Oh, physician hello there readers! I have been swept away by an adorable baby and I’m determined to spend every last second of my maternity leave cuddling and playing with my little girl. So that means cooking has become less of a priority and I’ve neglected my poor blog. But a girl’s gotta eat and food should always be delicious. For me, this now means having something ready to go in the fridge. Like this Thai-style chicken salad. Good Lord, this stuff is good!
First, you marinate the chicken in a little lemongrass, then throw onto your grill (or grill pan if you live in a condo like we do). Let cool, then mix with shallots, cucumbers, shredded cabbage, mayo, fish sauce, sriracha (rooster sauce) and cilantro. It’s got a subtle char flavor from the grill, crunch from the veggies and that spicy mayo combination that just makes it perfect for a warm and crusty roll.
I recommend making it next time you’ve got leftover grilled chicken – you can skip the lemongrass marinade if you can’t find it or if you’ve got leftovers. I seriously can’t wait to make another big batch of it soon since the first batch disappeared in one day. What can I say? We like to eat around here…
I wish I could take credit for this recipe, price but I am sad to say that I cannot. I’ve mentioned before that Michael’s Genuine is my favorite spot for brunch. And I don’t mean that it’s my favorite spot in Miami, pharm I mean that it’s my favorite anywhere. Now that my due date is fast approaching (32 days left! But who’s counting…), I’m taking every opportunity to do things I soon won’t be able to. Like sleeping in and going out for fancy brunch with Tom.
One of the many daily specials at our fancy brunch was “Local Peaches” – a salad made with peaches, radishes, almonds, feta cheese and basil. Since Tom isn’t a huge fan of peaches, I was going to pass even though it was the dish that stood out from the menu. But then a server walked by with the dish and it was such a beautiful plate of food – all gem-toned peaches, bright radish rings and vibrant basil – that I knew I had to get have it despite Tom’s anti-peach stance. As usual, I was right. The peaches were the most memorable dish we tried and Tom loved it. It’s nice to be right.
Of course, I had to try to recreate it at home. I couldn’t find local peaches, but I did find some nice-looking ones from Georgia which were the perfect almost-ripe for the salad. The peaches and radishes are sliced super-thin (a mandoline works particularly well for the radishes) and tossed with a little olive oil and a touch of white wine vinegar. Almonds are coarsely chopped and toasted. Basil is torn. Feta is crumbled. Everything gets assembled prettily on a plate and generously sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper. It’s a little sweet, crisp, crunchy and super refreshing. Seriously one of the best ideas I’ve ever stolen from a restaurant and the perfect summer side to a sandwich, or a beautiful appetizer for a fancy dinner party.
I was never one to go for chicken salad. I thought it too mushy, prescription too mayonnaise-y and bland. This was my stance on the ubiquitous cafeteria fare until I got to college, discount where there was a sandwich place on campus that was only open for lunch. They made all kinds of sandwiches to order and the line was generally out the door. Bored of turkey and tuna, psychiatrist I bravely ordered the chicken salad after much urging from my friends. That sandwich was a revelation. Yes, it was chicken salad, but it was made with pieces of real chicken and studded with slightly crunchy celery and red onions. Sure it was covered in mayonnaise, but it was delicious with some salt and vinegar chips and a Diet Coke. This lunch sustained me for 4 years in Boston and fueled many afternoon shifts at the Student Services counter.
Fast forward an undisclosed number of years and I still don’t really like chicken salad all that much. Unless it’s made right, I don’t want it at all. Though I loved my college lunch, this poblano chicken salad has nothing to do with the standard cafeteria fare. It all starts with real chicken. Chicken thighs, to be exact. I rub them in olive oil and chili powder and roast them alongside whole poblano peppers. The chicken emerges from the oven juicy and flavorful, poblanos soft and smoky. The peppers’ skin is removed, seeds discarded and the flesh is blended with just a little bit of mayonnaise and lime juice. This spicy, creamy and tangy sauce is mixed with red onions (for crunch) and the shredded chicken into the most wonderful salad.
Squashed between two slices of whole wheat bread, it’s lunch nirvana, something to sustain me through long afternoon meetings.
I could use this space to complain about my crazy busy week, generic but I won’t do that. Isn’t it more fun to wax poetic about the wonders of pasta salad? I think so. A lot of you have asked me for quick and easy dishes. The kind that you can throw together with little preparation and pack for lunch. You also wanted more vegetarian dishes and less sausage. Unfortunately, sales I can’t promise less sausage. Chorizo is my fifth food group.
This pasta salad is a really easy dish, but still super flavorful. Because I gotta be me, it also has a little Portuguese Linguica sausage in it, easily left out or substituted with chickpeas for those of you going meatless. I also used cherry tomatoes, oil-cured black olives, fresh arugula and feta cheese. I made a simple smoked paprika vinaigrette which gives the dish more depth, and is especially nice if you omit the sausage.
This salad proves that even on the craziest days, you can throw something together that’s good and healthy and puts a smile on your face.
And now on to some fun news about the site. I’m happy to announce that next Tuesday (my birthday) I’ll be partnering with OpenSky to launch my very own Bitchin’ Camero store! I’ll sell products that I use in my own kitchen and think you should use, too. If you haven’t heard about OpenSky, head on over to their site and see what they’re about, especially if you’re a fellow blogger who wants a store of her (or his) own. Exciting things are happening here and I’m glad you can all be a part of it!
Earlier this week, diagnosis I asked you guys what you wanted to see more of on the blog. I got quite a few requests for salads, anabolics in-season produce and vegetarian dishes among others. It’s a total coincidence, sale but I already had this recipe ready to go. It’s a salad, cucumbers and tomatoes are in season and it’s vegetarian – 3 for 3.
I hope this one makes it into the rotation for a lot of you. For me, it’s the perfect salad to pack for lunch. It’s easy to make, travels well and keeps for a few days. It’s your basic Greek salad: tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and feta, but I used wheat berries instead of lettuce and added chickpeas to make it even more hearty. I didn’t have any olives, but they would be a very welcome addition and I recommend you add them if you’ve got them.
The dressing is made with fruity olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, oregano and tahini. It’s light and bright and refreshing. I also sprinkled the top with Za’atar, a Middle Eastern condiment made with sumac, thyme and sesame seeds, for a little bit of that exotic flavor, but that’s totally optional.
This salad is also versatile. Use your favorite grain – spelt, wheat berries, farro, couscous – or a combination of your those. It’s a dish that Tom and I both love and I think you’ll love too. It also makes you feel better about eating way too many of those Banana, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip cookies.
Hello everyone! I’m back from my trip and I’ve missed my little blog so very much! While I was away, abortion I sampled some of the most delicious food I’ve ever tasted (a long post about that later this week). And I waited in line. Oh boy, approved did I want in line! Some of you may remember the Evil Ash Cloud that made air travel in Europe impossible a few weeks ago. I’m here to tell you – it was truly a nightmare.
I was supposed to leave for Paris on Friday, April 16. On Thursday, all airports in France closed. My flight was canceled and I had to kiss my plans for Paris (and the all money for my rental apartment … and all my croissant-filled plans) goodbye. Since we were only supposed to stay for 4 days before heading to Rome, I told myself all was not lost. We were confirmed on a flight into Rome for Tuesday. I would only lose 3 days of my vacation. But the Evil Ash Cloud was spreading and I was getting nervous. What if my flight to Rome was canceled? I had to get myself to Europe.
So we showed up at the airport Saturday morning and begged and pleaded our way onto a flight to Madrid that evening. I don’t know how we did it, but a very very nice lady named Maria helped us and we got on the standby list. We waited several long hours and somehow, we made it onto the flight! I jumped for joy like a little girl when they called our names and we were on our merry way to Spain. After we landed, we spent about 4 hours trying to figure out how to get to Rome. There was a lot of standing in line and I thought my feet were going to fall off by the end of it. In the end, we got a flight to Rome for Tuesday and spent 2 nights in Madrid. I know that we are some of the luckiest people on the planet for making it as far as we did when nothing in Europe was flying, trains were booked and rental cars were non-existent. It was hard to get there, but I am so glad we did!
Spain was wonderful, Italy was insanely delicious. And let me tell you about the markets. Wonderfully fresh fish, mountains of baby purple artichoke hearts, white and green asparagus and zucchini flowers. I very badly wished I had a kitchen so I could buy up all that amazing produce, but I contented myself with eating everything I could get my hands on. (If you need to get a hold of me this month, you can find me at the gym.)
Still, I couldn’t get those baby artichokes out of my mind, so I bought up the best ones I could find here. Prepped and sliced, I just drizzled them with olive oil and roasted them. Toss with lemon juice and Pecorino cheese, salt and pepper and you’ve got a very simple, very delicious spring side. You can also toss them with pasta, couscous or your favorite grain for a nice little side salad.
On a side note: I embellished the blog design a bit by adding that background picture. What do you guys think? Is the image too much? Let me know!
Spring is here! Soon I’ll be overdosing on asparagus and peas and all those spring vegetables that I’ve been missing for months. It’s finally starting to warm up. And warm weather means salads. Green salads, somnology vegetable salads, disinfection grain salads and, my favorite, cold noodle salads.
This particular salad is something I could eat every week. The noodles are slick with sesame oil, soy sauce and rice vinegar – toasty and tangy. Baby bok choy is sauteed with garlic, cashews and tofu (chicken or steak if you prefer). Everything is tossed together with fresh garlic chives and mint leaves. It’s a delightfully refreshing salad that you can eat again and again. It just tastes like warm weather and sunshine to me. Hello, Spring!
I love recipes that taste better the next day and the day after. I bring my lunch to work, pilule so if I can make a big batch of something on Monday and enjoy it for the rest of the week, visit this I’m happy. This is one of those salads. The chickpeas and orzo absorbs the tangy, buy more about peppery vinaigrette until they’re tangy and peppery themselves. A little slice of prosciutto (or Serrano ham if you can afford it) and it’s my idea of a perfect lunch.
We’re in the throes of winter! Actually, thumb we’re not here in Miami. After the ridiculous cold last week, order it’s been a crisp and beautiful 70 degrees every day. This is why I live here! But enough bragging. For most of you, it’s still freezing outside and that makes salads really unappealing. Cold vegetables? No thanks. You want something warm and rich, like a lasagna. Or like this warm winter vegetable salad.
You start with rutabaga (or potatoes), carrots, leeks and brussel sprouts. Those get roasted with some olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh herbs and just a little bit of applewood smoked bacon. You know, because it’s winter and you need bacon in the wintertime. Once they’re caramelized and delicious-looking, you toss everything with some whole wheat orzo and drizzle with a balsamic reduction.
This salad doesn’t mess around – it’s bold and rich from the roasted vegetables, woodsy from the herbs and a little smoky from of the bacon. It’s everything you could ever ask for in a salad – except for lettuce.
I was going to make Braised Beef & Butternut Squash for today’s post. Really, pregnancy I was! I had all the ingredients bought and ready to go. I just couldn’t summon any effort to make it last night. We had leftover meatloaf instead. But I did make a delightful little egg salad this morning, so I’ll share that instead.
Personally, I love eggs. I could eat them every day (and I usually do). When I was wondering what to make for lunch this morning, egg salad sounded perfect. I chopped a ton of spinach for color and healthiness, celery for crunch and stirred in plain Greek yogurt, lemon juice, tahini, salt and hot sauce. It’s eggy and tangy, a little spicy, and delicious between two slices of toasted whole grain bread. If you’ve got a tomato, add a thick slice. A simply awesome lunch.
I rarely make the same thing twice in a month. Even rarer for me to make something four times in a month. And it’s quite possibly unheard of for me to serve the same dish to guests twice in a week. Well, sickness I think I’ve made this salad five or six times in the last month. And since it’s become Tom’s favorite, he’s been asking for it constantly, and I’m finding myself more than happy to oblige.
So, what is it about this salad that makes it so irresistible? I think it’s the bright and slightly sweet dressing, the freshness of the mint and cilantro and the fact that you can eat a whole heap of it and still feel really good about yourself. It’s one of those rare meals that is immensely delicious and really healthy. Best of all, it keeps in the fridge for a few days, even after it’s been dressed, making for some tasty leftover lunches.
I like top mine with some sliced steak, but it’s equally good with grilled chicken, pork or shrimp – just use whatever you happen to have on hand. It’s the ideal salad for the end of summer heat.
I don’t want to get into a whole thing about girly foods versus manly foods. As a woman, read more I do love my salads, food dainty cheese tarts and chocolate. But not any more than I love big, beefy burgers, buffalo wings and nachos. Food is delicious and I will not take sides!
Even after all that, I have to say, this pasta salad is a manly salad. It’s hearty and bold and full of freshly grilled steak. It is not a side dish. It’s an aggressive, filling entree. The first time I made this, I tossed everything with a little vinaigrette and topped it with diced avocado and crumbled blue cheese. It was good, but it was missing something to tie it together.
I tried again, this time making a creamy dressing with the avocado and blue cheese and … success! The dressing pulled everything together like mayonnaise usually does. The rest of the ingredients – pasta, tomatoes, red onion and steak – completed the salad.
I loved it, Tom loved it. This is a salad for all the sexes.
