Weekend of Firsts

First tomatoes. In theory anyway. Soon we will enjoy sweet, juicy fruit from just outside the door. With basil. And mozzarella. Ohhh...

First fresh roasted coffee. There's this thing called peer pressure. Which is fine with me when it involves your husband deciding to buy a coffee roaster. Behold...














First strawberry jam. Memories of summers growing up involve Grandma's freezer jam. The thing with canning homemade jam, or even making freezer jam, though, is that you need...a whole day. Or at least a few hours. Neither of which I have right now. Voila: Small batch strawberry jam, on the stove, in 10 minutes (ok, 12 minutes if you count washing the strawberries.)


While I now have a pint of strawberry jam languishing in the refrigerator ready to spread on toast, or eat with a spoon when no one's looking, there was a reason I made it.

I was bringing dessert to a birthday party on Saturday and decided to make Lemon Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting. Dilemma was: I had no strawberry jam in the fridge, but there happened to be a pint of fresh local strawberries. Aha!

But I digress...I have made cupcakes before so they are not a first.









First cedar planked salmon. Oh yeah. Very few foods smell so extraordinary and taste so...there are no words. This is an amazing dinner.

Buy a salmon.

Soak a cedar plank in water for 1-2 hours.

Rub the salmon with olive oil and a little brown sugar.

Rub with love. (Kidding...sort of...)

Sprinkle with a little garlic salt and grind a little black pepper on top.

Add some chopped lemon thyme from the back porch (or wherever you get it).

Top with sliced lemons.

Put the soaked cedar plank on the grill until it begins to smoke. Add the salmon. Grill over medium heat for about 20 minutes, 25 minutes for thicker fillets.

Yum.

From the Darkness of Winter to the Light of Spring

As we get out the garden tools, clean the winter bugs and dirt out of the garage, store the flannel sheets, and finally see what our houses and neighborhoods look like in the light of day (if you're like me and work all the daylight hours of winter), the dinner table also changes. What do you like to cook or bake to signal spring has arrived to the dinner table? Pasta primavera? Strawberry-rhubarb pie?

We recently purchased ham steaks at Costco. Growing up I remember eating those when mom wanted a quick dinner on the table, and I have not had them for some years. Beyond the quintessential first barbecue of the season, eating ham steaks cooked on the grill pan and served with some twice-baked potatoes and asparagus really says spring is here.

Speaking of the first barbecue of the season, this is my first spring as a married woman and I am discovering more hidden talents of my husband. We celebrated our first particularly beautiful 70-degree Saturday a couple weeks ago - with steak, of course. My husband takes over the kitchen when we are having barbecue, and the results are wonderful! Remember those Outback Steakhouse "bloomin' onions?" I get my own version at home now. Who needs to eat out?

Another side dish he has introduced me to involves grilling bell peppers and then serving them in a tangy sweet dressing.

Grilled Peppers with Balsamic Dressing
Slice the tops off the peppers. Grill for about 30 minutes.

Bring them inside and let them sit to cool down. Peel off as much skin as possible.

Make a dressing of 3 parts balsamic vinegar to 1 part sugar and soak the peppers in it. Eat!

Bonus: There will probably be leftover dressing, which keeps in the refrigerator. Go buy fresh spinach leaves, strawberries, and feta or chevre, and voila, a fabulous tasting spring salad.

Steak Salad
If you happen to have leftover steak and peppers, here is another good salad recipe. I particularly like the dressing recipe here but used an assortment of vegetables in my refrigerator that go with steak. My main requirements for steak salad are spinach, red onion, and bell peppers, along with whatever cheese you have that goes with steak. I used shredded Gouda this time. Any leftover asparagus spears from the barbecue are perfect to cut into this salad as well.

Happy spring!

Basic Flavors for Quick Dinners

There are a few items nearly always present in my pantry or refrigerator that really help to get a quick dinner on the table, such as onions, mushrooms, chicken broth, dry sherry or white wine, and a fresh herb of some sort. Tonight I also had some heavy cream and leftover polenta (mamaliga in my husband's native language, a star of Romanian dinners), so this one-pot skillet dish is what showed up on the table.

May I digress a moment? After I discovered the rounds of polenta they sell in the grocery store, and then affirmed how well it goes with nearly anything when I tasted my mother-in-law's mamaliga, I decide to learn how to make it and use it quite a bit in place of pasta or rice.

Back to the dinner recipe:

Chicken with Mushroom Sherry Cream Sauce
1 Tbsp butter or olive oil
Half an onion, chopped
10 baby portobello or crimini mushrooms, chopped
1 cube frozen garlic from Trader Joe's or 1 clove of garlic, minced
precooked chicken (I used the frozen grilled strips from Costco), about 2 chicken breasts
1 Tbsp dry sherry
1 cup chicken broth
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
3 sprigs fresh thyme (strip the sprigs as you add them to the skillet)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream

Melt butter in a skillet on medium heat. Add the onion and mushroom pieces and saute for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and chicken and continue to saute for about 2 minutes. Splash in the dry sherry and let the mixture boil for a minute, then add the chicken broth. Turn the heat down to low and add the remaining ingredients. Simmer for about 5 minutes.

Serve over polenta and top with your favorite cheese (Beecher's Flagship, Parmesan, Feta, or whatever suits your fancy). I served this with green beans tonight. The above recipe is a guess at how much of each ingredient I used and makes about 3-4 servings.