#spring salad
April is a weird in-between month in the parts of the Midwest. It can get cold enough that planting is too much of a gamble, but there are enough warm days that it’s worth bringing the patio furniture out. (That sentence I wrote sounds like an article in Better Homes and Gardens. Times have surely changed.)
You see pears in a lot of winter dessert recipes because they are often considered a winter fruit, even though they grow in the winter and summer. When you give it a light char on the grill, there’s a nutty sweetness that is brought out. Slice it or chop it and use as a dessert topping or even blended with other herbs as a pork marinade. But my favorite use for is it definitely a fresh salad with lots of greens like the picture above: grilled pear salad with arugula, spinach, prosciutto and crumbled blue cheese.
How to Grill Pears
Lightly drizzle sliced pears – preferally something firm like Bosc, Bartlett or D'Anjou – with a light drizzle of canola or avocado oil, and a pinch of salt. Set it on a hot grill and flip after you get a perfect grill mark.
It doesn’t really matter if you use a gas grill or charcoal, but I’m pretty biased towards charcoal.
Sorry for the lack of updates, I’ve been a little preoccupied with starting a new job. But the cooking must go on! Heat wave recipes part deux!
Check out the Master Post to see what this wacky project is all about and get the cookbook to join in the fun!
First up is a Spring SaladfromNevarra
Difficulty: 1/5. Guys, it’s a salad. Like, a super basic one. I mean yes you do have to turn on the stove to boil the eggs, but honestly hard boiling eggs is like the easiest cooking task ever.
Ingredient cost/accessibility: 1/5. It’s got 5 ingredients.
Taste: 2.5/5. Meh, it’s a super basic salad. Non-offensive as long as you like tomato and egg (which I do). I would have preferred a creamy dressing like blue cheese, but the oil and lemon dressing was fine.
Suggested pairing: Something more exciting.
Suggestedpairing: Guys, it’s a salad.
Nevarran Cold Tomato Soup
Difficulty: 2/5. Point added for the straining. There’s a lot of pulp to strain out and my arm got tired holding the strainer full of soup as it sloooowly separated.
Ingredient cost/accessibility: 2/5. You really want to splurge on nice fancy tomatoes, like at the fancy grocery store, or the farmer’s market. I used the orange sweet cherry tomatoes (recommendation from youtube which I highly recommend) and some sort of heirloom tomato. The quality of the tomatoes will make or break this dish.
Taste: 4/5. I didn’t have high hopes for this, and as you know I HATE bell pepper, but this was actually really good. I can’t shake the feeling that I just in essence made V8 juice, but it’s some damn tasty V8 juice!
Suggested pairing: Maybe the salad above. It’s surprisingly intensely flavored, so it will jazz it up.
Suggestedpairing: Cassandra/Cullen? Is that a thing? Either way this is very bracing and healthy, so I can see both of them knocking this back before a busy day of training the recruits and reciting love poetry and shit.
Rum and Coconut WaterfromRivain
Difficulty: 1/5. I basically made half a cocktail because they wanted this in a tall glass, and I didn’t foresee liking this enough for that. So I used only 1oz of rum and a rocks glass. I took the picture before stirring in the bitters because I think it’s pretty.
Ingredient cost/accessibility: 2/5. I’m just gonna assume you have rum by now if you’ve been following along XD
Taste: 2/5. It’s weird, I like coconut, but I’ve always found coconut water really off-putting. I feel like it has a weird aftertaste or something? So yeah, this was not my favorite. It’s drinkable, but it’s not sweet enough for my tastes.
Suggestedpairing: It’s pretty boring, so Nathaniel? Buuuuurn!!!
