Category Archives: Tomatoes

Chopped Salad

Annie made this great chopped salad based on the “Chopped Mexican Salad with Roasted Peppers, Corn, Tomatoes & Avocado” recipe from Fine Cooking Magazine July 2006, p 57.

First, she roasted some seeded red bell peppers and corn in the oven with olive oil until the peppers were soft, then diced the peppers. She also diced up some tomatoes and avocado. She blanched some broccoli and chopped that up as well (the original recipe calls for diced jicama). All the ingredients were mixed together along with a drained can of black beans and garnished with chopped cilantro.

The dressing was a honey-lime-cumin vinaigrette which included garlic, lime juice, orange juice, shallots, honey, toasted ground cumin, olive oil and fresh ground black pepper. This is a great salad which has a lot of flavor and texture.

Aloha, Nate

Spinach, tomato, feta, cranberry and walnut salad

Craisins – cranberry raisins – are my new favorite snack food. I love their sweet-tart balance and the fact that it is healthy food. When I’ve got the munchies late at night I often will just reach into the bag (we buy the 48 oz bag from Costco) and take a handful or two.

Annie likes to use them in her scones but here is a quick salad that we tossed together using spinach, grape tomatoes, some feta cheese, the craisins, and some candied walnuts that Annie made using a recipe off of Epicurious.

Drizzle with a little EVOO-balsamic vinaigrette, and you’re good to go!

Aloha, Nate

Spinach and basil salad with bacon, roasted tomatoes, and candied walnuts

This time we’re gonna fancy up the salad a bit.

Annie roasted some grape tomatoes after tossing them in olive oil, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. She pan fried some bacon pieces to make some bacon fat. We made a dressing from EVOO, white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and bacon fat. Then we added the roasted tomatoes and tossed to coat them. We removed the tomatoes from the dressing and set aside.

Tossed together some fresh spinach leaves, whole fresh basil leaves, and a little bit of bacon with the dressing. Plated it up and sprinkled more bacon on top as well as the roasted tomatoes. Garnished with homemade candied walnuts.

This was a great tasting salad, definite do-over. I really liked the roasted tomatoes.

Aloha, Nate

Shrimp salad

Just a simple salad with romaine, red bell pepper, mushrooms, grape tomatoes, and shrimp sauteed in butter. Dressed with cilantro-lime dressing.

I generally don’t like to eat tomatoes out of season, so these tomatoes come from somewhere down south. Can’t wait to have some home grown tomatoes!

Aloha, Nate