Cape Cod Chopped Salad

When it comes to salad, I amost always make the same dressing. Obviously I love it, which is why I have it all the time, but sometimes it's nice making something different.  While flipping through one of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, I came across this salad recipe and thought it sounded delicious. It also looked like a great Thanksgiving salad with its use of toasted nuts and cranberries. The dressing is simple to make and can be prepared ahead of time, and the rest of the salad comes together really easily.

In the last week I've had this salad twice, so clearly I think it's great. As with most Ina recipes, I reduced the amount of dressing she uses. Trust me, there is no need for 2/3 cup of olive oil in this recipe. Also, I know some people don't like blue cheese, so you could add something like crumbled goat cheese instead since the cheese adds great flavor and texture to the salad. The original recipe calls for 8 ounces of bacon, but I omitted it and did not think that the salad was lacking anything. Serve this colorful salad at any occasion for a welcomed change to your average vinaigrette dressing.

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Blue Cheese and Walnut Salad

I'm generally not a fan of iceberg lettuce since it has less flavor than other salad options (and less nutritional value), but this salad is one of the few exceptions. I love the look of this salad, and the flavor is even better. The iceberg is more of a vessel for the blue cheese dressing than anything else. You could use this dressing on a regular salad as well. I've even used it on top of burgers and as a dip for veggies and french fries.

If you like the taste of blue cheese, but not the bottled dressings from the grocery store, give this recipe a try. I used to think I hated blue cheese dressing until I made it from scratch. You can tone down the blue cheese flavor as well by adding a little more of the other ingredients, especially the sour cream. This dressing is really easy to tweak once it's made, so I suggest you do so if you prefer certain flavors over the others. I once added too much apple cider vinegar and saved it by adding some more olive oil, cheese, and sour cream.

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Kangaroo with Blue Cheese Butter

Before anyone beings to feel bad for the kangaroos, keep in mind that they are sometimes a pest here. Let me show you this little tidbit about kangaroos:

Anyway, I saw this recipe for blue cheese butter on a cooking show in Australia, and since kangaroo has been my meat of choice for a while, I decided to try the two together. Kangaroo tastes a lot like beef, but is really lean, so it can easily replace beef in most recipes. I just seasoned the steaks with salt and pepper and about a tablespoon of olive oil and grilled the meat to medium rare. The blue cheese butter is great and melts beautifully on the meat off the grill. This recipe is enough for about 4 to 8 steaks, depending on how much butter you like to use. The original recipe claims that it serves 4, but that would be lots of butter on each steak. If you end up with extras, just freeze the remaining butter.

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