Saturday's Local Dinner

Saturday morning we got up and headed up to the Avenue for a special farmer's market. On normal Saturday's our local community market is head at our community center. But this past Saturday, the community market turns into a street fair on our humble town's main drag. We left with a typical bounty of goods. I was hoping to get enough goods to make a full dinner at home and boy oh boy were we lucky!



We started with some freshly picked beets. Peeled and quartered, I roasted them at 400 with a pinch of salt and a dab of butter for an hour. They were tender and good. But I didn't plan things right, so the rest of dinner wasn't ready. I left the beets in the oven, with the heat turned off, for about another 20 minutes. That was just enough time for the beets to develop a beautiful caramelized crust on the bottom beets. Chewy candy!

We grabbed a nice bag of mixed greens for a salad. I washed them three times and let them sit in a towel lined bowl until dinner time. Then I pulled them out and started to tear the leaves into pieces for serving. Oops, found a big nasty eating one of the leaves. NO PESTICIDES my friends. At least it wasn't half a nasty attached to the leaf. I made a dressing out of fresh herbs from the garden--thyme, basil, oregano and rosemary. Chopped with shallot, a squeeze of lemon, salt & pepper. I finished the dressing off with a splash of chardonnay vinegar and avocado oil. Adjust for taste--little more salt and pepper--good to go. Tart and herby!

This season our market is super duper lucky. We have a local sausage maker now coming and selling their goods--Simply Sausage. We had a sample and bought two packs. A "Christmas Breakfast" sausage with some warm spices added in. And these little heaven snausages! Pork with tarragon, shallot and thyme. So delightful. Especially with the salad dressing I made. Perfect match to the salad. I put the sausages in a pan with about 1/2 cup of water, brought to a heavy simmer and covered for about 5-10 minutes. This cooks the sausages most of the way through. I removed the cover and drizzled a little olive oil on. Now let them sear for a few minutes per side, shaking the pan as you go. Golden brown and awesome all around. Oops, correction...tarragon, shallots and parsley...doesn't matter...so good!

The remants of the salad bowl. The greens didn't need anything else to make the salad. Well, that's a lie, we had a French baguette, the beets and the sausages. Perfect dinner. Only thing missing was the forthought to put of bottle of vino blanco into the chill box. Oops.

Must have a salad...

Chicken, Apple and Fennel Salad. I'm stuffed! Sweet apple and fennel. Tender chicken. Crisp lettuce. And crunchy, salty cashews. Very satisfying.

A perfect sunday

That's a bold statement I know, but it was a lovely Sunday, and a perfect cap to 10 days away from work!

Let's get started.

Some fresh peas from the farmer's market. Sweet, tasty. Pleasant.


With less than two minutes of heat, a small bit of butter, mint, salt, pepper, lemon juice. Taste: ok. Smell: awful. They smelled like canned peas with less than two minutes of cooking. Blah. Well, we've tried them. Moving on.


Strawberry Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette. Divine! The strawberries and romaine lettuce are from the farmer's market. I toasted the pecans for a quick bit on the stove top. The dressing includes one small, finely diced shallot, salt, pepper, a little sugar, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. WOW. This was a great salad. The flavors worked so well together. Sweet, tangy, crunchy, perfect. Maybe a new favorite salad.

Course two! Grilled Mango-Ginger Chicken. Chicken thighs that were brined for the afternoon (soaked in a salt water solution for a few hours). The chicken was then tossed onto a very hot grill and allowed to char. Once the outside was starting to get crispy, I started coating the chicken with Mango-Ginger jam from the farmer's market. The flavors are wonderful. Slightly sweet, caramelized, crunchy. We'll be enjoying this more over the summer.


*If anyone is interested in the jam and is unable to get it from the Cheverly Community Market, I have the email address of the neighbor who makes the jam. It's great!


Stay tuned for the wines we enjoyed!

999-Salad Days

I recently saw a salad that had chicken and fennel in it. That sounded interesting, but I wanted to take it a step or two further. So I decided to make a fancy salad.

Chicken, Apple & Fennel salad with Tarragon Lemon Vinaigrette

1 cooked boneless/skinless chicken breast, sliced or pulled
1 cup sliced fennel
1 sweet, firm apple, thinly sliced
1 head green-leaf lettuce, washed & chopped
1/2 cup toasted pecans

Toss these ingredients with the vinaigrette. Enjoy.

Tarragon & Lemon Vinaigrette
1 small shallot finely diced, about 1 TB
1 TB fresh, chopped Tarragon
pinch of sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
1-2 tsp Chardonnay vinegar
2-4 TB olive oil
salt/pepper to taste

Mix the first five ingredients together, whisk in olive oil. Season with salt & pepper.

Here are the pecans. They added a great earthy crunchiness.

The leafy greens, chopped fennel and apples!

Here's the dressing. I used a touch more olive oil, but it became super creamy. Lovely.

The final salad. It was beautiful. The tarragon was present, but subtle. It paired amazingly with with fennel. The fennel and apples also played really nice together. Overall, this was a very pleasing dinner.

Insert Snooty French Laugh

Remember when I had this craving several weeks ago? Yeah, that scratch got scritched!

Woo hoo!!!

My version of Frisée Aux Lardons, sans frisée!

The dressing; a lemon Chardonnay vinaigrette! Tasty.


The dressed salad with bacon, home-made croutons and a side of oven pomme frites.


Top with a soft poached egg. Add some freshly cracked pepper and pinch of salt.


Dig In! The preferred salad would be frisée, but Giant didn't have any-go figure, so I got a bag mix of baby arugula mix, which had a small bit of frisée in it. It worked...and I'm not fond of arugula.

Lemon Chardonnay Vinaigrette
1 small shallot finely diced, about 1 TB
pinch of sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
1-2 tsp Chardonnay vinegar (see 2nd photo above for the bottle)
2-4 TB olive oil
salt/pepper to taste

Whisk together, taste and adjust seasoning as necessary. The quantities are good faith estimates, as I didn't measure. This was enough dressing for one bag of salad mix, which as a main course, served the two of us.

As for the pomme frites...I sliced the potato and...get this...tossed it in some of the bacon fat...yeah, that's right...bacon fat...the roasted until crispy! Tee hee...



Enjoy!

Cravings!

image source

I've been craving a salad like this!

A few weeks ago, we went to a French restaurant in Bethesda called Mon Ami Gabi and I ordered a frisée & bacon salad with a soft-poached egg and croutons. It was wonderful and I want it again...NOW.

Funny thing...this isn't something I've every had before and after one tasting, I dream about it. Those crazy French! Adding bacon and eggs to a salad, who knew...! Add bread made by the hand of g-o-d and dry white wine...perfect meal!

I need help...I can make this...but I don't know what kine of dressing to use. Anyone have a suggestion? Like I said, this isn't a salad I've had before and there was no listing for the dressing on the menu so I don't know what I would use. Help me! This is my current desire and addiction.

Satisfying Dinner and Great for Lunch

Mmmmm...quiche!
Harvarti and Sausage Quiche with our most awesome favorite salad.

Mixed field greens with pears, cashews, dried cherries and dressed with a basil balsamic vinaigrette.

salad days

Last night I made a version of the Millionaire Chicken Salad I've made once before. The MCS should be made with a napa cabbage, but the last few times I"ve been to my store they haven't carried the napa cabbage. So last night I threw together this "temple food" salad with a bag of shredded cabbage. Tossed in some thin sliced carrots and bell peppers, poached chicken and the dressing. Done and done. It was good. It wasn't great, but it was good and filling. The dressing is tasty and could be used as a sauce for some grilled chicken, rice and steamed veg for a healthy meal.



I wasn't having the best of evenings, so it was just icing on the cake when I was serving the salad and the spoons slipped and sent sloppy cabbage all over the counter and floor. Nice. Here's hoping today is a better day.

Good dinner

We started with our favorite salad. Mixed greens with pear, cashews and dried cherries (preferred, but this was actually cranberries) and the Balsamic & Basil Vinaigrette Dressing from Ken's Steak House that we love and were introduced to by Sterf. Forgot the photo after the salad was dressed.


That was the first course. The main course were my perfect oven roasted potatoes. Use baby red or white potatoes, cut into quarters or eighths. Drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper and fresh herbs; rosemary and thyme are my preferred flavors. Bake in a hot oven, about 400 for 30-45 minutes until golden brown and delicious. And tender. Flip about half way through cooking.


We also grilled, on the grill pan, a large hunk o' beef. This rib steak came from a butcher in Hagerstown, MD that we went to a few weeks ago. We picked up two giant rib steaks and four awesome pork chops. Two of which we've had already with my rosemary and shallot sauce. I seasoned these steaks with a blend of paprika, shallot powder, onion powder, thyme, oregano, oregano, salt and pepper. Place on the hot grill pan and cook until done to your liking. I did this hunk until it was just over medium; J-lo prefers more done than I. Allow the beef to rest for a few minutes before slicing and serving. This large piece of meat took about 25 minutes too cook until done.


Turns out I was too excited to have dinner, I didn't get a picture. Ooops.

Salad Days

Last night was salad. We have our favorite salad--greens, cashews, pears and basil balsamic dressing. But with a recent mention of Good Seasons dressing on America's Test Kitchen and DC Food Blog, we had to go with what we had in the cupboard and have a basic tossed salad and the italian dressing mix. YUM! I fubared the croutons...got ahead of myself and then over seasoned/salted them. But they were the perfect texture...cruchy outside and chewy inside. I should have a salad dinner at least once a week...otherwise I don't get my veggies.

The downside to salad dinners...I'm picky about my veg and won't get much variety. Give me some feedback...what's your favorite salad mix-in? How about your favorite dressing?