Dan recently decided he wanted to make homemade coleslaw, which to me just seemed like a lot of work for minimal return on the effort. Why go to all that trouble chopping everything and mixing up a dressing when you can just buy a tub of coleslaw at the grocery store? Coleslaw is coleslaw, right? Lucky for you, I was wrong (which Dan loves to hear me say — probably because it doesn’t happen very often), and he was right (I say this even less often.) He found this recipe on Epicurious, and not only is it quick and easy, but it tastes way better than store-bought coleslaw. This is a great side dish to serve at backyard BBQs or parties this upcoming holiday weekend.
Category: Main Ingredient
Mac-N-Cheese with Beef (Johnny Marzetti)
Everyone has their own version (maybe even more than one) of comfort food. A dish that makes you feel better when you’re sick, lifts your spirits, or helps to soothe a hurting heart. It could be anything from your favorite meal that your mom used to make, to an inherited family recipe for chicken soup — the key is that just tasting it warms your soul. As self-described foodies, food is obviously important to us, and we often look to food as a form of therapy. Dan says that chopping ingredients and cooking a meal can be very relaxing for him. (Quite the opposite for me, hello stress! — but luckily he is the chef and I am the taster.) No matter what, sharing a meal together at the end of the day is our way to connect and decompress. (But let’s not get crazy about the togetherness — we still watch TV while we eat.) We recently found this recipe by Michael Ruhlman and love it for its cheesy, beefy, comforting pasta goodness.
Spinach Salad with Grilled Shrimp
Now that it is officially summer (although it has been full-on “summer” from a holy-crap-it’s-hot perspective around here for at least a month now), we find ourselves incorporating more salads into our meal routine. With temps in the high 90s, the last thing we want to do is heat up the kitchen with the oven or slave over a hot stove. Instead, I make Dan slave over a hot grill outside (where it is really hot) to cook up a delicious protein to add to our salad. This grilled shrimp salad is one of our new favorites, due in large part to the flavorful dressing that would work with many other types of salads as well. You could also make this dish with leftover shrimp, chicken or beef for an even easier (and cooler) summer weeknight meal.
Porterhouse Steak with Bourbon BBQ
In honor of Father’s Day this weekend, we grilled a couple of what Dan affectionately referred to as “Big Daddy Steaks.” Since we try not to indulge in too much red meat too often, we figured Father’s Day was the perfect occasion for this rare treat. There is something special about dads and grilling. Dan fondly remembers a hiking trip long ago with his dad, brothers and grandfather where they cooked steaks over a campfire. I recall my dad grilling something delicious nearly every weekend, and to this day he makes the best burger I’ve ever had. So grilling a couple of giant steaks seemed like the perfect tribute to our dads.
Sonoran Tilapia
In our ongoing quest to try to cook healthy meals, we attempt to incorporate fish into our weekly routine on a semi-regular basis. Note how I used the key words “attempt” and “semi-regular,” as opposed to “succeed” and “often.” The problem is that I don’t really like fish — mostly because it tastes like fish (and don’t even get me started on how much I dislike salmon…) So, when we do cook fish at home, the recipe usually involves a sauce of some sort (this is my favorite) and we almost always use a light, non-fishy fish like tilapia. Luckily, our local grocery store sells large bags of frozen tilapia fillets that are really easy to thaw and cook for a quick weeknight meal. I found this particular recipe when I was looking for a new fish dish that met my culinary criteria (sauce, non-fishy, healthy-ish) and called for an Anaheim chile pepper, since we happened to have a few ripe ones in our garden. Not only did this recipe meet these criteria for the most part, it also included TWO sauces — one for the fish while it cooked and another to spoon over the fish when it is done. (If you’re not a fish wimp like me, you might actually enjoy the fish without the second sauce, which would save a little time and effort if you’re looking for a really quick meal.)
Spicy Green Beans
We have several Asian dishes that we like to cook at home, and accordingly, we have more than a few cookbooks that focus on Asian food. I found this side dish recipe in one of our books — “Wok and Stir-Fry: A Collection of Easy and Elegant Recipes.” Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find the book on Amazon; sorry, no link. I purchased the cookbook at HomeGoods a while ago for the low low price of $5.99. (Kitchen Shopping Tip: HomeGoods and stores like it — TJ Maxx, Ross, Marshalls, etc. — can be great sources for interesting (and possibly out of print) cookbooks on the cheap.) It’s a good book and we look forward to trying more recipes from it. The ingredients for this green bean recipe are simple: green beans, vegetable oil, dried chiles, garlic, ginger, and the white part of green onions.
Lemon Chicken with Croutons
Ina Garten has a way with chicken and lemons. We previously tried another of Ina’s recipes using lemons and chicken, and we really liked it. So we figured we would probably also enjoy this “Lemon Chicken with Croutons” recipe from her “Barefoot in Paris” cookbook. We were even more interested in this dish because it uses a whole chicken (great to have for leftovers), and Ina refers to it as “the essence of French country cooking.” Adding homemade croutons and roasted onions to the mix doesn’t hurt either.
Baked Beans
Homemade baked beans take a long time to prepare. A really, really long time. Sure, you could always opt for the canned baked beans available at the grocery store, but the homemade variety have a lot more flavor, and you have the satisfaction of making them from scratch (or so Dan tells me.) Because we had already set aside a Major Block of Cooking Time this recent Memorial Day for smoking BBQ ribs, we decided to make a batch of baked beans as well. The extra cooking time was well worth it. We might not reach the same conclusion in a blind taste test, but we thought the homemade beans tasted way better than any of the canned versions we’ve tried. (You may borrow the blind taste test idea as a party trick for your next cookout. You’re welcome.) Continue reading “Baked Beans”
Memorial Day BBQ Ribs
We’re a day late in wishing everyone a happy Memorial Day, but it’s never too late to reflect on what this holiday is all about — a day of remembrance for those who have died in service of our nation. When I was thinking about what to write that could somehow adequately express the gratitude we feel to those who selflessly serve in our military, I remembered a profound occasion that Dan and I witnessed in an airport several years ago. We arrived for a very early morning flight and found that most of the people flying out of our terminal that day were men and women in uniform. I had never seen that many military personnel in one place before. I don’t know what branch of the military they were in, nor do I know where they were headed. But they were clearly being deployed somewhere significant.
Airport security relaxed the usual procedures and allowed loved ones to accompany the departing service members beyond the security lines and x-ray machines to the terminal gates. We saw mothers and fathers proudly yet anxiously escorting young men who seemed barely out of high school. Then there were couples, one parent in uniform and holding a baby or small child, the other alongside struggling not to cry. We also saw a few soldiers sitting alone, which was heartbreaking to me without knowing their stories and why no one was there to give them a proper send-off. It was a truly humbling and unforgettable experience. What Dan and I will always remember most from that morning at the airport is seeing those men and women about to embark on a journey that we realized was more than we could ever possibly comprehend in terms of commitment, duty and potential sacrifice. We humbly say thank you to the people we saw that day and all the men and women of the armed forces who devote themselves to serving our country, especially those who, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “gave the last full measure of devotion.”
Beef Kebabs and Noodles
As we have mentioned previously, we often enjoy grilling meat in kebab form, especially in the spring and summer. It’s relatively easy, looks cool and allows you to cook the meat to uniform done-ness (technical grilling term.) We found this kebab recipe in The New Grilling Book by Better Homes and Gardens, which is a great cookbook in terms of volume and variety of recipes. Not all the recipes we’ve tried have been hits, but several have been quite good, and we certainly won’t run out of new ones to try any time soon. This kebab recipe is one of the better ones we’ve tried. We especially like how it incorporates the starch, veggies and protein into a single dish.