Vegan Asparagus Salad for Spring with Tomatoes, Hearts of Palm, and Chives

A lovely salad for spring with asparagus, tomatoes, hearts of palm, and chives.

I love to pull things out of the fridge or pantry and experiment to see what I can come up with, and this salad combination started with the Hearts of Palm I was so excited to find back in stock at Costco.  I had fresh asparagus in the fridge and chives growing in the garden, both of which seemed like they would be good with hearts of palm, and then I added a few of the small grape tomatoes I start buying in the spring when I'm craving the flavor of tomatoes.  Mixed with a lemony vinaigrette, this salad was a great side dish for Herb Encrusted Grilled Salmon.  And when I can have an easy meal that includes hearts of palm, asparagus, and grilled salmon, I'm a happy camper.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Southwestern Quinoa Salad with Black Beans, Red Bell Pepper, and Cilantro

Luckily this Southwestern Quinoa Salad is loaded with healthful ingredients, because it was hard to stop eating it!

Lots of people are becoming fond of the South American seed product called quinoa (keen-wah).  I knew quinoa had become mainstream when I noticed you could buy a giant bag of it at Costco, and although I resisted for a week or two, eventually I bought one of those huge bags and stored it in the freezer.  I've made a lot of tasty things with my big bag of quinoa, but this quinoa salad with Southwestern flavors in the dressing may be my favorite quinoa dish yet.  Besides the cumin-lime-chile flavors in the dressing, I loved this because the crunch of the red pepper, the softness of the beans, and the slight chewiness of the quinoa was such a nice combination of textures.  The salad stayed good in the fridge for days, so it would be perfect to make on the weekend and take for lunch during the week.  And if you haven't tried quinoa yet, this may be the recipe that will turn you into a quinoa fan.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Whole Wheat Orzo Salad with Kale, Chickpeas, Lemon, and Feta

A delicious healthful salad with whole wheat orzo, kale, chickpeas, lemon, and Feta.  You could use brown rice or quinoa for a gluten-free version of this tasty salad.

A few years ago I discovered 100% Whole Wheat Orzo Pasta, and I've used it to make a few tasty pasta salads since then.  If you're not familiar with it, orzo is a type of pasta that's shaped like large grains of rice, and if you don't want to bother finding the whole wheat orzo or for a gluten-free version of this salad, cooked brown rice would make a fine substitute.  Of course it won't surprise anyone that I took a fantastic-sounding salad with spinach and switched out the spinach for kale.  I used regular curly kale so we trimmed it and wilted the kale for a minute, but if you had Earthbound Farm Ready-to-use Organic Mixed Baby Kales you could just give the kale a few rough chops and throw it in the salad.  We also added some cumin into the dressing for this salad, which gave it a bit of a Mediterranean flavor.  No matter what version of this salad you end up with, we thought this delightful combination of flavors was a perfect meatless meal.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Raw Baby Kale Salad with Apples, Sunflower Seeds, and Lemon-Dijon Vinaigrette

Raw Baby Kale Salad with Apples, Sunflower Seeds, and Lemon-Dijon Vinaigrette!

There's no doubt about it, I'm seriously smitten with the Earthbound Farm Baby Kale Mix that suddenly appeared at the Fresh Market store by my house.  I've been buying it every time I see it at the store (and so is everyone else apparently, because about half the time they don't have any.)  Making a salad with the raw baby kale was a snap and I loved this combination with raw baby kale, apples tossed in a lemon-Dijon vinaigrette, and crispy sunflower seeds adding a little crunch.  The dressing for this is slightly sweet, so maybe this would be a good one to try out on family members who are on the fence about raw kale.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Heart of Palm Salad with Tomato, Avocado, and Lime (with or without Cilantro)

I've been infatuated with this Heart of Palm Salad with Tomato, Avocado, Cilantro, and Lime.

I love combining beloved ingredients in slightly different ways, and this Heart of Palm Salad with Tomato, Avocado, Cilantro, and Lime was the happy result when I arranged a marriage between my favorite Vegan Heart of Palm and Avocado Salad and Colorful Tomato Salad with Hearts of Palm.  This offspring salad had all the good qualities of the parents, plus some new qualities of its own!

Click to continue reading

Spicy Stir-Fried Broccoli Stems Recipe

This recipe is for everyone who likes to nibble the broccoli stems when they're cutting up the broccoli!

Broccoli stems are one of those under-appreciated vegetable parts that don't get much respect, yet when I'm cutting up stalks of broccoli, they're my favorite part to nibble on.  After I realized how much I liked them, a few years ago I started to save the stems in the vegetable crisper.  I've mostly used my broccoli stem bounty in salads, but this idea for cooking the stems with a spicy sauce is something I came up with when I had a whole pound of stems saved up.  I cooked them in a wok, but a large frying pan will work, and if you've never eaten the broccoli stems, this recipe just might turn you into a fan.

Click to continue reading

Baby Kale Greek Salad Recipe

All the flavors of Greek salad, plus baby kale!

Yes, the infatuation with Earthbound Farm Organic Baby Kales  is still going strong around here, and last week my local Fresh Market store had the baby kale mix on sale, so there's been a lot of baby kale on the menu.  Of course that's perfectly fine with me since I love this baby kale, especially for salads.  Not only is the flavor milder, the baby kale mix such a nice combination of flavors and shapes.  I like the crunch that kale gives to this version of Greek salad and I loved the way all these flavors worked together.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Baby Kale and Mozzarella Quesadillas with Sriracha-Ranch Dipping Sauce

Quesadillas with baby kale and mozzarella, served with a spicy Sriracha-Ranch Dipping Sauce.

Some of you guys who haven't yet joined the Baby Kale Fan Club might think I've gone a little too far with this recipe for Baby Kale and Mozzarella Quesadillas with Sriracha-Ranch Dipping Sauce.  It was just an idea that popped into my head when baby kale had been on sale and I had an abundance of it in my fridge, and when Jake and I were making the first quesadilla I wasn't sure it was going to be anything special.  But oh my, the quesadillas were so amazingly good with the dipping sauce.  I don't know if this is something you could get a green-veggie phobic kid to eat, but it would certainly be easy enough to make a plain cheese quesadilla for the kids if you made this for a family dinner.  And if the adults in the family like leafy greens, I promise this will be a hit!

Click to continue reading

Cross-Cultural Salad Recipe with Tomato, Avocado, Jicama, Lime, and Feta

Lisa's Cross-Cultural Salsa inspired this Cross-Cultural Salad with jicama!

When I tried out the recipe for Lisa's Cross Cultural Salsa, I fell in love with the combination of flavors and immediately started thinking about what else I could add to this to make it more of a salad.  Since the salsa had that lime and tomato thing going on, jicama seemed like something that would be a lovely addition.  It also added a nice crunch, and jicama is such a low-glycemic vegetable that I'm happy about thinking of more ways to use it.  The resulting salad with tomato, avocado, jicama, lime, and feta was definitely a keeper, at least based on my tastebuds!

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Greek Frittata with Zucchini, Tomatoes, Feta, and Herbs

This Greek Frittata with Zucchini, Tomatoes, and Feta is good for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!

(Updated with better photos and instructions, June 2012.)  On Sundays I like to post meatless recipes on the blog so anyone who's participating in Meatless Monday can find them the next day.  Usually I post a brand new meatless recipe every Sunday, but there's a good reason I'm making an exception for this Greek Frittata.   A few weeks ago I made this favorite frittata from 2006 so I could take new pictures (greatly needed!)  Then I noticed that through the week I ate pieces of this at various times for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and it struck me what a versatile meatless dish this was, so I decided that Greek Frittata with Zucchini, Tomatoes, Feta and Herbs must be a perfect option for Meatless Monday. 

Click to continue reading

Ten Easy Ideas from Kalyn for Vegetables on the Grill

For Meatless Monday, here are ten of my favorite ideas for vegetables on the grill.

It's no secret that I love grilling, but I'm especially a fan of vegetables on the grill.  Partly it's the combination of fresh garden vegetables coupled with a lack of desire to turn on the stove this time of year, but I also think grilling also adds a little extra flavor to most any kind of vegetable.  This week there's a big grilling holiday coming up in the U.S., so for this week's Meatless Monday post I thought it would be fun to share some of my personal favorites for vegetables cooked on the grill.  (All these recipes are things I like so much I might even make them indoors on a stove-top grill pan if it wasn't grilling weather!)

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Kalyn's Power Salad Mix (and the quest to eat more vegetables)

This Power Salad Mix is something I eat regularly for a meatless meal!

For a few months I've been having regular talks with myself about maintaining my weight.  You might remember that when 2012 started, I confessed I had gained some weight, and I'm happy to report that I lost about 12 pounds in the new year when we did that Month of Phase One Recipes.  But for the last few months my weight has been doing that up/down thing again, and lately I'm being honest with myself and admitting that at least half the time I weight about ten pounds more than I really want to.  In addition to losing those ten pounds and keeping them off, I'm also working on a goal of more meatless meals, and I've decided that eating more vegetables, including a big nutrient-rich salad every day, will be a strategy that could be the key to both those goals. 

Click to continue reading

Slow Cooker Recipe for Spicy Vegetarian Pinto Bean and Chard Burritos

Pinto beans and swiss chard cook in the slow cooker to make a delicious filling for vegetarian burritos.

I think it was a recipe I came across for swiss chard sauteed with cumin (plus an abundance of swiss chard in the garden) that inspired me to create this slow cooker recipe for a spicy vegetarian mixture of pinto beans, swiss chard, spices, and salsa that's stuffed into burritos.  This is definitely one of those recipes that produces a very unphotogenic mixture when it comes out of the slow cooker, but if you like swiss chard and pinto beans, please don't let that keep you from making this.  I loved the combination of flavors with the pintos and swiss chard, and other than chopping the swiss chard a little smaller next time, this was a lucky recipe experiment where I wouldn't change a thing!

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Cauliflower-Crust Vegetarian Pizza with Mushrooms and Olives (Low-carb, Gluten-free)

This low-carb and gluten-free Cauliflower-Crust Vegetarian Pizza can be cooked on the grill or in the oven.

Last year I started noticing cauliflower-crust pizza showing up on healthy cooking blogs, but I didn't pay much attention to the idea until a few readers wrote and said they were sure I would love it.   One person sent me a link to this recipe from Eat. Drink. Smile. and that's the one my nephew Jake and I used as our starting point when we decided to experiment with a cauliflower crust.  It took us three different tries and the addition of both almond meal and grated Parmesan cheese to get a crust that we thought was about as crispy and bread-like as you could get when the main ingredient was cauliflower, and we both loved how the final pizza turned out.  I'm not sure this will ever replace regular pizza for some people, but if you'd like to try a pizza crust that's low-carb, gluten-free, and more nutritious than regular crust made with flour, I think you'll be pleased with this version.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Grilled Eggplant, Grape Tomato, and Feta Salad with Amazing Basil, Parsley, and Caper Sauce

Even if you don't make this salad, don't miss the Donna Hay-inspired Basil, Parsley, and Caper Sauce!

For anyone who saw the title of this recipe and said "I don't like eggplant," I need to remind you of my discovery that grilled eggplant is really one of the best things about summer.  I was never an eggplant fan until I started growing the thin Japanese Eggplants in my garden, and cooking them on the grill.  If you've never had grilled eggplant, you've never really had eggplant!  However, if I can't possibly talk you into eggplant, then you still should try the Amazing Basil, Parsley, and Caper sauce that we used as a dressing in this recipe.  The sauce recipe and the inspiration to combine it with grilled eggplant came from Donna Hay's New Food Fast, and this is another one of those summer herb sauces that would be good on nearly anything.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Moroccan Cabbage Slaw with Carrots, Cumin, Lemon, and Mint

I'm always interested in a new salad idea with cabbage and this Moroccan Cabbage Slaw is a keeper!

My fondness for cabbage salads is well-documented on the blog, and this unique Moroccan Cabbage Slaw with Carrots, Cumin, Lemon and Mint is my latest cabbage slaw favorite.  The cumin combined with carrots gives this slaw the Moroccan twist, and when my nephew Jake and I tried the recipe we added the chopped mint, which really made the flavors pop in the salad.  I'm a big fan of green onions as well, so we also used a generous amount of those.  Mint makes this a summertime slaw recipe, and for a Meatless Monday Meal I'd love this salad combined with some lovely Grilled Vegetables from the garden!

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Julia Child's Eggplant Pizzas (Tranches d'aubergine á l'italienne)

Pizza made on a base of roasted eggplant, from a recipe found in From Julia Child's Kitchen.

If you're interested in food, you must have heard that August 15 would have been Julia Child's 100th birthday.  I was honored to be one of the bloggers asked to share thoughts of Julia in a tribute written for PBS Food, and my friend Lydia completely captured why food bloggers want to honor Julia in her post on Six Lessons I Learned About Food Blogging from Julia Child.  Julia was known for her appreciation of bread, butter, and wine, so when you're writing a blog focused on low-glycemic cooking, finding a suitable Julia Child recipe that will appeal to your readers can be a challenge.  That's why I was so excited to find Eggplant Pizzas in From Julia Child's Kitchen, my one and only Julia Child cookbook.  This recipe illustrates perfectly how Julia was ahead of her time with this low-carb, gluten-free, vegetarian, and low-glycemic pizza.

(This recipe is part of the Cook for Julia project that's part of the celebration at PBSFood.  Thanks for the inspiration Julia, and also for showing us that cooking gourmet food at home was not only possible, but also a lot of fun.  Check after my recipe for links to other blog posts featuring recipes from Julia, and see more  recipe ideas on Facebook from PBS.food.)

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Zucchini Crust Vegetarian Pizza Margherita (on the grill or in the oven)

Vegetarian Pizza Margherita, with a crust made of grated zucchini.

This seems to be the summer for pizza crust experiments at Chez Kalyn, and this recipe for Vegetarian Zucchini-Crust Pizza Margherita was inspired by the Cauliflower-Crust Vegetarian Pizza I made last month.  After trying that pizza with a crust made of cooked cauliflower, cheese, almond meal, and an egg, I started wondering why you couldn't make a similar type of crust with zucchini.  Jake was skeptical, and it did take us two tries to get a crust we were happy with, but we both loved the way the zucchini added flavor to this crust and really complemented the simple tomato sauce, fresh basil, and fresh Mozzarella that are the traditional toppings for Pizza Margherita.  This is a pizza recipe that's not only vegetarian, but also gluten-free and low carb and it's another answer to that zucchini problem that so many people have this time of year.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchini with Brown Rice, Black Beans, Chiles, Cheddar, and Cotija Cheese

Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchini with Brown Rice, Black Beans, Green Chiles, and Cheese for Meatless Monday!

My garden is still supplying me with zucchini at a pretty regular pace, so recently I decided a new version of stuffed zucchini should be on the menu.  I had some Cotija cheese that was left from a dish my brother Rand had made when he was visiting, so I guess that's what inspired me to go with a Mexican-themed version of stuffed zucchini this time.  If you're not familiar with it, Cotija is a type of hard, crumbly Mexican cheese.  It made a nice topping for these Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchinis with Brown Rice, Black Beans, Green Chiles, and Cheese, but if you don't have it you could use Parmesan, Feta, and or even a little more of the cheese blend that's used in the stuffing.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Whole Wheat Pasta Salad with Fried Kale, Tomatoes, Olives, Feta, and Pesto Vinaigrette

Whole Wheat Pasta Salad with Fried Kale, Tomatoes, Olives, Feta and Pesto Vinaigrette!

This recipe for Whole Wheat Pasta Salad with Fried Kale, Tomatoes, Olives, Feta and Pesto Vinaigrette was something that started out as a complete experiment when I was cooking with my nephew Jake and we'd just gotten some Garofalo Whole Wheat Fusilli in the mail from Amazon.com.  I'm such a fan of the Garofalo Whole Wheat Spaghetti that I've been using for a few years now, that I couldn't wait to experiment with this new whole wheat pasta shape.  (And if you've been disappointed by other whole wheat pastas, I can assure you that this Italian whole wheat pasta tastes great!)  Jake and I experimented with some kale from the garden and other ingredients we had on hand, and this delicious pasta salad was the happy result!

Click to continue reading