Twelvth Post: Last-minute luncheon of fruit and chicken salad

Jenny and I have been trying to get together all summer. When we finally determined that Thursday would work, we set our plans for a lunch at my new place. I needed a lunch that I could put together quickly but still have it look festive and yummy.

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Here's what you'll need for this summery plate:

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Fruit salad:

~ Seasonal fruit (I chose blueberries, strawberries, one banana and the salvaged part of a nectarine that I dropped on my way home from the store)

~ About a tablespoon of honey

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Chicken salad:

~ Baked chicken (I chose Tyson's natural chicken breast, pre-cooked and packaged!)

~ Dried cranberries (raisens, dried cherries or chopped apple would work just as well)

~ Celery (about 3 stalks)

~ A good amount of Miracle Whip

~ One leaf lettuce per serving (optional)

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On the side:

~ Strawberry yogurt

~ Mint leaf garnishes (0ptional)

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:::PAUSE:::

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Everything in the kitchen is easier, I'm discovering, if you have the right utensils. And this meal was made into an under-20-minute prep thanks to a whacking great Crocodile Dundee type of knife. I whipped out a cutting board and my knife and went to town. In between preps, I'd rinse the blade and go back to work. One knife, one chopping block. Easy, peasy, one-two-threesy.

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:::UNPAUSE:::

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So get out your chopping block and your awesome knife. You'll need two largish bowls for each salad prep. For the chicken salad:

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Dice about 3 stalks of celery

Throw the cranberries in the bowl with it

Coarsely chop the chicken and toss it in

You can season it with a little onion salt and pepper, if you wish

Add desired amount of Miracle Whip and stir to blend it all together.

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Chill in the fridge until ready to serve on your plate on top of the lettuce. Now rinse your knife and cutting board, and back to work!

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For the fruit salad:

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Toss blueberries into the bowl

Slice strawberries into slivers

Cut up the banana

Add any other fruit (like my poor bruised-on-one-end nectarine)

Drizzle a bit of honey over it - a tiny amount - and toss the salad in the dish

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Serve with yogurt for dipping! The nice thing about this meal is I was able to put the plates together and let them chill in the fridge until we were ready to eat.

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I paired this lunch with organic lemonade - and paired it later on with a fabulous slice of strawberry-apple pie from Jenny!

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And that, my friends, is a quick luncheon fit for a month's worth of catching up!

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Yours in the love of food and girl talk,

AL.

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Eleventh Post: Meat, Cheese, Bread, Fruit ~ Enjoying the Simple Things

Cooking involves combining tastes for maximum enjoyment. But sometimes it's just nice to savor each of those tastes independently.
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As long as I can remember, my favorite lunch was what my mom named a "Goodie Lunch." In grade school, nothing made me smile more than snapping open a tupperware container to find neatly rolled slices of ham or turkey, a piece of cheese, crackers and some fruit or vegetables. (Yeah, I seriously had the world's greatest mama.) Today, I enjoy grown-up "goodie lunches," and have fond memories of my lunchbox days!
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This type of selection can be prepared as a larger plate, and might serve as a rustic offering at the next party you host or attend! There's something timeless about its appearance - and in fact, there's very little about this selection of food that has changed in a good number of centuries!
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Today, I got a hearty slice of ham off the bone (which I can use for dinner later on this week, too!) a cheese flight (this week's: Beemster classic, sage derby and Yancy's XXX sharp) which came with a bunch of grapes, and a bulk roll. Paired with a tall glass of lemonade, it's the perfect lunch to nibble on as I work on grading papers!
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Yours in the love of savoring the timelessly simple things one at a time,
AL
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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Tenth Post: Salmon that Rests on its Laurels with Garlic Snap Peas

To me, salmon is the king of fish. Sure, your snapper is fresh and light, your tilapia is melt-in-your-mouth delicate, but salmon, well, it's the fish that eats like a sirloin steak.
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I went back and forth for a while with the patient fellow at the Wegman's fish counter over the best deal for the smallest salmon fillet available. Well, the best deal meant a lot of de-boning, and I just wasn't in the market for that this evening. The farm-raised was priced by the cut, so I ended up with a piece of fresh-caught salmon priced per pound. I got probably the tiniest fillet in the display, so the damage was just over $2.50. Not bad for a fish that spent its life gliding through glacial waters off of the shores of Alaska. And I might add that I may be ruined for salmon forever...
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Anyway. I also purchased some fresh rosemary to see if there was that enormous of a difference between fresh and dried. Let's conclude that I shall be purchasing a rosemary plant to befriend my basil one in the near future.
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Here's what you'll need to make tonight's meal:
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~ 1 salmon fillet (Take my advice; go for the best price. It'll always taste better if you know you haven't spent your week's grocery money on one meal)
~ lemon juice
~ salt and pepper to taste
~ olive oil (again, I heart EVOO)
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For the side:
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~ Sugar snap peas (take a couple right out of the bag and eat them raw - they're like the candy of the vegetable world)
~ 2 small garlic cloves
~ salt and pepper to taste
~ olive oil
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About two hours before you're ready to eat, open the package of salmon and tuck two sprigs of rosemary on either side of it, or sprinkle the whole thing with dried rosemary. Now squeeze some lemon juice on it, and add a dash of salt and pepper. Close the package back up, and go learn about the muscles in the face, or whatever else you have to study for the next two hours.
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Before you start cooking, mince your garlic cloves. Mincing, I've discovered, is a little nicer than pressing, and leaves some of the punch of the garlic for your actual mouthful, rather than in the pan.
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Get out one medium and one small pan. Put about 1.5 tablespoons of EVOO in each. Start the larger one heating. When the oil is just starting to release vapours, carefully place the salmon and rosemary (hopefully looking cozily like one unit) into the pan. It'll sizzle happily. When you see it turning opaque about one quarter the way up, turn it carefully (I used two forks). The rosemary may have to be re-tucked along the sides.
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Around this time, turn on the burner under your smaller pan. Place your snap peas in the pan and salt and pepper them to taste. Sautee them for about 3 minutes or so. Add the garlic, toss, and immediately remove from heat.
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Around this time, you'll want to turn your salmon again. This particular cut was tricky because the middle was quite plump, and I didn't want to overcook the outsides while undercooking the middle. I actually turned off the heat before the middle was fully cooked, and the heat of the pan and the fish finished off the middle while I got the snap peas onto my plate and the wine poured. I then transferred the salmon to the plate, keeping the rosemary to add a bit of it here or there to a bite.
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I paired tonight's dinner with a Cabernet Sauvignon from Medoza, Argentina from Bodega Norton vineyards. It was, in my opinion, a perfect pair. The fruitiness and tannic balance of this Argentine Cab served to keep the salmon from ever tasting "fishy" - rather, it gave the whole meal a sense of completeness in softening any harshness in the natural taste of salmon, enhancing the rosemary essence, and providing a strong counterpart to the garlic in the snap peas.
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All in all, a delightful meal. Interestingly enough, the whole meal (sans EVOO, salt/pepper and other seasonings, which can be considered cupboard-staples) ran about $4.00. Add one glass of this wine, which I got in a sale cart at a small, off-the-beaten-path plaza wine shop (you can find some serious gems in the non-franchised stores!), and you're up to $5.00. Try doing that at an upscale seafood restaurant! Plus, I got my salmon cooked just the way I like it!
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Yours in the love of food and wine and their harmonious balance,
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AL
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P.S. And for those of you who aren't ancient Greece and Rome geeks - the title of this post is in reference to the laurel crown given in the past to Greek victors either athletic or poetic. I thought the rosemary on either side of the salmon resembled it, and it seemed fitting for the King of Fish.
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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.