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Monday, August 22, 2011

Meatless Monday!



You know how I don't participate in Wordless Wednesday? Well I tend not to participate in Meatless Monday either. It's not that we don't have meatless meals - we do. All the time. In fact, this past week we had meatless meals twice. I just never manage to think about blogging about them until Monday has come and gone and by then, well, what's the point?

It's easy to have a meal without meat though, especially in the summer when the produce is gorgeous enough to make a meal on it's own. And I'm very lucky to have married a man who doesn't balk at the idea of salad for dinner. I mean sure, he's likely to ask me where the protein is when I hand him a pasta and cheese dish, or a salad dish without chicken, steak or shrimp, but he doesn't complain. And one of these days I think I might actually be able to convince him that cheese is a protein.

My favorite salads consist of greens, fruit, nuts, and cheese. I think the nuts help with the whole "where's the protein" question. And since it's summer, grilled fruit is ever so seasonal. And it's a nice change to have warm fruit instead of warm chicken or steak. I used a pear here, but this would work equally as well with a stone fruit like peaches, nectarines, or plums. Even grilled apple could be delicious. Like most salads, the elements are easily interchangeable. Don't like blue cheese? Try it with chevre, feta, or even some nice romano. And of course the dried cherries could be apricots, cranberries, or raspberries. Mix, match, go crazy. And meatless.


Grilled Pear Salad
1/2 cup balsamic vinaigrette
2 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp pecans, toasted and chopped
2 Tbsp blue cheese, crumbled
1/4 cup dried cherries, chopped
1 pear
juice of 1/2 lemon
butter lettuce

  1. Heat your grill or grill pan over medium heat. Mix 1/4 cup of the vinaigrette and the sugar in a sauce pan and cook until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat.
  2. Mix cherries, pecans, and blue cheese.
  3. Slice pear in half. Sprinkle with lemon juice and 1 Tbsp of balsamic vinaigrette on each half. Grill each pear about 3 minutes per side.
  4. Arrange lettuce on two plates and top each plate with a pear half. Place the blue cheese mixture in the center of each pear and drizzle the vinaigrette mixture over all.

8 comments:

  1. I really like the idea of a grilled pear salad!

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  2. I always love to think of cheese as a protein source...gives me an excuse to eat more of it!

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  3. I'm not a great participator in that meatless mondays - but I do love it any days of the weeks. I tend to forget to grill fruit (I just munch and splash juice all over)- but happily - I have a husband who knows that nuts and cheese are protein, eats my concoctions happily and your salad - is just what I am yearning for right now.

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  4. I never grill fruit. I don't know why. What a great salad.

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  5. Your salad is unusual and it sounds delicious. Salad is usually boring to write about and read, but you've made it interesting. I hope you have a great day. Blessings...Mary

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  6. OMGosh! This looks incredibly delicious. I had found, Kate, that with the two girls and me, growing up - especially as they got older, we never ate meat unless we had company. It wasn't a conscious thing. It just was. Then I married Vanja. WHOO-HOO! Talk about a shock. He is "the" uber-carnivore. We have been married for 9 years and together for almost 15 and only recently have I been able to find a vegetarian dish that satisfies his meat need. One is Eggplant Parmesan: certainly not a healthy dish. The other was just the other day: homemade vegetarian calzone. And that is nutritious. He would never go for the pear croustini, but I would. YUM!
    :)
    valerie

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  7. Kate - I just wrote a huge message and it is gone?
    :(
    V

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  8. mmm. I totally need to grill some pears. Or really any fruit! This summer has gone by way too fast but I love that this is a fall-friendly grill meal.

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