Before we went camping up near Rocky Mountain National Park last week–a post on that coming up —
Month: August 2016
Steak and Vegetable Kebabs with Rice Pilaf
Truth in blogging: I took these with my iPhone in horrible weather.
When I was a young, newly-married cook, my mother-in-law Lorna often made kebabs for a treat or company dinner. 
Her ’70s old school style was to take pot roast — yes, pot roast — cut it up and marinate it for a day or so– before grilling the pieces along with whatever vegetables hit her fancy. I seem to recall canned small potatoes. I’ll admit I liked this meal just fine. I couldn’t believe it was pot roast and neither could anyone else. It was just like steak. Well, nearly.
(June, 2017 addition: my MIL tells me the marinating was just overnight–not days and days!) Continue reading
Late Summer Vegetable Tortellini Salad with Basil Vinaigrette
As summer wanes –– it was 50 degrees F this morning when I got up — the vegetables come in huge, lovely fragrant warm piles and a fresh, toothsome pasta salad feels perfect for supper in the lingering heat. No muss, no fuss, with fresh pasta that cooks in just two minutes; dinner is on the table faster than you can make the basil vinaigrette (thanks to David Lebovitz–scroll down for more) that simply makes this meal. Continue reading
Balsamic-Glazed Salmon on Zucchini Cakes with Kale, Peppers, and Mushrooms
It is the time of the year when zucchini gets a bad name. There are boring jokes bantered about, lots of eyes rolling, and tired recipes for zucchini bread dug out of old recipe boxes. While good cooks guard against eating anything but the tiny, tender cigar-tube-shaped baby bitty zukes, some of us still end up with nearly Little League-sized bats on our counters. (Below are medium-sized squashes perfect for grating or stuffing grown by my old neighbor, Wendy Ruble.) Continue reading
Grilled Olathe Sweet Corn and Chicken Chowder–Festival This Saturday!
This week marks Colorado’s 140th birthday…and the Olathe Sweet Corn Festival! In honor of those happy occasions, a soup based on our famous Olathe (pronounced o-LAY-tha) sweet corn seemed right for dinner. While I make lots of soup come cold weather, I do still make it in the summer–just not quite as often. Continue reading
No-Cook Dinners
Antipasti platter or, in Italian, un piatta di antipasti. A bit dear, but consummately satisfying for a special occasion.
Every year about this time, there’s a night when we have only wine, cheese, and fruit for dinner. We eat it in the cool basement on three trays–one for each and then the cheese platter between us on the third. An old movie plays on the tv. There’s not a salad or even a cooked vegetable and definitely not any sort of cooked meat. The wine is icy white or rosé. Sometimes even the grill feels too much to do or too hot to light.