spring soup and a fresh chicken salad

It's coming.  Outside may be frozen into icy snowdrifts, and trying to take a walk?  You take your chances on the slip- n- slide paths.  But the temperature is slowly climbing, starting out at 20 degrees, and up to 40 a few hours later. I know you're out there, Mother Nature - and you're bringing Spring!

It's astonishing what a change it makes, knowing we are only a few weeks away from the official start of gardening.  The sun peeks out first thing in the morning, then disappears behind gloomy gray clouds, but still.  We know you're there.  

A morning walk is out of the question right now, but my menu has made a radical turn.  A perfect salad with chicken, goat cheese, and cranberries, and lots of greens, and a daily soup made of handfuls of lettuces, turnip greens, and kale or spinach, with a few baby bella mushrooms sliced up, simmered quickly in stock and pureed.  Only a few weeks ago I was making mashed potatoes with lots of butter, a few too many times a week.  Desperate times, then.

For the soup:

4 or 5 mushrooms, sliced
2 T. olive oil
1/4 cup scallions, sliced
a small bag of spinach, or two handfuls
2 cups other mixed greens from your vegetable drawer: kale, turnip greens, rapini, celery leaves -whatever is fresh.
2 or 3 cups stock, chicken, beef, or vegetable
1/2 t. thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Saute the mushrooms in the olive oil briefly, then add the greens and stock, thyme and salt and pepper.  Turn heat to low and cover.  Cook for 8-10 minutes, then take off heat and let sit before pureeing with an immersion blender.  Serves 2.

For the salad:

3-4 cups assorted greens, cut to bite size or not
1 large chicken breast, cooked, skinless and boneless, or use leftover chicken.  Dice the chicken in fairly large pieces.
1  1/2 cups dried cranberries
about 5 inches of goat cheese from a log, flaked into large chunks with a fork

Dressing:

Makes 1/4 of a cup dressing.

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon honey

1 tablespoon plain greek yogurt

1 teaspoon poppyseeds

salt and pepper to taste

Drizzle on the dressing and enjoy!

Serves 3, depending on your appetite.

Happy almost-Spring!