sometimes you just gotta have salad

As much as I love bbq, man does not live on meat alone! So every once in a while, we also have salad. Ok, we have other veggies, too, and fruit.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were stuck down in Cincinnati during an ice storm for a couple of days, and we went to Via Vite, an Italian bistro right on Fountain Square. She had an endive and pear salad that she really liked. Then we had something similar at Rue Dumaine, with apples and endive. My wife liked it so much that she wanted to recreate something similar.

So we took some red pears, endive and spinach (the spinach as in the Via Vite salad, mostly to add some color), and cut it all in thin slices, kind of a julienne cut. She also added candied walnuts she made herself! For dressing, she made a simple vinaigrette with champagne vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, with a bit of salt and pepper.

My wife went one step further, though, and added fennel to the mix, which was a really nice addition, adding a bit of spicy licoricicity (yeah, it’s a word now!). The salad was a great side dish, or works as an entree salad, too. I had it with a pork chop, a really nice combination.

The other salad we’ve been having is inspired, heavily, by Tyler Florence, a Swiss chard salad with warm honey/balsamic vinegar dressing. This one is simple… It’s just chopped up Swiss chard leaves with diced shallots, shaved Parmesan Reggiano. TF added pomegranate seeds, which would be great, but hard to find in March. Instead, I chopped up some pancetta and sauteed it until it was nicely crunchy.

The dressing is really easy; it’s 2 parts honey to 1 part balsamic vinegar, and I added some salt and pepper and a bit of ancho chile, for some heat without being too hot. I heated up the dressing until it mixed well, then let it cool a bit. When it was still warm, I drizzled it over the salad and served! Swiss chard is fast becoming my favorite leafy food item.

So maybe I cheated by adding a form of bacon, as everything is better with bacon, but both of these salads are really great by themselves or with a main dish. There’s no reason salads have to be just iceberg lettuce and ranch dressing!