Creamy Balsamic Salad Dressing

On June 4, 2022 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, Refrigerating, TopicLeave a comment

If you want to look pro in the kitchen with minimal effort and little expense, a smart move is to make your own salad dressings. As I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, store-bought dressings are expensive and loaded with additives easily avoided in homemade blends. I eat salads almost daily in summer, but I never buy dressings and am convinced you don’t need to either.

Among the first recipes I ever published on this blog are my base blends for vinaigrette and creamy salad dressing. For one of my more popular workshops, I bring more than 30 ingredients to blend into personalized dressings. This week, I share one of my go-to combinations that builds on those basic ratios.
Learn to make Creamy Balsamic Salad Dressing and other vinaigrettes

Filling Salads

On September 12, 2019December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Topic, Using3 Comments

Salads are so versatile: chop up some ingredients, toss them with dressing, and your fresh, one-dish meal is ready to eat. Get salad recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
Salads dominate my harvest menu. They’re so versatile: chop up some ingredients, toss them with a bit of dressing, and your fresh, one-dish meal is ready to eat. I start making homegrown salads as soon as spring greens show true leaves and don’t stop until the ground freezes.

Most salads fit the “no recipe required” category. Once you find your preferred ratios, even the dressing can be made on the spot with whatever’s at hand. If you follow @twiceastastyblog on Instagram you’ll find plenty of my daily salads. But I still get enough requests for ingredients and proportions that you’ll find a couple dozen salad and dressing recipes on the blog and can even gather your friends for a workshop. Some of these recipes are traditional, like panzanella, sunomono, and the two American classics in this week’s post. But as you’ll learn, all of these salads can be adapted based on what’s in season and what you have on hand.
Learn to make Three-Bean Salad and Taco Salad

Scallions and Radishes

On May 28, 2019December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Ingredient, UsingLeave a comment

These scallion pancakes are gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, easy, and tasty. Get savory pancake recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
When the summer harvest hits its peak, one of my favorite meals is a batch of Zucchini Pancakes with Fresh Asian Salad. I enjoy these so much that a freeze grated zucchini so that I can make them all year. But the salad, with its freshy harvested tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil, is really a summer thing. So I’ve been craving a combination I could enjoy earlier in the season, while my tomato plants are still seedlings.

For a quick spring variation, I hit upon the pairing of scallions and radishes. You can easily find scallions, or green onions, at the grocery store year-round, but if you grow a garden you can harvest scallions or young perennial walking onions in spring, the tops portions of full bulb onions in summer, leeks in fall, and chives from pots all year. Each can be used in this pancake recipe. To make this recipe even more accessible, I decided to keep the pancakes gluten free, dairy free, and vegan.
Learn to make Scallion Pancakes with Chickpea Flour and Lemony Radish Salad

Chive Blossoms

On May 21, 2019December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Ingredient, Refrigerating, Using1 Comment

Chive Blossom Vinegar taught me to love infusions beautifully dress salads. Get vinegar and salad recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
We recently had a friend over for dinner and somehow ended up talking about vinegar. Well, not just talking—I was soon pulling an array of vinegars from a shelf in my tiny kitchen and explaining why I have so many, how this is just the daily stash, where I store gallon jugs for pickling and canning, and how we had unexpectedly found a mother in one jug that I was using to start my own vinegar. I may have been a little excited.

You could say that the tang of vinegar is my jam. My pantry collection typically numbers 7 bottles, which I put into everything from drinks to mac and cheese to pie crust. But because I like to mix and match flavors and keep many herbs and spices on hand, I only saw the point of infusing vinegars after I discovered a chive blossom infusion in Harry Rosenblum’s Vinegar Revival. It’s so easy to make that my recipe varies little from his instructions, but my first attempt, and probably favorite flavor, used garlic chives. The resulting flavored vinegar beautifully dresses a salad featuring fresh spring herbs.
Learn to make Chive Blossom Vinegar and Herbed Bean Salad with Fresh Mozzarella