sprinklefingers

i can’t believe i’m going to say this, but, sometimes i just want a huge salad for dinner. 

generally i arrive to work at 4am. sometimes 4:15. or 4:17. in order to make this possible, my alarm goes off at 3:30am. at this time of the morning (which is, basically, still night,) the last thing i want to do is think about packing a lunch. because of this, right around 9am everyday i eat a cookie. and then perhaps a few bites of a tart. and then maybe a bit of pie. all of this adds up to trouble. delicious trouble, yes, but still trouble.

to make a loooong and butter-filled story short, because of all the eating i do at work, sometimes i just need a salad. 

thankfully the world of salad is so vast and so tasty - coming up with something perfect (and fast) is never difficult. sometimes i simply throw together some greens and a bit of veg and call it good, other times i get a bit more complicated. but one thing is true: the more effort you put into a salad, the more delicious it is. homemade dressings, roasted vegetables, grilled protein - all of it can add up to a dinner that’s much more than just a salad. 

one thing i love in salad is an onion. but a raw onion is sometimes too powerful for me. and a grilled onion? sometimes i just don’t want to fire up the grill. a roasted onion? same thing…after working an oven most of the day at work, i sometimes prefer my evenings to be oven-free.

thankfully the amazing michael ruhlman has an answer to my onion-in-salad conundrum: behold the blanched onion.

in all my years of salad eating, i have never thought to blanch an onion. blanching takes the sharpness out of the onion leaving behind the sweetness…and an onion of perfect texture for a salad. you really, really should try it. really.

blanched onions

you need: 

• 2 large yellow onions, peeled and thinly sliced
• very icy ice bath

blanch the onions: 

1. bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. (hint: use more salt than you think you should, and your onions will be perfectly seasoned.)
2. add the onion slices to the boiling water and boil for one full minute.
3. remove the onions from the water and plunge into the prepared ice bath.
4. let the onions sit in the ice bath for two minutes, then remove to a paper towel-lined plate.
5. make a salad! use these onions! and if you don’t use them all, they’ll hold over in the fridge perfectly.

i’ll be the first to admit i’m taking great liberties with the word ‘salad’ lately.
it all started around easter when i decided we’d eat nothing but salad for dinner and call it a diet. of course, the majority of our salads have contained salami or bacon. hell, i even managed to work pâté into a ‘salad’ one night. i apparently have a very wide grey area when it comes to salad. and i have to say, that’s probably a good thing or my husband wouldn’t still be agreeing to sit down to a bowl of lettuce and vegetables each night.

he’s from bend. bend, oregon. it’s an interesting place. one that i have a love-hate relationship with. (i mean, seriously, no matter how many times you tell me that the smell permeating the air is in fact juniper or sage or whatever, i’m STILL gonna think a cat pissed all over my jacket.) but he loves bend, and his entire family still lives there, so we go to bend. (but, to be honest, it’s kind of hard to enjoy myself while i’m there because i’m concentrating so hard on not breathing in through my nose.)

but enough about me.
he was raised by two lovely people. he grew up on a lot of land with a pony and with tons of encouragement to be whatever he wanted to be. while his father owned a paving company that literally paved more than half of bend back in the day, my husband decided to study musical theater. at college. and while he has always been in a band, has always been in the theater and loves really whiney songwriters, he also does stuff like go hunting, bomb down rivers in a kayak and bike 40 miles in one day. for fun. (i should explain now that i learned the word ‘bomb’ from him and would never really talk like that unless making specific fun of his hobbies.)

feeding a man who is equally comfortable attending the symphony as he is drinking whiskey and shooting guns* can sometimes be tricky. while i tend to shy away from serious meat at meal times, i know his gun shooting side definitely craves the stuff. so when i declared that we’d be eating nothing but salad for dinner for the foreseeable future, it’s only understandable that he looked somewhat disappointed.

and then a giant box of meat arrived from nueske’s. granted, the box really only contained pork products, but it was enough meat for my hybrid mountain man/renaissance man to accept his future of salads for dinner. here’s one of his favorites:

nueske’s bacon-wrapped asparagus salad
serves 3-4 as a dinner salad, more as a side salad

you need:

• 1 bundle (not thin but not thick) asparagus, washed and trimmed
• 1 lb bacon, best you can buy
• mixed greens for all - i usually measure out 3-4 large handfuls of lettuce per dinner salad
• 1 carrot, shaved into ribbons with a vegetable peeler
• 1 avocado, cut into small chunks
• 1 small chunk blue cheese, preferably this one
• delicious salad dressing - preferably something mustardy, like this one

make the salad:

1. preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. set a metal cooling rack inside a rimmed sheet tray.
3. slice the pound of bacon in half so that you now have twice as many slices as you started with.
4. working one spear at a time, wrap the bacon around the asparagus and place it on the cooling rack in the sheet tray, loose ends down. no need to worry about pinning the bacon down with a toothpick or anything - as the bacon shrinks it will stick with the asparagus.
5. roast the bacon-wrapped asparagus for 20 minutes or until the bacon reaches your desired level of doneness.
6. meanwhile, layer the lettuces, carrot ribbons, avocado and blue cheese in a large salad bowl. drizzle dressing over top.
7. when the bacon and asparagus are finished, remove them from the sheet tray to a cutting board. slice the spears into manageable pieces and add them to the salad. don’t worry if some asparagus slips out of the bacon. once you toss the salad they’ll do that anyway.
8. top the salad off with a bit more dressing, toss and serve with salt & pepper.

* he promises me he does not do these two things simultaneously.

i’m on as close as i can get to the d-word.

the d-word being DIET.

it all started when even my stretch pants were starting to feel a bit snug. actually, that’s not true. it all really started when i decided it was a good idea to eat 9 cookies for lunch instead of eating something more sensible…I did that one day and then it was a slippery slope from there…soon it was happening all the time.

for those of you new to sprinklefingers (hi! how are you? thanks for joining me!), i own a bakery. and i’m currently in the middle of opening a new shop with a new menu…which means i’m constantly in the test kitchen…which means i’m constantly testing my creations…which means even my stretch pants don’t fit.

so, i’m on a d-word. it’s not that bad, really. here’s how my version of a d-word works:

i eat whatever i want or need (for work!) to eat each day.

typically this includes:

• oatmeal for breakfast, (sometimes this oatmeal is mixed with maple syrup and whole milk and baked, but at least it’s oatmeal, right?)
• several handfuls of chocolate pistoles. (I’m still not convinced Felchlin is the right chocolate, so i keep trying others.)
• a piece of fruit. (sometimes this fruit is coated in butter and sugar and baked into pastry.)
• some kind of lunch. (sometimes cookies. sometimes a salami sandwich. sometimes a granola bar. sometimes just a coffee.)
• test kitchen results: if it’s delicious i never eat less than two of whatever it is i’ve made. if it’s simply good and not delicious, i’ll just eat one. (yesterday i made peanut butter & jelly oatmeal cream pies and i ate two of them.)

and then - and this is where the d-word comes in - i have:

a salad for dinner.

but not just any salad. a delicious salad overflowing with roasted or shaved veggies, specially-selected cheeses (just a touch), a bit of fruit and a splash of homemade dressing.

use the following guide to create your own salad fit for the d-word!

salad for dinner salad

first you need vegetables:

shaved carrots, zucchini & beets: wash the carrots, zucchini & beets and then, using a sharp vegetable peeler, shave off their outer layer THEN shave them into paper-thin ribbons. shorter ribbons are more manageable when eating, but longer ribbons are fun to wind around your fork.

roasted vegetables: preheat your oven to 400. fill a rimmed sheet tray with your favorite washed vegetables. try these: brussels sprouts (halved), asparagus, green beans, snap peas, fingerling potatoes (halved), mushrooms, onions - really, whatever looks good at the market will make the perfect addition to your salad. once your selections are on the sheet tray, drizzle them with a touch of olive oil and sprinkle on some salt & pepper. roast the veggies for about 20 minutes and check on them - keep them in the oven until they reach your desired state of roasted-veggie-ness.

then there’s cheese:

cheese: lately i’ve been stuck on two cheeses: an 8 month manchego and cave-aged gruyere. i shave cheeses just like i do carrots - then thin ribbons of cheese get layered into the salad…delicious!

how ‘bout some fruit?

fruit: we liked diced apple or thinly sliced strawberries. apple goes well with gruyere and the manchego is delicious with strawberries.

let’s get dressed!

dressing: lately we’ve only been using olive oil and quality balsamic vinegar. plus some salt & pepper. (see below for more on dressing.)

putting your salad together:

this step relies heavily upon your taste. i would never add the entire sheet tray of roasted vegetables to a salad - i’d just add a bit and then refrigerate the rest for tomorrow’s salad - so, really, the amounts of all the salad components are totally up to you.

1. find your favorite salad serving bowl and in it place a layer of greens (or spinach!) or a combination of both.
2. on top of the lettuces, add your selection of shaved vegetables. then add some of roasted vegetables, the cheese and the fruit.
3. once all of the components are in your serving bowl, drizzle a bit of olive oil over everything, and then add a few splashes of good balsamic vinegar. top with a bit of salt & pepper and perhaps a squeeze of a lemon or orange, then give everything a really good mix. taste a few leaves of lettuce - does the dressing taste right? if not, adjust: add a bit more vinegar or a drizzle more of oil.

we have been eating some version of this salad every night for weeks now.

wait. that’s a lie. we’ve been eating salad for dinner for weeks - until last night when the salad was joined by a bottle of champagne and some country pâté. we didn’t really cheat on our d-word, we simply felt like getting a little fancy. and i swear to you, it’s back to just salad tonight.




ps: yes, we drink bubbly from champagne saucers. so fancy!