The Composition of a Salad

I have not made a Salad Nicoise in ages....I love a good composed salad (think Cobb, think Chef), but I had forgotten how much patience it takes to make one.   It needs to look good as well as taste good.   Blanching the beans, making the potato 'salad', hard boling eggs, finding the perfect tomatoes, and yes, you do need the perfect olives, obviously, nicoise olives are best, but any really good Italian or Greek Olives will suffice. I used tuna fish packed in water, not olive oil.  Purists will say to use tuna packed in Olive Oil is the only way to go. Could not find any, hey, I substituted!

I used my stick blender to make the dressing, I was a little excited and over emulsified it, I should have used the whisk attachment, but hey, it's just really, really thick, still tasty, but thick. As you can see, I have everything neatly organized in separate bowls so I can "compose" the salad.   I did forget that I had a huge jar of capers in the fridge, but oh well.  

All of the above made a huge salad for my dinner with leftovers for lunch.  What you see in the upper left-hand corner in the batter bowl is a  potato salad I made with the extra potatoes. I enhanced with some chopped green beans, a bit of yellow pepper and some of the dressing. It does not have mayo and since I almost over emulsified the dressing, it was a great substitution for the mayo, but it was lovely and tangy....

Here is the finished product....yeah, my food presentation needs a little work, but this was still really really tasty! The recipi, just google it and use any of the many. I did a variation on Julia Child and one I found on The Kitchen........I'd serve this with a really light white wine or it has even been suggested to serve with a Rose.....

P is for....

Well for starters, get your mind out of the gutter!   Dinner the other night needed to be something simple and soothing.   I was not feeling all that well, but I was feeling a bit peckish.   I ended up the recipient of some amazing prosciutto di parma and it was an inspiration for dinner..


P-Penne Pasta

P-Peas-frozen, but still not too bad, like a 1/2 cup

P-Parsley-fresh from my garden-flat leaf! Big handful

P-Prosciutto-2-3 slices

P-Pecorino Romano Cheese1/4 to 1/2 cup

P-Pepper, black, freshly ground-to taste.

 You will also need-Onions, garlic, olive oil, cream,

Start a pot of well salted water to boil. Cook your pasta to just before al dente.   Reserve a large cup of pasta cooking water

In a saute pan, pour a couple glugs of olive oil, add one to two or three chopped cloves of garlic, 1/2  diced small onion and saute until soft and fragrant.   Take a couple pieces of proscuitto, roll them up and then slice them so you have slivers.

Once the onions and garlic are soft and fragrant, add the prosciutto, let it get warm, don't let it burn, it can get a little crispy, add some cream to the pan, about 1/2 to 3/4's cup, can be heavy, can be half and half, or light cream, don't use milk, especially any of that low fat stuff.  Lower the heat and let it all get warm.  Stir occassionally.

Drain the pasta, reserving a large cup of the cooking water.  Add the pasta, the frozen peas, to the cream mix, add some fresh ground pepper and the pecorino romano cheese.   Stir well and let simmer for a minute or two. Taste the dish, you probably won't have to add any salt if you salted your water and you use the  proscuitto, and  pecorino cheese I do like to add lots of freshly ground pepper. If the dish looks dry, add a little of the pasta water to the saute pan.  Toss the handful of parsely into the mix, give it a big stir and then serve in a nice bowl.  This would be good with a good white wine, I did not have any wine, I just had a nice glass of ice tea....

The last P is for Perfection, this is a perfect Sunday night supper..

Who Buys Mint?

Who  actually buys mint?  I mean why buy mint from a nursery or plant store (unless you need a specific rare variety).  This is my mint patch, it's a combination of mint, ferns and day lilies. It serves me quite well for mint for my tea, or to make mint jelly or mint sauce.  It started with one little piece of mint I plucked from a friends garden, stuck it in the ground and with the usual benign neglect, it has thrived......  there is a boat load of mint in there despite my average photography.

The Lakelands like getting in every photo they can......

Loving the New Thrill of The Grill!

I have the best neighbors in the world, I really do.....

They upgraded their gas grill and gave me their old Weber Gas Grill.   What you see below is tonight's dinner,  chicken breast marinated with Salamida State Fair Cornell Style Chicken BBQ Marinade..... the grilled veggies where just marinated with olive oil, salt, pepper and some ground garlic.    As you can see, I got a good char on the veg. I like that, but really should remember to put the veg on after the meat has cooked a bit so it's not always "blackened". 


Whats really cool about this grill is the left side shelf and on the right side, just out of view is a burner.  Only thing missing is a beer or some wine. I forgot to pick up something, so we had a lovely large iced tea instead.

Still Hoping For That Call From The Ellen Show

I was watching the Ellen show the other day and they showed one of the winners in their home makeover contest.  Well, it was not me, but it was a nice young couple that had neither central heating or central air in their home.  I at least have heat and a few window fans and a very ancient shiny brass and fake wood ceiling fan......Can you say envious.......

I wrote up the To Do list for This Summers Projects.  I keep hoping a little public accountability will goad me into doing some of these projects.  Things like painting I can do all by my lonesome, things like tiling/renovating the bathroom....well, I can do the demolition, just not the renovation.....

You can see the list below, looking at it, I've forgotten to add in some of the yard projects, more pavers for in front of the runs, re-seed lawn, work on flower beds.......

I could also use a really, really skinny person who does not mind the creep crawl space and the crawl space in the attic as well......

Sigh, the contest is not over yet, I will keep my fingers crossed, light a saint candle and think happy thoughts!

You Can Never Have Enough Pasta~ Sunday afternoon or Sunday Night

I work weekends away from my home. I sometimes say "I have a weekend place in Massachusetts" . While it's bigger and slightly better equipped than my house (ie it has a washer and dryer), there is no place like home for cooking. I do cook there on the weekends with the occasion order in for pizza or take out Chinese, but I still love a good Sunday lunch

I do however, have about an hour and half drive home on Sundays. I try lock up and be on the road no later than 5:35 PM, sometimes I stop for a bottle of wine at the local packy, sometimes I don't. My goal is to be home, with all the dogs, laundry, food, etc unloaded no later than 7:30 PM with a pot of water set to boil for something for dinner...

I grew up eating macaroni on Sundays for Sunday Lunch it's what Italian Americans did. They went to church and then had macaroni and gravy for your mid day meal. The two greatest Sunday afternoon meals are the Italian American macaroni and gravy and the English Roast Meal.  Both I love.   Since it would take too long to do a Roast Meal when I get home on Sundays, I stick to a pasta dish.  The leftovers are usually my Monday lunch.

This past week, I made a dish that I saw on Pioneer Woman cooks blog.... It a chicken Florentine pasta, you can see her dish and the directions here.  I made this on Sunday when I came home and as I did not have any chicken, I just added extra spinach. I had the cherry tomatoes in the house and I had the end of a wedge of really good locatelli romano cheese that I shaved into slivers for the pasta. You could use grated cheese if that is all you had in the house... It was soo good I made it again on Monday. I was out of wine, so I just doubled the chicken stock. It was still tasty. I also used a little chopped onion as I was trying to use up things from the fridge. Yummmm

Things I love

1) Laundry drying on the clothes line
2) The zen of mowing the lawn
3) The herb garden re-emerging from the winter!
4) Not caring that the lawn has both violets and dandelions in it.


Please note, this is not a complete list.....,.