Summer is almost here and we’ll all be busy grilling. We desperately need a cool side dish that delivers do-ahead service, stands up on buffet tables, avoids spoilage risk (hit the road mayo), and doesn’t threaten those swimsuit physiques (you too pasta salad).
Both recipes, inspired by twowell-respected chefs, relying on two flavor combos that equally delight. One leans toward heat and one toward sweet, can you match the country to its taste characteristic?
We’ve had a few one-pot dishes lately. There’s something about using fewer pots and pans and a meal that’s ready all at once, that I can’t ignore, especially one that taunts us with pasta, water and all the sauce ingredients in one pot. How can that be?
I came across this one-pan dish quite awhile ago when it made the rounds apparently originating from this Martha Stewart Living recipe.
Linked to that same recipe was a video that explained how to slice garlic, which I imagined to be a insider tip perhaps using dental floss or the Goodfellas razor blade technique, Pauly style.
You know the term rising? It’s a summer term to indicate the grade a child will enter in the fall, as in will be a freshman or freshman rising. My daughter is now, at this very moment, entering her last summer rising. She will be a senior come September. We commented this past week how the college years flew by, especially compared to high school. Like the instant she graduated, we went to warp speed. Is it because at home we only see bits and pieces of her life or is it because there are fewer tortured, ingrained moments that happen in college? Despite living-on-their-own growing pains, college is relatively smooth. No driver’s ed, no puberty, no curfew arguments, no acne, no sleeping until she was home safe in bed, no standardized tests orcollege applications. She worked impressively hard in high school. Hell, sometimes I worked impressively hard. When at 11 pm, on my way to bed, she’d ask me to read through an essay and then we’d both be up into the wee hours trying to assess Gregor’s psychological change after his transformation in The Metamorphosis.
The more I cook, the more I anticipate Spring. Root vegetables have their charm, in a gut-extending way, but by March, I’m in desperate need of above-ground produce.
We know in the crunchiest of times, one can head to just about any large grocer these days and make our own salad. Really stellar preparations, you know those from exceptional eateries, however, pair just the right vegetables and seasonings, leaving us so ultra satisfied that we don’t feel it was a consolation meal or a diet burden, but rather a meaningful, well-intended combination of earth’s best, making us think for a nano-second “I could be vegetarian.”
Cinco de Mayo celebration began in California with Mexican immigrants celebrating their country’s rise over French rule after the defeating the French at the Battle of Puebla. Mexico observes this historic date, but the US declared it a national holiday. And what better way for America to celebrate anything, but with food.
The hardest part of preparing the easiest version of fajitas happens at the store. Starting with a one-stop seasoningwe find all we need for making great tasting fajitas, then as if it were all homemade, we sizzle them up at home. Delicious and easy.
For Cinco de Mayo, we wanted something beyond the the season packet, yet not labor intensive. Afterall, we’ll be plenty busy putting toppings into bowls.
