Recipe: Dinner Salad

The sauteed rice in this salad adds a buttery, chewy crunch that delights the taste buds.

Salads are remarkably quick and simple to make, and if you think of them as a canvas, on which you add all sorts of elements — in this case, rice, chicken, and sesame seeds — you wind up with a piece of art that you eat.

And when you think, “salad,” think beyond just lettuce, to greens of all sorts. I incorporated kale in this recipe, and its aggressive, slightly peppery taste adds depth and interest. It also adds nutrition: one of the “superfoods” that also happens to be fashionable, kale is full of vitamins and fiber, and according to whfoods.org, it provides comprehensive support for the body’s detoxification system.

When the produce you eat is grown in healthy soil, without artificial chemicals or sprays, you might find it easier to eat, because it tastes better. If you haven’t already, cultivate an attitude of celebrating all of the food you eat, as opposed to getting the vegetable out of the way so that you can enjoy the rest of the meal.

Dinner Salad: Makes three dinner salads or four smaller side salads

Ingredients:

1 head Buttercrunch, Red Sail, or other decent, organic leaf lettuce (from Deer Pond Gardens if you’re in the Dayton, WA area)

4 ounces Kale

2-4 boneless skinless chicken thighs (or breasts, if that’s what you’ve got; or leftover cooked chicken. I used the smaller number of thighs because we eat less meat to stretch the grocery budget, but feel free to add more if you like a lot of meat)

1 cup leftover rice (mine was brown)

2 Tablespoons butter

1/2 cup chopped green onion

3 Tablespoons sesame seeds

Easy, EASY Salad Dressing

In a small, covered saucepan, cook the chicken over medium heat until it’s done.

Melt the butter in a skillet and fry the rice in it until hot. I fried mine until it was slightly crispy.

Slice the lettuce and kale into ribbons and arrange on plates. Sprinkle the onions atop. Once the chicken is done and the rice is hot, chop up the chicken into small, bite-sized pieces and sprinkle over the onions. Top with rice and sesame seeds.

For a variation on the dressing, replace half of the lemon juice in the Easy, EASY Salad Dressing recipe with the chicken broth. If you have fresh sage leafs on hand, chop up six and add to the dressing; if you’re using the immersion blender, it will frappe the leaves for you; if you’re whisking the dressing together by hand, mince the leaves before you whisk them in.

Bon Appetit.

This is a good time to mention that cooking for yourself, if it’s not something you already to, is a good thing to learn, not only because you eat better, but because you save money. For more on saving money, check out the book, Live Happily on Less — there’s an image of it on the right menu bar, and clicking on the image will take you to its Amazon page where you can peek inside the book.

Child of Eden by Steve Henderson. Original oil on panel available at Steve Henderson Fine Art. Licensed open edition print at iCanvasART.

Recipe: Easy, EASY Salad Dressing

The flavors of this dressing blend with just about anything you want to put into a salad.

This extremely simple salad dressing consists of three ingredients, and is so simple that you’ll find yourself saying, “Bless that Deer Pond Gardens” place! This simple salad dressing is really, really, easy. What makes it even easier is the use of stick, or immersion blender, but if you just have a fork and good wrist, you can whisk briskly and emulsify the oil with the lemon juice. You know, it takes me more time to talk about this recipe than it will for you to make it. Dress it gently over fresh salad greens — if you’re in the Dayton, WA, area, pick up those greens from Deer Pond Gardens at the Saturday Farmer’s Market or at Deer Pond Gardens (see our About section).

Using an immersion blender — I’ve tilted the container so you can see better; generally, I keep the container flat. Make sure to unplug the blender the moment you’re not using it. The blades are sharp.

Easy EASY Salad Dressing — makes 2/3 cup Ingredients:

1/3 cup lemon juice

1/3 cup olive oil

3 Tablespoons Sugar (use less, or more, depending upon how much sour kick you want in your salad dressing)

In a mixable container, pour in lemon juice and olive oil, add sugar. Blend with immersion blender until creamy and emulsified, or whisk together with a fork until blended. That’s it. See you at the Farmer’s Market.

Three Horses, original oil painting on canvas panel by Steve Henderson of Steve Henderson Fine Art.

This article is linked to Five Little Chefs, a Life in Balance, All Things with a Purpose, A Handful of Everything, Coco and Cocoa, Celebrate Everyday,  Sweet Bella Roos, Think Tank Thursday, The Mom Club, Buns in My Oven, Whimsy Wednesdays, Inspire Me Wednesdays, Mostly Homemade Mom, Flusters Creative Muster Link Party, Sew Much Ado, A Little Bird Told Me, Kitchen Meets Girl, Life with the Crust Cut Off, Creative Geekery Thrifty Treasury Naptime is My Time, Hungry Hypo, Cleverly Simple, Kitchen fun with my three sons, Frugal Family, Whipperberry, Somewhat Simple, Lets get real, Mostly Food, Love Bakes Good Cakes, Food Renegade, Inspire Me Monday, Mopping the Floor, natural living monday, Crafty Home Blog Hop

Buttercrunch Lettuce

Buttercrunch lettuce growing at Deer Pond Gardens.

Buttercrunch lettuce is beautiful — it looks like a large green rose growing in the garden. Its thick, succulent leaves are perfect in salad, providing a crunch and crispness that pleases the palate. Buttercrunch grows well throughout the season, and is known for NOT turning bitter in the hot weather.

A good source of vitamin A, Buttercrunch lettuce is great in more than salads — we used it in our Hot Steak Sandwich with Organic Lettuce Sexily Draped atop (this sounded so much better than “wilted”), and the green of the lettuce contrasted with the deep brown of the gravy and the seared meat.

The seeds for our Buttercrunch lettuce come from Territorial Seed Company, a privately held seed company with extremely high standards of quality. Deer Pond Garden gardener Jordan Henderson makes regular plantings of 25-50 Buttercrunch lettuces per week.

At Deer Pond Gardens, we grow Buttercrunch readily throughout the season, so if you have never tried it before and think that Romaine lettuce is a walk on the wild side, find us at the Dayton, WA Saturday Farmer’s Market beginning March 24 and make something extra special for dinner!

The Spring Garden Is Growing

A row of lettuce growing in the sun at Deer Pond Gardens

Spring has arrived in Dayton, WA and Deer Pond Gardens is preparing for its debut at the Farmer’s Market, Saturday, May 24 at the Dayton Depot Courtyard.

That’s the same day as the Memorial Day Parade on Main Street, so before or after the festivities, drop in at 222 East Commercial Street (take a left at the only stoplight on Main Street, drive a block, and look on your left) and pick up fine produce for your week’s meals.

Gardener Jordan Henderson will kick off the season with a selection of tender, succulent lettuce, as well as green onions and rhubarb. All produce is grown without sprays, chemicals, or artificial ingredients.