Spinach salad with roasted strawberries and toasted almonds (2 BIG servings)
0 comments Posted by Kate at 9:55 AM
Strawberry season arrives much earlier in North Carolina than it does in Pennsylvania. In fact, I think the NC season will be wrapping upjust as I get ready for a week-long visit to PA next week. Salad is a great option for taking advantage of juicy strawberries while they're still available. My family ate a lot of spinach/strawberry salads when I was growing up, and this Williams-Sonoma recipe is an interesting spin-off of an old favorite.
I discovered last year that roasting strawberries makes them sweet(er) and syrupy after testing out a roasted strawberry bruschetta recipe for a dinner party. The Williams-Sonoma recipe uses the same technique, although the strawberries aren't roasted so long that they break down and lose their shape. The recipe is a bit time-consuming to put together, but it isn't difficult, and I think it's flexible enough that you could use a different type of lettuce or cheese if you wanted. It's hard to ruin a salad as pretty and delicious as this!
You will need:
For the berries
- 1 pint strawberries, washed, hulled, and cut in half lengthwise (or quartered if they're huge)
- 1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1/8 tsp salt
- black pepper
- 3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
- 3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/8 cup orange juice
- 1/4 tsp dried marjoram
- 1/4 tsp dried basil
- 1/2 Tbsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- black pepper
- 4-5 cups baby spinach leaves
- 1/2 cup toasted almond slivers
- 1/3 cup shredded cheese (the recipe suggests Romano but I used paper-thin shreds of Robusto)
Steps:
- Toss the berries and accompanying ingredients together in a small bowl. Transfer the berries to a roasting pan or sheet. Roast at 400 F for about ten minutes, or until the berries are soft. Allow to cool to room temperature.
- Meanwhile, toast the almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat with a pinch of salt. Shake the pan occasionally, making sure the almonds do not burn. Allow them to cool too.
- To make the dressing, pour ingredients into a jar with a screw-top lid and shake the heck out of it. (Or, if you eat a lot of salads, get yourself one of these ingenious devices.)
- Once the berries and almonds have cooled, divide the spinach evenly between two plates. Top each plate with strawberries, almonds, cheese and dressing. (You could also toss the spinach with the dressing before plating it, if you wish.) Serve immediately.
The Williams-Sonoma site sums up this salad better than I could:
"The flavor of this salad sparkles with the bright acidity of red wine vinegar, its tartness temperated by the sweetness of fresh orange juice. Roasting strawberries with a bit of sugar intensifies their fruitiness and softens their texture, creating a nice counterpoint to the salty cheese and crunchy toasted almonds."
...So why aren't you eating this already?
I grew up assuming that sweet potatoes were an autumnal food, but apparently, their peak season is the springtime, at least in North Carolina. This was a happy surprise to me, especially because in the fall, so much emphasis is put on pumpkins that I forget to cook with sweet potatoes anyway.
I'm always looking for new chili recipes, and this one from Epicurious sounded unique and interesting enough that I knew I had to try it. It makes a modest amount of chili, but between the beans and sweet potatoes, it's so filling that you'll get more servings than appearance suggests!
You will need:
- 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 2-4 tsp chili powder, depending on preference
- 2 cups vegetable broth (preferably low-sodium)
- 1 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch cubes
- 2 15-oz cans Mexican-style diced tomatoes (I used a type with lime, cilantro, and green chiles)
- 2 15-oz cans pinto or black beans (I used one of each)
- 6 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro (I used a lot less since my tomatoes included cilantro and I'm not the world's biggest cilantro fan)
- zest from one medium orange
Steps:
- Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute the onion until it's golden brown (this always takes way longer than the recipe says; I needed almost 10 minutes). Add the chili powder and stir one minute.
- Add in the broth and sweet potato and cover the pan. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the potato is almost tender (about 10 min).
- Add in tomatoes (undrained) and beans. Simmer, uncovered, until the chili thickens and the potato is very tender (another 10 min). Mix in cilantro and orange zest. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.
I doubled the original recipe, so some of my measurements are slightly different from the Epicurious version. The original called for 10 ounces of sweet potatoes, which seemed like a weird amount. I bought as close to 20 ounces and I could get, but I'd use less next time, hence cutting the recipe back to only 16 ounces.
I was skeptical about the orange zest, fearing it would make the chili too sweet, but it really blends in nicely. Actually, all the flavors work well together here. The beans absorb the herbs and spices, as do the potatoes, which come out wonderfully tender but still hold their shape. As I said before, this chili is very filling, and depending on what type of tomatoes you use and how much chili powder you add, it can be mildly spicy to pretty darn spicy. It's a flexible recipe that I'll definitely turn to again in the future.
