Grilled chicken salad with lemon tahini dressing

We braved the sweltering back yard long enough to pick salad greens before both they and we wilted. A quick wash and trip through the salad spinner followed by a trip to the chill chest worked wonders for reviving the lettuce. A quick batch of Harney's raspberry herbal ice tea helped pick us up a bit, enough to contemplate how to make a dent in a very large bowl of fresh greens. I had a grilled chicken breast on hand, so this seemed like a logical solution.

Grilled chicken salad with lemon tahini dressing

Ingredients
1 chicken breast
4 to 5 cups fresh salad greens
1/4 cup thin slices of cucumber
6 cherry tomatoes, sliced
Lemon tahini dressing
Quick garlic croutons

Method
Lightly brush chicken breast with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill about 10 minutes until done, depending on thickness. Let rest until cool enough to slice into thin slices.

Place 2 tablespoons of dressing in a large bowl. Add salad greens and toss to coat, adding more greens or dressing as needed. Transfer to serving plates. Top salad with sliced chicken, cucumber, tomatoes and croutons. Drizzle with more salad dressing as desired.

Quick garlic croutons: Cut 3 slices of a sturdy bread like sourdough into 1-inch cubes. (I practically cheated by using the remnant of last week's cheddar herb bread from Asa Red Wheat Bakery -- so good.) Place on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, some dried thyme and a bit of powdered garlic. Bake for 5 minutes at 350 until brown and crispy.

Lemon tahini dressing

From “The Complete Kitchen Garden” by Ellen Ecker Ogden

½ cup fresh lemon juice

½ cup olive oil

½ cup tahini

2 tablespoons honey

2 large garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon salt

Pepper to taste

Combine lemon juice, olive oil, tahini, honey, garlic, salt and pepper in a food processor. This makes at least 1½ cup, so you'll have leftovers.

Rating: This dressing is tasty, with a nice sharp tang from the fresh lemon juice. But it's a bit gloppy. If you're looking for a drizzleable dressing, I'd suggest starting with a quarter cup of tahini instead and adding more if needed.  As is, it's more the kind of dressing that binds things together, which sometimes you want, but probably not when just tossing with loose greens. It worked well with the chicken, however.

Smoked salmon asparagus pasta

 

This is one of those "what's in the house" meals that happens after you've had one of those "why we live here" Saturday morning runs. First stop is the Midtown Farmers Market, followed by Surdyk's for the Belgian beer sale, then Kramarczuk's because we were close by, then Bill's Imported Foods for a vat of olive oil, feta and kalamatas; a quick library stop for a cookbook and a British mystery, then Kowalski's to fill in the gaps and home by the parkway for the spring blooming trees show.

Somewhere in there, some really nice looking smoked salmon landed in our cart, and a quick google on the phone brought me to this recipe. A trip through our potted herbs on the patio rounded out the meal. The ability to wander a few feet from the side door and come back with a bowl brimming with random acts of herbs is one of my favorite parts of spring. That and the frothy crabapple out front even now being plied by dozens of hungry little bees.

Smoked salmon asparagus pasta

Adapted from The Splendid Table''s Penne With Smoked Trout, Cream and Asparagus

Ingredients

1 pound pasta, such as penne or farfalle

½ pound asparagus, ends trimmed

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 large garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 packed cup of fresh herbs (I used basil, chives, lemon thyme, tarragon and marjoram)

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 cup cream or half and half

8 ounces smoked fish, such as salmon or trout

 

Method

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Chop asparagus into 2-inch pieces.

Add some salt and pasta to the boiling water. Cook for 5 minutes. Add asparagus to the pot and cook until pasta is al dente. Drain, reserving some pasta water.

In a large saute pan, heat olive oil. Cook garlic until fragrant. Add herbs, lemon zest and juice, cream and salt and pepper to taste. Add smoked fish and cooked pasta and asparagus. Toss together, adding some pasta water if mixture seems dry. Serves 4.

Rating: Spring really did happen. A very nice combination of flavors makes a quick at-home evening meal, and is nice enough you wouldn't mind serving it to company. I used half and half because it's what I had on hand, and I think it was rich enough.

And all of it brought to you by one happy trunkload.

Triple almond raspberry scones

 

This recipe had a triple dose of almond flavors, so it definitely had my name on it. 

Speedy raspberry almond scones

Adapted from Rachael Ray Everyday, May 2016

Ingredients

1 cup flour

1 cup almond flour

¼ cup sugar

1½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

6 ounces fresh raspberries

1 1/3 cup heavy cream

2 teaspoons almond extract

3 tablespoons sliced almonds

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix flours, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add raspberries and toss to coat.

Mix cream and almond extract together. Add to flour mixture (it will be on the sticky side). Drop batter on to parchment sheet in 8 mounds. (I used a heaping ¼ cup spoon for starters.) Place them as far apart on the baking sheet as you have room for, because they will spread a lot. Sprinkle with almonds.

Bake for 22-25 minutes until golden. 

Rating: These taste fine, although not as almondy as you might expect given the ingredient list. Like most "drop" scones, they lack the nice crumb texture and uniform looks you get in traditional butter-cut-in rolled-out scones. They remind me of a recipe I have for blueberry drop biscuits in terms of consistency. But they are indeed super speedy to make, and something you're likely to have all the ingredients on hand for when it finally becomes raspberry season. 

The magazine notes that these could make a good shortcut to a raspberry shortcake by splitting them and topping them with more berries and whipped cream. That might be their best use, but they did make a fast Sunday breakfast that was reasonably tasty. Just don't expect them to be scones, or very almondy.

Picnic maple ginger red beans

 
Just a very few weeks ago, it looked like winter would never, ever end, and that this would be the year the glaciers reformed and traveled down I-94.

And now the farmers market is back, the trees are blooming, and it's picnic weather again.

The perfect time for a little bit of planned spontaneity. Oxymoronic, you say? Not entirely. Planning that can enable spontaneity isn't really cheating. It's making sure you have your wallet on hand on a delightful spring day in case you might find yourself on the patio at Sandcastle again. Or stocking up on ingredients that let you decide to assemble a quick backpack picnic in a half hour.

This recipe definitely helped, since it comes together really quickly and I usually have a "can" of beans lurking in my freezer. Plus, it's picnic friendly so even if you don't eat all the beans you take, they won't spoil before you get home. And they reheat just fine.

We paired this with a quick slaw tossed with light olive oil, a splash of toasted sesame oil and seasoned rice wine vinegar, another picnic winner.

I made curried chicken salad sandwiches by combining in a food processor 2 cut-up cooked chicken breasts, 3 tablespoons mango chutney, the zest of 1 orange, 1 scant teaspoon curry powder, 5 tablespoons of yogurt or mayo or a combo of the two, and 1 tablespoon pickle juice. By hand, stir in 2 diced celery stalks and 2 chopped green onions. Spread on bread and top with some greenery; I used pea shoots that called out to me at the farmers market.

Lots of things called out to me at the market, and it wasn't just the Wisconsin cheese barker. In addition to old friends, we've got a new bread baker again, an oil/vinegar stand that makes a really tasty lemon flavored variety that's an instant favorite and a new pickle person. Delightful dill pickles from the latter supplied our all-important pickle/condiment component of the picnic above the lake. All that and 8,400 steps round-trip to help walk it off.

Oh yeah, that's why we live here. Good to remember again.

Maple ginger red beans

Adapted from “The Spoonriver Cookbook” by Brenda Langton and Margaret Stuart

Ingredients

3 cups cooked small red beans*

2 tablespoons maple syrup

2 tablespoons ginger puree

1 tablespoon soy sauce (I used teriyaki sauce as well once when I ran out)

1 teaspoon salt

Method

Heat up cooked beans in a pan. When warmed, add maple syrup, soy sauce and salt. Cook a few minutes longer to let the flavors blend and serve warm or at room temperature.

Rating: Really nicely flavored with an excellent balance of sweet and sour. A great variation on the usual baked beans at picnics. Very pantry friendly, and speedy if you’re starting with cooked beans …

* Note: Achieve cooked beans however you prefer. Obviously 2 15-ounce cans of beans is fastest, and sometimes that’s necessary. My favorite way is to soak the beans in water overnight, then drain the beans, discarding any chaff. Place the beans in a slow cooker. Top with an onion cut into large chunks, a few peppercorns, two whole cloves, 1 teaspoon of salt per pound of beans and whatever herbs you’ve got handy. Cover with water by 2 inches. Cover and cook on low for anywhere from 4 to 8 hours, depending on whether you bothered to presoak the beans, how big they are, and whether you want really soft beans for soup or firmer beans for a salad. I think they cook best 2 pounds at a time, so you wind up with a lot. Divide up in the freezer storage boxes (including the liquid to help avoid freezer burn) in “can” size measures: 1¾ cup of actual beans, about 2 cups of bean/liquid combo. These beans are so much more flavorful and this lets you control the texture and salt factor. And now you're ready when the urge for a quick picnic side dish strikes.