Beet salad with gorgonzola and walnuts

This salad is tastiest if you have pickled beets on hand. You can also use canned beets, though. And if you want to boil some beets to use, that’s also a possibility. But I like to use the juice from pickled or canned beets to make a beet-juice reduction for the salad dressing – so good!

I made this salad recently for Valentines Day and served it with preboiled lobster for a red-themed dinner – delicious! My salad recipe serves two, but you can easily double it.

Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Galette

What is a galette?

I tried this unlikely recipe from a new cookbook I received for my birthday from Fortnum and Mason. It is a gorgeous-looking book an inch and a half thick, with creamy pages, a hand-sewn hard cover in brilliant blue, and color illustrations.

For those who don’t know, Fortnum and Mason is an 18th-century department store known for its gourmet groceries. They are still at 181 Piccadilly, in London England, just as they have been for over 300 years. They claim to take extraordinary care over the origins of everything they sell.

So I opened the book with great interest to the first page… only to find Porridge! Just three ingredients – water, salt and oats. Thankfully there were suggestions for toppings to add flavor to what was a painful childhood memory for me.

Many of the other recipes were for British standard fare – grilled kippers, toasted crumpets, sausages, ham, scotch eggs, and various puddings. But one recipe in particular caught my imagination and I gave it a try. I took it to my art group’s potluck closing lunch. People liked it, so I’m posting it here. I, too, thought it was flavorful and “oh so pretty” in my new serving bowl.

Wilted warm seafood salad

Salad days… wilted in the heat

“I’m wilting,” said Vinny as he plopped down in a lounger under the Japanese lilac. “Ottawa broke a 123-year-old record today when we scored a temperature of 34C.”

Will flapped his shirt, trying in vain to make a breeze for himself. “Ya, I’m WILL-ting, too. It feels like a steam bath out here. Let’s cool off with the hose.”

“Except I’m hungry,” said Vinny.  I’m going to whip up a warm salad first, with a little spice to heat it up even more.”

“That sounds crazy,” said Will. “Why would you want to make a warm salad when we’re boiling out here?”

Lego salads

Lego salad tower!

I used to find salads a chore – so much washing, peeling, and chopping. All that, only to end up with tasteless, watery, food suitable only for hamsters.

But then I discovered Lego salads.

Remember Emmet, from the Lego Movie? When he sings, “Everything is awesome when you’re part of a team,” it hit me: What is salad if not a well-oiled team?

Miss Macadamia takes the crown! Fats demystified

Macadamia is the sweetheart of Hawaii.

Verse 3

Whose dress is made of sweetgrass?
who wears a golden lei-a?
Who’s promised to be kind and true?
Ma-ca-da-m-i-a.

The queen of nuts…

Moving along to my third post honoring the wonderful nut, I admit, Okay… maybe this poetry thing is a little beyond my capabilities. But before I finish with my nutty soliloquy begun in my past two posts, I wanted to sing the praises of Macadamia. Difficulty with rhyming and pentameters isn’t going to hold me back. Because if I’m any judge, Macadamia wins the healthy nut contest hands down.  And it’s not just because of her pretty face and fine figure.

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

Butternut squash salad… ready, set, GO!

Hey, kids, have you ever dreamed about flying on a carpet to far-away lands, where you find yourself gorging on colorful fruits and veggies you’ve never tasted before? Well… you can do more than dream.