Hamburgers

Straight up, on the grill, with American cheese etc.
Might make potato salad and a green salad.

Wasabi Tuna

Do a dry rub of equal parts sugar, salt and wasabi on a tuna steak. Preferably a few hours before you light the grill.
Grill the tuna quickly, 2 minutes each side. Slice thinly and devour. Really good on a bed of lightly dressed mizuna or some such yummy green.

Sushi rice, cooled and rolled into balls, would be a very cute accompaniment too. And fun if you like eating with your hands.

Minestrone, Cool

I just made a big pot of minestrone, which we're going to eat tonight, cool not cold, with a dollop of pesto in everyone's bowl and crusty bread and a piece of Fontina.

Gucamole

I just want a big bowl of guacamole.
To eat with chips, wrapped in warm tortillas or dolloped on cold slices of radish and cucumber.
How about along side everything else- beef, chicken, fish.
Next to ceviche.
In the middle of a bowl of gaspacho.
On a hamburger.

This is the way I do it. Everyone has their own.

Avocados, minced red onion, minced cilantro, minced jalapeno, lime juice. S&P.
I dice the avocados because I like a chunky guacamole, not a smooth blended one.
It's going to be in the 90s in NYC today. This may be all we eat. With cold beer of course.

Cold Somen Noodles w Chicken

Somen noodles cook in 3 minutes. If you're eating them cold rinse them in cold water and then toss them lightly with some vegetable oil. I serve them with a dipping sauce of soy, mirin and rice vinegar. And cold poached chicken on the side and a steamed vegetable. Baby bok choy is really great but anything will do, even broccoli. And of course lots of chopped scallions on everything.

Mexican Salad

Holly made this salad last night and it was so delicious I've got to have it again tonight. Might add some of that poached cold chicken. The salad was chopped romaine, red pepper, red onion, corn, black beans, tomato, cucumber and crumbled queso. The dressing was garlic, coriander, minced jalapeno, lime juice and olive oil. Big bowl full was dinner all by itself.

The Perfect Poached Chicken

If you poach your chicken this way it will come out perfectly every time. I promise. (My mother taught me this so you know it's true.) Once it's done you have a chicken you can eat hot or cold and a nice pot of broth.

Put your rinsed chicken in a deep pot and cover the chicken with cold water. You can flavor the water any way you like: ginger and scallions, wine and garlic, lemon and thyme, you get the idea. I always salt the water too.

Bring the water to a boil. Turn off the heat and cover the pot with a lid. Go away. In an hour you will have a perfectly poached chicken. If you leave it longer it will be perfect too. It will not over cook. I have done this in the morning and come back in the evening and had cool chicken for dinner. No problem. Don't forget to keep the broth.

TV Dinners

This is a new low.
I am limping across the finish line this week.
TV dinners for the kids and a glass of wine for me.
Actually, my kids have never had a TV dinner and they're thrilled. It's a dream come true for them.
And at this moment it's a dream come true for me too.
There's always tomorrow.

Hot Dogs and Mac n Cheese

What more can you say about this dinner? Kinda great if it's homemade mac n Cheese with hot dogs cut up into it. Kinda not so great when it's out of the box. But that's the way we're rolling today.

Shake n Bake

My favorite food as a kid, next to TV dinners. This is what happens when your Mom is a gourmet I suppose. I loved a night with a babysitter because I could have one of these two options, but Shake n Bake was the best. Sometimes I make my own homemade versions with homemade bread crumbs and fresh herbs and dipping the chicken in melted butter, but it's just not the same. That out of the box, always tastes exactly the same as it did last month and 25 years ago taste is missing from the fancy version.

You know it's good hot or cold. With potato salad, tomato salad, green beans and cornbread, beer or wine. If you have kids in public school then you are not cooking much this week because you are your kids' personal servant/valet for the last stretch. Today is wear your ears on your knees day, or go to school naked day, or wear your Mom's shoes to PE day, I can't keep it straight. Good luck.

Lentil Salad

Cook up some lentils and toss them in a good red wine vinaigrette while they're still warm. (Drain them really well. It's a drag when they dilute the vinaigrette.) Toss in some diced beets and crumbled goat cheese. I've got the beet greens so I'm going to saute them and grill a few chicken breasts too but actually you don't really need the chicken.

As you know, you cannot salt the cooking water for beans until they're tender or else they will never get tender. This is not true of lentils. Salt away right at the beginninng. I don't know why this is. Do you?

Grilled Shrimp Marcella's Way

This is the way Marcella Hazan grills shrimp. There is absolutely no reason to ever do it any other way.
Mix together in a bowl 1 minced garlic clove, chopped parsley, S&P, bread crumbs, lemon juice and olive oil.
Use your judgement on quantities. You want this to be a loose sauce that just lightly coats the shrimp, not a heavy breading.
Toss the shrimp in the bread crumb mixture.
Skewer the shrimp and grill quickly, 1 minute on each side or so. Or don't skewer them if they're jumbo shrimp.
Perfectly delicious.
And also just as good under the broiler.

I usually have an arugula salad with this. Grilled or roasted potatoes are really good too, or rice tossed with butter and herbs.
Cheers!

Fried Eggs and Roasted Asparagus

Roast some asparagus in the oven with olive oil and S&P. Plate them and top each plate with a fried egg, preferably sunny side up. Shave parmesan over each plate, maybe a little extra drizzle of olive oil too. Super easy and super good. And asparagus is so skinny right now you don't hardly need to peel it.

Lamb Burgers

Mix some feta and chopped shallots and chopped spinach into the ground lamb. Grill up the burgers. Good on pita or any rolls with hummous. I like a cucumber yogurt salad with these, spiked with lots of mint.

Risotto w Spring Vegetables

In this case spring peas and asparagus. Yes I did go to the farm stand. Everything is in abundance now and not a million dollars a bunch, unless you only eat organic. I almost never eat organic vegetables cause they're TOO EXPENSIVE and if I did I'd be eating a vegetable twice a week instead of twice a day, which is my preference. I cannot live in fear of non-organic produce or produce grown outside of my state or country and I do not appreciate having those foods demonized by the food police. I say anyone who is eating lots of fresh, home cooked food and mostly laying off the Twinkies is doing ok. But local and seasonal is reasonably priced and delicious and that's what I bought this weekend in between shifts at the stove at work.

I'd go chicken stock, white wine, lots of butter and parmesan with this. Throw the peas and asparagus in midway and they'll be perfectly cooked by the time the rice is done. If you have a pressure cooker you should probably add the veggies after you open the lid and yes you'll be done in 6 minutes while some people are stirring and stirring but that can be fun with a glass of wine and someone to chat with.

I also nabbed really nice baby arugula and beautiful strawberries, so a salad to go with and berries and cream for dessert.

Tabbouleh

Remember tabbouleh? Maybe you've been eating it regularly for years but after seeing it sit forlornly on the kitchen counter at hundreds of college parties I just crossed it off my list. Now a hundred years have gone by and I want a big fresh bowl of it loaded with excessive amounts of parsley and plenty of good olive oil and fresh lemon. I think I saw a picture of a beautiful bowl of it in a glossy magazine that was profiling Morrocco or Tunisia or some such gorgeous place. They say it's good for you and for sure it goes with anything you were thinking of serving, protein wise.

Have a good weekend!

Salmon Hash

I've got a beautiful salmon fillet in the fridge and I'm thinking I'll slow roast it and use some for salmon hash and some for a salmon salad to eat another day. I make salmon hash with big chinks of salmon, diced potatoes, onion, lots of parsley and minced jalapeno. Kind of a riff on the snapper hash at Rosa Mexicana. It should have diced red pepper too or green pepper if you like that but I simply cannot abide green peppers so I only use red. Scallions would be good too.

And sauteed spinach or a spinach salad with a sweetish vinaigrette. I splurged on a fancy bottle of French apple cider vinegar and it has been going fast. I'm not supposed to say this, but I like

it much better than balsamic vinegar.

The salmon salad will be chunks of salmon tossed with red onion, capers, parsley, lemon juice and lemon zest, olive oil, s&p. It's the way my friend Lucy makes it and I could live on it.

Spare Ribs and Cole Slaw

I was up early today so I rubbed a rack of spare ribs that my mother gave me with a quick dry rub of s&p, smoked paprika, cumin and a little sugar and stuck them in a 300 degree oven for an hour and a half. Now they're cooling and tonight we'll eat them with cole slaw and potato salad. Took time but no effort and the house smells GOOD!

Summer Hours

I am just back from four days of cooking at my Mom's restaurant. I thought I could post every day before reporting for work but the days go by in a blur. As I will be cooking there every weekend I have decided to adopt summer hours. From now until Labor Day weekend I will post Monday through Friday. Cheers and thank you!

Linguine with Scallops

Sear some scallops while the pasta cooks then deglaze the pan with white wine, maybe some garlic too. Toss together, in the pan, the pasta, scallops, parsley, toasted bread crumbs. Finish with an extra drizzle of olive oil.