Redone Healthified Southwestern Salad

If you missed it, we wrote yesterday about a salad that we thought would be good. We liked the promise, but the flavor fell flat. So today we're posting our redone version of it.

What's redone? Well, we left the salad ingredients alone, keeping everything that Eat Better America suggested. But Melissa really tweaked the dressing and the corn tortilla strips.

For the dressing, she used lime juice, orange juice concentrate, sour cream, green onions, cilantro, cumin, chili pepper, Arizona dreaming seasoning, garlic powder, salt, pepper and buttermilk. Oh my, was this a rich and tangy dressing, and we both love a super-tangy dressing. But it also had hints of the lime and of the heat, which helped cut the tanginess just enough.

And for the strips, Melissa simply drizzled lime juice and olive oil over them before salting and baking them.

Dressing
lime juice
1 teaspoon orange juice concentrate
1/2 cup sour cream
3 green onions, chopped
2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
cumin
chili pepper
Arizona dreaming
garlic powder
salt
pepper
1/4 cup buttermilk

Healthified Southwestern Salad

I know a lot of people enjoy just having a salad as a meal, and are inclined to do so by kicking up the number of ingredients and flavor.

And that's what I thought would happen when I saw this Eat Better America recipe for Healthified Southwestern Salad. But, alas, it did not.

Instead, we were left with a bland salad that should have tasted good. It provided us with inspiration on how to make it better, and how to make the flavors really shine in what should be a healthly, lighter meal. Check back tomorrow for our redone version.

BLT Bread Salad

The search for quick and easy mid-week meals never stops. And our supply of garden-grown lettuce is the same way -- at least it seems so.

Convergence occurred in the A Duo of Chefs household when the June 2010 Cooking Light magazine showed up. Inside was a great and easy recipe for BLT Bread Salad.

To prepare the salad, cut a loaf of bread into cubes and bake for about 18 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Meanwhile, take some of Wisconsin's own Nueske's bacon and cook it on the stove.

This recipe sounds delicious already, right?

The rest is super easy. Take bacon out and stir in oil, red wine vinegar, black pepper and salt -- the dressing is done.

Then combine lettuce, wedges of tomatoes, green onions, feta and crumbled bacon. Coat with dressing, then toss and serve.

Using some of that bacon fat as the dressing? Genius. The flavors are so incredibly awesome -- smoky, tart, rich. And yes, it does taste like a deconstructed BLT sandwich. Yeah, it was a good night.

Walnut, Cranberry and Balsamic Vinaigrette Salad with Chicken

We eat a fair amount of salads in our household, but it's generally just lettuce, croutons and dressing.

Well, last year, leading up to our wedding, we were sampling dishes by a caterer. And one of the dishes we tried had fruit, nuts and a vinaigrette. So we decided to take a try at replicating the dish.

Melissa made a simple marinade of orange juice, soy sauce, ginger and onion powder for the chicken. Then she cooked it at 375 degrees until it reached 165 degrees F. (When the chicken is done, we cut it on the bias.)

Meanwhile, she toasted the walnuts and made the vinaigrette. The vinaigrette was balsamic vinegar, honey, olive oil, dijon mustard, salt and pepper to taste. Then, in a mixing bowl, she mixed up the ingredients -- romaine, toasted walnuts, dried cranberries, feta cheese and the balsamic vinaigrette -- and transferred to a plate. We topped with the sliced chicken.

It was a pretty simple (and filling!) salad that had a great combination of crunchy and creamy, but it wasn't exactly the salad we remember. Oh, well, there's always another time.

Balsamic Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1/4 teaspoon salt

pepper to taste

Tell us: What's your favorite salad?

Greek Steak Salad with Sour Cream and Buttermilk Dressing

There's a reason (or several) that I love Melissa. And one of those reasons manifested itself recently. We were culinarily stuck and didn't feel like eating any of our leftovers. What's a couple to do?

Thankfully, Melissa had an idea to take ingredients from one of our recent meals, Greek Steak Pitas, and make a salad instead.

So we took some lettuce, which we had in abundance from my mom and from the farmers market, and added cut up flank steak, cucumbers, grape tomatoes and feta.

Melissa applied her culinary genius to prepare the salad dressing. She took some sour cream and added dried buttermilk mix (and water), some small bits of cucumbers and red onions and then some seasonings to taste. We didn't use lemon because we didn't have any, but she thought it would add a nice citrus touch.

Sour Cream and Buttermilk Dressing
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon buttermilk
2-3 cucumber slices, diced
1 teaspoon red onion, diced
1 teaspoon Greek seasoning
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
salt
pepper
lemon juice

Simply spoon some dressing over your salad and eat up. And if you have other items in your fridge -- maybe some olives? -- you could add those, too.


This was a great recipe for us because we had so much flank steak left over that we probably wouldn't go through on pitas alone. You might be well served cutting the dressing recipe in half; it makes enough for about 4 salads.

Nutrition Information
Servings: 4
Ingredients: Salad: red leaf lettuce, flank steak, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, feta, red onions; Dressing: sour cream, buttermilk, Greek seasoning, cucumber, red onion, lemon, garlic powder, salt, pepper
Calories: 230 per serving
Fat: 10.5 per serving
Fiber: 2.5g per serving
Price: $2.77 per serving

Herbed Greek Chicken Salad

We blogged last week about our first Mediterranean-themed meal and we ate the second one, Herbed Greek Chicken Salad, over the weekend.

Best of all, it's a salad recipe, which means making the dressing and then throwing the rest of the ingredients together. It's a good weeknight meal that comes from Cooking Light magazine.

First you will need to combine the seasoning mix and coat it over the cubed chicken pieces. Then place them in a pan and cook until done.


Then combine the ingredients for the dressing and let sit for a few minutes.


Then dole out the romaine, tomatoes, olives, chicken mixture and dressing and sprinkle some feta cheese on top.


The salad was, in a word, awesome. The romaine had a nice crunch and played well against the textures of the dressing, chicken and other vegetables. And the flavors were great, too. A quick and easy meal that we'll need to eat again.

Mediterranean Chicken Salad Pitas

It's Greek week in our household!

Melissa had found a few Greek recipes that she wanted to try recently, including one for Mediterranean Chicken Salad Pitas from Cooking Light, so we decided to try a couple out in one week. It helps maximize our grocery dollars as cuisine-specific ingredients (like Kalamata olives we got for a recipe later this week) do not linger around half-consumed after being used in just one recipe.

To top it off, this recipe is essentially chop, combine and toss with dressing, so it's a quick weeknight meal.

Mediterranean Chicken Salad Pitas
1 cup plain whole-milk Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
3 cups chopped cooked chicken
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped Kalamata olives
1/2 cup diced red onion
15 ounces chickpeas
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
6 (6-inch) whole wheat pitas, cut in half
Romaine lettuce leaves
1 Roma tomato, sliced

Combine the yogurt, lemon juice, cumin and crushed red pepper.


In a separate bowl, combine the chicken, bell pepper, olives, red onion, chickpeas, salt and pepper. (The original recipe called for cilantro, but stores around our market did not have any this past weekend.)

Mix yogurt mixture into chicken mixture and toss to coat.

Line a pita half with Romaine and slices of tomato. Scoop 1/2 cup of


First thing: If you're making for only two people, you might want to half the recipe unless you don't mind having several more meals worth of food leftover.

Flavor wise, though, the cilantro was missed a bit, but the ingredients certainly were very good even without it. We found that salt and pepper were necessary in our interpretation. And the Kalamata olives provided a nice flavor burst, too.

Couscous Salad with Chicken and Chopped Vegetables

This is yet another of our quick meals; really, the longest part is prepping all the vegetables. That's why the Couscous Salad with Chicken and Chopped Vegetables was a go for us.

The first thing to do is chop up all the vegetables: 1 cup of yellow bell pepper, 1/2 cup of chopped zucchini, 1/2 of diagonally cut carrots, 1/4 cup of green onions and 3 tablespoons of mint. Also, cut up 1 1/2 cups skinless, boneless rotisserie chicken.

The dressing is pretty simple: Just combine 1 cup plain low-fat yogurt, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 tablespoon honey and 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar and whisk.


Then, set up 1 1/2 cups water, 1 teaspoon olive oil and 3/4 teaspoon salt in a pot and bring to a boil. Then put 1 cup couscous in boiling mixture, take off from heat and let stand for 5 minutes.

In a skillet, add 2 teaspoons olive oil, bell pepper, zucchini, carrots and chicken (the chicken needed to be warmed up a bit).





(This is a test of video capability on our digital camera; there is no audio recorder on it, so there is no sound on the video.)

Then add that mixture to the fluffed-up couscous. Also add mint.

Toss the dressing over the couscous, chicken and vegetables. Add salt and pepper to taste.


Even omitting some ingredients (mushrooms because I'm not fond of them and currants because we didn't bother trying to find them), the meal was quite good. At first, I did not have enough salt. When I added a couple of dashes more, the flavors really stood out. The textures, too, provided for quite an array of experiences with every bite.

Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad

Oh, Cooking Light. Just where would we be without you to swoop in and provide us with such a fantastically delicious-looking recipe?

The dressing for the salad is first, so combine cilantro, sour cream, chipotle chile, cumin, chili powder, lime juice and salt and mix well; set aside.

Now for the main salad. The chicken needs to be cooked before it goes on the salad. We put a blend of spices on our chicken that included cumin, chili powder, paprika, coriander, cinnamon, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper.


Let chicken cool, then shred.

Then, in a large bowl, mix the lettuce, chicken, cherry or grape tomatoes, avocado, red onion, black beans and corn. Then coat with dressing; toss.

The flavors were mixed very well and the seasonings on the chicken blended well with the other ingredients. The dressing wasn't too heavy on the salad. And, aside from cooking the chicken, it is a very quick meal to toss together.

Homemade Salad Croutons

We've had a loaf of bread in our refrigerator for about a week now that we haven't touched. In part because I didn't want it to go bad, we decided today to make some homemade salad croutons.

We simply the last few pieces of bread on each end of the loaf into little cubes, laid them out on a baking tray and then sprinkled them with seasonings. We used parsley flakes, onion powder, garlic salt and oregano. We also had some small grated parmigiano reggiano on top. We baked them in the oven at 275 degrees.