Christmas Salad

I call this Christmas Salad because it is colorful, light, festive, and so flavorful. There’s something about cranberries and oranges that just makes me feel Christmassy. Because this salad is light, with a touch of sweet, it goes equally well at brunch, lunch, or dinner. It makes a pretty presentation, so it will be a welcome addition to your holiday table or buffet.

 

Christmas Salad

1 3-oz. pkg. Melissa’s dried cranberries
3 clementines, peeled and sectioned
One head romaine lettuce
Two handfuls fresh spinach
¼ c. crumbled feta
½ c. pecan halves, toasted
Orange Vinaigrette (recipe follows)

The day before play you plan to serve this salad, make the vinaigrette. Place dried cranberries and orange sections into a medium bowl. Cover the fruit with the vinaigrette, cover the bowl, and refrigerate overnight.

The day that you plan to serve the salad, place lettuce, spinach, crumbled feta, and pecans into a large bowl. Empty marinated fruit on top, toss together and serve. Top with homemade croutons if you like.

 Orange Vinaigrette

 ¼ c. cider vinegar

¼ c. freshly squeezed orange juice

½ t. salt

1½ t. sugar

¼ t. dry mustard

¼ t. freshly ground pepper

1 t. orange zest

½ c. vegetable oil

 Place all dry ingredients into the bottom of a medium size mixing bowl and whisk together until blended. Whisk in vinegar to blend.  Slowly add oil in a stream, whisking constantly to emulsify. Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.  Will keep up to a week (if it lasts that long.)

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End of Summer, Touch of Fall Salad

Those of you who live in the heartland like I do are probably experiencing the same phenomenal weather. I cannot remember a better month of August than the one we had this year. To have highs in the upper 70s or low 80s, and nighttime lows dipping into the 50s has me thinking about fall. While I am thinking about fall, I'm not entirely ready to give up summer. This salad reflects those conflicted feelings. I love the fresh blueberries of summer, and yet I always welcome the tastes of fall like pumpkin, cranberries, warm spices, and nuts. In thinking about these feelings, I came up with a salad that captures it all. This is an easy one to throw together, you can use your favorite vinaigrette or the recipe that I have here, and serve it as a side salad, or two big luncheon salads. Whatever you do, you're going to love it.

End of Summer, Touch of Fall Salad

1 head Romaine lettuce
1 3-ounce package Melissa’s dried cranberries
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
1/3 cup toffee walnuts*
1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles (can use feta or cojita)

Tear lettuce into bite-size pieces. Place it and remaining ingredients into a large bowl. Toss all ingredients together and top with your favorite vinaigrette. This makes four small side salads.

*To make toffee walnuts (or any nut for that matter), in a 9-inch skillet, melt 2 tablespoons granulated sugar over medium high heat, stirring occasionally. When sugar becomes liquid, add nuts, stirring constantly until well coated. Do not allow sugar to burn. When nuts are coated, turn out onto a cold plate. Break apart.

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Mango & Cranberry Chutney

Last week I showed you a simple table setting with an even simpler centerpiece using nothing more than a dough bowl and two mangoes. You may be wondering what I did with those mangoes, maybe not, but I'm going to tell you anyway. I made mango chutney. There's already a recipe on this blog for mango chutney, but I decided to do something different based upon a comment that a friend recently made. She told me that she would like to make mango chutney, but she doesn't because she doesn't care for raisins. That got me to thinking that surely there's a suitable substitute for raisins, and an easy one at that, in the form of other dried small fruits such as cranberries, blueberries, or cherries. I decided to use cranberries because that's what I had on hand. As it turned out, it made delicious chutney. I didn't notice a whole lot of difference between using the cranberries and the raisins, but the outcome was a good one. 

If you're wondering what to do with your chutney after you've made it, come back later in the week and I'll show you an interesting use for it. In the meantime, keep in mind that it is excellent with any type of ethnic food (even fried rice if you happen to carry out from your local Chinese place). It's a great accompaniment to roast chicken, wonderful when mixed with mayonnaise and spread thinly on a turkey, chicken, or club sandwich, and makes a great topping for baked ham. Treat chutney like you would treat any other relish and you are going to find yourself using it all the time.

 Mango & Cranberry Chutney

2 Melissa's Keitt mangoes (3 pounds total), 
peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/3 cup white vinegar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh jalapeño including seeds*
2 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick

Toss together mangoes, vinegar, brown sugar, cranberries, and 1 teaspoon salt.

Mince and mash ginger, jalapeño, and garlic to a paste with remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, and then stir in cumin, coriander, and turmeric.

Heat oil in a 4-quart heavy pot over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté onion, stirring occasionally, until golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Add garlic mixture and cinnamon stick. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Stir in mango mixture and simmer, covered, stirring once or twice until mangoes are tender, 25-30 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick and cool chutney, uncovered, about 45 minutes. Spoon into jars and refrigerate 24 hours before using to allow favors to meld. Keeps 2 weeks in the fridge.

*If you like things a bit milder, do not use the seeds.

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Blood Orange and Cranberry Scones

I make scones about twice a month.  I do this because I like scones, and because I have one heck of a lot of recipes for them.  But today I think I've found the Sistine Chapel of scone recipes.  It is based on a recipe that I found on the Williams-Sonoma website which is itself adapted from a recipe given to Chuck Williams by Judy Rodgers, Executive Chef and Co-Owner of Zuni Cafe in San Francisco.  The original recipe calls for currants.  I didn't have enough, so replaced them with dried cranberries with excellent results.  It also calls for the zest of an orange.  All I had was a bag of blood oranges so figured the blood orange zest would do the trick and add a nice complementary color to the cranberries, so I used it.  What I did not know is that blood orange zest far exceeds the zest of a regular orange by leaps and bounds.  Talk about intense flavor!  I'll never zest a plain orange again.  I also like a glaze, so I made one from about 3/4 cup of confectioners' sugar and 2 T. of regular orange juice from a carton of "Not from Concentrate" that I had in the fridge.  They were amazing!


Blood Orange and Cranberry Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 T. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

8 Tbs. (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1 egg

1/2 cup heavy cream

Zest of 1 blood orange

Glaze (optional)

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a scone pan, or line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse until pea-size crumbs form. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the currants. 

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, cream and orange zest until blended and add to the flour mixture. Using a fork, stir to form large, moist clumps of dough. 

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and press together with your hands until the dough comes together. Roll out the dough, flouring as needed, into a 10-inch round about 3/4 inch thick. Cut into 8 equal-size wedges. Press each wedge into a well of the prepared scone pan, or place the wedges 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake until the scones are golden, about 25 minutes. Invert the scone pan onto a wire rack and lift off the pan, or transfer the scones from the baking sheet to the rack. Let the scones cool for 10 minutes before serving. Makes 8 scones.

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Cranberry Orange Scones

I was all set for a nice fresh bowl of fruit this morning, when I got up and opened the blinds.  Snow!  At the end of March!  Snow!  Not a lot, mind you, about an inch, along with sleet and drizzle.  It was the type of weather that called for something warm and comforting for breakfast.  I glanced at the recently purchased jar of Double Devon Cream on the counter and said to myself, Scones!

I've been eyeing this recipe of Ina's for some time, and figured why not try it today.  I cut the recipe in half since I was sorely lacking in dried cranberries, doubled up on the orange zest because I love it, and instead of dragging out the stand mixer, I thought I'd give these a try in the food processor.  It worked great!  Not only was it faster, but the texture was light and delicious, while still being suitably, umm, sconey!  My husband, who was just finishing up a breakfast of ham and eggs decided he'd try just a half of one, and quickly went back for the other half. 

The glaze was good, but the quantity unremarkable, so the next time I'm making it a bit thicker and putting on twice as much.

Cranberry Orange Scones

4 cups plus 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar, plus additional for sprinkling

2 tablespoons baking powder

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon grated orange zest

3/4 pound cold unsalted butter, diced

4 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup cold heavy cream

1 cup dried cranberries

1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons water or milk, for egg wash

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, plus 2 tablespoons

4 teaspoons freshly squeezed orange juice

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix 4 cups of flour, 1/4 cup sugar, the baking powder, salt and orange zest. Add the cold butter and mix at the lowest speed until the butter is the size of peas. Combine the eggs and heavy cream and, with the mixer on low speed, slowly pour into the flour and butter mixture. Mix until just blended. The dough will look lumpy! Combine the dried cranberries and 1/4 cup of flour, add to the dough, and mix on low speed until blended.

Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it into a ball. Flour your hands and a rolling pin and roll the dough 3/4-inch thick. You should see small bits of butter in the dough. Keep moving the dough on the floured board so it doesn't stick. Flour a 3-inch round plain or fluted cutter and cut circles of dough. Place the scones on a baking pan lined with parchment paper. Collect the scraps neatly, roll them out, and cut more circles.

Brush the tops of the scones with egg wash, sprinkle with sugar, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are browned and the insides are fully baked. The scones will be firm to the touch. Allow the scones to cool for 15 minutes and then whisk together the confectioners' sugar and orange juice, and drizzle over the scones.