You want a tasty grilled vegetable salad? Oh gosh, is this one ever good. My friend Linda T. came to visit last week and she told me all about this recipe, telling me I just HAD to make it. It fit in perfectly with a rotisserie Greek lamb dinner I made last night. I doubled this recipe, and have just a little bit leftover after serving 7 people. Everybody liked it. I loved it. The recipe came from Ellie Krieger at the Food Network. I followed it to the letter.

Simply put, it’s nothing but grilled vegetables (bell peppers, onions, zucchini and eggplant) with a red wine vinegar, oregano and olive oil dressing drizzled over it, with some freshly cut tomatoes and crumbled Feta cheese. And some mint. The BEST part is you can make it up a few hours ahead (Dave was busy on the barbecue for quite awhile, he was quick to tell me) and let it sit at room temp until you’re ready to dress it and get it ready for serving. I poured it into the new bowl (pictured above) that Linda gave me for Christmas (thank you, Linda). Goes perfectly with my dishes. I didn’t have one of those curly edged bowls. Now I do. And I’ve got this great recipe which would be good any time of year.

Am sure you can change the ingredients a bit – use more or less of anything. But this combo of peppers, zucchini, eggplant and onion was perfect. A winner of a recipe.

A year ago: White Chocolate Bread Pudding
Two years ago: Seared Steak Salad

It’s been about 3 years since I posted this recipe, back in May of ‘07. And “keepers” sometimes need to be repeated – those recipes I would encourage you to make. Over and over. Cooked carrots have a bad rap sometimes. Remind people of baby food, or something.  But these little gems have a burst of flavor – from garlic, olive oil and lemon juice. And a little bit of ground cumin and brown sugar. They’re especially good if  you make them ahead and allow them to sit overnight in the dressing (chilled, of course). I like to let them sit out and get to room temp. You just need to briefly cook the carrots – you’ll want them to be just barely tender, or you can make them more crunchy if that’s your preference. The dressing is very easy to make (good at this time of year with ripe lemons filling bowls in my kitchen) and just stir it all up and let the carrots marinate. This is best with some kind of highly seasoned dinner – don’t serve this with a filet of sole, for instance. Not unless you’re making it with garlic and lemon juice. This recipe could also be made with zucchini – or maybe better yet, do both and serve them side by side. Would make a very colorful side dish.

What’s in this: carrots, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, ground cumin, brown sugar and parsley. And a bit of salt and pepper too. That’s it. Click HERE for the write-up I did back in ‘07. I took new pictures of the carrots, and will insert this new one in the old recipe since this one is much closer and clear!

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A year ago: A list of the 50 top blogs
Two years ago: Sugar Snap Pea Tops

In December my former investment club members met at my home for a potluck dinner. We’ve known for years that we have some great cooks in the group, and the food is always wonderful when we have such get-togethers. The club disbanded a few months ago, but we’ll still gather now and then for conversation and most years we have a December potluck dinner.

Anyway, one of the gals, Linda C., brought this salad to the potluck. It was SO good. It’s a curry flavored rice (cold) salad, and I just needed to have some cold chicken to chop up to make this. It also has bottled artichoke hearts in it (maybe not something you’d always have in your pantry) and a box of chicken flavored rice mix. The one I used was a 6-ounce package from “Farmhouse.” But any such rice mix would likely do. The other thing you might not stock in your pantry is pimiento-stuffed olives. As it happened, I didn’t have any of those, so the salad may have lacked something. I had red bell pepper instead of green, too. And since I only had 2 green onions, I added some finely minced red onion. So, you see, this salad can be adaptable to what you have on hand. But to be true to the recipe, you need two of the small jars of marinated artichoke hearts. And just a handful of the stuffed olives. And the green pepper too. I garnished the salad with some minced Italian parsley from our garden.

Just so you know, there’s only a teaspoon of curry powder in the salad, so it’s not overwhelming in the slightest. It could be omitted if you aren’t a curry fan, but I liked the light hint. Linda said this is an old standby, one she used to fix for her family when her children were young. Thanks for the recipe, Linda!

A year ago: Butternut Squash Soup (crockpot)
Two years ago: Coconut Banana Bread (a Cooking Light recipe – very good)

If you read my post yesterday, about steeping chicken, then you already know I made a chicken & greens salad. I had a recipe in my repertoire that I hadn’t tried before, from Michael Chiarello (Food Network), from 2006, according to my notes. His recipe was an arugula salad, with a citrus vinaigrette, with grilled chicken and a toasted spice rub. Well, I didn’t have time to go through all of that. Didn’t feel like doing the grill thing for just two chicken breasts. So I turned to an old stand-by chicken cooking method I haven’t used in a long time – submerging boneless, skinless chicken breasts in hot, just below boiling water and letting it sit. It’s like steeping tea – where tea takes 5 minutes to come to full flavor – chicken takes about 20-30 minutes to cook all the way through.

Meanwhile, I made the vinaigrette. You can see it there at the left, still in the food processor bowl. What intrigued me about this recipe was the use of whole oranges. It also has red onion, fresh sage, salt, pepper and olive oil. And it’s all made in the food processor. I added a bit of mayo for flavor.

If you want to use the original recipe for this, by all means go for it. Some people who made Chiarello’s version didn’t care for the dressing (too bitter or they thought it was unappetizing). I didn’t even read any of this before I made the dressing. It might depend on what kind of oranges you used – I used navel oranges (sweet) and they actually had quite a bit of pith attached, so am surprised it wasn’t more bitter than it is. I like the dressing – it’s refreshing. But I added mayo to it, too (not in the original recipe). With all the fruit in it, the dressing comes through as a low-fat type.

That was my aim – something lighter in fat, not so heavy as a traditional olive oil dressing.

I defrosted the chicken, steeped it in just plain water, made a different rendition of the spice rub (without toasting)  that I sprinkled all over the cooked thicken.

Here at the right you can see the moist, tender chicken strips that I tossed with the spice rub I’d made. All I did was sprinkle, turn, sprinkle turn, sprinkle turn, etc. Not overwhelming in flavor, but you definitely got the chile flavor. Mixed with the other spices in the rub, it made for delicious morsels of chicken.

I tossed the salad portion with the dressing – tasted it and added more dressing, then poured the salads out onto plates and decorated the tops with the spice-rubbed chicken strips, sliced avocado and Parmigiano-Reggiano shards. I have a ton of dressing left over, so will have to be creative with how I use it. This salad may not appeal to everyone – if you like the sour cream blue cheese type wedge salads, this won’t fit. This is a light salad, with a refreshing hint of the orange. It’s not overwhelming. And it’s also low-fat. I’m not including the calorie count because the directions include the nearly 2 cups of dressing, and I used about 1/3 cup for two salads.

A year ago: Alabama White Sauce (for Chicken)
Two years ago: Thai Chicken Chile Soup

As a blogger, it’s very fun when a friend brings to a potluck dinner a recipe you’ve made before (and enjoyed) but haven’t made recently. Meaning this recipe hasn’t been on my blog before because the last time I made it I didn’t HAVE a blog. So I took the liberty of taking a quick snapshot of this lentil salad brought by my friend Ann N. at our get-together the other night.

The recipe comes from Zov Karamardian, the owner/chef at Zov’s Bistro, a very popular eatery in our neighborhood. Zov is also owner of Zov’s Bakery. There are several locations now of the Bistro, all here in Orange County, California. We’ve been enjoying Zov’s good recipes for years.

There are two versions of this salad – the one published in our local paper (a more simplified version) – and the one published in Zov’s cookbook, called ‘>Zov: Recipes and Memories from the Heart. Ann prepared the cookbook version. I could tell because this salad has tomatoes, arugula and Feta cheese in it. The other one doesn’t. What “makes” this dish, though, to my palate, is the lemon juice. It gives this salad such zing. The lentils are the base, but really, the chopped vegetables are the main components. Yet, the lentils add a nice chewy texture to dish.

At the restaurants, Zov serves the simplified salad as a little tiny complement to sandwiches (usually without the arugula and tomatoes). The restaurant varies what they put in it – sometimes they add corn or peas. Whatever is in it, it’s a small portion – like about a quarter of a cup’s worth. Never enough. Zov suggests this also works well as a side dish to grilled meats. Yup. I know I’ve made this in the past for great summer barbecue dinners. This is one great salad, especially if you enjoy lemon juice. It’s also healthy since the lentils have great nutritional value, and extra virgin olive oil provides the only fat. This could also be a main dish if you enjoy this type of salad that way. Whatever way, you’ll want to save this recipe. And thanks Ann, for letting me take a photo of your salad!

A year ago: Pineapple Noodle Kugel
Two years ago: Almond Custard

For any number of years at Thanksgiving dinner I made a Jell-O salad with peach flavor(I think Jell-O used to produce a peach flavor, but in more recent years I’ve found only somebody else’s brand instead), filled with apples, celery and walnuts. My mother used to make a frozen fruit cocktail kind of salad with peeled grapes, of all things, mixed with whipped cream and frozen in a can, then sliced into a large discs and served on a lettuce leaf. I thought it was too rich, so when I began cooking the big feast I changed to other things. That’s when the Jell-O salad hit my radar back in the 1960’s. And it stayed there for a whole lot of years.

Why did I make Jell-O? Well, it was something I could make ahead; it wasn’t heavy; it had a sweet hint to it so it fit in with the turkey meal quite well; and it also offered crunch. When you think about it . . . follow along with me here . . . what else is on the plate? Turkey? Soft. Dressing? Soft. Mashed Potatoes? Soft. Sweet potatoes? Soft. Gravy? Really Soft. Peas maybe? Soft. Maybe a corn casserole? Very soft. Rolls maybe? Soft. See where I’m going here? Everything else about Thanksgiving is soft food. Tasty, but without much texture. So I liked the bit of crunch offered by the apple, celery and nuts in the gelatin salad. But then one of our grown daughters begged for a green salad. She loves green salad. Okay, so I made green salad, even though I didn’t exactly think a garden salad went with the meal all that well, but it was okay. Lots of people did eat it. I didn’t make both a green and a gelatin salad, though. So for some years I’ve made green salad as our only side salad.

Until this year, that is. This new recipe will be a part of my Thanksgiving dinner. It is so festive. And colorful!  It is crunchy (from the apples and pecans). Much of it can be made ahead too. Although you do have to compose it just before serving, that’s all. I suppose you could just mix this all up together, but it would lose something, I think. Some people wouldn’t get many cranberries; others would get too many apples, or nary any. And it definitely wouldn’t be as pretty as the individual plated version. I’ll be able to assign the assembly task to one of our dinner guests.

The recipe for this salad came from a Thanksgiving cooking class with Phillis Carey. That woman is a wonder – she comes up with the most interesting ideas, this being one of them. The lime juice dressing was perfect for it. And again Phillis shared a kitchen tip with us that I keep forgetting. Did you know that if you want to keep apples from getting brown you just cover the chopped fruit or slices with Sprite. Yes, Sprite, the carbonated beverage. Not Diet Sprite, but the real stuff. And Phillis assured us that the apples keep at room temp for 4-5 hours without getting brown. Then you pour out the Sprite. She keeps a big bottle of it in her spare refrigerator. Stale Sprite. The apples don’t care that it doesn’t have any more fizz in it. You can’t use Diet – it doesn’t contain citric acid. Neither does 7-Up, or any other lemon-lime soda. Just SPRITE! So I now have a small stash of Sprite in my pantry. I just keep forgetting this great kitchen gem.

So anyway, back to this salad. Phillis calls it layered because it is sort-of layered on the plate. There’s a lettuce layer on the bottom, the apple pecan layer (you drain off the Sprite and discard it) on top of that, kind of in a flat mound in the middle, then you make a small well in the middle of the apples and spoon in a bit of the fresh cranberry/sugar mixture that sat overnight in the refrigerator. That’s it. The apple mixture can be prepared ahead (remember, Sprite soaking), the pecans toasted and chopped, the green onions sliced ahead, even the salad mixture too. The dressing would be best whisked together just before serving, BUT have all the ingredients handy and it should take no more than about 2 minutes to whisk it up. Half goes on the apples (drained of their Sprite), the other half on the lettuce. I’m telling you, this salad is a must fix. Even for some other time of year if you have access to cranberries!

A year ago: Mushroom Soup with Meatballs & Cream
Two years ago: Pumpkin Bread Pudding

Reading as many recipes as I do in the course of a few months, unless I make notes, or recognize the print style, I can’t recall where I read or heard about a recipe. Such with this one. I think it was on somebody’s blog that I read about it. And the writer sent us off to the New York Times’ website to retrieve it, which I did, as it was in that week’s food section. I think. It wasn’t all that long ago – like a month. It’s  a Mark Bittman recipe – he of restaurant and TV fame. And cookbook fame too – he’s done one or more books about the “Best” of specific recipes (kind of like Cook’s Illustrated in a way). I don’t own any of his tomes. But, I will tell you this recipe is awfully darned good. When I did a search for this recipe I noticed a lot of other food bloggers are on this recipe’s bandwagon too. I’m  delighted to join the parade.

It’s a salad, or a side vegetable combo. The list of ingredients is simple: sweet potatoes (I used the dark orange type we call yams), onions, both roasted with olive oil, S&P, then tossed with some canned black beans (rinsed & drained), some minced bell peppers, a passel of cilantro chopped, and then the very simple dressing (pictured at left) of olive oil, some minced green chile (hot type like jalapeno), garlic and lime juice. Very simple. And very extra delicious, I assure you. The recipe said to toss the salad with the dressing just before serving, but I think soaking it in the dressing for awhile just brightened all the flavors. There was still a bit of dressing in the bottom of the bowl which I just left there for the leftovers. My first foray into Mark Bittman’s world produced a great recipe. I’d make this again anytime.

A year ago: Peppers for Cold Meats (a kind of relish – I liked it so much I’ve posted about it twice and have made it 3 times in the last 6 months)

Does this salad ring a nostalgic bell in your head? I know my mother used to make something like this when I was very young. I think her concoction was just peas, cheese and mayo. Maybe it included some chopped-up sweet pickle. My friend Norma, who is recovering from major surgery, is trying to eat a few more things – like veggies – not just the puddings and smooth things she was eating a few weeks ago. That’s progress, I think. So I asked her what sounded good. She mentioned a pea salad with cheese cubes in it. Sure thing. She also thought green beans sounded good. So I cooked up a batch of baby green beans with bacon and onion. And I tried to create a pea salad that would intrigue her taste buds. She nixed the pickles (I only had relish, and that didn’t appeal to her).

But I added in some other things that may not have been in any of the 1950 era recipes – like bacon. A few recipes I found included macaroni, so I dug around in my pasta stash and found these baby tubes. And I included some hard boiled eggs in the salad too. I scooped out a small portion for us to eat and took the bulk of it to Norma. The salad is really good – amazing how just some simple ingredients can taste so good. Not exactly gourmet, but hey, once in awhile we need comfort food, right?

A year ago: Chicken Chili
Two years ago: Chocolate Almond Biscotti

In a few days I’m going to post a recipe that’s really designed to go with this – a broiled salmon (in the photo) with an Asian glaze to go on it. And this salad, this noodle salad, is the bed on which you would place the salmon fillet. But this noodle dish is good on its own, so that’s why I’m posting it separately. Except for bean sprouts, I could make this salad almost any day of the week, since I almost always have carrots, celery, green onions, cilantro and spaghetti on hand.

This salad is not overwhelming with Asian flavors – probably another reason I liked it so much. The recipe came from a cooking class with Phillis Carey. It’s served at room temp. You can have everything chopped up and ready ahead of time. Just don’t throw it all together until you’re about ready to serve it. I also recommend you use low sodium soy sauce. Actually I reduced the amount of soy sauce in the recipe (1/2 cup instead of 2/3) because it could tend to be too salty. If the salty soy doesn’t bother you, then use the 2/3 cup. Phillis said she usually uses sugar snap peas instead of celery – it would make it ever-so much prettier with the bright green of the peas. She also uses agave nectar when she makes it, so I put that in (and reduced the amount because the original called for 1/4 cup sugar). If you don’t have agave, use the full complement of sugar.

Surely this salad would be good as leftovers – just tuck it away in the refrigerator and toss it again when you want some. Possibly the bean sprouts wouldn’t survive more than a day, though, and add some more cilantro too. Celery sometimes gets soggy once it’s in dressing. But the taste would be fine. Serve it with any kind of grilled fish, I would think. Or pork chops with an Asian hint. Or chicken also with an Asian bent.

Two years ago: Lentil Soup (my dad’s recipe)

A week or so ago the doorbell rang, and it was a gentleman who sells frozen meat products in our area. Now normally I might be suspicious of any door-to-door truck with food, but the company has a website, and they have sales agreements with restaurants and end consumers. Some who have a standing order once a month. Or twice a month. The first intriguing thing that hooked me was the fact that they carry Newport Meat Co. meats (mostly beef and lamb). Having had a tour of that wholesale meat company here in Newport Beach, once upon a time, and having purchased (and eaten) their superior meats from time to time, I knew this might be a good thing. The company, this personal-truck-delivery, Personal Gourmet, sells line-caught fish, Kobe, prime and top choice Angus beef, free range poultry and pork, lamb and veal.

Recently I’ve been trying hard to empty out our freezers. Well, not empty, but at least use some of the meat and other things in them. They’re so full I can hardly get anything in there. So, of course, there WAS some room when this fellow stopped by. In the end, I decided to try two items – Australian, very large shrimp and bone-in double thick pork chops. We  haven’t tried the latter yet, but will soon. And I dug into the shrimp bags the other night to try these big, meaty shrimp.

If you’ve been reading my blog for long, then you know that I’m more than a little leery of most shrimp. I don’t buy Asian shrimp, period. Having read an article awhile back about some of the questionable conditions shrimp are raised in farmed beds, it said to seek out American shrimp. Which are hard to find. I don’t know anything about Australian, but I sort of assumed these would be as good as. What they are, are HUGE. Not like the Mexican Guaymas shrimp that are about 4 inches across, but these are big – nearly as long as an avocado (see picture). Our meat guy said 2 of them were a serving. So I was a good girl and just defrosted 4 shrimp.

This salad was very simple to put together. I started with a recipe I’d clipped out of an old Cooking Light magazine. I didn’t have all the ingredients, so I improvised (walnuts instead of pumpkin seeds, blueberries instead of mango, fennel instead of radishes). I also changed the dressing a bit after reading the reviews online for this recipe. More olive oil was called for, I thought, and I added some agave nectar to sweeten the dressing a little. Oh, and I added croutons, since I had some on hand.

We liked the salad very much. I stuck fairly closely to the dressing ingredients (although I doctored the quantities), and we definitely liked the flavor combination (garlic, lime juice, seasoned rice vinegar, cumin, paprika). But because I had the nice, big shrimp, I left them whole rather than cut them up into smaller pieces. Your choice. In addition, I reduced the amount of shrimp (the original recipe called for more than a cup apiece).

A year ago: About Penzey’s jarred broth concentrates