Mark Bittman’s 101 Simple Summer Salads

Mark Bittman is one of my favorite food writers because every recipe he publishes is so simple; easy to do, and yet inviting with a new look on the usual ingredients. He has published a list of 101 Simple Salads for the Season on his NYTimes blog Bitten.

Here are some samples (left to right in the above photo):

56. Salade niçoise, sort of: On or around a bed of greens, make mounds of olives, cooked new potatoes and green beans (warm or at room temperature), good tomatoes, capers, fennel slivers, hard-cooked eggs and good quality Italian canned tuna. None of these is crucial; you get the idea. Serve with vinaigrette or aioli.

7. Grate carrots, toast some sunflower seeds, and toss with blueberries, olive oil, lemon juice and plenty of black pepper. Sweet, sour, crunchy, soft.

42. Trim crusts if necessary from day-or-two-old bread (or even three-day-old bread), cube and marinate in black olive tapenade thinned with more olive oil. Add chopped capers and toss with tomatoes, basil and mozzarella. (Anchovies optional.)

49. Toss greens with walnuts, blue cheese and raspberries; drizzle with a simple vinaigrette. Sell for $14 a serving.

95. Mix cooked couscous or quinoa with orange zest and juice, olive oil, maybe honey, sliced oranges, raisins or dried cranberries, chopped red onion and chopped almonds. Serve over greens, or not.

13. A red salad: Combine tomato wedges with halved strawberries, basil leaves, shaved Parmesan and balsamic vinegar.

It is tempting to treat these salads as a daily treat and make them all, one by one.

If cooking is not really your thing, and the economic downturn has you thinking that maybe it should be your thing, and you only want a cookbook or two, you cannot go wrong with his two popular cookbooks:  How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

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