Experimenting with Winter Salads

One of the things that I found particularly nice about Thanksgiving this year was that I was able to spend time cooking in a relaxed way.  This inspired me to return to my cookbook collection and to purchase a couple of new cookbooks as well, filled as I was with the joy of anticipation of happy hours spent in the kitchen.  

My kitchen time hasn't worked out to be quite as stress-free as I had hoped, but I have nonetheless, been playing around with new flavors.

This is a roasted cauliflower, celery and pomegranate seed salad from the new cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi, Jerusalem.  It was quite delicious, and better yet, it was also excellent pureed.
 In fact, it may have been even better in the pureed form.  This is my new priority in the kitchen, as long as G still enjoys eating, the food needs to be good for me and enjoyable for him as well.

Of course, I was not surprised. Ottolenghi's two previous cookbooks have been great successes in my kitchen, and many of our staple dishes and family favorties have come from them, especially the first, eponymously named book:  Ottolenghi.

One of the unexpected joys of this book has been how many salads and dishes there are that employ winter vegetables.  Now that we have returned to that season when I must rely on grocery-store produce, that alone is a great boon.

We have also tried, and enjoyed, roasted butternut squash and red onion with tahini and za'atar, which is also excellent left over, as shown here over lettuce (not part of the original recipe).  In fact it works better for G with the addition of the lettuce, which lightens the puree.  

I originally served the squash as a side with the recipe for chicken adobo, which I cooked without the potatoes since I was serving the butternut squash.  The chicken is another dish I highly recommend, although it is unfortunately not nearly as photogenic as it is flavorful. 

Next up will be a few recipes featuring kohlrabi, one of G's favorite vegetables.  There used to be annual skirmishes in our Hyde Park garden between G and the woodchucks over who would had first dibs on the kohlrabi crop. Now I just have to drive up the road to a local grocery store.