Salads

Super Sweet Spinach Salad

September 30, 2013 by Erica

Super Sweet Spinach Salad from Coffee & Quinoa

My salad brings all the boys to the yard, and they’re like, it’s better than yours…

What? No?

Here is the thing about salad (and blogging about salad): It doesn’t exactly bring all the boys to the yard. You know what I mean? Now blogging about milkshakes, that’s another story.

Despite this unfortunate truth, I’m bringing you a salad today, because this is my blog, and on my blog I get to share the food I like to eat, boys in the yard or no.

Super Sweet Spinach Salad from Coffee & Quinoa

Well, like to eat is maybe a strong statement about salad.

To me, salads (and hard workouts, for that matter) are like classic works of literature: you want to have read them (or have eaten or have done them), but you do not want to read, eat or do them in the present tense. No, you want to look into your virtuous past and say “ah yes, I had a salad for lunch” with the same smug satisfaction you would say “ah yes, I’ve read Dostoyevsky.” Rarely could I say with any truthfulness, “I want to eat a salad right now.” (And I’m sorry, but the same goes for reading translations from the Russian.) In reality, I claim to want salad quite often, but it’s because I’m thinking of the present as the future past. And in the future, I will want to have eaten a salad.

…

Whole Foods Tangerine Detox Salad with Oil-Free Dressing

September 16, 2013 by Erica

Whole Foods Mandarin Orange Detox Salad with Oil-Free Dressing

Something very exciting happened in my parents’ town recently: they got a Whole Foods!

The old Johnnie’s Foodmaster near the house I grew up in closed, and the blinking Foodmaster sign was replaced with the big green Whole Foods lettering. This is somewhat sad, as Johnnie’s was a staple in my town and in my life: one of my best high school friends worked there for years while we were in high school and college (and can probably still tell you the code for just about every type of produce), and a band from my high school had a song called “Foomaster,” inspired by the grocery store sign whose D always seemed to be dark.Yep, I have some nostalgia for the old Johnnie’s. But Whole Foods is still a major upgrade.

Whole Foods Mandarin Orange Detox Salad with Oil-Free Dressing

I visited for the first time in August, after my flights home from our family vacation got messed up and I knew I’d have to go into work the next day in Salt Lake with no food. While wandering around checking out the bulk bins (my favorite section) and comparing the offerings to my Whole Foods at home (the Salt Lake one near me is bigger), I picked out this salad for my lunch the next day. It looked delicious – check out those colors! – and I figured it would be a good way of starting off a little detox after some serious vacation eating.

…

Summer CSA Salad with Red Wine Tomato Vinaigrette

July 22, 2013 by Erica

Summer CSA Salad with Red Wine Tomato Vinaigrette

Meet my perfect simple summer salad.

You two should be friends.

Summer CSA Salad with Red Wine Tomato Vinaigrette

This salad is certainly no culinary breakthrough, but when it comes to summer produce, sometimes simpler is better. And there is about to be a LOT of summer produce up in here, because this past week’s CSA box was packed to the brim:

Summer CSA Salad with Red Wine Tomato Vinaigrette

I have more lettuce than I know what to do with, along with zucchini, beets, carrots, garlic, green garlic, spring onions, green beans, apricots, and the season’s first corn. Foooooood.

I think the boxes are only going to get more stuffed from here on out. Come August and September, I have no idea how we’re going to eat it all!

For now, I think I’ll try to stuff as much of it as possible into a salad.

…

Red, Mint & Blue Fruit Salad

July 1, 2013 by Erica

Red, Mint and Blue Fruit Salad

Good morning! I thought we could all start our week off with some beautiful fresh fruit.

It has been ridiculously hot here for the past few days – over 100. I think the whole West has been experiencing this heat wave. Those temps aren’t unusal for a Salt Lake summer – but in June?! I was looking forward to a few more weeks of 80s before we moved into the triple digits! But instead we have highs in the 100s until Thursday, when it will be a cool 98. Eek!

Red, Mint and Blue Fruit Salad

Thank goodness for central air, lots of cold water, and fruit salads like this one. They are basically how I survived the weekend! (Oh and I made some ice cream, too. Just to keep cool, you know?) I’m snacking on this fruit salad as I type, and it’s wonderfully cooling and hydrating. I don’t usually make a conscious effort to choose hydrating snacks, but it strikes me as I’m munching that the water content is half the reason I’m enjoying it so much. Mmmmm melon.

…

Caprese Grain Salad with Spelt

June 24, 2013 by Erica

Caprese Grain Salad with Spelt

Caprese salad is one of my summertime favorites. I love how the fresh flavors somehow make red, white and green seem not at all Christmas-y!

I usually make a layered version, with big slices of vine-ripened tomatoes and fresh mozzarella sprinkled with sliced basil leaves, salt and pepper, and drizzled with olive oil. But I also have a soft spot for mini things (I think this is hard-wired into females of all species?), and little baby balls of mozzarella are no exception. So this time I decided to make a mini caprese, focusing on the awesome textures.

Caprese Grain Salad with Spelt

…

Connect