Pear & Baby Greens Salad w/ Spiced Maple Walnuts | The Austen Escape | #JaneAustenBites

Welcome to the TLC Book Tours stop for The Austen Escape by Katherine Reay! I'll start by saying that I am very excited to be on this tour for a couple of reasons. First, I'm familiar with Reay by name, not (and I'm ashamed to admit this) because I've actually read any of her novels, rather because I've been meaning to read them. There's just never enough time in the day, is there?

Citrus Salad with Honey-Tarragon Vinaigrette | #ProgressiveEats

Does your body ever crave something, but you just can't figure out what? You walk through the kitchen, opening the fridge, then the pantry, then the fridge, then the pantry—and still, nothing seems right? When this happens to me, that yearning can usually only be satisfied with one of two things: dark leafy greens or citrus fruit.

Roasted Carrot and Farro Salad

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Land O'Lakes, Inc. All opinions are my own.

Nothing puts a bounce in my step like the onset of fall. Cool, crisp days replace the oppressive heat, and a sense of renewal fills my body. Cool weather fruits and vegetables bejewel my little part of the Midwest with rich reds, oranges, and gold around every corner. College football, sweaters and sweatshirts, hayrides, the pumpkin patch, corn mazes...I could go on.

Broccoli Salad with Bacon, Golden Raisins, & Sunflower Seeds

This is one of those classic salads that everybody and their mother has a recipe for. They're all basically the same, but with little personal touches. It's actually not something I grew up with. I got a recipe from a co-worker when I did a brief stint selling motorhome windshields just out of college (no, that's not a joke - I even met Arlo Guthrie when his tour bus windshield cracked and he stopped in to get a new one).

We used to have certain days of the month where we'd bring in food, potluck-style, and a girl I worked with brought in a broccoli salad. Like most people, I was smitten. She wrote the recipe out neatly (and misspelled - "Brocolli Salad") on a pink index card that I still have today. Originally I made it exactly as written. My family started to not only look forward to it but to expect it on the table at our extended-family holiday meals.

Over the years, I've tweaked that original recipe a bit by reducing the sugar, changing the color of raisins that I prefer in it, upping the amount of bacon (duh!), and adding sunflower seeds. As written today, this is pretty much my personal favorite version of this salad...although I'd happily eat your favorite version as well.

Broccoli Salad

Tiny broccoli florets, bacon, golden raisins, sunflower seeds, and red onion are folded together with a sweet and tangy dressing in this classic salad.

by Heather Schmitt-Gonzalez

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Keywords: side bacon broccoli American

Ingredients (serves 8-10)

• 1 pound bacon
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• pinch of fine sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 2 large broccoli crowns
• 3/4 cup golden raisins (or a mix of colors)
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup finely diced red onion

Instructions

Cut the bacon into small strips (or dice if slab). Cook until crisp, drain the grease off, and set the bacon aside.

In the meantime, stir the mayonnaise, sugar, vinegar, salt, and several grates of black pepper into a bowl until smooth. Allow to sit for 15 minutes.

Cut the broccoli into very small florets (reserve stalks for another use) and put into a large bowl; you should have about 6 cups of tiny florets. Add the raisins, sunflower seeds, onion, and reserved bacon to the bowl and toss everything together.

Drizzle the dressing over the salad, then use a rubber spatula or spoon to turn and mix until everything is coated evenly in the dressing.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 24 hours before serving.

Notes:

If you don't have White Wine Vinegar, you can substitute plain white vinegar, cider vinegar, or champagne vinegar

Tangled Apple, Pistachio, and Golden Raisin Salad

It's transition time in the world of food. Peaches, corn, tomatoes and zucchini battle apples and pumpkin for our attention on food blogs, twitter, and pinterest. And I'll be honest—I'm torn. I'm totally an autumn kinda girl, willing the cooler air, football games, and apple orchards in with all my might. But, there's still about a month left of summer, and now is the time for trying to keep up with the summer harvest.

There are worse dilemmas to have.

I think August and September just have to be transitional months. A little bit of summer and a little bit of fall. That's a compromise I can work with. Today I'm looking forward to fall with a fresh, simple apple salad that lends itself nicely to cool weather lunches and potlucks.

Red Fruit Salad

Red. The color of love and passion. It's bold. It's exciting. It draws the most eyes in any crowd. It disappears first in any candy jar. So, while it's important to eat the rainbow in order to get the best variety of nutrients and antioxidants, sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind and embrace the intensity that is RED!

Who doesn't go crazy for sweet, juicy red fruit and berries at their peak? Who else has to purchase an extra pint of wild strawberries from the farmers market...just so that you'll actually have some left by the time you get home?

I've probably mentioned it a time or five before—for me, there's no season like cherry season. Is it wrong to eat one's weight in cherries? I think not.

(Almost) Nancy's Chopped Salad with Oregano Vinaigrette

It's the second Wednesday of the month, and that means it's time for another edition of the Blogger C.L.U.E. Society! Our theme this month is PICNIC FOOD, and my assignment was Authentic Suburban Gourmet. Authentic Suburban Gourmet is the creative expression of Lisa, a successful executive by day, who uses creativity and thoughts (authentic) and readily available ingredients (suburban) with an elegant and sophisticated touch (gourmet) for cooking, creating, and entertaining. To learn more about this born and bred Bay Area foodie, check out her about page.

It wasn't hard finding inspiration for a picnic at Lisa's place. I could see myself spreading out on a blanket under a shady tree to unpack a basket filled with everything from Oven Roasted Tomato and Goat Cheese Tarts to French Cheese Straws (alongside some fruit and other nibbles) to a Grilled Egg and Olive Sandwich. Oh, and of course a good bottle of wine to accompany everything, and these perfect little Apricot, Blueberry and Cardamom Hand Pies to finish things off.

Southwest Salad in a Jar

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Sargento. The opinions and text are all mine.

If you were to ask me which one show I'd like to appear on, my answer would be Chopped. It's actually one of the shows my whole family will sit down in front of the tv to watch. It's fun and fast-paced, and best of all, it inspires creativity and banter—in the show and at home. Each person is shouting out what they'd make with the four mystery ingredients for that round. Heck, I shout it out even when I'm watching by myself.

Sometimes I wonder if I'd actually be able to come up with a dish on-the-spot that would please the judges. I'm not going to lie, there are baskets that leave me stumped. My plan, should I apply and be accepted to the show, is to have a handful of easily adaptable, basic recipe ideas in my back pocket. I can customize and enhance the flavors of the basket ingredients once I see them. I wonder if I'd remember any of them in the heat of the moment.

Today, I'm excited to be taking part in a little "Chopped at Home" contest! Sargento cheese challenged me to get creative and make a Chopped-inspired dish right from the comfort of my own kitchen. Just like the contestants on the show, I was given 4 basket ingredients to work with, and free use of my pantry and fridge.

Asparagus and Prosciutto Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

Welcome to the April edition of Blogger CLUE Society, where members explore each other's blogs and learn a little more about each other, all while looking for a recipe that fits the monthly theme. This month's theme is Spring Vegetables, and I had the pleasure of digging through the archives of Taking On Magazines, run by Christiane (aka The Mom Chef).

I bet you can guess what the focus of Taking On Magazines is. Right? As a regular "mom chef", Christiane often found that the results she got after making magazine recipes varied from what was presented, either taste, presentation, or yield-wise. So, she decided to share the results of these same recipes coming out of an everyday kids-husbands-animals-underfoot kitchen. I bet there's a world full of mom chef's who can relate.

Along with magazine recipes, you can also find cookbook recipes and family recipes at Taking On Magazines, as well as a bit of stuff that is totally off topic (roundups, tours, features, etc). So, on to the nitty-gritty—the results of my "hunt". With spring vegetables in mind, I searched everything from "spring" to "vegetables", and on to specifics like "asparagus" and "peas".

Red Cabbage and Golden Raisin Salad

Once the new year hits, you hear people left and right making resolutions and setting goals that often revolve around their diet. I'm not immune to getting in that mindset, but I also try to be realistic. You know, with myself. I definitely get the urge for lighter and fresher. But the thing is—it's January. And January in my world means it's still downright freezing outside. So, I'm still knee deep in hearty stews, slow cooking roasts, and comforting casseroles. And don't plan on letting those go for at least a few months.

That said, I love adding a bit of freshness to those meals meant to warm you to the bone. Although that can also be a bit of a challenge this time of year. While I love locally grown produce, and devour it with an urgency as soon as the ground thaws, sometimes we have to get a little creative with what we have this time of year. Onions, winter squash, tubers, and cabbage abound! You know what's great about that, though? All of those crops are inexpensive and extremely versatile.

When you think red cabbage, images of a big pot simmering on the back of your grandmother's stove may fill your head. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that (pass me a bowl!). But, I know many people who don't like cabbage...or think they don't like cabbage. And it's usually memories like boring boiled cabbage that they cite as the reason why when I ask.

Pomegranate Salad

Are you knee-deep in holiday sweets yet? Since it's already two weeks into December, that scenario is almost impossible to avoid. It can be easy to forget that life is not all about the butter...the sugar...the chocolate...the glacé fruit (okay, maybe nobody ever thinks it's about the glacé fruit). That is why I'm sharing this salad with you today. Okay, that and the fact that I'm today's stop for the Sharing Morocco blog tour!

The thing is, looking at this salad, you don't necessarily think healthy. You think beautiful—or at least I do. The deep, rich reds and greens that come straight from the earth rather than a tube. Busting out this salad in the middle of the holiday madness is like bringing home somebody to meet your family for the first time. Everybody's nervous and wondering if they'll fit in. But instead of being awkward, it's like they were supposed to have been there all along. They just fit.

Aside from the colors that just scream winter, I think it has a lot to do with the addition of lightly candied nuts and nature's own little sugar bursts, dates. This salad is just one of the many vibrant dishes lining the pages of the new (released in October) cookbook by Ruth Barnes, otherwise known as The Petite Gourmande.

Waldorf Salad inspired by Pieces of April | #FoodnFlix

I find it hard to take a person seriously when they don't admit to some dysfunction somewhere in their family. Rainbows and lollipops do not always abound when the family comes together, not even on Thanksgiving. This month's Food 'n Flix pick Pieces of April, as chosen by our host Deb from Kahakai Kitchen, brings some of that dysfunction to the screen.

Far from a poster-child for exemplary behavior in the past, April is now a young adult coming into her own. She invites her mostly estranged suburban-dwelling family to her Lower East Side apartment for Thanksgiving dinner, with a nervous hope that their cold demeanor will start to warm up a bit.

It turns out that April's mother Joy is in the final stages of cancer, and this may be her final Thanksgiving. With mood swings that range from sweet and blissful to downright nasty, Joy is not a very lovable character. I found myself thinking "what a bitch" in my head so many times throughout the movie, which I found disconcerting, since she is dying...and it's sad and understandable. Sort of. I don't understand not being able to remember even one happy memory of your own daughter. As much as I enjoyed Katie Holmes as April in this film, it was Patricia Clarkson as her mom that stole the show. Of course, because Clarkson is flipping brilliant (for lack of a more eloquent term).

Grilled Steak Salad w/ Corn Salsa

You probably don't want to hear me say once again how much I love firing up the grill. So, I won't. Instead, I'll share some must-have tools and gadgets for those who use their grills as much as we do in my house; specifically OXO brand tools. I did receive these tools at no charge, but that doesn't influence my thoughts on them. I was using and loving OXO for many years before I even started food blogging, so please trust that all opinions I share are truly my own.

I want to start by sharing one tool that I have always wanted in my own kitchen. I've mentioned it before numerous times: a meat tenderizer. When we buy skirt steak (which is often), we always ask the butcher to "run it through the machine". That machine would be a small conveyer with numerous tiny and ridiculously sharp blades that pierce the meat as it goes through. OXO's Bladed Meat Tenderizer is a smaller, handheld version that actually fits in my kitchen. It has 50 sharp and durable blades that create air pockets in the meat. This helps to tenderizer less expensive cuts, and reduces both marinating and cooking time.

It has a non-slip grip and the blades lock in place for safety. So, in choosing some steaks adorn my salad today, instead of choosing one of my favorite break-the-bank cuts like tenderloin or NY Strip, I chose Eye of Round steaks, instead. They don't have much marbling, so they benefit greatly from help in the tenderizing and marinating department.

Duck Salad w/ Grapes, Almonds, & Blue Cheese + 13 more tasty ways to use DUCK!

A lot of people consider duck a "special occasion" meal, often roasting a duck during the holidays, and not thinking of it again for a whole nother year. While duck does make for a very special holiday meal, it's also great on a Tuesday.

Duck is extremely versatile, and holds up well to bold flavors. Try it with your favorite spice mix or rub. Still not sure when to use duck? Replace the chicken, pork, or beef in a recipe with duck! Try duck in a curry. Use it as a taco filling. Shred some slow-cooked duck legs and combine with your favorite barbecue sauce for a Pulled Duck Sandwich! Season a duck breast, sear it, and serve it over a salad or rice. Use any portion of cooked duck in a duck salad sandwich or wrap (like the one pictured below made by a local catering company that's filled with duck, pecans, pickles, mandarin oranges, and I think there was even rice in there!).

Spring Panzanella Salad w/ Balsamic and Spring Herb Vinaigrette

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Pompeian. All opinions are 100% mine.

Did you know that May is both National Vinegar Month and National Salad Month? Somebody totally planned that. And that's what I call great planning. I don't know about you, but my favorite way to dress a salad is with a vinaigrette, which is exactly why I'm excited to be partnering with Pompeian to bring you a simple, yet bright and tasty vinaigrette to enjoy over what may just be the perfect spring salad. If I do say so myself.

I've mentioned in the past how my favorite salads are the "salad as a meal" type of salads. Sure, I like a little roughage to close out a satisfying meal, but salads can be so much more than that. And personally, if I'm choosing to eat a salad as my meal, I usually opt out of heavy dressings, and instead choose a simple oil and vinegar-based one instead.

So, you're probably tired of hearing about the long, grueling winter that we had this year. So am I. But, it bears mention since we are just now beginning to see some glorious green vegetables starting to grow here in my part of the country, and we're already into May. After month upon month of frozen ground and either preserved or trucked in produce, I can finally find asparagus, baby greens, and even tender herbs bursting from the earth in my own backyard (or lining the stalls of my farmers' market).

Salmon and Cucumber "Noodle" Salad

I rarely eat canned salmon. I've had it maybe two or three times max in my lifetime. I was never very impressed with it. Bones, skin, ummmm...if I'm buying a can, convenience is what I'm after, and picking out the bones and skin is anything but. So, I just stick with fresh (which oddly enough, I don't mind removing the skin and bones from).

And then I received a package in the mail.

My friend Bea of The Not So Cheesy Kitchen is a proud PDXer (Portlander?). Anytime I bring up salmon (which is surprisingly quite often) she reiterates her stance on Pacific Northwest Salmon being the best salmon. Especially when I tell her that I just ate Atlantic Salmon. That's what I usually seem to find in "my" Northwest (that would be Northwest Indiana).

One day, her and the fam headed to the beach...or was it the mountains...maybe it was both...and she mentioned two magical words: salmon and jerky. Together. As in, Salmon Jerky! And since she knows me (and can pick up on the needy desperation in my voice), she bought some extra and shipped it to me. It was ridiculous. Basically like hot-smoked salmon (one of my favorite things in the world), but less meaty and more chewy.

Crunchy Ramen Salad - 3 ways

"Variation 1 - Collin Kronke's recipe"

If you dropped by for #SundaySupper this past weekend, you'll have noticed that we are teaming up with American Family Insurance this week for their Back to Table Campaign.  I'm so happy to be sharing another post in this effort!  And actually, it's a pretty fun post.  Why, you ask?  Well, because to go along with the Back to the Table Campaign, AmFam employees have been gracious enough to share some of their own family's favorite recipes - and then setting some of the Sunday Supper members loose with them!

I couldn't wait to get my hands on a recipe, and after much consideration, this is the one I chose.  This "Crunchy Asian Salad" that was submitted by Collin Kromke ("...we love the sweetness and crunchiness") grabbed my attention right away, because my grandma used to make a similar version.  I grabbed the recipe from her as soon as we were done eating it for the first time.  It definitely called for a throw-down type of situation.  So, that's what I made it.

And then I took it one step further and made my very own hybrid.  And I came up with a Crunchy Ramen Salad.  Which variation do you think that you'd gravitate towards?

Buttermilk Chicken Kebabs w/ Chopped Salad

When in doubt, put it on a stick.  Everybody loves food on a stick!  Aside from being fresh and healthy, this meal is both quick and inexpensive, as well.

I like to buy the extra large family packs of boneless, skinless chicken thighs - especially when they are on sale.  Usually I'll wind up dividing the thighs up into smaller portions...maybe a pound or two per freezer bag.  That way, I can pull out what I need, when I need it.

Grilled Corn Salad w/ Honey Lime Dressing

For me, corn on the cob is the epitome of summer.  I could eat my weight in it.  And it's always that way.  There are photos of me in our old family albums with golden sun-kissed skin and sun bleached hair, going full-out typewriter on some corn.  It's like a rite of passage.  Summer is not truly summer until there are sweet corn stands and signs on every other block.

I have some awesome neighbors who love food almost as much as we do in our house.  I'm often handed buckets full of maitake mushrooms that they've spent the day foraging for in the woods.  Sometimes it's an armload of ginormous cucumbers, or a grocery bag with tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeños, habañeros, and zucchini all tumbled in and vying for their spot.

A few weeks ago, I came home to find a couple dozen ears of sweet corn stacked on the table next to my side door.  And a week or so later, they brought over another bag full of the slender green-husked, plump-kerneled corn.

Sausage Potato Salad

When you think of cooking outdoors, on the grill - what do you call it?  For me, it's always been let's "cook out".  Or "wanna grill" tonight?  It's never, ever been "want to have a barbecue"?  It just sounds strange to me.  I think maybe calling it a barbecue is a southern thing?  Am I right on this one?  I grew up in Michigan and Indiana, and don't recall anybody using that term.

I used to get annoyed when I heard somebody say they were going to put some meat on the barbecue.  Don't ask me why.  I was all like "barbecue is a sauce, people".  {chuckles}  I've gotten over my aversion to calling it (or rather, hearing it called) a barbecue.  It is what it is, and over the years, I accepted that it was just another way of saying what I say.  Tomayto, tomahto.  I guess I grew up.  No comments from the peanut gallery.