Cape Cod Chopped Salad

I made this salad for a Christmas party I went to and it was a big hit. Decided to make it at home since the dressing is very easy and I have most of these items in my pantry.

The secret to this salad is BACON. I'm firmly in the Bacon Makes It Better club and bacon definitely makes salad better hands down.
The other secret is that maple syrup and orange juice tastes good together. I've never been an orange juice in the morning type of girl, but man, the combination sweet sour in the dressing is really nice.

So let's get all the salad ingredients together:


I didn't have bacon today, but I did have some pancetta. Same difference, right?


I was also supposed to use Granny Smith, but I had Fuji. Oh wells.


While the pancetta is frying up, I'm going to make the dressing. Here are the ingredients:

Note: you are supposed to use orange zest, but Joel ate the last orange the other day and I didn't realize it. Quickly substituted with some lemon zest.

Mix the dressing together. I used Ina's "good" olive oil, Olio Santo. It's kind of greenish, so that isn't all my camera's fault.


Pancetta is done. Oh man, I'm really excited for this salad now!


Before, this salad was just a mix of cheese, nuts, lettuce and salty meat.


Now, it is art. Art in a bowl that might be a tad too small for its contents. I tossed this verrry carefully.




The review:
How can this miss? It's a really good dressing. I can't say enough about it. You can pretty much throw anything you want into this salad and it would taste soooo good. I might try mandarin oranges or chicken next time. Absolutely delicious.

Baked Potatoes with Yogurt and Sour Cream

I think the title pretty much says it all. There is really not very much to this recipe. Instead of lumping a load of sour cream on a baked potato, Ina makes a sort of dressing using half sour cream and half greek yogurt.

I only discovered greek yogurt a few years ago. I didn't grow up eating yogurt and never really cared for it all that much as an adult. It wasn't really difficult to avoid since I am also lactose intolerant. It gave me a decent excuse not to eat yogurt despite its health benefits. But then I had some greek yogurt and in the words of the Fresh Prince, "my life got flipped, turned upside down." No! Not in that kind of way where you go live with your millionaire aunt and uncle doing the Carleton dance. But I am pretty sure they have greek yogurt in Bel Air.


We need to bring back Alfonso Ribeiro back to TV, people.

Anyway, here is the mise:


You say potato... I say poTAto. Forget it. Nobody says poTAto. Ignore my dirty oven. I know I have to Easy-Off that shizz.

Ina says to put the potatoes directly on the rack. So I did. I wonder if it makes a difference. I was going to put it in an old pie pan. She also didn't say to fork them, but I did anyway. I don't know if I needed to, but I'd rather not risk potato explosion.

Mix the yogurt, sour cream, chives and S&P together.


Seriously. That is it. EASY. Yay!


The Review:
Pretty good. It was pretty much as I expected. The greek yogurt gives the dressing a slight tang, which is nice, but I can see how some people might not like it. It's actually kind of a plain potato. I under-salted mine, and didn't put anything else on it besides the dressing. Usually I like the whole butter, salt, bacon bits, fully loaded she-bang. I would make the dressing again, but add more stuff to the potato to 'turn up the volume.'