I got some great ideas from all of you on Facebook last night for Recipe Exchange themes. Thank you, thank you! Rest assured, I will get to all of them.
But today I am starting with salads – specifically, I’m thinking about the Shabbat salad course. But really, any yummy salad recipe you’ve got is a-okay in my book!
I am a big fan of cabbage and I love making all kinds of cole slaw. There’s the traditional cole slaw with a drop of mayo and some lemon juice, which is perfect with crock pot BBQ beef. (I love the cole slaw recipe out of the purple Spice & Spirit cookbook.) Or my kids’ favorite crunchy cole slaw, with Ramen noodles, nuts and a soy sauce dressing.
But one of my newest favs (thanks, Dara!) is the purple cabbage salad, that comes from Susie Fishbein’s Passover by Design
Purple Cabbage Salad
Ingredients
- 1 large head of purple cabbage, shredded
- 3 scallions, chopped
- 1/3+ cup pine nuts or sliced almonds
- 3 carrots, shredded
- 1 (11-ounce) can mandarin oranges, reserving 1 T of liquid – I use 1/2 to 3/4 the amount of oranges, or it’s a bit overwhelming to me
- 1/4 cup of Craisins or raisins
Dressing
- 3 T brown sugar
- Ground black pepper, to taste
- 4 T red wine vinegar
- 1 T reserved mandarin orange liquid
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 t parve chicken soup mix
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
1. Place cabbage, scallions, pine nuts or almonds, carrots, mandarin oranges and cranberries in a large, deep bowl. Set aside.
2. In a cruet, mix all dressing ingredients. Shake very thoroughly, making sure that the soup mix is fully dissolved.
3. Pour over salad and toss. Gorgeous!
4. Cover well and refrigerate for at least an hour or as long as overnight. Longer than that, and the purple from the cabbage starts to bleed into the other colors and your salad won’t be very pretty anymore.
Notes: When I want to serve this salad at Shabbat lunch, I shred / prep the ingredients on Friday and dump everything but the nuts and mandarin oranges into a large ziploc. I also mix up the dressing ahead of time. Then I store the mandarins, nuts and dressing in the fridge and toss it all together in the morning. By lunchtime, the flavors have melded together perfectly!
Serves at least 8 people.
I can’t wait to read all your delicious salad creations – fruit, veggies, or a little of both! Remember, it doesn’t have to have lettuce to be a salad. If you wish, link up to a post on your blog about your favorite salad recipes. Or leave a comment below with all your fantastically fresh recipes.
Israeli Salad
2 cucumbers peeled & chopped
2 medium tomatoes chopped
1 small green bell pepper chopped
2 celery sticks chopped
1/2+ sweet onion chopped
1 apple peeled and chopped
fresh dill chopped
fresh parsley chopped
walnut oil
lemon juice
salt
pepper
Combine all ingredients and enjoy! Tastes best when freshly made.
One of my yummy salads to make is Jamie Geller’s Spinach and Portabello Mushroom Salad.
Ingredients:1 tablespoon olive oil
1 (6-ounce) package sliced portobello mushrooms
1 (10-ounce) package baby spinach leaves
1 red onion, thinly sliced
10 grape tomatoes, halved
For dressing
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon prepared minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Preparation:1.In a 12-inch skillet, heat oil over medium heat.
2.Add mushrooms and sauté for 5 minutes. Set aside.
3.Place baby spinach, onion and tomatoes in a salad bowl.
4.In a small bowl, whisk together all the dressing ingredients until smooth and creamy. Pour over salad.
5.Spoon mushrooms over salad. Toss gently and serve.
Here are a few quick & easy recipes I use, especially when I want something I can just use as a last-minute add-on from the contents of my fridge and pantry.
1. Bean Avocado Tomato Salad (this salad is great, b/c you can keep adding more of each of the ingredient depending on the size of your crowd).
1-2 (or more…)cans kidney beans, drained (I use a variety of colors – red, pink, black, & sometimes a white bean for pretty colors)
1-2 avocados, chopped
cherry (or grape) tomatoes, cut in chunks
Dress with Olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt & pepper to taste.
Variations: Add other veggies too, such as cucumbers, peppers, dill, parsley.
2. Quick Corn Relish
1-2 cans of whole-kernel corn, drained
1 colored pepper (red or orange), diced
sour or dill pickles, diced
3. Quick Cranberry Relish
(You can make with any or all of these items, whatever you have around your kitchen):
1 can of whole-berry cranberry sauce
1 apple, chopped (green is more tangy than red – I prefer green)
1 can of pineapple chunks, drained or 1 can mandarins, drained (or both)
handful of pecans or walnuts
4. Spinach, avocado & tomato salad.
Baby Spinach
Avocado
Cherry/Grape Tomatoes
Dress with Olive oil, Squeeze of a lemon, Salt & pepper
Optional: Add in chunks of smoked salmon (not nova lox – real smoked salmon!) for a nice appetizer
Not so good for Shabbat (usually), but my absolute favorite salad is a tomato and mozzarella salad.
Chop a tomato into slices (I like rounds, but wedges work too). Lay on a plate, alternating with mozzarella rounds. Top with some fresh basil leaves. You can also add a little bit of balsamic vinegar and/or olive oil, but you don’t have to. Enjoy!
It’s especially good with the marinated mozzarella logs from Trader Joe’s.
I love this recipe as well.
I also cut out a lot of the oil.
And ever since my strange foul mouth reaction to pine nuts, I leave those out as well…..
This recipe was originally published in the original Kosher by Design cookbook.
Hey, we’re having BBQ crockpot chicken with red cabbage salad tomorrow! I think cabbage salad is particularly good because it actually tastes better after it’s been sitting in the fridge for a day. Actually I need to go perfect my version (uh, right now, instead of reading blogs) and then I promise I will share the recipe next week. I need to bug my mom to give me her green cabbage salad recipe, too, though that one tastes better on the day it’s made.
I really need new salad ideas, so I am looking forward to more comments.
I linked up a few recipes on both my sites. Thanks so much for this roundup. Great idea! I hope you’ll keep this up.
I also used to like this purple cabbage recipe but love it now since I tweaked it a bunch. Here’s my version which everyone who I have over raves about:
1 small head purple cabbage shredded
4 scallions sliced into thin pieces
handful of toasted cashew halves or almond slices or slivers or even whole!
(I used to add Craisins but my husband doesn’t like any sort of fruit in his salads so I started leaving it out with same great results.)
Dressing is a Tbsp. of mayonnaise, 3 Tbsp. oil, 1 1/2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.