Category: Vegetable

Butter Lettuce Salad w/ Blue Cheese Vinaigrette

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetable

Confession time:  I used to scoff a bit at people who exclusively make their own salad dressing, especially those who insist that their homemade versions are so easy and soooo much better than the store-bought variety.  Since I am more of a follow-the-recipe-and-measure-precisely type of cook, I figured it was a LOT easier to just buy dressings from the store — rather than research and find a recipe, procure the ingredients and execute the recipe — especially since the pre-made dressings taste just as good.  Dan definitely disagrees with me on the latter point, and his (more discerning) palate can almost always detect an artificial quality in store-bought salad dressings.  Considering the fact that many dressings have a (quite literal) shelf-life of many months — if not years — they likely contain a lot of preservatives that cause the artificial taste and aren’t the best things to be putting in our bodies.  I’ll probably never get to the point of being a “glug of olive oil, splash of vinegar, dashes of spices, bit of this and bit of that” kind of dressing-maker, but I’m slowly coming around to using homemade vinaigrettes more often and we’ve tried a couple of recipes that are both easy and delicious.  Don’t get me wrong — I still believe that a lot of store-bought salad dressings are great (we almost always have a bottle of this French vinaigrette in our fridge), but sometimes a homemade dressing really does make certain salads taste better.  This is one of those times, and one of those salads.

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Old-Fashioned Potato Salad

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetable

We’re not exactly sure what qualifies this potato salad as “old-fashioned.”  Perhaps it merits this distinction because it tastes like a family recipe that has been handed down through the ages — complicated and difficult to make, with well-kept secret ingredients?  Or maybe it’s because, as recipe author Ina Garten points out in her book, “Barefoot Contessa at Home,” during the 18 years that she owned her namesake specialty food store, they “must have made millions of pounds of this classic potato salad.”  No matter the reason, we’ve added this salad into our permanent side dish rotation, especially for the upcoming Spring/Summer grilling season.  With complex, yet complimentary flavors from 2 types of mustard, fresh dill, red onion, celery and potato, the recipe is surprisingly simple to make, especially given how good it tastes.  It can be made ahead (and should be, in order to give the flavors time to combine), making it even more ideal for the  BBQ-friendly months of the year.  We predict at least tens of pounds of this salad in our foreseeable side dish future.

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Edamame Salad

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetable

If you frequent sushi restaurants, you’ve probably eaten a fair amount of edamame, where it is often served as an appetizer:  still in the pod, steaming hot and sprinkled with kosher salt.  Sushi places must keep giant vats of edamame ready for service each day because it almost always comes to your table about 2 minutes after you order it (my favorite kind of appetizer.)  If you’ve never had it, edamame refers to green (as in not yet ripe) soybeans that have a mild, slightly nutty flavor that belies their high nutritional value.  These little beans are packed with fiber, protein, iron and vitamins A and C.  Any food this good for you ought to be consumed more often than the occasional sushi outing.  So we found and adapted this recipe, for a fresh and tangy side dish that pairs especially well with most Asian main courses.

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Mushroom Stroganoff

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Recipes, Vegetable

One of the benefits (curses?) about having a food blog is that we tend to obsess about focus on our diet — specifically, what’s for dinner each week — a lot more than we would otherwise.  Prior to starting this little blog, we still planned our weekly menus, but gravitated mostly toward easy favorites with convertible leftovers (we often had red meat twice per week, since beef is easily parlayed into two different meals.)  These days, we tend to focus more on filling our weeks with variety, including at least one seafood and/or vegetarian dinner per week if possible.  We still eat red meat (and likely always will) and appreciate getting two different and delicious dinners out of a single cut of beef, but we feel more healthy when we balance out the meaty side with fish and veggies.  While we have many seafood favorites to choose from each week (parchment fish, shrimp & orzo, fish tacos and Cajun shrimp, to name a few), it can be difficult to find vegetarian dishes that are both delicious and filling, and don’t make us feel like we’ve just finished our salad course and are longing waiting for the (meat) entree.  This hearty pasta dish is all the main course we could want, with earthy and “meaty” flavor from the mushrooms and a tangy, creamy sauce made with sour cream and goat cheese.  Although, full disclosure — the recipe includes beef stock and therefore, it’s not strictly vegetarian — the dish has less calories and fat than the more traditional beef stroganoff, without sacrificing any of the flavor.

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Roasted Acorn Squash w/ Lemon-Tahini Sauce

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetable

We are fortunate in this great country of ours to have an abundance of basic produce available year-round.  We can find tomatoes, citrus, apples and other fruits, as well as a variety of greens and other vegetables at local grocery stores whenever we want.  But there is something to be said about eating vegetables and other produce when they are in season.  They arguably taste best that way and they definitely are less expensive during the peak of their seasons.  Although generally available throughout the year, the prime time for acorn squash is fall and winter.  We’re all for eating seasonal (and local) food where possible, and wanted to find an acorn squash recipe that we really like for the colder months.  We tried this one, but thought it was a little too sweet for our taste, especially since acorn squash tastes pretty sweet on its own.  For our next acorn squash experiment, we adapted this recipe, which incorporates a bit more spice, and adds a little Mediterranean flair, while complementing the inherent sweetness of the squash.  And just like that, we have a new favorite side dish.  This acorn squash is easy to make — roast it while basting with a combination of olive oil, cumin, garlic and green onions, then finish with red pepper flakes and a sauce made with lemon juice, tahini and olive oil — and it’s fun to serve as a savory and filling side complete with its own, homegrown, bowl.

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Potato and Cheese Pierogi

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetable

The regular football season has come to an end, and therefore so has the Steeler Opponent-City Challenge.  It has been a successful season (more so for Foodie Lawyer than the Steelers), and we’ve enjoyed trying new dishes from so many cities and learning about their origins (the most colorful of which was probably Nashville Hot Chicken.)  Some of the dishes were better than expected (Cincinnati Chili for example), others were so good that we’ll definitely make them again (hello, Crab Cakes), and a few were enjoyable, but not worth the effort (looking at you, Polish Boy Sandwiches.)  Speaking of Polish food (and terrible segues), pierogi are pretty popular in the Cleveland area, so we were told by one of Dan’s friends who lives there.  The Steelers’ second game against the Cleveland Browns this season gave us an opportunity to try making homemade pierogi for the S.O.C.C., and gave the Steelers a chance to redeem themselves from the turnover debacle that was their earlier game against the Browns.  The Steelers were redeemed and the pierogi were successful, which brings the final S.O.C.C. tally to:  Steelers: 8-8, Foodie Lawyer: 13-2.  Better luck to the Steelers next season, and a healthy, happy and delicious 2013 to us all!

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Okra Tomato Side

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetable

Okra is still in season around here — at least in our garden.  If you can get fresh okra where you live, this side dish is a great way to use it.  And bonus if you also have garden-fresh tomatoes.  As much as we love the simple saute method of cooking okra, we adapted this recipe to beef it up a bit with the added texture and flavor from the tomatoes, along with a sauce made with a base of sauteed onion, celery, jalapeno and garlic, simmered in a mixture of tomato paste, chicken broth, red wine vinegar and fresh thyme.  The hearty result could be served over rice for a light lunch, and makes for a nice accompaniment to a fish, pork or chicken main course that needs a little extra zing.

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Greek Panzanella

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Recipes, Vegetable

Sometimes a new recipe from a tried-and-true cookbook is a bit like the promise of a new day after a particularly trying one.  Feeling confident that a dish is going to turn out delicious, even if you’ve never previously cooked it, can be as comforting as knowing that frustrations or disappointments of a previous day won’t seem nearly so grim after a good night’s sleep.  We have that kind of confidence in Ina Garten’s recipes and cookbooks.  The Barefoot Contessa knows her way around the kitchen, and she is often our go-to source when we want to try out a new recipe.  This panzanella recipe is just one of many we have tried from her book, “How Easy is That?” and we have to say, not only is it pretty darn easy, but it’s addictingly good with fresh ingredients (rustic bread, cucumber, red bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, red onion) and Greek flavors (olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, dried oregano, Dijon mustard, feta cheese and kalamata olives.)  And just like that, we have a new favorite salad to add to our rotation.

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Cucumber, Celery and Avocado Salad

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetable

Breaking out of the usual green-salad-side rut can sometimes be a challenge.  Often the answer is to leave the leafy ingredient out of the dish altogether and feature one of the lesser, component-type ingredients as the star.  Kind of like accessorizing a white t-shirt with a big statement necklace for a dressed-up look, instead of wearing a dress.  We have previously tried (and loved) salads featuring components such as celery, avocado and cucumber as the main ingredients, so when we found a recipe combining these 3, we knew it would be a winner.  Season with ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, sugar, lime juice and a little grapeseed (or olive) oil, and garnish with chopped cilantro and basil for a fresh, spicy/savory side dish that is anything but ordinary.

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Grilled Fruit Salad

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetable

Summer is an excellent time for grilling experiments.  Although we previously had nearly zero experience grilling fruit at home, we ate grilled grapes once at Ad Hoc (which is one of our all-time favorite restaurants.  We live halfway across the country from that place, but Dan still occasionally, wistfully stalks their Facebook page to find out what they are serving that night for dinner.)  Inspired by those grapes and a pineapple and jalapeno salsa that we recently served over grilled pork, we created a side salad with grilled fruit, and added chopped fresh jalapeno, crumbled goat cheese and a drizzle of balsamic reduction to balance out the sweetness of the fruit.  The outcome of our little experiment?  Successfully delicious!

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