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While I was pulling together all of the ingredients for this dish, I made a very interesting discovery.
I've been preparing to shoot and write this blog for close to 30 years.
Read MoreThese two vegetable dishes are super easy to make and can be used as either a side dish or with some small additions, as a main dish. The roasted asparagus can be served with pasta and a poached egg, as a main dish. If you like, you can add bacon to the cauliflower gratin to make it just that much heartier.
Featured on The Fruit Guys website, here and here.
Ingredients
Preparation
Ingredients
Preparation
Years ago, when my parents were visiting from New York, I decided to serve them some avocados. Joe, my dad, was less than enthusiastic having only had unripe, unflavorful avocados up until this point. He remarked upon how he stayed away from avocados at all cost because they were tasteless and held no appeal for him. His opinion was forever changed after I served him a California Haas avocado.
Once it was served up simply diced drizzled with some olive oil, pepper and salt, I thought his head was going to explode. I think he thought I was a magician of some sort because I had picked a perfect avocado. The teacher in him asked me a million questions about why our avocados were so much tastier than any he had eaten before. And, how did I get that pit out so perfectly?
I figured it was because they are grown here and we are lucky enough to have a year-round variety, the Haas avocado, available at all times. The avocados we've had in New York are a harder, taller variety than the Haas. According to this website, I'm thinking Joe is getting something like a Zutano avocado. The taste is much lighter and not quite as creamy as the Haas.
I eat a lot of avocados. I'm also lucky enough to have a group of friends and co-workers who love food as much as I do. We don't work in the food industry, but we all love it. Whenever I'm trying to come up with a recipe for a particular ingredient, I tend to take input from everyone at work. I spend an equal amount of time working with them as I do working on this site, so it makes perfect sense that if I can make something they'll love to eat, we all win.
The egg smash-up is an Israeli dish, I think, that my friend Anastasia started making for us. It's really a simple mix of equal parts hard-boiled egg and avocado, with some salt and pepper. It's great on everything from toasted baguette to rice cakes. It'll keep you going for hours, too, so no need to worry about getting hungry anytime soon!
My friend Robby suggested the smoothie recipe. I was not always a fan of smoothies, but something about the combination of banana and avocado sounded good to me. You can use either regular milk or almond milk here. The almond milk gives it a nice nutty flavor. I don't recommend using rice milk, though, because it's almost too sweet next to the banana and honey. And, the combination of the almond milk, avocado and banana makes the smoothie smell like the beach.
Lastly, my other friend Ari makes a wonderful guacamole. I don't think mine even comes close. But, it does have a great fresh flavor and nice piquant onions to offset the smooth and tangy avocado.
I know when I'm in New York this summer, if I can find some avocados I'm going to break out these recipes and blow Joe's mind.
INGREDIENTS
PREPARATION
Serves 2. Prep time, 5 minutes; cook time, 0 minutes.
Cook’s note: You can use almond milk or rice milk instead of regular milk.
INGREDIENTS
PREPARATION
Serves 4. Prep time, 5 minutes; cook time, 0 minutes.
INGREDIENTS
PREPARATION
Serves 2. Prep time, 5 minutes; cook time, 0 minutes.
As seen on The Fruit Guys website.
We love chips.
As I've mentioned before, I don't deep-fry foods very often. My fear is that I'll end up deep-frying everything, including candy bars at all hours of the day and night. Because of this homemade chips were seemingly out of my repertoire of dishes.
At about age two, my daughter Isabella was ready to eat all sorts of foods. I knew I had one shot at getting her to love all manner of root veggies. I chose oven-frying as my cooking method. As one of my sisters said "sure, you can get a kid to eat cardboard if you put some olive oil and salt on it and roast it until it's crispy."
She was right.
Isabella eats all manner of root veggies, prepared in any number of ways. She loves a good roasted veggie, especially brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes.
This recipe will work for any root veggie: potatoes, brussels sprouts, sunchokes or carrots.
Ingredients
Method:
Cook’s note: To slice the potatoes you can use either a mandolin slicer or the slicer blade on your food processor. And, cutting them by hand is perfectly fine, just make them as thin as possible and make sure the chips are about the same thickness to avoid burning.
As featured on The Fruit Guys website
Salad dressing has been on my mind lately. I think it's a sure sign of Spring, what with all the nice greens beginning to show up in the farmer's markets.
In my head, I keep hearing my brother singing a song he made up "All My Dressings", but I can't remember the rest of it. I think this was something he started singing to one of his many nieces and nephews or his kids as pre-dinner entertainment. Salad dressing and I were never best friends. The reappearance of my brother Chris' song, has, however, prompted me to think some more about dressings. I generally like an undressed (naked, if you will) salad. I'm not sure why I have this aversion to dressing, it certainly has nothing to do with calories. There was a time when I did like dressing. I do remember a good vinaigrette that Gran Fran and Joe would make which I ate when we were kids. That said, I'm beginning to wonder if all of the packaged dressings that people offer me are the turn off. There are too many flavors mixed in that take over the taste of the lovely greens.
I set myself a mission: to find not one, not two, but three dressings that I could rotate through my salads. This coincided perfectly with my recent thinking about how to increase the flavor in my salads. In combination with adding fruits, nuts and sometimes rice noodles to my salads, dressing seems the next logical step to bring up the flavor.
A mustard vinaigrette dressing always plays a part in my Salade Nicoise. I know that I can use that same dressing on any number of salads, or even over some warm boiled potatoes. One down, two to go.
Cole Slaw is a big favorite of mine, especially my homemade version. The dressing doesn't have to be exclusively for cabbage, even though it goes so well with it. I figured I could try it with a heartier green, like spinach, add some cucumbers, nuts and shredded carrots and have myself a great salad. I was right.
Dressing number three came to me in my half-sleep the other day, just waking up after a long night of dreaming about food. Those dreams paid off because I came up with an Asian-style dressing that includes orange juice, ginger and sesame oil. A winner when put over romaine lettuce with rice noodles, almonds and orange slices.
I think the vinaigrette and the Asian-style dressing can double as a good marinade for meats, too. So looking forward to trying them out on a variety of salads and reporting back!
My friends came to dinner the night after I made these dressings. It was really great to be able to say, for once, that I did have not one, but three dressings to offer them. They were all a big hit. I'm going to think up a few more dressings before too long. I think I actually *do* like dressing.
Serves 4
Use this vinaigrette on everything from a side dinner salad to a salade nicoise.
serves 4
You can make a traditional cole slaw just by adding two cups of shredded cabbage and some julienned carrots. Or, simply pour some dressing over well-washed spinach, cucumbers, carrots and sunflower seeds.
serves 4
This dressing is fantastic for a mixed green salad featuring hardy vegetables like red bell peppers and green beans.
You can also add rice noodles to showcase the dressing’s flavor and some cilantro as garnish.
Spring is here. At least in SF. It's got to be close to 70 degrees here with lovely clear, blue skies. A perfect day for a walk over to our local farmer's market.
There was a nice kale salad in our lunch this past week, so I decided to try my hand at cooking some. I've used kale in soups before, but never any other way.
Many varieties of kale showed up this week at the farmer's market. I got some and then stared it in on my kitchen counter for a good long time. I realized that I had no idea what to do with it. Since it seems very fibrous, braising seemed like a good idea. Then I remembered how we always cooked sausages in boiling red wine before putting them into the tomato sauce when I was growing up. Maybe red wine was the way to go.
It most certainly is the way to go with kale. I don't know if there are purists out there who have a particular right way to cook these hearty leaves, but I recommend that you give the red wine a try.
Once I had the kale cooked down, I thought I'd try two different final dishes with it. I served it alongside boiled potatoes straight from the pan with some of the braising liquid and garlic.
And, I made a pesto-style preparation, by pureeing the cooked kale, garlic and braising liquid in the food processor. Both were good, but I preferred the pesto-style, since I'd never tasted kale this way before.
A version of this recipe is featured on The Fruit Guys website.
Stuffed zucchini is a delight. I haven't made it in awhile, since I used to cover it in cheese and can no longer do so, dairy-free me and all.
I realized that if I were to put something else with a nice strong flavor in the stuffing, that could complement the mellow sweetness of the zucchini, I might be able to make this taste just as good without the cheese.
Last week, I made this Onion & Shallot Marmalade (click here for the recipe) and thought it could be the perfect accompaniment for the zucchini.
I was right. It added texture and also flavor, both savory and sweet.
Though I did replace the regular bread with a gluten-free variety (Udi's), all the other ingredients are the same as what Gran Fran always used to make hers. It took me awhile to remember that you have to steamed the zucchini before you stuff and bake it. I did also fry the bread briefly before adding it to the stuffing, to make sure it browned and didn't soak up too much of the oil from the onion & shallot marmalade.
My daughet managed to eat the first batch of chantarelles that I sauteed and I couldn't quite remember how long to cook them in the oven, but in the end, they turned out great. I even managed to get a non-vegetable lover to eat this without any complaint, and of course, I loved it, too.
Ingredients:
Method:
Enjoy!
Onions, when cooked over a very low heat for quite a long time, can be quite a sweet and comforting food.
The first time I tried to make a slow cooked onion spread, about 14 years ago, I burned it all up. It hadn't occurred to me that there was a lot of sugar in the onion that would be released as it cooked. Sadly, I threw away my first burnt attempt and tried again. After about four tries, I got it right, and have been making this ever since.
This time, I decided to add a shallot and some minced garlic. The flavors get really mellow as they cook down, meld with the olive oil, and give you a dish that tastes like it belongs in Provence. The flavors are sweet and savory all at once, which is my favorite combination.
This marmalade is super easy to make and can be used for a number of things: incorporated into a cooked veggie or meat dish (recipe to come later this week); as a topping for baked potatoes; a spread for toast or added to an egg scramble.
Ingredients:
Method:
Serve on toast, baked potatoes or use as part of a meat or veggie roast.
Thanks, DailyBuzz Healthy Living for the shout-out!
My Green Beans recipe was featured on 1.25.12
The salade nicoise has got to be the best salad ever. It involves only a handful of ingredients (two of which I've featured recently as make-ahead basics, here and here).
When my daughter and I were in Paris, I ordered salade nicoise. What I got was not at all what I was accustomed to from our American version.
For one thing, there was rice in it. Yes, you read that right, rice. For another thing, the tuna tasted and looked odd, and overcooked. Lastly, there was some heavy dressing with a bit of cream in it. I won't judge the entire country on how this one brasserie made their Nicoise. Instead, I guess I'll just have to venture back over to France to find the perfect version.
In the meantime, I decided to try my hand at home making this lovely salad. Usually, there are boiled eggs included, but when I was almost finished making (and photographing) the salad, I realized I had forgotten to make them. To my surprise, I didn't miss the eggs at all. I actually think I preferred it without the eggs, but you can go ahead and add them back in if you want to.
The key to my success was the freshness of the tuna steak. Of course, if you can't locate a tuna steak, you can use a can of best-quality (that's a Gran-Franism, the best quality thing) solid olive oil packed tuna fish. Drain some of the oil out, so that the flavor of the dressing will shine through.
I really enjoyed making this, especially since it was so simple and tasted so darned good.
serves 1
Ingredients:
Method:
