much smaller and thinner than salmon. For the same reason, the cooking time will be shorter too. Shoot for 45-50 min.

Warm Salad with Farro/Barley, Radicchio, Frisee, Wild Mushrooms and Poached Eggs

This a more recent and more "mature" variation of this recipe. It's so balanced in flavor and textures so you would not need anything else to serve it with. Though if you never feel satiated unless you had some meat or fish in your stomach, a few seared scallops or sautéed sweetbreads would be the best choice.

Tomato Season: Two Favorite Salads

Tomatoes are my most favorite veggies and the only edible plant (besides cooking herbs) that we grow in our yard. We don’t have much of a planting space around the house, but whatever little we have Ilya turned into very tall raised beds. Which is perfect for tomatoes because, as those of you who grow tomatoes know, the deeper you plant tomatoes, the larger the root system, and the larger the root system, the larger the tops of the plants. And the larger the tops, the more tomatoes you’re going to harvest.

We usually plant cherry and grape tomatoes simply because Seattle summer is quite short and other kinds may not have enough time to mature and ripen to perfection. Our cherry tomatoes always turn out great and taste like little sugar bombs, as our neighbor and friend calls them.

In Loving Memory of the Summer Gone Too Fast: A Salad with Avocadoes, Tomatoes, Palm Hearts and Bell Peppers with Cilantro Dressing

Summer is suddenly gone and just like most Seattleites I am not ready to let it go. I’m currently in the denial stage of grief, especially because of the sun peeking out from behind the clouds more and more often and a patch of blue sky here and there becoming larger and larger. A perfect setting for me to pretend that it is as warm and vibrant outside as it was just a month ago.

Niçoise Salad

Whenever we’re in a mood for a lighter dinner, I made a large “all inclusive” salad like Caesar with chicken or fried oysters or Niçoise. Here you have your proteins, greens and starches all in one light and healthy dish.

Arugula Salad with Fresh Garbanzos, Radishes and Lemon Dressing

Here’s one of the easiest to make and very refreshing green salads. My recent favorite. There's something in the combination of sharp arugula, crunchy juicy radishes, sweet garbanzo beans and  tart refreshing dressing that makes this salad particularly good in the summer. Though I don't mind having it in other seasons as well.

Lebanese Eggplant Salad

In Russia, when we really enjoy a meal, we say, it tastes so good you can swallow your tongue! Well, I almost did when I first tried this eggplant salad in a neighborhood Lebanese restaurant. Light, with an extremely velvety texture and amazing smoky flavor, for me it tasted even better than baba ganoush. And if you only knew how much I love baba ganoush...mmmm.

Refreshing Sweet-n-Sour Frisée Salad

In fact, a full name would run as frisée salad with blood oranges, grongonzola and toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds with lavender and lemon dressing. Quite a long name for a dish, huh? When you reach the end, you’ve already forgot the beginning. I see why people love to give short names to dishes, like Caesar salad, Beef Wellington, Jambalaya, Borsch, Po Boy sandwich, Pho. Life is too short to waste it reading long dish names - you better spend your precious time eating.

Japanese Style Salad with Bitter Greens, Tuna and Edamame Beans

As it often happens in life, happy periods of binging on pasta, potatoes and chocolate are followed by sad periods of remorse with one major question to answer - whether to buy a pant button extender kit or switch to healthier and leaner foods for a while?

Bitter Greens Salad with Potatoes, Mushrooms and Quail Eggs

It looks like a salad week in my blog (high time to go on strike and demand some meat!), but I can’t help myself but give you one more of our favorites. It makes a great vegetarian lunch or a first course of a bigger meal.

Simple Salad with Tomatoes, Avocado, Olive Tapenade and Fresh Basil

Continuing the salad theme, here’s one I make often for myself for a snack. It takes mere minutes to make and is quite filling, so you can spend next half an hour  without thinking about food. ;)

Warm Frisée and Belgian Endive Salad with Bacon and Poached Eggs

Of all the greens, we prefer the ones with crunchy texture and bitterish taste - frisée, endive, radicchio, wild arugula and such. These greens certainly have lots of character and call for a strong, rich, acidic, and slightly sweet dressing.

Potato Salad with Eggs, Arugula and Mayo & Dijon Dressing

If you are a fan of potato salads, here’s another one to your collection. It goes especially great with grilled, roasted or pan-fried fish.