I love salads of all kinds. 

Here’s a simple salad recipe of pear and goat cheese.   During the summertime, I used fresh pears.  However, in the winter time, I plan on using canned pears to make this salad.  What do you think of it?

Paz

Pear and Goat Cheese Salad

from Sweet Paul

 Serves 4

Greens

2 pears, sliced

1 cup crumbled goat cheese

Salt

Pepper

6 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon honey

1 tablespoon mustard

Place the greens on plates and add pear slices and goat cheese.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Whisk together oil, honey and mustard and pour over the salad and serve. 

Enjoy!

When I was younger, I guess, way back in fifth grade, I never liked avocados and tomatoes.  I tried to avoid them if possible.  Today, I can get enough of either, especially avocado.  Can’t get enough, I tell you.

The other day, I had some walnuts and avocado and decided to make this salad.  Looking at the overabundance of avocado in my plate, you can see that I now love avocado.  I loved the warm mustard vinaigrette over the salad.  The entire salad recipe was easy to put together and delicious!  Try it!  Oh, the recipe calls for sun dried tomatoes and arugula.    I didn’t have those two ingredients and used fresh tomatoes and leafy green salad.  Still tasted terrific.  

Paz

Walnut and avocado salad with warm mustard vinaigrette

Sweet Paul

serves 4

3 avocados, peeled and sliced

small bunch of arugula, washed

1/2 cup toasted walnuts

1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes, sliced

1/2 cup olive oil

3 tablespoons grainy mustard

1 tablespoon maple syrup

salt

pepper

Place avocado slices, arugula, walnuts and sun dried tomatoes on plates.

In a small saucepan heat up oil, mustard and maple syrup.

Whisk well so you get a thick vinaigrette.

Season with salt and pepper.

Pour the warm dressing over the salad and serve.

Garbanzo beans (chickpeas)!  Tomatoes! Cilantro!  Avocado!  Need I say more?   I had to make this salad when I saw it.  This is another one of Kalyn’s fabulous recipes.   Oh, man!  I feel like I’m in heaven when I eat this salad.  

Paz

Garbanzo, Tomato, and Cilantro Salad with Lime and Chile Dressing (with or without avocado)

Kalyn’s Kitchen

(4 servings, recipe created by Kalyn with inspiration from a blog that no longer exists)

Ingredients:

1 can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), rinsed well and drained

4-5 tomatoes or 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, diced in 1/2 inch pieces

1/2 cup green onion, sliced

1 cup (1 large bunch) cilantro, washed, dried, and chopped coarsely with chef’s knife or food processor

1 avocado, diced (optional, but good)

Dressing Ingredients:

2 T fresh lime juice (plus 2 tsp. more for avocado, if using)

2 T extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 tsp. ground Chipotle chile powder (I used Penzeys, you could substitute hot sauce if you don’t have ground Chipotle)

1/2 tsp. chile powder (mild)

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. onion powder

zest from one lime

salt, fresh ground pepper to taste

Instructions:

Drain beans into colander and rinse until no foam remains. Let drain well. Mix together the lime juice, olive oil, ground Chipotle powder (or hot sauce), chile powder, ground cumin, onion powder, and lime zest to make the dressing, then put beans and dressing into a plastic container with a snap-on lid and shake a few times to combine. (Use a bowl that’s big enough to hold all the salad ingredients.) Let beans marinate in dressing one hour or longer.

If using avocado, peel and dice the avocado and toss it with 2 teaspoons of lime juice. Dice tomatoes, place in colander with a small amount of salt and let tomatoes drain 10 minutes while you dice onions and chop cilantro. (You can skip that step if using cherry tomatoes or if your tomatoes aren’t that juicy.)  Thinly slice the green onions and wash, dry, and chop the cilantro.

Combine marinated beans with dressing, tomatoes, green onion, and cilantro and stir gently until well combined, then gently stir in the avocado (if using.) Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

And so I learnt the difference between the four kinds of ice that could be made:  cordiale or liquors, into which crushed snow was  stirred to chill them; granite, shavings of frozen water over which were poured syrups made from rosewater or oranges; sorbetti, more complex water ices, in which it was the syrups themselves that were frozen, the mixture paddled as it hardened so that the fragments lay in the pot like a glittering mound of sapphires; and finally sherbets, the most difficult of all, made with milk that had been infused with mastic or cardamom, so that they resembled snow that had refrozen overnight.  I learned how to construct chilled obelisks of jelly; how to use silversmiths’ moulds to cast fantastic frozen plates and bowls, and how to carve the ice into extravagant table decorations.  I mastered the spectacular entertainments of the great engineer Buontalenti, who had constructed fountains, tables, and even whole grottos of ice.     ~ The Empress of Ice Cream (pages 9 – 10)

I’m still on an ice cream-making high after reading The Empress of Ice Cream by Anthony Capella (see here and here).  It’s a story about a young Italian ice cream maker who falls in love with a beautiful, French woman, sent to become the mistress of Charles II, King of England. 

Like the character in the book, I’m learning how to make different types of ices.  Slowly.   First I made a chocolate sauce to go over ice cream; then I made an orange ice (granite).  Over the weekend, I made a mango sorbet from a recipe I found on Kalyn’s Kitchen.   I was doubly excited about the recipe for two reasons.   1 – I love mangoes and 2- I didn’t need the aid of an ice cream-making machine (I don’t own one).

I was very satisfied with the way my Mango Sorbet came out.    It tasted sweet, cool, and fresh.  I liked it a lot.   Apparently, others at home liked it a lot, too.   The next morning I found the empty sorbet container in the kitchen sink.   I guess I’ll have to make some more.

The best thing about preparing my own food (or in this case, my own sorbet) is that I know what is in the food.  I know that there are no artificial ingredients.  Best of all, the food (ice cream) tastes great!  Nothing beats homemade. 

With a couple of weeks left in the summer season, I plan on making more ices and ice cream to help cool down.  

By the way, I’m still looking for my own personal ice cream maker (and I’m not talking about a machine).   You can find my ad here.

Paz 

Low Sugar Mango Sorbet (without an ice cream freezer)
(Makes 4 small servings, adapted from Mango Sorbet at AllRecipes.)

from Kalyn’s Kitchen

Ingredients:

2 large very ripe mangoes
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup Granulated Stevia In The Raw, Splenda, or sugar
1 1/2 T fresh lime juice

Instructions:

In a small pan combine the water and sweetener and bring to a boil.  Turn off and let the mixture cool while you peel and cut up the mangoes.

To peel the mangoes, slice along each side of the flat seed, guiding your knife to come as close as you can to the mango seed.  Then slice away any other mango flesh that still clings to the seed.  Peel away the skin and chop the flesh.

Put the chopped mango and lime juice in a food processor and process for about 45 seconds, until the mixture is quite pureed.  Add the cooled simple sugar mixture and process about 45 second more, until there are no lumps.

Put the mixture into a plastic bowl with a tight fitting lid and put it in the freezer.  Ever 30 minutes, remove bowl from the freezer, scrape away the frozen part around the edges and whisk it into the mixture.  Total freezing time is 3-4 hours, depending on how cold your freezer is.  For my freezer, I would freeze it 4 hours next time for a slightly firmer sorbet.

Divide into individual bowls and serve.  This recipe could easily be doubled and made in an ice cream freezer.

I’ve seen plenty of mango salsa recipes but I’d never seen a nectarine salsa recipe before.   Ohh!   As much as I love mangoes, I was interested in trying out the nectarine salsa.  During the summer in the city, you can find many street fruit/vegetable cart vendors (similar to the one seen here).  I’ve become friends with two vendors – Mohammed and Bulent.   They always take good care of me and fill my bag with the best of whatever they’re selling that day.  So the next time I stopped by their cart, I bought a generous amount of nectarine.  These nectarines were sweet and tasty and made a good blend with the other ingredients.  The recipe calls for yellow onions but I like red onions and normally have them around, so that’s what I used.  I loved the jalapeno for the heat provided in the salsa and of course, the cilantro.  I ate my nectarine salsa with pita chips.  Mmm… Mmm… Good!   This was a perfect lunch, easily-prepared, no muss, no fuss, especially on a hot summer day.  

Paz

Nectarine Salsa (My Recipe)

from Sweet Happy Life

Ingredients:

•             2 cups diced nectarine *

•             1 cup diced yellow onion

•             1 jalapeno, seeded and diced

•             2 tomatoes, seeded and diced

•             2-3 teaspoons finely diced fresh cilantro

•             1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

•             3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

•             Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Wash the nectarine, onion, jalapeno and tomatoes well. Then dice as indicated in ingredient list above.

Combine diced fruit and veggies in a tupperware or bowl. Wash and dice the cilantro, add to the mixture. Add olive oil, lime juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour before serving.

The salsa will keep in the fridge for up to 3 days.

* Note: You can substitute other stone fruits for nectarine, in the same amounts. Mango and peach are also excellent!

Pita Chips

from Mid Eastern food About.com

Ingredients:

    3 large pita bread loaves

    1/2 cup olive oil

    kosher salt

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Brush pita bread with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt.

Cut each loaf into eight triangles.

Bake in oven for 5-7 minutes. Remove from oven