What makes meatloaf Italian? The addition of Italian sausage, Italian seasonings AND some grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, of course! Was it good? Yes, indeed!

Family was visiting – the part of my family that’s likes the basics – a good hunk of meat, carbs, veggies and maybe a salad. The first night of their visit we had grilled pork chops with a cold orzo salad. Nothing fancy. The next night I decided to make meatloaf – I hadn’t made it in ages. As a widow/single person, making a meatloaf sounds like 5 dinners in a row and I’d be bored with it after about two. I could have used my old-favorite recipe, Meatloaf with Sweet and Sour Sauce, which has been a family favorite for decades. But I thought I’d change it up a bit. Not knowing what to do exactly, I went on the ‘net and searched for how all the Food Network chefs make their meatloaf and I picked and chose amongst the variations and made up my own. I suppose it could be said that as long as the basics are there, it’s hard to screw up a meatloaf, no matter what you put in it.

This one . . . first I minced up carrot, celery and onion and sautéed it in a little oil until the veggies were completely wilted. Meanwhile, into a big bowl I added lots of lean ground beef, some Italian sausage (actually what I had was turkey Italian sausage that I squeezed out of its casing), a heaping handful of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, seasonings (including a hearty bunch of Slap Yo Mama Cajun seasonings), bread that I soaked in milk and squished up with my hands so there were virtually no visible pieces left, 3 eggs and the cooled veggies. I mushed that up, as you do have to do with meatloaf and I literally poured it into a big oval baking dish. I shaped it a bit and topped it with loads of Heinz ketchup (my favorite brand, when I do use ketchup, which isn’t all that often) and baked it for 1 1/2 hours until the internal temperature reached about 158°F. Websites say to remove meatloaf between 155-160°F.

Usually mashed potatoes are my carb of choice for meatloaf, but I made lime cilantro rice instead (recipe coming up soon) which actually was a very nice side dish for it. It was a hit.

What’s GOOD: I really, really liked this mixture. The addition of Italian sausage added a different flavor component – I could taste it – it was probably the fennel that was what I tasted that made me think of Italian sausage since I’d used turkey Italian sausage. But I also added the grated Parmigiano too, and oodles of Italian seasonings. The bread/milk mixture lightened the meatloaf – it was amazingly tender when sliced, and although you really couldn’t taste the carrots and celery and onion, you could barely see them peppered throughout the meatloaf. An altogether great recipe. I’ll make it again for sure.

What’s NOT: hmmm. I can’t think of anything I didn’t like about this. My family enjoyed it – no complaints from them.

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What a lovely and tasty salad this is. It’s different – a little – because it’s served either warm or at room temp, and the Feta cheese adds such a lovely texture and the toasted walnuts too. Those are greens (baby spinach) mixed into the HOT salad, so they wilt.

My good friend Yvette made this salad at my house – so she gets all the credit for it. I provided some pots and pans, the bowl, pans for toasting the nuts, a cutting board, etc. At the very end we all tasted it to see whether it needed more feta or salt, or greens (yes, it did).

The recipe came from a cooking class Yvette took near her home, and it’s from Nancy Madok (a graduate of one of the C.I.A. culinary schools). I wasn’t able to find a website for her, but she gives cooking classes in her home in north San Diego County. Yvette has taken a number of classes from her over the last couple of years. So, the recipe credit goes to Nancy for a stellar recipe.

Pancetta is sautéed, then some red onions. A Dijon vinaigrette is made that contains quite a bit of fresh basil and lemon juice. Orzo pasta is cooked and drained, walnuts toasted, then you toss the orzo with all the other ingredients, while the orzo is hot, so the baby spinach greens wilt. You can serve it then – with the Feta and walnuts sprinkled on top, or mix it all in – doesn’t matter! Or, you can let it cool to room temperature (after a couple of hours I think I’d refrigerate it) and serve it that way. That’s how we had it, with a bit more dressing mixed in (pasta absorbs a lot of dressing if you leave it to sit) and some more Feta sprinkled over the top. There was just a little bit left over and I’m the happy recipient of that! Yippee.

This would make a lovely buffet salad either hot or room temp. I think you could make almost everything ahead of time – I’d toss the pasta with the spinach and some of the dressing and let it sit, refrigerated. Have everything else in a separate container and just toss it together when you’re ready to serve and add most of the dressing and leave a few pieces of walnuts and Feta to put on top. Taste for salt and pepper.

What’s GOOD: this was a GREAT salad. At the gathering where Yvette served this, there were about 15 other salads, so I’m happy it wasn’t all eaten! With the leftovers I’m going to mix in some additional baby spinach (that won’t wilt) and some more Feta too. As I’m writing this I have family coming for a week, so that will make a great accompaniment to some grilled pork chops.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of. It’s a great summer salad. Wonderful flavors throughout. You do have to make the dressing, cook the pasta, toast nuts, etc. but it’s not overly labor intensive, all things considered.

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Oh my goodness, this was so delicious. The tenderest cake you can imagine, with a simple boiled frosting that’s spread on the hot cake, right out of the oven.

Having been invited to a fairly large backyard barbecue get-together, my friend Cherrie asked me to bring dessert. Knowing they were expecting close to 40 people, I knew I needed to make something to serve a lot of people (although, others brought dessert too). I’d wavered between making a lemon bundt cake, or a butterscotch poke cake, or a rum cake, but finally settled on this one. A recipe I’d never made before, but it had gotten raves (according to my notes) on some website. I have no idea where it came from.

What I will tell you, though, is that you need to have a pan that’s not all that common in most kitchens – it’s a 10×15 pan, rimmed. I think mine is 1 1/2” high on the sides. If  you do a Google search for 10×15 jelly roll pan, you’ll find numerous sources for that size. It’s bigger than a quarter sheet pan, and it’s larger than a 9×13 also. I do have a number of recipes for this particular pan (not  jelly roll cakes!) and am glad I have it. Most of these pans don’t have very high sides, but this cake does need at least a 1” side or it would overflow.

Anyway, It’s a very regular cake – this one made with cocoa (I used Hershey’s dark, a favorite), oil, eggs, butter, buttermilk (which gives it that oh-so tender crumb) and a fairly healthy dose of ground cinnamon. While the cake is baking – toward the end of the 20-minute cooking time I mixed up the frosting (on the stovetop) – it also uses cocoa, a little bit of whipping cream, butter, powdered sugar and nuts. It’s very easy to make – there isn’t anything fussy about it. It’s not a liquid, but it’s not really stiff, either. There is JUST enough of the frosting to delicately spread (use an offset spatula if you have one) the frosting over the top of the hot cake. I suggest putting a bunch of little dollops of the frosting all over the cake so it’s easier to spread it out. Getting out to the corners is the hardest, if you can call it “hard.” You can add the nuts to the frosting (I did, so they’d definitely stay put) or you can sprinkle the nuts on top after spreading the frosting and just press them into the frosting a bit). I used walnuts, but pecans are an optional nut.

Having made this, I THINK this is a riff on a Texas sheet cake. I’ve never made one of those, but I suspect that’s what this is, but with the buttermilk it makes it so tender.

Well, rather than go on and on about it – just move to the next paragraph and read the results!

What’s GOOD: The cake got raves. Absolutely raves. Me included. Some friends from San Diego who were invited to the party came to stay with me – they had to sample the cake before we even left my house! SO, I did too. It’s a fabulous cake – very chocolaty, very tender, but cut into lots of small bar-shapes, each piece was about 2-3 bites at most. I’m sorry there weren’t leftovers to bring home. I’d love-me one of those right now! The cinnamon is very THERE – if you don’t like cinnamon, just leave it out, or reduce it significantly in both cake and frosting. I loved the cinnamon flavor – such a complement to the chocolate.

What’s NOT: nary a thing except you’ll have sticky chocolate frosting fingers unless you eat it with a fork! This recipe is a keeper, for sure.

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A Dutch Baby. Oh my. So delicious. This one with a layer of sliced apples that have been cooked with a bit of butter, cinnamon and brown sugar. Then the puff pancake mixture is poured in. Yes!

It’s been years since I’d had one of these treasures. Years ago I used to go to a pancake house in Denver that had it on the menu. It was served plain, sprinkled with powdered sugar and a wedge of lemon to drizzle on top. I recall that I ordered it fairly often. Many years ago I tried to make one and my recollection is that it failed – it didn’t rise. It didn’t have that characteristic popover-type custardy tender texture.

These things are also called a German pancake, a Bismarck, or a Dutch puff. Normally it’s made in a cast iron frying pan. According to Wikipedia, which cites Sunset magazine as its source, Dutch babies (by that name) were introduced in the early 1900s at a restaurant in Seattle, called Manca’s Café. It was family run, and one of the daughters is said to have coined the name, Dutch Baby.

A few months ago I was reading someone’s facebook page and it contained one of those rip-roaring fast videos of how to make an apple Dutch baby. I watched it twice and determined then and there that I’d try making it again. So, a week or so later I went to my friend’s facebook page to watch it again, and it was gone. Huh? I emailed my friend and asked about it – she had no idea about any Dutch Baby video on her page. So I did some sleuthing – I couldn’t remember where it had come from, but I finally found it. I think – although I’m not certain about this, so don’t quote me – that if you ever DO allow one of these video sources to post a video on your facebook page, you have right then and there, agreed to let that source company post more videos to your facebook page without your knowledge. I finally found the video at tiphero. I’m not going to give you the link because if in fact that’s what they do, I don’t want to be spreading the problem. The recipe for this dish can be found at other places on the web.

Making this recipe, the proportions and directions came from their website. According to Wikipedia, there is a formula, for every 1/4 cup flour, you need to have 1/4 cup milk – very similar to a popover batter. And for every 1/4 cup of those you need an egg. So, 3/4 cup flour, 3/4 cup milk and 3 eggs. The apple slices are cooked in a bit of butter, then removed. The pan is wiped clean (so the butter doesn’t burn) and you heat up the iron skillet in a 425°F oven for 8-10 minutes, so it’s literally smoking hot. Handle with care! Remove the pan, melt a bit more butter, pour in the apples, then pour in the batter. And back into that hot oven it goes for 18-20 minutes. Mine was done at 18. Again, I was very careful with it because that pan is really hot. I slipped the pancake out onto my serving plate, and I’m embarrassed to tell you that with the exception of about 3 bites, I ate the whole thing. It was my dinner. I relished and I mean relished every single bite! You don’t have to make it with apples – I just liked the idea of it.

What’s GOOD: Oh gosh. I thought it was fabulous. But then I also love popovers, though I never make them. This was quite easy to do – just have everything ready when you start, and be prepared when it comes out of the oven to eat it immediately. No fiddling around with setting the table or pouring a glass of milk. No. Serve. Sit. Eat.

What’s NOT: nothing at all – it was quite easy and was a special treat for me.

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What do you think of when you hear “Greek marinade?” Lemon juice? Olive oil? Garlic? Yes, all of the above plus oregano. This recipe is more lemon juice than oil and enhanced with some red pepper flakes.

Recently I had a houseguest, Jennifer, who is vegan, but also doesn’t eat a lot of other things as well. I can’t say that it was exactly hard to cook for her, but it was a bit foreign to cook for her. My cousin was along too, and he must eat GF. So one night I made the pasta recipe I made not too long ago, Pasta alla Trapenese with Eggplant. But we had to eat it with lentil (GF) linguine. And because Jennifer was very interested in having more veggies in the dish, I added a bunch of other things, which totally diluted the flavor from the eggplant, which, to me, was the star of the dish. I couldn’t even taste the eggplant. And I’ll just tell you, I didn’t much like the lentil linguine. It was mushy and I cooked it less time than the box suggested. I count myself lucky that I’m not allergic to wheat.

So the next evening I made an old favorite created by Paul Prudhomme, The BEST Bean Salad, one that’s been on my blog for years. I didn’t fiddle with the recipe at all (it’s extremely low in fat). It was all Jennifer had for dinner except for an English muffin she microwaved with some fake shredded cheese (non-dairy and not soy based, either) on top. But Gary was craving some meat, I think, so I defrosted boneless, skinless chicken breasts and had wanted to try this Greek marinade anyway. The bean salad has very similar seasonings (lots of oregano), so the two dishes were a complement to one another.

The marinade was simple enough to make – I found the recipe over at Julie’s Lifestyle blog. I tinkered with her recipe just a tiny bit – all the main ingredients are there, I just slightly adjusted the amounts. It’s a wonderful combination – the lemon juice is the star of the show, and it shines through in the grilled result – I thought it was wonderful. I’m extremely careful when grilling chicken breasts (boneless) because they can go from moist and juicy, to dry and inedible in a matter of a minute or two. Use an instant read thermometer and take chicken breasts off at 150°F. If you use chicken thighs, they need to cook until they reach 165°F. If you’re combining both types, put the thighs on first, then the breasts during the last 6-8 minutes as they cook in no time at all.

What’s GOOD: the lemon flavor for sure. Cooked perfectly, to 150°F, they were SO juicy and tender. Easy.

What’s NOT: for some it would be cooking/grilling to that exact temperature – an instant read thermometer is a must here. If you don’t have one in your gadget arsenal, you need one!

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No, those aren’t cherry tomatoes in there – they’re cute little balls of watermelon, mixed into a delicious salad garnished with macadamia nuts and Gorgonzola cheese. And the dressing . . . well, read on.

My friend Joan L has been mentioned many times on this blog – I’ve garnered a number of recipes which I’ve posted – she’s most famous amongst her friends for a fabulous pasta salad, appropriately called Joan’s Pasta Salad! It’s a winner of a recipe and very easy to make. Joan is a very good cook and I’m happy to share another of her recipes. She brought this to a potluck dinner we had in 2011 when we were bidding farewell to dear friends, Sue and Lynn, who moved to Colorado (some of Sue’s recipes are here on my blog too). Joan gave me the recipe and I filed it and hadn’t made its acquaintance since then.

Having been invited to a luncheon, I needed to bring a salad of some kind and I chose this one. Six ladies made salads, and mine was the only one containing greens! How funny! There were two orzo and shrimp salads to make an appearance, but they were both very different. What makes this one unique: (1) the dressing contains some fruit, which is a bit unusual; (2) macadamia nuts – not too many, which is good since they are quite dear; and (3) the watermelon, which doesn’t make many appearances in green salads!

Joan’s recipe comes from The Beach House Restaurant in Poipu, Kauai. I don’t know how she came by the recipe – perhaps it’s on the web already . . . I haven’t searched. But it’s a real winner. It’s unique and very special. You might not make this for a weeknight dinner since it does take a bit of time to make. The dressing contains some seedless raspberry jam (Smucker’s makes a good one) and some pureed fresh strawberries. Although it’s somewhat sweet (from the fruit and jam) it seems to blend in perfectly with the mixture of greens and nuts and cheese. The recipe, as is, makes about twice as much dressing as you’ll need. You could halve it and be fine for serving 6, I’m sure.

Once you prep all the different components (the sliced onion, sliced or shaved carrot, crumbled cheese, watermelon, chopped and toasted macadamia nuts) they could be set aside for awhile. The dressing can be made in a shaker jar, for sure and made ahead too. The salad gets tossed with the dressing. I found that the salad needed a bit more dressing than some – I think that’s because the other garnishes aren’t dressed with the salad, so it’s nice to have ample dressing on the greens. You can make the salad on a platter to pass, or make individually plated salads; either one works fine. I tried it both ways. The original recipe called for watermelon wedges to be placed around the edge of the plate (my guess is this is an entrée salad). But I didn’t want wedges, so I made melon balls and actually when I served it, I mixed the melon balls into the salad (after the dressing was tossed with the greens).

What’s GOOD: everything about this salad is lovely. It’s a bit sweet and savory, with unusual ingredients like macadamia nuts and Gorgonzola crumbles. Really delicious.

What’s NOT: if you don’t like sweet dressings, you won’t like this; otherwise it’s a stellar recipe.

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Tuna, pasta, some pickle action, radishes, celery and ample pepper. Oh yes, mayo. A nice salad for a warm summer’s day.

Lately it seems like I’ve allowed my palate, my wants, to rule what I fix in my kitchen. This day, I was craving tuna and I nearly made my favorite tuna salad, posted here on my blog ages ago, Sicilian Tuna Salad. BUT, I thought I might try something different. I used Eat Your Books to help me find something from my own cookbook collection, and sure enough, it located a tuna and pasta salad from Amanda Hesser’s cookbook, The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century. I did have to substitute a few things – I thought I had cornichons, but couldn’t locate them in my refrigerator, so I added some dill pickles instead. I also didn’t have chow chow and Tennessee chow chow to boot – that’s not something I ever stock since I really don’t eat it. It sounds like something my grandmother used to can every summer. Can you still buy chow chow? Anyway, what I did have were peppadew peppers (sweet – see photo at left), so I added those instead (see them, some of the little red pieces in the photo). I also added radishes – just because I love them. Those weren’t in the recipe at all. Amanda used little elbow macaroni – I didn’t have any of that, either, so I used penne rigate.

You could say that this is a totally different salad – I used less mayo too. It took no time at all to mix this up – waiting for the pasta to cook, drain and cool took the longest. And since it made a bunch, I’ll have it for lunch several more times. I’ll likely be very tired of it before I eat it all. I should have cut it in half . . . the recipe indicated it served 1-2, but gosh no, it made a lot; enough for 3-4 lunch sized portions. Maybe more.

What’s GOOD: what can you say about a tuna pasta salad? It was good. Not exactly sensational – truthfully, my other tuna salad, the Sicilian one I linked above – is better, but this one was very good nevertheless. I’ll enjoy eating it, but when/if I get a craving again, I’ll go back to my favorite one (it doesn’t use mayo). This one is liberally slathered with it – if you don’t like mayo, you definitely wouldn’t like this salad.

What’s NOT: really nothing. Perhaps if I’d had chow chow (Tennessee chow chow, excuse me) and cornichons, that might have made the salad a bit different. I’m not sure.

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For some reason I’ve neglected to add this cake to my blog. Good heavens! I used to make it often when our kids were living at home. It’s made with a cake mix and doesn’t have all that much Kahlua in it, but it’s divinely delicious and decadent. It comes together in a flash.

When I was visiting with my daughter Sara, she decided to whip together this cake and said, “this is your cake; remember, we used to make it all the time.” Sure enough, we did. I think this cake was my old business partner Audre’s recipe. Probably she made it for one of our potluck lunches we had at the office once in awhile. Remember when cake mix bundt cakes were just “the thing?” Everybody was making them, with rum or bourbon, or other types of alcohol additions.

This one is made with a regular cake mix – remember back then, BEFORE the cake mix producers started adding the pudding mix into the cake. I suppose you could use that type in this, then just eliminate the instant pudding. But I like this one the way it is, so we chose not to use that type. It makes a very tender cake, and VERY chocolaty. Sara made this in a jiffy – in her stand mixer she added the box mix, instant pudding, eggs, oil, the Kahlua. Then you stir in the chocolate chips, and into the bundt cake pan it went. Once baked and cooled, I made a very thin drizzle to go on it as it looked a little bare on the pretty platter with nothing. Guess you could use powdered sugar too – easier.

Sara ended up using the new Hershey brand dark chocolate pudding INSTANT mix. It worked just fine, and I’ll tell you, the chocolate flavor was intense. I think when I made it years ago I used a devil’s food cake or a German chocolate mix (one of those has a reddish tinge to the finished and baked cake) and regular Jell-O brand instant pudding. I never buy the regular Jell-O pudding anymore because I’m in love with the Hershey’s dark chocolate one.

If you look at that photo at left, you can hardly SEE the cake it’s so dark. I Photoshop’d it, to lighten it, so you could perhaps see some of the cake texture in the photograph.

What’s GOOD: everything about it. If you like chocolate, and Kahlua, well, you’ll love it all. Very intense chocolate flavor, especially if you use a dark chocolate cake mix and the Hershey’s dark chocolate instant pudding mix.

What’s NOT: nothing whatsoever. If you’re willing to eat boxed cake mixes, this one’s a winner; has been for generations of home cooks! This recipe probably exists in a thousand places on the internet already!

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I don’t know where I’d been, until 2-3 years ago when I first heard or read about tres leches (three milks) cake. I became a fan instantly. Shall I say I must have been on a turnip truck? I was served it somewhere and knew eventually I’d make it myself. But I needed a reason to make a big 9×13 pan full of it. There is a boxed mix for this cake, but as with most such mixes, it is a 4th cousin twice removed, to the real thing, this one, made from scratch.

Making this is NOT all that hard – I bake all the time – so don’t know why I’d put off trying it. But if I’d made it for myself – for some small gathering and only used 3-4 pieces of it, then I’d have had a huge pan of it. This isn’t something you’d want to eat every day for a week. Plan on the scales giving you bad news. As it was, my granddaughter Sabrina, the one who just graduated from HS in early June, wanted tres leches cake for the party her mom and dad threw for her a few days after the graduation. I took all the stuff to Sara’s house (my daughter, Sabrina’s mom) and made it the day before. Most recipes say it’s best if allowed to soak in the three milks for 8-24 hours. I’ve found some recipes that say it only needs an hour or so to soak up most of the milk, but I didn’t want to chance it, so I did do it the day before. It does need to be refrigerated throughout the process.

The recipe I used made a pretty large bowl of the milk-combo, and suggested you not add it all to the cake, but to reserve some to spoon onto the plate when it’s served. Well, with this being a buffet kind of thing, we didn’t do that part, but the cake itself was plenty oozy with milk without the addition. Sara has a cup or more of the milk mixture in her refrigerator. Don’t really know what you’d do with it once the cake is gone! Guess you could make a custard? Or a pudding. In the recipe I used it suggested adding rum, which I did, but truthfully, none of us could taste it. Not at all. We also used a few pinches of cinnamon in the whipped cream, and I couldn’t taste that, either. I guess the milk flavor predominated!

First you make a sponge cake (you know, egg yolks and whites whipped up separately so the egg whites folded in give the cake height and tenderness). Once the cake is baked and cooled, you pour the milks on top – evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk and some other combination of half and half, regular whole milk or heavy cream. The milks absorb from the bottom. At that stage the cake is covered and refrigerated. If you happen to have a 9×13 pan that has a lid, I recommend it! I made this in a disposable foil pan just because it was easier for storage (they come with lids too).

I recommend you use an instant read thermometer for the cake – we  used a toothpick and it came out clean after 18 minutes of baking, but it definitely was not done as the center sunk once out of the oven. We were able to use all the cake around the outer edges and had plenty. Sara doesn’t have an instant read thermometer. Cakes should cook to about 205°. This cake had pulled away from the sides, so we thought it was done, but it wasn’t. I’ve included notes in the recipe about this aspect of the cake baking.

The next day you make whipped cream (with sugar and vanilla) and since we were serving a crowd, I cut the cake into small servings (there were other desserts served) and dolloped the top of each with the cream. The cake did sit out at room temp for several hours then, and the few pieces left over went back into the pan. If you were serving this as the only dessert, I guess you could get at least 15 servings out of the pan, maybe more. The cake is rich, so you don’t really want to serve a lot of it, delicious as it is!

Certainly the cake will keep for a few days, but not much longer than that. Eventually the milk mixture will spoil, especially if it’s allowed to sit out, so do plan to eat it up within 3-4 days at the most. As time goes by, the bottom of each cake piece becomes rather unstable because it’s milk-logged. The top half or third doesn’t absorb any of the milk, so when I tried to move the left over pieces back into the baking pan for storage, they kind of fell apart. I learned to only move one piece at a time, then it stayed mostly together.

What’s GOOD: I love this cake. Period. I like dairy, though, so it would be likely I’d enjoy this. I love the texture of the cake (the sponge part) and it’s altogether lovely. Wish I had a piece right this very minute.

What’s NOT: You do need to plan ahead and then be sure to eat it up within a few days. This cake isn’t a long-term keeper as the milk could spoil.

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This recipe got lost in my files where I keep recipes I’ve prepared, the ones I’m going to post about. It’s a good one and worth making. It’s healthy and filling.

Do you ever crave beans? I crave lentils now and then, and I do love-me-a-bowl-of-beans or chili about once a year or so, but like bread, mashed potatoes and rice, I try to give them a pass. I was craving beans the day I made this, and in looking at my to-try file, this recipe seemed to be the one to make. I had some escarole; yes, I had a can of cannellini beans; and I always have those lovely salmon fillets in the freezer. As I recall, since I made this a couple of months ago, that plate was all I ate for dinner. I thought it was a rounded-out menu since the escarole (vegetable) was in the ragu.

If you’re good at multi-tasking, by all means do both things at once (the bean ragu and the salmon). Neither part takes all that long. If you’re substituting spinach or arugula for the escarole, then don’t add that into the beans until you’re nearly ready to eat as it’s best when it’s just barely cooked. Depending on the thickness of the salmon, you may need to cook it longer – it’s broiled first, to get it brown (see photo), then if it’s not quite done, turn oven to 400° and bake for 3-4 minutes. That’s what I had to do as the salmon was thicker than some.

As you make the ragu, do taste it periodically, and at the end add more salt, pepper and lemon juice if it needs it. I think the beans need acid to give it some perk, so I did add more lemon juice at the end. Next time I’ll add more lemon zest to sprinkle on top of the beans. If you’re making this for guests, I would make the bean mixture an hour ahead, just so you can get it done. It would be fine at room temp for that long. Prep the salmon, the pan for it, then when you’re ready to eat, just cook the salmon and reheat the beans and add the greens. Done.

What’s GOOD: for me, I liked the textural contrast between the salmon and the just slightly chew to the beans. Loved the flavor in the beans – it has a whole bunch of stuff in it to make it taste good. I like salmon, so it was a cinch that I’d like the whole dish. It’s a one-plate meal, though you do use 2 pans to cook everything.

What’s NOT: really nothing that I can think of. It was a tasty dish.

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