A summer's worth (and fall) of simple salads

Summer is not a great time of year for someone who loves to cook... it's too hot to turn on the stove. It's definitely too hot to turn on the oven. It's even too hot on most days for me to lug my overpriced produce from Whole Foods... it's just too hot to think about food. Most of the things that really salt my cooking tomato (heh heh) are delicious soups and crispy roasted chickens and marinated baked tilapia.... Salad (and don't get me wrong i LOVE a salad) just isn't as exciting.

While I like to think of myself as a generally adventurous eater... I am EXTRA boring with summer salads. I can (and often do) eat the same salad for weeks on end; romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber marinated in vinegar and salt, some snap or snow peas (maybe) and grilled chicken, and I always dress my salads with lemon juice, olive oil and salt. DELICIOUS and refreshing but boring. Last week I stumbled upon a really great article by Mark Bittman, a New York Times food columnist, called 101 Simple Salads. I figured this was as good a time as any to try and expand my salad repertoire.

So... I am going to attempt to try at least 50 of the salads on Mark Bittman's list. The salads are separated into 6 "types"; vegan, vegetarian, meat, seafood, noodle and grain salads. There are hot and cold salads so I should be able to do this well into fall.

I started this little project last Wednesday and so far I've tried 3 new salads..

Salad 1: Tuna with black olives, capers, tomatoes, parsley and olive oil (#59)
I don't have a picture of this salad, unfortunately, but it was DELICIOUS. It was a good salad to start with because it's something I wouldn't have thought I'd have liked to so much. I'm generally not a huge fan of capers (unless they're on a bagel with cream cheese and tomato) and parsley is my LEAST favorite herb.... it's one of those ingredients that if I see it in a recipe, more likely than not, I won't make it. But I have to say the salad was GREAT. The salty/tanginess of the black olives and capers really complimented the earthy-ness of the parsely and tuna was the perfect choice of protein. MMMM my mouth is watering just thinking about it. When I went to DC this weekend I was actually craving parsley... and almost ordered a pizza with parsley on it.. somethign I would have NEVER done before eating this salad. Good job Mark Bittman. Totally opening up my mind... and my palate :-p
-Would I eat this salad again? Most Def!
-Would I serve this to company- Yep!
- Did I learn anything from this salad experience?- Yes I learned that parsley isn't the unwanted stepchild of the herb world...
- Salad rating: Solid A

Salad 2: Seared steak with dinosaur kale, black olives, olive oil and sherry vinegar. (#79)
This was the first of the "hot salads" that I tried. I was ok... nothing to write home about. I first seared the steak in a hot skilled and cooked it for about 2 min on each side. While the pan was still hot, I tossed in thin strips of the dino kale let that sizzle down for a minute or 2, and then added the olives, oil and sherry vinegar. Eh.. it was ok. The steak was delicious... but then again what's not to like about beef seasoned simply with salt, pepper, garlic powder and tumeric... but the Kale was nothing to write home about. Kale is my favorite green, so I liked it, but it tasted pretty much like any other kale dish I make. For some reason I thought the mixture of the olives, steak, kale and sherry vinegar would be a new taste experience.... it wasn't. If anything I thought the black olives competed with the vinegary kale. So...
-Would I eat this salad again? As a combo, probably not.
-Would I serve this to company- I'd serve the steak with a side of kale, but not as a "salad" and not with the olives.
- Did I learn anything from this salad experience?- Yes. Olives don't go with kale and Tumeric is a great addition to a steak rub.
- Salad rating: C-

Salad 3: Arugula salad with whole wheat penne, parmesan, lemon zest and olive oil. (#85)
Another hit for Mr. Bittman! So this salad is made by combining, a big bowl of arugula, with a little bit of slightly cold penne, lots of lemon zest (I zested a full lemon), olive oil and parmesan cheese. I added some grilled chicken... just because I like meat :-p I figured I'd like this but I wasn't sure how impressed I would be with it (I mean... what's not to like about arugula, pasta, cheese and olive oil?) but it was really great! The mixture of the spicy arugula and the tangy lemon zest/olive oil was perfect. The parm added a nice bit of saltiness and the penne made the salad seem way more substantial and hearty than an arugula and lemon zest salad should be. I don't use lemon zest very often... I always think of it as kind of bitter and I just have bad childhood memories of my mom always ruining a perfectly good, nutmeggy pound-cake with dried lemon zest... but I've started to come around on the lemon zest. Between this dish and this chicken, lemon, mint dish that I made recently, I've slowly becoming a fan of the zest.
-Would I eat this salad again? Yep. I would eat it again tonight if I wasn't doing this salad challenge :-)
-Would I serve this to company- Absolutely.
- Did I learn anything from this salad experience?- Yep... Lemon zest, while a foe of nutmeg, can be a friend of arugula :-)
- Salad rating: A