As special as extravaganzas are, I wanted to take it up a notch for my birthday. How can you do that? Have a brunch. What makes it a brunch? Salad. Who wants to eat salad when there’s quiche and potato pancakes and gravy? Lots of people. Trust me. These bowls were licked clean by the end of the morning.

The green salad was nothing special. I just threw together all my favorite ingredients: arugula, red onion, goat cheese, pecans, and dried cranberries. I tossed it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil (not even emulsified, just straight out of the bottle) and everyone loved it.

Hiding behind that green salad is a fruit salad like none other. I have been ogling this salad on Smitten Kitchen for more than a year and finally found the opportunity (and the ingredients) to make it. The fruit soaks overnight in a simple syrup spiced with a vanilla bean, star anise, and lemon zest. In the morning you drain it and toss the fruit with pomegranate seeds. I’m still looking for a use for the leftover simple syrup — a sweetener for tea, perhaps?

Stay tuned for the rest of the brunch recipes — I’ll be posting them throughout the week.

I think I’m going to convert to a new method of recipe organization. I used to get a recipe from a magazine or from a friend, make it, eat it, and file it away. No matter when Glenn asked, Can we make that Moroccan Chicken again? I’d say, We just had that! I like trying new things and I’m afraid of falling into my mom’s Midwestern casserole rotation.But there’s no real risk of that happening and there’s nothing wrong with making the same dish twice. Now that I’ve reopened my recipe box, it’s a disaster. So what now? A three ring binder? Mac Gourmet?

The inspiration for this change? These two old faithfuls that I dug up for my sister. This chicken is nothing special, but if you’re looking for chicken that’s tender and crunchy, this is it. The bok choy salad, on the other hand, blows any other Asian inspired salad out of the water. Sweet, salty, crunchy. Yum. It’s only good the first time around (the noodles and nuts get soggy overnight), so I guess you’ll just have to have seconds.

Panko and Ginger Crusted Chicken with Stir Fried Vegetables and Sweet and Sour Mustard

Sauce:

• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/4 cup Chinese mustard
• 2 Tb rice wine vinegar
• Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat for five minutes.

Chicken:

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 cups panko
• 2 Tb minced ginger
• 1 egg
• 2 Tb canola oil
• Cut each breast lengthwise into 4 strips. Combine panko and ginger in a bowl. Lightly beat egg in a bowl (I like to thin the egg with half a shell of water). Dip chicken in egg and coat with panko. Saute in oil 3 minutes on each side.

Vegetables:

• 2 Tb canola oil
• 1 Tb minced ginger
• 2 cups chopped bok choy
• 1/2 cup julienned leeks
• 1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• Heat oil. Saute ginger 30 seconds. Add bok choy, leeks, and water chestnuts and saute for 3 minutes. Add bean sprouts and cook 2 minutes.

Serve chicken and vegetables on a plate drizzled with sauce.

Bok Choy Salad (from Glenn’s mom)

• 3 oz Ramen noodles
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 2 Tb soy sauce
• 1 bok choy, shredded
• 6 green onions, chopped
• Crumble noodles. Roast noodles, sunflower seeds, and almonds 8-10 minutes at 350.
• Bring sugar, oil, vinegar, and soy sauce to a boil and let cool.
• Toss all ingredients and serve immediately.

A week or so ago, I had such a bad day that it justified getting a $15 carryout lunch from Lucky 32. For $15, I got a paper grocery bag full of goodies. My bread came with four patties of butter — one for each slice. My Crab and Corn Soup came with three tiny little ramekins — crab meat, sour cream, and chives. My Southern Chopped Cobb Salad came with two ramekins of creamy herb dressing and lasted me two days. And there were crackers popping out of every box and bag. Who can be in a bad mood after that?

One of the problems with not posting regularly is that it’s hard to remember what some food is. Whatever this was, I’m sure it was delicious.

I’m going to take my best guess and say that this salad was apple, bacon, shaved parmesan, and scallions over spinach. I cut the bacon into squares rather than crushing it into bits, which made the salad seem heartier and more substantial. Same deal with shaving the parmesan instead of grating it. Based on these ingredients, I can tell you two things — I was out of walnuts and I used Newman’s Own Honey Mustard dressing. If you’re not going to make your own, Newman’s it definitely the way to go. They are delicious and I can pronounce all the ingredients. The Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette is my favorite with Honey Mustard coming in a close second. Skip the Caesar.

Let’s be honest though, the bread was the star of this meal. Home-baked French baguette. Glenn made it for the day-before-school barbecue and hasn’t baked anything since. Is it Christmas break yet?

I was so, so proud of myself for this idea. Maybe proud is the wrong word. I was tickled. We made a pizza earlier in the week and had all the leftover fixin’s — bell peppers, red onions, pepperoni, and mozzarella. Put them all over lettuce with some garlic croutons and you have pizza salad! I used basic Italian dressing, but I think it ranch would be very tasty and appropriate. I was especially proud of myself for making it up like a pizza — croutons around the outside for crust, toppings over lettuce, and cheese on top.

Another of Mark Bittman’s 101 Simple Salads for the Season, the much anticipated stuffed avocado salad (aka #41). It’s basically like eating guacamole with a spoon (in a really good way). Bittman recomends avocado, tomatillo, black beans, lime juice, cilantro and queso fresco. I think you could put just about anything in there — tomato, onion, corn, whatever you think. If I could do one thing differently with mine, I’d use more beans and tomatillos so that it was about half avocado and half other stuff.

That’s a chicken jalapeno sausage on the side. I wanted to have chorizo, but I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t super processed looking. The chicken sausages worked just fine.

Before Glenn and I moved to Greensboro, we came down to look for apartments. On our way back to Chicago, we drove through Ohio to see Glenn’s brother’s band play at a festival. It was a disaster. We got lost on the way and missed the band’s set. When we tried to leave the festival, the breaks went out in the van, we wound up spending the night in a motel, having the van towed 50 miles to the only break shop open on a Sunday… It was a disaster. However, we had these pitas stuffed with spinach, shitake mushrooms, craisins, blue cheese, and poppy seed dressing. They were amazing. Now we refer to any sweet and savory salad in a pita as a “Greatfulfest Pita.”

You know what these pictures are? This is me eating a stuffed pita without the pita breaking in half. Drizzle your pita with olive oil, toast in a skillet, then repeat on the other side. This seems to solve the problem of the broken pita. Thanks, Julie, for the suggestion.

Last night we made #10 (with tuna steaks on the side, let’s be honest about what the main attraction really was). If the mint-arugula combo sounds a little weird, just remember that fresh mint doesn’t actually taste like toothpaste. If you’re still worried, just remember that the chance to eat fresh tomatoes makes just about anything worth it. These tomatoes are sauted in olive oil and curry powder and wilt the arugula just a little bit (see! you’ve totally forgotten about the mint!).

If you don’t like tons of garlic or making things from scratch, you probably won’t like Mark Bittman (aka the Minimalist). I love Mark Bittman. So, when Glenn sent me a link to 101 Simple Salads for the Season, I spent the next hour reading every single salad. I wrote the following salads down on a post it: 10, 12, 16, 21, 25, 31, 32, 41, 62, 69, 70, 77, 82, 95, and 96. Last night, we made number 69. It was a perfect eat-in-front-of-the-fan-because-it’s-90-degrees-in-here kind of meal.

We pretty much stuck to the instructions with a few exceptions. We were out of peanut oil, so we sauted the shrimp in olive oil (with tons of ginger, about equal to four shrimp) and it worked out fine. To add a little extra flavor, we drizzled some sesame oil over the salad with the lime juice. Our romaine was a little wimpy, thanks to the exceptional produce department over at Harris Teeter, but I won’t go on and on about that. Also, any time I try to fill a pita, it breaks in half. I switched from the pocket pitas to the mediterranian style, which was an improvement, but still not perfect. If street vendors and chain restaraunts can make it work, why can’t I?