Watermelon + feta salad

Watermelon and feta salads are the perfect combo of sweet and salty. This rustic salad also has some refreshing mint strips on top. You can drizzle this duo with olive oil for a more savory mouth feel, or with balsamic vinegar to give it some extra kick, but I like it plain sometimes, just like this. Check out these watermelon and feta salads from previous posts I've done:

Starburst appetizer

(click to see post)

Salad on a stick appetizer 

(click to see post)

Playful checkered salad 

(click to see post)

Duel orange + pom salad

This is a colorful and delicious fruit salad combo! It has blood red oranges, navel oranges, pomegranate seeds, and orange zest. This is a riff on fruit salad I made last month blood oranges and pom seeds.

Blood orange, pom, + pistachio salad

Farewell Mr. Pom!

I just sliced open the last pomegranate of the winter season and made one of my fave fruit salads. I've been making this Nigella Lawson recipe for years—a simple mix of pomegranate seeds, blueberries, and mangos, and then a judicious squeeze of lime balances out the sweetness. It's very healthy and amazingly refreshing! Frank, the produce manager at Shaws market in Beverly, assures me that another round of poms will come through around May, though these fruits aren't as good as the ones that start arriving at the markets in the fall. So until then, farewell Mr. Pomegranate!

You may also like:

Mango salad

Four super healthy fruit salads

Primary colors

Asian pear and cabbage salad

A neighbor gave me a few Asian pears recently, from a box given to him by one of his students. You may have seen these pears at the markets—they not the usual pear shape but nested round like an apple, and taste much different than those buttery European pears that I am more used to. They are super firm and crispy, much like a jicama, and can last for months in the fridge.

So how to honor this special pear? I sliced it up and made a colorful salad using them, along with shredded red cabbage, scallions, roasted walnuts, and a pomegranate vinaigrette. After a few bites I also added a few plops of goat cheese which was the creamy element that was missing from this photo. Delicious! Thanks Mark, for sharing!

Mango tango

This tropical fruit medley has a bit of Hawaiian punch in it! It's got diced mango, pineapple, papaya, and is dressed with a spicy sweet mango, ginger and habanero sauce. I also added toasted coconuts and macadamia nuts. The spicy sauce I used is a store-bought grilling and glazing sauce that I sometimes use sometimes for grilling chicken, shrimp, or fish with in the summer.

Grapefruit with cardamom honey syrup

Ready to jazz up that breakfast grapefruit? I happen to love grapefruit straight up—meaning I already relish the inherent bitter and sweet taste—but when it's sweetened with a touch of honey and cardamom it's transformed into a fruit that's worthy of the Gods. To make this cardamom honey syrup, mix equal amounts of honey with some freshly squeezed grapefruit juice—about a tablespoon each—then add in about a half teaspoon of ground cardamom seeds. I sloshed this ambrosial bath over juicy slices, ruby-red grapefruit, then sprinkled on some pepitas, black and white sesame seeds, and sweet goji berries. Heavenly.

Clean foods Epiphany!

Is your 'Check Liver' light blinking from all that holiday merry making?! Seeing that tomorrow is the first Monday after New Year's day—and the Feast of the Epiphany—it seems like a good time to detox from all the carbs, sweet treats and wine I've been indulging in. Yup, time for a clean foods Epiphany! Think fresh, think fiber, and think plants, such as fruits, veggies, whole grains and beans. Shown above are four of my very favorite go-to fruit salads that are all filled with antioxidants, phytochemicals, and micronutrients. The Earth is turning on its axis, the days are getting longer, and I feel a spring in my step just thinking about it!

Top left: Blackberries, ruby red grapefruit, avocado
Top right: strawberries, blueberries, kiwi
Bottom left: mango, blueberries, pomegranate seeds, lime juice
Bottom right: papaya, avocado, kiwi, lime juice, honey

Click here for more interesting
salad combos and other fruit salad
combinations that I've made over the years.

And for more hard core detox ideas, click here
to read my juicing post from Jan. of 2012.

Black berry, grapefruit, + avocado salad

Love this combo of black raspberries, grapefruit, and avocado that I've been making for a few years. It's really refreshing!

Click to read an earlier post on this salad here and here.

Primary colors

Red–yellow–blue... the primary colors of the color wheel. This simple salad is one of my favorite combos. It's made with garnet pomegranate seeds, golden mangoes, and indigo blueberries, and the recipe is from British Kitchen Goddess Nigella Lawson.  All that sweetness is balanced with a judicious squeeze of mouth puckering lime juice. So good to look at and so rich in antioxidants. Sometimes it's the simple things... 

Click on the 'fruit salads' label below 

to see more crazy fruit salad combos.

Pear and walnut salad

This is the last salad of my Pear Salad Week! 

Sliced pears, roasted walnuts, and nobs of robust Roquefort cheese float over a bed of baby romaine and frisee lettuces. The whole shebang is dressed with my very favorite autumn salad vinaigrette that I've been making for years. Props to Martha Stewart for the recipe, though please note that I reduce the apple cider by half in a saucepan to make it more intense. The vinaigrette works fab with apple and walnut salads too, so I always have a small container of it in the fridge this time of year when apples are freshly picked and abundant. A salad tossed with this vinaigrette is a perfect match with a cider glazed pork roast.

Autumn cider vinaigrette

1 shallot, minced

1 tablespoon apple cider (reduced by half)

2 tablespoons apple-cider vinegar

1/4 cup walnut oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

I could keep going with these pear salads, of course—pears integrate easily into all sorts of sweet or savory meals. And although we've picked the last of our pears from the trees, we still have about a dozen ripening in a big wooden bowl. Hmmm... I see another French pear tart in our near future! Check out this unusual Cantaloupe, mango and pear slaw. 

Warm caramelized pear salad

Pow... This pear salad has big flavors! Warm, caramelized pears with rosemary, creamy French feta cheese, and crispy prosciutto strips with baby arugula leaves. Ohh la laa delicious!

To caramelize pears, add 2 tbsp butter, 1/4 cup of sugar, a few sprigs of fresh rosemary, and 1/4 cup water to a pan. Simmer for 3-4 minutes, then add sliced pears (around 1/4 inch thick) and simmer slowly for another 5-8 minutes, until the syrup thickens and the pears are tender.

Pears, sweet potatoes and blackberries

This colorful salad is brimming with antioxidants, phytochemicals and micronutrients. In it are cooked sweet potatoes, blackberries, kale leaves, macadamia nuts and of course, pears. The simple dressing is a mix of lime and honey that help boost and balance the sweet flavors.

Pears, cranberries and pepitas

Todays pear salad is chock-a-block with antioxidant ingredients! Baby spinach, dried cranberries, pepitas (pumpkin seeds), and Boursin 'cranberry and cinnamon spice' cheese all huddle together with the pear slices to make a super healthy salad. The dressing for this magnificent mélange is made with minced shallots, champagne vinegar, grapeseed oil, salt and pepper.

Vertical pear salad

This year's aforementioned pear harvest bounty has left me with no other option that to have a pear salad week—five very different salads using pears. You just can't buy pears that are this ripe, this juicy and this sweet from the market, and they are so abundant that I've had to come up with creative ways to use them all. I am particularly proud to say that our pears are 100 percent organic too. 

I'm going to kick off the week with a scrumptious vertical pear salad made with frisee and arugula greens, candied pecans, and Gorgonzola cheese. The dressing was made with pecan oil, champagne vinegar, minced shallots, a smidge of maple mustard, tiny pinch of cayenne pepper, and salt and pepper. Sweet, salty, and sassy.  

Grilled peaches + burrata

This salad screams summer in Tuscany! Juicy ripe peaches that have been quickly grilled for a bit of char are a sweet punch to creamy pillows of burrata cheese. I placed crumbles of crispy pancetta and placed the lot over arugula and frisée greens. For the dressing I made a classic vinaigrette, to which I added a spoonful of Stonewall Kitchen's Bellini (peach + prosecco) jam. Get thee some burrata cheese and give this one a whirl. It's molto eccellentissimo with a glass of bubbly Italian prosecco.

Pick up sticks

This julienned beet, granny smith apple, and carrot salad looks more like a game of pick up sticks. Feta cheese added a lovely creaminess and pumpkin seeds were added for crunch. The baby beet micro greens were a nice addition as well.

Click below to see other beet salads I've made:

Tri root salad

Beet and carrot medalion salad

Golden beet salad

Raw root veggie carpaccio

Golden beet and blood orange salad

Golden beets and beet colored oranges

Beet and goat cheese mousse salad

And the beet goes on

Golden beets and blueberries

Stone cold

This cool and refreshing stone fruit salad has sweet slices of nectarines, peaches and apricots, a few halved cherries, a sprinkling of arugula leaves, and some briny French feta cheese.

Click below to see two other simple, stone fruit salads:

nectatrine and cherry salad

apricot and blue cheese salad

Curried quinoa + mango salad

This salad combo is a new favorite of ours—curried quinoa with mango, spinach, slivered almonds and wasabi peas for an extra crunch and punch respectively. Here's how I made it—

Rinse 1 cup of quinoa in sieve under running water for a minute (to remove bitter outer chemicals) and cook in 2 cups of chicken broth for about 15 minutes. Let cool. Meanwhile make the dressing, and have all your salad ingredients chopped and prepped. Combine the salad ingredients in a bowl, add curry dressing to taste, then fold in the almonds and cilantro when you're about to serve. The salad is great just like this but and on any extras that you like. I like this on a bed of baby spinach, and I love the added heat and crunch of the red chili peppers and wasabi peas. Drizzle a bit of the dressing on the top as well. If your keen for quinoa, you'll love this salad!

Curry dressing

1 garlic clove, minced

2 tablespoons Greek yogurt
2 teaspoons curry powder

1/2 tsp of freshly grated ginger
zest and juice of half a lemon

1 tsp honey (or mango chutney!)

5 tablespoons olive oil 

dash of salt and pepper

Salad ingredients

quinoa, cooked and cooled

2 large mangoes
1 jalapeno chile, seeded and diced
3 scallions, thinly sliced 

half cup cilantro leaves

1/3 cup slivered almonds, roasted

Extra fun

baby spinach leaves

wasabi peas

sliced red chili peppers

Shrimp on the barbie!

My oldest brother Ron is a great cook! He explores and is influenced by the restaurant scene in Boston and the Cayman Islands. At a family party a few weekends ago he made these delicious lemongrass grilled shrimp which were the perfect balance of sweet, spicy and zesty. Delicate shrimp can easily become overcooked and dry on a hot grill, but these were cooked to perfection—slightly charred yet moist and succulent. Along with the shrimp Ron made made a gorgeous, spicy mango, red pepper, cucumber and red onion salsa—those fruit salads are a perfect match with seafood. Below is his shrimp recipe.

Lemongrass shrimp

1 lb. cleaned and shelled shrimp

 2 garlic coves rough chopped

 2 tbsp finely minced lemongrass

 2 Thai chiles thinly sliced

 Thumb size piece of fresh ginger, grated

 1 tbsp of sliced shallot

 3 tbsp soy sauce

 3 tbsp Asian fish sauce

 1/4 cup brown sugar

 1/2 lime fresh squeezed 

 1/4 cup chopped cilantro

 1/2 tbsp fresh ground black pepper

 Mix all ingredients. Marinade shrimp in 2/3 of the sauce for 20 minutes (no longer, or the lime will 'cook' the shrimp!) Put on skewers. Cook 2-3 minutes each side (depending on the size of the shrimp), and baste with the other 1/3 of the sauce while cooking. 

Click here to read more about fruit salsas.

Cantaloupe + mango salad

I never know whether to call this a salad or a salsa, but I've been making this fruity cantaloupe, mango and pear combo for years and it's always a hit. To further confuse matters, the recipe from Food & Wine Magazine calls it a slaw! (click here for the full recipe) It's made with cantaloupe, mango, carrots, and pear (sometimes I add jicama instead of the pear). It takes hours to cut the fruit into perfect little matchsticks, so feel free to just cut them into cubes. The carrot however, should be grated into strips, and preferably with one of those nifty julienne peeler tools. The precut carrots sold in the market are too chunky, I think. The dressing has the most perfect taste balance of salty, sweet, sour, hot and umami, and goes perfectly with grilled seafood. 

Click here to read more about fruit salsas.