Salads & Side Dishes
veggies, potatoes, and other lovely sides...along with the most glorious salads.
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Southwest Ranch Dressing
This Southwest Ranch Dressing is amazing. Trust me and make it.
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Green Bean Casserole {Deconstructed}
Finding these gorgeous Haricot Verts at the Farmers’ Market warranted a special recipe. Something just as fresh with flavor as they are. Hmm…green beans, first thing that came to mind is Green Bean Casserole. Not envisioning the from a can variety but instead a bed of creamy mushroom & thyme sauce, topped with these vibrant green beans, sprinkled with crispy onions and shaved Parmesan cheese. Now that could be amazing.
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Chicken Salad with Avocado & Cilantro {in a Taco Salad Shell}
Half of our motivation to roast a whole chicken each week is for the leftover cooked chicken and the makings of homemade chicken broth. The other half this week was to find an excuse to make Tortilla Crispy Taco Salad Shells….again. And so the Chicken Salad with Avocado & Cilantro Taco Salad was born.
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Mexican Green Bean & Potato Salad
If you can kick up a basic Roast Chicken recipe simply by changing the seasonings, why can’t you kick up your favorite potato salad the same way? Okay, that was a rhetorical question since clearly I have already done that, thus this post. However, every time one of those little light bulbs go off I feel the need to share.
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Orzo Salad with Peppercorn & Balsamic Poached Pears {Share the Love}
I am loving my new star ingredients from Oli+Ve, Blackberry Ginger Balsamic Vinegar. In fact I’ll be back for refills this weekend. Whenever I have the opportunity to cook for a group, small or large, I love to try something new. It’s risky (if it flops) but measuring the mmmm mmm good tells you best whether it’s a keeper or history.
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Lemon Blackberry Vinaigrette
Creating wonderful vinaigrettes or marinades is so easy when you have these beautiful ingredients to work with. I started with Peppercorn & Balsamic Poached Pears which yielded a wonderful balsamic reduction to use as the base for my vinaigrette.
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Peppercorn & Balsamic Poached Pears
I discovered a lovely new shop for premium olive oils & balsamic vinegars. I came home with Blackberry Ginger Balsamic, among others. The flavor is so wonderful. Sweet, yet balanced by vinegar tart with a smooth finish. I’m now on a mission to come up with as many ways to incorporate it into my meals as possible.
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Lemony Thyme Orzotto {Featuring Roasted Cushaw Squash}
Let me introduce you to the Cushaw Squash, pictured on the right. Thanks to the generosity of our wonderful new co-worker Cindy, several of us came home with one of these big beauties. What we were told is the cushaw is a wonderful alternative to pumpkin and is often used in pies. Never passing on free home grown produce, I picked the biggest one from the bushel that I could carry. And then I found it a place in one of my pantry baskets to sit tight until a recipe inspiration came to me. And so it sat….making friends and small talk with it’s cousin spaghetti, flirting a little with butternut while bragging about her superior sweetness, all…
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Maple Brown Sugar Baked Acorn Squash
I’ve been visiting the local farmers’ market most weeks since it opened back in June. It has made quite an evolution over these very short 8+ weeks. What a treat to find these babies nestled in a basket at this week’s market. Could it be fall is just around the corner? I will be sad to see the summer produce go, but my fall recipe folder is exploding with ideas!!
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Blueberry & Mango Quinoa Salad with Lemony Basil Vinaigrette {Share the Love}
Today I had the pleasure of cooking for my work family. I believe if you’re going to call a mandatory meeting during the lunch hour, at minimum provide them a lunch made with love. And so we did. We had an Antipasto tray, Mexican Chicken Soup, Tomato Bread Salad, Caprese Salad, Melon Carpaccio, and Blueberry & Mango Quinoa Salad with Lemony Basil Vinaigrette. We had planned to have fresh baked cookies for dessert. Leftover lunch turned into 3 o’clock break snacks and cookies were declared ‘tomorrow’s’ treat.
