The more you get into food, especially the fresh stuff, the easier it is to go a little foodie crazy and buy too much. Unfortunately, for me, it's become something of a habit. I'm a sucker for tasty, fresh vegetables, but between busyness and impromptu dinners out, I am often faced with a fridge fool of food about to go bad. But at least I'm consistent, because the fridge-cleaning meal almost always looks like the picture above.
For me, it's always a collection of vegetables, some sort of cheese, and a pesto or similar topping that really needs to be eaten. Without fail, I'll whip up a salad, some toast with topping and cheese, and pull a beer out of my beer fridge. (I realize the Mort Subite doesn't go with the meal, but it was the only bottle that was cold.)
Do you have this same problem? What does your "everything is going bad!" dinner look like?
Now I know what I'm going to do with all the fresh peas I saw at the Santa Fe farmer's market this weekend. Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini has figured out a brilliant use for all those leftover pods when you're done shelling: Chilled pea pod soup. You saute the empty pods with some onion and garlic, deglaze white wine, toss in the blender and press through a food mill, add some nutmeg and chill. Voila, a cool, silky green soup the color of a summertime lake. How perfect would that be for a simple Sunday lunch, with a chunk of baguette and some good prosciutto?
Watermelon salad with mint and feta cheese was one of those things that I wanted to hate when I first heard about it five or six years ago. I couldn't imagine that the saltiness of feta cheese would go well the watery sweetness of watermelon. However, with so many things in life, as soon as I gave it a try, I was proven happily wrong. It's a magical combination and one that you should try out if you haven't yet had a chance.
I've been meaning for a while to write about healthy alternatives to the usual summer barbecue foods. My family hosted a desserts-only BBQ for this weekend (which turned into burgers and dogs BBQ), and I feel like I've been doing the circuit of barbecues featuring heavy slaws, burgers with lots of toppings, and rich chocolate chip cookies. While I love these foods as much as anyone, I'm trying to put together a list of the best alternative recipes from across the web to replace these often less-healthy favorites. Here's what I have:
We are having something of an unprecedented heat wave here on the East Coast (and it's not even officially summer). Yesterday it was 96 degrees and they are predicting that it will top out right around 100 degrees today (and with the humidity, that means it feels more like 105). I have a brisket in defrosting in my fridge, but the last thing I want to do is turn my oven on long enough to get it cooked (it will just have to wait until Wednesday, when the heat breaks).
On nights like this, I turn to cool summer greens from the fridge and cans from my pantry. I always keep black beans, pickled beets, garbanzo beans, artichoke hearts and tuna in olive oil in the kitchen cabinet, so that I can augment veggies with much-needed (at least for me) protein. I create a table top salad bar with the beans, tuna, diced tomato, sliced cucumber, grated cheese, carrot rounds and anything else I can find and go to town. If you need a carb with your meal, add some crackers or bread from a local bakery.
That's my basic meal for those nights when I can't bear to heat up my apartment. How do the rest of you beat the heat in the kitchen*?
*I know that those of you out on the West Coast are freezing and still wearing your winter coats. What are you eating these days?
Isn't it funny how you eat something a lot as a kid but you drift away from it as an adult? I'm not talking about something sugary and child-like, like certain cereals or candy bars or Yoo-Hoo. I'm talking about staples such as fruit or milk.
Case in point: blueberries! I used to eat these a lot as a kid, not just in cereals but as a snack, finishing off an entire pint while watching The Courtship of Eddie's Father. This is a recipe for Blueberry Salad, from Pixie Collins (via the KVBC site). It's more of a fruit salad than one based in lettuce and tomatoes, and includes cream cheese and walnuts.
I know that this is the web and just about anyone can publish something on a site, but I think we have to draw the line somewhere. I call that line "wiener soup."
This recipe is over at cooks.com. Here it is in its entirety. I have to admit it made me laugh out loud when I saw it:
Weiner Soup
1 pkg. wieners 3 cups water
Combine weiners and water in a two quart saucepan. Bring to a boil until weiners are cooked. Throw the wieners in the garbage. Serve soup.
Maybe you can serve this to guests at your cookout today.
Warmth is great and all, but one of the best things about summer is potatoes -- growing, barbecuing them, and of course, lathering them in all sorts of tasty things and making a potato salad.
For years I didn't go near the German variety of tater salad -- I was a strict mayo and potato gal. This is probably a good thing since I never would have dug the sauerkraut flavor that lingers in the obviously German mix. Now, they're both pretty darned tasty. The mayonnaise variety offers the creaminess of the lathered potato with the crisp crunch of celery and onions. The German variety, on the other hand, offers a warm and tasty mixture of potato and vinegary sharp goodness. (And it isn't too shabby cold either.)
With this being the start of Memorial Day Weekend, there's no better time to whip up some potato salad and kick off the awesome season of warmth. Check out the recipes that follow, revel in all things tatery, and be sure to comment about your own special touches.
Here, it is -- a classic potato salad recipe, adapted from the Big Book of Backyard Cooking.
Old-Fashioned Potato Salad
Ingredients:
Approximately 2 pounds of potatoes, the above salad used 3 large baking potatoes 4 large, hard-boiled eggs 1 3/4 cup chopped celery 2/3 cup red onion 1/2 cup of mayo The juice of half a lemon. 1 1/2 tsp cider vinegar Approximately 1-2 tsp of mustard -- ball park, dijon, or other tasty varieties. Kosher salt A few shakes of cayenne pepper
First, boil diced potatoes, whatever size you want in the salad. When they're tender, drain. I often make them a little more tender to make the mix a bit more creamy rather than crunchy. Let the potatoes cool.
Mash up the eggs in a bowl, and then mix with the celery and onion. Once that is well mixed, add the mayo, juice, vinegar, mustard, salt, and cayenne.
Add this mixture to the potatoes when cool, and mix well. Season to taste and enjoy!
And now, here's a sharp and tasty, warm, and German variety, adapted from the Big Book of Backyard Cooking.
German Potato Salad with Fresh Dill
Ingredients:
2 pounds of potatoes, red-skin or other handy variety 8 slices of bacon 3/4 cup red onion 1/2 cup white wine vinegar 2 tsp mustard -- Dijon or other specialty variety 2 tsp sugar Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 1/4 cup fresh dill, or a healthy handful
Boil the potatoes. If you're using red-skins, slice them into disks after boiling. If not, slice pre-boil. If your potatoes are huge, like the ones I used for the salad above, cut the potato in half lengthwise first. Drain when the potatoes are ready, put in a bowl and cover to keep warm.
Meanwhile, fry up the bacon. When it's done, chop it up. Keep 3 tbsp of bacon fat in the pan, add the chopped onion, and saute it until soft on medium, medium-low heat. Then whisk in vinegar, 1/2 cup water, the mustard, sugar, 2 tsp salt, and a 1/4 tsp of pepper. Let it simmer until the mixture is reduced by about 1/2.
Now there's one of two ways to do this. Either toss the potatoes in the skillet and then transfer to a bowl, or pour the contents over the potatoes, and then transfer them to another bowl. Once coated, sprinkle with the chopped bacon and chopped fresh dill, toss gently, season, and serve warm.
The salad season has begun for me, and I noticed these new Wish-Bone Bountifuls salad dressings at the supermarket the other day. They're flavorful, low fat, low calorie dressings that have real pieces of vegetables and fruits in them.
Sound good? Well, you can go to the store and buy a bottle of the dressing, then log in to their web site and sign up to get a mail-in rebate. The offer is good between May 30 and June 1 only.
While you're at the site, you can also plant a "digital garden." It's part of Wish-Bones campaign to get people to eat more salads and get healthier. The nature sound effects at the site are rather relaxing...
I feel like I'm revealing some deep, dark secret, but here goes: I microwave my salads.
Now, this isn't because I like my lettuce and carrots and salad dressing really hot, it's because of bacteria. I started doing this a couple of years ago, when we had all those recalls and scares involving pre-made bagged salads and spinach. I make my salad on a plate then zap it for about 20 seconds. Just enough to kill something but not make the salad get hot and shrivel.
Now, I have to stress that I have no idea if 20 seconds in the microwave will even do anything to destroy bacteria, but it makes me feel good anyway.
It sits alone and untouched at the end of a long buffet table -- a bowl full of apples and bananas, maybe a seedy orange tossed in as an afterthought. Don't let your fruit salad meet this awful fate, spruce it up instead!
Years ago, my friend showed me pictures of her tasty speared caprese salad appetizers -- a mainstay at her cocktail parties. Now, whenever it comes time to think about funky salads or tasty appetizers, I think back to her skewers and wonder how I can change them up into something new. What follows is one way that is absolutely perfect for kids.
Miniature Speared Caprese Salad Bites
Ingredients:
Miniature balls of bocconcini Cherry tomatoes Fresh basil Sea salt Freshly cracked black pepper Extra-virgin olive oil Vinegar (optional)
Plus: plastic cocktail swords
Assembly:
All the kids need to do is grab a cocktail sword, and alternate between the ingredients until its full. The easiest way would be to either do a cheese-basil-tomato-cheese configuration, or a tomato-basil-cheese-basil-tomato configuration. How much will fit on each sword depends on the size of the tomatoes, and the cheese. If size becomes an issue -- cut the bocconcini and tomatoes in half before skewering.
If your kids are allowed to use knives, they can slice the tomatoes in half first, or keep them whole. If you're not able to get fresh basil, substitute a sprinkling of the dried variety. It's not quite the same, but it will do in a pinch.
After they're assembled on a plate/tray, drizzle lightly with your evoo (and vinegar if it's being used) and then sprinkle the top with some salt and pepper.
What results is a fun appetizer or finger food start to the dinner, and it's one that your kids can have fun both making and playing with after -- once the mini salads have been eaten.
She might call this an ugly salad, but the Yum Neua (Thai beef salad) recipe that Pim posted about yesterday looks so very delicious -- the crinkle of the salad, the pink burst of the watermelon radish, and most importantly, the juicy red hue of a tasty piece of steak. These days, we're living in a world where lunch places think dry and grey is a good hue for roast beef, so this salad is making my inner foodie whimper.
Think about a dressing of limes, sugar, fish sauce, chili powder, shallots, and rice powder. Sounds good, doesn't it? And this mysterious rice powder -- it is utter simplicity. Pim says you just dry toast some rice grains until they're "brown and toasty." After they're cool, grind them up in your grinder of choice. It lasts as long as it takes you to eat it.
Now my brain is scheming up a million uses for rice powder...
Now I know what I'm going to do with all the fresh peas I saw at the Santa Fe farmer's market this weekend. Clotilde at 
I've been meaning for a while to write about healthy alternatives to the usual summer barbecue foods. My family hosted a desserts-only BBQ for this weekend (which turned into burgers and dogs BBQ), and I feel like I've been doing the circuit of barbecues featuring heavy slaws, burgers with lots of toppings, and rich chocolate chip cookies. While I love these foods as much as anyone, I'm trying to put together a list of the best alternative recipes from across the web to replace these often less-healthy favorites. Here's what I have:
I know that this is the web and just about anyone can publish something on a site, but I think we have to draw the line somewhere. I call that line "wiener soup."
The salad season has begun for me, and I noticed these new Wish-Bone Bountifuls salad dressings at the supermarket the other day. They're flavorful, low fat, low calorie dressings that have real pieces of vegetables and fruits in them. 
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