It’s almost St. Patrick’s Day! That makes me happy. I happen to particularly enjoy St. Patrick’s Day, but I have yet to meet for an excuse for a party that I didn’t like. That and I’m Irish (thanks ma and da). I have some traditional (Mama CC made/approved) and not so traditional things in store for the week. Unfortunately, my celebrations can’t begin until I’m done with midterms. Hopefully dreams of potatoes and whiskey will be enough to see me through…

This salad is definitely not your stereotypical Irish fare. It’s light and healthy and vegan actually, the exact opposite of meat and potatoes.  It would be a great starter for any dinner party. It would definitely help balance out any and all corned beef and whiskey that might be consumed. I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed this salad. I really like salads with multiple lettuces and this had a great mixture. The crispy, cool iceberg, peppery arugula, soft butter, and some spinach just because. They all really worked together and made each bite interesting. I basically opened the fridge and grabbed anything green. It worked out to be a festive little number and perfect early spring lunch.

Johnny Cash wrote a song “Forty Shades of Green,” which I am a bit embarrassed to say that I only discovered yesterday. My Ireland born, Johnny Cash-loving father will be so disappointed. I remember flying into Dublin when I was younger, and shockingly, it wasn’t raining. I think she was trying to get me to shut up, but my mother told me to try to count the 40 shades of green out the window and that’s been the only connotation I’ve ever known until yesterday. 

I’m absolutely in love with this salad. Just writing about it makes me want to make it again. Even though it is still the middle of winter in most places, I’ve been on a huge salad kick thanks in part to our wacky weather (it was 80F/27C here over the weekend and now it’s cold and rainy…). This might be the perfect balance of light and salad-y and filling and hearty, which makes for a pretty good winter salad. The flavors in this salad combine perfectly. Every bite had the perfect balance of sweet, savory and tangy. I would preferred to use fresh apricots, and even though we are lucky enough to be getting in the start of our summer fruits here in Southern California, I just couldn’t find any fresh ones up to snuff. Dried worked just as well, but I personally like the fresh version over dried. I actually thought that the turkey was kind of lost in this salad. I would have enjoyed it just as much with out.

In theory this salad should be pretty quick to make. It’s easy enough to make if you are using regular bread and pre-cooked/leftover turkey, but since I like to make things difficult, that’s not the route I went. I made gluten-free focaccia and poached turkey tenders. Neither really took that much time at all, but definitely a little more work than the original recipe, but nothing over the top. You could still make this as a delicious weeknight meal even if you have to take a few extra gluten-free steps. It might be a bit strange to see bread as a major ingredient in a gluten-free salad, but I really liked how the [Chebe|http://www.chebe.com/] Focaccia worked. They reminded me of the croutons I used to make from ‘real’ bread many moons ago.

I will fully confess this salad was made out of desperation. I got a little overzealous at Costco and bought a 5 pound bag of baby spinach. It was $3.79, seemed like such a great idea at the time. Do you know how much baby spinach is in a 5 pound bag of baby spinach? FIVE pounds. Do you know how hard it is to come up with new ideas to use up 5 pounds of baby spinach? Real hard. There are only so many green smoothies and sautéed spinach one can consume. I have gotten to the point I just google spinach and any other random ingredients I can think of and hope something worthwhile comes up. I’ve been hitting a lot of duds, but I really lucked out with this one.

I personally don’t like super oily vinaigrettes (or oily anything), so I tend to skimp on that. I just couldn’t get a taste I liked with just the limes for acidity, so I added in a bit of white wine vinegar to try to get the flavors to blend a bit better. Perfect fix. I added the feta at the last-minute (an other Costco purchase that needs to be used… I need to stop doing this to myself). I think it gave the salad a tangy bite that worked really well with the other flavors.

I also have to admit I am totally embarrassed by the fact that I took the time to cut the strawberries into hearts. Who does that? It’s a cheesy cute idea for a Valentine’s Day salad if you have the need for such a thing. This salad is definitely tasty enough to share.

I have been hoarding a package of halloumi in my cheese drawer for several months now. Halloumi is hard to find and pretty expensive in these parts, so I tend to use it sparingly when I do find it. I finally decided to give the cheese a change of scenery and put it in a salad. I was quite happy with the move. The halloumi has yet to comment.

To make this tabbouleh salad gluten free, I used quinoa instead of bulgar wheat. A super simple swap. I personally liked the quinoa better than other tabbouleh I’ve had in the past. I was tempted to make a light lemon/vinaigrette dressing to go over the salad. In the end, I ended up squeezing one lemon over the salad and saving the olive oil the onion had been sautéed in. Genius idea! The oil brought even more caramelized onion flavor to the salad, which is always a plus in my book and the lemon helped brighten the flavors up with it’s refreshing tartness.

Let’s move on from Thanksgiving left overs…

I was slightly hesitant to mix roasted broccoli and roasted grapes, but since I have had pretty good luck with roasting them separately, I figured combining the two couldn’t be too bad. The roasted grapes gave the salad a caramelized sweetness, but it was subtle. I normally would not like anything sweet in a salad like this, but the tangy, creamy dressing kept it in check. They dressing really brought out the best in the other flavors in the salad.

For some reason I always ignore the recipes that come on the packaging of food. I bought some hot Italian turkey sausages last week. I really had no clue what to do with them, but they were on sale, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. As I was attempting to figure out how to even cook the things, I noticed a recipe on the back of the package. Surprisingly it actually sounded pretty delicious. I had nearly everything on hand, so I went for it.

I was very pleasantly surprised about how this turned out. It was great. The mustard dressing really complemented the flavors of the sausage and the roasted vegetables. The original recipe called for sweet potatoes instead of butternut squash. Either one works. I also think that this salad would be a great way to use up leftover veggies and turkey from Thanksgiving, so keep it in mind for later in the month…

This salad combines 4 of my favorite things; halloumi, olives, potatoes and tomatoes, how could you possibly go wrong? Roasting olives and tomatoes really help bring out there flavors and together, they were even better. The rosemary really added a lot of great flavor as well.

With the one exception of having to turn on the oven on an extremely hot day, this made for a perfect light and tasty summer meal. I found that the potatoes were a little dry when you cut them to eat. I think adding some extra liquid or broth with help this situation. Also, make sure your tomatoes have popped, so they can add a little extra liquid as well.

This is another great hot weather meal. You can grill the chicken outside or skip the cooking all together and use rotisserie chicken from the store. The salad has a lot of flavor and is a nice blend of sweet and tangy. It’s also very light, which is perfect for a hot night.