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.

Baby Kale and Chicken Salad--10 Minutes to Dinner

 It is snowing, sleeting, and blowing in Saint Paul.  Again.  I mostly don't mind it.  As long as I don't have to drive.

When I came home from the market today, it was pouring tiny bits of frozen rain--treacherous.  I got the groceries up the slippery steps and emailed my boss I was opting out of a dinner meeting.   She agreed and canceled it.  Phew.  By then the biggest snowflakes I'd ever seen were flying like big crystal kites colliding over and over in a  shivering maelstrom.  My little warm kitchen never looked so good.

My welcoming committee.

Turkey Wild Rice-Vegetable Soup with Sherry and Walnut Garnish OR One More Snow Day in Saint Paul

It's spring in name only in Saint Paul.  Whereas many food writers and bloggers are already complaining about too many fresh pea or asparagus recipes, people here are still sniffling and shuffling around town in their by now worn-out snow boots. (Uh, there are not even pea tendrils in St. Paul because snow covers the vegetable gardens; see below.)  In fact, if you move here, you'll save a lot of money on shoes;  you only need them May - September.  Not only that,  you can write about fresh peas, rhubarb, and asparagus when folks further south are eating their first tiny tomatoes and are getting tired of grilling already.

This picture is out my front door this morning.

Ina Fridays -- Appetizers -- Guacamole

Thus begins a fun group blogging effort devoted to the recipes of Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa, Food Network star, best-selling cookbook author, loving wife of Jeffrey, and all around bon vivant!   While Ina probably needs little introduction in the United States, here is a brief biography just in case.
 

 Ina's newest book.

38 Power Foods, Week 37 -- Wild Salmon -- Salmon with Kale on Pea Risotto

If you're looking for a fish meal for Good Friday --or a different salmon recipe-- this is your day.  While it takes a few more minutes than simply grilling some fish and putting together a salad, it's well worth it.  Think creamy-dreamy risotto to which you've added some spring peas.  Surround it with some quickly crisped healthy green kale and top with a tender filet of salmon.  Lemon, along with some minced fresh onion, adds the best touch over all at the end.  Here's how....

38 Power Foods, Week 36 -- Rainbow Trout -- Pan-Fried Trout Brunch with Red Pepper-Zucchini Potatoes and Fried Eggs

 

Skip the quiche this Easter and fry up a tasty rainbow trout to go with your eggs and a big platter of potatoes with peppers and zucchini. While this is a lovely and not too time-consuming brunch (no do-aheads), it necessitates planning and ... well ...and doing things in approximately the order (see below), as fish waits for no one.  

Servings:   One fish will serve two people generously.  There's plenty of Avocado-Basil Mayonnaise and potatoes for four. If you do have four, you'll need to buy two trout and cook one, putting it in the warming oven while you cook the second.   Alternately, each of the four of you could have a small serving of the single trout.  With the eggs, it's a filling meal.

       

College CHILI FRITO Updated

When Dave and I were in college, the cafeterias did their best to serve food that was wholesome and healthy (a salad bar appeared at student request), but that also made a teenager's heart sing rather than sink.  As I spent a couple of years there cracking eggs--this is true--I know better than some.  Saturday nights were "steak nights," and you seldom missed that meal, even if you had eaten all day long that day or were out at the lake at a kegger.   It was there I first heard the words London Broil or realized steaks could have sauces.  In the house where I grew up, good steak didn't need sauce; it simply wasn't done. (Groan.)  You wouldn't ruin a gorgeous piece of midwest beef like that.  Looking back, of course the cafeteria steaks probably needed sauce.  The rarely-seen (ha) summer ribeye at home was fine with only a bit of garlic salt with pepper and a nice big crunchy salad right out of my Dad's garden.  Mayonnaise was the dressing of choice.