Good stuff.

After a long holiday week of binge eating turkey and cookies, Betsy and I got off the plane and the first thing she said was, “Can we just eat salad for a week?”

I was happy to oblige for at least one dinner. My body was sort of screaming at me to pack in some veggies.

A lot of times I hear people say that they can’t make a meal out of salad and my response normally is, “You’re not making the right kind of salad!”

For me, a salad can definitely be a meal if it has a lot of different vegetables, textures, and flavors. One key element of the salad, for me, is always a delicious dressing.

While ranch dressing can be heavy, a little goes a long way and the subtle spice and herb flavors of this version can really round out a salad and make it a full meal.

Jalapeno Ranch Dressing

Yield: Makes about 3 cups.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 cup buttermilk (if you want a dip, use 1/4 cup)
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup fresh parsley
1/4 cup fresh chives
1 tablespoon fresh dill
1 jalapeno, minced
2 tablespoons lime juice
Pinch of salt and pepper

Directions:

1) Dice garlic clove and add it to a bowl with a pinch of salt. Using a fork, mash the garlic and salt together to form a garlic paste.

2) Mince all the fresh herbs and add them the garlic paste. Mash them all together a bit and combine them well.

3) Mince jalapeno finely and add to the bowl. If you want the dressing to be really spicy, leave in seeds and pith of the pepper.

4) Add mayonnaise and greek yogurt to the bowl and stir well. Add in lime juice as well.

5) Thin the dressing out with buttermilk until it's the desired consistency. For a dip I would use 1/4 cup, for a dressing, use 1/2 cup.

6) Stir or shake dressing together well and use immediately or store for a week or two in the fridge.

Dressing Ingredients

Ranch dressing normally has sour cream in it, but I subbed Greek yogurt to make it somewhat healthier. Of course, it still has mayonnaise and buttermilk.

You can’t win them all.

The good news is that because of all the delicious herbs and stuff, just a few tablespoons of this dressing will add a lot of flavor to any salad. You don’t need to drown your salad to add a lot of flavor to it.

Lots of good fresh herbs.

Mincing and Mashing

When I’m making a dressing or sauce with garlic in it, I like to mince my clove of garlic and then add it to a bowl with a pinch of kosher salt. Then I grab a fork and just kind of mash the garlic and salt together.

This releases a lot of the juices in the garlic and makes a salty garlic paste. It’s why you definitely only need one clove of garlic for this recipe. Two would be over-powering.

One clove is all ya need.

Besides the garlic, take the time to really mince up the ingredients finely. It’s a dressing after all and you don’t want any huge pieces of any one thing.

For the jalapeno, I decided to take out the seeds and just mince the pepper. I think if I made this again, I would actually leave the seeds and pith of the pepper in to make it even a bit more spicy.

It’s just personal preference though. If you want it spicier, leave in the seeds and pith. If you want it more mild, take them out!

You could leave the seeds in if you wanted it real spicy.

All the herbs should be diced pretty finely. While you could leave out the dill in this recipe, I think the parsley and chives are pretty mandatory.

Gotta have chives in ranch.

Once all your herbs are chopped, add them to the bowl with the garlic paste. Squeeze in some fresh lime juice and mash everything together a bit to combine the flavors.

Good green stuff.

A Dip or a Dressing?

After your herbs are chopped and mixed, stir in the mayo and greek yogurt.

Then comes the decision part. Do you want a dip or a dressing? If you want a dip, add in just a tiny bit of buttermilk to give it some tang but leave it thick. If you’re shooting for a dressing, thin it out more with the buttermilk.

I used about 1/2 cup of buttermilk for my dressing version. At the end of the day though, you could thin it out more or less. Again, it’s personal preference on this.

Buttermilk is very important.

The Salad

When I’m making a salad as a meal, I like to pile on lots of interesting flavors and textures. Sometimes this can mean a protein like grilled chicken, but it doesn’t have to. In this case, I didn’t add any meat.

I did add some homemade croutons though that I tossed with some olive oil and garlic.

I also roasted some small beets which are the last thing I harvested from my summer garden! These were really sweet and delicious in the salad.

Yum.

Besides those things, my salad was basically a large chunk of the produce section.

Green lettuce, shredded carrots, cucumbers, red peppers, scallions, radishes, avocado, cheddar cheese…

A salad can be a meal.

As you can see, I just added a few drizzles of dressing and it was more than enough to flavor the salad.

This was a delicious meal and left me FULL.

The dressing will obviously not last as long as store-bought ranch dressing because it doesn’t have any preservatives or anything in it. The tradeoff is that it has a lot more flavor, so you need to use less of it.

I think it will easily last 2 weeks in the fridge though.

Give this dressing a shot if you’re in a salad rut!

Pretty Omelet

Growing up in a small Wyoming town, I wasn’t privy to the deliciousness of bagels and lox until I was in college. Sure, we had a good amount of smoked fish growing up, but smoked salmon, capers, red onions, and cream cheese on a bagel?

That was completely new to me and I’m pretty sure I ate nothing but that for about six months after discovering it. It’s one of my absolute favorite flavor combos so I try to sneak it into dishes every chance I get.

Some people (my wife) have a serious aversion to capers for some reason and you could definitely leave them out of this omelet if you want. To me though, they make the whole thing work.

The Lox Omelet

Yield: 1 omelet

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1-2 ounces smoked salmon
1 tablespoon capers
2 tablespoons red onions, diced
1-2 ounces cream cheese
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Fresh dill

Helpful Equipment:
Omelet pan

Directions:

1) Roughly chop or shred smoked salmon and dice red onions.

2) Add butter to a small omelet pan until melted over medium-high heat and then add the smoked salmon, red onions, and capers. Try to distribute the fillings evenly over the surface of the pan. Cook for about 2 minutes.

3) Meanwhile, whisk eggs together with milk with a fork to scramble them.

4) Pour eggs over the filling mixture in the pan. Turn heat down to medium and cook eggs. As the eggs cook, use a flat spatula to push the cooked eggs to the center and tilt the pan slightly to let the uncooked eggs flow to the outside.

5) Cook the eggs until they are almost all the way cooked. There will be a very thin layer of uncooked egg on the top and that's fine.

6) Add cream cheese to one half of the omelet and use a spatula to fold the egg over to form an omelet.

7) Cook omelet for another 30-45 seconds on each side to melt the cheese and finish cooking the eggs.

8) Serve omelet with fresh dill.

The Basics

It’s true that smoked salmon is a pricy ingredient, but the good news is that you don’t need to use a lot to get a lot of flavor from it. The same goes for capers. A little go a long way.

This four ounce package of smoked salmon set me back about $7, but it’s enough salmon for four omelets so that isn’t too bad.

It’s not my normal weekend omelet, but it’s a fun treat every once in awhile.

Not pictured: red onions

To get the fillings ready, dice the red onions pretty finely and just kind of shred the smoked salmon so it’s in pieces. Again, you don’t need a lot of each filling to get the flavors going.

Good looking plate.

Cooking the Omelet

In a small nonstick pan (this is a good one), add your butter over medium-high heat. Once it’s melted then go ahead and toss in all your filling ingredients: capers, onions, and salmon.

Let this stuff cook in the butter for just a few minutes. Basically, you just want to cook the onions a bit and heat everything up nicely.

Just a light saute.

While that’s cooking, you can go ahead and scramble your eggs. Just mix together a few eggs with some milk and whip them together until they are nice and fluffy.

I snapped a cool action shot of my scrambling. I was even using my left hand!

Action shot!

Go ahead and pour your eggs right over your fillings in the pan. It’ll sizzle and hiss and complain, but that’s good.

As the eggs cook, use a spatula to kind of push the cooked eggs into the center of the pan. Tilt the pan a bit then to let the uncooked eggs flow to the outer parts of the pan and cook.

After doing this for about 2-3 minutes you should end up with a lovely almost 100% cooked egg. There will still be a very thin layer of uncooked egg on the top, but that’s okay. It’ll finish cooking after we add the cheese.

Just a few minutes of cooking

For the cheese, just kind of toss a few spoonfuls of cream cheese on one side of the omelet. Don’t worry about smoothing it out or anything. Cream cheese melts quickly and as it melts it’ll even out.

Cream cheese melts pretty easily...

Then just take your spatula and fold over the omelet like so…

Looking good.

Put this back on the heat and cook it for about 30-45 seconds per side. When you’re flipping this guy, don’t be nervous about it. The melted cheese should keep everything together.

Cooking it briefly on both sides will make sure the cheese is melted and also finish cooking any uncooked egg on the inside of your omelet.

Serve this bad boy just like that or if you want to get fancy you can sprinkle on some chopped dill.

I could've eaten two of these...

This was one of the more flavorful omelets I’ve made for Macheesmo actually. All these flavors together just work.

It’s really delicious and would actually be a nice treat for the holidays also.

Assuming you can get your hands on some good smoked salmon, you’ve got to give this a shot!

It’s funny, when I moved to Sofia, Bulgaria three years ago, I didn’t like cucumbers. I avoided them on veggie platters and ate around them in salads. However, pretty quickly I realized that cucumbers weren’t worth worrying about especially when you move to a country where you can’t speak the language, you don’t know the Cyrillic alphabet and you don’t know anyone in the city.

I also figured that we move abroad to try new things, to test ourselves, to have an adventure and to learn to love new things. Cucumbers or краставица (krastavitsa) were an easy stepping stone into Bulgarian culture.

Now here I am sharing two different Bulgarian dishes that revolve around cucumbers.

Shopska Salad and Tarator Soup

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes (for both)

Total Time: 30 minutes (for both) + chill time for soup

Ingredients:

Shopska Salad:
3-4 tomatoes
1 medium large English/European cucumber (if you can't find this you can use any cucumber you can get your hands on. If the seeds are too big or bitter tasting remove them)
1 medium to large onion
1/8 of a pound feta cheese (Greek feta is a substitution the Bulgarian cheese сирене--sirene. I've seen Bulgarian feta at shops like Whole Foods before and it's worth looking. Bulgarian feta or white cheese as Bulgarians translate this cheese for foreigners is softer and less salty than Greek feta.)
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil and vinegar dressing (traditionally Bulgarians use sunflower seed oil and grape vinegar but olive oil and red wine vinegar is what I used)

Tarator Soup:
1 cup plain yogurt
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup finely diced English/European cucumber (if you can't find this you can use any cucumber you can get your hands on and if you think the seeds are too big or bitter tasting remove them)
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
3-4 tablespoons chopped dill
1/8 to 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Shopska Salad:
Chop the tomatoes and cucumber into bite size pieces. Eye-ball the amounts. Your goal is to have an equal amount of tomatoes and cucumbers. Chop the onion into pieces about half the size of the tomatoes and cucumber that is unless you want a big bite of onion in your salad but I assume you do not want this.

In a large bowl mix together the tomatoes, cucumbers and onions. In terms of portions you are aiming for a ration of about 1/3 onions to 2/3 of the tomato and cucumber mixture. Crumble feta cheese on top and mix. At this point you have a choice you can dress the salad with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper or you can serve the salad and let people dress their own. This is what Bulgarians do. Anywhere I've ever been in Bulgaria you dress your own salad at the table be it a restaurant or a friend's house and then you eat this salad washing it down with a homemade grape brandy called rakiya.

Tarator Soup:
In a container with a lid mix together the yogurt, water, cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts. Shake. Chill in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours.

Before serving, taste it and add salt and pepper accordingly. The thing that makes or breaks this soup is the size of the diced pieces of cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts. You really want these as small as possible. I used a knife to slice and dice the cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts because I like being in control but my mom asked me while I was shaking my soup together: Do Bulgarians really chop up everything by hand and then shake the soup? Me: I don't know. Mom: I bet you could have saved some time using the food processor.

The first dish is called Shopska salad and is the traditional Bulgarian salad. It’s a dish best made with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and feta cheese. Depending on your taste you can also add diced bell peppers and black olives. Everything is diced and combined in a bowl. Traditionally you dress the salad at the table yourself with salt and pepper, sunflower seed oil and grape vinegar. It’s light summery and very easy to make. The dish relies on ingredients that are readily available in Bulgaria during the summer–it seems like everyone knows someone growing tomatoes and cucumbers.

This dish entered popular culture during communism in Bulgaria thanks to the state tourism agency–Balkantourist. Apparently the agency thought they needed a little more than the Black Sea, the Balkan mountain range and rose oil production to really “sell” the country. Enter shopska salad–named after a region just outside of the capitol Sofia. Today you can’t go to a Bulgarian restaurant and not see this salad on the menu.

I spent my whole first year eating shopska salad every where I went. My Bulgarian friends and colleagues insisted on it and I wasn’t in any position to say no. So I ate it and ate it. By December I was sick and tired of the salad and the produce was no longer as fresh as it had been in August when I’d first arrived. Luckily by then I’d found a Bulgarian pizza joint with a walnut, pear, blue cheese and romaine lettuce salad. Now I eat shopska salad between the months of May and October. In fact, the last salad I had before flying home this summer was a shopska.

Another cucumber dish I am in love with is tarator soup. It’s a cold yogurt soup with finely diced cucumbers, garlic and dill and topped off with some chopped walnuts. Again, it’s easy to put together but what’s great about this dish is that it tastes even better after a few hours in the refrigerator. On the Black Sea, men walk through the sun-bathers selling cups of tarator as a refreshing snack in a cup. So this dish screams summer to me–sand, sun, yogurt and cucumbers. In restaurants it’s dished out in bowls and eaten with a spoon and Bulgarians shake on plenty of salt and pepper. Twenty-somethings swear by this dish as a hangover cure.

In the summer both of these dishes are served up with grilled meat be it chicken or pork shish kabobs or minced meat hamburger-like patties called kufteta.

Shopska Salad

Chop the tomatoes and cucumber into bite size pieces. Eye-ball the amounts. Your goal is to have an equal amount of tomatoes and cucumbers. Chop the onion into pieces about half the size of the tomatoes and cucumber that is unless you want a big bite of onion in your salad but I assume you do not want this.

In a large bowl mix together the tomatoes, cucumbers and onions. In terms of portions you are aiming for a ration of about 1/3 onions to 2/3 of the tomato and cucumber mixture. Crumble feta cheese on top and mix. At this point you have a choice you can dress the salad with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper or you can serve the salad and let people dress their own. This is what Bulgarians do. Anywhere I’ve ever been in Bulgaria you dress your own salad at the table be it a restaurant or a friend’s house and then you eat this salad washing it down with a homemade grape brandy called rakiya.

Tarator Soup

In a container with a lid mix together the yogurt, water, cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts. Shake. Chill in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours.

Before serving, taste it and add salt and pepper accordingly. The thing that makes or breaks this soup is the size of the diced pieces of cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts. You really want these as small as possible. I used a knife to slice and dice the cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts because I like being in control but my mom asked me while I was shaking my soup together: Do Bulgarians really chop up everything by hand and then shake the soup? Me: I don’t know. Mom: I bet you could have saved some time using the food processor.

And you know what? She’s probably right. Moms are like that.

Besides checking out her blog, be sure to follow Carolyn on Twitter!

Come on...

If I told you that I once ate an entire red onion in one sitting you would probably feel very bad for my loving wife, Betsy.

But you know what? I did it and I can’t take it back now. Nor do I want to frankly because when you slice red onions really thinly and fry them they just turn out to be these crispy little delicious strings. They have a slight spice to them that you wouldn’t get with normal onions.

And that made it impossible for me to stop eating them.

Red Onion Strings

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large red onions, sliced thin
3 Cups buttermilk
3 Cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon paprika
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
1 Tablespoon black pepper
2 quarts oil, for frying

Homemade Buttermilk Ranch:

1 Cup buttermilk
1 Cup Greek Yogurt
1/8 Teaspoon paprika
1/8 Teaspoon dried mustard
1/4 Teaspoon fresh dill (don't over-do it)
1 Teaspoon fresh parsley
1 Teaspoon fresh chives
1 Teaspoon lime (or lemon) juice
1 pinch of salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Deep Fry Thermometer

Directions:

1) Slice onions thinly and soak in buttermilk for at least 30 minutes.

2) For ranch, dice fresh herbs finely and mix together with other ingredients in a mason jar. Shake for 10 seconds to combine well. You can also whisk everything together in a bowl.

3) Set up a fry station with a thermometer. Heat oil to 350 degrees.

4) Mix flour with spices (paprika, salt, pepper).

5) Drain onions and let sit for a few seconds.

6) Dip onions in flour and coat lightly. Then transfer straight to the fryer.

7) Fry for about 5 minutes until they are golden brown. Work in batches and make sure your oil stays hot.

8) Let drain on a paper towel for a minute and serve immediately!

Prepping the Onions

These aren’t rocket science to make. You need some onions obviously. Might as well get the biggest ones you can find!

Pretty basic...

The key to these suckers is to slice them as thin as possible. If you wanted to be exact about it you could use a mandoline slicer. If I were making a bunch of them, I would. But for just a few, I think it’s easier and good practice just to slice them up with a sharp knife.

And frankly, I kind of like it when the strings are a bit irregular.

If you sliced them too thick though they would be over-powering. So keep them on the thin side. And I wasn’t going for onion RINGS really so it doesn’t matter if they are whole rings.

Nice and thin...

Let these guys soak for at least 30 minutes in some buttermilk. The buttermilk will actually pull out some of the strong onion flavor and mellow them out a bit. This is a good thing considering how strong red onions can be.

A nice soak.

The Dipping Sauce

Honestly, these are good enough to be eaten on their own. But I was in the mood to make some salad dressing and a good ranch dressing happens to be a good dipping sauce also.

If you’ve never had real buttermilk dressing before, I highly recommend it. It’s a lot different than the stuff in the store. It requires some fresh herbs and stuff, but it’s really simple to mix up assuming you have most of the ingredients.

Looks like a lot, but not bad.

Make sure to mince all your fresh herbs really finely so they mix well.

You could whisk everything together in a bowl, but I prefer the mason jar method. Just stick everything in a jar and give it a good shake!

Mason jar WIN.

After about 10 seconds of shaking you should have a really nice dressing.

This will keep in the fridge for one or two weeks without a problem and it’ll get stronger as it sits in the fridge.

Be especially careful of the dill. It can completely over-power the other flavors if you over-dill it.

REAL ranch dressing

Frying the Strings

When you’re ready to make the strings, set up your fry station. As always, I recommend using a good deep fry thermometer to make sure your temperature is correct. You’re shooting for 350 degrees.

When you’re ready to go, drain the buttermilk off the onions. I just throw mine in a colander and let them sit for a few seconds to make sure most of the buttermilk has drained off.

Then give them a quick toss in your flour and seasoning. Obviously, make sure to stir the flour and seasoning so it’s mixed well.

A light coating is all you need.

Seasoned and floured.

Then straight into the fryer!

You’ll want to work in batches to make sure the temperature of your oil doesn’t drop too much. Depending on the size of your pot, two onions will take three or four batches probably.

These are looking great though.

Perfect.

These guys will need 5 minutes to fry nicely and turn golden brown. Don’t rush them.

Use a slotted spoon or tongs to get these guys out of the hot oil and let them drain for a few seconds on a paper towel.

Eat NOW.

This probably isn’t a surprise to you, but these are best if you eat them right away!

The dipping sauce is good, but completely optional. These are delicious as-is.

Not much beats these guys with a good burger so the next time you’re grilling out, give them a shot!

Fresh and delicious!

I’m rapidly becoming a huge fan of tempeh. I think I might like it better than tofu when it comes to soy products. It has a lot more texture and is honestly a lot easier to cook.

When meat eaters ask me what vegetarian options taste most like meat, the answer is tempeh. It’s just very hearty and flavorful.

Plus you can grill it!

This salad took me just a few minutes to toss together and it fed me and Betsy for a few days. It’s very healthy and perfect for the summer!

Grilled Tempeh Salad

Yield: Serves 6.

Ingredients:

1 block of tempeh, 12-16 ounces is good
3 ears fresh sweet corn
1 can black beans (15 ounces)
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced (optional)
1/4 Cup basil, minced
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Yogurt Sauce:
1 Cup yogurt
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 lemon, juice only
1-2 Teaspoons hot sauce
1 Tablespoon fresh dill, minced

Directions:

1) For sauce, mince garlic and dill and stir with other ingredients. Let chill until needed.

2) Rub corn and tempeh with a bit of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

3) Grill corn over medium-high heat for about 12 minutes until there are light grill marks on each side.

4) Grill tempeh over medium-high heat for about 8 minutes until it has a crispy exterior.

5) Cut corn off the cob and cube tempeh. Mix with rinsed black beans and minced basil. Stir in a bit of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Serve warm or cold!

The Sauce

I’m not even sure that you entirely need a sauce for this salad. It’s pretty good without it, but I decided to whip one up just to try it and I really liked it with the sauce.

So you can take it or leave it.

If you take it though, you’ll need these things.

Impromptu sauce.

See that dill? From my garden. No big deal. I just grew it from THE EARTH.

Anyway, dice up the garlic and dill really finely and stir everything together. Add as much hot sauce as you want really, but start with a tiny amount.

Mine kind of took on a light pink hue.

Pretty tasty!

Grilling Things

It’s not really necessary to grill the things in this recipe, but I like the slightly charred flavor. If you don’t have access to a grill, you could roast the corn for a few minutes and sear the tempeh in a hot pan.

Same results.

This time of year, use fresh corn if you can find it!

Gotta love summer.

Rub the corn and tempeh with a light coat of olive oil and season them with salt and pepper.

I used a garden veggie tempeh, but use whatever flavor you want!

Weird looking, but good!

Heat your grill up to medium-high and toss on your corn and tempeh. I’d recommend starting the corn about 5 minutes before the tempeh.

The tempeh will need maybe 4 minutes per side. It’s already cooked so you really just want to crisp up the outside a bit and give it some nice char.

Turn the corn every few minutes and you should be getting a few light grill marks on them.

My grill almost revolted RE: tempeh.

When everything is done on the grill, cut the kernels off the cob and mix it with some black beans. I used canned beans that I drained and rinsed really well.

Cube up the tempeh and mince a jalapeno and some basil. The jalapeno is optional, but I like the heat.

Then just stir everything together and drizzle in a tiny amount of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and you’re all set!

Tasty!

This is great as-is, but like I said, I think it’s fun to serve a bowl of the sauce on the side.

Really good!

This was one of those meals that’s not only filling and tasty, but leaves you feeling very healthy when you finish it.

It works great as a side, as a main dish, or as a lunch.

I’m telling you, as a pretty solid carnivore, I can’t get enough tempeh these days.

These weren't bad. Not at all.

Kabobs are a sneaky meal. They seem easy enough and people default to them a lot during the summer. After all, how hard is it to throw some stuff on some sticks and grill it? But there’s definitely some things that can wrong in Kabobland if you aren’t careful.

For starters, if you’re using wooden skewers, you run the risk of scorching them so badly that they fall apart. Meanwhile, it’s pretty easy to overcook or under-cook whatever it is your cooking: veggies or meat.

What this means is that while kabobs sound simple, a lot of times you’ll end up with dry pieces of chicken or soggy veggies falling off of skewers that are burnt to a crisp.

But it doesn’t have to be this way obviously. There’s a surefire way to make great kabobs that’s stress free and relatively quick. So let’s get to it!

Grilled Kabobs

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

Chicken Kabobs: (I used a method from last month's Cooks Illustrated)
4 small chicken breasts, cubed
2-3 slices of bacon, processed
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon paprika
1 Tablespoon chili powder
Pinch of salt and pepper

Veggie Kabobs:
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced thick
1 red pepper, cut into chunks
1/2 red onion, cut into chunks
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon herbs de Provence
Pinch of salt and pepper

Yogurt Sauce:
1 Cup Greek Yogurt
1/2 lemon, juice only
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons fresh dill, minced
Pinch of salt

Helpful Equipment:
Skewers
Food Processor

Directions:

1) To prep the yogurt sauce, just mince all the ingredients and combine them. The flavors will get more intense as it sits. Refrigerate until needed.

2) Be sure to soak your skewers for at least 30 minutes before using them.

3) To prep veggie kabobs, cut veggies into chunks and marinate with olive oil and spices.

4) To prep chicken kabobs, mince bacon slices in a food processor until they form a rough paste.

5) Combine bacon with spices and chicken pieces and stir to combine well.

6) Skewer veggies and chicken separate.

7) Grill on high heat. Chicken kababs will probably take 15 minutes. Veggies will take more like 10.

8) Serve with yogurt sauce and rice!

Prepping The Kabobs

If you’re using wooden skewers, the first thing you need to do is make sure you soak them really well. Honestly, if I can I try to soak mine overnight or early in the day just so they have plenty of time to get really wet. If you soak them for 10 minutes, you’re not going to really accomplish much because all of that water will evaporate immediately once they are on the grill.

Meanwhile, the veggie kabobs are pretty easy to prepare. Just cut them all into pretty large pieces and then give them a good drizzle of olive oil.

Get it?

I added a good amount of Herbs de Provence to my veggies which works well on the grill I think. You could use any seasonings that you want or just keep it simple with salt and pepper. The key is to keep the pieces pretty large so the veggies don’t get soggy or overcooked.

For the chicken kabobs, I read a fascinating prep method in last month’s Cooks Illustrated that I decided to try out. To beat the issue of having dried out chicken, they suggested coating all the chicken pieces in processed bacon!

It’s kind of weird, but it totally works. Just take a few slices of bacon and buzz it up in your food processor!

Kinda weird...

Mix the bacon in with your cubed chicken and some paprika and chili powder for a little kick!

All mixed up!

When you’re ready to skewer your kabobs, I highly recommend doing all chicken ones and all veggie ones. Some people might disagree, but I find that if I mix the chicken and veggies together then it’s hard to cook them both to the right doneness. Either the chicken is undercooked or the veggies are soggy. So I just split mine up and it solves the problem.

Good lookin things.

The Sauce

You could just serve these over rice, but I decided to make a quick (and I do mean quick) yogurt sauce for the kabobs. It just greek yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, and some fresh dill all mixed up. It’s very quick to make and tastes great on everything.

Kinda greek.

Grillin’

Once you’re ready to grill, crank up the heat to high. When the grill is hot add the the kabobs! The chicken ones will need probably 15 minutes, turning every five minutes or so. As they cook the bacon keeps them really moist. It’s genius really.

Perfect grillin.

Meanwhile, the veggies will probably only need 10 minutes, but that depends on what you use and how big your pieces are. I like mine to be a tiny bit crispy still.

Veggies were equally good!

A skewer of chicken and a skewer of veggies with some rice and yogurt sauce is a really solid meal!

Hard to go wrong!

Great meal!

Kabobs can be easy, but they can be hard to perfect. The bacon tip is a great one and I highly recommend cooking the veggies and meat separately as well.

If you have any kabob tips, leave a comment!

The secret is the goat cheese!

If there’s one appetizer I think I could eat with pretty much every meal, it would be olives. Some people aren’t into them, and that’s cool, but for me their briny saltiness is just the bee’s knees… or, I guess, the olive’s pimento.

Speaking of pimentos, that’s what’s stuffed inside of probably 99% of olives these days. While pimentos are okay, they are very far from my favorite when it comes to stuffings for olives. My two absolute favorite stuffings are pickled garlic and jalapenos.

And you can find olives in the store these days stuffed with both of these things. Here’s the problem though. First, they jack up the price. You’d think they were stuffing these things with gold or something. Second, most stuffed olives in the store are wussy. They have a tiny sliver of garlic or a fleck of jalapeno.

That’s not my style. So I decided to do some of my own olive stuffing a few weeks ago and they turned out awesome.

Stuffed Olives

Yield: 50 olives

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

50 pitted, but not stuffed green olives. The bigger the better.
6 ounces goat cheese
2 Tablespoons fresh herbs, (I liked dill, but you could use almost anything)
1 Teaspoon fresh black pepper
Pickled garlic (1 clove per 4 olives)
Pickled jalapenos (1 slice per 2 olives)

Directions:

1) Mix fresh herbs with goat cheese and fresh cracked pepper.

2) Slice garlic cloves into quarters and jalapeno slices into halves.

3) Using fingers, stuff olives with goat cheese mixture until it's full. For garlic/jalapeno, add a tiny amount of goat cheese and then press in the filling.

4) Serve them up!

The Fixins

Obviously, you don’t have to make 50 olives to do this recipe. The nice thing about it is that you can pretty much customize the amounts down to the exact number of olives you need.

Besides using large chunks of garlic and jalapeno for my olives, I also did some with an herbed goat cheese. I used some of the goat cheese with the jalapeno and garlic olives as well. So goat cheese was in every variety. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Some good flavors...

The Olives

When it comes to picking olives for stuffing, I like the green kind. Ideally, if your grocery store has a well-stocked olive bar you should be able to find some green olives that are pitted, but not stuffed with anything. If not there though, you can usually find a jar of them.

It doesn’t matter if they have herbs or spices with them, just make sure they are pretty good sized and pitted.

Mine had a Greek style pickling, but it doesn’t matter. You can use whatever you can find.

Get the big ones!

For the cheese filling, I just chopped up a few tablespoons of fresh herbs and mixed it with my goat cheese along with a good amount of fresh pepper.

Not only is it a great filling, but it works well in the jalapeno and garlic olives also.

Yum.

The Garlic

The key about the garlic is that you don’t want to use fresh garlic. That would be a bad idea.

You should be able to find pickled garlic though in your olive bar also. These are whole cloves and the pickling just takes off some of the bite. They are more mellow, but still pack plenty of garlic flavor.

I quartered my cloves and used one quarter per olive.

Quartered cloves.

The Jalapenos

As far as jalapenos go, any pickled jalapeno will work.

Half a jalapeno slice per olive should do the trick. You’ll have some of the jalapeno sticking out of the olive, but that’s fine. It acts as a warning for all those trying them!

Spicy!

Filling the olives

I wish there were an elegant way to stuff an olive, but it’s pretty much a hands and fingers job.

I thought about using a pastry bag with a fine tip and I think I might try that if I did them again, but fingers work just fine.

Just get some of the goat cheese mixture on your finger tips and work it into the olive until it’s coming out the other end. If you’re doing the garlic or jalapeno variety, I just put a tiny amount of goat cheese in the olive and then pressed in the stuffing.

Worked like a charm!

Fingers work best...

These are kind of messy and maybe not the prettiest things in the world, but the flavors are awesome. They’re really ramped up over the store varieties.

Really stuffed.

I used some pretty standard olive stuffings for these. I’d be curious if you guys have any ideas for other stuffings that might work in an olive.

Leave a comment if you have a good olive stuffing idea!

Served with a good Colorado beer of course...

PHEW!

After 3 days of non-stop driving, around 2,000 miles, I finally made it safely to our new home in Grand Junction, CO.

The drive itself turned out to be pretty uneventful which is a good thing. I was pretty worried about Tipsy’s ability to make it without freaking out, but she ended up just sleeping for about 95% of the time which was super-sweet.

Then every few hours she’d wake up and I’d look in my rear view window and see this:

After a few minutes she’d realize that we were going very fast (when I took this photo we weren’t moving – don’t worry), so she’d crawl back into her carrier and go back to sleep.

Once we finally got to our destination, I was lucky enough to arrive to a basically set-up house since Betsy got to The Junction a week or so before I did. Most importantly, all of my kitchen stuff was unpacked!

After eating pretty crappy food during the drive out, I was desperately craving a huge salad. As I browsed the produce in the grocery store, I was salivating. I mean, I’m usually excited about salads, but I was really excited to have a nice big salad as my first meal.

For a recipe though, I don’t want to talk about the entire salad because it was pretty standard, but I do want to talk about the dressing and bread that I made!

Avocado Ranch Dressing
Makes enough for two large salads

- 1/2 avocado, mushed
- 1/4 Cup plain yogurt, or sour cream
- 1/4 Cup buttermilk
- 1 Tablespoon fresh chives, chopped
- 1 Tablespoon fresh dill, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- Salt and pepper

Ok. So I’m not sure that this is technically a ranch dressing. I think most ranch dressings traditionally have mayo in them, but the flavors were pretty close to me. The buttermilk gives the dressing a nice tangy flavor and the fresh herbs are great in it (although I think you could also use dried if you wanted).

Ranch dressing? Kind of.

The only important thing to this dressing is to really mush up the avocado well. You want it pretty creamy before you start mixing the other stuff in with it or you’ll have lumps. (Note: If you want lumps of avocado, then don’t mush it up so much.)

Mushed.

Once your avocado is mushed, stir in the yogurt and buttermilk. It should be creamy and not too thick. You should be able to pour it out of the bowl easily.

Interesting color...

Then just add all your chopped herbs, garlic, and a good pinch of salt and pepper.

If you ask me, this is yet another reason why store bought dressings are just unnecessary. This took me maybe 3 minutes and blew most dressings out of the water.

BAM.

Set aside your dressing until you need it. The flavors will get better the longer it sits. If you’re making it more than thirty minutes or so in advance, stick it in the fridge until you need it.

Simple Garlic Bread. Some people are amazing that I can make a salad a full meal, but I really have no problem doing it. Besides using a ton of different veggies in the salad, I almost always serve main course salads with really good bread.

In this case, really good garlic bread.

I don’t exactly have a recipe for this bread because it depends on some factors, namely whether or not I have to engage in a social activity the same night I’m eating it. If yes, I tone down the garlic. If no, then I amp it up by using 3 or 4 cloves.

I just chop up the cloves and add them to a small dish with 2-3 Tablespoons of butter. Melt this slowly in the microwave for a few seconds. Keep a close eye on it!

Can't go wrong here.

Buy a good loaf of sourdough bread from your local bakery and slice it so that the whole loaf is still attached at the bottom. What I normally do is make one big slice down the middle, then a few perpendicular cuts so the loaf is sliced into pieces, but still one big loaf.

Pour your garlic butter over the loaf and be sure to get the butter down into all the little slices. Use your hands! Get messy. Thank me later.

Really get in there and get messy.

Bake the bread at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes until it’s nice and crunchy and your whole house smells of garlic.

Meanwhile you can chop up whatever you need for your salad. I went crazy on mine. It had spinach, arugula, green peppers, red peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, red onions, radishes, celery, and pepper jack cheese.

Serve up a huge mound of salad and drizzle on the dressing. Set a big hunk of garlic bread next to it and you have yourself a main course salad meal!

One for one on tasty meals in new kitchen.

This was exactly what my body was craving. I woke up the next day feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the world.

I’m obviously excited to cook in my new kitchen and once I get completely settled, I’ll post some photos of our new place so you guys can check it out!

Looks simple, but crazy flavors here

You might be shocked to hear that a recipe from a very large tome of a cookbook called Gourmet Today has a few gourmet ingredients in it. Ingredients that you might not have sitting around your pantry.

Now I’m not usually one for extravagant ingredients actually. In fact, if you look at my Ingredient Index, the ones with the highest numbers of recipes are things like butter. Simple stuff. So I usually don’t recipes with tons of gourmet things in them.

But for some reason this recipe caught my eye. Even though it has dates, hazelnuts (which I couldn’t even find), creme fraiche (which I couldn’t find), and an expensive version of cheddar called dubliner cheese, I went out on a limb and made it anyway. Even with the substitutions I made, this salad was a seriously unique dish and one that I really loved.

Dubliner Salad with Dates and Nuts

Yield: Serves 2-4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

Date and Nut Mixture:
2/3 Cup hazelnuts (I used brazil nuts)
2-3 dates, pitted
1 Teaspoon sugar
1 Teaspoon unsalted butter

Dressing:
1 Cup creme fraiche (I used 1/2 Cup sour cream, 1/2 Cup yogurt, and a few Tablespoons of cream)
1/2 lemon, juice only
1 Tablespoon chives, chopped
2 Tablespoons Dubliner cheese, crumbled (or extra sharp cheddar)

Cucumber topping:
1 seedless cucumber, peeled and diced
2 Tablespoons shallots, diced
1 Teaspoon apple cider vinegar (I used standard white vinegar)
1 Tablespoon chopped dill

1 small head iceberg lettuce (original recipe uses butter lettuce of course)
More Dubliner cheese for topping salad

Directions:

1) Chop nuts roughly and add to small pan over medium heat with butter and sugar. Cook for a few minutes and stir frequently until sugar melts and nuts brown lightly. It should take just a minute or two. Remove from heat and let nuts cool.

2) Remove pits from dates and combine with candied nuts in a food processor. Pulse a few times to combine but try not to overpulse it. If you don't have a processor, you can just finely mince the nuts and the dates.

3) Meanwhile, mix together all the dressing ingredients and set aside.

4) Peel and slice cucumber and add to a small bowl with dill, shallots, and vinegar. Stir and let sit for a minute or two.

5) Chop lettuce and dress lightly. Add cucumber mixture and sprinkle on nut/date mixture. You can go pretty heavy on it. Then top with slices of Dubliner (or cheddar) cheese. Serve as an appetizer or main course.

Adapted from Gourmet Today.

I made quite a few substitutions for this salad because I couldn’t find some of the stuff. Feel free to make it your own as well!

Making Nut Mixture

I’ll be completely honest, I think almost every date I’ve ever had has been stuffed with cheese and wrapped with bacon. So the idea of dates in a salad was a bit different, but the dates combined with the nuts worked as a great topping for the salad actually.

A bit exotic, but awesome.

To start, roughly chop up the nuts and add them to a small pan with some butter and sugar and toss until the sugar is dissolved and the nuts are lightly browned and candied.

Like this!

A bit of sugar goes a long way.

Add these to a food processor along with the dates (be sure to cut out the pits) and give them a whirl! Honestly, you can also just finely chop everything and mix it together and that would work great also.

Sweet and salty!

Making the dressing

One of the substitutions that I was worried most about involved the dressing. I couldn’t find any creme fraiche which the recipe called for. SO I kind of winged it. I tossed in some sour cream, a bit of yogurt, and some cream until it was a good texture and slightly tangy flavor.

Then I added in some chives, crumbled cheese, lemon juice, and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Mix this all together!

Really tangy!

The Cucumber Topping

Yet another substitution I made. The original recipe called for a tiny amount of apple cider vinegar. I didn’t have any and wasn’t going to buy some just for this recipe so I just used normal white vinegar to give the cucumbers some tang. Worked just fine!

If you ask me though, the fresh dill is definitely not substitutable. It adds a great flavor. Stir these all together and le tit sit for a few minutes to let the flavors combined.

Again... interesting stuff here.

Making the salad

Once you get all the crazy gourmet ingredients in this salad (or my less gourmet substitutions), then this salad is pretty easy to make actually.

Chop up some lettuce (I used iceberg, original calls for butter lettuce). Add a few tablespoons of dressing to the greens. Don’t over-dress them as the dressing can easily overpower everything else.

Don't use too much dressing...

The Cheese

So this is one of the only specific ingredients that the recipe asked for that I actually found! Dubliner cheese!

It's like cheddar on steroids.

It’s really good but it’s pretty close to an extra sharp cheddar so feel free to substitute that even!

Once you have your greens ready and lightly dressed, pile on some cucumber mix and top with the nut/date mixture. Add on some extra slices of cheese and you’re ready to go!

Looks simple but lots of flavor.

This could almost be a meal in itself with just some nice bread or something.

I baked some chicken and served that with the salad. It was a great meal!

Really good meal.

So while maybe I didn’t keep this exactly as gourmet as it was intended, it definitely has flavors that you or your guests probably haven’t had before. Even if you can’t find every part of this salad, give it a shot. I think it’ll impress you.

I went to my first barbecue of spring a few weeks ago and decided to whip up a potato salad. For potato salads, I like to use red bliss potatoes or new potatoes so you can leave the skin on.

It’s a great salad for a hot day!

Simple and delicious.

Some people have some really strong opinions about potato salad. Many hate mayonnaise. Some people dislike mustard. Some hate dill. My salad has all of those things in it so it might not be for you.

Have no fear though. The great thing about potato salad is that you can customize it to your liking on the fly. There’s really only one ingredient that’s essential: potatoes.

Red Bliss Potato Salad

Yield: Serves 5-6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes + chill time

Ingredients:

3 pounds red bliss potatoes, scrubbed and cubed
1/2 large red onion, diced
1 large red pepper, diced
2-3 Tablespoons fresh dill, chopped
2-3 Tablespoons parsley, chopped
2/3 Cup mayonnaise
2/3 Cup Greek yogurt
2 Tablespoons dried mustard
2 Teaspoons paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 Teaspoon cayenne (very optional)

Directions:

1) Scrub potatoes and cube them so they are roughly the same size. About 1/2 inch cubes is best.

2) Boil potatoes in salted water (1 Tbsp/gallon) until they are fork tender, about 8-10 minutes.

3) Drain potatoes and dunk them in ice water to stop the cooking.

4) Chop up all your other ingredients and herbs.

5) Stir everything together and whisk together your dressing in a separate bowl (mayo, yogurt, paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper).

6) Mix dressing with salad and chill for 3-4 hours or overnight.

Prepping the Potatoes

Ok. So most of this recipe, as with most salads I guess, just involves a lot of chopping. But the one thing you need cook is your potatoes.

The humble potato...

Spend some time to make sure you scrub them all well and cube them into roughly the same size. That’ll make sure they cook evenly and also make the salad easier to eat since the potatoes will all be the same size.

Try to keep them roughly the same size.

Cooking the potatoes is maybe the only tricky thing about this recipe. Here’s the things to remember:

- Cook the potatoes in salted boiling water (1 Tablespoon kosher salt per gallon of water is a good start).
- Depending on the size of your potatoes, they’ll take somewhere from 8-10 minutes to become fork tender.
- You don’t want to overcook your potatoes. Mushy potatoes don’t make great potato salad. Just keep an eye on them and try one every few minutes.
- When you’re done cooking them, put them into salted ice water. This will shock them and stop the cooking. It’s a really important step. I do this by putting all my potatoes in a colander and then submerging the colander into a very large bowl of ice water. You could obviously just add the potatoes to ice water and drain them afterward if you don’t have this set up.

You'll need a big bowl to do it this way...

The other stuff

Besides the potatoes, you really just need to chop up a lot of stuff.

This is the fun part.

Earlier when I said that the only thing I think potato salad has to have is potatoes, I was kind of lying. I also think that potato salad has to have red onion in it. Everything else can be changed or substituted, but red onion is pretty important in my book. It gives a great bite to the finished salad.

A careful dice.

The Dill-emma

Some people hate dill. Some people love it. You won’t be able to make everybody happy. Personally I love it and I was the one making the salad so I added it!

The Dill-emma

If you’re worried about the flavor of the dill, just go light on it. It can definitely overpower the salad if you use too much.

Colorful!

The dressing

Yet another contentious issue involves the dressing for potato salad. Some people just don’t do mayonnaise and that’s fine. I’ve had potato salad with olive oil or honestly you might be able to just use all Greek yogurt if you’re looking for something creamy. For me though, mayonnaise is fantastic. I don’t eat it very often, but sometimes it really hits the spot.

I added spices to mine like mustard, cayenne, and some paprika. You could leave any of these out or adjust to your tastes. Mix up your dressing first and then add your potatoes. Make sure they are well coated.

The dressing.

Then just add in all your other chopped veggies and herbs and stir it up! Be sure to taste for salt and pepper at this point. Mine definitely needed a good pinch of both.

Done deal.

Chill out

Ideally, you could make this a day before you need it. This salad only gets better after some time in the fridge. At a minimum I’d recommend 3 or 4 hours in the fridge, but the day before would be best honestly.

Yum.

So there ya go. My potato salad which has basically every ingredient that people tend to have a problem with. What can I say… I like to start trouble.

What’s essential for a potato salad in your mind? Leave a comment!