Sharing Plate – Your Cooking Coach |

This dish is delicious and great looking. I love making dishes that look attractive since we eat with our eyes first.

This is a continuation to yesterday’s post. I made the lamb burgers with this carrot salad. Since my general theme was Moroccan inspired- I looked for sides and salads to serve with the burgers. The first thing to come up was carrot salad. I looked at a bunch of recipes and came up with this one.

I used baby carrots but regular sized will do just fine too. I sliced them really thin and grilled them. I have a grill pan that I use for grilling vegetables, fish or anything that is difficult to manage on the grates. Once the carrots were golden brown but still crunchy, I added the super yummy orange dressing. I reduced some freshly squeezed orange juice and added honey, cumin, lemon juice and some herbs. It resulted in an amazing, flavorful sauce.

The great thing about this salad is that you can make it in advance since it is served at room temperature. I had everything ready in advance and all I did once company came was grill the burgers.

It was simple, convenient and a crowd pleaser- exactly the ideas you want for a fabulous long weekend- enjoy!
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I have making this salad almost twice a week. We love avocados- well, my husband and I do. I usually make guacamole a lot and we enjoy it with fish, chicken or any other Mexican cuisine. Since we love avocados so much, I now incorporate them into a simple salad. Some mixed greens, halved cherry tomatoes and a delicious dressing.

The dressing in this salad is the star- I used fresh lemons, honey and extra virgin olive oil. The main ingredients that make this dressing amazing is roasted cumin seeds and smoked paprika. I think I need to make a big jar of it as I find myself licking the plate after the salad is done.

Definitely try this salad- it is delicious…
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This recipe is a play on the popular warm spinach salad. It is typically made with bacon. You start off by cooking some bacon down; taking the bits out and using the warm fat for salad dressing.

I used pancetta instead of bacon; rendered it and kept it aside. A mixture of dijon mustard, white wine vinegar and apple cider make a delicious dressing. To make it interesting, I added crumbles of salty feta cheese. I am a big fan of this cheese- I love salty cheese, and this one is as salty as they come. It provides an amazing punch of flavor. The good thing is you don’t need a whole lot of it and it is naturally lower in fat than other cheeses.

The salad turned out delicious- it was a great start to the meal, especially since it continued with the yummy meatballs…
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This would be a perfect salad to serve for the Thanksgiving dinner. It has all the fall/holiday flavors going on. I have been using apples in everything I can.

A friend was coming over for dinner and I was making lasagna. I decided to do a simple salad with sliced crunchy honey crisp apples. I then added cranberries- because you can’t have a holiday salad without them. Plus I love the sweet and tangy burst they provide to any dish.

I then started to think about the dressing. I love the combination of cranberries and orange- so I decided to squeeze a big naval orange and use that as a base. I added some apple cider vinegar and honey and soon had a delicious salad dressing.

The whole combination was delicious and went really well with the entree. It is quite versatile and will go beautifully with the big feast- enjoy!
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This is a simple salad I served for a little get together we were having the other day. I like to keep things simple when people are coming over. I don’t go over board and cook lots of dishes- my philosophy is to focus on a few dishes and make them absolutely delicious.

For this dinner my plan was to make a lasagna and garlic bread. I decided to make a nectarine salad and baked nectarine dessert. If you didn’t guess- I love nectarines.

This salad is super simple- I used mixed greens. I added some walnuts and cut up a nectarine. I had recently purchased a bottle of walnut oil. I used it to make a delicious vinaigrette. I looked in my fridge and found a bottle of mango apricot nectar. I used that in addition to some white wine vinegar. Some salt and pepper and I had a yummy dressing. It was a great start to the meal. It had a great crunch from the walnuts and a burst of sweetness from the nectarines. The walnut oil flavor came through loud and clear and tied all the flavors together.
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