Cape Cod Chopped Salad
- By Katie Roche
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- 01 Dec, 2018
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I actually tried really hard to procrastinate on writing this post, true writers-block style but the wave of inspiration (or desperation) hit me when the knitting needle in the sock I was working on snapped cleanly off its cord and I really didn't want to work out. That would have required getting out of my pajamas and turning off the Hallmark channel which I was comfortably watching by the light of the Christmas tree. So inspiration has struck in the form of a grandma-disaster: broken knitting needles have brought me to this point. I am not super proud to say that I Amazon Prime-d their replacement (still in my pajamas) instead of supporting local business and driving to the knitting store but the holiday traffic has gotten out of control around here and I'm not done with my coffee yet. Don't have the patience to deal with that right now.
This salad-making operation was unfolding a couple of days before we left for Thanksgiving, so, during peak grocery store hours. My item quest didn't involve anything unusual - now that we're out of the cocktail chapter, it's generally become a lot less dramatic. But it was still kind of dramatic. Cue me rolling into the Trader Joe's parking lot, blissfully unaware of what it held within: dozens of University of South Carolina sorority sisters shopping for their "Friendsgiving" and squealing over the new seasonal items Trader Joe's carries. Between the obstacle course of sisters in their omg-it's-fall boots/scarves/sweaters and the extreme temptation to buy a giant container of English Toffee, it's a wonder I made it out of there in decent time and with only the things on my list. Now if only it was possible to quest for the type of immunity to environment and temperature it takes to wear fashionably chunky scarves when it's still in the 60s outside.
The recipe intro for this says to make it "just when you feel like eating apples and Roquefort cheese" (as if this incredibly specific desire strikes us all at some point) but I must confess that a) that desire has never stricken me before and b) I actually bought Gorgonzola instead of Roquefort because when I happened upon the Roquefort in TJ's, I learned that it is sheep cheese. Sheep cheese tastes like dirty animal and I can't stomach it. Dan says that is cheating, and I get it; I do try to maintain integrity and stick to the ingredient list as closely as possible. But I really can't roll with sheep cheese and it's my blog. Sheep can stick to giving us yarn and stay out of the cheese game, thanks.
This salad-making operation was unfolding a couple of days before we left for Thanksgiving, so, during peak grocery store hours. My item quest didn't involve anything unusual - now that we're out of the cocktail chapter, it's generally become a lot less dramatic. But it was still kind of dramatic. Cue me rolling into the Trader Joe's parking lot, blissfully unaware of what it held within: dozens of University of South Carolina sorority sisters shopping for their "Friendsgiving" and squealing over the new seasonal items Trader Joe's carries. Between the obstacle course of sisters in their omg-it's-fall boots/scarves/sweaters and the extreme temptation to buy a giant container of English Toffee, it's a wonder I made it out of there in decent time and with only the things on my list. Now if only it was possible to quest for the type of immunity to environment and temperature it takes to wear fashionably chunky scarves when it's still in the 60s outside.
The recipe intro for this says to make it "just when you feel like eating apples and Roquefort cheese" (as if this incredibly specific desire strikes us all at some point) but I must confess that a) that desire has never stricken me before and b) I actually bought Gorgonzola instead of Roquefort because when I happened upon the Roquefort in TJ's, I learned that it is sheep cheese. Sheep cheese tastes like dirty animal and I can't stomach it. Dan says that is cheating, and I get it; I do try to maintain integrity and stick to the ingredient list as closely as possible. But I really can't roll with sheep cheese and it's my blog. Sheep can stick to giving us yarn and stay out of the cheese game, thanks.
Dan picked up the bacon for me at the butcher when he was there picking up our turkey. Our syrup really did come from Connecticut - we got it a farmer's market in Stonington a couple of years ago. Yes, that much syrup has lasted us this long - we don't eat a lot of syrup-foods. (But for the record, I'm #teamwaffle.) Other than that, ingredients are pretty basic here.
First, you get all the stuff that isn't the dressing or the bacon in a bowl. (Tupperware, we classy.) If anyone ever figures out how to mix salad toppings in with the greens without all that crap just sinking into the bottom, let me know. Sure, it looks fine here, but trust and believe that when I mixed it all it just sank. Especially these bad boys, they love to camp out at the bottom of the bowl:
Meanwhile, you do something that, at first I thought was crazy, and now I realize is the best idea ever: you bake your bacon. Full disclosure, I have made this recipe a number of times before (it's really good) and the first time I made it I was like, "What kind of dork bakes their bacon?" And then I did it and realized that it results in crispier bacon, less of a mess on the stove, and easier cleanup. As Ina would say, "who wouldn't love that?" If it seems in any way kin to microwaving bacon, which someone has done for me once, it is NOT and microwaving bacon is not and never will be okay.
It's THICC.
My roasting pan is over on the left, photo-bombing my bacon, and getting ready to hold the turkey as it dry-brines and then gets toted on a field trip (never to return, ugh, morbid) all the way to Alabama for Thanksgiving dinner.
It's like in that Christmas carol where the treetops glisten, except my "seared swine flesh", as my dad calls it, is glistening. Getting in the spirit with glistening bacon. Mmmmm.
I dragged my toaster out of its unconventional storage space (the laundry room) for the unnerving task of toasting walnuts. You literally have to hover over the toaster while walnuts are in there because I swear they go from normal to super burned in like two seconds. In other news, I dream of having a toaster that isn't so massive that it takes up half of the largest counter in my kitchen. I don't know what I was thinking when we registered for this toaster, but I guess in my head we had an HGTV kitchen, not an 800 sq ft apartment. So it stares at the washing machine all the time until I need to toast something. Can't wait till I have my Barbie dream house with enough counter space for all my kitchen crap.
Correct level of toastiness achieved. On to the dressing!
Most things worth eating have citrus zest in them. It's just a fact. I use a microplane for all of my zesting needs, despite the fact that there is an official kitchen tool meant specifically for zesting. I just don't think it works as well, plus, the microplane is not a uni-tasker: I can also grate Parm with it. You mix this delicious orange zest in with cider vinegar, maple syrup (this salad is Elf-approved), the juice of the orange, Dijon mustard, and olive oil.
It's an appetizing severely-dehydrated-pee color. And that fact that that's what I immediately thought to compare it to tells me that too many of my close personal friends are nurses.
Although Ina has you dress the entire salad, probably because she has friends coming over and plans to use the entirety of it, I don't have friends that just drop by for lunch so I plated one portion and dressed it and then saved the rest of the dressing so I could eat it again tomorrow. Dan refuses to partake due to the Gorgonzola. Honestly, my main takeaway from making this for the blog was what a complete and utter REVELATION butcher bacon is. If you're local to Columbia, SC, do yourself a favor and go buy some bacon at Ole Timey Meats. It was truly meat-candy.
Thank goodness Ina gave us a mood for this salad in the intro - "when you feel like eating apples and Roquefort cheese" - but since I'm into updating her notations for the real world, I would advise you to make this "just when you feel like wearing chunky scarves and shopping for Friendsgiving at Trader Joe's". Or perhaps "just when you're laboriously prepping Thanksgiving dishes and want something low-maintenance for lunch". I feel like she should really hire me to make her recipes relatable to the public. We're not out here hankering for very specific types of dirty sheep cheese; we're neck-deep in Christmas cards that will still somehow be late. Eat it then. Eat it when you're late mailing your Christmas cards, or when you still haven't found the right present for your husband because he's really hard to shop for. These are the seasonal feelings of the plebeians. This is our reality, and Ina is just living in it. But she does make a mean salad.
Thank goodness Ina gave us a mood for this salad in the intro - "when you feel like eating apples and Roquefort cheese" - but since I'm into updating her notations for the real world, I would advise you to make this "just when you feel like wearing chunky scarves and shopping for Friendsgiving at Trader Joe's". Or perhaps "just when you're laboriously prepping Thanksgiving dishes and want something low-maintenance for lunch". I feel like she should really hire me to make her recipes relatable to the public. We're not out here hankering for very specific types of dirty sheep cheese; we're neck-deep in Christmas cards that will still somehow be late. Eat it then. Eat it when you're late mailing your Christmas cards, or when you still haven't found the right present for your husband because he's really hard to shop for. These are the seasonal feelings of the plebeians. This is our reality, and Ina is just living in it. But she does make a mean salad.
For this post, I wanted to combine two summertime flavors into the crisp recipe one of my oldest Alaskan friends passed on to me years ago. Rhubarb, if you're unfamiliar, is a reddish stalk that kind of resembles really big celery. It's very tart and is most commonly paired with strawberry. I've rarely seen it star in its own show dessert-wise, but my friend Kylee has been making rhubarb crisp for years and it's the best crisp I know of. Blueberries are usually in season in late summer; I have not been home for a blueberry season since Dan's last deployment in 2018 so in order to make this recipe I actually used blueberries from a friend's parents' farm in upstate SC! They're a little sweeter than the blueberries I'd have picked at home, but they worked well. I'm going to pretend like I was actually picking blueberries at home in Alaska for the purpose of showing you what that would look like.
I was getting all ready to write this post, going through my process with photos starting in my kitchen when I realized that a lot of my friends probably don't know what fireweed is or where it comes from and this recipe actually starts far, far away from my kitchen. This will be the first of a few posts highlighting iconic Alaskan ingredients. I've wanted to do this for a while because my home inspires me in so many ways, writing and cooking particular among them. Fireweed is a wildflower that is rather ubiquitous in southcentral Alaska and is often considered a gauge for how long summer will last. It is said that when the blooms reach the top of the plant, winter is six weeks away. Whether or not that's accurate, fireweed is found all over in late summer in Alaska. Here is some I spotted in mid-July by Eklutna Lake:
If you know Dan and me very well, you probably know by now that if our life were a sitcom, he'd low-key be the funniest character. Because that is true, I thought I'd include his bottom ten with accompanying remarks before giving the actual bottom ten. His are hilarious, but aren't as legitimate as mine because he actually tried way fewer of these than one might think. I realized as he was flipping through the book that my old coworker Cam probably ate more of these foods than anyone else did. The overarching theme of Dan's song of Ina Garten hatred is not the actual taste of the finished product but more how asinine he finds that particular recipe to be. So here you are, Dan's bottom ten.
#1: Butternut Squash Soup
#1: Butternut Squash Soup
You guys asked for my top ten from the blog, so here we go! And I'm thinking that what you *really* want is actually the bottom ten, so I'll go ahead and give you those next week. That post will probably be A LOT funnier. While preparing to write this post, I had Dan flip through the cookbook to give me HIS top ten and he was all disgruntled as he did so and only came up with eight that he even liked at all. "I'm not a picky eater!" he insists. Yeah ok. Although to be fair, I've seen some cookbooks I would only make, like, one thing out of and plenty I'd make nothing out of, though sometimes that's because I find the chef so annoying. @ the Pioneer Woman. I just don't trust someone who puts sour cream in spaghetti and then bakes it. Plus all her recipe intros are about, like, Ladd or Tadd or whatever the heck her husband's name is "coming in from the fields starving for dinner". If I came in from working in a field and you tried to give me sour cream spaghetti, I'd be like, "How about a hot pocket instead? Thx." Anyway, this is not Dan's blog so these are not his top ten. You can ask him which ones he liked, but you'll end up in a long convo about how much he hates Ina Garten. Anyway, these are not ranked or anything, they're just in order from the cookbook.
So with that, #1: Juice of a Few Flowers
So with that, #1: Juice of a Few Flowers
It was Sunday afternoon and I thought to myself, "What a perfect time to make jam!" I mean, how positively quaint: just sitting in my home in suburbia, finished with weekend chores, relaxing with some knitting...why not? Why not make some jam? I mean, obviously my afternoon-kitchen-activity was directed toward jam-making because it was next up in the book BUT whatever, I was kind of excited! Also, this is the last recipe in this book!!! I'm still in the process of deciding what I'll do now, so if there's something you'd like me to make and tell you about in my own fashion - you know, with lots of tangents and jokes - please do let me know! I'll likely continue to tackle Ina content, but may start including some recipe faves and/or foods people text me about a lot! I get a lot of cake questions, a LOT of frosting questions (because meringue buttercream is bae and I've got everyone in my social circles who eats my food on board), and a lot of fish questions. So look for more food to come, even though this is the last recipe in Back to Basics.
We went to Publix to ItemQuest for this and Dan said, "Don't we already have strawberries???" And I had to confess that I had eaten them all because it's honestly amazing how good fruit can be when it's 1) in season, 2) somewhat local, and 3) not ludicrously expensive. I'm about to travel home to Alaska for about a month, and it's going to put a real damper on my current fruit-snacking habits when I go into Fred Meyer for some strawbs and they're like, $7/lb and already trying to be moldy. Also needed blueberries (partly for the jam, mostly for the snax), one Granny Smith apple, and more superfine sugar. Publix had all of these things, plus about a million old people 'cause Sunday + Publix = Old People City.
We went to Publix to ItemQuest for this and Dan said, "Don't we already have strawberries???" And I had to confess that I had eaten them all because it's honestly amazing how good fruit can be when it's 1) in season, 2) somewhat local, and 3) not ludicrously expensive. I'm about to travel home to Alaska for about a month, and it's going to put a real damper on my current fruit-snacking habits when I go into Fred Meyer for some strawbs and they're like, $7/lb and already trying to be moldy. Also needed blueberries (partly for the jam, mostly for the snax), one Granny Smith apple, and more superfine sugar. Publix had all of these things, plus about a million old people 'cause Sunday + Publix = Old People City.
I was glad Ina gave me something easy for this week, because I was packing for Alaska and just *did not have the time* to mess with hunting lobsters or weird cheeses from the internet or whatever. ItemQuest was fairly straightforward, just took Dan a trip to the liquor store next to the Publix for some limoncello. I grabbed this particular lemon curd in the British aisle of Publix; I think last time an Ina recipe called for lemon curd I bought it from Trader Joe's and it was DISGUSTING. I mean, truly awful. I would like to recommend making your own lemon curd if you have the time and the inclination. Ina's lemon curd recipe is phenomenal and it is one thing for which I can say she is truly correct: homemade is BETTER and store-bought is not at all as good. The most beloved cupcakes I have ever made were filled with Ina's lemon curd, and had the lemon curd mixed into the meringue buttercream frosting. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!! Anyway, the rest of this was fruit that I had on hand, mint, and Greek yogurt which we did have to buy because I don't, as a rule, eat Greek yogurt of my own free will. It's chalky and disgusting.
Dates are something I honestly never even thought about until I did Whole 30. I have mentioned my Whole 30 experience several times over the course of this journey through Back to Basics, but if you're new to reading the blog, this is what happened: I did Whole 30 one time, just to prove that I could, because salvation-by-diet apologists were obsessed with it as the newest fad in righteous eating practices. It was a terrible experience; on top of hating every minute of it for myself and finding exactly zero wellness benefits, I also hated it for Dan who was not allowed to eat popcorn for 30 days. Dan is in love with popcorn; his addiction to it is almost at the level of my addiction to coffee. He gets rage-y without it. But anyway, Whole 30 recipes are big into dates as sweeteners and some of the things you can eat, like Lara Bars, are made with dates. Dates are impossibly chewy. I ate more of them in that 30 days than I ever wanted to, and now when I see them in recipes I can't help but think of that Whole 30. Fortunately for me, I got to begin this recipe by chopping TWO CUPS' worth of dates. Oh, they also kind of look like cockroach bodies, so there's that. The only thing I actually had to get at the store for this was oranges! I had everything else on hand, even Cointreau, thanks to many previous Ina recipes.
Alright so, I'm not the Muffin Man. I don't really make a whole lot of muffins, for a lot of reasons, one of the main ones being that on the rankings of breakfast foods they definitely do not crack the top five, maybe not even the top ten. If I have an option for a bagel or a waffle, I'll pick one of them over a muffin every single time. I also prefer cereal, cinnamon rolls, or *cue eye roll* avocado toast. I've just never risen from my slumber and been like, "You know what would really hit the spot right now? A MUFFIN." But!!! In recent months, since my friend Logan came into my life, I've been making muffins a lot more frequently because he really loves them. So the last blueberry muffins I made were from a 99cent Betty Crocker mix packet which he brought into my house and asked me sweetly to make, because they're what he grew up with and along with many preservatives, they are full of nostalgia for him. Here is Logan and me, preparing to mix the muffin batter. Out of respect (and to make up for the disrespect of rolling up with muffin mix), he wore one of my aprons. I will treasure this picture forever.
You guys...Ina has "a thing" about commercial granola bars. Her beef with them, apparently, is that they say they contain real fruit and nuts but that all she sees when she looks at the labels are like, ten different kinds of corn syrup. I'm going to go ahead and guess, just based on this, that none of the lunches her mom packed for her growing up contained any Fruit By the Foot. And surely if we introduced her to Gushers, she would die. This is a real shame. I also feel like this disdain for corn syrup is maybe just a tad self-righteous, coming from the woman whose frosting recipe calls for literally six entire sticks of butter. At that point, what's a little corn syrup to you really? People's nutritional hills-to-die-on really fascinate me (and also kind of annoy me sometimes) and the ones about sugar might get me the most. I feel like, at some point, sugar is sugar and whether you're baking with honey, white sugar, brown sugar, molasses, maple syrup, etc you're still probably making something that's not amazing for you so, in terms of sugar, why not just be in for a penny in for a pound, amirite? So while I'm on this topic, before I even get to the actual point (please, I know you're here for the tangents), I would like to just let anyone and everyone know that I'm absolutely not interested in your "healthy substitutes" for things that taste good in their original form. I do not WANT a chocolate chip pancake made out of bananas and grains you harvested in your field this morning. If I want a banana I will eat one, and if I want a chocolate chip pancake I will eat one, and that's that. And DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT come @ me with "cashew cheese". Just don't. I don't even think I should honor that concept with an explanation of why it's so wrong. If that's not self-evident, I can't help you.
So down to the granola bar ingredients. I rolled up to Kroger only to find that their already meager bulk bins had been EMPTIED because if you scoop dates into a bag and then someone else scoops dates into a bag, you might get the coronavirus. I'm glad they've taken the precaution of removing this shopping option, since I cannot resisting licking my hands after every grocery trip I make. Thankfully, they still had the lil tower of small containers of some of the weirder items right there in the organic section, which was where I was able to find dates. The rest of this stuff was on the baking aisle, with the exception of wheat germ which was, for some reason, with the cereal. I'm still kind of unclear on what wheat germ is actually used for by people, and the context of it being located on the cereal aisle makes me wonder even more. Do people eat it like grape nuts? Sprinkle it on stuff like how people like to do with nutritional yeast right now? ("It tastes just like cheese!" You know what else tastes like cheese? Actual cheese. You're welcome.) Anyway, I was very grateful that Kroger at least had everything I needed and I didn't have to go on a for real ItemQuest.
So down to the granola bar ingredients. I rolled up to Kroger only to find that their already meager bulk bins had been EMPTIED because if you scoop dates into a bag and then someone else scoops dates into a bag, you might get the coronavirus. I'm glad they've taken the precaution of removing this shopping option, since I cannot resisting licking my hands after every grocery trip I make. Thankfully, they still had the lil tower of small containers of some of the weirder items right there in the organic section, which was where I was able to find dates. The rest of this stuff was on the baking aisle, with the exception of wheat germ which was, for some reason, with the cereal. I'm still kind of unclear on what wheat germ is actually used for by people, and the context of it being located on the cereal aisle makes me wonder even more. Do people eat it like grape nuts? Sprinkle it on stuff like how people like to do with nutritional yeast right now? ("It tastes just like cheese!" You know what else tastes like cheese? Actual cheese. You're welcome.) Anyway, I was very grateful that Kroger at least had everything I needed and I didn't have to go on a for real ItemQuest.
At first I saw the pictures of this and thought, "YAY!!! Cinnamon rolls!" And then a couple of weeks ago, I actually tried making cinnamon rolls for the first time and realized that my inability to roll/shape/slice yeast doughs is still a thing. AND THEN I read this entire recipe and realized these get filled with raisins. So here we go!
ItemQuest was only dramatic because the stores just DID NOT have puff pastry sheets; I was only finding it in "shells". I tried Bi-Lo and Dan tried Food Lion before he finally located sheets at Publix. The rest of the ingredients, I already had on hand!
ItemQuest was only dramatic because the stores just DID NOT have puff pastry sheets; I was only finding it in "shells". I tried Bi-Lo and Dan tried Food Lion before he finally located sheets at Publix. The rest of the ingredients, I already had on hand!