Weekly Dish

Sometimes I simply crave salad. I’m sure it’s my body’s way of telling me I’m not eating enough vegetables, or I’m eating too much other non-vegetable fare. Or maybe I hunger for something bright and crisp and raw in place of the usual warm cooked meal. Whatever the reason, ever since Alanna, who writes A Veggie Venture, posted a lovely watercress salad last week, it has been on my mind.

I had seen watercress, both at the farmer’s market and at my local grocery the week before, so I was excited to have a recipe to try with the peppery little green. Unfortunately, this week, the watercress at the market was missing (or gone by the time I got there) and the two sad little bunches at the grocery were brown and wilted. Alas.

I couldn’t get the combination of sweet, tangy citrus and rich, salty blue cheese out of my head, so I made the salad with spinach instead. Arugula would have been a better substitute for watercress, but we used the last of it from our garden a few weeks ago. And Alanna’s recipe called for clementines, but satsumas were the best I could do (they are both sweet, diminuitive relatives of the orange).

As I was already tinkering with the recipe–albeit reluctantly–I decided while I was at it to add a few chunks of avocado and a slightly different dressing. I’ve never been one to mix up dressings anyway–I usually just drizzle the ingredients right onto the salad. If you want proportions and an exact recipe, you should head over and check out Alanna’s version. What I have to offer is really more of a suggested toss, which turned out to be delicious, although more free form.

To accompany the salad, I topped some French bread with feta cheese, thin slices of tart green apple, and a drizzle of honey, and popped the toasts under the broiler. Minus the honey, this concoction is frequently what I have for lunch, and when Rorie at Milk & Honey posted about a similar snack last week,–plus honey–I decided to sweeten up my recipe with her addition. Yum! The salad was refreshing and healthy, the feta toast a little more decadent, and together, they made for a filling supper. If you need more protein to make a complete meal, I imagine that citrusy grilled chicken would make a great addition to the salad. As vague as it is, here’s my very approximate salad recipe:

Satsuma-Blue Cheese Salad for Two

On each plate, layer:

baby spinach leaves, to cover the plate
satsuma segments, cut into chunks (I used 2 satsumas per plate)
a handful of crumbled blue cheese (I used Maytag)
half an avocado, sliced into chunks
a scattering of sliced green onion

Then: Drizzle each salad with the juice of a half a Meyer lemon, a sprinkle of red wine vinegar, olive oil, and a tiny bit of honey (or you could use the juice from a satsuma or orange and omit the honey). Sprinkle with cracked black pepper, and serve immediately.

Weekly Menu: This week’s menu includes a pizza of some sort on Monday, accompanied by my sister-in-law’s delicious broccoli; figs and sausages on Tuesday; Italian white bean soup on Wednesday; and pasta with mushrooms on Thursday. Classes start tomorrow, so we’ll see how I do with my new cooking routine!

Paper Chef/King Cake update: the round-up of entries is up over at Belly-Timber; the winner will be announced soon!

Posted: Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 8:11 am Filed under: Main Dish, Weekly Menu, Salad, Vegetables. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.