A Salad That Could Be A Complete Meal

Some ingredients are just plain fun to cook with - like those goofy looking little fingerling potatoes I used tonight with a baby arugula, potato and green bean salad.

As with so many of my dishes, the recipe came from Smitten Kitchen and was previewed by Emily. She made it a week ago and gave the taste a thumbs up, so I figured I'd better try my hand at creating one. The final deciding factor was when I received a surprise package from Emily, right before we left for Seattle. Inside were three different kinds of oils including walnut oil, as called for in the recipe. Maybe they sell that kind of oil at my local Stater Brothers, but I kinda doubt it. It was such an unexpected and totally perfect gift from my totally wonderful daughter.

My family is most comfortable with extremely simple salads, preferably out of one of those everything included bags. Martin would eat the bagged Ceasar salad about every night of the year, with an occasional lettuce/tomato/carrot mixed salad thrown in for "variety". I had some serious doubts that Tim or Martin would even try the salad I was going to create but, if I'm ever going to branch out and do new things, I'm gonna have to get past the feeling of failure when I cook something that they both disdain.

First off in creating the salad, I had to toast the walnuts. Not exactly brain surgery but I did think it interesting that this is a process I've never done in all my years of cooking. Another new "skill" for me - cooking the beans and then giving them an ice bath to stop the cooking. It's really rather silly how much pleasure I derive from doing these new kinds of things. While I was busy cooking the different elements and whisking up the salad dressing, Tim sat watching an episode of Master Chef. I'd hear the running commentary from the TV chefs and imagine Gordon Ramsey narrating my cooking. "You've got a huge mess in your work space, your rolls are done too early...SHUT IT DOWN!!!"

The salad takes some time to prepare, no doubt about it. I found it a bit more tricky to orchestrate the different elements while trying to get rolls done and cook up some pork chops but, in the end, the salad turned out pretty fantastic.

(This is before the salad dressing and walnuts went on)

Biggest disappointment of the recipe? For some reason, I didn't get a picture of the final product. What's with that? You're just going to have to believe me that the salad looked like something out of a magazine and tasted divine.  And best of all - Tim and Martin both ate the portions I put on their plates. OK, I admit neither of them specifically said they liked what they were eating...but with those two, just having them actually take a bite of a food not on their accepted list is pretty amazing.