"greens" news and stories

Clotilde over at Chocolate and Zucchini has a lovely spring-appropriate post about how to keep greens fresh. "Keeping one's greens fresh and happy seems to be the culinary equivalent of keeping one's skin young: it's a losing battle, but everyone hopes to find the magic technique," writes the ever-witty Parisienne.

Clotilde likes to rinse the greens several times, removes excess moisture with a salad spinner, lets them sit in the spinner to dry for 20 minutes, then stores them in a sealed plastic container lined with paper towels. Her blog commenters have chimed in with dozens of their own helpful tips. I'll try to remember this for next time, as I've just finished cleaning rotten spinach goop out of the crisper drawer again.

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Earlier this week, I was doing a little grocery shopping at Reading Terminal Market (if you're a foodie and you're coming to visit Philadelphia, don't miss a trip to Reading Terminal) when I stumbled across a pomegranate deal. These puppies were just $.50 a piece and so I splurged and bought four (they've been so expensive here recently that I haven't indulged at all this season).

But once I got them home, I realized that I had little clue what to do with them other than just eat them straight. I've been working my way through them, pairing them with this or that to see what works (pomegranate seeds with plain yogurt was a little too bitter for me). One match-up that worked beautifully was the salad you see above. The juicy outer part of the fruit gave the salad (romaine lettuce, goat cheese, sliced apple and a honey lemon dressing) a nice sweetness and the seed gave it a nutty crunch. And they were so good with the goat cheese. It's definitely worth a shot if you have a pomegranate around.

I recently went to The Penthouse, the new restaurant at the top of The Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica. While the food was a little less than spectacular, the view of the Pacific from that high up was pretty stunning. However, there was one thing I ate that got my attention, which was their Green Crunch Salad.

The mix of crunchy greens tossed with a spicy vinaigrette was awesome, so I decided to re-create it at home, with my personal preferences, of course. The Penthouse's salad was composed of fresh sugar snap peas, cooked regular peas, and steamed edamame, which I did as well. However, instead of lightly steamed asparagus tips, I used raw snow peas cut on a bias. I dressed my vegetables with a spicy balsamic vinaigrette (3:1 olive oil: balsamic vinegar + finely minced garlic + salt/pepper + crushed red pepper) and the result was good. In fact, I might say that I liked my version with the balsamic vinaigrette a little more than The Penthouse's Asian-inspired sesame dressing.

Although it is still cold in many parts of the country, temperatures here in Southern California shot up to almost summer-like highs over the past few days. The sudden heat has cause me - and many others - to turn away from hot soup and "comfort food" cookbooks and turn back to salads and other cool, light fare. This salad is idea for moving from winter into spring, although you could make it all year round, because it incorporates fresh oranges, dried cranberries and salty-sweet candied nuts, all of which are frequently used in late fall and winter dishes and desserts. These sweet salad components are on a bed of mixed baby greens and diced avocado. I dressed the whole salad with a heavily vinegar-based dressing (a citrus flavored vinegar mixed with a bit of oil, salt and pepper) to enhance the brightness of all of the components.

We looked at a couple of spinach alternatives last week, but with the new warnings against lettuce, we're starting to reevaluate some of our salad options. After all, it is always good to have a backup plan, even though no one has become sick as a result of contaminated lettuce at this time. NPR has several suggestions for alternatives to typical salad greens. Their picks include arugula, baby bok choi, swiss chard, collard greens, watercress, cabbage and brussel sprout petals. Chef Patrick O'Connell came up with recipes for all of these alternatives, too.

The only potential drawback of this list is that most of the salads/sides are actually hot dishes, and not what you would necessarily expect to stand in for a pre-dinner salad. Fortunately, with fall and winter on the way, a warm salad can be very satisfying and this is a good opportunity to try a few new greens in a new way, such as Braised Baby Bok Choy or Brussel Sprout Petals with Coriander Vinaigrette.

[Thanks, Jose!]

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