Grilling and chilling - Dairy Foods

Yesterday evening I had dinner with good friends Kristin and Libby. We grilled portobello mushroom burgers, drank wine and sat outside on Libby's patio enjoying the warm(ish) MN weather. It was a very good night.

We ate veggies with delicious hummus from the Minneapolis Farmers Market (Deanna's hummus).



Kristin made an excellent caprese quinoa salad.

Quinoa Caprese from (adapted from Too Many Chefs, original recipe from Shape, May 2006)

Ingredients

1 cup quinoa
14 oz. vegetable stock
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
3 ounces fresh mozzarella, diced
1 cup torn basil leaves
2 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/4 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic
Salt and pepper

Preparation

Rinse the quinoa thoroughly. In a medium saucepan, bring the stock to a boil. Add the quinoa, reduce heat and simmer about 12-15 minutes until the liquid is absorbed. The quinoa should be tender. transfer to a large bowl and toss/stir to help it cool down to room temperature.

Smash your garlic cloves, removing the papery outer peel. Heat the oil in a small skillet over low and add the garlic. Sautee over low heat, stirring occasionally for about five minutes. Strain the garlic out of the oil and let the oil cool.

Stir the cherry tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella into the quinoa.

With a whisk or fork beat the lemon juice and oil together. Pour over the quinoa and toss well. Season to taste.
We had huge portobello burgers topped with blue cheese. Yum. Just as tasty as a beef burger. Seriously.

This was a great segue into the holiday weekend. Erik and I have plans with friends up north at a cabin. There will be beer, bonfires, lawn games, burgers and hopefully no rain! We're also hanging with good friends Kiefer and Diane and I can't wait for an entire evening of quality time and good food. Monday brings another BBQ, this time with my family. I haven't seen then in over a week and am going through a bit of withdrawal after spending 24/7 with them in Florida!

What are your weekend plans? I hope they are jam packed with fun!

Easy taco salad - Dairy Foods

There are many evenings, usually after a long day in the office, when I don't feel like cooking. I'm usually sitting on the train reading a foodie magazine when I realize I'm hungry as hell and there is no way I'm spending time prepping a meal when I get home.

So I send Erik a crabby text, "I'm not making dinner".  He could care less and a throws a frozen pizza in the oven. If it's a day when I'm on Weight Watchers, frozen pizza is a no-no.

So I make this taco salad, which is inspired by my sister, who literally eats it almost every evening for dinner. Why not? It's healthy and super easy (only takes about 5 minutes to throw together) and great for vegetarians or people who observe "Meatless Mondays".

Taco salad

1/3 - 1/2 bag of salad mix
1 roma tomato, sliced
1/4 cups shredded cheddar
1/4 cup salsa
1 tablespoon ranch
1/3 cup black beans
3-4 tortilla chips, crushed

Optional - avocado, corn, sour cream

Preparation

Heat the black beans in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Place lettuce/salad mix on a plate. Top with tomato, cheddar, black beans, salsa, ranch and tortilla chips.

Makes one serving.

Enjoy!

Seasonal salad with pears, pancetta and hazelnuts - Dairy Foods

I attended yet another Whole Foods cooking class last week, this one was all about pears. These classes are a favorite past-time for me; amazing food, a wonderful instructor and the bonus is grocery shopping at Whole Foods after the class. 

This was a wonderful, winter salad. I loved the salty bite of the pancetta married with the pears. 

Seasonal salad with pears, pancetta, and hazelnuts (recipe credit to Whole Foods / Ani Loizzo)

Ingredients

5 ounces baby spinach
1 small head radicchio, chopped
2 pears, sliced
8 ounces pancetta, cut into half inch cubes
10 leaves of basil, sliced immediately before serving
1/3 cup hazelnuts, toasted and chopped
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Rendered fat from pancetta, plus olive oil to equal 1/4 cup

Preparation

Heat a cast iron or stainless steel pan over medium heat. Add pancetta and fry until crisp, about ten minutes. Remove pancetta from the pan, then pour carefully rendered pancetta drippings and olive oil as needed to the bottom of your serving bowl. Whisk in balsamic vinegar, then add greems, pears, hazelnuts, basil and pancetta and toss to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serves 6-8.

If you live in the Twin Cities be sure to check out the cooking classes at the Minneapolis Whole Foods. 

Pomegranate Wild And Brown Rice Salad Recipes

We are slowly switching from white rice to brown rice. Carlos is actually not a huge fan of brown rice so for now I will mix the white and brown rice and he is slowly getting use to it. Beside brown rice I like wild rice too. I love the hearty and nutty flavor of the wild rice. For this particular salad I used Goose Valley Brown and Wild Rice Fusion. It is a combination for Brown rice, wild rice, heirloom red rice and sweet brown rice. If you like to make this salad you can use any type rice combination to suit your taste.

Ingredients:

2 cups of cooked Brown and Wild Rice Fusion
1 roasted chicken breast – slice thinly
2 spring onions – slice thinly
½ cup of pomegranate
1 cup of tomatoes – halve

Dressing:

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp honey
Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a small mixing bowl, mix all the dressing ingredients and set it aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combined the cooked rice, spring onions, tomatoes, pomegranate and chicken breast.
3. Pour in the dressing and toss in lightly until combined. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Parisian Bistro cooking class: part 1 - Salad Nicoise - Dairy Foods

I attended my second cooking class at Whole Foods this weekend titled Parisian Bistro. The class was a lot of fun, informative and decadent. I ate delicious French food like an American, meaning, way too much! Now I am armed with some great recipes and I already feel the wheels turning as I plan my next dinner party with a Parisian theme!

A major highlight of the class is Culinary Director, Ani Loizzo. She created the menu and recipes and adds a lot of extra color and commentary throughout the class. She should have her own cooking show!

I am going to post the recipes and photos in a series. Today's recipe is for an amazing Nicoise salad, delicious as a salad course but also robust enough to be a main entree.

Stay tuned for part 2, which will include a French Onion soup recipe. Bon appetit!!

Salad Nicoise (recipe credit to Ani Loizzo/Whole Foods)

Ingredients

2 heads butter lettuce, washed and dried, torn into bite-sized pieces
1 cup each green beans, blanched and fingerling potatoes, roasted and halved
2 cans tuna packed in olive oil
4 hard boiled eggs, sliced
1/2 cup small French olives (preferably nicoise)
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons each lemon juice, capers and red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup good quality olive oil
1 shallot, roughly chopped
6 anchovy fillets

Directions
To make the vinaigrette, add fillets, capers and shallots to a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add Dijon mustard, lemon juice and vinegar, process to a smooth paste. Stream in the olive oil until well-combined and silky. Set aside.

Arrange a bed of lettuce on each place, then arrange all other ingredients on top. Drizzle with dressing and serve immediately. Serves 8-10.

Very merry cranberry cooking class - Dairy Foods

If you love to cook and can't exactly afford to quit your day job and go to culinary school then Whole Foods cooking classes are the way to go. They only allow a small number of attendees so the classes are intimate and are led by their awesome culinary director, Ani Loizzo.

Last Wednesday I took a Very Merry Cranberry cooking class with friends/coworkers Maija and Brooke. We figured it would be perfect to have a few new, seasonally-appropriate recipes going into the holidays. The class was a lot of fun and best of all, you get to sample all the food throughout the class. And these classes are reasonably priced, this one was only $28 and ran an hour and a half.

Recipes at the end of the post.


These mock cosmopolitans were made with 100% cranberry juice and were a little too tart for my taste. I will probably add some symple syrup (equal parts water and sugar and boil until the sugar melts) when I make these. They are a perfect cocktail (or mocktail) for any upcoming holiday party.

Making cranberry sauce is so much easier than I thought. I always think of my sister, Kat, when I think of cranberries. She is the only one at Thanksgiving that really cares about cranberry sauce and loves it, even right out of the can. I will definitely make this homemade sauce for her next year.

Homemade scones! I'm not sure it gets much better than a warm scone right out of the oven. They were surprisingly easy to make and cranberries can be substituted for almost any fruit or even ham, cheddar and chives if you want a savory scone.

This salad was amazing, and easy! It was the perfect sweet and savory combination with the dried cranberries, cranberry vinaigrette and gorgonzola.

Now for the recipes (recipe credits to Whole Foods and Ani Loizzo):

Mock cosmopolitans

Ingredients

4 cups cranberry juice
2 cups club soda
Squeeze of fresh lime juice (1 lime per four cosmos)
Ice
Reserved lime peal, for garnish

Directions

Add cranberry juice to a pitcher and squeeze in the juice of one lime (remove peal first with a vegetable peeler). Top with club soda and stir. Pour into glasses filled with ice and garnish with lime peel. Serves 4.

Note, I would add vodka to the mix here!!! Set a bottle of vodka next to the pitcher and let people fill their own, to taste.

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Whole berry cranberry sauce

Ingredients
1 pound cranberries, about 4 cups
¼ cups EACH orange juice, water and sugar

Directions

Bring all ingredients to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer 10-15 minutes. Either serve whole, mash and serve chunky or blend until smooth. Makes about 3 cups. Freeze leftover portions up to six months.

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Spinach salad with gorgonzola and cranberry vinaigrette

Ingredients

¼ cup each cranberries and balsamic vinegar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon each sugar, Dijon mustard and chopped onion
12 cups baby spinach
4 slices pumpernickel bread, cubed and toasted
1 cup each gorgonzola, toasted walnuts, and dried cranberries (we used dried cranberries sweetened with apple juice)

Directions

In a food processor, combine cranberries, vinegar, sugar, Dijon mustard and onion and pulse to puree. Slowly drizzle in oil until it forms a smooth emulsion. Add dressing to the bottom of a large mixing bowl and add dried cranberries and walnuts. Toss to coat. Serve topped with gorgonzola. Serves 6-8.

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Cranberry scones

Ingredients

1 cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling
2 tablespoons lemon juice, divided
3 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
Zest of two lemons
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups (3 sticks) chilled butter, diced
1 cup dried cranberries
½ - 1 cup half and half

Direction

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and lemon zest. Add in chilled butter and mash with your fingertips to form a mixture that looks like bread crumbs. Mix in cranberries. Add 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice, then add half and half until a soft dough forms. Divide dough in half. Pat each half into a six inch disk and cut into wedges with a pizza cutter. Arrange on a cookie sheet and brush with remaining lemon juice. Sprinkle with sugar and bake 18 minutes or until nicely browned. Makes 12 scones.

A little piece of summer - Dairy Foods

Doesn't Caprese salad just remind you of a summer day? The red ripe tomatoes, fresh, fragrant basil and soft, cold mozzarella with a touch of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper....it is definitely on my list of favorite dishes.

Though it's a bit chilly in MN today I thought I'd post this lovely Caprese salad I made yesterday for a potluck with my coworkers. The tomatoes are beefsteak from an Amish community in Wassau, WI. They were the most beautiful, ripe red tomatoes I have ever seen (the stand is located on Nicollet and 8th). These two young guys drive to the cities every Thursday for the Minneapolis Farmer's Market. They may also stay the weekend for Lyndale market but I'm not sure. What I am sure of is they've made my short list of fave farmer's market vendors which also include Dehn's Garden (the best herbs you've ever smelled/tasted), Cocoa and Fig (confection perfection...sorry, I couldn't resist) and the hummus ladies (I think the name is Serena). These vendors literally make my day each and every Thursday and help in creating beautiful, perfect dishes like this one below.

Mango Salad With Squid Delicious Recipes

My grandmother used to have a huge mango tree in front of her house. We just love the juicy sweet mango and some of the mango can weight up to 2 pound each. Because of the heavy weight some of the mango will fall to the ground when it is still green. We will either pickle it or make it into green mango salad. This is one of our favorite recipes to make. It's simple yet really refreshing to eat especially in this hot and humid weather.

Ingredients :
2 unripe mango - peel and shredded thinly
1 squid - clean, cut and boil for 2 min (optional)
2 kafir lime leaves - slice thinly (optional)
few spring of cilantro - roughly chopped
3 bird eyes chilies - slice thinly
4 tbsp of roasted peanuts - crushed
2 tsp of toasted sesame seeds

Dressing :
2 tbsp of fish sauce
2 tbsp of olive oil
2 tsp of palm sugar or sugar
Juice of 2 lime
salt to taste

1) In a large bowl combined mango, squid, kafir lime leaves, cilantro, chilies, peanuts and sesame seeds. Set aside.
2) Combined all dressing ingredients. Mix well and pour into the mango. Toss everything.
3) Transfer to a plate and garnish with some extra peanuts and sesame seeds.

Note : You can add some dried shrimp or fresh grill shrimp to this salad.

Tofu Salad With Peanut Sauce Delicious Recipes

I just love tofu cook in anyway but not Carlos. He still can't understand why I would eat something so tasteless and soft :) Since tofu is tasteless I will always find ways to jazz it up with bright and bold flavor. This is a simple salad with a touch of spiciness and it's really good for anyone who is a vegetarian or you can even serves this as an appetizer.

Ingredients :

2 pcs of firm tofu
1 cup of jicama - julienned
1 cup of cucumber - julienned
1 cup of carrot - julienned
1 cup of beansprout

Peanut sauce :

3 tbsp of crunchy peanut butter
2 tbsp of sambal Oelek (more or less)
1 clove of garlic - chopped
2 tbsp of lemon juice or vinegar
3/4 cup of water (more or less)
2 tbsp of sugar (more or less)
salt and pepper to taste

1) Dry the tofu in a paper towel and fry it in hot oil until crispy and golden brown. Drain the oil on paper towel.
2) In a small saucepan, heat up a tablespoon of oil and stir fry the garlic until lightly brown. Add in sambal Oelek and cook for a few second.
3) Add in lemon juice, water and then peanut butter. Stir well until the sauce thicken and boil. Add in sugar, salt and pepper to taste and set aside.
4) Cut tofu into bite size pieces and mixed it with all the vegetables and drizzle peanut sauce on top and serve.

Note : If the sauce it too thick for your liking you can add more water to it.

Asian Salad with Grilled Shrimps Delicious Recipes

I made this very simple salad with grilled shrimp for dinner last week. I marinated 1/2 pound medium sized shrimp with salt and pepper, Cajun seasoning and some olive oil and then grill with my George Foreman grill.

As for the salad I used Jicama, carrot, cucumber, green grapes, some pomelo and red pepper. The dressing is very simple. I whisked together some sesame oil, olive oil, soy sauce, lemon juice, a bit of sugar and pepper.

Tossed the greens together with the dressing and top it with shrimps and sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds, ground peanuts and garnish it with some cilantro. Lastly drizzle some extra dressing on top.

Simple Meal Delicious Recipes

There are days when I am just too lazy to cook. Since I have so many tomatoes from my little garden I decided to prepared something simple for dinner. Lucky Carlos is not a picky eater so he is fine with it. We just had tomatoes salad, bruschetta and cheese and crackers.

Some chopped tomatoes, fresh basil, grated cheese, balsamic vinegar, oilive oil, salt and pepper

Some cut tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper

Roasted Beet Salad Delicious Recipes

I like beets be it pickle, roasted or juice. I usually roast it whole in aluminium foil with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Do be careful with the stain when handling them. I will wear gloves when peeling off the skin. This is a very simple and easy salad for a hot summer day.

4 roasted beets - cut into wedges
2 hard boil eggs- halve
2 oranges - peel & cut into wedges
1/4 cup of roasted walnuts
a handful of lettuce

Dressing :

juice of half lemon
1 tsp of Dijon mustard
1 tsp of honey
4 tbsp of olive oil

Mix the dressing and pour over the salad.