what we eat last week: august 6 – august 10, 2012
Open-Faced Salmon BLTs: I never met a BLT I didn’t like, and that’s why I decided to sneak in my weekly fish requirement, disguised with BACON! I added considerably more mayonnaise than the recipe called for, because, well, it’s mayonnaise. That stuff is delicious. (This reminds me of a Steve Martin mockumentary I watched once called The History of White People, in which there was a lengthy section on how much white people love mayonnaise.)
Roast Beef Turkey Salad with Goat Cheese and Balsamic Vinaigrette: For the month of August, I have vowed we will eat at least one “super salad” each week. Especially when the weather is hot, salads are great because there’s not a lot of cooking and the food is light. Not that we’ve had any hot weather here yet. But I eat my salad and pretend it’s hot.
Secretly Simple Gazpacho: Psst! Wanna hear a secret? It’s simple! Just toss all the ingredients in a blender. And it was so delicious and fresh. The recipe called for sour cream, but we only had Greek yogurt on hand—it worked perfectly. There’s something delightfully defiant about eating cold soup on a hot day. Again, we haven’t actually had any hot weather, but… Pretending. It’s powerful stuff.
Summer Harvest Celebration Tart with Organic Heirloom Tomatoes: The Blundering Chef got in a little over her head on this one. This is why she only uses recipes from Real Simple, because they promise, right there in the title, to be…real simple. This PCC recipe is for people who really enjoy a gourmet meal with fresh vegetables. Don’t get me wrong, it tasted great (so much Beecher’s Flagship Cheddar!), but the Blundering Chef doesn’t want to slice and dice eggplants and fennel for nine hours when in the end she can’t even really taste them. Well actually, she was happy she couldn’t taste them because she doesn’t like either of those things. So there she was, chopping and slicing and dicing for an eternity, for ingredients she doesn’t even like*. Chef was in the kitchen for over an hour. Boo! But it was very good, and very local, and very seasonal. If you like cooking for over an hour, try this recipe. If you’d like a simplified version, Chef’s idea was: take out all the eggplant and fennel and just use onions, tomatoes, cheese, and olives. YUM!
*Granted, the Blundering Chef mistakenly diced all the tomatoes, when they only needed to be sliced. That added considerably to her prep time.
Filed under: Uncategorized
