Category — Recipes
vinegar-free vinaigrette
Last week, Chef Kevin Binkley of Binkley’s, Café Bink, Bink’s Midtown, and Bink’s Scottsdale, was the guest teacher at Les Gourmettes. Kevin is once again up for the James Beard Award for the Best Chef: Southwest. Fingers are crossed!
Everything he made was, of course, amazing! The thing that I really enjoyed though was a simple, thick, tangy, creamy vinaigrette made without any vinegar. Strange but true and truly delicious.
Kevin served the vinaigrette over a salad of arugula, strawberry slices, goat cheese, and pistachios. I’ll be serving the same salad for our Easter dinner on Sunday.
Speaking of Easter Sunday, if you haven’t colored your eggs yet, hold off one more day because tomorrow I’m posting a new way to decorate eggs and a bunch of Easter Menu ideas.
April 16, 2014 1 Comment
coconut cream pie
For the past six weeks, Connor has been working at Mark Tarbell’s The Tavern. He is the dishwasher and although they feed him dinner, he has not gotten the one item he sees that he really wants… the coconut cream pie.
So of course, I made it for him. That’s what moms do.
He gave it a thumbs up.
I have plenty of photos to accompany the crust-making part of the recipe. But my dad was here while I was making the filling. He can be very distracting, so no photos of that part, sorry.
April 15, 2014 No Comments
on a dare
Yesterday morning I opened my computer and did what I do each morning. I checked my email, I made sure my blog post was posted correctly, and then I went on Facebook. The first thing I saw on FB was a post from my high school and FB friend, Cynthia.
Did you see that? A dare was issued to me on social media. I had to try this recipe now! I was dared! So yes, I made it. And yes, it’s pretty great. Although there were some serious omissions in the original recipe…
… such as the importance of placing the bottom round of dough onto parchment paper or a baking sheet before adding the filling. Let me tell you, it is impossible to move the dough with the filling on it from the counter to a baking sheet! But no worries, I suffered through that error and I’ve rewritten the recipe to reflect such an important detail.
I also amped up the filling to my liking and added other little details that were obviously done on the original recipe but not mentioned in the instructions, such as using an egg wash and placing seeds on the center section.
All in all, a great recipe that just needs a bit more explaining and details. And it really is easier than it looks to make. It would be perfect for Easter! Trust me, you can do it!
April 10, 2014 2 Comments
snack attack
This is a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa that I modified. These nuts are addicting… don’t say I didn’t warn you!
April 9, 2014 1 Comment
mayo and dairy-free chicken salad
Yesterday’s classic minestrone soup was quite the hit, so how about another recipe with ingredients that anyone can find in any grocery store?
This easy chicken salad has only 5 ingredients and none of those five is mayonnaise, sour cream, or yogurt… no dairy and no mayo!
April 8, 2014 6 Comments
soup for my dad
When I was cleaning my dad’s house last week, I came across a large envelope with a dozen copies of a page from a cookbook.
One of the recipes on the page was outlined. I decided to take a copy and make the soup for him for our Sunday supper.
April 7, 2014 5 Comments
what to do with leftover mussels
I don’t know if you noticed just how big that bag of mussels was in yesterday’s post. There were more than 140 mussels in it! I steamed them all on Sunday and then made another meal out of the leftover 60 or so mussels for dinner on Monday. I’ll get to the recipe shortly, but first I want to share a new favorite ingredient of mine with you – capers packed in sea salt.
Most capers we see in the U.S. are packed in vinegar brine after curing. Often the brine overpowers the wonderful fresh caper flavor. Capers packed in sea salt are more flowery, more like flower buds, which is of course what capers are. The caper plant, Capparis spinosa, can be found all around the Mediterranean Sea and spreads its long, spiny branches over rocks and open into beautiful white flowers with long purple stamens.
I used the capers directly from the jar, with the salt clinging to them, for this recipe. I didn’t use additional salt for the dish, just the salt that was already present on the capers. For a salad or another dish where not as much salt is needed, the capers need to be cleaned of their salt. To do so; cover the salt-packed capers with water. Swish to remove any clinging salt and let stand a minute to let it settle to the bottom. Lift out capers with a sieve, and taste. If still too salty, repeat the process.
I bought the capers while I was in Canada last summer and have looked for them here, but haven’t run across any yet. You can find them easily on Amazon.
April 3, 2014 6 Comments
sausage and mussels
Here is the second recipe I made on Sunday night with a portion of that huge package of sausage I’d purchased at Costco. I bought a huge bag of live mussels to go along with it.
Remember, I made the Corn, Potato & Sausage Chowder? We had steamed mussels too.
It’s important to do two things with live mussels. First, pull out and discard any and all cracked or broken mussels.
The second thing; just before cooking, pour a 1/2 cup or so of cornmeal into a large bowl.
Add cold water and stir. Then add the mussels and let sit for about 20 minutes. As the mussels breathe, they take in the cornmeal and fresh water and expel sand and grit.
Lift the mussels out of the water with a slotted spoon or spider and leave the sandy water behind.
April 2, 2014 2 Comments
sausage to the rescue
I have a confession. It is really hard to get back into the swing of cooking and cleaning and real-life after nearly 3 weeks of being out-of-town and having company. I have no drive or motivation to do … ANYTHING!
Dave is knee-deep in tax season, so we are like ships in the night.
Connor works from 2:30 PM to midnight, five to six days a week, so he’s rarely home for dinner.
And although I didn’t have jet lag in the usual sense, I now realize that although I wasn’t waking up in the middle of the night… I am tired all day long!
I mean, when 3:30 or 4:00 hits each afternoon… I’m ready for bed! It takes all my power to stay up. Seriously, I feel like I need toothpicks to hold my eyes open! I think the latest I’ve hit the sack since our house-guests left is 8:00 PM. My usual bedtime is 10:30 or 11:00.
Enough of my first-world woes. I did get somewhat inspired by a package of sausage, of all things.
It’s a really good sausage! Aidells sausage from Costco. And one of my favorite flavors ~ Habanero with Pepper Jack!
I went on the Aidells website and found a recipe to zip up to our liking. Here is one of the two sausage dishes we had for dinner on Sunday night…
March 31, 2014 2 Comments
Friday Q & A
“It’s like trying to pick your favorite child.”
Today I tackle the last of Lori’s four questions she’d posted after I asked for you, the readers, to pose questions to me for a new Friday Q & A feature.
I thought it was going to be the easiest of the four, so I “saved the best for last” – boy, was I wrong! Here is Lori’s question:
“I know with your vast database, it is practically impossible, but can you tell us your list of the top-10 recipes that are quick, easy-peasy, crowd-pleasing, always get asked for the recipe, recipes? I am always overwhelmed when I get on your website and start looking through everything. I get so sidetracked sometimes, I totally forget why I went on in the first place.”
Sounds like an easy enough question, until you consider that I’ve posted 1,454 times over these last 4 1/2 years… that amounts to at least 1,000 recipes!
And as I considered the question more carefully, it became impossible to narrow down to ten. I found ten recipes I love and that fit Lori’s criteria before I got past the “appetizer” section of my Complete Recipe Index. In fact, before I knew it, I had over 25 appetizers alone.
I narrowed those down to six and started looking at the “Easy-Breezy” section of the index. Again, I had a list longer than my arm, so I just narrowed that down to two soups and two slow-cooker recipes.
As a result, I have to say, “No Lori, I can’t give you a definitive list of my Top 10 recipes on this site, quick, easy-peasy, crowd-pleasing or otherwise.”
Instead, here are six appetizers, two soups and two crockpot meals to get you started on a Top 10 List of your own. I can guarantee that each of these is crowd-pleasing and if you make them once, they will instantly become a part of your repertoire.
March 7, 2014 1 Comment
