I am naming this “bonus salad” because while creating it, my intention was to include it in the “Take your Lunch to Work Week” that I just wrapped up for my sweet Marissa. But once I got into it, I slowly came to the realization that this takes far too much time and effort than required for an easy lunch to brown bag… that is unless you use it as leftovers… from dinner the night before. In that case, it’s perfect!

I made this a week ago Sunday and, as with most Sundays, we had my dad over for dinner. Dave and Dad devoured this thing. They loved it so much that they each had not only seconds but thirds!

If you are lucky enough to have leftovers and want to brown-bag them the next day – here is what you do: Pack the greens and the feta together in one container or zip-lock. Pack the mushroom-asparagus-rice mixture in a microwave-safe container. Nuke the mushroom mixture to just warm it through. Place your greens and feta on a plate and top it with warm stuff. Yum… makes me wish I would have had leftovers of my own last Monday. 🙁

The “bonus pics” in the title refer to some iPhone pictures of a few of the beyond delicious courses we had at Binkley’s last night. How I love that place! You’ll find them below the recipe.

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We are taking a one-day break from our “Take Your Lunch to Work Week” so that I can put up a recipe I made last night for the first night of my 3-week cooking class series at Les Gourmettes.  I want my students to have all four of the links to the homemade versions of several components of this beautiful salad, at their fingertips, and not have to search for them.

The salad includes lemon curd, vanilla extract, limoncello, and granola – all items that can be store-bought or made from scratch. Mind you, while the vanilla extract and limoncello are easy to make, both take time to ferment, so if you’re craving this salad and want to have it NOW, buy those two items for the time being. But also get them going so the next time you just HAVE to have it, you’ll be armed and ready.

Finally, remember that any one of the four would make the perfect gift. Any lucky recipients would love you for life if you handed them a bottle or jar of homemade lemon curd, vanilla extract, limoncello, or granola. At least I know that I would!

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This salad comes together quickly. The pasta takes ten minutes to cook and while that is boiling away, you just have to chop up a few things and then toss it all together in a bowl… and you’re done. Easy and quick, right?

You’ll only be using half of a can of beans. Refrigerate the rest and add it to another salad later on or mash with a little olive oil, garlic, minced cilantro, salt, and pepper and you have a tasty little bean dip.

The feta I used is, of course, from Trader Joe’s and I love the addition of the Mediterranean herbs. Oh, and crumbled goat cheese would be a lovely cheese to use instead of feta.

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Before I get to today’s brown bag recipe, I would like to apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with this site yesterday. The bad news is that it was down between about 2:00 and 5:00 pm as people (including me) received an error message stating that there was not enough bandwidth. What is bandwidth, you ask?  I have absolutely no idea. I even looked it up and read THIS, and I still don’t fully understand. So I emailed my super-duper tech guy. He kindly added more bandwidth to my site and I was back in business.

The good news – running out of my allotted amount of monthly bandwidth before the month is up (even if it is on the last day of the month) means my viewership is growing and that excites me very much indeed.  And that is thanks to all of you! I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart! xoxo

Today’s brown bag lunch recipe is a jazzed-up version of an all-time favorite, the BLT.  This is the BELT, and the E is for the egg that is added in. The only problem is when I made this for Dave and myself the other night… yeah… I forgot the lettuce. So the pictures reflect a BET instead of a BELT. No matter, it was delicious even without the lettuce!

Since the sandwich includes hard-cooked eggs, a bagel seemed like a natural choice for the bread. I made one each way, the first with a toasted bagel and the other with toasted multi-grain bread. I preferred the bagel and Dave preferred the bread. You choose for yourself, or just make them both ways and enjoy half of each. Then share the rest with a favorite co-worker. Trust me, that person will be your friend for life after they’ve filled their growling tummy with your tasty generosity!

If you want to make only one sandwich, boil 2 eggs instead of three. Only mash 1/2 of one of the eggs for the spread and slice the remaining 1 1/2 for the sandwich. Cut the amount of all of the remaining ingredients by half.

Lastly, as long as you’re frying up bacon, fry extra. It freezes great and then you won’t have to make a mess the next time you’re craving this sandwich… oh, and you will be craving it!

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I recently received a blog request from one of my loyal followers… OK, it was from my daughter, Marissa. But she counts as my most loyal follower. No one has commented more, in the nearly 3-year life of this site, than my sweet girl. And I thank her profusely for that and for her constant support and encouragement. To that end, naturally, I will be fulfilling her request.

She asked if I could post some brown-bag recipes. New ideas for yummy stuff she could take into the office for lunch. Marissa has a varied and sophisticated palate. She was a vegetarian back in middle school and still doesn’t eat much meat, although she, like most intelligent individuals, loves bacon.

All week I will be creating recipes and giving specific instructions for brown-bagging. Each of these recipes will not only make for a perfect lunch but a lovely light supper too.

In most cases, everything listed in each recipe can be easily found at Trader Joe’s. (Which is, of course, this mother and daughter’s favorite place to grocery shop.) Take the hearts of palm in this recipe for example. Sure you may find them in a regular grocery store… eventually. But you’ll probably need to search high and low until you finally give up and ask for help. But at TJ’s they will be on the one and only aisle of canned and jarred goods… right alongside the pepperoncini peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar you will also need to purchase, if you don’t already have them on hand. And there is no better place to buy cheese, it’s always fresh at TJ’s because of the high turnaround… and the price is hard to beat. As for the produce – unless the grocery store is running the specific items on an ad that week, the price is about the same. Well, except for the basil. No grocery store can touch the super low price of basil at TJ’s!

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… Rain, you may come back any day!

It was so lovely, cloudy, and cool on Thursday morning, that I headed outside to take my food photos. I generally get plenty of natural light from my large kitchen window and overhead skylight, but not on this very overcast day.

That morning, we had a little bit of rain in the morning. When I say, “a little” – I’m talking about 0.o3″ at Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix’s official weather station. Which brings the year-to-date total to 0.33″.  In Scottsdale, we’re fairing a teeny tiny bit better at 0.52″ for the year – woot!  Yes, “The Valley of the Sun” is in a drought. Well, what’s new?

It’s BIG news when it rains in the desert. The local news stations talk about it for days before, all day the day it happens, and for at least another day after the fact. People suddenly forget how to drive.  And on Facebook – on Facebook, my local friends talk about it as if it’s a sign of the second coming!  Here are just a few of the “status updates” and comments from Thursday:

Rain! The dogs are excited. I’m excited. Of course, it’s stopped already. Just a few big big drops and then, poof, gone. The desert.

Thank you surprise April showers!

A rainy day off at home! So happy to just be doing laundry 🙂

Is it raining at your house or work?? Send us your weather pictures.

We got caught in a rain cloud…

A nice, cool, refreshing rain. Enjoying every minute!

Me too! What a great day! Ooh! It’s pouring as we speak!!! Love it!

BT RAINY DAY SPECIAL ALERT: butternut squash soup, candied shallot & green garlic, creme fraiche

That final status update is from a local restaurant, Beckett’s Table. Mmm, that sounded good on our nice winter-like 81-degree day! Oh, and you know how I love my soup! But instead of soup, I was making a smoothie that morning.  Not just any smoothie, a smoothie with the “right now- up to the minute” healthy ingredient – Kale.  Don’t turn your nose up! It was good. Just be sure to drink it quickly, otherwise, it goes from a nice mauve color to a nasty brown.  Must be the chlorophyll from the kale overtaking the berries.

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These tasty wrapped little potatoes are perfect to serve as an appetizer with a Sriracha mayonnaise dipping sauce or served without the mayo as a side dish.

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I love dates. In sweet dessert dishes. Stuffed and then wrapped in bacon! And in savory main dishes like this one, inspired by a Martha Stewart recipe.

Remember when Kim and I harvested blooming cilantro from Sandy’s garden?  I hung my cilantro to dry and finally collected the coriander seeds. I am using the all of seeds harvested (all 1  1/2 teaspoons of it!)  in this one recipe.

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This recipe was inspired by an image I saw on Pinterest. In the caption, the “pinner” (a person who pins on Pinterest) said that this roasted cauliflower tasted just like French fries.  If that’s not a selling point, I don’t know what is!  I could not imagine that was true, and guess what? I was right. The little cauliflower morsels taste nothing like French fries, but they are quite tasty in their own right. A nice nibble or perfectly fine as a side dish.

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How’s that for a post title? Have you ever heard of ras el hanout? I had not until Joanne Weir was teaching at Barbara Fenzl’s Les Gourmettes Cooking School last month. Here is what Wikipedia has to say (which is pretty much exactly what Joanne told us about this spice blend too):

“Ras el hanout is a popular Moroccan blend of spices that is used across North Africa. The name means “head of the shop” in Arabic and refers to a mixture of the best spices a seller has to offer.

There is no definitive set combination of spices that makes up Ras el hanout. Each shop, company, or person would have their own secret combination containing over a dozen spices. Typically they would include cardamom, clove, cinnamon, ground chili peppers, coriander, cumin, nutmeg, peppercorn, and turmeric.

Some recipes include over one hundred ingredients, some rarely found in Western food, such as ash berries, chufa, Grains of Paradise, orris root, Monk’s pepper, cubebs, or dried rosebud. Usually all ingredients are toasted and then ground up together. Individual recipes are often improvised. Ras el hanout is used in almost every kind of food, sometimes rubbed on meat and stirred into rice.”

You can make your own blend using THIS RECIPE from Epicurious. Or you can go online and purchase from many different sources, including HERE from Williams-Sonoma.

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