Horsey Arugula with Muscadine Vinaigrette, Parmesan, and Pecans

Deep Run Roots

Once you have all of the ingredients, which include two other recipes from the book, this salad comes together quickly! We loved the sweet and tangy vinaigrette as a compliment to the hearty arugula. And, of course, we always love roasted pecans.

We liked it so much that I plan to use this recipe as a template, switching out the preserves, the fruit, the cheese, the nuts, and the greens depending on what I have on hand. I'm currently imagining bleu cheese with walnuts, maybe with an orange marmalade vinaigrette...

This recipe does require a food processor, but a mini-chopper would work just fine. You don't want it to be smooth, so it doesn't have to be anything high-powered (read: expensive.)

While the recipe on this page isn't exactly the same, it's based on the one from the book and the ingredients are similar enough: https://www.noshingswithnicole.com/blog/arugula-grape-parmersan-and-pecan-salad-with-grape-vinaigrette

Nutrition
Serving Size	1/4 recipe
Calories	247
Fat	20g
Protein	6g
Carbohydrates	14g (2g fiber, 6g sugar)

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:06]: with heather on this episode i'm going
[00:09]: to be making horsey arugula with
[00:11]: muscadine vinaigrette parmesan and
[00:13]: pecans from vivian howard's deep run
[00:16]: roots cookbook
[00:17]: she calls this horsey arugula because
[00:20]: it's supposed to be a more mature
[00:22]: arugula so not as tender and sweet
[00:25]: but all i could find around here was
[00:29]: baby arugula so
[00:31]: that's what we'll be using today instead
[00:32]: of a more mature arugula so
[00:36]: whatever we'll be using that
[00:41]: it also includes two other recipes that
[00:44]: we have already made on the channel it
[00:47]: includes this
[00:48]: um these grape whole preserves muscadine
[00:51]: grape whole preserves
[00:53]: and
[00:54]: the salt and butter roasted pecans that
[00:58]: we've made i will link both of those
[01:00]: recipes up here
[01:03]: you could also use
[01:05]: viv's addiction which are a
[01:08]: more candied but spicy pecans
[01:12]: which we've also made and i will link up
[01:14]: here so
[01:15]: you have your options about what you
[01:17]: want to use
[01:19]: regarding your pecans
[01:22]: so
[01:23]: the first thing i'm going to do is um
[01:28]: slice
[01:29]: my
[01:30]: muscadine grapes
[01:32]: so
[01:34]: usually you do not eat the skins with
[01:36]: these but
[01:38]: she says that um if you slice them thin
[01:42]: and you have like a large firm grapes
[01:46]: not hard firm grapes
[01:49]: so the first thing we're going to do
[01:50]: we're going to
[01:51]: slice off the stem end
[01:53]: and we're not going to keep that
[01:56]: and then we're going to slice she says 1
[01:58]: 8 inch slices
[02:02]: so i'm going to do the best i can with
[02:03]: that
[02:05]: until we see
[02:10]: there's some
[02:12]: the
[02:14]: seeds
[02:15]: and when we see the seeds we're going to
[02:17]: pick them out
[02:19]: and discard them you don't want to eat
[02:20]: those
[02:22]: and
[02:23]: pick the ones out of this side
[02:26]: and i think there might be another one
[02:30]: there's a tiny one right there
[02:31]: and then we're going to slice
[02:34]: the rest
[02:37]: gets a little more difficult to slice
[02:41]: but we're going to discard the other
[02:44]: sort of round end as well
[02:47]: so that all of the slices of
[02:51]: muscadine grapes
[02:53]: the skins aren't super thick so it's
[02:56]: kind of like when you slice
[03:01]: meat
[03:02]: thinly to make it more tender so
[03:04]: hopefully
[03:06]: that will be the case here so
[03:09]: i'm gonna keep on slicing until i have
[03:12]: filled up
[03:16]: my
[03:18]: measuring cup
[03:25]: whatever that's enough
[03:31]: all right
[03:34]: that is enough of that
[03:37]: cutting
[03:38]: these grapes is the absolute worst thing
[03:41]: i have
[03:43]: done
[03:45]: i'm pretty sure absolute worst thing
[03:47]: okay so i'm gonna put them away
[03:49]: and get what i need to make the
[03:53]: vinaigrette the muscadine vinaigrette
[03:56]: okay after some amount of setup here i
[03:59]: need to um
[04:00]: [Music]
[04:02]: basically roughly chop
[04:04]: my
[04:06]: muscadine or grape hole preserves
[04:08]: so i've chosen this
[04:11]: [Music]
[04:13]: little mini chopper that came with my
[04:15]: immersion blender
[04:17]: because there is
[04:18]: not much that goes into this and you
[04:21]: need a really small food processor for
[04:23]: this so i'm gonna try it with this
[04:27]: um
[04:30]: the thing that i didn't like about these
[04:32]: grape hole preserves is the grape holes
[04:35]: um the fact that they're just so large
[04:38]: so this will be helpful
[04:42]: it's hard to get just you know
[04:45]: the amount you want out of here
[04:47]: because the grape holes
[04:49]: there we go i'll just
[04:52]: use a small spatula
[04:56]: try to get as much out as i can
[05:01]: get
[05:03]: another
[05:06]: that's
[05:10]: there good go
[05:20]: that is probably the best i can do for
[05:23]: measuring that and
[05:25]: getting it out of the measuring spoon
[05:29]: now let's see if this chops it like i
[05:32]: hope it will
[05:34]: we're making a very small amount of
[05:36]: dressing for all of this but we're not
[05:39]: mixing the olive oil in so
[05:41]: we'll see
[05:43]: i don't see any big pieces it looks like
[05:45]: this worked
[05:46]: pretty well for me
[05:49]: we use this to put it into a bowl now i
[05:54]: don't know why we don't just put all of
[05:57]: the ingredients for this dressing
[05:59]: in the food processor because
[06:03]: now we're just going to whisk them up i
[06:05]: guess she doesn't want you to
[06:10]: um
[06:11]: chop up the grape holes too much and
[06:14]: maybe
[06:15]: you would
[06:17]: if you put all the ingredients in there
[06:19]: but that is just a guess for me
[06:25]: that's all i needed that
[06:26]: and then i need
[06:29]: some dijon mustard
[06:32]: i'm gonna do the lemon juice first so i
[06:33]: need some lemon juice this is just fresh
[06:35]: squeezed lemon juice
[06:38]: um
[06:47]: this is so annoying i'm gonna
[06:49]: guesstimate because
[06:50]: this set does not have
[06:53]: a half tablespoon
[07:00]: good enough
[07:03]: and then
[07:07]: the
[07:08]: dijon mustard
[07:11]: sticky stuff all over my bottle that's
[07:12]: super fun
[07:19]: there we go
[07:21]: i've got mustard all over my hands
[07:24]: also super fun
[07:28]: anyway
[07:33]: okay
[07:34]: that's good
[07:37]: i'm gonna wash my hands a bit
[07:40]: don't add any salt and pepper to this
[07:43]: yeah salt no pepper just salt
[07:45]: all right so i'm just going to whisk
[07:48]: this stuff up together
[07:57]: that looks pretty good
[08:00]: we will be ready to eat soon because you
[08:02]: want to
[08:03]: to mix this up
[08:06]: only when you're ready to eat so what
[08:08]: we're going to do i'm going to show you
[08:09]: this because it is a little bit
[08:12]: different
[08:15]: um
[08:16]: let's see
[08:18]: toss the arugula which we have here
[08:21]: with these sliced grapes
[08:26]: so we're just going to put olive oil
[08:28]: in here
[08:44]: put some salt in here
[08:49]: this doesn't have any
[08:52]: thing on it
[08:59]: salt
[09:05]: half of our cheese so this is parmesan
[09:10]: she says parmesan reggiano i had some
[09:14]: american grana whatever um that's what i
[09:17]: had on hand
[09:19]: she says to grate it i went with um what
[09:22]: it looks like she did in the picture and
[09:24]: used a cheese cheese slicer a vegetable
[09:27]: peeler
[09:28]: on it because
[09:30]: little bits of the cheese sort of if you
[09:34]: so usually i use a microplane for
[09:36]: parmesan and that would definitely just
[09:38]: sort of disappear
[09:40]: and clump up and i didn't want that so
[09:43]: i've got my cheese here
[09:46]: so we're going to
[09:48]: and we're going to put our dressing in
[09:49]: here and
[09:51]: i'm gonna put all of this in here so
[09:54]: i'm just gonna put it all right here
[10:06]: and we're going to
[10:08]: toss this together so i need something
[10:10]: to toss it with
[10:12]: i usually just use two sort of large
[10:14]: spoons
[10:15]: i'm going to try to get all of this
[10:17]: arugula coated and mixed
[10:21]: with the dressing and the cheese
[10:26]: and the grapes
[10:29]: and then
[10:31]: when i serve it i'm going to top it with
[10:35]: the pecans of your choice i have the
[10:37]: salt and butter roasted ones and the
[10:39]: rest of the cheese
[10:41]: so
[10:43]: that is it and i will show you what it
[10:45]: looks like once i have
[10:47]: topped it all off and served it and
[10:50]: we'll let you know what we think
[10:60]: on this episode of cooking the books
[11:01]: with heather you watched me make
[11:03]: horsey arugula with muscadine
[11:05]: vinaigrette parmesan and pecans from
[11:09]: vivian howard's deep run roots cookbook
[11:11]: it's a really long name
[11:14]: um
[11:15]: for a relatively simple recipe if you've
[11:17]: already got the
[11:19]: uh
[11:21]: muscadine grape hull
[11:24]: what are they called grape hole
[11:25]: preserves
[11:26]: and the pecans which are the
[11:29]: butter roasted pecans which i'll have
[11:31]: linked somewhere up here or down below
[11:33]: probably both um if you've already got
[11:36]: those made then this is a really easy
[11:39]: recipe to throw together um a really
[11:42]: small
[11:43]: food processor is
[11:46]: very very helpful because it you do use
[11:48]: that to break up those preserves those
[11:51]: really large holes that i complained
[11:53]: about
[11:54]: get broken up in that and then you make
[11:56]: the vinaigrette from that
[11:59]: um
[12:00]: the other thing that was a little
[12:02]: annoying was slicing those grapes really
[12:06]: thinly and then and also taking out the
[12:09]: seeds at the same time if i never have
[12:11]: to slice uh
[12:13]: muscadine grapes again it will be too
[12:15]: soon i really hated that part in fact
[12:18]: every time i've had to cut them in any
[12:20]: way
[12:21]: i've kind of hated it
[12:23]: when we cut them in half
[12:25]: uh and took the seeds out for
[12:28]: i think it was the
[12:31]: we've done that a few times for other
[12:33]: savory recipes it was very annoying and
[12:36]: i don't like it
[12:37]: [Music]
[12:39]: but
[12:40]: necessary because those seeds are
[12:44]: not great not great to eat
[12:47]: anyway
[12:48]: other than that the salad came together
[12:50]: pretty quickly the
[12:52]: vinaigrette dressing was really
[12:53]: delicious and i think that honestly you
[12:56]: could use this salad as
[12:58]: um just a template for another any other
[13:03]: salad for with any other
[13:05]: um
[13:07]: preserves that you have and like
[13:09]: uh with a cheese that would go well with
[13:12]: it and a little bit of fruit
[13:15]: and
[13:15]: a nut
[13:17]: so
[13:18]: and then mix that with the with the the
[13:22]: pretty s
[13:23]: not stout but um
[13:26]: a strong
[13:28]: uh
[13:29]: green not like butter lettuce or
[13:31]: something like that probably but you
[13:33]: know a spinach or or the arugula
[13:36]: or or some sort of
[13:37]: green like that and this would be a
[13:40]: great template for
[13:42]: anything that you want to make and i
[13:43]: think i'm going to try it
[13:45]: with some other preserves i don't know
[13:47]: exactly what yet but
[13:49]: i definitely think that we would have
[13:50]: loved
[13:52]: um
[13:54]: blue cheese in this instead of the
[13:56]: parmesan
[13:58]: and like peach preserves or anything
[14:00]: like that would have been really really
[14:02]: great so
[14:03]: i'm
[14:04]: going to try this again with
[14:06]: some other preserves or some other
[14:08]: ingredients maybe the same preserves
[14:09]: because i do have some left still so
[14:12]: we'll let you know how that goes
[14:14]: if you enjoyed watching me make this
[14:15]: please give me the thumbs up hit the
[14:17]: subscribe button and come back and watch
[14:18]: me make something else next week