Eating Dinner With My Family

This salad is a wonderful side or main dish.  The chorizo chips are a great change up from croutons or bacon bits.  The Spanish flavors are delicious! It is, like all salads, super fast, and despite the sausage, not too fattening :) Green Salad with Chorizo Chips 6 ounces dry chorizo, very thinly sliced 1 1/2 tablespoons sherry vinegar 1 tablespoon minced shallots 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil Salt Freshly ground pepper 2 celery ribs, thinly sliced 4 large radishes, thinly sliced 3/4 cup Spanish green olives, sliced 4 ounces mesclun 2 heads baby Bibb lettuce, leaves torn 1. Line a large microwave-safe plate with paper towels. Arrange half of the chorizo slices on the plate and cover with a paper towel. Microwave at high power for 1 minute; the fat should be rendered and the chorizo slightly browned. If it is not yet browned, cover and microwave at 20-second intervals until done. Transfer the cooked chorizo to a plate to cool; it will cr...

This is one of those easy, yummy meals we all need to have. It used to be the after soccer meal and we had it once a week.  The only thing that requires any time is the time you have let the meat come to room temp.  (and that is a must!)  If you aren't a fan of blue cheese, use some fresh mozzarella.  Steak Salad 1 One inch thick steak (NY strip is my choice) 1/2 to 1 pound (aged a few days if you can*) 6-8 cups of mixed salad greens (arugula is a must and should be well represented) 1/2 cucumber:  peeled and seeded. Diced in to 1/4" cubes 1/2 green pepper: seeded and diced in to 1/4" cubes 1 extra large scallion: thinly sliced 2 small tomatoes: sliced and cut in quarters 1/4 cup bleu cheese: crumbled Radishes thinly sliced (optional) Extra virgin olive oil Balsamic reduction* Directions Put steak out to come to room temperature (if it's not at room temp the inside will be underdone) Preheat you oven to 5...

I guess I had something to prove, because I set out to make meatless Monday's dinner another soufflé. Making this so close to the quasi failure of my last one can only be attributed to my wanting redemption.  The original recipe called for cheddar, but I had swiss on hand and it was great.  I'm sure any cheese would be good so long as you like it.   I still don't know why (well except the last tasty mess, I guess I kind of know) soufflés are considered so difficult to make.  They are not that hard, they are economical and they are good!  I also don't consider this a repeat even though  I have made a cheese soufflé before.  (4 I think) Each one was different, different cheeses and one even had a slightly different technique.  Cheese Souffle Butter room temperature, for greasing the souffe pan 2 Tbl grated Parmesan 1 1/2 ounces (3 tablespoons) butter 3 Tbl flour 1 Tsp dry mustard 1/2 Tsp garlic powder 1/8 Tsp kosher salt 1 1/3 Cup m...

I think I have found a new favorite dressing!  It was super tasty, and totally worth the work of chopping an onion;).  I made this batch and after using it on tonight's salad, I am confident that we have enough for at least 3 more big salads.  For out main meal, we had the fusilli with green beans pasta that we have had a record 3 times since the blog started.  (Shocking I know:)  It is our go to recipe for green beans.  Since I wanted a new recipe, I found a dressing.  It will be a regular in the dressing rotation.  The only ingredient I need to get somewhere other than my grocery is the miso, but I get that at the health food store around the corner from the grocery, so it isn't a hassle. Miso Dressing 1/3 Cup roughly diced vidalia onion 1 small garlic clove peeled and roughly chopped 1/4 Cup plus 1 tbsp white miso 2 Tbl toasted sesame oil 2 Tbl soy sauce 2 Tbl rice wine vinegar 2 Tbl mirin 2 Tbl water 1 large pinch coarse salt 3 g...

I asked my husband to pick dinner often, he is completely daunted by the attempt to choose something we haven't made.  Only recently did he discover, that I was ok with him just picking a protein or even a genre (if you will) of meal.  I would be happy if he said: Salad, Thai, Fish, anything that can help me narrow down the myriad of choices I have lurking in my to try file or pintrest boards!  Well he took the new information and said,  uh... salad, to which I responded by filtering the to try recipe to the salads and asked him to look and see if anything sounded good.  Of course he choose the chicken taco salad.  Taco salad....  the only "salad" that has more calories than a happy meal!  And, chicken :/.... Again:/...  but I asked for it so I am going with his choice.  Then I pull up the recipe.  It is TWO friggin pages long!!!  Ok, breathe, we have 90% of the ingredients, and I opted for the rotisserie chicken instead of coo...

Well tonight's dish was no wow. However, I feel honor bound to round up 1/2 a star on pure healthiness.  So it gets 3 stars.  I used a wild salmon and I think that I should have broiled it, but I hate to diverge from a recipe the first time I make it.  I picked this dish for it's lightness as we are all heavier and bloated from all the food we ate on vacation.  The flavors were ok, but like I said, not a wow.  The thing we liked the best was the Lemon Chia Seed dressing for our salad!  It was really amazing, and it went well with the fish.  In fact, I think a plain piece of broiled Salmon with this dressing would be better than the following recipe.  Of course the dressing has oil in it where the fish recipe doesn't.  If you are looking for a decent low cal recipe, than this will fit the bill, but if you are looking for really tasty food, go with a different salmon recipe, eat less of it, and fill up on salad. Salmon With Sriracha Sauce...

My darling boy is finally home after a fun filled week at my MIL's house. I let him choose his welcome home dinner, and he choose Nillawan's Smoked Salmon Pasta . (Good choice might I add:)  Since I have been kind if slacking on the blog since summer started, I decided to make a new salad dressing for a blog recipe. This was a great salad dressing. My husband thinks it just might be his favorite yet. I got it off Food & Wine's website and it billed it as a lightened up version of a ceaser type dressing made by Bobby Flay. While not a lot of work, the roasting of the garlic does add on some, largely inactive, time, but as I think dressings taste better after sitting, it can be made ahead of time. Creamy Garlic Vinaigrette 15 medium unpeeled garlic cloves 1 Tbl extra-virgin olive oil 1/4 Cup white wine vinegar 2 Tbl water 2 Tsp Dijon mustard 1 Tsp mayonnaise 1 Tsp honey 1/4 Tsp Worcestershire sauce 1/8 Tsp Tabasco 1/3 Cup canola oil Kosher salt and freshly...

I asked the boy what he would like for dinner, even repeats, he said Shrimp Scampi!  I said, I have no desire to peel all those shrimp!  He suggested burgers next; I didn't have many 'to try' burgers I was really interested in. Perhaps it was dinner last night at Holligans, a local place famous for its wings, or perhaps it was a vague memory of a Bobby Flay buffalo burger, or perhaps I just had a craving, but I decided on Buffalo chicken burgers. I read several recipes (ok read dozens of recipes), and after consulting with the hubby, we decided on this method. We kind of made it up as we went along, and each step had some debate. (The main one I'm thinking of was I wanted some minced celery in the patty. Yes, I lost that argument ;). We liked the end result, and it was remarkably similar to a wing, but it wasn't a wow meal. The boy said 4, I said 3, hubby said 3.5, so 3.5 it averages out to. The muenster cheese, which we added because we thought we needed some sort ...

I thought I would try again to make the ginger dressing I love from Benihanas.  I liked the Asian Ginger-Carrot dressing I made last month, but it needed a day to mellow and it was not just like my favorite ginger dressing.  I found this on Pinterest too.  (yes I spent way too much time finding even more recipes for my to try file:)  We all liked this one too, but it was not Benihanas.  I think that I prefer this one to the other.  Famous Japanese Restaurant-Style Salad Dressing 1/2 cup minced onion 1/2 cup peanut oil 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar 2 tablespoons water 2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger root 2 tablespoons minced celery 2 tablespoons ketchup 4 teaspoons soy sauce 2 teaspoons white sugar 2 teaspoons lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper  In a blender, combine the minced onion, peanut oil, rice vinegar, water, ginger, celery, ketchup, soy sauce, sugar, lemon juice, garlic...

Tonight I revisit the dish I thought was so close to perfection but fell slightly short Teriyaki Salmon with Sriracha Cream .  I think I must have had a bee in my bonnet that night and was harsher than I needed to be in my summation of the dish as is, but I really do like the changes I made.  I do think the fresh ginger makes a difference.  (at least to me, perhaps not to everyone)  Most importantly is to watch the cooking time.  The original recipe, I believe called for Atlantic Salmon, but I always buy wild salmon and all the Atlantic Salmon in my supermarket is farmed.  When I made it tonight, I used Coho and the fillets were pretty thick.  I updated the original post with the change I made in cooking time.  (bake at for 10 and broil for 2-3) To have a new recipe for tonight, I made Asian Ginger Carrot dressing.  While everyone liked it, I think the onion I used was way to strong for the dressing.  A mild, sweet onion, just might ma...

The boy and I liked this better than my husband.  It was tasty, but not stellar.  Actually I think we probably liked it the same but my son and I tend to err on the side positive when it comes to judgements.  The dressing was nice, and the meat was perfectly done.  It was super fast to cook and easy too.  For that, I can forgive its lack of perfection.  We didn't eat anything with it; we just dressed some extra lettuce with the dressing and called it a 'salad". Grilled Steak Kebab Pitas With Ginger & Garlic Dressing   1/2 Cup extra-virgin olive oil more for brushing 1 Tbs. finely grated ginger 1 Tbs. green Tabasco or other jalapeño hot sauce 2 Tsp cider vinegar 1 small to medium clove garlic finely grated or minced Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 lb. 1-inch-thick -boneless beef strip steaks, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes 6 to 8 bamboo skewers (at least 8 inches long), soaked in water for at least 20 minute...

The original recipe (click link on the recipe title) served this dish in a more traditional way.  (wrapping it in lettuce leaves and other condiments)  I went a little more simple and just had it with some rice and an salad with some "Asian" flavored salad dressing.  I put Asian in quotes because the tahini made me think more middle eastern.  I loved the chicken, but the boys had some issues.  That is most likely because I had some thin breast cutlets for me and they had thighs.  I admit it, I messed up the thighs.  The recipe called for boneless, but there weren't any at the store.  I couldn't pound them thin and long story short, the large thighs weren't great, the small ones were much better.  Even with really liking the marinade flavors on the chicken, the dressing was what I really loved!  I think I will buy more of the plum paste just to make this often!    Sweet And Spicy Barbecued Chicken (Dak Gui) MARINADE 2 Tb...

So, if you follow the link to the original recipe, you will see I changed it a bit.  Biggest change, was that I cooked it the way I cook pizza, and not for 20 minutes at a lower temperature.  Also I changed the  frisée to mixed salad greens.  (because I don't care much for it, it is pricey and they didn't have it at publix)  I also tweaked the amounts a bit.  I increased the dough by 1/4 lb and used less mustard than they recommended for the 3/4 lb pizza.  I also added a pinch of the mustard to the dressing but still had about 1.5 tsp. left that I didn't use. Oh and I used garden variety Swiss cheese instead of Jarlsberg.  My husband was looking at me like I was crazy while I was making this, but he had to admit that the smell of bacon cooking and then shallots was pretty wonderful.  I thought  the 1/4 cup mustard called for was a bit excessive, but I measured out that amount and then spread it on the dough from...

There were some lovely NY strip steaks on sale at Publix, so I decided to kind of do an ode to a steakhouse dinner tonight.  The potatoes were originally to be hasselback but after some gratuitous knife violence, my husband made latkes. (we loved them and they were what he wanted anyways so win-win)  My husband loves Cesar salad so I decided to make Cesar dressing but not go thought he  effort of making croutons.  I think croutons in salad are overrated anyways.  The latkes were the star of the show.  My daughter looked at them askance until I called them Hanukkah fries, but my son totally convinced her when he called them dradle fries.  (she is obsessed with the dradle song and makes hers our of everything she sees in the room.) I made the steaks like I always do: take them out of the fridge an hour before cooking, sprinkle both sides liberty with kosher salt and broil them 4" from the element on a wire rack (with a baking sheet under to catch drips) ...

I have been miserable, unable to move with an extremely painful headache.  I thought perhaps I was finally finding out how terrible a migraine was.  It had gotten steadily worse over a week; it was to the point all I could do was lay down with a cold cloth over my head and no pain medicine made a dent in the pressure and pain.  I tell you this to explain my absence from blogging and to warn you that even if you have only a headache, it could be a sinus infection!  I went to the doctor today and was given an antibiotic.  It has totally made an incredible difference in the first 24 hours!  I also tell you so you can again appreciate my wonderful husband who not only took care of me and the kids, but cooked a new recipe so there would be an entry for tonight.  Needless to say, I wasn't very hungry, but the wonderful smells coming from the kitchen were awakening the beginnings of an appetite.  The only change we made was we used a jalap...

We do our big dinner on Christmas eve and graze on leftovers all day on Christmas.  We had my husband's side of the family in town for tonight and my MIL brought a beautiful prime rib for me to cook.  As it is a special occasion, we had a lot of dishes.  The menu tonight: Grilled Antipasto With Garlicky Bean Dip   Grilled Romaine With Blue Cheese-Bacon Vinaigrette Prime Rib Roast For A Small Crowd        Horseradish Sauce Mashed Potatoes and Gravy Coconut Cream Pie      As there are so many dishes, I figured I would write the post around them.  We started with the grilled antipasto.  It was the first time I had made it, and really loved it. It was a bit of work in that there were a bunch of veggies to be sliced, (I did the peppers and zucchini ahead of time as well as the bean dip), and the veggies took up a lot of space on the grill.  I pretty much had to do one type at a time....

After the wretched excess of fat, calories and salt last night, I decided to make a salad.  It's a Ceaser salad, so it really doesn't count as 'light', but it is a heck of a lot lighter than last nights;), and my husband loves Ceaser salad.  Now my husband is constantly offering to go to the store for ribeyes and potatoes to make the kimchi fries again, but we are going to need to hold off on that recipe for a bit.  I thought it interesting that this recipe uses mascarpone in place of egg yolks in the dressing.  (plus I can mix the rest with some honey for one of my all time favorite sweet spreads)  I liked the dressing too, but next time I would put in some anchovies or anchovy paste.  I felt it's absence.  I cooked chicken for the salad, but it is perfect for leftovers, or store bought rotisserie, and makes it fast and easy.  Only thing to keep in mind, the croutons are best fresh out of the oven.  If you make them ahead, they get...

A great recipe for leftover ham and who couldn't use a salad the day after Thanksgiving;).  We have had this salad at the Columbia restaurant in St. Augustine and we loved it.  Then, some years later, we were in a cabin in North Carolina with some family and they had recreated the salad for dinner one night. It had become one of our family recipes and we all love it.  It is super easy and the dressing is wonderful on any salad.  If you have kids that require some extra calories or carbs, we add a baguette and butter for them.  Not only is is a great use of leftover Thanksgiving ham, but we had a lovely oriental salad mix from the Front Porch Picking basket.  Normally the salad is made with romaine, and it is great that way, but also wonderful with the mixed greens.  The recipe is a little vague because it was never written down properly and I hate to now assign an arbitrary measurement now, but for the sake of, some, clarity, I will throw out a m...

I decided to make this because of the lovely green beans I got from Front Porch Pickings .  They were  my favorite part of this salad.  Over all I would give it a 3 (or 3.5) The green beans were tasty and just the right size.  I don't like them when they are woody and these were just right!  The salad dressing was awesome too.  (for the herbs I used 1/2 chives and 1/2 parsley)  Everything else was pretty good.  I personally didn't care for the anchovies just laying on the salad.  I would preferred them in smaller bites.  I ate mine with the eggs.  I am also not a huge fan of hard boiled eggs.  Those two things took away from the salad for me.  I was the person who liked it the best.  The boy and husband are not fan's of 75% of the ingredients.   Nicoise Salad For the dressing 1/4 c  champagne vinegar 1/2 t  Dijon mustard Salt Freshly ground black pepper 1/2 c  extra-virgin olive oil 2 T...