Greek Salad

A big greek salad with all the usual stuff in it and some chicken for extra protein. Red wine vinaigrette. This is the one time I ever use dried oregano. Those little grape tomatoes are good now and big tomatoes aren't yet.

Spaghetti Marinara

We're coming home today. We've eaten well in LA but no one has had a bowl of pasta, decent or otherwise, all week. And anyway my family is always a little scared to order pasta because they're picky about it, like it the way we make it best you know. Withdrawal has set in.

Spaghetti with a light marinara sauce, a quick saute of olive oil, garlic and tomatoes. To celebrate coming home from a great vacation we might serve each bowl with a dollop of ricotta cheese. This should not take more than 20 minutes.

Grilled Fish

My my my, 95 degrees in NY today! No putting of grilling anymore.

How about a grilled piece of halibut, maybe with an herby lemony sauce to serve with it?

And a tomato avocado salad.

And warm tortillas.

Oh my God that sounds suspiciously like a fish taco...

Disneyland Food

Mostly what you can eat at Disneyland is crap chicken nuggets and burgers and such. At Disney World there's a wider selection of crap. You can survive on yogurt, fruit and frozen lemonade but you'll pass out on that diet before you make it to Space Mountain. There are , however, two foods at Disneyland that are devilishly good and can't be found anywhere else on the planet as far as I know. I know this doesn't really help with tonight's dinner but I had to tell you.

The first is smoked turkey legs. These are gigantic, salty and greasy. They come wrapped in paper and you see people walking around like minions of the magical kingdom gnawing on them or sitting on benches munching away in the hot sun. It's an alarming sight and one you will swear you will not be caught at. But they look mouth wateringly good and you'll be starving after three rides. They're amazing. Superbly delicious. Warm, tender and falling off the bone, the meat tastes quite a lot like ham. After you eat one you can handle a day at Disney with aplomb. Once home you will find yourself thinking whistfully about them.

The second is dessert. Dole pineapple float. I'm not that big on pineapple or dessert in general. Not particularly an ice cream nut. But this is a dream dessert, the one I want on my death bed. Whoever invented it is a genius. It is soft serve pineapple ice cream served in a big cup of pineapple juice. Just think about that. It's got the appeal of a tart sweet creamy creamsicle but way better cause it's pineapple. If you find yourself at the happiest place on earth please don't leave without having one. If anyone knows where you can get one besides Disneyland please let me know.

LA BBQ

Still haven't had a fish taco but last night we went to a BBQ at my friend Ann's beautiful house. She prepared a delicious spread for us and we ate and drank and watched the children climb trees. Dinner was grilled chicken, quinoa salad full of diced vegetables, cole slaw, grilled vegetables that were grilled, not burned and the most delicious green beans ever. They made me depressed that I don't live in California.

Today is Disneyland. I wonder if I'll find dinner inspiration there...

Fish Tacos

Waking up in LA, land of my childhood, on a beautiful sunny day. Can I tell you what we've eaten so far? A really good Japanese meal in the JetBlue terminal at JFK. A really good cheeseburger and fries in our room at the W at 2:00 am NY time. Later today it will be lunch by the pool. But I'm thinking fish tacos. When in LA I try to eat as many fish tacos as possible. Don't ask me why they're so hard to find in NYC.

If I were home I'd make fish tacos tonight. Warm corn tortillas, lettuce, tomato, crema, hot sauce, and chunky white fried fish. Oh, and avocado. Mango tossed with lime and chili powder and sugar on the side.

Steamed Chicken Casserole

So, it's not so easy to work "outside of the home" and blog everyday. I did manage to make dinner every night, just barely. My apologies for skipping a couple of days. This was dinner last night, because no one else had quite the enthusiasm for sandwich week that I did. Something about but we have sandwiches for lunch everyday was being muttered in the kitchen. Fair enough. This Chinese casserole is really yummy and easy, but you need a proper steamer. Serve it with rice and a green veg and you're good to go.

Toss together in a bowl: slivered boneless, skinless chicken, diced tofu, slivered black mushrooms or shitake or whatever kind you like, chopped scallions, grated ginger, minced garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, s&p, a little oyster sauce if you have it and a about 1/2 cup chicken stock with 2 T cornstarch dissolved in it. Transfer all to a bowl that will fit in your steamer and steam for about 20-25 minutes till chicken is cooked through.

We are going to California today and I will not be cooking. But I will think of things to make for dinner and post them every day for you. I'll ask around too. Maybe people in California have a whole different batch of things they make for dinner every day that will inspire us. In a perfect world each state would have it's 10 dinner standards, different from every other state's, and we would swap and never get bored. Maybe someday...