Salads
Make Shaved Fennel and Orange Salad
We are all waiting with bated breath for the sunshine, so I thought I’d make a salad that’s like a big burst of sunshine in a bowl. This Shaved Fennel and Orange Salad is a juicy and tangy way to enjoy the citrus of winter as we wait for the first berries and sprouts to come to fruition.
Roasted Beet and Hazelnut Salad, a Classic for the Holidays
Whether it’s for the big holiday meal, or any time of year, a roasted beet salad is a colorful way to eat your vegetables. Roasting beets turns them sweet and soft, and they play well with crisp greens and a tangy dressing. Your typical beet salad relies on chevre or bleu cheese for a counterpoint, but in this one, crunchy hazelnuts do the job.
Grilled Plum Salad-A Kiss Of Fire Makes Fruit Sing!
After we’ve eaten our fill of the juicy fruits au naturel, I like to move to the Plums were made for the grill. Just a few minutes on the hot grates softens and sweetens the fruit. Then they are ready for this salad. I always place them cut side down at first, to get a little marking on the surface and start the cooking, then flip them. Then, the skin of the fruit holds the juices in, keeping the fruit from exploding and losing all it’s sweet liquids to the fire. This time, I sprinkled with a little cinnamon.
Meal Prep for Carrot Bars and Moroccan Salad
Meal Prep is The Key!
In today’s blog and video, I’m featuring one easy meal prep item: shredded carrots. I love using my food processor to make my life easier, and this is a prime example. Just shred carrots and you’ll have them ready to go, to toss in salads, or to make these two easy recipes.
Save Time, Shred Your Salad
When it’s cold outside, a bowl of leafy greens may not be what you are craving. May I suggest something heartier? My food processor makes it easy to turn some wintry cabbage and root veggies into a crunchy, riotously colorful salad that keeps for a week in the refrigerator. You can get all the benefits of eating raw veggies with your meals, and take a break from the same old mixed greens.
Kimchi Noodles with Tofu- a Riot of Flavor
This dish is made from plants, from the grains in the noodles, to the beans that were transformed into soy sauce. That’s a given. But whenever I cook, I try to add a few more vegetables. Get that noodle to veggie ratio just right, so it feels like a bowl of slippery noodles, but it’s also a bowl of fresh, crunchy veggies. I love my carbs, and I look at them as the comforting, lovable friends they are. But the veg to noodle ratio should be balanced a little toward the veg side. This dish achieves the right mix, with just enough noodles, and just the right amount of snappy snap peas and crisp carrots.
Winter Salad with Oranges and Cava, Holiday Fare!
Citrus Season is Here, Perfect for Winter Salads When I was a girl, my Grandmother would send us oranges at Christmas. Dorothy was big on fruit. Then she'd tell us of the days when oranges were rare treat in the Northern states, and how excited all the children would...
Pear Party- Make Two Perfect Pear Dishes for Fall
You can spend a lifetime seeking that perfect pear, and find as many frustrating pear experiences as ecstatic ones. That’s why I made this video, to show you the simplest, most valuable fact I’ve learned about pears.
Have You Tried Fresh Edamamae?
Fresh Edamame pods are a seasonal treat, and when they come to market, snap up a few bunches to boil, then either eat them as a snack, or slip the beans from the hulls and use them in salads, soups, dips, and anywhere you might use a bean or pea.
What Are Garlic Scapes, and What Do I Do with Them?
Garlic Scapes appear briefly at the Farmer’s Market and in CSA boxes in early summer, and are worth snapping up for a seasonal feast.
Beets and Cukes in Miso Dressing with Pickled Ginger
I love beets. Their sweet, earthy essence seems to scare some people away, but not me. I do find it frustrating that the only way that beets are served in restaurants these days is in a salad with feta, chevre, or bleu. The sweetness of the beets is a perfect foil for...
Sesame Turmeric Dressing Prep Makes the Week Easy
It's all about that Prep If you want to eat well, you have to meal prep. One of the most basic meal components to prep is your salad dressing. It's sooo quick to make, and sooo much better than the store-bought stuff. If you've been known to buy salad greens, only to...
Get to the Farmers Market and Make a Potato and Green Bean Salad
It's potato salad season, in all its glory. Tender young, locally grown potatoes are at my Farmer's Market, along with a bounty of fresh, seasonal veggies that can make a potato salad a little more exciting than the standard one. Take my Potato and Green Bean Salad...
Make Blue Potato Salad with Chive Blossoms for a Quick and Colorful Meal
Does it seem that I'm obsessed with blue food? Purple sweet potatoes, purple corn and purple barley have made frequent cameos here on the blog, in all their chromatic glory. Blue Potato Salad is just the latest. I suppose my eye is drawn to the exotic, as I traipse...
Cross-Pollinating Ideas at the Grain Gathering
Some people take time off at the end of July to visit a white sand beach. But there's no barley at the beach. Instead, at 3;45 am, I found myself driving in darkness, about an hour North of Seattle, navigating country roads to get to an experimental grain field before...
Try a Sweet, Tender Hakurei Turnip in Salad, Fall in Love
Turnips never make the list of sexy vegetables. I haven't yet heard that turnips will be the "new kale," but who knows, maybe the fruity crunch of Hakurei Turnips will change all that. Unlike the usual purple tinged, pink, or just kind of rough looking over-wintered...
Get to Know a Rambutan from a Mangosteen, with Asian Fruit Salad
Are you bored with berries? Maybe apples make you yawn, and a slice of watermelon fills you with overwhelming ennui? You need to step out on your usual fruit loves and try something new. Might I suggest a trip to your local Asian market to seek out some exotic Asian...
Tasting Minnesota with Betsy Nelson, A Curated Collection in a Cookbook
When you try to answer a question like "What is Minnesota food?" you can make yourself crazy, just trying to sort out where Minnesota cuisine begins and ends. Is it the food of the first wave of immigrants, or the tenth, or do you include the latest? Well, leave it...
Celebrate Stress Awareness Month with Pesto Kale Salad
Did you know that April is Stress Awareness Month? (Stressed Inner voice: HOW DID IT SLIP BY ME!?!?! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!) Yes, it's a whole month in which we should take a deep breath, stop beating ourselves up for not knowing that it's stress awareness month, and...
Spring Radishes Star in Mexican Jicama and Orange Salad
Craving something light and Springy? These days I'm all about crunch, and tangy citrus flavors that seem to taste of the sunshine. The winter doldrums are lifting, and all the energy is flowing again. It's amazing how you learn to live in darkness and cold, only to...
Astonishing Apples and Applepanzanella
So many fruits are divas, temperamental and finicky. Is that peach ripe, or will I cut into it and find it spongy? Is that mango ever going to ripen, or just turn from rock-hard to mushy overnight? Not the apple. Buy a whole bag, put them in the drawer in the fridge,...
My New Book, The Whole Grain Promise is Here!
I'm so proud to announce that my seventh book, The Whole Grain Promise, More Than 100 Delicious Recipes To Jumpstart a Healthier Diet (Running Press, $19.95), hits bookstore shelves on October 6. If you haven't noticed, whole grains are at the core of my cooking. I...
Summery Peach and Sweetcorn Salad with Basil, Welcome August
It's officially sweetcorn season, a time of year when by vegetable drawer is packed with a dozen plump ears every time I visit the farmers market. 12 ears of corn, two people, you do the math. We go on a bit of a corn binge. It's an annual bacchanal of corn love....
Smoked New Potato and Heirloom Tomato Salad
Last week, I posted a recipe for smoked oyster mushrooms and bruschetta, inspired by the mushrooms that I found at the farmer's market. Well, my market bonanza was not limited to amazing mushrooms, not by a long shot. I also scored some tiny new potatoes. These babies...
Miyoko Schinner, Queen of Vegan Cheese, and Now The Homemade Vegan Pantry
Miyoko Schinner is both a grande dame and a hot new face on the vegan scene. She is the author of one of the first wave of vegan cookbooks, the Now and Zen Epicure, which she put out in 1990. That book is out of print, although a revised new version did come...
Cress, Asparagus and Mango Salad with Chia
It's almost, almost asparagus season in Minnesota, so I just had to jump when this gorgeous purple asparagus appeared at the Coop. It was teasing me with a preview of the spears certain to arrive in the coming weeks, freshly cut, from our local farms. I figured I...
Cauliflower Tabouli, Vegetables Masquerading as Grains
First things first. I love bulghar. Bulgur, bulgar, how ever you want to spell it. Whole grains are the base of the pyramid, and fantastically tasty, too. But sometimes, you need a vegetable side that has just a bit more panache. That, to me, is where cauliflower that...
Simply Vegetarian Thai Cooking by Nancie McDermott
Vegetarians and Thai food are a match made in heaven. Thai food is a go-to for the meatless crowd, because it is so packed with flavors and textures that don't rely on animal foods. Rich coconut milk, tangy lime, lemongrass and tamarind, tongue tingling ginger,...
Perfect Pears Make a Simple Salad, Can You Spot a Perfect Pear?
One of the great benefits of shopping in a Coop that seeks out great local produce is the moment when I find a new variety of a favorite food. This week, as I was pondering the pear selections, I was delighted to see a whole display of Harrow Sweet Pears. They were a...
You Can Eat Corn Raw? Minty Raw Corn Salad with Green Goddess Dressing
Last week I did a fun appearance on Twin Cities Live, where I made some summery sweet corn dishes. At one point in the show, I said that the sweet corn right now is so fresh and sweet that you can just eat it raw. The show's host was surprised. Of course, most people...