All content copyright Katrina Hall 2008 through 2025

Monday, March 4, 2013

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!





7 comments:

Barb said...

Hmmmmm - that dressing sounds really interesting. I'm going to have to give it a try.

Isn't it amazing how you just "know" that sping is on its way - even if the temp is only 18 degrees in the morning. I think maybe it's the light or maybe something you can't describe - you just "feel" it. And believe me, I am so ready for it to get here!

Thanks, Katrina, for another delicious recipe,to try.

katrina said...

Barb - I think you must be right about the light - I suppose it came on so gradually I didn't notice, but when it did? Whammo! Cannot wait. Thanks for popping by!

katrina said...

I forgot to tell you - those life-is-just-a-bowl-of-cherries plates only come out on very special days, and this morning was one of them. Mais oui, they're from France:)

Anonymous said...

What a much needed tonic, spring greens soup — just what the doctor ordered!

katrina said...

Absolutely, Diary! Now, I wonder what wonderful greens you'll find in your garden and fridge?

Barb said...

Those cherry plates are wonderful. Did you get them while you were in France? Lucky, lucky you!

(I love pretty china (& pretty bed linen).)

katrina said...

I didn't get those plates when I was in Paris - I think I had just enough francs to buy a paperback book by Colette:) I wish I could remember where I got them - I think it was by catalogue years ago!

Barb - we are two peas in a pod! Love linens and china!