the salad that fills you up

I'm sitting here at the Montreal airport, waiting for my flight to Halifax in 2 hours. We made it to the airport really early, but that's okay - I'm SO glad to be sitting down and with that the horrific bus ride of death overwith. Seriously. It was a sweaty bus (you know the kind), standing room only, I was heavily encumbered with luggage... my worst nightmare. I'm already a bull in a china shop on a good day.

But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about this salad. I'm not sure if this salad was my mom's idea, or if she learned it from her mom, or a book, or wherever, but this is something she used to make for me from time to time. It was made up of the various veggies we had in our vegetable crisper, but the three things that remained constant were the cottage cheese, the dollop of mayo and the avocado.

Not only does this salad have all the benefits that salads generally have - it's healthy, fresh-tasting and you can give yourself a pat on the back for making a meal of it - but it actually fills you up. This is not a common trait in salads. I eat a salad as a meal, I'm hungry in half an hour. Unless it's this salad.

mango cilantro salad with avocado

Here we are with another recipe without a recipe. Some food like sandwiches, some salads and other things, defy being limited by a list of quantities. They're so flexible and are often made for varying amounts of people, therefore to quantify the ingredients becomes more of a hassle than a help.

Such is the case with this salad. Maybe you, like me, found a huge mango at Jean-Talon Market and could only use half of it. Avocados come in different sizes. A lot of people don't like cilantro as much as I do. So where I might use a generous handful of the stuff, a couple of tablespoons chopped may be sufficient for someone else. So... use however much of whatever ingredients you want - all this is a salad idea. And a really good one at that. Even if you're a beginner cook, you probably know how to throw together a salad. If you don't, well... it's pretty foolproof! There's a first time for everything.

simple caesar salad

 

I think a lot of people feel intimidated about making their own caesar salad at home. They'll buy a bottle of Kraft dressing or a caesar salad kit. It's obviously a pretty common side order when eating out, too. Here's what most people don't know: once you taste caesar salad dressing from scratch, you will swear off the bottle. You will swear off the kit. You will only ever make it from scratch from this day forward.

Think it's hard? Are you a little bit scared? Don't be. It's easy. I used to go through all that nonsense of coddling eggs, but you don't have to. This is a simple recipe that relies on good quality ingredients for its classic lemony and cheesy taste.

fennel, apple and ham salad with asiago cheese

 

There are two things in particular that are bad for a cooking blog - traveling and extreme heat. I've been away in Vancouver and New York City (with a week-long break in between) and the weather upon my return hasn't done much for my excitement to cook. All I can think of is how it's going to make our apartment even hotter. That's where salads come in.

This is a good one because, with some bread on the side (and perhaps a second helping), this salad is reasonable as a meal in itself. It's not cheap - the cheese, ham and nuts in particular add up if you don't already have them in the house, plus people don't generally have fennel lying around in their fridge - but if you're looking for a satisfying summer meal, this will do the trick.

lyonnaise salad for one

Look ma! I poached an egg! Seriously. I have only ever attempted this once before and it was an epic disaster. I was craving poached eggs on toast at the time (my favourite breakfast, especially when liberally doused with hot sauce) and no matter what I did, the whites spread out through the water like a spider's web. It was a mess of vinegar, water and albumen. Adam swooped in to rescue my breakfast and while his poached eggs were miles ahead of mine, they were still sub-par and somewhat disastrous.

I've come to the conclusion that the eggs really do have to be super fresh for it to work. I have based this on empirical evidence as well as the advice of a colleague. Last time, I'd been following a youtube video made by someone who stated that the fresh egg rule was preposterous, then proceeded to make a perfect poached egg. Maybe you can hack it with week old eggs if you're an egg poaching superstar, but for us mortals - fresh is best.

simple summer green salad with avocado and fresh dill

 

Ahhh, summer. I may moan about the heat and humidity, but I love love love the sunny days here! I'm leaving for a week to the land of rain, so I'm trying to soak up all the sun I can... by reclining on the couch to write this post, doing laundry, washing dishes, packing.... oh well. The blinds are open and I'm getting as much as humanly possible (given all the last minute chores) before my Vitamin D levels plummet on the west coast.

I'm not sure what will happen on this blog next week. Perhaps I'll engage in some cooking project with my dad and stepmom (they did mention we would make breakfast tomorrow - eating at their house is always exciting!), perhaps I'll cook something enormous for everyone on my mom's end. Maybe, just maybe... I'm hoping the lovely Foodess will want to use our date to have a baking day? Double blog post? Jenn? Wanna wanna??  I'll definitely be hitting up my favourite restaurants while I'm there too, so I may do a couple of restaurant reviews. None of them will be objective, because I only plan on visiting long-standing favourites that I yearn for while away from home.