Sides & Salads – The Inspired Parent

Simple Fennel & Orange Salad

This is one of the easiest salads to whip up — the perfect light side dish when paired with grilled or baked seafood or poultry and travels well as a make-ahead for a potluck brunch. Light, crisp, refreshing & with only two main ingredients — so simple!

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We like to reserve fennel fronds to use as garnish.

Enjoy!

Taffy Apple Salad

Continuing our salad week, we’re hitting the sweet side with today’s recipe.

We’ve tried many versions of Taffy Apple Salad over the years as we searched for one with a great punch of caramel flavor, a nice mix of sweet & salty, one that travels well and is people-pleaser.

After tweaking things a bit, the ratios in this recipe gave us what we’re looking for & this delightful Taffy Apple Salad is the one we’ve stuck with for a few years now.

We love using Spanish peanuts — they’re pretty & we prefer the larger pieces of peanutty goodness — but if you prefer smaller bits, using salted, chopped peanuts would work, too.

Regarding the apples, we like adding tart & sweet in the mix to keep things balanced. It’s fun to change-up the varieties to see what you prefer the most.

Enjoy!

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Red Cabbage & Apple Slaw

It’s been a spring salad week at our house — that always seems to happen this time of year — the fresh, crisp ingredients come out and we start moving away from soups & stews and eating a bit on the lighter side.

This simple slaw-style salad is quite the dazzler — vibrant red cabbage paired with green apples & julienned orange zest and it definitely has the wow factor on your plate. Super tasty, too!

Enjoy!

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Easy Homemade Salsa

This is about as simple & yummy as it gets. It’s also a great base recipe for you to use to create your own versions. One simple change-up is adding other types of peppers. For a chunkier salsa, add a second small can of diced tomatoes and more chopped onion at the end after you remove the salsa from the blender. Of course, if you have fresh tomatoes in your summer garden, go ahead and use those for the freshest salsa ever!

Serve with your favorite chips and it is excellent on eggs, too.

Ingredients:

One 28 oz. can of tomatoes (we like Muir Glen)

1/2 large white onion, roughly chopped

1/4 c. fresh cilantro leaves

3 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 tsp. salt + more to taste

1-1/2 tsp. ground cumin + more to taste

1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Juice from one lime

1 jalapeño pepper (optional)

Garnish:

1/4 large white onion, finely chopped

1/4 c. cilantro for garnish

Instructions:

In a blender, add all of the ingredients (jalapeño, optional).
Pulse quickly. If you want a thicker salsa, pulse few times, if you want a smooth salsa, pulse a few more times.
Taste. Depending on the sweetness of the tomatoes, you may need to add a little more salt & cumin.
Pour into a decorative bowl.
Garnish with the finely chopped onion & extra cilantro.