Donna's Daily Dish
Inspiring people to create every day recipes
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Inspiring people to create every day recipes
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In a recent weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, there was a recipe for charred romaine with flank steak and olive tapenade. The recipe appeared in the column called “Slow Fast Food” with a recipe by Chef Caroline Glover. Ms. Glover’s owns the restaurant Annette in Aurora, Colorado. What appealed to me in this recipe was the cut of beef and the simplicity of the recipe. The flank steak in this recipe is merely season with salt and pepper and grilled 5-6 minutes per side. One of the things that makes this recipe quite good is the accompanying charred romaine lettuce that has a nice smokey flavor and the roasted shallot dressing that goes over the romaine.
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Recently I purchased a bunch of beautiful New Jersey red beets at Delicious Orchards. I would normal just cook until tender and dress with oil and vinegar. However, I wanted to dress them a bit more. I found on my New York Times cooking app a recipe by Julia Moskin for Marinated Beet Salad with Whipped Goat Cheese, yum! The beets are marinated with shallots, olive oil, sweet vinegar such as Barolo, balsamic or sherry. I happened to have some Carter and Cavero sherry vinegar on hand and used that. The goat cheese is creamed with a bit of olive oil, milk or heavy cream (I had heavy cream), white wine vinegar and seasoned with salt and pepper.
It’s less than a week before Thanksgiving and I’ve finalized my menu. As I’m working this Sunday and the day before Thanksgiving, time is of the essence. My menu is apple, dried cherry and walnut salad with maple dressing, fresh ravioli (2-3 per person so they don’t fill up on pasta), roast turkey with Williams-Sonoma Apple Cider and Sage Glaze, Melissa Clark’s sweet potatoes with bourbon and brown sugar, Great Grandma Freid’s dressing (a family tradition), Brussels sprouts sautéed with pancetta. For dessert we’ll have tapioca (another tradition), pumpkin cheesecake crumble squares and a Delicious Orchards apple pie and perhaps a few mini éclairs from the Orchard. During recovery from hip surgery, my neighbor very kindly prepared several dinners for my husband and I. To show our gratitude, I made dinner for she and her husband Sunday evening. Thank goodness the weather has cooled down as this played into my menu selection. I also wanted to have most of my dinner done before my guests arrived. After a bit of internet research, I found the perfect recipe at Williams-Sonoma, braised short ribs with creamy polenta. Now that my entree was selected it was time to round out the menu with a few appetizers and salad. For appetizers, I selected two and kept them simple. I made basil pesto cream cheese filled tomatoes. While the recipe called cherry tomatoes, I opted for grape tomatoes. The cream cheese filling was a nice foil to the tartness of the tomato. My other go to easy appetizer is crab spread from Mr. Shrimp in Belmar. I serve the crab spread on Keebler Club crackers. Sometimes if my daughter has an overabundance of produce in her Dreyer’s Farms CSA box, she’ll pass along some items to me. In one of her boxes, she gave me had a half of head of cabbage and a purple spring onion. At first, I was puzzled as to what do with these two items, but after going through my recipe files, I came across a recipe from the March 1996 issue of Bon Appétit Magazine for Carolina Cole Slaw. What is great about this recipe is the fact that there is no mayonnaise in this slaw. Fortunately for me the half of head of cabbage yielded the 1-1/4 pounds of thinly sliced cabbage I needed. I also used the purple spring onion instead of regular yellow onions for a little color. A sliced green pepper is also in the slaw. In order to get the cabbage and onion nice and thin, I used my mandoline slicer for both. I'm now into my sixth week of recovery from hip surgery. The challenge has been not to overdo things such as bending more than 90 degrees and no heavy lifting to name a few. However, the challenge to find great meals using wonderful summertime ingredients has been the best way for me to pass the time. Years ago, my husband gave me the cookbook, The Tra Vigne Cookbook - Seasons in the California Wine Country, by Michael Chiarello with Penelope Wisner. It's a seasonal cookbook broken down by ingredients. In the summer section, one of the ingredients chef Chiarello focuses on is corn. This weekend I made raw corn, arugula and pecorino salad with grilled chicken breast. What a delightful and light summertime meal this was. It’s been almost four weeks since my hip replacement surgery. Sitting still is not something I can easily do. I was, in my mind, very good the first two weeks of recuperation. Since then, I’ve been able to move better and being careful at what I chose to do. I’ve missed cooking during this time. The meals that we prepared were easy and unimaginative. However, as my recuperation progresses, the meals are getting better. Some of the things I have made in the past, but I do have a few new ones. I was able to try out some these recipes on my family this weekend. |
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