Skip to content

Chopped Salad

Chopped Salad from www.tallgrasskitchen.comMy kids have a secret dinner-time plot. They have pledged to NEVER both like the same dish at the same time, unless it is straight up noodles and butter (no parsley, no garlic, no lemon no black pepper–just salted butter, thank you.)

Anything and everything else I cook, one of them has an issue. It smells funny, looks funny or  tastes funny. And the thing is, as well as I know my kids, I can almost never guess who is going to like dinner. (I think that’s another part of the vow–keep mom guessing for maximum frustration on her part, and maximum entertainment on their part.)

Enter the chopped salad, served family style. I finely chop lettuce (hoping that some of it accidentally sticks to the spoon as my children serve themselves) and then chop up a myriad of other ingredients. I put them in distinct groups, so that if someone doesn’t feel in the mood for avocado, they can easily avoid it.

Top it all with a homemade dressing (try this one, this one or this one) and everyone is bound to find something they like. Continue Reading »

Posted 25 April 2013 | salad and salad dressings   simple dinners   Uncategorized   Vegetables | Comments (1) Tagged: , ,

Rhubarb Oatmeal Cakes

baked oatmeal 9

I try to make it a habit not to complain about the weather.

It seems like a cop out–we must have something better to talk about. There is absolutely NOTHING we can do about it. Let’s just deal with it and get on with things.

We’ve had about seven inches of rain over the past 30 days–the drought is officially over, and we hope that all of these showers bring lots of May flowers…and asparagus…and rhubarb!

The scarlet knobs that begin forcing their way out of the soggy earth long before a shy daffodil even begins to think about opening is my first inkling, and hope, that spring is coming. The rhubarb is up, and the asparagus isn’t far behind.

If you’re lucky enough to have fresh rhubarb available already, then these baked oatmeal cakes are a treat for breakfast or snack. This was a favorite recipe from my newspaper column last year, so I thought it was worth re-publishing here for spring. Continue Reading »

Posted 23 April 2013 | baked goods   breakfast   Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article   rhubarb   snacks | Comments (0) Tagged: , , , , , ,

Salami!

salami blini 2As a blogger, I get frequent emails to try out one product or another. My rule is to turn them down unless it is something I’d consider buying myself. This means I turn down most of them.

But when I was approached by Lori Fredrich of the famed Milwaukee blog Burp to sample and develop two recipes featuring artisan salami from Bolzano Artisan Meats, I didn’t hesitate. muffalleta 1 There was a selection of delicious options to choose from, but I settled on the simplest: Pig Red. Made from heirloom Red Wattle pork, this dry-cured salami has no additional spices or flavors. The taste of this heritage pork shines through.

My package arrived in the mail, and I tasted it immediately. Fruity, complex, but still straight-forwardly porky, I knew that I didn’t want to hide the flavor in anything complicated. I wanted this delicious meat, enhanced by an age-old fermentation process, to be the star.

I settled on an appetizer of blini, salami and creamy yogurt and a sandwich reminiscent of the New Orleans muffaletta. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did, and I hope you are able to try all the varieties of Bolzano’s dry-cured salamis.

At the bottom, please see links to other bloggers recipes featuring other salami flavors. Continue Reading »

Posted 11 April 2013 | appetizers   sandwiches   vegetarian | Comments (0) Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Snow Ice Cream

snow ice cream cone Ice cream in winter? Only if snow is the main ingredient!

This may not be the best ice cream I’ve ever made, but it was a lot of fun for the littles, and it actually turned out better than I imagined. It tasted a little bit like ice milk (since water, via snow, is a primary ingredient.)

A friend of the family provided the recipe and method. The ingredients are approximate, but that’s ok.

The idea is to make a yummy ice cream with new fallen snow, that can be ready in minutes.

Ice cream in winter–what a treat!

Snow Ice Cream

1 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 large mixing bowl full of clean snow
1 cup sugar

Whisk cream, vanilla and salt together, set aside.

In a separate large mixing bowl, layer snow and sugar together until both are gone.

Pour in the cream and quickly mix, trying not to let the cream reach the bottom. Stir until liquid freezes and everything turns into creamy ice cream.

Enjoy immediately, but leftovers can be lightly packed into an airtight container and enjoyed for the next 1-2 days. Get it in the freezer before it melts to prevent the ice cream from becoming overly hard or icy.

sugar and snow

Sugar and snow, before adding cream.

Posted 08 March 2013 | dessert | Comments (2) Tagged: , , ,

Banana Bread

banana bread 2

My four-year-old has a bee in his bonnet about banana bread. He has been asking me daily if we could make some. Well finally, on this snowy March Sunday, we had the right combination of spare time and brown-freckled bananas.

In the March issue of Bon Appetit, I remembered seeing a recipe for banana bread. I was interested to see what they had done to  innovate this classic.

As someone who writes recipes, I’m always looking for interesting variations or ideas to make are recipe different, or my own. There are few truly original recipes, but many riffs on a theme. In order to stand out, bloggers and writers seek out ways to modernize, improve or ramp up flavor. Sometimes the results are a revelation, sometimes they are just strange.

The Bon Appetit article was written by Andrew McCarthy,  Pretty in Pink heartthrob turned travel writer. I giggled when I saw the byline, because I distinctly remember an article several years ago he wrote for BA on finding the perfect Irish soda bread. It makes me smile to think of this eighties brat pack star roaming the far corners of the earth searching for incredible quick breads.

banana bread 1

Continue Reading »

Posted 03 March 2013 | baked goods   bread   breakfast   dessert   kid snacks | Comments (2) Tagged: , , , , , , ,