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You can make famous salad recipes from Switzerland very easily at home and the Swiss do enjoy eating salads, either served alone or as a side dish with marinated steak recipes and other such meals. Salad nicoise, “gurkensalat,” and red cabbage salad are just a few Swiss recipes which you can order in restaurants or make yourself at home.

How to Make Swiss Potato Salad

You can make a basic potato salad by combining chopped cooked potatoes with mayonnaise but the following recipe takes the dish to a whole new level with the addition of celery, Tabasco, beer, mustard, bacon and more. If you are using a flank steak marinade on your beef for a special dinner, this dish would be a nice accompaniment for the meat.

What you will need:

* 1 chopped rib celery
* 6 potatoes
* 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 tablespoon chopped onion
* 1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
* 1 can beer
* 1 tablespoon white sugar
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
* 4 slices bacon
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

How to make it:

Boil the potatoes until they are tender, then peel and slice them. Fry the bacon until it is crisp, then break it up, and combine it with the salt, celery, and onion. Stir the flour and butter together in a pan until the butter melts and the two are combined, and then add the sugar and mustard.

Stir in the Tabasco sauce and beer gradually and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring it all the time. Pour this mixture over the potatoes and sprinkle the parsley over the top. Toss the mixture and let it stand for an hour. Add the bacon and onion mixture, toss again, and serve.

How to Make a Typical Swiss Salad with Gruyere Cheese

Gruyere is often used in recipes because it has such a special flavor. It is the cheese that is traditionally used for making French onion soup. The following recipe combines this cheese with a homemade vinaigrette after marinating it in white wine for a gourmet taste.

What you will need:

* 1/4 cup Chardonnay or similar dry white wine
* 3 tablespoons cold water
* 1/4 lb arugula or watercress
* 1 lb gruyere cheese, in very thin strips
* 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
* 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
* 4 chopped shallots
* 3 tablespoons corn oil
* 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
* Salt and black pepper

How to make it:

Marinade the cheese in the wine and water for thirty minutes at room temperature. Stir the vinegar, mustard, shallots, corn oil, and parsley together and add salt and pepper to taste. Pour this vinaigrette over the cheese mixture and stir. Toss with salad greens and add some extra black pepper, then serve.

How to Make Cucumber Salad

This dish, which is known as gurkensalat in Switzerland, is easy to prepare and it has a cool, refreshing flavor. If you like sour cream and you want to serve a creamy side dish with your delicious marinated steak, this one might be perfect.

What you will need:

* 1/2 cup sour cream
* 1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
* 2 cucumbers
* 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
* 1/2 tablespoon cider vinegar
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/2 tablespoons white sugar

How to make it:

Slice the cucumbers very thinly, then sprinkle the vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar over them. Let the slices marinate for twenty minutes, then drain them and toss with the sour cream. Sprinkle the parsley over the top and serve.

Singapore’s cuisine is influenced by Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Malay, and western cuisines. There are also traces of Middle Eastern and Thai recipes in there. The cuisine of Singapore is probably most similar to Malaysian food because the two countries have deep historic ties. A lot of dishes are shared between the two nations, although preparation methods differ a bit.

Singapore is quite a small country and the population is large, which means that most food and produce is imported since there is not much space for farmland or agriculture. There are however a few farmers who produce poultry, fish, fruit and leafy vegetables. The country is well connected with sea transport and air routes so importing many kinds of food is not a problem.

One of the most famous Singaporean recipes has to be Singapore noodles and if you fancy making a salad instead of a hot dish, the following recipe is traditionally Singaporean and really flavorful. The various vegetables add color and flavor and the sesame seeds, garlic, chili sauce, chives, sherry and more add plenty of flavor. You can serve this in small portions as an appetizer or larger ones as a side dish to go with a marinated steak recipe or something similar.

Before you baulk at the lengthy ingredients list, rest assured that this is a fantastic tasting and impressive recipe and it is well worth making. Use spaghetti-style Chinese noodles for this dish.

What you will need:

* 1/2 cup peanut butter
* 1 head broccoli, in 1 inch florets
* 1/4 cup sesame seeds
* 1/2 cup chicken stock
* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 1/2 lb dried noodles
* 2 teaspoons white sugar
* 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
* 1 lb asparagus, in diagonal 1 inch pieces
* 1 tablespoon dry sherry
* 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
* 1/4 cup minced scallions
* 1 red bell pepper, in thin slices
* 2 tablespoons minced chives
* 1 cup bean sprouts
* 2 tablespoons finely minced ginger
* 1 minced clove garlic
* 1 tablespoon sesame oil
* 1 cup thinly sliced shiitake or button mushrooms
* 1 1/2 teaspoons Chinese chili sauce

How to make it:

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry skillet until they are golden brown and fragrant; this will take about a minute. Cook the noodles in boiling salted water for a few minutes until they are tender. Separate them with a fork and drain them. Toss them with the vegetable oil.

Boil the broccoli for a few minutes until it is al dente, and then chill it in a bowl of ice water until cold. Drain it. Cook the asparagus in boiling water for a minute or two, then chill it in the ice water and drain it.

Bring the stock to a boil over a medium high heat, then take it off the heat and stir in the vinegar, sesame oil, peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar, sherry, garlic, toasted sesame seeds, scallions, ginger and chili sauce. Toss the noodles with the vegetables. Add the dressing and toss well. Chill for half an hour. Sprinkle the chives on top and serve.

Blackening is something you can do to meat, poultry, fish, or vegetables and there are various recipes for blackened meat. In the following recipe, a homemade spice mixture is used to coat the steak, and then the meat is served with a salad. This gourmet dish is sure to delight any dinner guests because it is unusual and completely delicious. The spice mix can be made up to a week in advance and then stored in an airtight container at room temperature.

It might interest you to know that the blackening technique comes from Cajun cooking. A lot of people confuse Cajun cuisine with Creole cuisine. The two used to be more diverse, with Cajun cooking relying heavily on fats, like pork fat, and Creole food using a lot of creams and butters, but now they are more similar. Cajun cuisine can be compared to a combination of French and southern cooking, with its robust and rich flavors.

A Cajun seasoning might contain chilies, black pepper, onion, and garlic but you might find celery, chives, mustard and other ingredients listed in a Cajun seasoning recipe too. You can also blend Cajun and Creole styles, perhaps making a blackened steak and serving it with a Creole butter.

Creamy Creole Butter

You can make a Creole butter by mashing half a cup of softened butter with quarter of a teaspoon each of celery salt and garlic salt. Add a tablespoon of Cajun seasoning and black pepper to taste and store it in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve it with your steak.

It is very important to use a really hot pan when blackening the steak. This is so the outside sears immediately, sealing in the juices which keep it tender and succulent. The following recipe is simple to make and the cool salad is wonderful with the robust-flavored, delicious steak topping.

What you will need:

* 2 teaspoons black pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
* 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
* 1 teaspoon garlic powder
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1 tablespoon paprika
* 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
* 6 cups mixed greens
* 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
* 1/4 cup olive oil
* 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
* 1/2 thinly sliced green bell pepper
* 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
* 5 beef tenderloin steaks, about 6 oz each and 1/2 inch thick
* 3 oz crumbled blue cheese
* 1 quartered tomato
* 3 tablespoons melted butter

How to make it:

Mix the pepper, thyme, oregano, garlic powder, salt, paprika, and cayenne pepper together to make the spice mix. Whisk the mustard, vinegar, and oil in a bowl. Add salt and pepper, then the greens, onion and bell pepper.

Toss well and divide between two serving plates. Spread the spice mix on a plate and use it to coat both sides of the steaks. Dip the meat into the melted butter. Heat a big skillet over a high heat until it is really hot, and then cook the steaks for a couple of minutes per side for medium rare.

Let them stand on a cutting board for a few minutes, then slice them thinly across. Arrange the meat on the salad and sprinkle the blue cheese over the top. Add the tomato wedges and serve.

So, you’ve been eating salads all summer long in an attempt to adopt a healthier lifestyle and to maybe shed a few pounds…or more. But, not much has been happening in the weight loss category and you still can’t fit into last year’s bathing suit and winter is already approaching when you know you’ll just put on a few more pounds.

This may not be your fault at all. You can quit feeling guilty and discouraged; you have been bamboozled by some slick eateries that want you to believe their gorgeous, and expensive, salad is good for you, when in actuality its packing on more calories and fat than a burger that that funny looking King serves at his restaurant.

Here are some of the worst:

* Wendy’s Chicken BLT Salad w/Croutons & Honey-Dijon Dressing-This salad tops out at 860 calories, 59 grams of fat, of which 17 are saturated and 1 is trans fat and a whopping 1665 mg sodium. You can shave calories by changing the dressing. The best, of course, would be fat-free French, but even Ranch would be better than Honey-Dijon. But, if you change the Honey-Dijon to Fat-Free French, you will save 170 calories. The croutons are the other major culprit. NEVER eat the croutons. They are loaded with carbs and oil-soaked to boot. In fact, you can order a single burger with everything and a side salad and eat 300 fewer calories.
* Quizno’s Chicken Caesar Regular Chopped Salad-This remarkably healthy looking salad boasts 920 calories! Out of the 66.5 grams of fat, 20.5 are saturated and the 2,090 mg of sodium just puts you one step closer to heart disease. This is the fat equivalent to 20 strips of bacon. Where do the calories come from? The dressing, for one. Caesar dressing is heavy and fatty. Add the croutons and the fact that this “regular” sized salad is HUGE and that about explains it all. Quizno’s only has one “regular” salad under 500 calories; that is the Pan Asian Regular Chopped Salad, but it still has 17.5 grams of fat, which is more than 1/2 what is recommended for a healthy diet and 4 grams of that are saturated. It also has 1,915 mg sodium.
* Applebee’s Grilled Shrimp ‘N Spinach, Regular-This salad sounds like it would be really healthy. Spinach, after all, is chock full of iron and shrimp has lots of lean protein and no fat, but this particular salad gives both of these otherwise “healthy” foods a bad name. It breaks the calorie barrier at 1,050 with an amazing 72 grams of fat (11 saturated) and over 2500 mg of sodium. Applebee’s only has one salad that is less than 700 calories-the Weight Watchers Grilled Chili-Lime Chicken Salad.
* T.F.I. Friday’s Pecan-Crusted Chicken Salad-Sounding quite yummy, the 1,360 calories in this salad comes from sugar-coated pecans, a more than healthy dose of blue cheese and a wealth of sugar-coated cranberries. Also be aware that “crusted” in restaurant lingo means pretty much the same thing as fried.
* The worst taco salad is the On the Border Grande Taco Salad with Ground Beef and Chipotle Honey Mustard Dressing-The calorie count is as big as the name. Packed with 1,690 calories and a heart-stopping 124 grams of fat, with fully 27 grams being saturated, this is a heart-attack waiting to happen! You save a bit if you don’t eat the gigantic trough they call a tortilla, but the 2,570 mg of sodium makes that trifling effort kind of a moot point.

I guess the safest bet is not to assume that because the word “salad” is present that it will be a healthier alternative to a big, juicy steak, or even to a burger with the works. The taco salad above is like eating 3 Whoppers! So have that burger, especially if it is grilled, as opposed to fried, but skip the fries and have a simple side salad or serving of fruit instead. In fact, you can even indulge your taste buds with a bit of ranch dressing and be much more satisfied while consuming many less calories than the majority of the salads on the menu of many restaurants will offer.

Avocados are extremely popular these days. They’re found in many different sushi rolls, milkshakes, guacamole, and some people just like spreading it on toast. Many people would be surprised to know that an avocado is actually a fruit. It has a smooth, oily, pale green flesh that is normally associated with the vegetable, and doesn’t have that sweet tasting juice associated with a fruit.

There are many different varieties of avocados. You can get avocados that are rough on their skin, or you can get avocados that are smooth skinned. They can come either in a pear shape or they may even be spherical. These fruits originated from Mexico, Colombia and Peru in the 16th century, but was 400 years before California started growing them commercially.

With the high demand for avocados it is a good thing that they’re available all year round. When looking for an avocado, they are usually sold a little bit unripe. You should avoid those with dark spots are cracks, or have brownish markings. Tell us an avocado is ripe, some pressure on the outside of the skin and if it seems soft probably ready to be eaten.

It isn’t necessary to keep avocados in the fridge as it should be kept at room temperature. Usually takes around 3 to 5 days for avocados to become ripe from the supermarket. Right avocados should be in right away as they go bad quickly. A neat trick to stop the browning of an avocado is to coat the cut avocado with lemon juice.

Titles are high in protein, fat, riboflavin, niacin, and potassium. He also contain a good amount of vitamin C and A. The only problem with avocados is that they are fatty. Eating too many avocados can add pounds to your side. So be sure to keep a balanced diet and exercise to go along with your avocado eating. Bon Apetite!