Farm to Table: Red Stuff

After taking a couple nights off from cooking, I was looking forward to using three of my farm share veggies—all with “red” in their names—in tonight’s dinner salad. When I searched for “red potato” on the Cooking Light recipe search, the second recipe listed was an intriguing salad that I couldn’t resist trying. It not only used red potatoes in an unusual way, but it also made use of my red onions and the head of red leaf lettuce (substituted for a bag of mixed greens).

The Chicken, Red Potatoes, and Green Bean Salad is like a hybrid between potato salad and a regular dinner salad, but it doesn’t use any mayonnaise (a question I was asked twice tonight). I wasn’t exactly sure what such a salad would taste like, but it was fantastic—a nice mix of flavors and textures, with a mustard-vinaigrette kick to it that made me go back for more (as did our last-minute dinner guest, John’s cousin Rochelle from Chicago).

The recipe says it’s a 30-minute meal, and I’d agree with that—it only took me a little longer than that, and I was taking breaks to chat with Rochelle half the time. The most tedious part of the prep was cutting the green beans diagonally, just because I pretty much had to do them one at a time. But once I got that done, it was a breeze. While the potatoes were simmering, I was able to prep the chicken (a bag of the Purdue pre-roasted chicken chunks that I cut into smaller pieces) and the dressing. I probably could have done the green beans then as well to save time.

Once again, I served this with a side of whole-grain Near East brand pilaf and rolls. (I wanted to be sure our guest had enough to eat, in case the salad didn’t turn out well.) We had some of the salad left over, so I’ll be curious to see how the lettuce holds up by tomorrow night, sitting in all that vinaigrette.

In addition to the butternut squash, which I’m saving for later this week, we have a couple of boiled potatoes, some more red leaf lettuce, another red onion, and a couple of apples left from last week’s share. I think the only veggies I’ve bought this week to supplement our share were the green beans and the grape tomatoes and parsley that were both used in two different recipes. Not bad for my first week!