Arugula salad w/ pomegranate dressing

Strong flavors, avocado and feta make this salad far from dainty — it is a nice dinner with lentil or black bean soup.  Pomegranate molasses is concentrated stuff, with a strong, sour taste made from simmering pomegranate juice with a little sugar and lemon. You can get it at Middle Eastern grocers, and it goes wonderfully with smoked paprika. Do not confuse with Pom Wonderful, which is thinner and sweeter and comes in a cooler bottle.  And definitely go for good feta made from sheep or goat’s milk.  I happen to like Bulgarian feta, which is quite tangy.  Greek and French are also very good — Greek is sharp and a little drier, while French is very creamy.  Any of bunch is tastier than domestic cow’s milk feta.

Serves 2

Chopped salad

I am rarely a salad-as-a-meal guy.  Salad with lunch or dinner, all the time. But even a hearty salad never seems enough without at least a light side, like soup or bread and hummus.  That said, this salad is a meal, the proof being the leftovers we could not finish.

Of course, this recipe has a ton of variations.  Always use ingredients with a variety of colors, textures and degrees of richness, and and cut every ingredient to roughly uniform size.  The result will yield some very interesting forkfuls that just might fill you up.

Serves 2 as a meal, 4 as a side

Arugula salad w/ spaghetti squash

Roasting a squash must be the vegetarian equivalent of bringing home a hunt. Two people make only a dent in a five pound squash.  If it’s butternut or kabocha, I like to blend leftovers for soup.  If it’s spaghetti squash, I like to mix leftover squash strands into a weekend “squamlette.”  Or make this salad.

Serves 2

Beet carpaccio w/ pickled red onion

We love the zucchini and carrot carpaccio at DOC wine bar in Williamsburg (although it is off the winter menu), and make carpaccio from nearly any vegetable that will slice cleanly on a mandoline.   Asparagus, fennel, radishes, most root vegetables and even raw winter squash all work great.  Quick pickled red onion has much less burn than a raw onion — wonderful on most salads.   Although many quick pickling recipes call for sugar, it’s not necessary.

Serves 2