Sesame-Shrimp Noodles with Fresh Vegetable Toppings or Lilacs in the Rain

A cool and rainy spring in Saint Paul keeps me cooking indoors.  Typically I'd be raking together a salad while Dave grilled chicken or salmon.  Instead, just back from our happy daughter Emily's graduation from seminary at Princeton, I'm slaving over a hot stove.  Well,  not really.

Here is Emily with her proud parents.  We sang in the choir! Go, Emily!

Vietnamese Chicken Salad with Mango

Most people, when they decide to make salad, just make a salad.  A quick opening of the refrigerator door.  A glance at the counter.  A whisk and a shake of vinegar and oil.  I love almost every salad I make (surely I should be thinner) and Dave does, too.  With a couple of exceptions, I rarely repeat one, though I am crazy about fresh spinach with lime vinaigrette.  And, maybe even more, green beans and mushrooms with tarragon.  Or Caprese with bacon....  Well.

38 Power Foods, Week 24 -- Quinoa -- Shrimp-Quinoa Salad with Winter Fruit, Pomegranate Seeds, and Blue Cheese

Festive and healthy at the same time is a winning combination.  While we often think of holiday meals leaning toward big hunks of meat and baked desserts, it may be just the time we should be thinking of cutting a bit here and there.  If you'd like a gorgeous December salad that's colorful and filling without being heavy, try this little plate of love.  There's plenty of shrimp (I bought cooked shrimp for ease of preparation) for those who need visible protein, but it's off-set by the addition of lots high-fiber quinoa, green apples, red pomegranate seeds, cucumber, fresh cranberries, clementines, and spinach--to say nothing of the blue cheese grace notes.  A light orange vinaigrette spiked with a bit of crushed red pepper tops it all.   You could add some steamed, chopped asparagus or green beans, I think, but the spinach gives you lots of green.  I served a little bread and butter with this salad to round out the meal.  Try this:

50 Women Game-Changers- #37- Ina Garten-Roasted Shrimp with Feta

how easy is that?

Ina's Roasted Shrimp with Feta from her 2010 book,  How Easy is That? served with salad.

  If I'm home in the afternoon, no one has to ask where I've disappeared to around 3.  I'm watching Ina, of course.  I'll admit that portions of the Food Network are not for me; I switch them off or tune them out.  But if Ina's on (or Tyler Florence), I'm probably watching.  It says a lot.  I'm not a tv person, with the exception of early morning political shows (love "Morning Joe"), a few minutes of TODAY, and the occasional film on the old-movie channel.  I have better fish to fry, literally.  Or I'm at the piano.  Or I'm walking Gabby and Tucker.  Loving Dave.

50 Women Game-Changers Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian, #32 - Sullivan's Island Shrimp Bog

 
 Big bunch of bacon. (This is good.  I'm married to someone who eats anything with bacon.)  Next:  tons of onions.  Rice. Lots of shrimp, ahhh.  All cooked together in one lovely mess called a bog.  For those of us with no real connection to the south-eastern coastal states, a bog brings to mind cranberries in Maine or Wisconsin, even.  Or being stuck at work, as in:  "I'm all bogged down writing that article."  But this bog, this "Sullivan's Island Shrimp Bog," is just what it sounds like:  mounds of steamed shrimp mixed up on top of a velvety oh-so-thick tomatoed, oniony, spicy rice--perfect for brunch or a lunch bunch.  If the words "comfort food" weren't so over-used and so inappropriate (comfort food being food you had a gazillion times as a kid...), I'd call this comfort food extraordinaire.  Comfort food x100.

Just for fun, here's the wikipedia definition of a bog:   A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens.

Food for thought, I'd say.  Read on:

Shrimp Cobb or Starting Over in the St. Paul Kitchen

After a busy season of church, family, and travel, I'm back.  I missed blogging, but simply couldn't find a good way to do it with pictures from my ipad, which is what I take away from home. First blog must be about how we came home...

After a long drive, and a couple of weeks away from my still Christmas kitchen (I do admit it:  I was cheating with my other kitchen the whole time), we were hungry.  Friends offered one meal and we ate out another, but we needed to get back into the swing of cooking and eating at home.  Not wanting to do a serious grocery shop right away, I ran through the corner store for just a few things:

1. avocado
2. fresh greens
3. blueberries
4. cherry tomatoes
5. 4 red bell peppers
6. chicken breasts (several--on the bone, with skin)
7. whole wheat bread
8. plain Greek yogurt
9. milk

When I arrived home,  I was able to put together the Shrimp Cobb (recipe below) that night and had plenty more for a couple of breakfasts, a pot of chicken chili, and leftover chicken for snacks and sandwiches.   (Thanks to a well-stocked pantry and freezer that included shrimp and bacon.)

Let's talk chicken chili another time.  Love this stuff.  You can do beans or no beans.

Shrimp Stir Fry or God, I'm Listening to your Coyotes Tonight

Nothing cooking today, though I cooked egg tacos for my breakfast.

I guess if you write a blog, you like to write.  I read somewhere today that we write because we see things and must share them; that's our job.  I don't know.  I only know that since I could hold a pencil, I've been writing.  For years, it was letters.  Before that, it was poetry and all kinds of intense scribbling that kids seem to need to do.  Now it's a cooking blog and I'm grateful for it and I'm grateful for you, since you're reading.  Grateful to the cooking that brings it all together.

Speaking of cooking blogs, I began a new blog this week in response to Emily's request for a kitchen and pantry list, as well as some recipes suited for cooking for one.  I had been thinking of (and had even staked out a name) another cooking blog for a while, but couldn't settle on which focus to pursue.  When Emi talked to me about solo cooking, I knew I had my topic.  There aren't many posts and the first ones deal with kitchen/pantry, of course.   There will be lots of recipes, links to video tutorials, shopping lists and tips, and thoughts on sharing your food.  Less stories and more food.  It'll grow.  Take a peek, though.  It's called Dinner Place:  A Blog for Solo Cooks. I'd love emails or comments with recipes/ideas that are great for one person; I'll blog them if I can.


It's a nasty-cold night in Colorado, land of temperate winters and beautiful, warming sun any day of the year.  We had a long, warm fall and have had a mostly gentle winter with a few arctic exceptions.   But last night, the banshee moaned and the house creaked hard  while the wind chimes sang and banged on the front deck.  Sometimes, when it gets like that, I make my way out in the dark and put the chimes out of their misery until morning.  We get wind here like nowhere else except Alaska and we get it worse up here on the mesa, where it's not unusual to get hurricane-force gales that blow the panels out of the ceiling in the bathroom, scaring the shit out of me.  We don't take showers when the wind is up.  One time, the panels crashed  down into the bathtub while I was at rehearsal, impaling a huge lizard that had, for reasons known only to her, made her way into the bathtub.  I came home and, after taking the dogs out and chilling out myself, decided to strip and jump in the shower.  Ever since then, I've had a clear shower curtain.  Make your own movie here, though it must involve a certain amount of Alyce running back and forth, making a lot of noise.