Mediterranean Chopped Salad Concept Recipe

Fresh vegetables chopped together, tossed with a vinaigrette, and garnished with feta cheese.

This is not a post for a tentative cook, though honestly I have no idea how many of my readers aren't assertive in the kitchen. I mean, someone adventurous* enough to sign up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share has got to have some confidence in the kitchen, right?

I made this salad to serve alongside a Lebanese-spiced ground beef and lentil dish. We ate this as shown, with hummus, yogurt, and warm naan bread. The fresh crunchy salad was the hit of the meal. Over the summer I threw together versions of this quick salad to serve alongside grilled chicken, alongside a dinner of hummus & chips, and as a snack. [Apparently I never bothered to label any other photos of it in the thousands of photos taken last year.]

Why should I include such a simple recipe idea on this blog? Easy. The whole point of the blog is to give you ideas for what to do with produce from your farm share, your garden, the farmer's market or store. The more ideas, the more successfully you'll use your produce. If the photos do a decent job of conveying how fresh and crunchy this side dish is, then my work here is done.

This recipe will appear in the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient as well as the Cucumber Recipes Collection and the Pepper Recipes Collection. If I remember to snap a photo of it with other combinations of veggies, I'll update and add it to additional collections. You can also find this, and other ideas for using Colorful Veggies [that grow] Above Ground on my Pinterest board of the same name.

Braised Turnips with Potatoes and Sausage

Turnips and potatoes, braised with sausage in broth.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

When I lived in Germany I attended many outdoor festivals. I loved the winter markets the best--what an experience! New-to-me sights, smells and foods. Once, when my folks were visiting we went to an outdoor market in Cologne. My mom walked up to a group of Germans who were sharing a paper cone of freshly roasted nuts and asked for a taste.

I was mortified. My mom enjoyed her spiced nut.

Now I've turned into my mom. While shopping at the base commissary* I got in line behind a cute little old lady buying turnips. I'd never seen anyone buy turnips before. We frequently get them in our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, so I was intrigued. Channeling my mom, I asked the lady how she liked to eat her turnips. She said she braised them with potatoes and sausage in a bit of broth. Here's my take on that conversation.

For other recipes using turnips, please see my Turnip Recipes Collection. For other recipes using potatoes, please see my Potato Recipes Collection. These are both part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For even more ideas, I've got an assortment of boards on Pinterest you're welcome to check out if you need a time suck!

Corned Beef, Cabbage and Dubliner Pizza

A St. Patrick's day pizza: corned beef & cabbage smothered with creamy Irish cheese.

I will probably be all over the place in these notes, so I apologize in advance. Squirrel! At least I'll try to break them up with official-looking subheadings.

The pizza

Since we eat pizza every Friday--and some Sunday afternoons while I'm working on shooting recipes for my first-in-a-series pizza ebook--food holidays are a great way to explore new flavor combinations. We've enjoyed 'Tremendously Green' cabbage and potato pizza and Irish cheddar, chicken, leek and potato pizza already, so I thought a corned beef & cabbage pizza was the next logical step. I like how this Irish cheese melts, so that addition was a no-brainer.

The behind-the-scenes photos

After my spouse returned from Afghanistan he bought a camera. While he was deciding if it fit his hand, I'd attempt to use it for photos. Once he determined that it wasn't right for him, he'd return it and buy a different one. He repeated these actions over the course of the winter, eventually settling on one. [The camera that I am still, a year later, attempting to use for photos!] The common thread--through the camera shopping and the marriage--is that I adapt to whatever works best for him. Adaptability is an excellent trait in a military spouse.

On the day I made this pizza we happened to have 2 cameras in the house--and a hungry assistant eager to get the photos taken so she could dig in. My spouse was using the new camera to take photos of me doing my thing with the previous new camera. The distraction is probably why I left an unfolded napkin in the corner of the photo, but at least it provides a place to overlay the recipe title.

Don't ask me which cameras he went though before ending up with his final choice. It doesn't matter because it's not the camera that takes a great photo, it's the person pushing the button. Whatever fits your hand and is easy for you to understand and use is the right camera for you. The brand name, the numbers on the lens--they are secondary to how it feels to you. Just make sure that something in the photo is in focus! There's no reason to have digital photos that are blurry. It's pizza, not a gazelle bounding away causing you to snap quick before the moment is gone.

There is nothing to disclose

I realized that there are an awful lot of brand names visible in these photos. Thanks to my spouse's hard-earned money I was able to buy everything at a variety of stores, and I'm choosing to share what I bought because the items worked really well in this recipe. There are plenty of times that I'm just not that into making pizza dough in advance, nor do I have any pizza crust yeast (Amazon affiliate link) to make a fast dough. I've tried a bunch of prebaked crusts and know what we like best. Use whatever products work best for you.

For other St Patrick's Day-inspired or 'any random day' pizzas, please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index. For other recipes using cabbage, please see my Cabbage Recipes Collection. For other recipes using leeks, please see my Leek Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.