Green Goddess Dressing

Open any mid-century book on California Cooking and I guarantee you’ll find a recipe for one thing: Green Goddess dressing. (See three examples of my CA Cook Book collection, pictured above - all have it.) Since on St. Patrick’s day my friends and I had a “Green Food Till You Puke Pot Luck”, I decided one dish that I had to bring was Green Goddess Salad. It’s green, its slightly bizarre, and everyone loves it. (I also made green fondue, which is another story entirely, and rather disgusting.) See me and my friends in our green finery – Green Goddesses, all of us: 

One of my favorite books on California Cooking is a 1950 edition of the “The New California Cook Book” by Genevieve Callahan. (pictured at top) Not only is it filled with tons of actually tasty things, but Genevieve is knowledgeable and chatty and tells us background on her recipes. She notes, for example, that Green Goddess Dressing was famously served at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel in honor of the English actor George Arliss, who appeared in a play called The Green Goddess in the 20s. (And to think, I had always just assumed it was some hippy BS!) The other thing I adore about this book is that the previous owner, Mrs. Vera A. McMillan, had written ALL OVER IT, and stuck clippings and other recipes in its pages. She clearly was a “Health Nut” who had saved coupons for “Dr. Fearn’s Soya Bean Capsules” and other delights. I am sure she knew my grandmother.

This dressing is simple and everyone loves it, but one thing that always bugs me is that I have never seen “tarragon vinegar” for sale anywhere. Was this something that went away over time? A culinary mystery. Instead, I used white wine vinegar and some dried tarragon. Also, you can adjust the amount of mayonnaise and sour cream to taste in case you prefer one to the other, and “heavy cream, soured” is just sour cream. Some variations on this recipe call for onion juice (1 tsp) or onion and/or garlic powder (very 50s). Finally, to make a dip for veggies rather than a salad dressing, eliminate the mayonnaise entirely, and you can also eliminate the anchovies (which are said to be a later addition anyhow) and it is still excellent.

Green Goddess Dressing

1 clove garlic, grated

3 Tbsp finely chopped anchovies, or anchovy paste

3 Tbsp finely chopped chives or green onions

1 Tbsp lemon juice

3 Tbsp tarragon wine vinegar

½ cup heavy cream, soured

1 cup mayonnaise

1/3 cup finely chopped parsley

Salt and coarse black pepper

Combine ingredients in order given. Chill, then pour liberally over coarsely torn mixed greens – roamine, chicory, and escarole or head lettuce and leaf lettuce. Toss until well-coated, adding more salt and pepper as needed. Serve in individual plates or bowls, to accompany the main course. You’ll mop up your salad plate with French bread when you finish! Makes about a pint.

Oh, did I mention I put just a drop of green food coloring in the dressing? You can barely tell... see, I saved most of it for the frosting on the green cupcakes above. Note also that the green fondue is cropped out of this photo. You're welcome!

Taco Salad

Taco Tuesday has become a big thing around my house, but recently I wanted to change it just a bit – to make something that I adored growing up: Taco Salad. How tasty! How tidy! How similar to nachos, but somehow without the guilt…

I found a recipe for Taco Salad in my 1980 cookbook from the Overlook Hospital in Summit, New Jersey, called “Cooking is Our Bag” (and YES it is mine too, thank you very much!) and was overjoyed to see that it called for the favored food of my dear friend, Karen: Taco Flavored Doritos! (Note: In addition to loving Doritos, Karen also sells Tupperware, and here you can find yourself a nice container to transport your very own Taco Salad!)

Taco Salad was a big treat for me growing up, so I got out THE actual CatherineHolm serving bowl and Dansk bowls my mom used to serve her own Taco Salad in, and whipped some up. Sorry, Karen, I used plain chips, though I do like to indulge in Doritos as you know! I also added corn and avocado to make it just a little more “salad”. My mom made hers with beans, heating up a can of pinto beans and adding a can of stewed tomatoes which provided the “dressing” for the salad, which is just the perfect finish, whichever type of chips you select.


Taco Salad

1 lb ground beef, cooked
¼ tsp cumin
Salt
Half head of lettuce, shredded
2 onions, chopped
1 ½ cup grated cheddar cheese
1 ½ cup chopped, peeled tomatoes
12 sliced ripe olives
Taco-flavored tortilla chips, broken
7 ½ oz mild taco sauce

Mix ground beef with cumin and salt, chill. Toss with all other ingredients. If layered ahead, add lettuce, tortilla chips and taco sauce just before tossing to serve.

Serves 6-8

Barbecue Bean Salad aka 3 Bean Salad

Recently, I was invited to a barbecue, and what better place to turn than Better Homes & Gardens' 1963 classic, “Barbecues and Picnics”. I do already have several tasty cold bean salad recipes (variations on the great Three Bean Salad), but I always enjoy trying new ones. And this one is particularly tasty – even 6 year-olds like it!

I couldn’t find wax beans, so I used white beans – and I had to use 2 cans to make the proportions /colors look right. Also, I cut the sugar a bit, added more pepper, and I added sliced red onion. OK, to be honest, I did my own rendition of it, but I’m sure it would be just as good exactly as written. In fact, I liked it so much that I made a second batch for dinner the next night. So easy and tastes of summer.

“Barbecues are such delicious fun – plan one soon!” – so instructs the book – and I say, YES INDEED!


Barbecue Bean Salad

1 1-pound can (2 cups) cut green beans, drained
1 1-pound can cut wax beans, drained
1 1-pound can kidney beans, drained
½ cup chopped green pepper

3/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup vinegar
1/3 cup salad oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Combine vegetables; toss likely to mix. Combine sugar, vinegar, and salad oil; pour over vegetables. Add salt and pepper; toss lightly. Chill overnight. Before serving, toss again to coat beans with marinade; drain. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Summer Salad Bowl

“The enticing salad on the cover,” proclaims Better Homes and Gardens in the 1969 edition of their “Salad Book”, is "perfect for celebrating summer!" Enticing, maybe if those were marshmallows rather than cauliflowers… No, it’s OK, I love salad! And in summer, I actually crave it. (With or without marshmallows.) I tend to make the same salad over and over again, so it’s always great to find a new one, and this one was easy and tasty, so I’ll make it again for sure. NOT that I can say that for everything in this book, but really, that is part of the fun.

I also find that one of the true tests of parenthood is what you can get your kids to eat, and I am delighted to report that my 6-year-old daughter said she loved this, giving it “two thumbs up” after she carefully extracted the bell pepper slices.

The real fun was letting her use the salad spinner to play our new game: Salad Spinner Race (since I have 2 that match), where we pretended the salad spinners were high performance vehicles, and gleefully revvvvved their engines! It was a party till the lid flew off one spinner and crashed into the fridge, sending a shower of little magnets and kid art all over the place…

Ahh, the joy of cooking!



Summer Salad Bowl

Leaf lettuce
4 cups torn lettuce
2 cups sliced raw cauliflower
1 cup bias-cut celery
1 cup sliced radishes
1 green pepper, thinly sliced
1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
Italian salad dressing

Line salad bowl with leaf lettuce. Arrange lettuce, cauliflower, celery, radishes, and green pepper in bowl. Sprinkle cheese over. Serve with Italian dressing. Serves 8 to 10.

Spinach-Meatball Toss

From the Tupperware book, “Homemade is Better” (Special 30th Anniversary Edition, 1981) which I love to display next to my vintage Tupperware canisters, as depicted on the book’s cover, this recipe is made with a “base” (in this case, meatballs) that they recommend you make mass quantities of and store for use in the varied recipes, at later times. In my case, however, I happened to have a bag of meatballs from IKEA, and used those! I made the combined salad for myself, but for my daughter and her friend (5 and 4 years old, respectively), I served plain meatballs, next to a mini-version of the salad. (They are willing to try my creations, but sometimes prefer a de-constructed version.) Little do they know, they are foodies-in-training, just as I was when, as a little girl, I would moan to my mother: “Oh NO, you’re NOT making chutney AGAIN!” Complain complain complain. Fortunately, that is not what happened when I served this dinner. We all liked it enough to make it again, despite my initial assessment of most of the recipes contained herein as “weird”. OK, meatballs in salad I still think is a little weird, but I love spinach and egg, so somehow it worked. Also I love that in the recipe, you are directed not just in the cooking, but also as to WHICH of your various Tupperware items to use in each step. Brilliant.

I adapted things slightly, leaving out the water chestnuts and sprouts, and adding in chopped scallions, and also I used only the yolks of the eggs since, disappointingly, didn’t hard-boil fully – but it came together palatably. (That is the difference between throwing together a salad and, say, baking – substitutions are just fine in salad, but you must adhere to the chemistry with baking, or risk disaster.) The girls focused mostly on the meatballs, complete with 3 dipping sauces: the super-tangy BBQ style sauce from the recipe, lingonberry sauce (Swedish), and of course, catsup. Revoltingly, but not surprisingly, catsup was the winner with the kids. But they did also eat the spinach, so it was an overall Win-Win situation!


Spinach-Meatball Toss

1 24-meatball container FREEZER MEATBALLS **
½ cup water
10 oz fresh spinach (7 cups)
3 hard-cooked eggs
1 8oz can water chestnuts, drained
2 cups fresh bean sprouts
¼ cup sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1/3 cup catsup
¼ cup vinegar
2 Tbsp finely chopped onion
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

• In large saucepan, place Freezer Meatballs (**) in a single layer. Add water and cover. Cook on low heat for 15 minutes or till meatballs are heated through.
• Meanwhile, tear spinach into bite-size pieces in the large Decorator Salad Bowl.
• Quarter eggs and slice water chestnuts; add to spinach with bean sprouts.
• In Small Mix-N-Stor pitcher, stir together sugar and cornstarch.
• Blend in catsup, vinegar, onion and Worcestershire sauce.
• Add catsup mixture to saucepan; cook and stir over medium heat till thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir 1 to 2 minutes more. Pour over vegetables in Salad Bowl. Toss
• Serve in individual Decorator Salad Bowls.
• Makes 6 servings.

** A basic recipe for meatballs that you have previously made and frozen carefully in your Tupperware meatball container!

Tequila Salad (?!?)

Sometimes the strangest things turn out to be real winners.

I recently acquired a complete set of 1975 Betty Crocker recipe cards, in a lovely avocado-green plastic box (the whole of which weighs a ton, and I should know because I have already dropped it on my toe!), and was looking for something actually edible, yet distinctly 70s, to bring to a pot luck last summer. Lo and Behold, in the “Flavors of the World” section, there was the comedic-sounding Tequila Salad.

Well, I thought to myself, this sounds so weird I just HAVE to make it! And, it turns out, it is nothing more than various citrus, avocado and canned pineapple cut up into a salad, and dressed with a margarita, to which salad oil has been added. Strange? Yes, but, surprisingly, WONDERFUL! And to my great amusement, before I revealed the Secret Ingredient, people kept saying: “Wow this tastes great, what is in this dressing? I don’t normally even LIKE salad…”

“Hah!” I said, “TEQUILA!” No WONDER you’re all so cheerful. Works every time!

This past weekend I made this dish for a friend’s birthday, and the salad was eaten up faster than the scrumptious Red Velvet cupcakes that another friend brought. Which reminds me, Red Velvet cupcakes are the ONLY variety of cupcake worth eating, and when made by this particular Southern Gentleman (who is an amazing baker), I declare they are worth more than gold! He and I had fun giggling over the fact that there was booze in the salad dressing, and over our shared love of the Great Ms. Paula Deen - not only her cooking (Butter! Bacon!) but also of her style (false eyelashes! Big Hair!).

The card reads: “a salad created from the flavors of the popular Mexican drink, the Margarita” copyright 1975 General Mills – Betty Crocker’s Step-by-Step recipes


Tequila Salad:

1 can (15 ¼ oz) slice pineapple, drained (reserve ¼ cup syrup)
¼ cup lime juice
2 Tbsp powdered sugar
2 Tbsp tequila
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
¼ tsp salt
3 medium avocados
Lime juice
2 large grapefruit
2 large oranges
Salad greens
Chopped walnuts
Salt

• Shake reserved pineapple syrup, ¼ cup lime juice, the sugar, tequila, oil and ¼ tsp salt in tightly covered container. Refrigerate at least 1 hour.
• Cut avocados lengthwise in half; remove pits. Peel avocados; cut into ½-inch lieces. Sprinkle pieces with lime juice.
• Cut pineapple slices in half.
• Pare and section grapefruit and oranges; cut sections in half if desired.
• Just before serving, toss avocado pieces with pineapple and grapefruit and orange sections; place on salad greens.
• Sprinkle walnuts and salt over salad. Serve with dressing. (8 servings)