Side by Side, Bibb Lettuce Salads with Persimmons and Candied Pecans

Would you like to know a perfect holiday salad, easy, and elegant for your holiday gatherings? It is “Bibb Lettuce Salad with Persimmons and Candied Pecans.” It is chock full of fresh seasonal ingredients like cranberries, Fuyu persimmons, and pecans.

Visually, a treat for your table. Healthy and good for you. It is what I call a composed salad, which is layered with a drizzled dressing on top, rather than tossed all together. You can make this salad ahead of time on individual salad plates or on large serving platters. It has different textures of crunch and softness, and sweetness from the cranberry dressing and candied pecans that stand up well to the tang of bold crumbled blue cheese. Your family and guests will love this salad!

Bibb Lettuce Salad with Persimmons and Candied Pecans

Lovingly Adapted from Bon Appétit Magazine, December 2005

Ingredients:

3/4 cup whole-berry cranberry sauce (purchased or homemade)

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon golden brown sugar

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 heads of Bibb lettuce, coarsely torn

4 Fuyu persimmons, peeled, sliced

1 cup (generous) crumbled blue cheese

Candied Pecans

Directions:

-Whisk first 4 ingredients in medium bowl; whisk in oil. Season with salt and pepper.

-Mound lettuce in center of 8 plates. Top each with persimmon slices, then drizzle with dressing. Sprinkle with cheese and Candied Pecans.

Recipe Note: I often substitute Bibb Lettuce with a Baby Spinach & Green Lettuce Mix, or when I can find it, a Baby Red Butter Lettuce. Trader Joe’s carries a ready-made Candied Pecans 5 oz. bag, perfect for salads or snacking.

If you make this salad, please share with me your comments. I would love to hear from you!

Another Related Post:

Beet & Goat Cheese Arugula Salad

Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend….Bonnie

Heavenly Pumpkin Maple Cornbread

I have to share this delightful Pumpkin Maple Cornbread with you in case you missed it in The New York Times. I knew, just by first reading it, was going to be fabulous. Sweetened with brown sugar and maple syrup, moist and rich, this is not your typical cornbread. In fact, it is so versatile, it could be a fall breakfast sweet, a Thanksgiving side, or just a satisfying snack. Easy to make, and one I am sure you will keep in your seasonal fall recipes.

Pumpkin Maple Cornbread

Lovingly Adapted from Samantha Seneviratne

Published in The New York Times

Ingredients:

½ cup plus 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, divided, melted and cooled slightly, plus more for greasing the pan.

1 cup finely ground yellow cornmeal

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 large egg

¾ cup packed light or dark brown sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin purée

½ cup buttermilk

½ cup plus 2 Tablespoons maple syrup, divided

¼ cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas)

Directions:

Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan. Line with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on two sides. Butter the parchment.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.

In a large bowl, whisk together ½ cup melted butter, the egg, brown sugar, pumpkin purée, buttermilk, and ½ cup maple syrup. Fold in the dry ingredients. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, and smooth out the top.

Top evenly with the pumpkin seeds. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs attached, 25 to 30 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the remaining 2 tablespoons of melted butter and the remaining 2 tablespoons maple syrup.

Transfer bread in the pan to a wire rack. While the bread is still warm, brush the entire surface with the butter-maple mixture. Remove the cornbread from the pan using the overhanging parchment, and cut cornbread into pieces. Serve warm or at room temperature. Makes 9-12 servings. Recipe Note: Be sure and use finely ground cornmeal, and real maple syrup for this recipe.

Pumpkin Maple Cornbread Just Out of the Oven Cooling

More Related Links:

Curried Pumpkin Hummus

Home-Grown Pumpkins

Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend…Bonnie

Home-Grown Tomatoes

There are lots of wonderful recipes for your home-grown tomatoes, like bruschetta, tomato tart, caprese salad, or just an awesome BLT sandwich. I remembered reading recently the Roasted Tomato Soup recipe from Miss Maggie’s Kitchen cookbook, and wanted to try it. So simple, so seasonal, so divine.

Steamy Roasted and Charred Soup Ingredients

Roasted Tomato Soup

Lovingly Adapted from Miss Maggie’s Kitchen Cookbook

Ingredients:

2-1/4 pounds assorted tomatoes

2 red onion quartered

4 cloves garlic, unpeeled

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons sugar

Leaves of three sprigs of fresh thyme

Leaves of 3 sprigs fresh basil

1-1/2 cups warm vegetable broth

salt and freshly ground pepper

Directions:

1) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

2) Rinse the tomatoes, cut them in half, and set on a rimmed parchment-lined baking sheet with the cut side up.

3) Place the onions on the baking sheet, then crush the garlic cloves with the flat side of a chef’s knife and scatter them around the tomatoes and onions.

4) Drizzle with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar, sprinkle with the sugar and thyme leaves, and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 50 minutes, then turn on the broiler and cook for an additional 5-10 minutes, until the tomatoes and onions are lightly charred and caramelized.

5) Remove the skin from the garlic cloves and place in a blender with the tomatoes, onions, any pan juices, and the basil. Process until smooth, adding the warm broth in two or three stages, until the soup reaches your preferred consistency. Serve warm or cold. Makes 5-6 servings.

Recipe Note: Like most soups, this soup is even more delicious the next day. I used “Fresh Basil” Temecula Olive Oil with my Early Girl and Celebrity Tomatoes.

Soup is On After Blending

This soup was delicious the day I made it. However, the next day I couldn’t resist enjoying it with an extra aged cheddar melted cheese sandwich with a touch of peperoncini on rustic country bread. Yum!

Good to the Last Spoonful

Related Linked Posts:

Miss Maggie’s Kitchen, Relaxed French Entertaining

Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend….Bonnie

Miss Maggie’s Kitchen Salad Recipe

Last week I mentioned I would share the recipes from my previous blog post, End of Summer Lunch. I’ve written before about Héloïse Brion of Miss Maggie’s Kitchen, and her cookbook, and even the original winter version of this salad recipe. It is a bright composed salad that lends itself to seasonal variations easily. A composed salad is generally creating an individual salad usually in layers on each salad plate and drizzling the dressing over the top of each salad, versus creating one large salad in a bowl and tossing everything together.

Where you have pear and endive in the winter, you can have mixed summer greens and ripe peaches in late summer. The dressing is simply sauteed shallots in a little olive oil with warmed chopped pecans and almonds, placed over your bed of greens. Slice your desired seasonal fruit and place on one side, slice and place your burrata cheese on the other. Mix juice of one lemon and one tablespoon of honey, add salt and pepper and spoon over each salad. It is a simple salad with big flavor. Use the freshest and finest seasonal ingredients you can.

This salad has it all. You have your fat with the olive oil, nuts, and cheese. You have acid with your lemon juice. You have a hint of sweetness with your honey and fruit. You experience different textures throughout the salad when eating.

Dorie Greenspan’s Goat Cheese and Fig Quick Bread

This is a great recipe for entertaining, and for apéro hour. It is a cinch to make like a banana bread, with no yeast, kneading, waiting, etc. It is a quick savory bread that really captures many of the essential flavors of Provence and the Mediterranean. When I first read this recipe I knew it was going to be really good! How can you go wrong with goat cheese, dried figs, honey, olive oil, fresh herbs, and even citrus zest. It gets better, Dorie Greenspan suggests that you can easily substitute ingredients such as dried tomatoes instead of figs, different neutral oils, different cheeses, basil instead of parsley, and lemon instead of orange. She also suggests serving it warm and in thick slices. Heaven!

Goat Cheese and Fig Quick Bread

Lovingly Adapted from Dorie Greenspan for New York Times Cooking

Ingredients:

butter

4 ounces very cold soft goat cheese

4-6 moist plump dried figs, such as Mission, cut 1/4-inch pieces

1/3 cup finely chopped fresh parsley

1-1/2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary

1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

3 large eggs at room temperature

1/3 cup whole milk lukewarm

1/3 cup olive oil or another neutral oil

1 tablespoon honey

1 clementine or 1/2 tangerine zest

Directions:

1) Center a rack in the oven and heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat an 8 to 9-inch loaf baking pan with butter.

2) Cut the goat cheese into 1/2-inch pieces. It can be messy, and sticky, so don’t worry. Keep in refrigerator until needed.

3) In a small bowl, toss together the figs, parsley, rosemary, and thyme; set aside.

4) In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper. Working in a different medium bowl, whisk the eggs until blended, then whisk in the milk, oil, and honey.

5) Pour the wet ingredients over the flour mixture, and using a sturdy spatula, stir until the dough is almost blended. You’ll still see some streaks of flour, and that is okay. Scatter the fig and herb mixture over the dough, and then cover with the chilled bits of goat cheese. Grate the zest of the clementine or tangerine over the cheese. Using as few strokes as possible, stir everything together. Once again, it might not look perfect, and once again that is fine. Scrape the dough into the baking pan, and use the spatula to poke the dough into the corners, and to even out bumpy top.

6) Bake for 34 to 38 minutes, or until the top is golden, the bread has started to pull away from the sides of the pan, and a tester or toothpick inserted into the middle of the bread comes clean. Unmold the bread onto a rack, turn it right side up and let cool. Wrapped well, the bread will keep for a day or two at room temperature. Time: 50 minutes. Yield: 8 servings.

Mixing the Fig and Herb Mixture Into the Dough Before Baking

Dessert is light with fresh seasonal berries topped with vanilla mascarpone cheese. Mascarpone is a light, slightly sweet Italian cheese that is easily spreadable for toast and bagels, and also used in desserts. To make vanilla mascarpone cheese simply combine well 8 ounces mascarpone cheese with a heaping tablespoon of sugar and 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract. Place a dollop on top of your berries, and add a bit of Demerara sugar for glisten. Enjoy!

Fresh Seasonal Berries Dressed With Vanilla Mascarpone Cheese

Related Post Links:

End of Summer Lunch

Miss Maggie’s Kitchen

Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend…..Bonnie

End of Summer Lunch Beckons Fall

I write and speak a lot about seasonal living. You can feel it in the air, as exciting leisurely summer turns into reflective autumn. Our everyday routines begin to change and adapt to the season. Small subtle changes such as our weather transitioning, the foods we eat, the clothes we wear, our gardens changing, all tell us we are into a new season. We have a short window to embrace this fall season, and then it is gone for another nine months, and winter heralds in. Living seasonally heightens our everyday living, and in turn living in the moment.

On the cusp of summer ending, means I can use a pretty autumn tablecloth, a fall-scented tawny candle, a beautiful blooming dahlia from a friend, and a menu which uses both summer and autumn flavors. The menu was a lovingly adapted composed salad from Miss Maggie’s Table, a savory warm Goat Cheese and Fig Quick Bread by Dorie Greenspan, and a light dessert of summer berries with a dollop of vanilla mascarpone Italian cheese with a sprinkling of Demerara sugar.

I will share with you these recipes next week. In the meantime, how have you transitioned into autumn? What do you love most about autumn?

A Related Past Blog Link:

Follow the French

Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend…Bonnie

Home-Grown Butternut Squash

Here is a recipe to herald in fall, Roasted Butternut Squash Salad. Butternut squash is one of my favorites, and I use it a lot in the fall. I have been composting with my kitchen scraps for years, adding my finished compost to my soil and my plantings. A fringe benefit of this each year, is many happy volunteer butternut squash vines that sprout, flower, and yield tasty butternut squash for my fall menus.

Butternut Squash Ready for the Oven

The beauty of this recipe is roasting your peeled and sliced squash with a sherry vinaigrette and finely chopped shallots until caramelized, and then tossing the remainder of your vinaigrette over your salad greens repeating the delicate flavors.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup sherry vinegar (preferably Spanish Jerez), or apple cider vinegar

1 small shallot, finely diced

2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano, or 1 teaspoon dry oregano

1 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed in a mortar & pestle

1 teaspoon honey

1/2 to 1 whole medium butternut squash, peeled and sliced into 1” slices, or cubed, depending on how much squash you would like to use.

12-14 ounces of fresh baby spinach, or mixed fall greens

1/2 cup crumbled French feta cheese, or more if desired

1/4 cup toasted chopped pecans (optional)

Roasted Butternut Squash from the Oven

Directions:

1) Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Make vinaigrette in a small bowl whisking together olive oil, vinegar, shallot, oregano, fennel seeds, honey, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.

2) Place parchment paper on a large baking pan or tray. Toss squash in a bowl with 2-3 tablespoons vinaigrette. Bake squash uncovered, 25 to 30 minutes until it browns and begins to soften. Flip squash once or twice while baking. When finished, let cool.

3) Place spinach or greens in a large bowl. Add squash. Toss with remaining vinaigrette. Plate your salad with greens and squash. Top salads with crumbled feta cheese and toasted pecans. Makes 6 to 8 servings. Enjoy!

Composed Salad Ready for Topping with French Feta Cheese and Toasted Pecans

Please let me know if you make this salad, and how you liked it. I would love to hear from you.

Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend…..Bonnie

Melissa Clark’s Grilled Vegetables with Burrata Recipe

Are you “knee deep” in zucchini from your garden about now, and have exhausted your zucchini recipes? Melissa Clark’s Sweet and Spicy Grilled Vegetables with Burrata featured last May in The New York Times, might be a delicious solution. The beauty of this recipe is you can use just about any seasonal vegetable you like. Fresh green zucchini and yellow crookneck zucchini sliced diagonally is an excellent choice, as well as fresh asparagus, carrots, cherry tomatoes, and eggplant. Recipe Note: If using a dense vegetable such as carrots or corn, be prepared to grill them longer than your other softer vegetables. I chose to leave out the corn on the cob, mushrooms, and red peppers, and made my own medley of seasonal vegetables on hand.

What makes this recipe extra fabulous is not only all the lightly grilled fresh vegetables, but the “Sweet and Spicy Sauce.” Looking at the sauce ingredients you might think, wow, this is a potent sauce with chopped raisins, honey, apple cider, fish sauce, and red pepper flakes. The beauty of this sauce is that it really cuts the vegetables, and really adds a nice acidic accent and brightness to your vegetables. The complementary cheese on the side, also cuts the spicy sauce well. I have made this recipe using burrata and also mozzarella. Both worked equally well with the grilled vegetables. Enjoy!

Sweet and Spicy Grilled Vegetables with Burrata

Lovingly Adapted from Melissa Clark, The New York Times

Makes 6-8 Servings

Sauce Ingredients:

1/4 cup chopped raisins, preferably golden, or substitute dried apricots

2/3 cup white wine vinegar or cider vinegar (I prefer a combination of both)

2 tablespoons honey, plus more to taste

1 tablespoon fish sauce or colatura (optional)

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Pinch of fine sea salt

For The Vegetables (Use Any Or All):

Extra virgin olive oil

2 to 3 bell peppers, quartered, stems, and seeds removed

1 to 2 zucchini or crookneck yellow squash sliced diagonally 1/2-inch thick

1 small eggplant, sliced diagonally 1/2-inch thick

2 to 4 ears yellow corn, shucked

8 ounces mushrooms, washed, dried, trimmed and halved, or quartered.

1 bunch thick asparagus, ends snapped

8 ounces cherry tomatoes preferably still on the vine, ( I put the tomatoes on a wooden skewer).

For Serving:

2 small burrata or fresh mozzarella balls, or 2 cups fresh ricotta

Flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Basil or mint leaves, for serving

Crusty bread slices

Directions:

1) Make the sauce: Put raisins or apricots in a small heatproof bowl. In a small saucepan, combine vinegar, honey, fish sauce or colatura (if using), red pepper flakes, and salt. Bring to a boil, then let simmer until the mixture reduces slightly, about 3 minutes. Immediately pour over the raisins and let cool. Taste and stir in a little more honey if the sauce is too harsh. (Sauce can be made up to 1 week ahead and stored in the refrigerator).

2) Prepare the vegetables. Lightly brush olive oil on boths sides of sliced and other vegetables. Have a serving platter ready.

3) Grill the vegetables directly on the grate of the grill, in batches if necessary, and turning them as needed. Move them around the grates so they cook evenly. Cook until lightly charred, watching them carefully, 5 to 12 minutes or more depending on what vegetables you use. If necessary, use a grilling basket for the asparagus and mushrooms. Cherry tomatoes grill 1 to 2 minutes, and will start to burst and char slightly. Transfer all the vegetables as they cook directly to the serving platter.

4) Add the the cheese to the platter next to the vegetables. Immediately drizzle everything with some of the sauce, stirring it up to get the raisins, and with olive oil. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt, pepper, and scatter the herbs generously on top. Serve the extra sauce on the side, and the bread for making crostini with some of the vegetables.

Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend…..Bonnie

Antipasto Tortellini Skewers, Recipe from Half Baked Harvest

This is a great summer appetizer, that is both tasty and dramatic. Also suitable for an easy summer lunch, adding a simple green salad and a slice of rustic country bread or focaccia. You can mix up the ingredients according to your taste! Perfect for utilizing your ripe cherry tomatoes and fragrant Italian basil from your summer garden. Make your own pesto, or buy your favorite.

Just like lasagna and layering, once you assemble your “mise en place,” the skewers go very quickly. Save some time, assemble a day ahead, store in the refrigerator. When ready to serve bring the skewers to room temperature, place on your serving platter, add a bit of garnish, and drizzle a little of your pesto over the skewers.

This recipe is lovingly adapted from Tieghan Gerard at Half Baked Harvest. This is simply a recipe you “can make it your own,” adding this or deleting that. What is recommended is a nice variety of ingredients that can stay on a skewer well. Enjoy!

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Bon Appétit et Bon Weekend…Bonnie