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Barbecue Chicken with Fresh Mango Salsa
On my way home from work yesterday, I noticed something: there were yellow leaves all over my neighbor’s lawn. I looked up, and sure enough, their huge elm tree is starting to change colors. I’ve noticed that the morning have been cooler — prompting me to grab a cardigan and even consider a light jacket — so I knew that fall was imminent, but I’m not ready for it to come on in full force! Where has summer gone?
We still have a few weeks of decent weather left so, before pumpkins start taking over my kitchen, I’m going to take every opportunity to get in a few more summery dishes. Like this barbecue chicken with mango salsa that I served with an avocado, bacon, and goat cheese salad. While you could theoretically make this dish any time, the fresh, bright flavors are perfectly suited for a hit, summery day. I love the contrast between the tangy barbecue sauce, the touch of spice from the jalapenos, and the juicy sweetness of the mango.
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{15 Minute Dinner} Porcini Dusted Ribeye with Green Bean Salad
These past few weeks have been crazy. Between being out of town every weekend for the past month, to seriously overcommitting myself on several blog projects, to general insanity at the office, I feel like I’ve barely had time to catch a breath, let alone plan a menu or go grocery shopping. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I love being busy and everything has been 100% worth it. But I’m exhausted and I haven’t really felt like cooking. But a girl can only eat so much takeout before she starts to feel sick, and I knew that, despite the fact that I felt like collapsing onto the couch and not getting up until bed, it was time to cook a real dinner.
I came up with this porcini dusted steak with red wine sauce and a summery green bean, corn, and tomato salad on a whim, and I couldn’t have been happier with it. The steak was rich and flavorful, with a perfect crust of powdered mushrooms. The salad was light and fresh, featuring some of the best that August has to offer. And the whole thing was on the table in under 15 minutes. Which meant I could get back to the couch and put my feet up in half the time it would have taken to get a pizza delivered.
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{Tazo Cookoff} Tea-Smoked Salmon with Honey & Lavender Glaze
I’ve been in something of a cooking rut lately, struggling to find inspiration and ideas for new dishes. Apparently all l needed in order to get back in the groove of things was a good challenge! When I received an invitation to take part in the Tazo Cook-Off, I almost declined. Somehow, in the bat of an eye, my schedule for August has filled up and I couldn’t imagine how I would find time to participate in a challenge that would require me to come up with three new recipes over the course of three weeks, each involving both tea and a mystery ingredient that would be disclosed to me the cook-off progressed.
But, if you know me you know I love a good culinary challenge — of course I ended up saying yes! And boy am I glad I did, because I never would have thought to create this amazing tea-smoked salmon with honey & lavender glaze otherwise. And that would be sad, because this recipe is so good that you should just go ahead and cancel whatever dinner plans you have for tomorrow and make this instead. (And if that’s not enough to get you to keep reading this post, what if I told you there’s a fantastic giveaway opportunity if you keep reading?)
So I spent the past week thinking about all of the great things that I could make with tea, when a package arrived for me on Monday with my first mystery ingredient. Lavender. Right. There go those ideas! I have to admit, I was a little stumped. I was stuck on the idea of shortbread cookies for a while, but that just seemed so obvious. No, I was determined to go savory with this dish. And I began to think about salmon.
The most recent issue of Fine Cooking had an article on tea-smoking that had intrigued me, and this seemed like the perfect time to try it out. I played around with flavors and technique until I came up with the recipe you see here. Which is incredible. The flavors of the teas — orange, cloves, star anise, cinnamon — permeate the salmon and give it an amazing flavor. The honey and lavender give it a floral sweetness that just works. And smoking it gives it the most amazing texture — silky and smooth, yet still flakey and fully cooked. I’ve really never had anything like it before, but this is definitely a technique that I’ll be using again and again.
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Orichette with Caramelized Fennel and Summer Vegetables
It’s no secret that I love fennel, but I’ve been absolutely obsessed with the thought of making caramelized fennel ever since I first read about it over on The Tipsy Baker’s blog months ago. I requested a copy of Ad Hoc at Home from the library and patiently waited for what seemed like forever to get the recipe. And then I had no idea what to make with it. I mean, I’m not exactly a meat and potatoes kind of girl. I don’t do side dishes. And as presented in the book, caramelized fennel was most definitely a side dish. But then I had an idea: pasta. When I’m short on recipe inspiration I always turn to pasta, throwing in a combination of whatever looks good at the grocery store and whatever I have in the fridge. Caramelized fennel seemed like it would be a great jumping-off point for a summery vegetable pasta. And it was.
In addition to the fennel, I used a combination of eggplant, summer squash, red onions, and peas. I tasted the vegetables on their own and they were so delicate and fresh that it seemed like a shame to cove them up with a heavy sauce so I decided not to, and instead dressed the pasta with a little bit of ricotta and a touch of pesto (I had originally planned to use garlic and olive oil). It was perfect! I really liked the creaminess that the ricotta added — when you stir it into the hot pasta it melts and creates a light coating that reminds me a little of mac and cheese. The pesto perked the dish up without taking it over; you could tell it was there, but it certainly isn’t a “pesto” dish by any means. Really it’s just… good. Good when you first make it. Good the next day. Good hot. Good cold. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this one!
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Orzo Salad with Shrimp, Feta, and Olives
I’m often asked how I eat the way that I do without spending a fortune at the grocery store. One of these days, I’ll get around to doing a full post about that but my number one tip is to plan ahead. That way you can plan to reuse ingredients (no use letting half that bag of vegetables go to waste) without feeling like you’re eating the same thing over and over again. This orzo salad is a great example — it uses many of the same ingredients as the Greek Burgers with Tzatziki that I posted last week, but it’s an entirely different meal. Just plan to have this two or three days after you make the burgers, and you’ll be able to use up any feta, red onion, cucumber, and fresh dill that you might have left over. (Of course, it works the other way around too if you want to make this salad first!)
But, burgers aside, I really do recommend this salad. It’s so easy to make — you can even make it ahead and have dinner waiting for you when you get home from a long day at work — and it’s loaded with fresh flavor. I don’t know what it is about this type of dish, but there’s something about them that I love — even though everything is mixed together, each individual ingredient maintains its integrity. You can eat it all together, or pluck out specific items and eat them one by one for entirely different flavor experiences. Some other examples of recipes that I find to be similar include my Pasta with Brussels Sprouts and Gorgonzola Cream Sauce and my Roasted Shrimp with Orange and Fennel. In my head, I always think of them as “picky recipes,” both because you pick at them with your fork while you eat and because you’ll likely find yourself picking extra items right out of the serving dish when you’re dine with what on your plate. In fact, Shawn and I probably polished off another half serving of this salad between the two of us just by continuing to eat after we had finished what was originally dished out.
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