Ingredient: of garlic

Italian Chopped Salad

The dog days of summer mean salads for days. The weather is hot but this Italian Chopped Salad is cool, crisp, and delicious. When the temperatures soar I find myself craving cooling raw foods and not wanting to spend much time in the kitchen. Who can be bothered heating up the oven, clicking on a burner or even standing by a hot BBQ grill? On many summer days, I can’t.

There is no cooking involved in this Italian Chopped Salad. It only requires a bit of chopping and assembling. You can even prep the salad ingredients and dressing ahead of time. Then, you just need to take a few minutes to assemble the salad. Viola! Dinner is served.

How to Make an Italian Chopped Salad

The steps necessary to make an Italian Chopped Salad are combine crisp Romaine lettuce with a few handfuls of colorful spring mix salad greens for a beautiful base.

For the chopped part of the salad, rinse and drain a can of artichoke hearts and then halve or quarter them depending on their size. You want to have bite-size pieces. No awkward large pieces! For the roasted red pepper, I cut it once around the equator (horizontally around the middle) and then into thin strips.

Halve the olives. Be sure to use nice olives for this salad. Skip the canned olives. Kalamata olives are typically sold in glass jars and have better taste and texture than the canned counterparts. Drain and rinse the chickpeas and then toast the pine nuts.

To make the dressing, in a small bowl or Mason jar, combine olive oil (or tahini if you are trying to reduce processed oils), mustard, apple cider vinegar, honey, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and garlic. Shake or whisk to combine.

I like to serve the Italian Chopped Salad on a large platter or bowl. Then, layer the greens, artichoke hearts, roasted red pepper, olives, and chickpeas, toss salad with dressing and top with toasted pine nuts. I like my salads to be lightly dressed so add about half the dressing then toss. You can always add more but you can’t take any out once you’ve poured it on!

Here are few other salads that you might enjoy

Veggie Pot Pie

Who can resist taking a fork and plunging it through a light flaky crust into a warm, flavorful gravy that is filled with vegetables? Not this girl. There is something so satisfying about assembling this Veggie Pot Pie, warming up the house with the oven while it bakes, and then hovering around the stove inhaling deeply the delicious scent while waiting for the pot pie to finish baking.

As I have mentioned before in the recipe for Tomato Galette, homemade pie crusts and I seem to be in a battle of the wills. I will cut to the chase here, I lose that battle over and over again. Because of that, I always keep a prepared pie crust from the refrigerator section in my freezer. I cannot wait for the day where I change that narrative for myself and start making pie crusts from scratch. I know that day is coming, I am just not sure when.

Veggie Pot Pie is quick and easy to make. You can use any veggies that you and your family like but I typically go with onion, carrot, garlic, celery, peas, and mushrooms. If you eat meat you can add leftover rotisserie chicken from the store to the pot pie filling mixture.

A few ingredients that I like to add to my filling are a splash of soy sauce and a teaspoon of miso paste, if you have it on hand. Both of those ingredients add so much flavor to the filling. You can make the pot pie in a pie-sized baking dish or if you prefer, you can make individual servings in smaller ramekins. If you make individual servings I would place the ramekins on a baking sheet so the pot pies are easy to place in and remove from the oven.

I only use a top crust for this Veggie Pot Pie and as you can see from the photo the top crust is pretty basic. Someday, I aspire to be pie fancy like the crusts in this video.

How to Make Veggie Pot Pie

Roasted Cauliflower with Tahini Sauce and Pomegranate Seeds

Steamed cauliflower stinks. Growing up I couldn’t stand the smell that would permeate beyond the kitchen when my Mom would steam cauliflower. So, for years I didn’t think that I liked cauliflower because it would never make it past my lips based on the smell alone.

Then, one day I discovered roasted cauliflower and my entire world view of cauliflower completely changed. Suddenly, I couldn’t get enough of the stuff. I often have cauliflower in my grocery cart during the winter months especially when the availability of fresh locally-grown produce is sparse.

Have you tried roasting cauliflower? I want to urge you to give it go if you’ve only had it steamed and didn’t care for it. You might find that roasting cauliflower changes your mind. I love cauliflower roasted simply with olive oil, salt, and pepper. But, sometimes you want a dish that has a little more pizzazz.

I think this roasted cauliflower with tahini sauce and pomegranate seeds could be a star of your holiday table. Or, it would brighten up a dreary winter meal. The pomegranate seeds make the dish sparkle!

The cauliflower is seasoned with an array of warming spices including sumac. Sumac is commonly used in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking. If you aren’t familiar with sumac, it is well worth adding this lemony-flavored spice to your pantry. Sumac can be found as Middle Eastern markets or ordered online. Buying new spices is one of the reasons I love shopping at ethnic markets.

Tahini is crushed sesame seed paste and a crucial ingredient in hummus, baba ghanoush (roasted eggplant dip), and halva (a sweet confection which was a childhood favorite of mine). Tahini is available in most supermarkets in the ethnic food aisle. You will want to give the paste a stir before using because much like natural peanut butter, tahini can separate when sitting on the shelf.