Yellow cake--not as successful

This is what happens when you skip the step of lining your pans with parchment paper (I've heard b/w newsprint works too). I had even greased and floured them, to no avail. Maybe if I'd let them cool longer?

Anyway, this is the recipe I was making--the yellow cake recipe out of Pam Anderson's book The Perfect Recipes for Entertaining (I would highly recommend this book--available at your local library). I was drawn it by its promise of ease and versatility: fill it with raspberry and top with cream cheese frosting or fill with marmalade and glaze with chocolate, or simply top with fruit topping.

The first attempt, as shown above, resulted in a bunch of tasty crumbs and tidbits, so I whipped up some chocolate frosting and used my Pampered Chef decorator to put rosettes on them and everyone thought I did it on purpose. The second time I made it went much better, and I topped it with applesauce (see last week's post) and ice cream. I put the other layer in the freezer, and I'll be trying the raspberry version for Mom's birthday this weekend. I think it broke in transit to the freezer, but it will still taste good!

So the jury's still out on this recipe--it's relatively easy, but I still get hung up on exactly how long to beat at various steps in the recipe, and it's quite dense, but definitely buttery and tasty. I don't think it will be the only cake I will make for the rest of my life.

The one I really have my sights set on is this one, but just reading the recipe tires me out!

Red Velvet Birthday Cake

Recently a friend of mine celebrated a birthday, and I took the occasion as a chance to try out one of the many fabulous celebration cakes smitten kitchen has posted on her blog. (If you're wondering where I am when not posting on my blog, there's a good chance I'm reading hers.)

I chose to try my hand at Red Velvet Cake, as it seemed to have the best balance between being fun and birthday-like, while still being classy. The bottom line on this recipe: it was somewhat time-consuming, but a huge hit and it made my friend feel very special, so it was a good choice.

Now for the blow-by-blow. The recipe is a 3-layer cake, so I borrowed my mom's cake pans and was glad I did, because they have this little thing you run around the rim of the pan to get the layers out. I also lined the pans with parchment, per directions. (Post to follow where I did not follow these directions.) Getting ingredients was also interesting--cake flour was hard to find at Fareway, but the butcher was able to find it for me. I ended up going to Hyvee for the red food coloring, because it called for 3 oz (one of the largish bottles is 1 oz), and all you get at Fareway were those multipacks. I figured I'd have to buy like 20 multipacks to get enough. I did cut it down to 2 oz, and was satisfied with the result.

To explain the pictures, from top left, clockwise: The frosting is cream cheese frosting, and I made a double batch so as to be able to do a crumb coat, as seen here and explained here (you need to read this post if you want to do layer cakes!)--especially important with white frosting and red crumbs. The final coat was not perfect, but pretty close, as you can see in the third picture. The 2nd--well, my fingers got really red, as did pretty much everything in the kitchen. I was thankful for bleach for my towels, and I used paper towels to immediately wipe up the counter.

Decorating: I put a cookie cutter in the middle and sprinkled red sprinkles in the middle, spreading it around with a pastry brush. Then I tinted a bit of frosting and put dots all around the edge. Dots and circles are all the rage these days, for reasons I don't entirely understand.

The last two pictures are just to show how messy my counter got, and how I cleaned it all up in a matter of minutes thanks to my fabulous dishwasher. I love my new kitchen and its appliances!

Preserving fall's bounty

As we continue to live through the seasons' change, I continue to try to live out principles I was motivated by from reading Animal Vegetable Miracle this spring. I did some preserving of berries, zucchinni, tomatoes, and green beans this summer.

This fall I decided to concentrate on butternut squash and apples. When we were in MI for a cousin's wedding, we ran across some beautiful butternut squash for 18 cents a pound. Crazy, eh? I got 11 pounds for $2. That's about as cheap as food gets, and this food is good!

Easy squash recipe: Wash it. Prick it. Put it in a slow cooker whole (as seen in picture) with 1/2 inch of water. Cook on low until soft when pierced (4-7 hours). Remove; quarter lengthwise to cool. Scoop out flesh. Mash--add butter, ginger, salt, pepper, whatever--eat and then freeze the rest in freezer bags.

The applesauce is a little more time-consuming, but this is the easiest way I've found. Peel, core, and quarter the apples (I like to use my Pampered Chef cook's corer). Put in slow cooker. Shake cinnamon and sugar over them (I just guess on this, sorry!). Pour 1 cup or so apple juice or water over them. Cook on high until they're soft, about 2 hours. Mash, add sugar if needed.

I had visions of freezing a whole lot of applesauce too, but so far we've mostly fed it to guests. It goes great with ice cream (see picture) and/or yellow cake. I guess if we are using seasonal bounty to feed our guests that's a good thing too--it doesn't all have to be about preserving!

Purchasing notes: Fareway has 1/2 peck white tote bags of cooking and eating apples from Deals Orchard in Jefferson for 89 cents a pound, so that's a great convenient way to eat local and in-season! We've enjoyed the Fujis (may be done now), Red Delicious, and Jonathans.

updates

Well, we've been away from the blog for a while. We've been clearing brush and pulling invasive plants out of our new backyard, organizing our new house, etc. etc. I've also been reading a lot of YA books (posting reviews on goodreads.com under username atuckness--I'd love to be your friend there!) and reading a few cooking blogs and trying out their recipes. I'll post some links to them in the next little while.

Here's a few pictures of things I've been making. I can't figure out how to get blogger to insert the pictures after the text, so sorry this is kind of out of order. Feel free to ask for specific instructions for any recipe you're curious about!

At the top is a photo of my efforts to preserve summer tomato loveliness. I used a friend's dehydrator and followed a recipe from the web; I was inspired by Animal Vegetable Miracle to try this. I used cute little plum tomatoes; it took forever to seed them (which I did so they'd dry faster)--if I do it next year I won't seed them. I froze them; later I'll throw them in olive oil and herbs and they should be just like the ones you buy in jars.

Next is a photo of a dinner that looks better than it tasted. I tried a seasoning mix for the rice and it was too salty; the fish was tough for some reason as well. The salad was great, and the sauce on the fish was okay.

We do enjoy a little bacon sometimes, as the next photo shows. I buy a package, split it into 4 bags, and freeze it so we just eat a little at a time. It adds nice flavor to bean recipes and is of course great with fried eggs and fried potatoes. A word to the wise--yukon golds make better fried potatoes than russets!

And last is a blueberry brie quesadilla from August--the original recipe was much more complicated, but it's delicious just as is--blueberries, brie, and a flour tortilla toasted on the stove.

Happy fall!

Summer's Bounty

Even though we've been really busy with the house, I've taken a bit of time out to enjoy summer's bounty. While my mom was on vacation, I took care of her garden, and that basket was one day's harvest (including 8 summer squash!).

Reading Animal Vegetable Miracle inspired me to try a new recipe: Disappearing Zuchinni Orzo. It was tasty, cheap, and pretty simple, although it did require shredding zuchinni, sauteing it, and boiling pasta so it made a lot of dishes. It looks pretty next to the cherries, which are in season but not local (to use criteria from the book).

The book also inspired me to "put up" some vegetables for the winter months. I'm not yet up for canning, so I shredded and froze 14 cups of zuchinni/summer squash to use in soups, quesadillas, casseroles, quick bread, even cake and cookies. Or maybe it was 28 cups (14 2-cup packets), now that I think of it.

The next week I went to the Farmers Market and an older gentleman farmer was selling beautiful green beans at bulk discounts. I got over 6 pounds for $7, and spent a couple hours snapping and blanching them. (Alex helped with the snapping.)

I'm excited to have local veggies in our freezer this year!

everyday dinners

Sometimes people ask me if I cook from scratch all the time. The basic answer is no, because we do eat some processed food, and we eat leftovers quite often as well (that's why I especially love food that freezes).

Often we end up eating food like the meals pictured above: it comes together quickly but is made of primarily fresh ingredients. So even though they aren't elaborate meals, they have the benefits of from-scratch.

The details, starting top left and going clockwise:

1. Baked tilapia (topped with a little mayo, herbs, breadcrumbs, and parmesan), baked potato, fresh raspberries and salad.

2. Super tuna salad on cocktail rye--mayo, celery, olives, dill

3. From scratch pancakes and syrup, lightly scrambled eggs

4. Egg frittata with roasted peppers, olives, and feta cheese; toast with homemade rhubarb jam

5. Baked tilapia marinated in teriyaki sauce (Alex's favorite), baked potato, stirfry veggies

6. Overeasy eggs, fried potatoes and onions, frozen green beans

7. Baked chicken, noodles baked with water and a chicken bouillon mix I found in a magazine, fresh peas from Mom's garden

8. DiGiorno pizza, roasted asparagus from the farmer's market (my favorite juxtaposition!)

9. Sausage and greens soup (greens from Mom's garden), vegetable oven pancake with broccolli from the farmer's market, strawberries from the farmer's market. (This was the most time-consuming meal, but we had the soup the day before as well, and it was all so delicious!)

Share your favorite everyday dinner!

Food from the cruise

top row: Grand Marnier infused sponge cake; meringue with strawberries; shrimp cocktail

middle row: brie tart with arugala; chicken marsala; lamb shank

bottom row: jumbo prawns; tiramisu; lobster tail and shrimp

These were the best-looking food items our group had during the week of our cruise. The visual feast was almost as good as the gustatory feast!

Oh, so that's why I'm so full!

A couple weeks ago we had a burger grillout at our place. I stopped at the Fareway meat counter after aerobics to pick up the meat so it would be as fresh as possible. (At that point I was NOT as fresh as possible!)

My decision-making process went like this:

Fact 1: Neither Alex nor I is confident or excited about shaping patties, so I should get pre-formed ones.

Fact 2: Ones from the meat counter should be better than frozen, bagged ones.

Fact 3: Alex likes us to have more than one burger per person, so the men in particular can feel well-fed.

Fact 4: I don't mind leftovers.

Therefore, I asked the meat woman (yes, they do have one woman employee back there) for 16 patties (12 people were expected). The price seemed a bit excessive, but I don't like questioning things and sometimes better meat costs more, so I went on my way. The package was huge--I rested it on my forearm like one might do with a newborn, garnering comments from fellow shoppers.

Alex fired up the grill, and they took a while to cook. Then we each ate one--they were really good, but no one went for seconds. I was a little confused, but we did have some side dishes.

It was only an hour later, when I was still really really full, that I started calculating in my head the relationship between the price per pound of the meat, the number of patties we had, and the total price I had paid.

Turns out we served everyone 1/2 pound burgers.

I'm a little mortified, as one who claims to be a meat minimizer.

And I can't believe I ate the whole thing! :)

The night of seven desserts

One way that Anastasia and I break with gender stereotypes is that she is far more into chips and fries and I am far more into dessert. I learned in logic class that strictly speaking if someone says "pie or cake" the word "both" is one of the possible correct responses. Rarely does anyone say "pie XOR cake" or "pie exclusive or cake." I take advantage of this. On the cruise, it is all you can eat, and on the last day it was about 4:30 and I decided I wanted an ice cream cone. So began what became known as the night of the seven desserts. At dinner a couple of hours later, I ordered a dessert that was actually a combination of three different desserts (pictured above). And then I also ordered a second dessert. I figured I had not ordered more than one of each type item at dinner all week so I could splurge a little. Our friends had also told the staff that it was our anniversary and they brought us a chocolate berry cake just before the dessert I had ordered. Then Anastasia couldn't finish her own dessert so I ate most of that. Hence the night of the seven desserts. That also doesn't count the cake I had at 10 in the morning that they were passing out after a cooking demonstration (left). That night I actually got a little shaky as we were saying goodbye to everyone from the sugar overload, indicating that I have now officially figured out my limit. Seven is enough.

Supper series

I'm going to start a new series of posts where I show you what we had for dinner and a general description of it. In my opinion, recipes are all fine and dandy, but there are many times I go into the kitchen and just rummage for a meal. I'm always curious to know what other people do in these situations, so maybe someone else will find this interesting, too.

The meal pictured above was intended to be Chicken Peanut Stirfry Noodles. I bought tofu instead of chicken, because it lasts longer in the fridge. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out how to pan fry it without leaving all the crunchy brown bits (i.e. the best bits) in the pan!

The veggies were a small container of the fresh stirfry veggies available at Fareway. Unfortunately, half of them were rotten by the time I opened the pack, and almost all the rest were potatoes. Stirfry? Potatoes? I sliced them really thin and they came out great--crispy--I'll do them again. The rest of the veggies were okay--the asparagus was great.

I bought a bottle of sauce at Wheatsfield. I love peanut sauce, but don't care to make it. I ended up buying a Ginger Peanut sauce--it's good, but it's mostly ginger.

And then I threw in some cooked bacon we had leftover from super spuds. And that was our meal. Alex liked it okay, but I don't think that particular combination of ingredients will ever show up in our fridge again, nor will I try to make it happen!

Delicious!

So, this is not the most attractive food picture I've ever taken (nor is it the healthiest food we've ever eaten), but it was very tasty.

It's Nacho Spuds from Rachael Ray's website, and it combines two of my very favorite foods--potatoes and nachos.

If you're curious to know which other web-based recipes I've tried and have bookmarked to try at a future date, check out my delicious account.

Delicious is a social bookmarking site--users can save their bookmarks on their computer, and then they are accessible to anyone from any computer (you can also choose to "hide" some bookmarks you don't care to share). One of the main advantages is that you can "tag" (label) bookmarks to help you find them back, without having to put them in a hierarchy of folders.

For example, if you look at my top ten tags on the right side of my account, you can start browsing by clicking "recipe", then "main", then "meat" if you want to find the above recipe. Or if you simply want to see all the dessert recipes, you can start by clicking "dessert."

I also look at other things on the web--you'll find cleaning hints, book reviews, and other sites of interest. If you only see the "Top Ten Tags" when you first click over there, you need to click on the little triangle next to "All Tags" to open up the list of over 50 tags that I use.

Enjoy the browsing--I'd love to hear what your favorite sites are--let me know if you sign up for delicious!

And hopefully it will give you some recipes to browse for a while, as we are going to basically do a cooking ban here in a couple weeks once we start showing the house. We'll see how that goes.

Chocolate orange cheesecake

For previous thoughts on presentation of cheesecakes, see this post. It turned out great for my book group as well--they all loved it, and in fact a couple people thought it was from The Cafe!

Orange Chocolate Cheesecake
Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens
12 servings
45 min prep; 45 min bake; 1+4 hours chill

24 Oreo cookies
2 T melted butter
3 8-oz pkg. 1/3 less fat cream cheese
1 c sugar
2 T flour
4 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 ½ t. finely grated orange peel
1 c miniature chocolate chips
1/3 c orange marmalade

1. Soften the cream cheese by setting it out and cutting each block into 10 cubes. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Crush the cookies with a rolling pin or in the food processor. Stir in the butter. Press up the sides and across the bottom of a 9” springform pan. Bake 10 minutes. Set aside to cool somewhat; turn oven up to 350.
3. In a large mixing bowl, using electric mixer, beat cream cheese for 30 seconds.
4. Add sugar and flour; beat well.
5. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat on low speed just until combined. Stir in orange peel and chocolate chips.
6. Pour into crust. Place in a rimmed baking sheet. Bake 45-50 minutes until center 2” are nearly set.
7. Turn off oven and open door for about 30 minutes. Place cake on rack; loosen sides of pan.
8. After about 1 hour of cooling, cover and chill for at least 4 hours.
9. To serve, melt marmalade and drizzle over cheesecake. Tuck one square of chocolate into each slice. Optionally, drizzle chocolate sauce over cheesecake as well.

Turtle Cheesecake option

1. Instead of orange peel step: Melt 2 oz semi-sweet choc—stir into half the filling. Pour choc filling into springform pan. Carefully pour plain filling on top. Gently swirl w/spatula.
2. Place in shallow baking pan in oven at 375 for 45-50 min (9” pan). Center should appear nearly set when shaken.
3. Cool in pan on rack for 15 min. Loosen crust from sides using small spatula. Cool 30 minutes. Remove sides, cool 1 hour. Cover and chill at least 4 hours.
4. Decorate with chopped toasted pecans, stripes of chocolate and caramel, and mini chocolate chips.

Cheesecake presentation

I made this cheesecake a couple of weeks ago--partly as a practice run for my upcoming book group, partly as the snack for our connection group. Here are some thoughts from the experience.

1. Presentation makes a difference. I had individual slices on plates when the guys in our group came in, and they got so excited--"Is that for us? Did you make it? Wow!" I got the idea for the candy pieces while standing in line at Coldstone once. The reason their ice cream cakes look so fetching is because they stick a small cookie or candy at the end of each piece. I can do that!
2. Don't worry about cracks. All (2) of the cheesecakes I've made have cracked, even though I've meticulously followed the cooling instructions. Honestly, these days people are more impressed with flawed baked goods b/c they know they're homemade.
3. A sauce covers a multitude of wrongs. I learned this from Jen DB--Alex has repeatedly said to me, for years now, "Jen makes great cheesecake--maybe you could learn from her!" Well, we never got around to it, but she gave me some tips and I started making them anyway because I realized it was important to Alex. Anyway, this sauce is just melted apricot preserves. I have also used caramel and chocolate sauces.
4. Jen's other tip--it's okay to mix and match recipes. I like an oreo crust, so that's what I use (crush 20 cookies in a food processor, add 1 T melted butter, press into pan). For the filling I use a standard recipe from Better Homes and Gardens, similar to this one except simpler, I think (I'll post it when I get it typed up). Then I pick a topping.
5. You do need to let it cool for quite a long time--start at least 12 hours before you want to eat it.
Enjoy!

Cheesy Potato Soup--edited

(A faithful reader pointed out to me that this post was incomplete. Since it is my favorite recipe, I thought I'd complete it and repost it. Hope you like it!)

I would pick this as my very favorite recipe—I usually have all the ingredients on hand, it's simple, cheap, tasty, and freezes well.

Cheesy Potato Carrot Soup

from Anastasia Tuckness

4 servings

1 cup chopped onion (usually one onion)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced
2 carrots, peeled, thinly sliced
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/2-1 cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Heat the oil over medium heat. Saute onions 5 min. Add potatoes, carrots, and broth--make sure there's enough liquid to cover the vegetables. Simmer at least 15-20 minutes, until all vegetables are very soft. Add cheese and milk. At this point, either a) blend with a special hand immersion blender or b) pour 1/3-1/2 of the soup into a blender and allow it to cool for 10 minutes. Blend the soup in batches--it's important that the soup not be hot and that the blender be half full or less or the top of it will blow off. Add salt and pepper to taste at the table.

If you like your soup thick, reduce the amount of liquid. You can also add pureed squash at the end, or sliced parsnips with the vegetables at the beginning. This soup freezes well and is well-liked by almost everyone. If you like a more earthy flavor, leave the peels on the vegetables. I eat this soup both hot and cold.

Food reviews

I wanted to share a few more supermarket items that I've found to be quite tasty. I share these because I find so much of the boxed/canned/frozen items to be unpleasant to taste, as well as nutritionally deficient. And yet their siren song calls to me--I'm easy! I'm quick! I will solve your dinner woes!









Well, these items won't completely solve your dinner woes, but they may handily fill a niche for you sometimes as they do for me.

These are the chicken strips made by Fareway's happy meat men. Have I mentioned how much I love shopping at Fareway? So efficient, so cheap, with such helpful people who bring your food right to your trunk....

Anyway, these are very tasty and I'm sure they have fewer preservatives and fillers than the ones you buy in the bags. They're available in the frozen food endcap, and you just heat them at 350 until they're warm (about 15 min, I think).

These are some of the new handy frozen veggie mixes that are available in bags and pouches that steam right in the microwave. I am a big fan of these--fewer dishes! Also, these are easier to find in my freezer than a balled-up tiny portion of a bag of peas that might not see the light of day for many moons. I've decided I'm willing to pay for these conveniences, and I also think that "brand name" veggies taste better than store brand. For example, I had given up buying the "carrots/peas/corn/beans" mix, but gave the Green Giant brand a try last week. It was quite nice. My last comment on frozen veggies (other than to say any of them are easier than fresh and often have more vitamins left in them) is to say these particular boxes shown are so hearty that they are almost a meal. The legumes in them add protein, so I will take these to work and eat up with a muffin, yogurt and fruit. Yum!

Sushi in Ames

A couple weeks ago we finally made sushi (california rolls, to be exact), with the results above. Alex had given me a "how to make sushi" book/DVD/bamboo mat kit at Christmas 07, and we didn't do anything with it until a couple weeks ago.

Anyway, I'm not going to post a recipe here b/c I wasn't crazy about the one we used (partly b/c ingredients were listed in grams, which are hard to translate to American measurements), but I will post a couple hints from our experience.

• It helps to watch a DVD (or short video on the web) of how to do the rolling part; seek one out.
• Contrary to our recipe, you do not need to make a whole bag of rice for two people.
• Cooling and vinegaring the rice takes quite a long time (especially with a bunch of rice).
• Next time, I'll spread the rice thinner so as to give the other ingredients a chance to shine.
• For presentation, it is nice to have both black and white sesame seeds. I also added some red roe (available in little jars at Fareway for somewhat reasonable prices).
• You can get decent California rolls in Ames, from at least four places (in descending order of quality): Fuji Steakhouse, Shogun, Super WalMart, and Hyvee.

I've become quite a lover of sushi over the past few years. I think it started when I was in a chicklit bookclub and all the heroines lived in Manhattan and got takeout sushi all the time. I guess I learned one good thing from those books! :)

New Year's Resolution--Weight Loss

The title of today's post links to an informative article about 10 principles to consider when working toward weight loss or weight maintenance. I thought since we're still in the spirit of keeping resolutions, I'd offer some thoughts on the subject.

Over the years, I've gone through a few periods of weight gain, most notably the freshman 15 (as a result of eating french fries at every meal they offered them--which was most of them!) and twice during my life when illness has caused a long period of inactivity combined with medicine that made me gain weight.

After those times, the principles I used to get the weight off were as follows.

• Exercise. I put it on my schedule--I usually take scheduled aerobics classes (step is my favorite) so I feel obligated to go and don't have to decide whether or not to go. I also like working out with people and having someone tell me what to do.
• Calorie log. This is time-consuming but valuable. I learned a lot about what foods "cost" in terms of calories by looking them all up and totalling the day's amount. I've heard recently that just writing down "1 medium baked potato" or whatever you had to eat, even without the calorie amount, can be helpful.
• Being careful of what you eat. For one month, I gave myself a green star for each day I made good eating choices.
• And the new one this year: strength training. I'm including strength/toning exercises in my workouts twice a week (I do three total), and it's helping with weight and general slim-lookingness, which is a big part of the motivation, isn't it? ;)

New Year's Party Food

What you see here is the beginning of luscious guacamole, which is what I will be bringing to the New Year's Eve party I'm attending. Isn't it beautiful already? If you, too, would like to eat some fresh, tasty guacamole to fight the winter doldrums (and you're not going to the same party I am), see this post for the recipe. Make sure you start with ripe avocadoes!

If you're looking for another good party food, I've listed a few other ideas below. I generally try for something with balance: familiar enough that people will eat it but with a little twist to keep things interesting, simple enough that it doesn't take forever but still looks (and tastes)interesting, and containing some nutritious ingredients but still tasting indulgent. I don't worry too much about cost in these cases, figuring it's hospitality. All of these recipes qualify.

Cranberry Orange Pinwheels--Tasty, fruity cream cheese in tortilla pinwheels

Cream Cheese Fruit Dip--Sweet and rich, accompanied by fresh fruit, always a hit, makes a ton.

Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic Cream Cheese Dip--Amazing. I make a non-vegan variation.

Hope that gives you some ideas, and have a Happy New Year!

Product review--dinner rolls

This is my new favorite food product--multigrain rolls from Rhodes. You buy a bag in the freezer section, and then throw it in your freezer at home. Whenever you want some buns for sloppy joe, or just some rolls for your meal, you set a few out in the morning. By dinnertime, they've risen and you just pop them in the oven. Voila, fresh-baked rolls (that rose, no less) with almost no effort or dirty dishes. And while they have more ingredients than your home-baked roll, they do have whole grains and are way ahead of most refrigerated or frozen breads/rolls nutritionally speaking.

As for taste, everyone I've served them to has loved them and some even thought I made them myself.

So--taste, nutrition, convenience (including being able to prepare just a couple at a time) all come together in one package. I'm loving it!

Better-than-Panera Salad

Yesterday I shared about our special cheese dinner; today I'll show you what to do with the leftovers--make a salad prettier than anything Panera offers. I use bagged salad, for simplicity and because we can never eat a whole head of lettuce before it goes bad. Then I top it with toasted walnuts for good solid protein, some crumbled or cubed cheese, and finally ring it with slices of apple or pear. I don't use dressing on a salad like this because I think the cheese, nuts, and fruit add enough interest and moisture. (I will say, though, that I am searching for recipes for dressings to go with salads like these, so let me know if you have a good one!) With the leftover bread and a bit of chocolate for dessert, it's a nice light lunch.