Life is full of risks. If you take upon your shoulders the profession of Bear Baiter you should expect some high medical insurance premiums. But if you post an unfavorable recipe on your degenerate blog, oh well, you’ll live.

However many years I didn’t post any of my cooking here was due to many things, timid behavior, failure, laziness, whatever.  Only a handful of recipes have gone up, all I’m rather proud of. I’ve still got many more of those. But how about one (of many) I’m not too sure of? It’s all good. It is what it is. It’s food, it’s good, so who cares if it’s not necessarily indescribably great. But seriously it’s still good stuff.

I hate boring salads. There’s no point. You can get nutrition in so many awesome ways. Who wants to get their daily greens via apathy? Not me. On the other hand, places that charge their customers $11 for a lunch salad should be firebombed. It’s just salad.

So we built this exciting main dish salad you can make on a weeknight in less than a half hour. If nothing else, it’s not boring. Whether all the freaky flavors in here will excite you or drive you away is entirely dependent upon your palate and preference. For us, I dig this kind of stuff, so badly.

 

Let’s go!

 

lunatic (not boring) salad

bags of fresh greens

1 head broccoli, chopped

1 apple, sliced

1 carrot, chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

1 shallot, diced

3 fresh cherry peppers, diced or 1/4 cup jarred

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup white wine

1/8 cup sun dried tomato, diced

1 anchovy tin

1 lemon, juiced

1/8 cup sherry vinegar

1 basil pack, chopped

pepper

2 Tbsp mustard

1 pack pine nuts

1 pack pancetta

1/2 cup parmesan / reggiano

in a large bowl add the greens, broccoli, apple, and carrot

in a medium sauté pan heat the olive oil, add the shallot and brown, add the cherry peppers and garlic and brown, deglaze with white wine

add the sun dried tomato and anchovy and cook for about 5 minutes, add the lemon juice, remove the pan from the heat and let cool for a few minutes

transfer the pan mixture to a blender or food processor, add the vinegar, basil, pepper and mustard, blend and let sit

without cleaning the sauté pan, add the pine nuts and pancetta and cook until both are crisp

toss the dressing with the greens, add the cooked pine nuts and pancetta, sprinkle with the parmesan

 

Let’s begin!

Just get a big bowl and toss the greens, broccoli, carrot, and apple in there.  Chop them as you please.  Feel free to substitute any fruit or vegetable you desire in your salads or to add more.  It’s all good.  But have at least three fruit or vegetable options in addition to the greens.

The star of this dish is the vinaigrette and this sauté pan is your tool.  You’ve got your shallots and peppers to brown as you desire, then the sun dried tomato and anchovy to provide some added bite.  White wine deglazes, and the lemon juice to somewhat even it out.  Cherry peppers have some high heat, you can use jalapenos or even regular bell pepper and it’s fine, just cook them a bit longer until they’re soft.  You want almost all liquid gone but no overly dry.

Process or blend it all up with the sherry vinegar, mustard, basil, and pepper.  Do not, please do not add any additional salt.  The anchovy already has your back on that.  If you left the anchovy out because you don’t like the fishy taste or whatever, you add some salt then.  If you don’t want to dance with sherry vinegar, use red wine vinegar.  You should have a nice dressing at this point.  If it’s too thick, add just a touch of water and blend again.  If it’s too loose, you can add a bit more mustard, or just leave it.  As long as it can coat your vegetables you’re good.

Oh but we’re not done yet.  Because who doesn’t love bacon and pine nuts?  I mean, I guess there might be somebody, somewhere who doesn’t.  If so, they’re probably aliens, report them to the authorities.

Toss the vinaigrette in the large bowl, add in the pine nuts and pancetta, sprinkle over the parmesan and go.

No matter what happens, one way or the other, you’ll not be bored.