2 Salads: Lime/Shrimp/Avocado & Blood Orange/Sweet Potato/Kale

I am just about ready to kidnap Michelle & baby and fly to Ecuador and stay in airbnb places and Alandaluz, a beach ecoresort. (Michelle, look.) Brittany, you can change your flight back from Mexico and come join us. I just think that I shouldn't have to be around snow right now. See:

Instead, I will make bright, pretty salads.

Lime/Shrimp/Avocado Salad

Adapted from Skinny Taste

1 lb cooked shrimp, peeled & deveined, rough chopped (I sautéed mine in olive oil)

1 avocado, cubed

1/2 red onion, diced

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1 jalapeno, chopped

2 limes, juiced

salt & pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

Toss the onion, lime juice, olive oil and salt & pepper in a small bowl. Let that sit for about five minutes to mellow out the onion. Combine with pepper, jalapeno, avocado and shrimp. Add pomegranate seeds if they're laying around from something you made yesterday. Serve.

Note: You can add cilantro if you want. I like cilantro, and I bought some for this salad but it smelled really bad when I opened it so I tossed it. It's so good without the cilantro that I won't use it when I make this again.

Blood Orange/Sweet Potato/Kale

Slightly adapted from How Sweet It Is

1 sweet potato, rough chopped

1 tbsp maple syrup

3 tbsp olive oil

salt & pepper

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

6 cups salad greens (I used chopped dino kale)

2 blood oranges, chopped or sliced sideways

1/4 cup pomegranate arils

4 oz feta cheese, crumbled

2 blood oranges, juiced

1/4 cup white vinegar

2 cloves garlic, minced

salt & pepper

1/3 cup olive oil

Roast the sweet potato in the oven at 400 in the maple syrup, oil, salt, pepper and paprika. Roast for about 20 minutes or until a little soft. Let cool.

Mix the greens with the sweet potatoes, orange pieces, pomegranate arils and feta cheese. Combine the orange juice, vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper. Pour in the olive oil while whisking. Pour as much as you want to use into the greens and save the rest in the fridge for other salads. Serve.

Dino Kale Salad with Garlicky Vinaigrette

I went to the new Squirrel Hill farmer's market this morning, and it was so nice! I wish I had started going earlier this summer. It's spread out between two parking lots between Bartlett and Beacon, parallel to Murray. Along with a pie pumpkin, I got some dino kale from One Woman Farm. For lunch I made this basic salad with a great garlicky dressing. I'm also making chicken broth right now, and the apartment smells amazing!

Dino Kale Salad with Garlicky Vinaigrette 
Serves 2 or 1 for a huge lunch salad

10-15 leaves dinosaur kale (depending on size)
1/2 apple
1/4 cup feta cheese crumbles
1 tbsp sesame seeds
2-3 tbsp dried cranberries, cherries or raisins

3 cloves garlic
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
salt & pepper

Chop up the dinosaur kale into little pieces - cut the ribs out and fold up the leaves to make thin slices and keep slicing into they are little 1 inch strips. Put the strip in a bowl and crush them a couple of times in your hands. (Your hands will turn a little green, and the kale will become a shade darker.) Cut up the apple into chunks. Mix the kale, apple, feta, sesame seeds and dried fruit.

Smash the garlic cloves with the side of a knife. Mince the smashed garlic. Mix and stir all of the dressing ingredients (garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper). Toss well with the salad.

Avocado & Steak Salad with Balsamic Basil Dressing

Today I went to the first First Friday at the Frick concert of 2014 with my sister, mom and grandparents. My family's been going since I was in elementary school, and I've tried to go at least once every summer. So many more people go now! The whole Frick property is packed with people and their crazy fancy picnics. The headliner concert of the Three Rivers Arts Festival was the same night, and the place was still packed.

Couscous Summer Salad

This salad has got blueberries that we picked at a farm, kale and basil from the backyard and couscous, so it's perfect. It's also vaguely red, white and blue for Independence Day or Bastille Day.

COUSCOUS SUMMER SALAD
Adapted quite a bit from Two Peas & Their Pod

10 oz uncooked couscous 
2 cups water
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt

Cook the couscous! Bring the water, olive oil and salt to a boil. Take it off the heat and mix in the couscous. Cover and let sit for about 10 minutes. Then fluff it with a fork.

1-2 cups blueberries
1-2 cups fresh kale, cut up into little pieces
1 cup basil, cut up
1 cup kalamata olives, seeded and halved
1 cup feta, crumbled
2 cups grape tomatoes, halved
juice of 1 lemon
2-3 tbsp olive oil

Mix it all up. Eat outside.

Sesame Kale Salad

After yoga, my friend Rachel made me this salad and it was so refreshing. I know the recipe is from online but I could not remember where from. I added some roasted sweet potatoes for some extra flavor.

Salad:
1 bunch lacinato kale leaves, sliced thinly
4 carrots, grated
2 shallots, sliced thinly
2 sweet potatoes, cubed
Dressing:
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
Bragg's liquid aminos to taste
salt and pepper

Spread the cubed sweet potatoes over a baking tray and drizzle with sesame oil. Then season with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle the sesame seeds on top. Bake at 375 degrees until a fork can be inserted into the potato pretty easily. Let cool.
Mix the dressing together and chop the vegetables. Toss the salad together and enjoy! We served this with sunny side up eggs for some extra sustenance.

Mushroom & Kale Pasta

I keep forgetting to take pictures of my food. Yesterday I brined and roasted a chicken with brussel sprouts and shallots, and it was so pretty and delicious, but there is no picture to prove it. Oh well. It was really good. This pasta dish is not quite so pretty but it's really simple, quick and tasty. It takes several hours less of your time than the roast chicken. Tonight it took me about a half hour, but most of that was just waiting for the water to boil.

My grandma came over for dinner so I ended up making a lot more of this spaghetti than I was going to originally - it's a good thing to make an easy single serving. This photo is kind of misleading - I promise my grandma did not eat KFC instead of my pasta. The box is full of sand tarts, yay. The lantern box, however, really is a lantern.

I really don't feel like getting this into normal recipe form so:

Get the pasta water going, and do that when it's ready. If you're a bacon person, fry up some bacon, one piece per serving. Save the bacon on a paper towel-lined plate.