Tag Archives: red wine vinegar

Provoleta with Chimichurri

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In the old days when I wanted recipes, I read food magazines and cookbooks. It was wonderful.

But I have to say, having millions of recipes at my fingertips by simply being “online” makes me thrilled that the internet was discovered during my lifetime.

I discovered provoleta after receiving an email from Good Food, which is an Australian publication.

Provoleta is Argentina’s version of raclette, and to make it even more fabulous, this molten cheese is served with chimichurri. And good bread, of course.

So this was certainly a cheese dish I could not ignore, being a huge raclette fan. And cheese fan.

Provoleta with Chimichurri

Chimichurri:
½ cup finely chopped parsley
3 tsp finely chopped fresh oregano or 1 tsp dried
2 or 3 garlic cloves, minced
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
large pinch of crushed red pepper
3 tsp red wine vinegar

Cheese:
Round of provolone cheese, sliced about 3/4″ thick
3 tsp roughly chopped fresh oregano or 1 tsp dried
½ tsp cayenne pepper flakes

1 baguette, sliced, toasted, if desired

In a small bowl, stir together the parsley, oregano, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, crushed red pepper, and vinegar. Thin with a little water, if necessary, to make a pourable sauce.

Set aside to let flavors meld. Sauce may be prepared the day ahead.

Before you begin, have your bread sliced (I grilled mine), and the oregano chopped.

Set a small cast-iron pan over medium-high heat. I used my crêpe pan. When pan is hot, put in the cheese.


Sprinkle with half the oregano and crushed red pepper.

Cook for about two minutes, until the bottom begins to brown.

Carefully flip the cheese with a spatula and cook for two to three minutes more, until the second side is browned and the cheese is beginning to ooze.

Transfer cheese to a plate and sprinkle with remaining oregano and crushed red pepper. I added a few tablespoons of chimichurri.

Serve from the hot skillet on a heat-proof surface, along with the bread and the chimichurri.

Alternatively, finish the cheese by putting it under the grill or in a hot oven.

Argentinians grill the provolone slices directly on the fire, but I was not willing to lose good cheese and deal with the resulting mess on my stove!

As soon as the provolone cools a bit, it gets a bit rubbery, but the cheese can be reheated.

Which is exactly what I did that evening when my girlfriend came over. I reheated it on the stove, and we kept eating it, and eating it. Until there wasn’t much left.

She really loved the addition of the chimichurri. I just loved the cheese with the oregano and cayenne pepper flakes.

Will I be making this again? Oh yes indeedy.

note: If you’d like more direction for making chimichurri, check out my recipe on the blog here.

White Bean and Tomato Salad

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Beans, beans, beans. The more I eat, the more I’m addicted! I really love making beans from scratch, because still love the idea of creating meals for pennies. And a pot of beans can be turned into multiple meals.

But I’ve also touted my loved of canned beans on this blog – especially canned Great Northern beans for making my white bean dips. And I love canned black beans, because they make fabulous black bean salads, or a quick black bean dip. So I keep canned beans on hand always.

Today I’m going to show you how simple and easy it is to make a bean salad – this time using Navy Beans, priced at $1.19 per can.

But what’s even better than canned beans being inexpensive, is that they’re extremely healthy, and can be dressed up however you want! Black beans lend themselves beautifully to Mexican and Southwestern dishes, but for me, personally, I keep my white beans for Mediterranean-inspired salads.

They can be a healthy and hearty side dish, or make a whole meal. And, they’re good year ’round, depending on the ingredients.

So today I’m making a navy bean salad with tomatoes, and topping it with capers, shallots, and chives, because chives have returned to my garden. You can add oregano or basil, or anything you want to this salad. That’s the fun of playing with bean salads! Enjoy!


Navy Bean Salad

2 – 16 ounce cans navy beans, well drained
1 container cherry tomatoes
1-2 shallots, diced
Capers, drained
Chives, chopped, or parsley if you prefer
Olive oil and vinegar, or a basic vinaigrette*

Place the drained beans in a medium-sized bowl.
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Slice the cherry tomatoes in half lengthwise and let them hang out on a paper towel to drain a bit.
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Add the amount of vinaigrette you want to the beans and give them a toss. Right before serving add the tomatoes and stir them in gently.
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Place the beans in individual serving bowls; 2 cans should make 4 servings unless this salad will be a whole meal.


Sprinkle the bean salad with shallots, capers, and the chives. Feta cheese would also be a wonderful topping, but I kept this salad cheese-less today!

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Alternatively, you could add all of the ingredients together in the salad. I was looking for a more purely bean and tomato salad, with some toppings.


Taste for seasoning, especially salt and black pepper.

Serve at room temperature.

* My home-made vinaigrettes tend to be about half vinegar and half olive oil. I often add fresh garlic, and maybe some Dijon mustard, plus I always add salt. That’s it. I love vinegar with bean salads, and tend to use lemon or lime juice-based dressings with grain salads for some reason. But you could certainly substitute lemon juice for vinegar in this case. Use what you love!

note: If money is an issue for you, keep your eye on bean prices. Where I live, Cannelini beans cost twice as much as Great Northerns, and Frijoles Negros cost twice as much as black beans. They’re just considered and treated more “gourmet” with the foreign names!

Beet Vinaigrette

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You all know by now that I love vinaigrettes, and I always make them with different ingredients. To me, it’s really fun to mix and match seasonal ingredients and flavors in pairing a salad with a vinaigrette.

Whenever I purchase canned beets, which happens when I run out of my own pickled beets, I always save the beet juice. That’s just a rule. I typically pour it, strained if necessary, into a little pot and reduce it to a syrup-like consistency. Then, it can be added to any basic vinaigrette for that beautiful beet color and earthy flavor.

But today I simply added an equal amount of white wine (red or champagne would have worked as well) to the beet juice and reduced the liquid to a syrup.

Then I poured it into a jar.

I added about 1/2 cup olive oil and 1/3 cup vinegar, in this case red wine vinegar, plus a little salt, and shook the jar. I prefer a more emulsified look of the vinaigrette because of the resulting red color.

Of course, you can get more involved with the vinaigrette and add garlic, cloves, mustard, and so forth, but I like the simplicity of the reduced beet juice in a simple vinaigrette such as this.

My salad was one of those use-what-you have salads which, besides lettuce, included sliced beets, mushrooms, carrots, sprouts, and toasted pumpkin seeds. I used a little bacon and some soft-boiled eggs for protein, as my avocados weren’t behaving properly. And I’d recently picked up a pomegranate, so I decided that the pomegranate seeds would be wonderful with the beet-based vinaigrette.


And it was delicious. I encourage you to save every little bit of everything and use it in a vinaigrette! It always works!

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I’ve posted before on a beet and cider vinaigette, based on a beet juice and apple cider mixture. And I’ve also posted on a pear vinaigrette I made with a fresh pear. Think how creative you can get with different fruits and juices!

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This beet vinaigrette would be fabulous with all types of protein, including salmon, avocados, beef, duck and chicken. It pairs beautifully with walnuts, pecans, pine nuts and sunflower seeds. And of course, ingredients like tomatoes and red bell peppers would be good additions to your salad as well, I just didn’t want them in this particular salad because I feel they would clash with the pomegranate seeds.

Lingonberry Vinaigrette

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The other day while I was on hold with American Airlines, I spent the hours perusing recipes at Epicurious.com. I love the site, and its recipe search engine is very smart. You can search for a specific ingredient, for only dessert recipes, holiday dishes, and so forth.

I was just searching randomly, to pass the time, but then I came across this recipe: Red Cabbage Salad with Green Apple, Lingonberry Preserves, and Toasted Walnuts. The salad wasn’t too different than ones I’ve made; I’ve even blogged about a couple that are very similar, because I happen to love hearty, crunchy salads. It was the dressing, made with lingonberry preserves, that really caught my attention.

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So that idea stayed in my head, and when I was at Whole Foods last week I found them! Swedish Lingonberries! I couldn’t wait to play with them and make a vinaigrette.

From the list of ingredients, lingonberries, sugar, and pectin, I expected the lingonberries to be very jam-like. In fact, they weren’t very sweet at all, and didn’t have a jam-like texture to them either. So I got creative, and here’s what I did.

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Lingonberry Vinaigrette

1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons beet juice, from canned beets
4 tablespoons lingonberries
1/2 teaspoon sugar

To begin, I added all of the above ingredients to a blender jar, because that’s second nature to me. Then it dawned on me. With beautiful, whole lingonberries in the dressing, it would be much prettier with the ingredients left as is, instead of blending them all together.


So I simply shook the ingredients in the blender jar, and poured the vinaigrette into a serving bowl.

My salad was simple – Romaine lettuce, purple cabbage, carrots, grilled chicken, beets, and a few pine nuts.
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I also decided to decorate the salad with a few extra lingonberries, so I rinsed some of the “jam” gently with warm water to separate the individual lingonberries.
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Just now as I’m writing this post, I looked back at the recipe that inspired me, and I wish I’d included apple in my salad. With the lingonberries not being as sweet as I expected, a fruit would have been a delicious addition.

But in any case, this vinaigrette is wonderful. Only slightly sweet, and slightly tart at the same time.
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note: If you don’t love beets, omit the beet juice. I added it, again, because I wanted to offset the sweetness from the berries, but it wasn’t necessary.

Pear Vinaigrette

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You may find this fact hard to believe, but I’ve never purchased a bottled salad dressing or vinaigrette! I honestly don’t understand why anyone would. Don’t take this the wrong way if you happen to like them, but to me, they’re a real waste of money. And that’s besides the fact that you are also investing in chemicals and preservatives, in most cases.

But for me, even without the financial aspect, what’s more important is making my own vinaigrettes depending on my mood, what kind of salad I want to make, and the season. I’ve actually taught vinaigrette making in classes before. They’re so easy to make, and they’re way healthier because you control the ingredients. There are an infinite number of creative ways to make vinaigrettes.

When I cooked for a family for so many years, I never made the same dressing twice. So trust me, there are potentially multitudes of vinaigrettes.

There are two basic components to a vinaigrette – the vinegar and the oil. Think about all of the vinegar choices these days! There’s apple cider, red wine, rice wine, white balsamic, and the list goes on. It’s also important to consider the color of the vinegar when you’re choosing one, as well as the flavor you want.

If you’re not too fond of vinegar, try using rice wine vinegar. It’s less strong than the others. And if you like a touch of sweetness, try white balsamic vinegar. It’s clear as well, so it mixes with anything. Balsamic vinegar is pretty powerful, so I usually don’t use it in vinaigrettes. I prefer it as is. Plus, the brown color can “ruin” a pretty salad if you’re not careful.

There are also fruit vinegars that can be purchased and used in vinaigrettes. I bought a raspberry one once and it was awful. And it even said “all natural” flavors on the label. A good reason to make your own fruit vinegars at home! (Which I never have but I know they’re very straight forward and easy!)

Then there are the oils – extra virgin olive oil, of course, but also hazelnut, avocado, walnut oil, and so forth. These don’t add huge amounts of flavors, but they’re all delicious. And it’s fun to mix and match them to the vinegars.
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Garlic is a common ingredient in my vinaigrettes that I make at home. Mostly because I love garic. But if you’re making a very subtly flavored vinaigrette you might have to back off from the garlic. It can overpower. The same goes for ginger and shallots. But they both work in a vinaigrette as well.

Now we come to the fun stuff. Think about these additions – frozen orange juice, sun dried tomatoes, beet juice, reduced leftover champagne, herbs, apple cider, mango, roasted red bell peppers, pesto, harissa, chimichuri sauce, avocado, strawberries, and on and on. All of these “accessory” ingredients can be added to a basic vinaigrette to create a really unique flavor. I’ve only listed a few.

Today, because it’s autumn and the pears are ripe and delicious, I’m making a pear vinaigrette. I wanted to make a composed salad of butter lettuce, some cabbage and carrots, a few mushrooms and hearts of palm slices, lentils, and some grilled chicken. The pairing with the pear vinaigrette sounded perfect to me.
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I chose to use apple cider vinegar and walnut oil, just for fun, along with a whole pear.

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So here’s what I did:

Pear Vinaigrette

1 whole pear, cored
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 small garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup walnut oil

Place the pear, vinegar, garlic and salt in a blender jar.
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Blend until smooth. You have to make sure that the garlic is blended. It will look like this:
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Keep blending on low, and gradually pour all of the walnut oil into the pear-vinegar mixture. It will be nice and smooth like this:
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Serve immediately, and store any excess in a jar in the refrigerator.
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Although it may not last long because it’s fabulous!
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