Grilled chicken salad with herb ranch dressing
As the weather warms up we are putting the grill back to use and bringing back color to our diet. We opted for a lighter dinner of grilled chicken with lettuce, cucumber, and stunning watermelon radishes from our CSA. The dressing was a creamy herb buttermilk ranch.
Herb Ranch Dressing
- 1/2 cup sour cream (can substitute yogurt)
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons buttermilk
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- handful of herbs: chives, cilantro, basil, dill, parsley (as available)
- salt & pepper to taste
Steps:
- Blend ingredients, taste, pour, enjoy!
What could make this evening better? Warm, delicious double-chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and a glass of cold milk. Classic, delicious.
Crab Lettuce Wraps with Spicy Lime Vinaigrette
Following a weekend of holiday feasting, we usually find ourselves craving something light, and refreshing. After we had stuffed ourselves to capacity, these Crab Lettuce Wraps with Spicy Lime Vinaigrette were the refreshing light meal to bring us back from a carb induced holiday daze. While crab is a splurge, this dish allows the sweet and delicate flavor of blue crab to shine. It is worth every penny. If you're truly adventurous, you can buy crab fresh, cook it and remove the meat. We generally buy a high quality canned crab, which is quick, easy and consistently available. To make these crab wraps, Rebecca used avocado, some stunning watermelon radishes, cucumber, and a sweet and spicy lime vinaigrette. She used hydroponic Bibb lettuce fresh from our CSA for the wraps. We found these cute little lettuce cups were a neat way of holding this light and healthy crab salad together.
Kale and Red Leaf Salad with Apple Mint Vinaigrette
Kale and Red Leaf Salad with Apple Mint Vinaigrette is an unusual and delicious salad that we made this evening with our first spring batch of local green kale. Kale is the quiet gawky kid in the corner who landed the starring role in the school play and never looked back. Kale has a serious following of die-hard fans who devour it in all forms; chips, smoothies, ice cream, brownies, pesto. Kale is a cancer-fighting super-food loaded with beta-carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, calcium, and antioxidants. To learn about the many ways to use kale and its nutritional value check out Deborah Madison's new book Vegetable Literacy. This Kale and Red Leaf Salad is a tasty example of raw kale serving as a base for this distinctive crisp apple mint vinaigrette.
Herb Potato Salad
I am mad for potatoes and have found myself, on more than one occasion, defensively sputtering to Paul that 'of course I absolutely NEED to bring back that bag of potatoes in my suitcase!' In contrast to my gung-ho consumption of potatoes, I would consider Paul to be more of a casual appreciator of the humble spud, but we both love this Herb Potato Salad. It is a light and vivacious, mayonnaise-free potato salad, with a snappy garlic-mustard vinaigrette lavished with herbs. Think of this recipe as an an outline that will easily adjust to different amounts and types of herbs and alternative vinegars and oils.
Beans with Avocado Green Goddess Dressing
I am a sucker for a colorful veggie, and when I saw these vibrant purple string beans at a farm stand on the way home from work, I was smitten! With a wacky color-scheme in mind, I paired the quickly steamed beans with dollops of lime-hued green goddess dressing, made creamier and healthier by the addition of avocado instead of mayonnaise. Avocado Green Goddess Dressing is my take on the retro 70's classic. This cheerful side dish is ready in 10 minutes, and adaptable to whatever produce you have on hand.
Homemade Garlic & Herb Boursin
In our experience, snacking is the natural accompaniment to binge TV watching. With new seasons of Game of Thrones and House of Cards out this month, we are in prime snacking mode. This weekend, we made a homemade version of the addictive (but expensive) Boursin cheese we sometimes buy at the grocery. Boursin was created by Francois Boursin in Normandy, and is a soft fresh Garnay cheese with flavorful additions. Our version uses a combination of goat cheese and cream cheese to achieve a creamy, tangy texture, and is liberally studded with fresh herbs, garlic and lemon zest. We devoured our Homemade Garlic & Herb Boursin on sourdough bread with crunchy watermelon radishes from our CSA, and when we ran out of bread, made up a batch of crackers so we could keep snacking.
