Layered Breakfast Salad

Breakfast Salad, originally uploaded by michele wynne.

I really do love salads yet I rarely make them. By the time I've collected up my favorite salad components, rinsed, dried and chopped, sliced and slivered...well...it just seems like an awful lot of work when all is said and done for something that is essentially a side dish. It's kind of like exercising...I'll make every excuse not to do it, but once I've convinced myself to start I really enjoy it, even though more often than not, once I've enjoyed the first salad or two, I still end up with a lot of sad produce that I just can't manage to use up.

 

I am newly inspired by a couple of things:

 

1) Little Gems and Baby Heads!  Small heads of lettuce that are perfect for the single serving salad. I love, love, love the crunchy Little Gems. I'd never seen these before I started working at Bi-Rite.

2) Layered rather than tossed salads-I've taken a couple of cooking classes at 18 Reasons, Bi-Rite's non-profit educational space. The gal who runs the program and teaches many of the classes always builds the salad on platters. Each component is prepped and spread on the plate or platter in two layers and generally consists of no more than 4-5 components including the dressing, which is also drizzled on within the layers. 

3) Gifts from the Grey Box: The salad pictured above started with my culled collection of 3 Little Gems, one Baby Head, one heirloom tomato, a bunch of radishes (sliced paper thin on a mandolin), a red bell pepper (sliced in thin strips) and a handful of romano beans (sliced thinly on the diagonal). Lastly, some slivered basil.

 

My go to dressing is a honey Dijon vinaigrette:

1/3 cup Olive Oil

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

1 clove garlic finely minced and smashed

1 tablespoon Dijon

1 teaspoon honey or agave nectar

a pinch of salt

a couple of grinds of fresh pepper
1 thinly sliced scallion

 

I put all the dressing components into a small jam jar and shake it like crazy to emulsify.

 

The  dinner salad was topped with a little of my new favorite cheese, L'Amuse Gouda. The eggs were added to the next-day breakfast leftovers which held up surprisingly well. What I didn't use the night before, when I started layering on my salad plate, I put into a plastic sandwich container, keeping each component in it's own little pile within the single container.

The only thing missing is bacon!

Update: I just found this article as I was looking up the Little Gem. It includes and interview with Simon, our produce buyer at Bi-Rite.

 

 

 

 

evolution carrot salad

evolution carrot salad, originally uploaded by riptideredsf.

This came about during a late afternoon attack on my "Recipes to Make" binder. I've had this one buried for a while, photo-copied a year or so ago, from a library lend of "Jamie's Food Revolution".

This was another recipe thatcamethisclose to being tossed. I like carrots okay...usually as more of a supporting role in a dish...and as I perused the character-less black and white, low-quality copy, I was just not seeing it's appeal, until I realized: wasn't there an almost full bag of carrots sprouting in the bottom of the vegetable bin last time I looked? as well as a half-empty bag of clearance cabbage, and I seem to recall buying mint and cilantro for something I didn't make. So that's how this evolved.
Jamie Oliver calls it an Evolution Salad because it's fine in a very simple state but evolves by the addition of say...nuts, cheese or fruit.

Can I just say how much I adore Jamie Oliver?

My access to food television is pretty much non-existent so my familiarity with Jamie Oliver was "...is that the Naked Chef guy?", until last year when I picked up "Oliver's Twist" from the library. I was an instant fan. Could he be any cuter? Of course I totally dig the British accent and goofy lingo not to mention his excitement and passion. He tears through a recipe like he's just run off the soccer field, dashed by his apartment for a quick knosh and he's back out the door to meet up with his mates at the pub. Quick and casual. Simple and affordable. Engaging and charming. He's got it all. Goofy footballer and marketing genius-gazillionare.

 

So, this carrot salad was amazingly tasty and came together in minutes.

 

Evolution Carrot Salad

slightly adapted from Jamie Oliver

5 medium carrots peeled and shredded

8 oz. shredded red cabbage

chopped mint

chopped cilantro

6 T. olive oil

2 T. lemon juice

2 T. dijon mustard

1 t. balsamic vinegar

2 t. agave nectar

crumbled blue cheese

salt

pepper

Combine all of the vegetables and herbs in a bowl. In jar with a tight fitting lid (I save jam jars for this), combine all of the dressing ingredients and shake it like crazy until everything is emulsified (smooth & creamy). Pour it over the carrot mix and toss.

 

It wasn't until after I made this that I realized why I had copied the recipe to begin with. It's really pretty in color. I'm inspired again to revisit Jamie's Food Revolution because I do love pretty pictures, simple, amusing instructions and really really good food.