morsels & sauces

Can I confess: I don't particularly care for salad. I find lettuces, for the most part, boring. I get tired of carrots and radishes and cucumbers. I just don't think I would do well on a raw diet. So I was delighted when I received this latest cookbook from Food 52 because I am always looking for ways to up my salad game. And so I begin my foray into Mighty Salads with a fantastic grilled bread salad chock-full of grilled veggies and spectacular dressing made from the mayonnaise marinade. Yes, you heard me right. Mayonnaise m arinade. Okay, maybe this salad is not the healthy-eating alternative I was longing for, as we kick off summer. But I still consumed about 729% more vegetables in this salad alone than I did the entire month of May.  It's summer, and lordy, people, I have got to get this diet back to salads and soups and smoothies and healthy eating. Because lately it's been cheetos and chocolate. And this is just the cookbook to do it. Befor...

Let's make a really tasty Tuesday-night dinner, shall we? This one is happily simple, and definitely something you can whip up after a long day at work. While it does take a certain palate (so, you say you like chile peppers? Ha. Let's try them paired with the bitterness of rapini!), this comforting pasta dish satisfies during the winter months and you're hankering for some greens. This dish a pretty traditional one from the Southern Italian region of Apulia (think: heel of the boot). There, this veggie goes by a whole host of names, including raab, rapini, friariélli,  broccoletti di rapa ,  cime di rapa, and  simply cima.  Sure, there's a lot to make you think it's closely related to broccoli--what, with the color and the little flowering buds reminiscent of our favorite standby, broccoli. While they are both brassicas, that's where the family tree branches. This bitter green with serrated leaves is much more closely related to that pungent turni...

Um. I was not expecting this. Not at all. Creamed greens (in the U.S. generally creamed spinach) are those old standbys that no one really admits to making all that much anymore. And it's a shame, for creamed greens are not only good but the can be good for you (if you watch just how much cream you put in them).  From Food and Wine's Creamed Kale  to The Food Network's Creamed Broccoli , lots of people are jumping on the creamed vegetable bandwagon again these days, and I am no exception. However, most of these are very heavy on the cream. Not with this recipe from  Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, the founders of  Food52 .   Instead, this is a bitter mouthful rounded out with only a susuration of cream. As it should be. As you probably already know given my last couple of posts , I have taken up Hesser and Stubbs challenge to spend my Sunday cooking and then sitting back for the rest of the week....