Gastronome

A few weeks ago, I was craving a potato salad but didn’t want anything with mayo, or sour cream, or yogurt. I had been playing around with vinegars so hit upon a slightly decadent but pretty straightforward rendition that you could call a “salad”. However, I originally served it as a side but recently made it for our annual Santa Cruz Shakespeare picnic outing.

(Oh and hi everyone, it has been ages since Meriko added me to Gastronome and I finally made some time to post…this is my first.)
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Dinner: August 11, 2005

Originally uploaded by Jenblossom.

It’s the dog days of summer, and New York has had a miserable stretch of hot, sticky weather. I’ve been relying on our outdoor grill and quick, cool salads to get us through the heatwave, and this combo of grilled tuna, black-eyed peas, fresh green beans, baby tomatoes and basil was a hit - a simple combination highlighting some of the season’s best ingredients.
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Sometimes, inspiration strikes in odd places. A couple of weeks ago, as I sat in the waiting room at my doctors office and flipped through an old issue of Bon Apetit, a recipe for a tuna chopped salad caught my eye. We were expecting a heavy snowfall that day, and though the weather outside was blustery and cold, that recipe stuck in my head, making me think thoughts of spring.

Last night, as New York was hit with yet another wintry blast of snow and ice, I did my best to reconstruct that tuna chopped salad recipe, my way of telling Old Man Winter that he won’t break me. Spring’s just around the corner…
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I made this salad to go along with some Quorn cutlets that we were trying out for the first time. I was a little nervous that the Quorn cutlets would be nasty, but we were pleasantly surprised. Luckily, the salad was also quite good. I highly recommend - especially if you are a fan of dijon mustard.

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Yesterday at the store I got some lovely big fresh scallops, but hadn’t really figured out what I was going to do with them until tonight. As evidenced by previous postings, I like seafood and salad, so I figured I’d stick to the basics and just wing it. The result? Beautifully seared lemon-ginger scallops over salad.

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In honor of our first installment from the Bacon of the Month Club.

A salad perfectly paired with some real bacon. Beware: this is a Bacos-free zone.
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This is definitely a riff on the California “mesclun, nuts, fruit, and vinaigrette” salad that is ubiquitous around these parts, but it’s still one of my very favorite salads to serve to a crowd - it’s chock full of tasty bites. Elsewhere on gastronome, I point out how to make it on a picnic, and it’s on the menu at Thanksgiving 2003. .
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Burning with guilt over my lack of participation, I offer up this recipe from my food guru, Deborah Madison. I made this yesterday for a li’l Easter bbq. Quite yum: Picnic Potato Salad with Marjoram and Pickled Onions. Note: I used ground thyme and left out the bell pepper and capers because, yes, I’m a freak.
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Lately I haven’t been able to ‘reach’ to cook myself dinners after work for all the usual reasons: I’m too tired, I’m missing key ingredients, it will take too long, etc.. Basically, bullshit lazy reasons! Short on bedtime fiction, I took a couple cookbooks to bed last night in search of some healthy, super quick, simple dinners I could whip up and get myself out of my cooking rut. I found this gem in Nigella Lawson’s Forever Summer. Nigella is all about easy dishes and I hit the jackpot with this one: the dressing has already been committed to memory and has been added to my personal permanent cooking repertoire. Here goes…
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I threw this salad together last night. I have been
working on eating more veggies and protein and trying to cut calories over all.
It is really simple and not hard to make, especially if you have already cleaned shrimp.
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