Pear Vinaigrette
I am a foodie. I love trying new flavors, textures, cooking methods, etc. I also am a little bit finicky about how my food is prepared. I don’t like fried food; I prefer not to have a lot of fatty ingredients, such as cream, oil, or butter, in my foods on a regular basis. Sure, I like to indulge occasionally, but for the most part I prefer healthier foods.
Because of this obsession with healthy foods, I prefer not to put salad dressing on my salad. Yep, I am that annoying restaurant customer who orders her salad, “With dressing on the…
Cranberry Balsamic Dressing
I love to use a sprinkling of vinegar as dressing quite often. We usually have an assortment of vinegars: champagne, cider, orange muscat, red wine, balsamic. Using only vinegar on a salad produces a light topping with a bit of a bite.
Last week I decided to make salad a main course dish for my husband and me. With fall’s arrival, I began to think of seasonal foods that would be available. One of the fall ingredients that I love to use is cranberries. However, I hadn’t seen any fresh cranberries in our grocery store yet, so I settled with cranberry…
Asian Slaw
Although I tend to be a planner, sometimes spontaneity can be quite nice. Late Friday afternoon, we went to the grocery store with no plan for our dinner. The only plan we had was to peruse our options at the butcher and base our meal around our meat choice.
After talking with the butcher, we decided to do a surf and turf combination of teriyaki steak tips and scallops. For a side dish, we wanted something that would compliment these items but that wouldn’t take long to prepare. Being summertime and (finally) warm, a salad sort of dish seemed perfect.
I knew…
Review: Pangaea, North Bennington, Vermont
After a rainy, work-filled June, my husband and I decided to start July on a relaxing note. Although technically we started July with a 12-hour workday, we did get to the relaxation part on the second day. Not sure of weather and plans for the holiday weekend, we made reservations for lodging and dinner for our trip at 1:00 (the day of our trip!) and were traveling west by 2:00. With reservations at the Eddington House Inn that included a 5-course wine tasting dinner at Pangaea,…
Lemon Vinaigrette
As both my husband and I are foodies, our children are exposed to a variety of food experiences. New recipes and ingredients are regular parts of our meals. Interesting restaurants (meaning places that don’t offer chicken tenders on its menu) are visited. Television shows that have cooking, restaurant reviews, or food travel are watched often.
So, last Saturday morning after an hour of mindless children’s cartoons, we switched to a cooking show, a real cooking show in which the chef made everything from scratch. Our 11 year old daughter was watching with us, and upon seeing homemade salad dressing announced, “I…
Taste of Hawaii Chicken Salad
Winter continues in New Hampshire. As I write this post, I am watching both snowflakes and temperature drop. With multiple snowstorms and ice storms already occurring, winter feels long this year.
I know, I live in New Hampshire; we are supposed to have cold temperatures and snow-covered yards. If I were to live somewhere tropical, I would miss watching snowflakes glide to the ground and seeing light shimmering on an icicle. However, sometimes it is nice to visualize a warmer climate for a little while.
Last week I decided to bring a tropical feel to our house via dinner. Having bought a…
Broccoli Salad
Most days I make some sort of salad or veggie wrap for my lunch. Typically I stirfry broccoli, peppers, and whatever other vegetables are available. However, last week as I looked in the veggie bin in our refrigerator, a stirfry didn’t seem appealing.
Of course, I didn’t realize that I wouldn’t be in a stirfry mood when I went grocery shopping, so I already had a few bunches of broccoli waiting to be used. Trying to keep my lunch healthy, I wondered how I could use this broccoli in my lunch in an alternate way. I decided to give broccoli salad…
Feel of Fall Salad Dressing
I know, I know. It is November, and the weather has turned chilly. And yes, I have stated previously that I am a seasonal eater and have begun making soups instead of salads. However, last week we had a slightly warmer day, so I couldn’t resist the urge for one more salad dinner.
Working with a base of various lettuces, I decided that this salad could have a touch of autumn added to it if I made a cranberry vinaigrette. Using pears, pecans, and blue cheese as toppings, this salad would have some great contrasts in flavors from the tartness of…
Apple-Chicken Salad
Just last week I wrote about the arrival of chilly fall days and making soup. It may come of no surprise to my fellow New Englanders, but a day or two after that, we had very warm weather. In this part of the country, you need to have a big bureau with room for both cold and warm weather clothes, as you never know what the day will bring!
So, as the temperature was set to rise to 80, it was no longer soup and homemade bread weather. The warmth and humidity lent themselves to a salad dinner. I adore almost…
Sammie's Balsamic Vinaigrette
All four of our children enjoy helping to prepare dinner. In fact, we often need to divide kitchen assistance so that everyone gets a chance to cut, stir, etc. After a recent Sunday dinner, in which two of the children helped make dinner, each of them wanted to cook dinner on his or her own.
So, each of them began to envision what dinner he or she would create. Sammie decided that she would make a pasta dish that could be served cold, as it was a warm end of summer day. Rather than making a salad with all of the…
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