Summer Wind Down w/ a Green Bean & Cherry Tomato Salad

Some long weekends I go into overdrive on cooking projects, but over this past Labor Day weekend, I felt compelled to do almost nothing. I hit the farmers market Saturday morning after having missed the two previous weeks and bought a ridiculous amount of Roma tomatoes and nectarines to stave off that nagging (read: desperate) feeling that summer is slipping away. But I didn’t have anything really in mind for them. OJ is embarking on a new diet and exercise regimen, which puts some real food limitations on half our household, so a nectarine buckle was out of the question and I didn’t feel motivated enough to make tomato paste. So despite our larder being more than full, this weekend was about simplicity. It was also about baseball games, braving the crowds at Pike Place and stocking up on this and that at Cost Plus, but mostly, it was about simplicity.

ByMichelleSeptember 4, 20120Comments

Recipes Salads

Seattle Succotash Salad

Pop quiz! What makes succotash, succotash? A. Lima beans B. Corn C. Cooking the vegetables D. Pork E. Who knows? All of the above. On a multiple choice test, they always say, pick C, but in this case, I’m going with E. Merriam Webster says succotash is corn and lima beans. The word comes from the Narragansett for boiled corn, “msíckquatash.” Some recipes add bacon or ham. Most recipes cook the vegetables. Others add tomatoes, or red or green bell peppers. Sufferin’ succotash!

ByMichelleJuly 26, 20122Comments

Cooking Recipes Side Dishes

Israeli Couscous with Roasted Tomato Vinaigrette

As a cook, my grandma was a product of her generation. Raising kids in the 50s and 60s, she cooked both from scratch and from boxes and packets as convenience foods came on the scene -- say chicken and dumplings, with Bisquick dumplings. Some days when I was a kid, she'd start dinner at 2 pm and other days she'd whip together a one-skillet meal in half an hour. Green beans and tomatoes always remind me one of her one-pan dinners served over rice. She’d sauté chunks of onion with garlic and either chicken or pork in a little oil, then add canned tomatoes and some green beans, cooking until the beans were tender. Salt and pepper was the only seasoning. It was simple, and it cemented green beans and tomatoes for me. This Israeli couscous salad takes inspiration from that dish with just cooked green beans and a roasted tomato vinaigrette, brightened with a trio of herbs.

ByMichelleJuly 17, 20125Comments

Main Course Recipes Restaurants Salads

Summer Chopped Salad w/ Soba Noodles

In the summer, it's supposed to be easy to be extra virtuous. Cherries, berries, peaches. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers...the markets are overflowing with lovely produce to tempt your tastebuds. But I was anything but virtuous this weekend. It was glorious in Seattle. Summer truly arrived, the sundresses and sandals came out of hiding and we had a little barbecue. Nothing fancy, just sausages, potato salad, grilled peppers and zucchini. But something about sitting out in the warm summer sun put Doritos, Fritos and cupcakes on the menu, too. It was a "I'll start that diet on Monday," kind of weekend.

ByMichelleJuly 11, 20122Comments

Recipes Salads Side Dishes

Cooking from the Pantry: Celery Apple Salad

Sometimes a salad is born of necessity, like when I ordered pizza on Tuesday night and then peeked in the fridge for a salad to go along with...and nothing really looked like a salad, including those two bunches of celery in the crisper. Celery rarely has a starring role. It's part of an ensemble on a crudite platter, it's a chaser (afterthought?) to buffalo wings, it's passed over on the salad bar for grated carrot, or jicama. Even when it does star, as in cream of celery soup, it's probably just going to end up in a casserole. But, last night, it was time to let celery be a star.

ByMichelleJanuary 11, 20120Comments

Recipes Salads Side Dishes

The Cure for Your Winter Salad Woes: Insalata Tricolore

In the summer, salads are a no-brainer. You have amazing tomatoes for Caprese, you can throw berries or peaches or nectarines together with some arugula, the salads almost make themselves. But as we roll into the winter, I start looking blankly into my vegetable drawer. If only I'd planned ahead, maybe some roasted beets. Apple and celery? Raw lacinato kale salad...but we had that twice this week already. You've been there, right? So what to do? Insalata tricolore...the salad of three colors.

ByMichelleDecember 4, 20111Comment

Recipes Salads Side Dishes

Great Grains: Farro Salad with Kale, Cherry Tomatoes & Feta

When I was in high school, my best friend from elementary school dated a guy called Farro. By that time, we went to different schools, so I only met him once and I think we had dinner at his family's restaurant. Maybe my memory isn't what it used to be, but I'm pretty sure Farro wasn't his real name, and now that I've made the grain, I'm dying to know how Farro ends up being your nickname. Is it a diminutive of something like Bobby is for Robert? Or are you just nutty? Are you hard-headed? I don't know. But unlike quinoa, which I find just ok (and not a good nickname), I like farro's heft. That chewy bite, even after 30 or 40 minutes of cooking, with a nutty flavor - I like it. And after this salad, I'm excited to try making a risotto -- a farrotto -- out of it.

ByMichelleAugust 15, 20112Comments

Recipes Salads

Chinese Chicken Salad Like Grandma Used to Make

If you think of Chinese Chicken Salad as something that went mainstream in the 80s because of Wolfgang Puck and his Chinois Chicken Salad, you might be missing a chapter. Madame Wu's Garden, an LA restaurant, may have really originated it another 20 years earlier. Now closed, the lore is that that Madame Wu's salad…

ByMichelleAugust 5, 20111Comment

Main Course Recipes Salads

Summer Grilling: Grilled Balsamic Chicken & Chopped Vegetable Salad

Today's post comes courtesy of my handy recipe binder. I've been clipping and keeping recipes for 10+ years, and sure, it'd be easier to just bookmark them and go back to them online when I need them. But there's something reassuring about just going to binder and knowing they'll be there. I mean, what if you bookmarked some recipe that was on someone's Angelfire Web site in 1997? It's probably toast, long ago abandoned by someone who probably moved on to Blogger or hosting their own site. (Holy cow, I just googled it, Angelfire still exists and is part of Lycos. Lycos still exists? Really?) Anyway, I clipped the recipes for the balsamic BBQ sauce and the chopped vegetable salad. They're great for summer grilling, but luckily both are still available online.

ByMichelleAugust 1, 20111Comment

Recipes Salads Side Dishes

Grilled Peach Panzanella Salad

Leave it to Jeremy Fox, who did amazing things with vegetarian cuisine at Ubuntu in Napa (and maybe soon at a joint called Smith?), to come up with a different, maybe better, spin on panzanella. I've had the recipe for this peach panzanella tucked away for safe keeping (since 2007!), until some hot weather and good peaches came my way. That was this weekend...it's been a scorcher everywhere. Here in the PNW, we're thanking the weather gods. Across the rest of the country, everyone else is wondering, when will it ever end?! I think I first had a traditional tomato panzanella at Caffe Centro in San Francisco, just across the street from where I worked. Their version had diced tomato, cucumber and corn with a balsamic dressing. A great summer salad. If the name is anything to go by, it's the stale bread that makes a panzanella. But after having this version, I'd say it's the peaches.

ByMichelleJuly 25, 20111Comment