Arugula Salad with Grilled Shrimp & Chimichurri Sauce

I love the idea of a raw sauce to top meat and fish. Mine was grilled shrimp and Mr. J had steak tips. The arugula salad had avocado, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I’ll have to keep the idea of chimichurri around the next time I have handfuls of fresh herbs leftover from something!

The Three Bite Rule - Grilled Shrimp w/ Chimichurri Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup flat parsley
1/2 cup cilantro
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tsp garlic, minced
pinch crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 olive oil
shrimp/steak
2 cups arugula
1 cup mixed greens
1 avocado
1 tomato, chopped
1/2 cucumber, chopped

Directions:

Preheat the grill.
In a blender or food processor, combine the parsley, cilantro, red wine vinegar, crushed red pepper, cumin, salt, pepper, and stream in the olive oil. Taste and add in more oil/vinegar as needed. Keep at room temperature until ready to serve.
The Three Bite Rule - Grilled Shrimp w/ Chimichurri Sauce
Grill the steak/shrimp.
Toss together the arugula, avocado, tomato, and cucumber.
The Three Bite Rule - Grilled Shrimp w/ Chimichurri Sauce
Toss with some salad dressing. Add the grilled steak/shrimp and spoon some chimichurri sauce over the top.
The Three Bite Rule - Grilled Shrimp w/ Chimichurri Sauce
I liked the fresh-herby flavor of the chimichurri. I found it a strong so I made sure there was some on each shrimp, but I wasn’t trying to dress the salad with it. I used some creamy caesar dressing for the salad. I thought a more fatty-peppery dressing was good to contrast the chimichurri sauce.

Apple Cider Salad Dressing

I’ve been thinking about what this month’s salad dressing would be and I wanted to make a vinaigrette with apple cider. I looked online and saw that everyone uses apple cider vinegar, but I didn’t find one with apple cider. Could it be?

My salad was full of fall flavor: butter lettuce; cucumbers; dried cranberries; feta; pumpkin spiced pumpkin seeds and the dressing had a sweetness from the cider and a little tang from the cider vinegar.

The Three Bite Rule - Apple Cider Salad Dressing

Ingredients:

1/8 cup olive oil
3 tbs apple cider vinegar
2 tsp dijon mustard
1/8-1/4 cup apple cider

Directions:

Put oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper into a jar.
The Three Bite Rule - Apple Cider Salad Dressing
Add in the apple cider.
The Three Bite Rule - Apple Cider Salad Dressing
Shake shake shake.
Enjoy!

The Three Bite Rule - Apple Cider Salad Dressing
I meant to use some pecorino or shaved parmesan but I forgot to grab some at the store. I seem to always have feta around so in it went for some saltiness. The pumpkin seeds are crunchy and the dried cranberries are tart and chewy.
The Three Bite Rule - Apple Cider Salad Dressing

Spinach Salad with Strawberries and Poppyseed Dressing

This is so good and feels festive despite the fact that the salad has 2 ingredients. one (spinach). two (strawberries). Well, that’s two more colors than a box ‘o mac & cheese has. Dinner time isn’t all rainbows and unicorns here. This fell on a night that I had the chance to whip up the dressing while the little dude napped for a few moments. When it was time to eat this adorable salad…that was during the betwitching hours and is a whole different picture than this restaurant-worthy salad. I was being stubborn and convinced I could do it all. Make this salad. You’ll feel like $1000 bucks.

The Three Bite Rule - Strawberry & Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

Poppyseed Dressing Ingredients:

adapted from The Kitchn
1/2 shallot
4 tbs white vinegar
4 tbs sugar
1 tbs poppy seeds
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp mayo
splash lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
sprinkle of salt

Directions:

Grate the shallot with the smallest grater on a box grater, or blend in a food processor, or dice really finely.
Add the vinegar & sugar to the jar and shake.
Mix everything else together in a jar. Shake shake shake.
The Three Bite Rule - Strawberry & Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing
Enjoy!

The Three Bite Rule - Strawberry & Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

The dressing was great. A touch sweet and a touch tart. The poppy seeds are cute. I think it is a great one to make a small amount and have it in the rotation. It would be good on a pasta salad too!

Not enough in your salad? Feta cheese would be good. Some nuts seem right.

What I Ate: Nectarine & Feta Salad

What I Ate’ is a series of posts for so-easy-this-doesn’t-need-a-recipe but I’m sharing with you for the idea or inspiration.

It was an anything-goes dinner night here…I think we ate too much guac & chips after swimming that afternoon to warrant wanting dinner. I wanted something. But what? I ended up tossing together a really quick salad and it was just such a reminder that the simplest salads can be the best…either that or the salads with all the stuff.

The Three Bite Rule - Nectarine Feta Salad
Ingredients:
greens
cukes
feta
nectarine
honey mustard dressing

Directions:
Chop, dress, toss, and enjoy!

Make your own honey mustard…it’ll take 2 seconds and you can make just enough for this or you can have it around for your next salad.

Peaches will work, if you can stand the fuzz. I cannot so I’ll stick with my nectarines. #thankyouverymuch I loved the combos here. I made my honey mustard heavy on the mustard so it had quite a zing! The lettuce was from the farmers market, the feta was leftover from a Greek-ish salad and the cuke was from our garden. It was perfect. A restaurant would charge $18 for this guy.

I threw it together on a whim and it was everything I wanted. Sweet (nectarine), tangy (honey mustard), salty (feta), and crunchy (cucumbers).

Lobster Cakes

I made some lobster cakes as a play on a crab cake. They were so good and though I plopped mine onto a salad, they would be great as an appetizer too!

The Three Bite Rule - Lobster Cakes

Ingredients:

1 cup lobster meat, chopped
2 tbs mayo
1 tbs grainy mustard
1 tsp minced garlic
4 chive sprigs minced
1 green onion, chopped
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/2 cup seasoned breadcrumbs

Directions:

Mix together the lobster meat, mayo, mustard, and garlic gently to not pulverize the lobster.
The Three Bite Rule - Lobster Cakes
Add in the chives and green onion stirring gently.
The Three Bite Rule - Lobster Cakes
Heat a large skillet with vegetable oil to medium heat.
Form the mixture into 2-3 patties and roll them in the mixed breadcrumbs.
The Three Bite Rule - Lobster Cakes
To check the oil temperature, drop a few breadcrumbs into the oil and see if they sizzle immediately. If they do, then add the patties in to cook for about 3-5 minutes on each side. Try to let them really crisp on the bottom before flipping so you only have to flip it once.
The Three Bite Rule - Lobster Cakes
Remove from the oil and let them drain on paper towel to get rid of the excess oil.
The Three Bite Rule - Lobster Cakes
Serve on their own or on top of salad! Enjoy!
The Three Bite Rule - Lobster Cakes
This is the best lazy-man’s lobster. It gets crunchy on the outside but is all lobster on the inside. There really isn’t much filler in these bad boys. I ended up adding a 2nd to my plate. I couldn’t resist!

Can you believe I fried them? I never fry things! They’d be good in the oven, if it isn’t too hot to have your oven on. 😉

I served it with honey mustard dressing that is just so easy and worth making yourself:
2 tbs honey
2 tbs dijon mustard
tiniest dab of butter (tiny as in 1/2 teaspoon – this makes all the difference)
shake it up and enjoy!

The Three Bite Rule - Lobster Cakes
Make your own honey mustard dressing. It is perfect to make a tiny bit for one or two servings or double/triple/quadruple this and have enough for a while.