Italian Bread Salad

Love Italian? Cut leftover white bread into cubes and let them stale a bit to make this easy and brilliant summer salad the Italians invented to use up day-old bread. Wakes up everyone's taste buds and with the bread cubes soaked in the wonderfully assertive dressing it's filling enough to be its own meal. Easy. Serves 6 to 8.

Italian Bread Salad

1 pound lettuce (romaine is nice)
1 large cucumber (English is preferred)
1 large fresh tomato, cut in thin wedges
1 cup sliced red radishes or daikon radish
1/2 pound or 4 cups stale French or Italian bread, cut in 1-inch cubes
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced (don't omit!)
1 cup olive oil
1/2 cup wine vinegar
1 tsp. dried basil or dried mixed Italian herbs
2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
fresh-ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup fresh-grated Parmesan cheese; the stuff in the cans won't work.

Wash the lettuce, pat or spin the leaves dry, tear them into bite-sized pieces. Peel the cucumber and slice. Put the lettuce and cucumber in a large bowl along with the tomato, radishes, bread cubes and onion.

Next, put the oil, vinegar, basil or seasoning, garlic, salt, and some pepper in a blender and blend at high speed for 1 minute. Pour the dressing over the salad, sprinkle on the Parmesan cheese, and toss the salad gently for several minutes.

Chill the salad at least a half-hour before serving. Two or three days from now it'll taste just as good.

A New Orleans Specialty: Muffuletta Olive Salad Recipe

Mixed olives and other pickled vegetables, plus garlic, parsley, celery. . .this is flavorful "muffaletta," a Sicilian-inspired New Orleans specialty invented in 1906. At Italian groceries retails for $7 a pound. Or, try this recipe from Taste of Home magazine, minus the prepared "giardiniera" (mixed pickled vegetables) I couldn't get because it's sleeting outside. No cooking, just chopping. Spread on bread or sandwiches, top pizza (pictured) or pasta, or make salad or potato salad with it.

Midwest Muffuletta

1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon dried oregano
3 to 6 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 tablespoon thinly sliced green onion

1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1-1/2 cup green olives with pimientos, chopped (bottled "salad olives" okay)
1/2 cup pitted Greek olives, halved
1/3 cup roasted red sweet peppers, chopped (or substitute; see below)
1/4 cup finely chopped celery (or substitute; see below)
1 tablespoon drained capers

In a large bowl, whisk the first 7 ingredients, olive oil through red pepper flakes. Add the remaining ingredients; toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hours. Keeps for a week at least. 99 calories per 2/3 of a cup.

Substitute for roasted red sweet peppers: 1/2 of a large fresh red or orange bell pepper, diced
Substitute for celery: Chop finely those big white tough lettuce ribs you usually throw away.

Recipe: Thai Seafood Salad

For the jaded winter palate, a wake-up call: shrimp and scallops with authentic Asian dressing, served on greens with lime wedges. Delicious. And it's low-fat. From Moosewood Restaurant Lowfat Favorites (1996), a cookbook I like so much I got a hardback copy when my paperback wore out.

Thai Seafood Salad

Sauce: 
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro or 1 tablespoon squeeze cilantro

Fish
1 fresh red chile pepper, seeded and minced
1 teaspoon canola or other vegetable oil
1/2 pound shelled and deveined medium shrimp
1/2 pound sea scallops, cut in half crosswise if large
3/4 cup thinly sliced red onions

lettuce and lime wedges

Whisk together lime juice, sugar, fish sauce in cilantro in a large bowl and set it aside. In a skillet, saute the chile in the oil on medium heat for 1 minute. Add the shrimp and saute, stirring, until they begin to turn pink and curl and are heated through, about 4 minutes. Put the shrimp in the bowl to marinate. Add the scallops to the skillet, saute for 3 to 5 minutes until cooked, and then move them to the bowl with the shrimp and sauce. Add onions and toss everything to coat it with the sauce.

Arrange the greens to cover a serving platter with the lime wedges around them, and mound the seafood in the center.