Posts Tagged ‘salad’
Sergio's Summer Salad with Grilled Chicken
Poultry & Pork • Tags: Guest Test Kitchen, salad, Whole Foods Market
We have great friends who like to cook as we do. More and more, our amigos are sending us Facebook and Gchat messages about what they just made. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a text with a photo. As foodies, we are easily excited by meals that we make ourselves, but it’s nice to see our friends beaming with pride over their dishes. Sergio is a good friend of ours who lives far across the world in Harlem, New York. He’s made several trips out to LA, and believe it or not, during those visits, we’ve never cooked for him nor he for us. We do know that he likes to throw parties for friends and invite them over for holiday dinners every once in a while, so clearly he must know what he’s doing. He was delighted to receive an invitation to be the August guest for our Test Kitchen series. Let’s see what he’s cookin’, shall we?
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Candied Pine Nut Crusted Brie Salad, Honey Dijon Dressing
Vegetarian • Tags: homemade salad dressing, pine nuts, salad, warm brie
Some things do not photograph well. A few people would say casseroles, other might chirp brown goulash. We’re going to say hunks of melted cheese. Melted brie slices to be exact. Especially when they are plopped onto a bed of greens, and all the cheese goodness just droops down into the lettuce. As we’ve learned, not everything can look pretty. By no means should that lead you to believe it is not tasty. Although we do initially taste with the eyes, sometimes you have to excuse a dishes appearance and accept that deep down inside, it is beautiful too. So beautiful that your plate will be scraped, licked, and wiped clean of anything that used to resemble the ugly duckling of a meal. That is where this salad lies–the pond of ugly duckling foods. Please take our word for it when we say it tastes much better than it looks.
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Nopales and Cotija Salad with Spicy Cilantro Vinaigrette
Vegetarian • Tags: cotija, nopales, salad
Some things just go well together, and two of those things are a good salad and a great cheese. The combination can be magical. So much so, that occasionally you can forgo a drippy dressing if the cheese is just right. Of course, the true magic of which we speak can only be properly achieved if said salad combines different flavors that bounce off the tongue and mesh naturally. After having tasted a little something called nopales (or nopalitos) a few months ago, the sudden urge hit to test a recipe with these prickly pear cactus leaves. Well, that was it. We had no ideas really how to make it work. The only way we can really get inspiration is by trolling a few grocery stores and markets to see what jumps out at us. We literally picked up veggies that we enjoy on their own, threw them in the basket and said a prayer that this fusion salad would work.
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Mediterranean Pasta Salad
Vegetarian • Tags: feta cheese, kalamata olives, Pasta, salad, spicy brown mustard, spinach
Our Guest Test Kitchen is back in action! Here comes a good friend Michelle to tell you a bit about one of her easy to make recipes. Michelle is yet another UNC grad (Can you see a strange pattern here?), and she has always been Ms. Healthy and Fit. It’s a great thing of course! She knows her way around the kitchen and how to prepare a fast, nutritious meal. We don’t know how she has the time though. Not only can she whip up food on the fly, but she is also a producer for her own company, Continuous Take Productions. We are impressed. Very impressed. Take a seat and see what Michelle’s got cookin’.
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Spring Salad with Mandarin Oranges, Walnuts and Strawberry Vinaigrette, Charbroiled Oysters, Lobster Ravioli, Porcini and Herb Crust Steak, Red Onion and Red Peppers Brown Basmati Rice with Roasted Asparagus and Shitake Mushrooms, Maple Glazed Carrots
Seafood • Tags: brown rice, Foodbuzz 24 24 24, kitchen help, lobster, oysters, salad
We feel very lucky to have a third round with Foodbuzz’s 24, 24, 24 series. Literally the second the call for entries was announced, we had the idea. The old adage says ‘If you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he’ll eat forever.’ We believe in that all the way. Quite frankly, we cook for ourselves all the time, and we cook for friends and family all the time. We are always ready to share our food experiences with other people, but not everyone can quite appreciate everything in the same ways as we do. We have a couple of friends who we’ve always deemed ‘picky’, whereas they find themselves to be ‘particular’. Semantics really. The interesting thing is that they both have a desire to expand their own cooking prowess in the kitchen, and that is where we saw a spot for the Duo.
We are not Martha Stewart and Gordon Ramsey, but we like helping and teaching people in the kitchen. Our goal is to take two specific eaters and work with them to construct a three course menu, assist in the shopping and, of course, pitch in with …
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Sweet Tahini Roasted Vegetable Salad
Vegetarian • Tags: eggplant, honey, salad, sweet potato, tahini
Have you ever been a victim of abundance? There’s just too much going on at one time! Rewind back to January when everywhere you turned, there were oranges, tangelos and grapefruits popping up in recipes. Apparently, folks were gifted galore with fruit baskets. No one sent a vegetable cornucopia to us via U.S. Postal Service, but somehow we ended up with a gorgeous selection of fresh veggies and an immense salad craving. Where to begin! If you’ve poked around this site a bit, you’ll notice that we love roasting our vegetables. It’s fast. It’s easy. It’s tasty. And there are so many ways to spruce them up. This is a salad for the salad lover–full of flavor, packed with a multitude of veggies and perfect straight out of the oven or room temp.
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Red Snapper with Thyme Pesto and Couscous, Honey Grapefruit Salad Dressing
Seafood • Tags: almonds, cherry tomatoes, grapefruit, honey, salad, thyme pesto, whole wheat cousous
You may have already guessed that we love ourselves a dinner party. Love it! From planning the menu, shopping for the groceries and assembling all the goodies in the kitchen to passing out the plates, laughing with friends, and of course sipping on some wine. Our parties usually involve lots of wine–that’s just how we do. Then there’s the dancing around the kitchen when the food tastes just right. Our parties always involve lots of dancing…tasting and dancing. It all brings us complete joy. The best part of the whole thing is sitting down after all the hard work and taking that first bite. What’s better? We just don’t know!
These dinner gatherings usually involve us hosting and cooking everything, but it wasn’t too long ago we were on the East coast and invited to a dinner party where the whole meal was prepared by someone else–a lovely couple by the names of Brooke and Ben. We love these parties just as much–the ones where we arrive and just eat. It really was wonderful handing over the apron and being the guest for a change. The food looked absolutely beautiful and tasted so delectable that we had no choice but to …
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Roasted Beets and Leeks Pasta Salad
Vegetarian • Tags: beets, leeks, salad
The main reason cooking may seem daunting to some is because the recipe looks like a shopping list. Sometimes it’s just as frustrating for those who enjoy cooking when they stumble upon something that looks enticing, but even their stocked pantry is missing a few of the obscure ingredients. It is possible to create in the kitchen without feeling overwhelmed. Combine a few staples with a couple of extras, and you have magic ready to happen!
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Warm Sweet Potatoes and Chickpea Salad with Tahini Dressing
Vegetarian • Tags: allspice, cardamom, chickpeas, salad, sweet potato, tahini
A couple of days ago, we proposed the idea of recipe adaptations and just how far we can stretch the word. Looks like many people find recipes as a means to an end, and however you interpret that recipe doesn’t matter. It’s what you end up with that can be your own, although giving credit where credit is due remains key and important. In the end, recipes are meant to be adopted and then adapted!
Well we said there would be a part two to that post, so here it is. We first saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen less than a month ago, and knew we just had to give it a try. It was colorful, fresh and chock full of the staples we normally keep in the kitchen. But of course we made a few changes and additions! Like swapping a main star for one of our favorite vegetables, adding another layer of crunch, pumping up the color green, using a thicker dressing and sprinkling in additional seasonings. Who’s to say if it was any better or worse than the original, but what we did create was hands down delish. …
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Potato and Green Bean Salad
Vegetarian • Tags: dill, green beans, potatoes, salad
Who would’ve thought that the new foodie fad of 2009 would’ve been cheap eats? Sustainable, green, eco-friendly, yes. Finding a way to eat fabulously for less than a three course meal from McDonald’s dollar menu, maybe not. But that’s where some of us find ourselves treading the waters of gourmet on a budget. Let gourmet mean whatever it means to you. To us, it’s not so much fancy; just fresh, varied, not quite ordinary, invigorating to the taste buds. And now that we’re in this current recession/depression/money flow cessation, gourmet’s going to also be wallet friendly. Because when the government sends you an I-O-U instead of your tax refund, you’re going to wish you’d been frugal rather than frivolous. Let the coin counting commence!
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