Red beets salad with caramelized pecans and dill

After travelling and extreme floods, here is finally a new blog post with a fantastic summer salad.

This red beets salad is super refreshing and a perfect way of getting all the raw vegetables and nuts you need.
It's a nice addition to all that meat at your barbecue party and can also be served as a nice and healthy appetizer or as a light lunch or dinner.

I cannot wait to use the beets from our garden for it! Still have to wait a little on those ones...

What you need:

4-5 red beets (fresh)
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
5 spring onions, chopped into fine rings
300-350 g (approx.) 1-1.5 cups of yogurt (around 3.2-3.5% fat)
150-200ml (approx 0,25-0.5 cup) heavy cream
150g pecans chopped
1 bunch of dill, roughly chopped
1 bunch of chives, roughly chopped
salt, pepper, honey/sugar
olive or carmelina oil

Directions:

Peel the red beets.
You may want to use gloves for that because of the red dye. I didn't and it washed off my hands quite easily.
With the grating attachement on a food processor (ideally) roughly grate the beets.

In a pan slowly roast the chopped pecans.
When browned, add some honey or sugar and caramelize the pecans with it.
Remove from heat and set aside to cool down.

In a pan heat up some olive/carmelina oil at medium heat.
Add the garlic and spring onions and sautée for a few minutes, until soft (do not fry them!).
Set aside and let cool down.

In a big salad bowl mix together grated red beets, yoghurt and cream.
Add dill and chive, as well as garlic, spring onions and roasted pecans.

Mix well.

Season to taste with salt and pepper and maybe a tiny bit of sugar.

The salad tastes even better a day later, after it has been sitting in the fridge for a while.

Notes:

All the measurements especially for the yogurt and cream are pretty much measured by eye.
I don't follow a recipe when doing it.
It always depends on how big the beets are. The beets should be nicely coated with the yoghurt-cream mix.
And regarding the dill and chive: Be generous! You cannot really screw anything up by adding 'too many' fresh herbs.

You could use sour cream instead of yoghurt, as well.

Tomato, Fresh Fig and Blue Cheese Salad

So for the past days we've been busy harvesting tons of balcony tomatoes and figuring out what to do with them. Every day there are just more and more of them.

Ok, the classics Greek or Caprese salad are great, but can get a little boring after a while.

So I looked through my cook books and searched the internet for a delicious alternative.

One of my favourite sources for food related news and recipes certainly is the New York Times Dining&Wine section. And that's where I found this Tomato, Fresh Fig and Blue Cheese Salad.

We've been eating this salad for the last couple of days. It is SOOOO GOOD!

Really easy to prepare and all those different ingredients are in perfect balance with each other. 

The figs add a subtle sweetness that balances the stronger flavor of the blue cheese. 

Together with ripe sweet but slightly acidic tomatoes, thyme, roasted pine nuts and a vinaigrette of olive oil, sea salt and balsamico, it's heavenly!

Seriously, try it yourself. 

You'll be surpirsed how good it is and how quick and easy it is prepared!

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons pine nuts
• 1 large or 2 small ripe tomatoes, about 8 ounces, thinly sliced
• 1/2 pound fresh figs, cut into quarters
• 1 ounce crumbled blue cheese, like Fourme d’Ambert, more to taste
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• Black pepper.

Preparation

1.       In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar and salt. Whisk in oil. 

2.       In a small skillet over medium-low heat, toast pine nuts, shaking the pan occasionally, until light golden, about 2 minutes.

3.       Spread tomato slices on a large plate. Scatter fig quarters and pine nuts over tomatoes. Sprinkle with cheese and thyme, drizzle with dressing and finish with pepper.

 Bon appetit!

Green asparagus & strawberry salad with arugula

Just a quick post, since I'm super busy getting everything ready before leaving for Canada next week.

I made this green asparagus & strawberry salad last night. I didn't  have high hopes, but have to say it turned out really good. Both go very well together and a the arugula adds a nice spicyness.

Look closely and you may spot some of the hollandaise sauce and balsamico...

I sliced the strawberries and had them marinate for a couple of minutes in a dash of 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of sugar and black pepper. The amount of sugar depends on how many strawberries, how sweet they are already and whatever you prefer. 

In the meantime I steamed the asparagus and wahsed the arugula.

Salt the asparagus, then pour asparagus, strawberries and arugula in a bowl and mix. 

Season everything with salt and pepper, if necessary.

I made my quick sauce hollandaise to pour over the salad, not the whole amount, though, that would have been too much...half maybe, or even less (you can find the recipe here!). Together with balsamico vinegar sprinkled over it in the end it serves as a nice and rich salad dressing. You can also just use olive oil instead and add some grated parmesan or gruyere cheese. 

That is a little lighter, easier and less time consuming to prepare.

Enjoy, your ultimate spring salad!

Notes: 

I already knew that strawberries taste really well with balsamico and/or pepper. But, boy, it's the first time I noticed how nicely they taste with a bit of salt...

Health Day!

Fall is approaching and with the constant change from warm and humid to cold and dry and back to warm and humid, Wil and I have been feeling quite a bit under the weather lately.

Our diet also hasn't been the lightest and healthiest, either. 

Therefore we decided to add a little bit unbearable lightness to our being (oh, how I hate this book!) and eat more fruits and veggies.

So my Sunday started with herbal tea and grapefruits, sprinkled with a tiny bit of sugar and cinnamon and ended with a refreshing cucumber salad. 

All I did was cutting the cucumber in really thin slices, adding some sherry vinegar, hibiscus salt, dried dill from our garden, olive oil and again, a tiny little bit of sugar.

Wil brought me the grapefruit to bed! It is sunday after all...

the little red things are from the hibiscus salt..dried hibiscus...

What you don't see is the giant bowl of pasta I ate for lunch. 

But that was totally reasonable!

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!

So, Wil is a very, very good and dedicated gardener and has been taking care of our tiny balcony and the plants. 

We grew tons of tomatoes this year which are all ripening now.

As promised, here are some pics of our harvest!

before picking

after picking

 

 

They taste sweet and fruity... almost like candy.

 

Wil made a salad with our first tomatoes adding arugula, mozzarella, 

chanterelles sauteed in butter and balsamico, bacon and pine nuts...

Barbecue No2! or How to trick myself into liking salad...

After a long and exciting day on Schmachtenhagen's farmers market with our friends Anna and Beau we came home with tons of meat, some sausages, fresh warm sourdough bread, an ice machine that I bought for 10 bucks at the flea market there and a giant headache from all the beer we drank...

Nevertheless our hibachi was already waiting for us.

As soon as we got home we fired the grill and threw on some sausages and sirloins.

In order to have our dinner plates look more colourful and a bit healthier I decided to make a classic salad with lamb's lettuce, tomatos, cheese and avocados.

Ok. I have to admit I'm not a big salad fan. 

But with a few tricks and a bit of extra-pimping I manage to create one that even I don't mind eating.

First of all I caramelize the cherry tomatoes in butter adding a dash of sugar, salt and pepper.

Warm sweet tomatos in a salad taste insanely good!

Then of course adding roasted nuts (pine nuts and almonds preferably). 

You can't go wrong with crunchy roasted nuts! 

I also like adding Hass avocado cubes because of their creamy texture and fresh parmesan to sprinkle over it...

Very important, as well: good olive oil and balsamico vinegar.

Quality just tastes better! 

For example we bought 20 year old balsamico vinegar from our local Italian store.

That really makes a difference!

I can also highly recommend to do an olive oil degustation at some point.

You won't believe how different olive oil can taste!

I really like the greek ones. They taste very grassy and slightly bitter.

There you go! These are my tipps and tricks to make a simple salad more enjoyable.

You can also just add meat to it, though...

We drank a pretty decent French red wine with it: Chateau Capitoul Rocaille Rouge AOC

which contains the varietals syrah, grenache noir and carignan.