We made homemade bacon! Seriously — homemade bacon. As we noted in last month’s duck prosciutto post, we are participating in Charcutepalooza, which is a year-long effort by a collection of approximately 200 food bloggers to attempt and document a monthly charcuterie challenge. This month’s endeavor was salt cure — bacon for the “Apprentice Challenge” and pancetta or quanciale for the (more advanced) “Charcutiere Challenge.” The greatest part of this whole experiment? It was foolishly simple, and the end result is so delicious that we are wondering why we have never done this before. We may never buy the plastic wrapped stuff at the grocery store again. Many thanks to the folks who put together Charcutepalooza — such a great way to inspire us and others to step out of our cooking comfort zones. And now, on with the bacon! Continue reading “Homemade Bacon”
Category: Side Dishes
Guacamole Salad
If you’ve spent any time here at FoodieLawyer, you know we are big fans of Ina Garten. The woman is a genius when it comes to food. She came up with one of our favorite side dishes for homemade Tex-Mex: guacamole salad. It’s healthy, fresh and delicious. A friend of ours who first made this salad for us loves it so much that she would sometimes make a batch to eat for lunch all week. It’s that good! Continue reading “Guacamole Salad”
Pasta and Vegetables with Warm Lemon Vinaigrette
Since we still have a few Meyer lemons on our tree, we’ve been looking for good new recipes featuring lemon as a key ingredient. We came across this pasta recipe and decided to try it. We also like the fact that it is a vegetarian dish (and by “we,” I mean me. Dan is less enthusiastic about my one-vegetarian-meal-per-week initiative.) This recipe also meets our criteria of being easy for a weeknight. Although we served the pasta with a sauteed chicken dish, it could easily be its own main dish. Continue reading “Pasta and Vegetables with Warm Lemon Vinaigrette”
Pico de Gallo
If you’re familiar with Tex-Mex cooking at all, you know that pico de gallo is a staple of this type of cuisine. Even though we don’t cook Tex-Mex all that often at home, we certainly eat a lot of it at local restaurants. We never really considered making homemade pico, until we found the recipe for “Disappearing” Pork Tenderloin, which includes pico de gallo as a topping for the pork. One of the great things about pico is how versatile it is — you can use it with many different dishes (not all of which are traditionally Tex-Mex), from pork tenderloin, to tacos, to fish. Delicioso! Continue reading “Pico de Gallo”
Ciabatta Bread
We made bread for the very first time last weekend. One of our favorite food writers/bloggers, Michael Ruhlman, declared that January should be bread making month, and we were inspired. We decided to try this recipe for ciabatta bread because it seemed like a relatively easy introduction to homemade bread, and it really was. Despite our uncertainty along the way that we were doing it right, our Ciabatta bread actually turned out great. We bake now! Continue reading “Ciabatta Bread”
Light Mac-and-Cheese
Who doesn’t love Macaroni and Cheese? We do, and a couple of our friends do as well. So, by special request, we are posting our favorite mac-n-cheese recipe. We found this recipe for a light version in Cook’s Illustrated’s “The Best Light Recipe.” It’s really good and more healthy than other recipes. According to Cook’s Illustrated, this version has 290 less calories than classic mac-and-cheese and 30 less grams of fat. The secrets are low-fat ingredients and using cornstarch to thicken the cheese rather than a buttery (and high-in-fat) roux. We have professed our love for Cook’s Illustrated cookbooks before, and likely will again. The best thing about them is that the folks at the Cook’s Illustrated test kitchens do all the work for you — testing all the different ingredients and variations to come up with the best possible recipe. We highly recommend all their books, including their Light Recipe book. Continue reading “Light Mac-and-Cheese”
Sauteed Brussels Sprouts
Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a nicely sauteed vegetable! We’ll be having these this Christmas Eve with steak au poivre and roasted red potatoes. Perhaps not the most traditional holiday meal, but any good food shared with loved ones makes the dining experience memorable, and these brussels sprouts will be a delicious addition to ours. We hope that all of you are enjoying great food and special time with your loved ones this holiday season as well. Continue reading “Sauteed Brussels Sprouts”
Homemade Salsa
It’s not too late to make a holiday gift for the Tex-Mex fans in your life. My mom has a great recipe for homemade salsa that is easy, fresh-tasting and delicious. Some very special people on our Christmas list love this salsa, and I don’t make it for them often enough. (Yes, you read that right — this is one of the very few recipes that I make all on my own!) I made a couple of batches for our friends this year. Continue reading “Homemade Salsa”
Rice with Roasted Poblano, Spinach and Cheese
As self-proclaimed foodies, we love the show Top Chef, including their “Top Chef Masters” series, in which they pit established chefs against each other. On the first season, a chef named Rick Bayless won. Chef Bayless is widely acclaimed as America’s biggest proponent of authentic Mexican cuisine. He also has two reportedly amazing restaurants in Chicago — Frontera Grill and Topolobampo. I personally wouldn’t be able to speak in detail about how amazing they are, since I have never been (someone forgot to make reservations far enough in advance of our most recent trip to Chicago. His name rhymes with pan). But, pan Dan was lucky enough to go to Topolobampo once with a couple of colleagues during a work trip and says it was exquisite. I guess the rest of us will just have to settle for the homemade version of Chef Bayless’ delicious recipe for “Rice with Roasted Poblano, Spinach and Fresh Cheese.” Continue reading “Rice with Roasted Poblano, Spinach and Cheese”
Celery Salad
We recently tried a new side dish from Ina Garten’s latest cookbook “How Easy is That?” We have to say, it was pretty darn easy. And delicious. So good, in fact, that we are going to serve it at Thanksgiving this year. Celery salad is not something we ever would have thought to make, but as Ina recognizes, celery can serve as a starring role and should not always be relegated to tuna salad support. This is definitely a side dish we will keep in the rotation. Continue reading “Celery Salad”