Waiting For Spring

It’s the end of March and spring has not yet sprung – sigh.  The winter coats have not been put away and I’m still dealing with the daily annoyance of trying to convince my kids that it’s perfectly fine to wear mismatched gloves.  I have high hopes for April.

Though we aren’t yet into 70 degree days, the arrival of daylight savings time has inspired me to start using the grill a bit more frequently for evening meals (even I have to wear an extra layer to do so).   This  week, the lighter-than-usual evenings had me looking for something new to go with the grillings so I set off in search of a new wheat berry salad recipe.

I went through my usual online haunts… foodnetwork, 101cookbooks, allrecipes, etc… and found one that met my requirements, which were: 1) the recipe had to be substantially different from the other wheat berry salad I’ve made and 2) it had to be made solely from ingredients I had in the house (it was too gray and cold to venture out to the grocery store).

I found a couple options that looked promising and went forth with a recipe by Ellie Krieger compliments of FoodNetwork.com.  A few substitutions later, I had found a new favorite – a wheatberry salad flavored with dried cherries, cilantro, and lemon.   I liked it so much I made it again three days later.

It’s All in The Dressing

My all time favorite salad is from Cosi – their signature salad.  I think it’s the mix of the pistachios, grapes, and gorgonzola in their  sherry shallot dressing that does it for me.  For that reason – this is my “go to” salad (and look, there’s a recipe for it linked above).

Since it’s my go to salad… I serve it a lot, and while I could eat it five nights a week, I think my husband and friends are getting a bit sick of it. So… this weekend I went off in search of a new salad.

 I found one that looked interesting – first because the combination of honey and balsamic vinegar just sounded good, second because my husband really likes beans, and third because I already had all the ingredients on hand.  I’ve posted the recipe here – Honey Balsamic Bean Salad – its a slight adaptation to the original version that I found on 101cookbooks.com (which she found via a book called “Teaching Dad to Cook Flapjack”).

One more thing I discovered yesterday – my friend Kim has much prettier serving dishes than I do (example – the bowl in the picture above).  Much to my husband’s dismay, I think I might start making a habit of taking my camera with me to friend’s houses so I can take pictures of my recipes in their dishes.