spinach pear salad with creamy maple balsamic vinaigrette

Yes, it is the middle of summer. And yes, my previous two posts have involved big pots of something on the stove (miso soup, black bean chili). What can I say - I make what sounds good: sometimes that means hot miso soup in July! Today, I'll post something perhaps more seasonally appropriate. This time of year, there is little better than a summer salad made with fresh, in-season produce.

While I'm on the topic of summer salads, I'll mention a New York Times article, 101 Simple Salads for the Season, that Marika forwarded me recently. As the title suggests, the article features a number (101, to be exact) of easy to make summertime salads. They claim each can be made in about 20 minutes or less. Marika was raving about the red salad, which is composed of tomato, strawberries, basil, and balsamic vinegar. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

OK, back to my salad. I had maple balsamic vinaigrette for the first time a couple of months ago when JR and I were driving down the coast from Seattle to San Francisco. We arrived in Mendocino in the evening to stay at Stanford Inn by the Sea (which was beautiful - it features a huge certified organic garden guests can wander through that provides much of the food for their vegetarian restaurant; we ate breakfast there the following morning, which was amazing). We were tired from a long day driving and didn't feel like cleaning up to go out to dinner, so ordered take out from a local pizzeria (slash ice cream parlor!) - Frankie's. Their organic salad featured a maple vinaigrette that was heaven in salad dressing. I've been trying to replicate it, with mixed results, ever since.

Finally, two nights ago, I think I did it. Granted, it's been awhile since I consumed Frankie's salad, so I'm not sure this is an exact match, but it tastes so good that I don't really care! Like the simple salads featured in the NYT article, this one is fast, easy, and packed with diverse flavors. Here's how it goes:

Spinach Pear Salad with Creamy Maple Balsamic Vinaigrette

Serves 2

dressing:

2 Tbsp. pure maple syrup

2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

2 Tbsp. plain yogurt (I used goat's milk yogurt; greek yogurt would also be great)

salad:

3 handfuls of spinach

1 red pear, cored and thinly sliced

1-2 oz. blue cheese, crumbled

1/4 c. walnuts or pecans

Whisk together dressing ingredients. Put salad ingredients into a large bowl. Add dressing and toss to coat. Enjoy!

better than a $10 martini

Yes, it is Sunday morning and I am writing about martinis. No, I am not drinking a martini at the moment (but once the cheering/yelling at the Superbowl starts from the living room in a few hours, I might need one!).

When JR and I first moved to the peninsula, we used to go to a bar & grill in our neighborhood every once in awhile for a martini and appetizer on a Friday night - it was a nice way to start the weekend. One time, we skipped the app and just had a martini. When the bill came, we realized that all this time, we'd been drinking $10 martinis. Not that there's anything wrong with a $10 martini, it's just that these particular ones didn't quite measure up to the price point. So, like pizza, we decided that we could outdo the local options even more locally - in our kitchen.

What makes a good martini? you might ask. Yes, it's imperative to start with good quality alcohol. I tend to favor Level vodka. We currently have vermouth that the local wine shop recommended - Boissiere Extra Dry - and it's quite good. But in my opinion, what really makes the martini comes down to one simple thing: O-L-I-V-E-S.

Momentarily, I'll walk you through my personal favorite olives-for-martinis combo. But first, let's rewind a couple of years to my inspiration. I experienced one of the most fantastic martinis I had consumed to date in Bremerton, WA with my good friend Emily. Anyone who's ever been to Bremerton, WA can imagine my surprise at this (it's a military town, where cheap beer is definitely more plentiful than good martinis). The magic combo that made the martini? Blue cheese stuffed olives.

Fast forward to today. Here's my rendition:

Better than a $10 Martini

makes 2 martinis

ice

1 oz dry vermouth

4 oz high quality vodka

4 black olives (the kind from the olive bar, not from the can!)

4 pitted large green olives (ditto!)

blue cheese (I use Point Reyes)

Fill two martini glasses with ice. Allow to sit and chill while you prepare the olives.

Stuff the green olives with blue cheese. On a martini pick, alternate black olives with the stuffed green olives so that you have two of each kind on each pick (ending with a stuffed green olive). Set aside.

Discard ice from glasses. Pour about half a shot of vermouth into each glass. Over the sink, swirl the vermouth in the glass to coat the sides, dumping about half down the drain (the rest remains in the glass). Add an olive pick to each glass.

Add the vodka and a handful of ice to a shaker; shake about 10 times. Strain into martini glasses. Cheers!

homemade pizza!

One of the (very few) disappointments of our locale on the peninsula is that we have not found any good, local pizza. This might be partly because we left behind a few fantastic pizza places in Seattle. Some nights I long for Pagliacci's AGOG Primo and Pagliaccio Salad, or a slice from Atlantic Street. What we've found in our area so far just hasn't measured up. So we've taken to making our own.

Tonight's pizza topping combo is courtesy of Jennifer Kurkoski (fellow Googler and culinary sage). I'm going to put it all onto a cornmeal crust. I think it's quite possibly the best pizza I've ever made. 

Pear Gorgonzola Pizza

Cornmeal pizza dough:

2 tsp. active dry yeast

pinch of sugar

2/3 c. warm water

1 2/3 c. flour (plus more for work surface)

1/4 c. cornmeal (plus more for baking sheet)

1 1/2 tsp. coarse salt

2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil (plus more for bowl)

Toppings:

6 oz. gorgonzola, crumbled

1 large portobello mushroom

8 oz. mozzarella, shredded

1 large pear

olive oil

Sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the warm water in a small bowl. Let stand until yeast is dissolved and mixture is foamy (about 10 minutes). 

Combine flour, cornmeal, and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center, add yeast mixture and oil to the well. Slowly stir with a wooden spoon until dough just starts to come together (sprinkle with flour if dough is too sticky, but not so much that it becomes dry). Transfer to lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes). Rub oil over dough and return to bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for about an hour (the dough should double in size). 

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Transfer dough to floured surface and knead for 30 seconds. Sprinkle cornmeal on baking sheet. Using fingers, press dough out on baking sheet to desired size. (Word of warning: dust off the extra cornmeal at this point before baking, otherwise there might be some smoke and the fire alarm might go off. That might have happened tonight!)

Brush the dough with olive oil and bake (about 8 minutes). Thinly slice mushroom and pear. Layer mushroom, gorgonzola, pear, and mozzarella (in that order) onto mostly baked crust. Return to oven. Bake until cheese is golden (about 5 minutes).

Add a simple spinach salad (tonight's version includes apples and walnuts) and we have a not altogether unhealthy meal to accompany our weekly viewing of the Bachelor. Perhaps it will be so tasty that Marika will weigh in with a comment this week!