High Protein Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

Two of Many Varieties: His & Hers

Recipe Inspired by Nob Hill Markets

Salads! Always healthful, and now in season. For a while I’d been dependent on a pre-made Nob Hill salad for my after-work late lunch. And I felt plenty guilty about the amount of plastic containers I’d recycle. Then I looked at the ingredients and did the math. I didn’t like the lentils in the salad, nor the skimpy amount of egg, tomato, and chickpeas. I thought I could change things up and add avocado. Plus, I could upgrade to organic ingredients. Oddly enough, since I’ve been making my own, our local Nob Hill has stopped carrying the salad. Was my consumption driving their business? Somehow I doubt it.

Tangerine & Greens Salad with Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette

Tangerines, Spinach, Arugula = Bright, Delicious, and Healthy

Recipe adapted from Field of Greens

Today marks the second year since I started Seasonal Eating and I’d like to thank each and every one of my readers, Facebook fans, and especially my followers…349 posts later! Normally I’d bake a cake to celebrate, but I’ve already posted both Meyer Lemon Cake and Ginger Frosted Pineapple Cake this month--and Bourbon Pecan Cake shortly before that. So for the sake of balance, I’ll get back to our March theme of keeping our immune systems strong by enjoying high nutrient foods disguised as delicious dishes. Spring arrives tomorrow, and a light and sunny salad seems like the perfect way to say goodbye to winter and hello to spring. Tangerines won’t be available much longer, so let’s grab the last of them now, to use in both the salad and the dressing.

Eggs Florentine or Eggs Benedict

Bright Winter Brunch or Supper

Recipe by Robin and the Boston Cooking School Cookbook

When I reported in our January menus post that January is National Egg Month, I should have “examined” my source more carefully. According to the American Egg Board, May is Egg Month. Nevertheless, I spent the month of January coming up with a recipe to honor the humble egg. The carrot soufflé that sounded so good was an utter failure. Then I remembered the first fancy dish I ever made: Eggs Benedict. I’ve never been a ham fan, so I substitute spinach (officially called Eggs Florentine). I’ve included a ham option in my recipe. Key to a great Benedict (or Florentine) is perfect old school Hollandaise sauce. You’d never know that at certain restaurants, where they serve thin gray salty sauce, dyed-orange white sauce, or even melted Swiss cheese on Benedicts. That’s just wrong.

Winter Greens Soup for Immune Boost

Colorful, Nutritious, and Most Especially Yummy

Recipe from Field of Greens

Looking for ways to strengthen your immune system? Good idea for staying well at this time of year. According to WebMD,  “A diet rich in antioxidant vitamins and nutrients can boost immunity. Top antioxidants include vitamins C and E, plus beta-carotene and zinc.” Their top antioxidant food picks include kale, onions, spinach, carrots, chard, and garlic. And that’s pretty much the ingredient list for this soup. So it’s healthy, but the real surprise is its savory deliciousness, considering its simple ingredients. Preparation method is key. As my friend Gwen, who makes this soup every winter says, “If you throw it all into a pot, it won't come out right. Follow instructions, then it's delicious!” Luckily, the instructions are pretty easy.

Strawberry, Arugula, and Spinach Salad

Pine Nuts and Parmesan Add Contrast

Recipe by Robin

We’re in the time that old-timers call the dog days of summer: hot, sultry days that are noticeably shorter than June’s. It’s the final hurrah, the wrap-up of summer, a time to appreciate being outdoors in shorts and sandals, sitting around the yard relaxing, tending the garden, or heading to the beach for some sun and fun. Cooking elaborate dinners in a hot kitchen? Not so much.

Pinaattiohukaiset: Scandinavian Spinach Pancakes (Finland)

Lingonberry Preserves = Perfect Compliment

Recipe by The Cooking of Scandinavia

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post for a special announcement: Spinach is delicious in pancakes! I didn’t plan to make these, or even know about them. If I were a more disciplined cook and hadn’t gone to Ikea I might have never known. But let me back up a bit.

I’ve been curious about lingonberries for decades, because of my interest in Scandinavian cooking and cultures. So I was excited to find lingonberry preserves at Ikea last weekend. Being somewhat compulsive, I derailed my plans to make Mom’s potato salad and started researching uses for lingonberries. A quick look through The Cooking of Scandinavia recipe booklet revealed that Finnish people make traditional spinach pancakes and often  serve them with lingonberries. Perfect recipe for the half pound of summer spinach in the fridge!

Greek Frittata with Spinach, Tomatoes, and Feta

Brunch is Served (Add Fruit & Muffin)

Recipe inspired by the Heavenly Café

Every couple of Sundays, and not too early, I can be seen at the nearby Heavenly Café eating their Greek Scramble with a fruit cup and a homemade muffin. Although I haven’t mastered the art of the muffin as they have, I was able to create a rather convincing Greek Scramble-like frittata today. Tomatoes aren’t quite in season here, so I did use a not-quite-seasonal ingredient. Reconstituted sundried tomatoes from last season would have been better. I tried, but my reconstituted dried tomatoes look blackish and had no smell at all. Who knows when they were dried? Before last year, and probably by quite a bit.

Vegetarian Spinach Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette

Jae's Potluck Idea

Recipe by Jae and Robin

A few years back, I was completely socially inept. Not only was I unable to make conversation at parties, I was absolutely clueless about what kind of food to bring to these gatherings. So many foods seemed unacceptable: chips and salsa were brought by too many people already, anything with meat was a faux pas if a vegetarian accidentally ate it, shellfish was suspect by individuals who thought it might not be cooked sufficiently, beer was assumed to accompany something else, and the ramen and veggies that I largely subsisted on rapidly deteriorated in texture as the evening progressed.  Because I wanted to mingle with others, I asked my few girlfriends what to do.

African Inspired Pumpkin Mash with Peanuts & Spinach

Joe Attacking Pumpkin with Cleaver & Mallet

Recipe by Joe

My friend Joe mentioned this recipe a couple of times before I asked him to come over and cook the large pumpkin I’d been procrastinating about since last fall’s harvest. Joe cooks like many of us, with a little of this and a handful of that, simmering it till it looks right, etc., so it’s not easy to quantify this recipe. Truthfully though, quantities don’t matter much, as long as cinnamon isn’t overdone. The amount of pumpkin, potatoes, greens, and peanuts can vary quite a bit and still make a delicious and healthful dish. It’s appropriate that quantities be flexible, since the concept for this dish comes from northern Africa. The African cooks that I know never measure, and excel at improvising with quantities and ingredients at hand.

Mashed Potatoes Florentine

Recipe with Yellow Finn Potatoes

Recipe from Live Earth Farm, 1999

 We were perusing our CSA’s website to find recipes that use the maximum number of the veggies that we received this week. A bounty of yellow finn potatoes led us to this unusual mashed potato recipe, which also incorporated the large bunch of spinach we received. These potatoes were a perfect accompaniment to the exotic salmon sausages that our local natural foods store makes.

Early Summer Pasta with Red & Green Sauce

Chunky Red & Green Sauce on Miracle Noodles

Recipe by Robin

In the spring, when our CSA farm share was full of green garlic and several kinds of onions, I created a recipe for Pasta with Onion-Garlic Red Sauce and Veggie Crumbles. It was one of my more popular blog posts. Seasons change and summer  has its own bounty, and I found myself short of onions when making this dish today.  So I added a bunch of chopped spinach to make an early summer variation, and substituted fresh herbs from the garden for the dried herbs.

Tuscan-style Garlic Spinach

Spinach with Golden Garlic

Recipe from Weight Watchers Points Plus Cookbook

Though this recipe purports to be of Italian extraction, our favorite (now defunct) Chinese restaurant used to prepare a similar dish. The King Chwan restaurant used more oil and garlic, and many medium-size whole garlic cloves instead of a few large cloves cut in half. I’d be all for using whole garlic cloves next time instead of the large halved ones. However, I’d stick with Weight Watchers' lighter use of oil, which improves the digestibility and nutrition of the dish without compromising the flavor.