Portabella mushroom salad

 I hope everyone is having Chanukah that is filled with family, friends, good food, laughter, and warmth! Here is a recipe that you could add to your Chanukah party menu…

I loooovvve a good salad. A good salad enhances any meal from ordinary to elegant or festive or balanced. Not only do I like a good salad but I like a funky salad with tangy tastes, interesting ingredients, and unique toppings.  So I am just so ashamed that this blog barely consists of any salad recipes. The reason for this is that I generally make my special salads for Shabbos, so they are assembled and put together on Shabbos, hence no picture taking.

Apple, Pear, Strawberry Spinach Salad with Strawberry Vinaigrette

This salad is everything a salad should be- refreshing, healthy, different, and very tasty. The thing that I dislike most about fruity types of salads is the amount of sugar the salad dressings usually call for. It’s so counterproductive, don’t you think? Salad dressings should be as pure and as natural as possible, while still maintaining a deliciously sweet or spicy flavor! If you share these beliefs then you’ll love this Vinaigrette. It has 2 tablespoons of honey and the rest of the sweetness is from puree strawberries.

Colorful Couscous Salad:

I was sitting in my mother’s kitchen one day when she gave me a couple of cook books. “Rechy, I get most of my recipes online these days, and I definitely have not touched these in years.” I was more than happy to add some cookbooks to my meager collection. One of them was a paperback book called “Kosherlicious Dishes” by Chabad of Owings Mills. This definitely was the least appealing to me from them all. It was simple: no pictures of recipes, no glossy pages, and no graphic design.

Every so often, generally when I am hosting guests, I get into these nervous frenzies were I am like, “I have such boring recipes. I need something new!  I need something different!” And then I take down all my cook books and start manically turning the pages trying to find that elusive recipe.

Well it happened one Thursday night, when all my cookbooks were strewn across the kitchen table, and I was frantically searching for a new and exciting recipe. Frustrated with my lack of progress, I dug deeper into the cabinet that held my cookbooks and pulled out the small paperback Chabad cookbook. “Hmmm, maybe this has something.” I was shocked to find some wonderful recipes in the salad and kugel sections, recipes that I still hold dear today.

I just want to take a moment to apologize to the “Kosherlicios Dishes” Cookbook for not giving you a chance right away.

In any case, I was especially pleased to find the “Colorful Couscous Salad”. There is a very well-liked Shabbos take-out in Baltimore that has an array of beautiful salads and the “Colorful Couscous Salad” reminded me of one of the salads they sell.

Sephardic Eggplant Salad

I first had this salad at my parent’s house around a year ago, and ever since then, I've been hooked!

I love serving this tomato-based eggplant salad at our Friday night meal, together with fish and challah. I feel good feeding my family food made with fresh and healthy ingredients!