Weeknight Takeout: Strawberry Fields Deli
Although this local natural-foods mart closed its café a while back, they're still offering salads and other prepared foods prepackaged and ready to go. (And they do still have a small number of tables, so you can eat there if you feel like it).Yesterday I picked up a container of red-lentil and spinach salad and it was fabulous ($2.66 for just under a half-pound). That salad, in fact, was one of the items that yours truly introduced when she worked at the Fields deli in the 1990s. So I happen to have the recipe it was based on, which I'll reprint here in case you want to make it at home.
For the deli version I substituted the more cost-effective feta for chèvre (fresh, soft goat cheese). Back then there was no Prairie Fruits Farm, so we didn't have the access to lovely locally produced chèvre that we do now. Fields sells PFF chèvre, by the way, so if you do make this salad at home, you can pick up the cheese there (if you didn't make it out to the farm over the weekend!).I highly recommend the book this recipe comes from, by the way. It has lots of great recipes in it. I made the Cauliflower and Potato Curry with Coconut Milk and Lime Juice at the Red Herring restaurant a few times and it was a big hit. And how good does the Quesadilla with Brie and Mango sound? You could use PFF's Little Bloom on the Prairie or one of their other soft-ripened cheeses for the Brie.
But, ahem, back to the lentil salad.
Lentil Salad with Spinach, Chevre, and Curry Tarragon Dressing
From The Best 125 Meatless Main Dishes, by Mindy Toomay and Susann Geiskopf-Hadler
Head note from the book: This salad delivers great protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Best of all, it is utterly delicious!
Yield: 8 servings
The dressing
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
1 tablespoon dried tarragon
2 teaspoons curry powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
The lentils
1 1/2 cups dried lentils
5 cups water
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/8 teaspoon dried red chili flakes
Scant pinch salt
4 ounces fresh chèvre
The salad
1 bunch fresh spinach (about 3/4 pound)
1/4 cup red onion, minced
1/2 pound cherry tomatoes, quartered
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Whisk together the dressing ingredients and set aside so their flavors can blend. Sort the lentils, discarding any small pebbles you may find, and rinse them. Put in a pot with 5 cups water, garlic, chili flakes, and salt. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and gently simmer until barely tender, about 30 minutes. Cool the lentils in cold water, drain very well, and put them in a large, shallow serving bowl.
Cut the soft chèvre into cubes and drop them onto the lentils. Using clean hands, rub the lentils with the chevre until they are all coated and the chèvre has all been used.
Wash the spinach, discard the stems, and tear the leaves into bite-sized pieces. Add to the bowl along with the onion, tomatoes, and dressing. Grind on some pepper and toss to combine everything well. Serve immediately.
This salad is best served at room temperature, as this is when the flavor of the chèvre will be most delicious.
If you're busy and you don't feel like cooking (and that's been me this week), head over to Strawberry Fields and pick up some tasty lentil salad. Add one of Fields' seeded baguettes and you've got yourself a quick lunch or dinner. (Of course, they don't make this particular salad every day, so call to see what's available: 217-239-0921).Labels: main dishes, recipes, vegetarian, weeknight takeout
posted by Lisa at 6:07 AM
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22 Comments:
Thank you for posting the recipe. That salad has always been one of my favorites at Strawberry Fields.
your recipe sounds good! wow! that's neat that your salad creation is sold at strawberry fields!
that sounds wonderful----I'm crazy about those little red lentils....
While I do like the lentil salad, when I run into SF, I can't go past the vegan pad thai, or the indonesian rice salads! Those two alternate as my favorite.
Debbie, happy to be of service!
Genkitummy: The recipe was actually from the book I mentioned; I only made a couple of small changes to it. It's a keeper, for sure.
Sandwich: I love all kinds of lentils, too. The red ones are especially good in this salad.
Melissa, I love the pad Thai and the Indonesian salad, myself. The inspiration for the rice salad came from the original Moosewood cookbook.
I'm still very upset at them for closing their cafe. They had so many great offerings, the ingredients were always extremely fresh, and everything was healthy. There's nothing even close to that now. :(
My husband's main gripe about their premade sandwich options is that both tofu sandwiches (Opus and Tofulatta) have cheese on them, and since he's vegan, he can't eat either one. When the cafe was open, he could order them without cheese. Now, his only sandwich option is hummus. Better than nothing, but not as good as the tofu sandwiches. They do have good deli salads, though, including many vegan options. And their vegan baked goods are wonderful!
Trey, I hear you. I don't understand the body-care thing instead of the cafe, but clearly the owners felt that they needed to make the change.
Angie: I hadn't thought of it before, but of course, how ironic that the two tofu sammies include cheese. Obviously, the tofulatta was an attempt at doing a vegetarian muffaletta, but it could certainly be made w/o cheese (and would still have great flavor). I don't see why they couldn't do two versions, a vegan and a vegetarian, of the prepackaged tofu sandwiches, labeling each as such. Maybe if you suggested that . . .
I love red lentil, but almost always overcook them-they cook so fast.
I used to go to Strawberry Fields all the time, but since closing their cafe I have only been a few times.
I think they really missed the point about the cafe. My coworkers and I would go there for lunch and then we would fill a basket or cart with groceries. But rarely would any of us go there JUST to pick up a few things.
The take out I have had from their refrigerated case has been horrible and I won't ever waste my money on it again.
The tofulatta was soggy and the vegan pad thai was dry. Terrible! I had to throw them both away rather than eat them.
I still pop in from time to time, but it is becoming less and less frequent. Mainly because their prices are too high. For example, I had a coupon for a FREE box of Fruitabu, up to $4.00. At Strawberry Fields, it was $5 a box!
When I questioned why the price was so high and asked if I could get the box for free like the coupon said and not pay the difference, I was told that they use a "formula" to set their prices. I completely realize that they are a locally-owned store and don't buy huge quantities, but come on.
I do like their fresh baked bread.
But their high end cosmetics counter that replaced the deli is a total miss for me.
I am particularly sad because I have been going there since I was a child. My mom used to let me get whatever I wanted from the bulk aisle. I usually chose a variety of granola to have for breakfast.
There isn't much that I would buy at Strawberry Fields that I can't find at Round Barn Jerry's.
Sorry to be a Debbie Downer today... But your recipe does look good!
(And I really hope that the owner of SF reads this and takes note.)
I used to work at Fields as well, leaving right before the changes. It seems the motive for the change was that the vitamin section is a goldmine for them but the deli was not bringing in much revenue.
That being said, so many customers went in with the purpose of deli-shopping and then ended up leaving with much more from the grocery and vitamin section as well. It is a shame they closed the deli since it was one of the few remaining ties the store had to its roots as a co-op.
Mickey, you're so right. It's such a fine line to walk—getting red lentils cooked enough without turning them to mush. Too crunchy is not good, and mush is not good!
Leighann: I've not tried a prepackaged sandwich yet, but the salad I got, as I said, was just great. Sounds like you ran into a couple of bum steers there, pardon my meat reference. :) I agree with you about both the fresh breads being a hit and the high-end cosmetics a miss.
Anon: I think the bread bakery and even the takeout deli items now are still ties to that co-op past—in a way. Remember when it was located in a house in the area where Beckman (I think it is, or maybe Grainger) now stands?! Yikes, that was a long time ago . . .
Ha! This is one of three salads at SF for which I've tried to reconstruct the recipe based on the ingredients list (as they've STILL not responded to requests for nutritional info). Thanks for posting it!! Love the chevre, they do that sometimes. Indonesian Rice Salad and Zippy Kale are the other two, in case you can share the source for the Kale (I'll look at Moosewood re: the Rice!)
Stephanie, I don't remember right now whether I introduced that kale dish or not; I'll poke around in my books and see if that jogs my memory. It does sound familiar . . . the rice salad is on p. 51 of Mollie Katzen's original Moosewood Cookbook.
For the sake of later readers... I looked at the original Moosewood cookbook for the zippy kale, and found something very similar: the Tofu Salad, on page 56. I suspect the addition of the Kale and slight adjustment of the vegetables (no mushrooms) would make it pretty close.
Stephanie, thanks for the update.
Angie - I have the same gripe about the sandwich. I love the Tofullata and have asked if they could make any with soy cheese or cheeseless. Unfortunately, I was shot down. Hopefully more people bring it up.
I'll buy their delicious bbq tofu and make my own version from time to time, but it's not the same.
I've been trying to replicate their tofu, so if anyone has any insights, please share!
Tom, that's too bad that they won't make some vegan Tofulattas. Clearly they would sell some if they did.
I used to make the tofu there but I can't quite remember the marinades (there were two different ones as I remember). One was a "Korean" BBQ tofu and I can't remember what we did for the other one now. Blocks of tofu were sliced into four slices lengthwise, soaked in a marinade for quite a while, and then baked in a convection oven.
I moved away from Champaign a few years ago and miss the great salads at Strawberry Fields. Thank you so much for posting the recipe for the lentil salad, one of my favorites!
Whatsonthemenu: Happy to be of service! Enjoy.
The deli at SF lost tens of thousands of dollars a month and could not be sustained. If you look at the trends for natural food stores across the U.S, they are all switching to a self-serve format. The vitamins and supplements department does very well and is definitely a hit. It is easy for folks on the outside to say they don't get it, but they all probably thought the deli made a lot of money.
The new grab-and-go deli does very well. A good many people who say they do not like it are simply just mad that it is different. The ingredients are just as fresh (even better than they were when the full-service deli was open) and the salads have the same shelf-life as they did when the full-service deli was open. You can still come in and sit down and have lunch and buy groceries, but now you can do it a little faster. The only set-back is for those with dietary restrictions and cannot have things custom made (soy or vegan cheese). It is just too expensive and not many people would be willing to pay and extra $1.00 a sandwich. The food is still very good and there are a lot of new salads and soups that you should come in and try.
Anon: Thanks for the info and explanations. And I agree about the to-go items; as I noted in the post, there are still deli foods to be had, and some tables, so there definitely is still a deli component to the store, just not the larger cafe space.
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