Whats Cookin' Mama: A community blog

Farewell and Thank you witf Community

2012-11-06T18:13:02Z

This will be my farewell blog post for witf. It was an interesting 6-month experiment blogging for them, but ultimately, after receiving very little feedback on this particular blog, I feel it is time to call it a day. If there are some of you out there that were reading, but not commenting, and want more, please feel free to follow my personal blog here.

Thank you to those who did read, and sent personal comments via facebook or other media.

Meal Plan: Week Two, Day Two

2012-10-16T21:58:10Z

The second day of week two brings us an easy one pot meal, Chicken and Rice with Peas. Well, it would have been one pot if I had read the directions through before jumping right in to cooking when I got home from work. I saw that rice was in the dish, so I prepared to make a double batch of Basmati (we have a lot of starch lovers in this house). However, as the rice, water, salt, and oil were sitting on the stove, I read that the rice actually gets cooked in the Dutch oven along with the chicken. Oops. So, I drained the rice and went back to the cutting board (see what I did there?).

Anyway, the meal is pretty straightforward, brown the chicken, put it aside while you sweat down the onions and peppers, then add it back in with the rice, broth, and thyme. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 20 to 25 minutes. When it is finished, remove the chicken, fold in the peas and olives and let that sit for about 5 minutes. Dish and serve. It was a lot of food for four people, but thankfully a friend stopped by later that I could feed too! That left a nice amount for a lunch the following day. Everyone thought the dish was so/so. Not amazing, kind of boring, the only "pop" was the olives in the mushy rice. Too much broth for the kind of rice we used we believe. Plates were cleaned though, and seconds appeared, so it was not all bad!

Meal Plan: Week Two, Day One

2012-10-15T23:42:02Z

Meh. Week two has not gotten off to a rousing start in this house, not bad, but not exciting either. The meal was called Roasted Salmon, Broccoli, and Potatoes with Miso Sauce. First, the broccoli and potatoes were roasted, but the salmon was sauteed...false advertising. Reviewers on real simple's site complained about the broccoli being burned before the potatoes were finished cooking, suggesting the potatoes and broccoli should be separated rather than on the same baking sheet. I can report that we did not have that problem, but there were some delightfully crispy broccoli bits. Second, we had a problem with the miso sauce. It tasted to us like a "funky Hefewiezen" (my husband's words). We did not feed any to our daughter, and Mark doused his salmon with sriracha while I piled on the sambal oelek. Maria contented herself with scraping off the offending sauce. We are salmon fans in this house normally, and the broccoli and potatoes were tasty. So I plan on making the dish again, but with a champagne mustard vinegrette sauce for the entire dish, and just lose the miso, rice vinegar, and replace the corn oil with our trusty olive oil.

Meal Plan: Week One, Day Five

2012-10-14T12:15:19Z

Final meal of week one! Upon review of the week, our exchange student and I agreed we really enjoyed all but one, and even that one was tasty...just a little left to be desired on a consistency issue. However, there will be time for reflection at the end of all of this. In the meantime, we finished week one with Chorizo-Stuffed Acorn Squash. In the interest of full disclosure, Friday's meal was made on Saturday. This usually happens when we do these meal plans, but with five nights on the plan and seven in the week, there is wiggle room when we have dinner parties, etc. That all being said, I believe this meal would have worked on a weeknight, even though it was the longest amount of prep of the five. The acorn squash must bake for 30-35 minutes alone before you put in the mix, and the mix includes bulgur, which must cook alone for 20-25 minutes. However, prepping them takes no time, and once all is put together and back in the oven, you have only 10 minutes to wait. Well, wait and put the salad together...another salad with a simple, but bright, dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. Before the salad could be made, I had to finished the filling while the squash cooked.

The mix was chopped chorizo, chopped parsley, shredded manchego cheddar, the cooked bulgur, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Once the acorn squash is cooked, you spoon the mixture into the space left when you seeded the squash, then back in the oven for ten minutes. I had more mixture than space, so that went into ramekins...I didn't want to waste any of that yummy looking filling!

The meal was small, but satisfying.

Meal Plan: Week One, Day Four

2012-10-12T00:17:30Z

Tonight's entry will be brief. One, because it was a brief meal. Two, I was not home to make the dinner, Hubby stepped in as I had a late night at work. However, I can say that the Tuna, Fennel, and Bean Salad was YUM. Mark (aforementioned Hubby) reports that it was truly "real simple" to make, easily thrown together. He said their prep/total time listed was accurate, it took about 15 minutes. We use Henry & Lisa's tuna, which is just so tasty. I keep a can or two in the house at all times, especially for one of my go to meals. The fresh ingredients were very easy to find while grocery shopping for the week, and the dressing was simple and delicious. I love the fresh, bright dressings made with just (1/4 cup) olive oil, (3 tablespoons) fresh lemon juice, kosher salt, and fresh ground pepper. I got points for working late on the eve of such an easy meal to prepare.

Everyone in the house enjoyed it, the flavors were all good, but not over powering. They even saved a serving for the hard working Mama and it was much appreciated.

Meal Plan: Week One, Day Three

2012-10-11T00:08:03Z

Another mixed review evening. Tonight's meal was Roasted Chicken with Collards. The roasted chicken and the tomatoes were a big hit, the collards? Not so much. Of course, helpful hubby remarked "I'm sure they'd be better if they were prepared right." Don't worry, he is still alive. I know what he means. While I followed the recipe to the letter (a rule in the house, often broken, is that the first try of a recipe, we follow it), I still felt like I was not quite getting it right. They were still gritty, so I did not clean it correctly, and the flavor was off-puttingly strong. I did slice them and discard the stems as instructed.

See? I sliced them into inch ribbons as instructed...

The prep and the cooking were ridiculously easy. After a tiring day at work it was nice to not have a lot of steps. The recipe itself had only two bullet points. The chicken and grape tomatoes get tossed with olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper. That all gets placed on a rimmed baking sheet and into a 450 oven it goes for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, sliced onion and more salt and pepper go into a saute pan. After the onion softens you add in the collards. After about 10 minutes, that part is done.

I just typed up the steps of that recipe, after having done it once, from memory. I love recipes like that...especially for work/week nights. The chicken was so, so tasty, even my 4 year old had seconds! We all loved the tomatoes too (a rarity in this house). The collards, as previously mentioned were not as loved. However, if you mix in the tomato with the greens, that was a tasty bite. I will have to work on my collard green cooking. However, night three was still a win in the house!

Meal Plan: Week One, Day Two

2012-10-09T23:37:55Z

Tonight's meal was eggplant and tofu stir fry. It wasn't quite the disaster I was concerned about. True, neither young lady in the house had more than a bite of each ingredient (they did eat all of their rice though). Also true, neither adult has been converted to tofu or eggplant fans. However, this dish was DELICIOUS. The sauce of hoisin, rice vinegar, and corn starch was the saving factor. I seeded and sliced a Serrano pepper for a little kick as well (the recipe calls for either that or jalapeno) It was another relatively easy dish to put together, all told, it took about 25 minutes.

That little box of tofu was frightening to me.

I was able to open it without fanfare, but little pieces started falling off/out almost immediately. A family member, knowing my worry about this dish, had sent me some helpful tips...one was draining it. I realized I wasn't sure how to do it, so I attempted to pat it dry with a paper towel. Given how it ended up kind of falling apart and not looking at all like I have seen and had tofu before, I'm pretty sure I did something wrong.

Is that supposed to happen?

It cooked up okay, I guess. There was really no other flavor in the end but the sauce, the tofu was very silky, not "firm" like the package said. In the meantime, my lovely sous chef assisted with the Hoisin sauce.

Cutest sous chef ever.

After the tofu, um, cooked (I guess), it was removed from the pan and in went more oil, eggplant, the white part of the scallions, and garlic. I almost forgot the garlic, I have no idea how, but thankfully I was able to get it in there in time. After the eggplant softens, back in goes my crumbly, slimy, tofu along with the green part of the scallions.

Isn't it pretty?

The sauce goes in last, it says until it thickens, but it was pretty thick already...pretty tasty too! After plating, it suggests torn fresh basil leaves, which we added thanks to the mother's day plant Evie gave me this year. The end result was (mostly) happy campers in this house. We all agreed (with apologies to my veggie friends) that the next time we'll make this with chicken because that sauce was really yummy.

Meal Plan: Week One, Day One

2012-10-09T00:11:11Z

I mentioned previously, and some may remember these posts from my personal blog a year ago, that we were about to start up Real Simple Magazine's One Month of Dinners again. Each year, the magazine includes four weeks of weeknight meals in their October issue. The first year we did a pick and choose method, last year we vowed to make all 20, no cheating. This year we are trying the later approach again. Things could get interesting around here because just reading some of the recipe titles out loud elicited some interesting reactions. Tofu?! Eggplant?! "Ew!!!" I am sure we'll all survive... One of the best parts of this plan are the tear out shopping lists for each week. It is broken up into things you might already have in your pantry and things you'll most likely need to purchase. The meals then are organized so that the most perishable items are used earlier in the week. To think. They actually used to teach meal planning like this in schools. Thankfully, my mother taught me a lot, and then trial and error took care of the rest...until Real Simple comes along each year and makes one month of cooking for a family a lot easier!

Getting all the ingredients together for night one!...ignore the cookies off the side, those were our day-off project and then dessert!

Tonight's dinner was a hit at least, but really, how can you go wrong with pasta? The meal was Beef and Mushroom Ragu with Pappardelle. It was quite tasty, and pretty simple to make. Even though today was a day off for all of us, we were running around and taking care of chores, so it simulated a busy day capped off by cooking dinner. Two pots, minimal prep, and even with breaks to take blog pictures, dinner was ready in about 20 minutes. One pot for cooking the pasta, the saute pan for the rest of the ingredients. We used grass fed, organic ground beef, which I find not only healthier, but easier to work with...it is more finely ground, so it cooked up easier. The mushrooms we used were baby buttons, everything else was as listed in the recipe.

Starting out with mushrooms, garlic, and onion in the saute pan

Ground beef, tomato paste, white wine, diced onions added

What cooked pappardelle looks like (we didn't know until today)

Finished product! (I should have cleaned the plate rim...shame!)

This was a good beginning to this year's go around with the meal plan. It turned out delicious, it was very filling, and I am feeling a little better about the rest of the recipes (but I'm still scared to work with tofu tomorrow).

The link to today's recipe was above, and can be found here again: Ragu Recipe

Cuscuz Paulista

2012-10-02T00:19:12Z

Last week I made one of our favorite salmon dishes. While I was sharing with our exchange student the difference that evening: rice instead of couscous, she became excited. She asked to see the couscous I would have made. When I showed her the raw couscous, she laughed. I understood the laughter after I saw a picture of “her” cuscuz.

This was our finished product.

Brazilian cuscuz is nothing like what we know as couscous. To begin with, couscous is a pasta that you can flavor. Cuscuz is a dish, a dish with a page-long list of ingredients. I know this because we all took to the internet to search out a translated recipe to make.

We found one at the Brazil-Consulate.org that seemed doable, if not a little involved for a weeknight meal. It starts with cooking chicken and making a stock. It ends with pouring a sauce mixture into a mold I did not own. After a trip to the store for the ingredients (and a brand new Bundt pan), we were good to go!

The chicken stock, chicken, and hard boiled eggs were all made the night before to cut down on prep and cooking time. Evie got right to work peeling eggs, Maria was in charge of the garnishes, while Mark took pictures in between dicing vegetables. Meanwhile, I got the bacon (mmmm…bacon) going in the pan.

The ingredient and task list is daunting, but in reality, it isn’t too difficult once you get the prep work done. We all had fun making it together, which is what really counts. Mark and I also tried hearts of palm for the first time, as did Evie. It was a hit with two out of three. Maria and Evie did a lovely job placing the garnishes in the pan ahead of the cuscuz.

Maria helped with the final steps with the sauce, adding the tapioca flour and then corn meal. It was only later after further research we discovered that we should have used corn flour, not American corn meal, but all in all, it turned out okay. It did however get somewhat difficult to stir, so we had to call in reinforcements.

After the mixture gets to the point that it is formable, you then place it into the bundt pan and pack it down.

With our Brazilian sous chef, we did our best. We all had a lot of fun cooking together and learning about a new dish. We've ordered some cookbooks with Brazilian recipes so we can make Maria dishes from home and she can help us learn how!

Maria said it was good, not exactly like home, but we got close!

We Interrupt this Blog...

2012-09-26T18:38:45Z

I said when I started this blog on witf that I would stick mostly with cooking, that at times we might share something else our family had "cooked up." Our latest adventure will, among many other things, expand our recipe trove. Completely out of the blue, and with very little advance planning, we agreed to take in an international exchange student who was without a permanent housing solution for this school year. My personal feelings on the questionable practices of the company that brought her here aside, you must agree that a 15 year old girl in a new country, knowing no one, and without housing to stay, is heartbreaking. Seriously. The company informed her that if she (and they) were not able to find housing, she would have to return to Brazil. Through the luck of where I work, I heard about her plight. Therefore, the three of us talked it over and agreed that having an even foursome for the year might be fun! We had one week to prepare, and then our teenager joined us this past Monday. Three days in and we are sure we made the right choice. She is extremely intelligent, respectful, and very sweet. She came to this country to learn more about American culture, to experience an American private school, and to continue her studies. We hope to be able to share as much as possible, especially from around the Central PA region. Any suggestions, tips, ideas, are welcome! After what sounds like a rocky start to her time here, we really want to make sure the rest of her time in the Harrisburg area and the United States is rich and full!

Stay tuned for the return to our regular programming, with the addition of new recipes and maybe a guest blog or two from our new friend from Brazil!

Mommy's Go-To "What's Cookin'" Meals Part I

2012-09-11T22:30:45Z

I've decided that when I do not have a new, fabulous recipe to report on here on this blog, I will share some of my go to meals for when I'm cooking on the fly. You know those nights, the "uh oh, what AM I going to feed my family?!" Many of these are adapted from things learned from friends, family, and magazines. One of our favorites is Real Simple Magazine. Every year they put out an issue that has four weeks of easy (some easier than others mind you) weeknight meals. We try every single one, and then keep some in the rotation, if you will. Last year, one of these fabulous meals was Lemony Tuna Pasta. I haven't actually looked at or followed the recipe since last year, but I make some approximation of this once every month I think. Tonight's was by far the best, mainly due to the ingredients. I used:

2 cans Solid White Albacore Tuna, sashimi grade, Henry & Lisa's Natural Seafood
1 package Eddie's Spaghetti Organic Vegetable Rotelli (12 oz)
1 Fresh Lemon - both the juice and the zest
Dash of Organic Crushed Red Pepper (plus Mama and Daddy added more to their bowls after serving)
1 tablespoon + Minced Garlic
Splash of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 cup reserved pasta cooking water

Cook the pasta according to package directions. Before draining, reserve 1/2 cup of that good startchy water. In the same pot, put in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the garlic, and the crushed red pepper. Saute a bit until fragrant. Add back in the pasta, the tuna, the lemon juice and zest, and the reserved cooking water. Stir until a coating of sauce covers everything. Serve with extra crushed red pepper if desired. Simple. Yummy. Oh, and my 4 year old gobbled it up!

Goat Cheese and Tomato Tart

2012-08-07T05:27:49Z

Today I was streaming through Twitter catching up on Olympics results when a Williams-Sonoma tweet caught my eye. It was their recipe of the day for meatless Monday. The picture that went with their recipe alone was enough to make me want to have it for dinner! Luckily, I had built in a trip to Wegman’s before coming home, so I was able to grab the necessary ingredients.

First big note on this one, DO NOT do as I did and misread the list. It calls for a ½ pound of goat cheese…not 1 ½ pounds. Trust me, even the goat cheese lovers out there will be scraping the extra off like we did. Whoops. As we’re sitting there eating it I’m mentally composing this blog post and thinking how I am going to tactfully state their recipe is wrong. Turns out, their recipe is fine; it was an operator malfunction instead.

See? A trained chef would have said “geez this is a lot of cheese” and re checked the recipe. Me? Nope.

I got ahead of myself though, because first came the “flaky pie dough” recipe that accompanied this one. I must confess, I love love love my food processor. It made this so easy! It turned out great, my only problem was not having an actual tart pan or a pan of the called for size. So, I had to spread it a little thinner and I lacked enough pie weights to hold it down. In the end, it was a little puffy, but delicious…I think, it was hard to tell under all of that goat cheese. Our daughter was less than thrilled, so we scrapped it all off and gave it back. No dice. We tried a trick…that almost worked:

In the end, she ate most of the tart and one slice of tomato. Not a favorite meal of the little one.

Mommy and Daddy however did enjoy it, the arugula and basil salad over the top really added to the flavors. It was also special to take the basil from the plant Evie gave me for Mother’s Day. We used kumato tomatoes because they looked very interesting to me and I couldn’t find the heirlooms.

Taking leaves from the basil plant

kumatos, brown tomatoes, were nice and sweet

Again, if I hadn’t overloaded on the goat cheese this would have been a very enjoyable summer evening meal. The recipe was pretty quick and easy to follow and it wasn’t an expensive dish to put together. Would have been even less expensive with less goat cheese purchased.

Here is the link again to the recipe: http://blog.williams-sonoma.com/todays-recipe-goat-cheese-and-heirloom-tomato-tart/

Enjoy!

Healthier Chicken Fingers with Potato "Chips"

2012-08-01T19:50:02Z

I am beginning to feel like every night in my kitchen is a Chopped episode. “Okay, I have chicken, a few potatoes, and absolutely no green veggies…what kind of healthy dinner can I make from that?!” Mark and I have made a pledge to sit down this weekend and go over the pantry items, recipes, upcoming events on our calendar, and do some honest to goodness meal planning. In the meantime, I just pretend Ted Allen is in my kitchen.

Last night I did indeed have thawed chicken breasts in the refrigerator and a few potatoes…and, sadly, no green veggies. I did have peppers, but since Evie has been begging asking for green beans, I decided to make a preschooler’s dream dinner: Chicken fingers, potato “chips”, and grapes. That way, at least I could say there was something green on the table.

This recipe is super simple, and semi healthy. I pounded down the chicken breasts and cut them into smaller pieces with the kitchen shears. I then got out three bowls and put in the first whole wheat pastry flour, the second got eggs and milk whisked together, the third was bread crumbs. Here’s where I really fell down on this meal. No gold medal for Mommy on health: Progresso Bread Crumbs are FULL of all of the bad stuff. Next time we make this, I will have to do better. However, I grew up eating them and I seem to be okay. These are easy to coat due to the smaller size. First dredge each piece in the flour, shake off excess, dip in the egg and milk, and then roll in the breadcrumbs. After they were coated, I put them aside.

The potatoes were quick; each got scrubbed, and then went for a spin in the food processor. Coat them with olive oil, kosher salt, and ground black pepper, and into the oven they go. I usually do 400° for one half hour at least. Putting them on parchment paper makes life (and clean up) a lot easier.

After the potatoes have been in for 15, I put the chicken in the 375° preheated oven for 15 minutes. They cook up nice and fast. If you do not have a double oven, doing both at 375° will work fine, just put the potatoes in for closer to 25 minutes before you start cooking the chicken.

Dinner came together quickly, everyone enjoyed it, and it was a great excuse to make a dipping sauce (recipe will follow). The hubs and daughter went with the BBQ, and all were happy.

Chicken Fingers

2 good sized chicken breasts, pounded down and cut into smaller pieces

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

2 eggs plus a good splash of milk, beaten

1 ½ cup breadcrumbs with seasoning

kosher salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375°. Season the chicken with the salt and pepper, dredge through each of the bowls, starting with the flour and ending with the breadcrumbs. Place on cookie sheets, bake for 7 minutes, flip each piece over, bake for 6-7 minutes more. Serve with dipping sauces.

Cooking Mama’s Favorite Chicken (and potato slice) Dipping Sauce

Champagne or Dijon mustard

Olive oil

Tarragon

Kosher Salt

Fresh Ground Black Pepper

To do this quickly for tonight’s sauce, I used a ramekin, squeezed in about two tablespoons of the mustard, two tablespoons of olive oil, good sprinkling of tarragon, pinch of salt and a dash of pepper…whisk together with a wire whisk or fork. Yum.

Potato Frittata

2012-07-25T05:10:08Z

We tried a brand new dish this evening to rousing success: a frittata. My four year old certainly had fun with the name. We found a recipe in a stack of old Good Housekeeping magazines my mother gave to me. It was billed as a quick, cheap, but healthy meal for your family. They had me at quick and cheap.

The ingredients were simple, potatoes and eggs being the main fillers. We did not have the carrots that were called for, but orange sweet peppers were a great substitute. Personally, my favorite part was the garnish of sliced cherry tomatoes, fresh cilantro, minced garlic, and green onions. My husband and I also added spice to ours…his, the usual sriracha, mine the sambal oelek.

Aside from no carrots, the only other alteration I made this time was to lesson the amount. 12eggs and a pound of potatoes is a lot of food for our little three person family. As it was, we have half of it left over … and that will most likely find it’s way into my husband’s breakfast wraps.

We will definitely be experimenting with ingredients for more frittatas.. It was sort of a sophisticated way to have breakfast for dinner!

Try as I might, I could not located the exact recipe online. Not that it matters, there are probably more frittata recipes out there than I can imagine. Here is a link to a page of potato frittata (I dare you to say that out loud and not start singing “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off) recipes: http://www.recipe.com/search/?searchTerm=Potato%20Frittata

For what we made, all you’ll need is:

3 Yukon gold or russet potatoes, scrubbed, and sliced thin (I used our food processor)

6 eggs, beaten with a whisk with ¼ cup green onion, a dash of kosher salt, and a good measure of fresh ground black pepper

2 orange baby peppers, sliced thin

Olive Oil

Garnish: Cherry tomatoes, halved; cilantro leaves torn; minced garlic (about a clove); and ¼ cup green part of green onions.

Saute the potatoes in an oven safe pan with olive oil. After about 5 minutes, add in the peppers. Once the potatoes have browned a bit, pour the egg mixture over and transfer the pan into the pre-heated oven (375 degrees). Bake for 18 minutes.

Allow to rest on a wire rack for 5 minutes, invert onto a plate (we had to help ours out with a knife and spatula), and cover with the garnish.

Roasted Beet and Arugula Salad

2012-06-20T19:38:20Z

One of our most used (and now falling apart) cookbooks is The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook, Food to Live By. There is a joke behind this; at least, it is funny to Mark and I. A number of years ago we discovered we liked to cook together. Then we decided, “hey! We should be healthy about this!” To that end, I purchased two cookbooks without much research. The first was Super Natural Cooking, or, as I first called it “the tofu and tree bark book.” It turns out it is a terrific book; we’ll be trying a new recipe from there later this week. The second was the aforementioned Food To Live By. We quickly learned that though “organic” is in the title, these were not all low calorie, low fat recipes. One of the first we made was the macaroni and cheese recipe…it was delicious in all its creamy, fatty goodness.

Food to Live By has so many delightful recipes. We haven’t had one yet we didn’t love. Myra Goodman shares the family recipes, tips on everything from buying produce to storing it, and also includes stories from their farming life. Since Mark and I are on this running streak, we have (finally) returned to better meal planning and better menus. One of the picks this week was the Roasted Beet and Arugula Salad from Food to Live By. We chose that one, and one from the other book mentioned here. I decided that since I not only work all day on Monday, but also now have rehearsals Monday evenings, I’d choose the “easier” of the two and make the salad on Monday. Aaaand…another mistaken assumption about this cookbook. Just because it is a salad, one should never assume it could be simply tossed together (pun intended).

To begin with, the recipe also included two references to two separate recipes…one for the candied walnuts to top the salad, the other for the dressing. Making our own candied walnuts was SO worth it. It was also the first time I’ve had the occasion to use Chinese Five Spice. What a warm, happy spice medley. Reminded me of the holidays. The dressing, while labor intensive – fresh squeezed oj anyone? – was so very worth it. Another first, we now have walnut oil in our cabinet. After peeling and quartering the beets, and then bleaching the counters and my fingers, they were tossed in olive oil, kosher salt and pepper, and thrown in the oven. Having dual ovens was very handy since I did absolutely no prep work and had to roast the beets and the walnuts simultaneously.

After all of that, I noticed the part of the recipe that said you could do all of those things one day in advance, if desired. Lesson learned. Moving along, we dressed the greens and peeled the oranges and segmented them. I say “greens” because I was unable to locate arugula alone and ended up purchasing a mix of arugula, spinach, and radicchio, it was yummy all the same. I mean that, this was quite possibly the best salad I’ve ever had. The dressing, Orange Walnut Vinaigrette, keeps for up to one month in the refrigerator, so I am sure this salad will be making its way back on to our table soon. One other quick note, of the ingredients to the salad: greens, roasted beets, candied walnuts, orange segments, and feta cheese, can you guess which one was the hit with our 4 year old? If you guessed the beets, you are correct. I did not think those would go over as well, and yet she requested seconds!

I think my salad turned out almost as pretty as theirs.