Wild Rice, Pecan, and Dried Apricot Salad

We're home! Huzzah!

You know, everyone grouses about coming home from vacation. And it's true: the unpacking, the laundry, the schedules back in force.

But there are good things, too. Aren't there things you miss, that you love about coming home?

Like making a fridge full of great real-food salads to have in the week ahead. That's what Bruce has been doing all afternoon. And I was so excited about this one, I had to put it right up on the blog. Because it tasted just that good.

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Fennel and Carrot Slaw

Are your forearms getting a bit flabby? Any of the church-lady wave happening? I've got the cure.

Slaw. You bet. Because the only way to make it is to squeeze those veggies of any excess moisture. In fact, you have to work those forearms to make sure you don't end up with a watery slaw. Nothing's worse. (Well, OK, we can all probably think of a few things worse. Don't tempt me to start a list!)

Besides giving his forearms a Popeye workout, Bruce takes care of that watery blech by basically curing the fennel. It's a two-step process that yields the very best slaw.

So let's get to it:

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Quinoa Tabbouleh

When I planted my kitchen garden this spring, I decided, sort on a whim, to put in a few Brussels sprouts plants. I've never grown them and I thought it'd be a blast to see what would happen.

Lo and behold, I've got a parsley 9-1-1! The poor plants are being overrun. And some other herbs, too. There's also oregano under those big leaves.

I need to use up that parsley before it gets run out of Dodge. And I have a feeling most people who buy a bunch of parsley at the store have the same feeling: what am I going to do now with all this?

So it's back to our regularly scheduled program: fridge salads. Today's whole grain version is a whimsical one from Bruce. It's like a traditional tabbouleh but with red quinoa instead of bulgur wheat. Honestly, it's a lighter treat on a hot summer day. This salad has been a staple around our house for the last week as the temperature has skyrocketed into the 90s.

So here we go.

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Lentils aux Lardons

Necessity isn't the mother of invention. Time is.

At least in our home. As you well know, we love lots of salads in the fridge, mostly because they're so easy to pull out during the week. There's lunch ready whenever we are. In minutes.

And lately, I'm all about the minutes. Maybe it's the impatience of my ADVANCED age. I turned fifty today.

Fifty?!?! I don't even know how I let this happen. I know you'll tell me there's only one other option. But if I'd been smarter, I could have figured out a third way.

And no, a face lift doesn't count.

Anyway, I'm all over salads like this one. Because I've got things to do. And fewer minutes to do them in. So on to this bacony salad, modeled on a French classic (only without the egg).

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Roasted Corn and Pepper Salad

"Nothing is so beautiful as spring"--or so writes Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. How very true! These are robin eggs in a small nest in the holly just outside our back door. The mother has been zealously watching over them for days. But their color! Isn't that incredible? Or as Hopkins goes on to write of spring in his native England: "[When] thrush's eggs look like little low heavens."

In New England, the world is certainly coming back to life, "charged with the grandeur of God" (for a little more Hopkins). So as you know, Bruce and I have got lots of salads at the ready, cold concoctions in the fridge, all the (second) best harbingers of the season (after robin eggs).

Here's how to make an easy but delicious corn salad for meals over several days--or as a side for anything that comes out of the oven or off the grill.

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Roasted Pepper and Shiitake Salad

Those bell peppers aren't the only thing burning up around here. Apparently, we missed spring in New England. It's going up into the 90s today--and it's only late May!

I fear this heat wave might mean a bad summer ahead. Who knows? The weather here is nuts: rain, snow, sleet, beating sun, heat, humidity. And that's on a Monday. Is it any wonder this place bred Puritans and other scolds?

Ah, well. In celebration of bad weather (!), I thought I'd offer some more of those luscious, make-ahead salads. We keep them in the fridge all week so we can have heaping spoonfuls of this and that for lunch every day.

The point is this: a wide variety in what you eat means you can eat less and be satisfied more quickly. Eating bored--whether you're bored or you're bored with your food--can be a recipe for weight-management disaster, as research shows. (It's pretty well documented in our new book, REAL FOOD HAS CURVES.)

So the salad.

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