Weekend Cooking is a weekly feature hosted by Beth Fish Reads, linking up food-related posts. Click here for links to other Weekend Cooking posts on Beth Fish Reads and other blogs.
For my last Weekend Cooking post a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Salad of the Day: 365 Recipes for Every Day of the Year by Georgeanne Brennan.
I returned Salad of the Day to the library, but took inspiration from it afterwards to keep having salad meals. Last night we had this variation on a Greek salad, using baby spinach from the farmer’s market and fresh parsley and grilled zucchini from the garden.
We also had fresh green beans from the garden drizzled with the balsamic vinegar reduction I had left over from a Salad of the Day recipe and topped with fresh parsley from the garden and leftover toasted pecans. From here on out until the fall, we will probably put fresh herbs on everything possible, and I will definitely be making more of the balsamic vinegar reduction.
A balsamic vinegar reduction is made by boiling down the vinegar to a thicker, more concentrated form. I think this was more in vogue a few years ago, but I’m always behind in my food trends. (If you want to see a recipe, this is a nice one on The Wimpy Vegetarian.) I have used it before on what we usually call tomatoes and mozzarella, but is actually a Caprese salad.
You can use your balsamic vinegar reduction on grilled peaches and ricotta, in a Balsamic Blast Cocktail, or in combination with spinach and strawberries in a salad or on crostini.
If you buy good-quality balsamic vinegar and not the cheap stuff from Ocean State Job Lot, you don’t even need to reduce it to drizzle balsamic vinegar over ice cream.
Happy Weekend Cooking!
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Your salads look fantastic, and I love using balsamic vinegar.
That cocktail looks awesome! Let’s make those when we visit in August. (Everything else looks yummy too.)
I’m a huge fan of balsamic vinegar reduction! It’s so versatile and easy to make! And – it’s a great way to get away with using a cheaper and not aged vinegar.
I love how mellow balsamic is compared to some other vinegars. Will have to try reducing it a bit to use on my next salad.
Thanks so much for linking to my blog! I’m so glad my recipe for balsamic reduction has worked well for you. Your salad looks fantastic, and what a great idea to drizzle the reduction over green beans. I’m about to harvest a bunch of beans from my garden and want to try it!
I love Balsamic vinegar — I caught the trend a few years ago and never let go! And yes, so many people don’t realize it’s good with fruits.
I’ll add it to the menu for the big family cookout!
I’m going to have to use a few of these ideas myself, and try a balsamic reduction (not heard of the reduction before for this so that’s interesting). The peaches surprised me, but I guess fruits can have the same sort of bite to them.
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