"salad" news and stories

Photo: Hyperion

'Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals'
by Jamie Oliver
Hyperion -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

The revolution will not be supersized. Jamie Oliver is a man on a mission to reclaim traditional home cooking from the fast and processed food purveyors of the world via simple, inexpensive, appealing recipes.

The book kicks off with a rah-rah manifesto that dovetails with Oliver's televised traveling roadshows geared toward getting the least healthy eaters in the UK and the USA to back out of the drive-thru and drive home healthier eating habits, centered around the debatably lost art of home cooking. He presents a compelling argument with solid, satisfying building-block recipes and oddly heartstring-plucking photo profiles of plain ol' folks cooking at home.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Pizza topped with arugula. Photo: YumSugar

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

A 30-minute meal to salivate over -- pizza topped with an arugula salad.

Kim Jong-Il might be fighting against all things American, but North Korea has opened up a fast food restaurant -- one without "imperialist" hamburgers.

Beer-can chicken results in super-succulent barbecued bird.

A Texas woman discovered most of a frog in her veggies.

Tian is a fancy French term for a layered vegetable dish.

A simple summer salad gets a boost from juicy chunks of watermelon.

Gelato or ice cream -- which would you rather eat?

Strawberry Salad Photo: Rebecca Flint Marx

Farmers markets are now brimming with boxes of strawberries, and most people's natural inclination -- aside from eating them all before getting home -- is to turn the berries into pies, cobblers, crumbles and strawberry shortcakes -- in other words, dessert.

While their tart sweetness makes them shining stars of the seasonal baked goods line-up, strawberries also make great supporting players in savory dishes. They pair well with cheeses, nuts, salad greens and even some meats, and can be as versatile as they are irresistible.

One way to introduce them before the dessert course is in a salad, not only as whole fruit but also as a tangy vinegar. Though you can buy bottled strawberry vinegar (as well as other fruit vinegars), it's plenty easy to make your own. It adds bright layers to the following recipe for spinach salad with toasted pecans, strawberries and ricotta -- and can be added to as many other salads, entrees and yes, even desserts, throughout the rest of the summer and beyond.

Photo: The Leftover Queen

Shredded carrots are subjected to all sorts of injustices, usually involving large quantities of mayonnaise, sour cream or cream cheese. So it's refreshing to see a photo and recipe that capture their simple, sweet beauty.

Jenn of The Leftover Queen snapped this Caribbean carrot salad, which is oh-so-barely dressed with a few splashes of apple cider vinegar and grape seed oil and a spoonful of brown sugar. It looks crisp, cool and infinitely satisfying, an excellent way to enjoy the the iridescent goodness of carrots -- without having to dig for them.

[Via The Leftover Queen]

Warm days call for cool picnic ideas, and this white bean salad certainly answers that call. Made by Elise at Simply Recipes from a recipe of her mother's, it looks both refreshing and hearty, a simple solution to the perennial question of not only what to eat, but what to eat while sitting on a blanket, fending off ants and sunburn.

And while you may be able to hold both at bay, we're guessing that when a salad looks as pretty as this one, you'll have no such luck fending off the hungry advances of fellow picnickers eager for just one more mouthful of beans, kissed with fresh lemon juice, spiked with raw purple onions and garnished with fresh, lush herbs.

[Via Simply Recipes]