I would have bet my best bottle of red against finding out that there are well over 10 million recipes for burrata salad on google. Ok; I didn’t count them but AI said it did. Do we trust it? Well, maybe for this. Counting is one thing AI does well, I’m thinking. But, actually when you check into it, AI does not, in fact, count well. For grins, let’s just give her a million less or a million more and I’d still be sitting with my eyes stretched wiiiiidely open and my jaw skewed over to the left indicating my surprise. I can’t in my strangest, most massive dreams imagine 10 million of anything. Would I even want 10 million of anything? Yes; you’re right. I’d go for $10 million and so would you. 10 million recipes for a burrata salad? I’ll let you peruse the internet and choose one sometime (many, but not all, are a sort of caprese salad) but, for now, let’s go with mine. Because we can. And because I’ve no doubt you’ll soon make it yours. And anyway, mine is a Burrata Pasta Salad, not just a B-flat burrata salad, right? However you do yours, it will be charming, captivating, and delicious. Promise. And, here’s the best thing: This is mostly a no-cook meal. What’s better come summer?
Chives in my garden. I have tons! The beautiful purple flowers are edible, too.
Fine cooking friend and local caterer par excellence, Patti White, and I banded together to develop a recipe for this main dish salad to serve 40+ guests for a fun Saturday evening event at First Congregational Church, Colorado Springs. During a trial run last Wednesday, we took my spring fave More Time at the Table Asparagus-Potato Salad , oven-roasted instead of boiled the potatoes, added Patti’s tender lemon-grilled chicken breast along with a tender bed of well-seasoned baby spinach and fresh basil leaves, then topped the whole thing with a piquant, mustardy vinaigrette showered with a fine dusting of freshly-ground pepper. Garnishes? For sure and always. Kalamata olives for the brine; Parmigiano-Reggiano for the salty umami; halved cherry tomatoes for color, texture, and a fresh element; and YAY!! chives from my garden just because. Did we like it? We so, so did… (I love it when Patti and I work together.)
Et voilà , a handsome, toothsome, whole-meal salad was born. While it was awesome for a large crowd (wedding shower, anyone?), I’m thinking it might be just about perfect for you and a few close friends or you and a partner with a couple of extra meals thrown in. Let’s think a simple spring or summer supper, shall we? Scroll down for DINNER PARTY ideas.
Oh, what’s a salsa omelet? Well, honey, I guess it could be a few things but at our house, it’s an omelet where the eggs are whisked together with salsa instead of water or cream. Yep. And it’s awfully good.
Good dish to take to a friend in need. Skip the garnish or let them add it.Jump to Recipe
Now, I really like mayo. There’s just something about it. As a kid, I once ate an entire jar of it and was later very sorry. Now, I’m good just licking the spoon. (I know folks think they like mayo because it’s creamy and fatty; it’s also salty-addictive and no one ever mentions that. Dijon mustard – same way. Just taste them both all on their own or look up the sodium content and see.) My best sous and husband, however, LOVES it. When we were first married, his favorite snack was saltines smeared with mayo. A whole sleeve of them. Even now, 50 years later, he’s never happier than when offered a lunchtime egg salad sandwich, for instance. So we are both totally ok with something like cold Tuna Mac, which is just macaroni salad with an ocean of mayonnaise plus tuna. It’s especially welcome when we’re hungry and there’s little time or other ingredients at hand. You’ll probably see it at our house once or twice a summer and we’ll eat off it a couple of meals without complaint. But these days, we’d mostly rather have something we now call pasta salad dressed with some sort of vinaigrette rather than mayonnaise — despite pasta salad’s bad rap. (Were you raised with the word pasta? I didn’t grow up with that word. There was macaroni and there was spaghetti. That was it. Mostaccoli and shells later on, I think. So glad things changed.) And while we’re at it, why not some teensy-weensy, cute pasta like orzo or ditalini?
As the end of More Time at the Table FRIDAY FISH season approached, I had one remaining idea that had yet to hatch. For weeks, I’d kept a list of ingredients, on the fridge even, that might make a delicious canned tuna pasta salad without using too many ingredients. I know; you don’t believe that for the first minute but it’s true. And while I pared down the list to a few had-to-have, truly compatable elements, I also knew the whole thing would go to h_ _ _ in a hand basket without a doubly perky vinaigrette. (Nothing is worse than bland or overcooked pasta salad.) I went to work on that first. I’ve made many a lemon vinaigrette and it’s one of my favorites as it’s so simple –basically equal amounts lemon and oil. Here I figured in the zest of one of the lemons to really move the salad into my corner. It worked beautifully! Tuna, asparagus, tiny pasta, briny olives, red onions, fennel, sweet peppers, parsley, and extra lemony vinaigrette; was that all it needed? It was, along with a garnish or two, though you can scroll down to CHANGE IT UP and bathe in a plethora of other additions or substitutions you might employ and enjoy. I’ll be cheering you on.
One of my favorite blog dinner recipes of the past several years has to be my Chicken-Mushroom Bolognese. With the full flavor of a big meaty bolognese but without the red meat beef factor or long cooking time, it hits all the right notes for a fab weeknight meal but also makes happy cooked-ahead dinner party fare. For a reason I can’t now remember (and perhaps I should rework this but haven’t yet), the recipe calls for an odd amount of meat — 1 1/4 pounds. Occasionally I’m able to buy just that amount but I often end up buying two pounds of ground chicken and using the extra for sausage or burgers or tacos. Last week, I split the difference and used 1 1/2 pounds in the sauce, leaving 1/2 pound for ____? Best sous and husband Dave voted burgers but not in buns — he wondered if we couldn’t toss up a salad? I like nothing better than a kitchen challenge and while I seasoned the meat and grilled the patties right away (ground chicken doesn’t keep well but cooked ground chicken lasts 3-4 days in the fridge), I didn’t make the salad until the next night. Chicken Cheeseburger Salad is now definitely on the Pete and repeat list. Roll your eyes now; that’s definitely an old dad joke!
As an official salmon fanatic, I cook one of the world’s healthiest and most popular fish year round. But once summer begins, I find it’s on my menu just a little more often because 1. it grills so easily, 2. is done quickly, 3. pairs with nearly anything, and 4. the leftovers are awesome–think frittata, salad, sandwich, pasta, appetizer spread, or fill-in the blank_____.
I’m rarely stuck about what to serve with salmon as I keep a fridge and countertop full of vegetables and even a plate of sliced tomatoes is fine if it’s hot and sticky. Sometimes I find myself cooking a boatload of this awesome fish because I need the leftovers for a specific purpose. This time, I wanted to take my Greek Salmon Pasta Salad to a friend, so cooked a whole side of salmon one night –making this Salmon on Lemon Polenta with Vegetables for us– then stirring together my friend’s pasta the following afternoon. I still had a little left and tossed that in the freezer so I can make Salmon-Cheese Spread some other day. Salmon: It’s the fish that keeps on giving. If you are one or two, don’t hesitate to cook a whole side of salmon. It’s the old cook once, eat three times mantra.
Today's recipe is in honor of the newly married Annie Harm and Louis Sigtermans. Eat well! Live well! Love well!!
It isn’t even summer yet. But we should be in planning mode for Memorial Day weekend, shouldn’t we? It’s less than a week away; is that possible? Where did May go? Our deck only got swept today and I’ve planted zero, zip, nada, zilch. (Too big of a chance of a freeze, still.) There are some new plants in their pots patiently waiting their turn out front and I can run them inside should a really cold snap appear, as it nearly always does. But last night, after a warm day, just felt like it was time to begin tossing easy no-cook dishes together — ones that get stuck back in the fridge for lunches or sides for the next night’s chop or fish so you don’t have to start dinner from scratch. (Something that might be good for, say, Memorial Day?!) I am, perhaps like you, a circuitous cook. There’s always something coming round tomorrow from what happened today or yesterday or last week or month. It’s conservative–in a good way, smart, healthy, and gives me more time for other things. I adore cooking but it’s not the only thing in my life.
Checking the pantry, there were lots of chickpeas; we love hummus. Artichoke hearts in a big glass jar from COSTCO jumped out at me, as did a forgotten can of hearts of palm, a Trader Joe grab, I think. My fridge and counter are always chock-full of fresh vegetables and I don’t go a day without olives or pickles somewhere along the way. I began chopping and tossed the ingredients in the bowl so that you could see them easily. I do the “recipe in a photo” for social media occasionally and someday I’ll do a little graphics study to improve my work. In the meantime, isn’t it fun to look at something like this and know you could make it? If you save the photo below, you can print it and put it on your fridge. The internet is full of chickpea or other bean salads, but this one is mine and, soon, yours. I do include a for real recipe; scroll down.
I think most folks keep a few cans of tuna in the pantry for quick lunches or emergency dinners. It’s lovely food, inexpensive as protein goes, shelf stable, and versatile. I buy a stack of tuna cans at Costco, alternating every few months with canned salmon just so we have a change. We’re tuna salad for lunch people, maybe once or twice a month but during FRIDAY FISH weeks, looking for new uses for canned fish is something that keeps me hopping. Two weeks ago, including fish in a brunch dish in the spring lineup began to flit through my brain. Eggy meals complete with red meats line the menus of breakfast shops with only a veggie omelet, a smoked salmon benedict, or the occasional bowl of tan, sticky oatmeal to tempt someone looking for a healthier alternative. Why couldn’t there be a benny-ish sandwich utilizing a filling tuna patty topped with a gorgeous fried egg? The easy answer was that there could. I took the fish burger or salmon patty approach, but opened cans of tuna instead of salmon or chopping up raw cod. I added a few typical ingredients (panko, onion, garlic, egg) and then threw in dill, Old Bay, and a bit of ground cayenne for fun. What was so amazing was how fast these little tuna patties, as they came to be called, came together. And when I toasted and buttered an English muffin, topped one with that hot egg and a few garnishes, I was happy as a clam with my breakfast. (Why are clams happy?)
Coming up on the 15th anniversary of my blog (May, 2024- YAY!), I know and maybe you know, too, there are mostly original recipes here. I also know there’s nothing new under heaven, so it’s your guess how many of my dishes first existed elsewhere. I often, though not always, don’t want to know if someone else has come up with it before me. I’m happy in la la land, thinking I made it up, imagining I have a little creative bone of some sort in my body–and I do. But this doesn’t stop me from happily cooking or especially baking dishes others have perfected before me. (Why reinvent every wheel?) Both of the recipes featured in today’s FRIDAY FISH are happily-credited adaptations from other fine cook-writers (see recipe headnotes–which is where you should see credit to other cooks and writers or books) and luscious they are together. I wanted a different flavoring for salmon and thought, “Chili.” Author Andie Mitchell had already figured it out and thank you to her! I also knew my May, 2023 Black Bean Pasta Salad would be the perfect companion for a southwestern-flavored fish. When I needed a black bean salad for 50 last spring for my friend Sylvie’s high school graduation, blogger Cookie and Kate had a solid, flavor-full basic idea I only needed to embroider and enlarge. Together, the two recipes are all you want for dinner…and the salad leftovers could be lunch for a couple of days. Double win. Should you, however, want more, I include ideas for appetizers, wine, and dessert for a dinner party or special occasion. (See just below the recipes.)
There’s nothing like a BLT in the summer and I thought I’d just about exhausted the possibilities for variations on that particular theme until one day I had some leftover bacon and was nursing a sudden yen for egg salad at the same time. Next thing I knew, there were egg salad BLTs on the table and much happy wonder to be had right alongside them. I mean, it is bacon and eggs, after all! I think they’re now on the permanent lunch or lazy dinner rotation and not only for summer.
