Easy Summer Fruit Salad

Sorry I haven't written in a while. This new job makes it hard not only to cook but take some time to shoot and write about it. But this fruit salad, taken to a potluck BBQ, was easy. The sizes don't really matter. We had some blueberries from my folks garden, some left over cantaloupe. I bought a watermelon to make up the difference.

1/1 medium watermelon
1/2 cantaloupe
1/2 cup blueberries, thought I would have used more if I'd had them
1 tbsp minced fresh mint
1/4 tspn sugar

Using a small melon baller, remove all the fruit from the water melon and the cantaloupe, reserving all the removed fruit and the empty watermelon half. Using a large metal spoon, scrape out any remaining fruit, leaving a smooth surface. Pour reserved fruit, mint and sugar in bowl and mix well. Let sit in fridge for 30 minutes before serving for flavors to set.

Pretty, simple and tasty. Would work with almost any combination of summer fruits.

Flatiron Steak Salad

Ding ding ding! Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! Last night I made a fabulous salad for dinner. It was a huge hit and absolutely delicious. It's a definite keeper. Check out the Flatiron Steak Salad with Thai Dressing in this month's Food and Wine. The flavors were amazing, and we drank it with Dulle Teve, a Belgian Tripel Ale, since I was unable to find the recommended beer. (BTW, watch out - there's a higher alcohol content here...rough, rough morning.)

Let me know what you think. I was thinking that next time I might make it just a tad spicier, and add a little avocado.

Chicken Salad

For Sunday brunch, in addition to the cheese souffle, I also made a chicken salad from the leftovers of a chicken I had roasted a couple nights earlier. You could do the same very easily with a rotisserie chicken from the market.

Three cups chopped cooked chicken (with or without the skin, depending on how much you care about being alive for much longer)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup chopped chives
1 cup seedless grapes, halved or quartered depending on size (I used red for the color)
3/4 cup toasted walnuts, chopped or broken into small pieces
freshly ground black pepper

1 lemon
salt

Combine all ingredients through the black pepper in a medium bowl. Taste. I had cooked a maple black pepper glazed roasted chicken, so the outside was a little sweet. Therefore, I added the juice of about a half a lemon to counter the maple's sweetness, add a little acidity. You could also use fresh tarragon for the same thing. So, taste yours, see if you need to add lemon. Same thing with the salt - mine was a little salty on the skin so I didn't need to add any to the salad. Enjoy with bread, mixed salad greens, whatever floats your boat.

Antipasto Salad

Some friends had us over for pizza the other night, and just said only to bring something that didn't require a trip to the grocery. So, I cleaned out the fridge for a layered antipasto salad. Below is what I used, and the order I layered it (from bottom up) but just use whatever you have in the fridge that you think tastes good together. This went especially well with pizza.

2 large tomatoes thinly sliced
1 half cucumber, thinly sliced
5 radishes, thinly sliced
1 half bell pepper, cut in strips
1/3 cup Boursin, crumbled
1/4 cup of pepperoni, cut into toothpicks
1/4 cup of calamata tapenade, dolloped around (I was out of olives)
balsamic vinaigrette

Shrimp and White Bean Salad

It's probably a little summery, but who cares! Last night we had a cold white bean salad and a couple of shrimp skewers with some pancetta sprinkled on top. It was tasty and relatively light (except for the pancetta of course). It also only took under 30 minutes to make the entire meal. We had it with a nice bottle of Pouilly Fuisse.

Here's the recipe:

1 medium can white beans (canellini, great northern, etc)
6-8 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
dozen calamata olives, pitted and hlaved
one celery rib, washed and finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste

20 medium shrimp, shelled and deveined
olive oil
half a lemon

3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
olive oil
2 ounces pancetta, roughly chopped

Drain beans in a strainer, and run water over them to get rid of as much of the juice as possible. Transfer to a bowl and mix well with the remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate.

Heat ridged side of grill pan over medium heat. Skewer shrimp (I put about 4-6 on each skewer). Brush each skewer with olive oil and squeeze lemon juice on top. Grill each skewer 3-5 minutes per side, until pink and cooked through.

While shrimp cooks, heat 2 tbspn olive oil in small pan or skillet. Add garlic and saute for 2 minutes. Add pancetta and cook until pancetta is just starting to get crispy.

Plate skewers and white bean salad and sprinkle pancetta/garlic on top. Serves 2.

The end of summer

With a frost quickly approaching, I decided to cook some of my garden's green tomatoes that will probably never have a chance to ripen. I made a fried green tomato salad of arugula (tossed in a red wine vinaigrette), bacon, crumbled blue cheese, and, yes, fried green tomatoes. I served this on the side of a steak that had first been marinated in the juice from half a lime, 2-3 minced garlic cloves, salt, pepper, and olive oil, and then was grilled. Easy, simple and very yummy.

The perfect salad

Everyone has one, a salad in which all the ingredients come together perfectly. For me, I usually don't make it, can just get it at a good restaurant. However, I recently made one that worked just right for me. I started with arugula (the best green for salad!), topped it with 5 or 6 medium boiled shrimp, about 1/2 cup of artichoke heart quarters, a handful of halved cherry tomatoes and some homemade blue cheese dressing. It was phenomonal!

Here's my blue cheese dressing recipe:

1/2 cup sour cream (I used low fat but do what works for you)
1/4 cup mayo (ditto)
3/4 to 1 cup of crumbled blue cheese (I like to leave a couple of big chunks for a nice surprise)
juice of half a lemon
2 tbsp of chopped chives
freshly ground black pepper

Mix all the ingredients together. It's best if you can let it sit for an hour or so before serving, and it can last a week or so in the fridge.

Blueberry salad

An experiment that turned out pretty AND tasty - blueberry salad. I tossed mixed greens with a few blueberries, some halved yellow pear tomatoes, a little red onion, and a white wine vinaigrette. It was delicious and healthy. I have also seen similar salads that include crab or shrimp, which I'll try next time.

I also made chicken breasts topped with pesto, and though it doesn't look as pretty as the salad it was good. Just salted and peppered two breasts, topped with pesto (a little too much, as you can see by the photo) and baked at 425F for 30 minutes or so.

Fun Computer Problems

Very thrilling computer problems have kept me from posting about lots of cooking I have done in the last week. Early in the weekend I made a pseudo-Mexican dish to use up a lot of food we had hiding in the fridge. Drew's reaction: It's like a fiesta in my mouth! I thought it was tasty, hearty and filling - just the kind of thing you want to eat on a cool fall night. Of course, its 95 degrees outside.



Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
One rotisserie chicken, with all meat pulled off and shredded to bite-size pieces
2 carrots cut into 1-inch pieces
10 small red potatoes cut diced
cumin
cayenne
salt
pepper
1 red onion diced
1 medium can black beans (drained)
10 soft tortillas
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup half and half
taco sauce
1 diced tomato or dozen diced cherry tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 375F. Seperately, mix the carrots and potatoes with a half teaspoon each of the cumin, cayenne, salt and pepper. Put each in separate oven-proof dishes with a little vegetable oil, and bake for 20-25 minutes, until they are done and the potatoes are a little crispy - may need to cook the potatoes a little longer than the carrots.

While carrot and potato are cooking, saute the red onion until soft.

Once all three are cooked and have cooled, place in a large bowl with the shredded chicken and the black beans. Mix, and taste to see if it needs any more of the spices.

Turn oven up to 400F.

Spray a casserole dish with non-stick spray.

Place about 3/4 cup filling in each tortilla, and put each snugly in the casserole dish. (may have some filling left over. Do fun and crazy things with it unrelated to the dish.)

In a food processor or blender, blend 3/4 cup cheddar with half and half and couple of dashes of taco sauce. Pour mixture over casserole. Sprinkle diced tomatoes on top, and top with rest of cheddar.

Bake for 20 minutes.

FRIEND IN TOWN

Sure, most people would want to show off where they live by taking their friend out to dinner in the city's hippest neighborhood. We're not like that. We force them to stay inside and eat my food.

Saturday night I made an herb-roasted chicken to celebrate the visit of my friend Uri. Also, my mom had brought by earlier in the week green beans from their garden and some country ham to cook with it. I used both in a green bean country ham risotto. Also, I roasted some roma tomatoes for a little tang.



Here are the recipes:

Roast Chicken

INGREDIENTS

3 lb chicken (remove plastic bags inside cavity and use for something else)
1/2 cup fresh minced herbs (I used rosemary, sage, thyme, basil)
salt and pepper
3 minced garlic cloves
1 lemon or small orange cut in half
1 small red onion cut in half
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 425. Wash chicken inside and out, and sprinkle all over with salt and pepper, and rub olive oil on it, too. In a small bowl, mix herbs with garlic and salt and pepper. Place lemon and onion halves in cavity of bird. Lift skin above breasts up just slightly and push herb mix under skin, carefully, so as not to tear skin. Rub any extra herbs on the outside. Tie legs up.

Place bird in roasting pan breast-side down, and roast for 5 minutes. Next, turn it to one of its sides and roast for 5 minutes. Then roast for 5 minutes on the other side. Finally roast breast-side up for an hour. I got this method from Jamie Oliver and its a good way of getting color all over the bird. After an hour, cut into the thigh area to see if the bird is done. If not, cook some more!

Risotto

INGREDIENTS

Olive oil
2 shallots, minced
1.5 cups risotto
3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
3/4 cup chopped country ham
1 cup white wine
1.5 cups green beans, chopped

Saute shallots in olive oil. Once soft, add risotto. Stir for one minute. Add chicken broth, 1/4 cup at a time, and country ham, and just keep on stirring. Yup, that's what you have to do with risotto. Once I had used up all the broth, and still needed more liquid, I started adding with wine. I stirred and added until it was done.

While it was cooking, i cooked the green beans in boiling water for about 3 minutes. Then I put them in an ice bath.

Stir the green beans into the risotto.

FINALLY, the last night Uri was in town Drew broiled a beautiful piece of steak, and I made a fried green tomato salad. This was much more successful than the last time I tried to make fried green tomatoes. The key is getting the oil hot enough. If you don't it just turns to mush in the oil.

Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

5 medium green tomatoes, cut in 1/2 inch slices
2 cups cornmeal
pinch each of cayenne, salt and pepper
1 egg, beaten
About 1 cup vegetable oil
4 strips bacon, cooked, broken into 1-inch pieces
blue cheese salad dressing
pickled red onions
4 cups arugula
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 lemon
1/4 tspn pepper
1/4 tspn dry mustard
1/2 cup olive oil

Heat oil in nonstick pan until hot but not smoking. Combine cornmeal, cayenne and salt and pepper in a small bowl. Dip tomato slices in egg and then cornmeal mix, and then place in pan. Continue with rest of slices. Do not crowd pan. You should only have to flip each slice. Once golden brown place on a paper towel-lined plate.

Make lemon dressing. Whisk the juice of one lemon, vinegar, pepper and mustard. Slowly whisk in olive oil. Toss arugula with dressing. Place fried green tomatoes on top of greens. Sprinkle crumbled bacon and pickled red onions on top and drizzle blue cheese dressing over the top. I never said it was healthy.