If salad is one of my favorite foods, then fruit salad is a favorite of the favorites.  Here’s my favorite way to make this favorite-favorite: 

In the cookbook Vegetarian Nights: Fresh from Hawaii, Bonnie Mandoe recommends making your fruit salad with very small cubes of fruit, so that each spoonful contains several different pops of juicy, bright flavor.  Ever since reading this over 10 years ago I have used this technique in my fruit salads so often, and I’m always glad I do.  It’s pure party joy in each bite. 

Tonight I whipped up some of this fruit salad for breakfast tomorrow. My plan is to pour it over my morning oatmeal–though it would be wonderful poured over a bowl of other cereals, a bowl of yogurt, even atop a piece of toast. 

Can I just tell you how happily I’m looking forward to the morning?

Last night’s “salad” (Thai fresh rolls) got me thinking about how nice it would be to have more fork-free salad options. This one is a total winner.  Cut the top off of an apple, then carve the insides out with a melon baller or other scooper.  Use the apple flesh for the salad, along with the ingredients listed below.  When you close it up, I wonder if you could hold it closed with a rubber band?  What a cute addition to a sack lunch!  It’s kind of a spin on Waldorf salad, but lighter and more zesty.

Stuffed Apple Salad with Pistachios and Oranges

Ingredients:

• 2 crisp apples
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 1 handful of pistachios
• 1 handful of raisins
• 2 radishes, quartered and sliced
• 1 orange, peeled and diced

Directions:

1. Cut the tops off of the apples.  Reserve the tops. 
2. Scoop the apples out with a melon baller. 
3. Chop up the apple flesh and mix it with the rest of the ingredients. 
4. Stuff the apples and close them with the tops of the apples. 
5.  To eat, take off “lid,” hold the apple vertically, and carefully eat the salad as you also take bites around the edges of the apple shell, as if you were eating  the last of an ice cream cone or a messy burrito. 

Serves 2.

My husband scares me sometimes.  Last night we were both doing our own thing in companionable silence. Out of the blue I asked, “What’s that white thing called…?”

And he said, “Jicama?”  Uh, yes. Actually, that’s exactly what I was thinking about.  How does he do that? 

Anyway, my friend Ammi invited me over for a delicious dinner of tortilla soup, so I offered to bring a salad.   She said that cilantro was already in the soup and that she didn’t love big heaping amounts of cilantro.  I also know that she has a sweet tooth, so she would be okay with a sweeter salad, something I enjoy as well.  I set about putting together a salad that would fit the bill.  That’s really fun–being given a certain set of criteria and creating a salad from that.

At the dinner table, Ammi and I thrilled at the combination of her delicious soup and the salad.  They were perfect together, providing counterbalance in both flavors and textures.

Jicama, Orange, & Mango Salad

I was making this up as I went along, so the measurements may be a bit fuzzy. 

Ingredients”

• 1 medium jicama, peeled and julienned
• 1 or 2 oranges, peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 large mango, peeled and cut into cubes
• 1/2 or 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• A few tablespoons of finely chopped red onion
• 1 T rice wine vinegar
• juice of 1/2 orange
• juice of 1 lime
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• cumin, to taste (about 1/2 tsp)
• salt, to taste (about 1/4 tsp)
• cayenne or piment d’Espelette, to taste (about 2 dashes)

Directions:

1. Place all the fruits and vegetables together in a medium bowl. 
2. In a small bowl, mix together the vinegar, juices, cumin, and salt.   Pour over salad.  Mix together gently.  Chill and serve with something delicious and savory like tortilla soup!

Serves 2 – 4