Spring Cleaning & A Simple Salad

This city has the craziest weather. I swear that for the last week, it has alternated between high-60s and sunny and barely-above-freezing and rainy on a daily basis. And somehow, it is 83 degrees in Philadelphia today. While it is pleasant in our airy (in the winter, drafty) 9th floor apartment, I'm not much in the mood for real cooking.

Except for oatmeal. I did cook oatmeal. With chopped apple and walnuts, which was pretty tasty.

Anyway, since I was home all day today, I took some time to do a chore I had been putting off: Cleaning the stove. And yikes, I'm glad I did it! It turned into what I have heard referred to as a "rabbit hole" task. That is, I didn't realize how bad it was until I started, and then it took about three times as long and twice as much effort as I was anticipating. 

But now its shiny and clean, and reasonably presentable. In other news, baking soda is my new default cleaning product.

For dinner tonight, I made a super easy warm-weather classic, Chef's Salad. Grape tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, Swiss cheese and turkey ham... Many of my favorite things! We had it with a red wine vinaigrette.

I learned fairly late in my onion-loving career that soaking chopped onion in cold water for ten or fifteen minutes before using helps mellow the flavor out a bit so they're less arresting in salads, salsas, relishes, and the like. Truthfully I do this more for Brady's benefit than my own. (Sometimes I think my register for "too onion-ey" or "too garlicky" is broken, but my grasp with reality is improving.) So the next time you shy away from adding onion to your salad, consider soaking them in cold water for a couple of minutes. With the proven health benefits of onion consumption - cardiovascular health, immune function, and even improvement of asthma symptoms - why wouldn't you?

If you haven't tried turkey ham, I do recommend it. Even though its something that even I would refer to as "processed food" - and therefore highly suspect - I feel better about the fat content than regular ham, and I have to say, it is quite delicious, besides being extremely convenient. I've used it in salads, sandwiches, omelets and frittatas, even soups. It is also gluten free. Just keep in mind that it's still fairly high in sodium, just like ham. For this meal it was the only ingredient that contained salt, besides just a little in the dressing, so I didn't feel bad about it. That counts as balance, right?

Quote of the Day: "Cooking is like love.  It should be entered into with abandon or not at all."

~ Harriet van Horne