Showing posts with label spinach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spinach. Show all posts

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Salads galore!



It’s summer and we are finally having nice temperature. I know I haven’t blogged in a while. It isn’t that I have not cooked; it is simply that nothing was quite worth of blogging about. I made very simple dished and repeated many of what has already been posted. I also ate in restaurant too much.

Anyhow, summer is great for salads and here are few pleasers. The Lemon pepper scallops on a bed of heirloom tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and goat cheese is particularly incredible.

The first one is my friend’s favourite summer salad, it’s rather simple, I thought it wouldn’t be enjoyable but lo and behold, I quite enjoyed the tangy lemon taste.

Neeley-Bee’s simple salad

- Spinach
- Cherry tomatoes
- Cucumber
- Juice of 1 lemon
- Coarse salt and pepper
- Hardboiled egg




Put the spinach in a bow, add cucumber, and add tomatoes, drizzle with the juice. Sprinkle with coarse salt and pepper. Add the egg. Enjoy.

Summer fruity-nutty salad with scallops

- Butter lettuce
- 1-2 green onions
- Strawberries
- ½ avocado
- 1 small container of mandarins, drained
- A big handful of walnuts
- Your favourite dressing (Mine is a creamy Walla-Walla dressing that I get from my husband each time he goes on bike race in the Washington state)
- Few scallop



First step is simple, put the lettuce and the chopped green onions in a bowl, add the vinaigrette and mix. Top with the chopped strawberries, avocado and add the mandarins. Cook the scallops the way you like them. For a summer salad like this one, I love grilled scallops as it cook in not fat and kind of counter balance my creamy dressing.

The Best:

Lemon-Pepper scallops on a bed of yellow and orange heirlooms tomatoes with crumbled goat cheese and balsamic drizzle.



Believe me, this is divine!

- 1 yellow tomato (I prefer to use the organic heirloom as the taste is sooo good)
- 1 orange tomato (again, organic... I think pink tomatoes would do well too)
- Quality balsamic vinegar
- Fleur de sel (I use fleur de Camargue)
- Few fresh string of chives
- 2 big teaspoon of goat cheese crumbles. (You may want to add more, it’s so yummy!)
- 3 big and fresh scallops
- Juice of ½ lime
- pepper



I’ll start with the scallops as few people do not know that they have to be patted dry before cooking. Anyhow, I pan fried them in butter and olive oil. Few second before putting on a plate to wait to be “placed on the salad”, I drizzled the lime juice on them and peppered them.
The salad is very simple; slice each tomato, put on a plate alternating colors. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle the goat cheese around. Place the three scallops in the middle; add the chives in the middle. Sprinkle with the fleur de sel. Eat. It is delicious!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Spinach and Strawberries salad

I have been taking pictures of my food, cooking and baking a little bit less than usual, but I still do. I figured I have been a really bad foodie blogger lately.

My husband is doing the Hawaii Ironman in October (vacation for me!!) and he told me he needs to lose some weight before. He has always struggled with his weight (so does most of his family) and I wasn’t a very good wife. Us French, loves to use butter, cheese, cream and extra rich ingredient. The obesity rate is a lot lower than in America and I think that even if our food is decadent, we just don’t eat as much. There might be an entire tray of delicious cupcakes in front of us, we’re only going to have one.

Anyhow, I’ve tried to include more vegetable in our alimentation (if at all possible, we’re already having ¾ veggies each night ¼ proteins.) As a side, for the remaining sunny day, I’ve made a simple, but delicious spinach salad.

Spinach and Strawberries salad

- Spinach
- 3-4 thinly sliced strawberries per serving
- A handful of shaved almonds
- Few crumbles of herbs goat cheese feta

Vinaigrette

- Lemon juice
- Drizzle of olive oil
- A crack of pepper (surprisingly, pepper goes really well with strawberries)



Put everything together and enjoy!