Slim Down for Summer with That's Fit

Two super-tasty scallop dishes

scallop salad
After disliking scallops through most of my childhood, I found them on my birthday dinner plate a few years ago. My friend had whipped up a warm scallop salad for my big day, and it was insanely delicious. Now, of course, I love the things. They're very tasty, pretty versatile, and are ridiculously simple to prepare.

Over the last few weeks, I wanted to use up the last of the big scallops hanging out in my freezer. First, I made the above -- a warm salad to get back to the roots of my scallop love. The key is to have a creamy sauce/dressing, and vegetables that are warm and almost limp (but still holding some firmness). This one had tomatoes, peppers, green beans, basil, and feta.

Hit the jump for the second dish.

Continue reading Two super-tasty scallop dishes

Redeeming Tuna & Macaroni Salad

bowl of tuna and macaroni salad with sliced tomatoes
My first exposure to Tuna and Macaroni Salad came years ago, while shopping the salad bar as one of those by-the-pound deli places that dot big Northeast cities. You grab a lidded container and load it up with various pre-made salads, gummy sushi rolls and wilted greens, then pay huge sums for your sub-par box of mayonnaise-y goodness. The tuna mac was always appealing upon initial examination, but frequently disappointing when tasted. I think that many others of you have similar stories of disappointment in relationship to this dish - whether you're familiar with the kind out of the salad bar or from childhood potlucks and church suppers.

However, last night, I set out to redeem the noble tuna mac and was far from disappointed. I first started thinking about tuna salad over the weekend, when my mother mentioned that she was making it for dinner on Saturday night. Growing up, she always served tuna salad with a side of mashed potatoes - there was something about the combination of creamy and crunchy that she really liked. These days, she cubes a boiled potato and tosses it into the tuna salad instead, getting that creamy/crunchy action without the effort of a second dish. That got me thinking about adding a starchy element to tuna salad and the pint jar of whole wheat elbows on the kitchen shelf caught my eye and winked.

Continue reading Redeeming Tuna & Macaroni Salad

A simple salad demonstrates the goodness of summer

avocado, corn and tomato salad
Yesterday, I mentioned the produce anxiety I face when the summer starts to head into fall. One way I combat the unrest I experience during the waning days of peaches and heirloom tomatoes is to eat meals that are simple, easy combinations of the best of the season. After I unpacked my farmers market haul yesterday, I made a very basic salad for lunch.

You can think of it as a very chunky guacamole, and if you were looking for a tasty dip, you could chop everything a bit finer and serve it with tortilla chips. I like eating more like a creamy salad, the corn kernels blending into the avocado chunks and hiding in the tomatoes. I made mine completely plain, seasoned with just with salt and pepper, although if you wanted a bit more acidity, you could dress it with a squeeze of lime juice. My basic recipe is after the jump.

Continue reading A simple salad demonstrates the goodness of summer

Sprouty Greek salad

greek sprout salad
Another item in my latest organic basket was sprout mix. While I've eaten them out, I had no idea how to prepare them. Do I cook them in something? Keep them raw? Grind them? When in doubt: salad!

The sprout mix was a great addition to the classic Greek salad above. Tomatoes, cucumber, and onion were mixed up with the sprout mix, feta, lemon juice, garlic, and extra virgin olive oil. The sprouts gave a nice crunch to the salad, and made it a nice, filling meal.

But that's only one option. What would you do with a sprout mix? I've got more waiting to be eaten, and no idea what to do with them!

Tip of the Day: Beat the heat with a summer salad

While in the throes of the sticky days of summer, you don't need to heat up your kitchen to make a filling and gourmet meal. It's the perfect time for a healthy and filling salad.

Continue reading Tip of the Day: Beat the heat with a summer salad

A beet salad for beet haters

Roasted Beet Salad with Beet Greens
Being part-Polish I should love borscht. The beety flavor, the gorgeous red hue. It's one of the big staples along with my beloved pierogies and galumpkis. But I just couldn't get into it. I began to feel bad about this distaste when my great aunt came to visit from Poland and cooked for us. Years later, I still fear the soup, but since I've been on a huge kick to remove as many foods on my no-eat list, I figured beets were a good area to tackle next. That, and I got some beautiful ones in my last organic food delivery.

I searched the web and settled on Roasted Beet Salad with Beet Greens, courtesy of Epicurious. In the comments, a few people swore that beet haters loved this, so I had to try. It's simple, almost fool-proof. I got antsy and nuked my beets half-way through (it was getting really late at night), and I am happy to say -- they were delicious. The vinaigrette cuts some of the beet flavor, and is paired wonderfully with the garlic, capers, feta, and beet greens. When you do get some of the strong, beet flavor, it's much easier to take, get used to, and like. In fact, I'm hooked on salad now. It hasn't even been a week, and I've already picked up more beets. For other beety options, try this beet and goat cheese salad, or this carrot and beet salad.

Step two: Borscht.

Clear-broth quahog chowder

clear-broth quahog chowder
The other day, I was itching for a great meal -- as gourmet as possible without breaking the bank. So my friend and I walked around the corner to this small fusion bistro, and while the over-done steak left something to be desired, I almost melted over the seafood chowder. There's nothing quite like the texture of seafood so soft that it melts in your mouth, exploding with flavor. Still dreaming about that great bowl of sea goodness, I have to share a similarly awesome-looking recipe from Leite's Culinaria -- Rhode Island Clear-Broth Quahog Chowder.

Doesn't the above look absolutely amazing? It's also accompanied by a great story -- one that taps into my day dreams about living near the ocean and having a sea full of great food as my back yard. I don't have quahogs readily available, so I'm hoping one of you Slashfood readers can take on this recipe for me and tell me if it tastes as good as it looks. I have a feeling that it does...

Simple summer salad with guacamole

guacamole salad

One of my favorite greasy spoons knows how to lather on the greasy, tasty fat. However, it also introduced me to one of my favorite salads -- the normal mix topped with guacamole. In the summer, it's an insanely delicious and easy way to have a big and healthy meal with a good helping of avocado's nutrients and great fresh veggies. The guacamole is also a great replacement for dressing -- completely healthy, thick, and filling.

All you do is bring together your favorite tossed salad ingredients, grind some fresh salt and pepper on top, and then top with as much guacamole as you'd like. The above picture is just a salad of tomato, lettuce, and onion, with a little drizzle of high-quality extra virgin olive oil and the guacamole. But if time is an issue, this meal also works just as well with simple mashed guacamole with seasoning.

My most treasured recipe

a typed recipe card with a recipe for Mushroom-Spinach salad
Over the last year, I've posted quite a few of my grandma Bunny's recipes here on Slashfood. There was her recipe for Lemon Thing last summer, Zucchini Bread in August, Apple Cake in the fall, Shrimp Curry Improv for those quick weeknight dinners and her recipe for Kheera ka Rayta just last week.

Yesterday, Yumsugar posed the question, "What's your most treasured recipe?" Their query made me realize that I've never posted my favorite recipe from Bunny (both in terms of which one I like to eat the most, as well as which card I favor). I have a very special place in my culinary heart for this card, which instructs the reader on how to make Mushroom-Spinach Salad. I remember being about six years old and helping Bunny wash the spinach and slice the mushrooms for this dish. I can instantly recall how helping make the salad made it that much more delicious to me.

I also treasure this recipe for the physical presence of the card. I love that Bunny marked it with her signature bunny sketch, that she starred it to indicate that it was particularly tasty and that it has a stain just left of center that shows it was loved. I get great joy from having it as a symbol of connection to my personal food heritage.

What's your most treasured recipe?

Amp up your summer salad dressing with toasted mustard seeds

crushed mustard seeds
As a bit of a veggie fiend, I eat a lot of salads. While I rarely change up the ingredients in the salad mix, I sometimes like to change up the dressing, because the same ol' vinaigrette or caesar dressing can get old after a while. One of the best and easiest flairs that I've found for salad dressing is mustard seeds.

After toasting them on a skillet, you just grind them up, like you see above, and add them into your dressing. The ground mustard seeds give a smoky depth to the dressing and brings a great added flavor to the dish. The seeds above were used as part of a great Mustard Seed Dressing recipe that I picked out of The Big Book of Backyard Cooking, and you can check it out after the jump.

Continue reading Amp up your summer salad dressing with toasted mustard seeds

Tip of the Day: Use raw kale as a salad green

Want to shake up your weeknight salad routine? Try using kale in place of your typical salad greens.

Continue reading Tip of the Day: Use raw kale as a salad green

Making friends with napa cabbage

While I would describe myself as an adventurous eater, I also have to admit that my palate has some definite blind spots. Basically, there are a few tastes that I've never experienced, simply because they've never crossed my plate. This year, my wife and I joined a CSA, which means that we are now trying to figure out what to do with a wide variety of exciting and unfamiliar vegetables.

A couple of weeks ago, we got our first napa cabbage. I'm sure that I've eaten napa before, but I've never really prepared it, and I wanted to do something beyond the obvious. After a little searching, my wife and I came up with a recipe that used napa cabbage as a salad base for filet mignons cooked with shiitakes and mizuna, but the idea of spending $40 on ingredients to make a dish in which napa was an afterthought struck us as a little silly. One night, however, I was making bulgoki and looking for a vegetable accompaniment. As I am not a huge fan of kimchi, and we wanted something on the cool side, I decided to mix up a napa salad. After looking over a few Asian slaw recipes and thinking about how I was going to taste-match with the bulgoki, I put this together. It's tasty, light, colorful, and easy to make. Best of all, it makes a great side for bulgoki!

Now if I can only figure out what to do with all the kale that I got from the CSA...

Napa Salad
1 medium-sized head napa cabbage, cleaned and thinly sliced
2 red bell peppers, cored, cleaned, and julienned
2 Bosc pears, peeled, cored, cleaned and julienned
1/4 cup chopped cilantro (optional)
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
Juice of 3 limes
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
salt to taste

Mix vinegar, lime juice, ginger, sesame oil, sugar, and salt together in a cup or bowl. Combine remaining ingredients and toss with vinegar lime dressing. Serve immediately.

Tip of the Day: Make stock and soup even easier!

Soups and stocks are some of the easiest and tastiest ways to get into the world of cooking, but there are still tips that can make the experience even easier.

Continue reading Tip of the Day: Make stock and soup even easier!

A transcendent summer tomato salad

bowl of tomato, onion and basil salad
One of the dishes I look forward to making when summer rolls around is the tomato salad you see above. It's nothing particularly special, just some chopped tomato (I use whatever I have on hand that is ripe, this time it was a bunch of sweet grape tomatoes) tossed with some roughly minced onion (I like red, but you can use whatever you have around) and some shredded basil. It gets dressed with salt, pepper and a glug of olive oil. And that's it.

The thing is that when you let this salad stand around for half an hour or so before serving, it becomes something far greater than just a collection of modest ingredients. The salt draws the liquid out of the tomatoes, which blends with the oil, creating a heavenly dressing. The basil softens and releases fragrant oils, which gently permeates the other ingredients. I can not possibly begin to describe how good it tastes.

Another nice thing about this salad, is that while it is wonderfully simple, it can also be elevated. Sometimes I'll add some cubed cucumber to it for added crunch, along with some small, halved mozzarella balls. It also takes to homemade croutons really nicely. If that's too much work for a simple meal, just grab a hunk of bread to mop of all the juices that will be left at the bottom of the bowl.

The one problem with this dish is that you can only make it during the summer, when tomatoes are ripe. It is bland and unexciting when made with those pale pink orbs that imitate tomatoes during the rest of the year. So do yourself a favor and make it when tomatoes are in season and your basil plant is growing like a weed. And enjoy a perfect summer dish.

Food Video Finds: Vegan French Onion Soup



I am far from a vegan, and I'm inclined to agree with anyone who says that French Onion Soup isn't French Onion Soup without the rich, tasty meat flavor. That being said, I'm immensely intrigued by a new foodie video that's popped up over on YouTube, which you can see above.

Unlike many FOS recipes that use Brandy, this variety uses rum, and then a collection of ingredients that sound like they could make for a tasty, albeit different experience. Granted, there's no way I'd not add cheese to the mix (and some good, crusty bread), but this sounds like it could be quite tasty -- and something I'll try in the near future.

I also like the style of the video. The soup is very simple, so the entire prep is shown on fast-forward, with overlayed text. Enjoy!

Next Page >

Tip of the Day

Making a batch of mini-cupcakes for a school or work party but can't figure out a way to transport them without crushing them? Here's how to do it!

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