Meat Free Mondays — Summer Quinoa Salad

Here in Chicago, summer seems to be winding down already.

This year, we got all our really hot weather early: There were 44 days of 80F-plus temperatures from in June and July, which caused our garden’s harvest to arrive early. Tomato and pepper plants that usually produce fruit through the end of September are already startng to whither.

Still, it’s been a good harvest this year, with more Roma, Beefsteak and even Heirloom tomatoes than we could possibly use, as well as bushels full of jalapenos, green and red bell peppers. Even our yellow squash did well this year.

So far, I’ve already made garden tomato sauce, Caprese salad, bruschetta and any other tomato-centric recipe I could think of, not to mention desperately giving away surplus produce to anybody who will take it.

Having stumbled across this tri-coloed quinoa at Trader Joe’s (don’t you just love wanding the aisles at TJ’s, looking at all the fun ingredients and dreaming up recipes? I sure do!), I decided to make this summer quinoa salad. While it makes a great appetizer, the addition of some black beans and smoked mozzarella make it protein-rich enough to be served as an entree.

This is an example of a compound salad, which basically means you take a primary ingredient and build a salad around it using other ingredients. Compound salads can be protein-based (chicken or tuna salad), carbohydrate based (potato, rice or quinoia salad), or vegetable based (broccoli, carrot and raisin, coleslaw).

The great thing about compound salads is that they can be made out of just about anything. I’ve been the buffet chef at a lot of different restaurants, and having a large assortment of compound salads is a great way to add value to your salad bar.

When designing a compound salad, there are four elements to consider: Flavor, color, texture and nutritional value.For this particular salad, because quinoa is a nutty-flavored grain (texture), I wanted to add tartness (garden tomatoes), color (asparagus), and complimentary flavor (smokiness of the mozzarella).

Part of the garden, including a jalapeno plant, globe basil, regular basil, Greek oregano and some sort of spring onion plant

A lot of times, the dressing of a compound salad is a balance of sweetness and bitterness, usually accomplished through the use of some sort of vinegar and sugar or honey, such as a coleslaw dressing.

But for this particular salad, I wanted the nuttiness of this fun tri-color quinoa to be the central flavor, with the other ingredients either contrasting it and underscroring it, so I dressed it with plain Extra Virgin Olive Oil to add a lush richness but not to interfere with the other flavors.

Am I overthinking this salad or what?!

Summer Quinoa Salad

1 cup Tri-Color Quinoa (or plain quinoa)

2 cups Water

1/2 lb Fresh Asparagus

1 can Black Beans, drained and rinsed

6 oz. Smoked Mozzarella, cubed

1/2 Red Onion, small dice

2 stalks Celery, small dice

2 Jalapenos, ribs and seeds removed, small dice

3 Tomatoes, ribs and seeds removed, diced

4 TBS EVOO

Sea Salt

Fresh Cracked Black Pepper

Cayenne Pepper

1. Combine quinoa and water in a saucepan. Cover and bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for about five minutes so all the liquid is absorbed, then fluff with a fork. Allow to cool completely (I was in a hurry, so I transferred it to a sheet pan and spread it out so that it cooled down in about 10 minutes time).

2. Blanch aspagus by steaming it until cooked soft but still bright green, about 4 minutes, then immediately plunging it into ice water to stop the cooking process. Cut into 1/2-inch peices.

3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the quinoa, black beans, asparagus, tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, mozzarella and celery and toss together. Drizzle with EVOO, add  just a dash of cayenne,  and season to taste with salt and pepper.

While you can use cayenne pepper to add heat to a dish, adding just a small amount is a great way to bring out the flavors of other ingredients.

Whether I am serving a compound salad in a bowl on a salad bar or on plate for individual service, I always underline it with a leaf of red or green leaf lettuce. I wanted to add a little height to this salad, which otherwise just slumps on the plate, so I stuck some scallion stalks coming out of it, but in hindsight something bright red, such as thinly sliced red bell pepper rings, might have worked better.

 

Seafood Fridays – Crab Salad

Crab is something I enjoy, but don’t get to have very often.

That’s because I live in Chicago, where we have a lot of Coho salmon, smelt and lake perch, but not a lot of fresh crab.

In the Spring, I look forward to soft shell crabs, which are blue crabs that have shed their outer shell and have not yet formed new hard exterior shells, making them about 95 percent edible and 100 percent delicious. They are only available for a brief period, which makes them even more of a special treat.

At one of the casinos where I worked, we used to get several 1,000 pound pallets of frozen king crab legs for crab leg night each Friday.

And when I’m in Florida, of course I love blue crab and stone crab claws, which are abundant there.

For Chicagoans, however, crab is not something we get very often. So I was surprised when I saw fresh Dungeness crab claw meat at one of the local produce marts. Dungeness crab usually comes from the West Coast. I quickly snatched it up and started planning some special way of preparing it.

Crab cakes would be the obvious route, but I made those not too long ago and wanted to try something different.

That’s when I came across this recipe for Crab, Mango and Avocado Salad. Besides crab, it also features mango, which are in season and super inexpensive right now.

Crab, Mango and Avocado Salad

For the Sauce

1 TBS Extra Virgin Olive OIl

1 ripe Mango, peeled, pitted and diced

1/4 cup Water

1 tsp Fresh Lemon Juice

Sea Salt

Freshly Ground Black Pepper

For the Salad

1 lb Crab Claw meat, picked through to remove small peices of shell or cartilage

Juice of 1 Lime

3 TBS EVOO

1 TBS Fresh Parsley, chopped

2 twp Fresh Mint, chopped

1 TBS Shallot, minced

1 ripe Mango, peeled, pitted and diced

1 ripe Avocado, pitted, peeled and diced

Tabasco Sauce

Sea Salt

Freshly Ground Black Pepper

1 Ruby Red Grapefruit, cut into supremes (for garnish)

1. To make the sauce, put a small saucepan over a medium heat. When hot, add the EVOO. When oil is hot, add the mango and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook down the mango until it is soft, about 3 minutes. In a measuring cup, combine the water and the lemon jucie, then add the liquid to the pot. Bring to a boil, then turn off. Transfer to blender and puree until smooth. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

2. The salad is actually two salads. The first is the crab salad. In a mixing bowl, combine the crab, 2 tsp of the parsley, 1 tsp of the mint, shallot, the juice of 1/2 a lime, 2 TBS of EVOO, and 10 drops of Tabasco sauce. Toss together, season with salt and pepper to taste, then cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator until ready to serve.

3. The second salad is a mango salsa. In a mixing bowl, combine the mangos, avocado, 1 TBS EVEOO, the juice of the other half lime, the remaining parsley and mint, 10 drops of Tabasco, and a little S&P. Toss carefully so you don’t mash the diced avocado. Cover with plastic and store in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve.

4. To plate, drizzle the sauce on the bottom of a chilled salad plate then use a tablespoon to make a pile of the avocado salsa. Then use a separate clean tablespoon to make a pile of the crab salad on top of the salsa. Finally, arrange the grapefruit segments around the salad for garnish.

While the whole dish was a smash hit, I was particularly impressed with the mango sauce. It was sweet and smooth. I’m freezing the leftover sauce right now because I think it would make a good homemade mango sorbet. I will let you know how it turns out.

Cobb Salad

The Cobb Salad is a standard on most restaurant menus and over the years I’ve probably made thousands of them.

The salad originated in the 1930s, when Robert Cobb – the owner of Hollywood’s famed Brown Derby Restaurant, which was located on Vine Street just off Hollywood Boulevard – reportedly was scrounging through the restaurant’s kitchen after midnight looking for a late night snack.

He threw together whatever leftovers he could find — including diced cooked chicken, bacon, hard boiled eggs, avocado and tomatoes — into a quick salad. Sid Grauman, the owner of Chinese Theater down the street, happened to be with Cobb that night and the next day came in asking for the “Cobb Salad” he had enjoyed the night before.

Word of the salad began to spread in Hollywood and soon movie stars, studio executives and other customers began to ask for the salad regularly. Reportedly Jack Warner, head of Warner Brother’s, dispatched his chauffeur to pick up one of the salads frequently.

There actually were a few different Brown Derby restaurants and the original on Vine was not hat-shaped, but instead had a Spanish mission-themed facade. The famous derby-shaped restaurant was actually on Wilshire Boulevard. The restaurant still has several locations, most notably in Disney theme parks in Florida and elsewhere around the world.

And the Cobb Salad remains one of the most popular salads anywhere.

The Cobb Salad is basically the same thing as a chopped salad. Its ingredients can be arranged any way you like, but I usually opt for the straight lines because customers seem to enjoy its symmetry.

Traditionally, the Cobb Salad has chicken, avocado, tomoto, hard boiled eggs, bacon and blue cheese, served over a combination of Romaine lettuce and watercress. It usually is served with Cobb Salad dressing, which is sort of a thickened red wine vinaigrette.

In this version, I opted to leave out the bacon and replaced the blue cheese with queso fresco, which I happened to have on hand from this Mexican street corn recipe and I don’t like to waste food. I served mine with a Chipotle Buttermilk Dressing.

Making the Cobb Salad in a restaurant kitchen actually is much easier than the home version because you can prepare the ingredients in bulk. At home, you still have to prepare each individual ingredient, but only enough for a few salads, so the prep-time-to-salad ratio is a lot higher.

Still, Cobb Salad is a light, refreshing summer entree salad, especially for the kind of steamy, hot weather we have been having here in Chicago this year.

Cobb Salad

2 or 3 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts, grilled, cooled and diced

2 Avocados, peeled and diced

3 or 4 Tomatoes, ribs and seeds removed, diced

1 small Red Onion, diced

1 cup Blue Cheese (or in this instance, Queso Fresco), crumbled

2 or 3 Hard Boiled Eggs, rough chop

1/2 head Romaine Lettuce, cleaned and cut into bite-sized peices

4 or 5 Bacon Slices, cooked and chopped (I left these out on this salad)

Chipotle Buttermilk Dressing

1/4 cup Sour Cream

1 cup Buttermilk

2 Garlic Cloves, crushed

1  tsp Onion Powder

1 TBS Lime Juice

2 tsp Chipotle (roasted and smoked jalapenos), chopped

Sea Salt

Fresh Cracked Black Pepper

2 TBS Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1. To assemble the salad, place the greens in the bottom of a salad bowl, then arrange the remaining ingredients in neat rows atop the greens.

2. To make the dressing, combine all ingredients, except the EVOO, in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Then turn the processor on and slowly add the oil, starting with one drop at a time, until the dressing thickens. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving so the flavors have time to meld.

This recipe makes enough for two large, dinner-sized salads. I like to transfer the dressing to a squeeze bottle so that it is easier to dress the salads.

The Brown Derby plays a role in my all-time favorite celebrity spotting story. My dad was in Los Angeles on business in the 1960s and was dining at the Brown Derby when he literally ran into Jack Webb, star of TV’s “Dragnet”, because he didn’t see the diminutive actor standing next to him. I’m not certain if he ordered  the Cobb Salad, but I’m betting he did.

 

Chicken Salad

The other day, Sandi and I were eating at our favorite neighborhood diner, Les Brothers, when a waiter walked past with a plate of chicken salad.

It was served old-school style inside a cut-up tomato. I don’t think I’ve seen chicken salad presented like that since the Reagan administration. I instantly knew I had to try it.

Serving compound salads — chicken, tuna, ham, egg, etc. – in hollowed out tomatoes used to be pretty common. But I suppose it had been done to death so people stopped doing it.

Well, I’m bringing it back! It not only is visually appealing, but it fits with my efforts to reduce the amount of white flour and white sugar I eat. Plus, now it’s nostalgiac. Bonus!

I served it with an Israeli cous cous salad. I wanted to make a macaroni salad, but Sandi wrinkled her nose at that, so I made this instead. But the joke’s on her because cous cous is simply a small, granular shaped pasta, so it’s exactly the same thing!

So much for my avoiding white flour, however.

Finally, I added one of my homemade dill pickles and garnished the plate with a few black, seedless grapes. I think it looks pretty elegant and wouldn’t be out of place on a posh lunch menu.

Chicken Salad

1 lb Chicken, cooked (I used half a baked chicken from dinner the night before), diced

1/2 cup Reduced-Fat Mayonnaise

1/2 cup Fat-Free Sour Cream

Juice of 1/2 Lemon

1 Garlic Clove, crushed

2 stalks celery, small dice

1/2 Red Onion, small dice

1/3  cup Dried Cranberries

1/4 cup Walnuts, chopped

1/4 tsp Lawry’s Seasoned Salt

1 Large Tomato

1. Combine chicken, celery, onion, cranberries and walnuts in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice and garlic. Mix a little of the dressing at a time to the chicken mixture until you get the proper chicken salad consistency, holds together but not too soggy. Season with seasoned salt. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes to let the flavors meld together.

2. Use a paring knife to make alternate zig-zag cuts around the perimeter of a tomato. Pull it apart then use the knife to remove some of the core from each half. Lay flat on the plate and use an ice cream scoop to place a large dollop of chicken salad in the center of the tomato half.

To plate the cous cous salad, I simply spooned the salad into a ramekin and patted it down. Then I placed the serving plate on top of the ramekin, turned the whole thing upside down and removed the ramekin. The salad will then hold the shape of the ramekin.

What kind of old school foods would you like to see come back into fashion? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

 

Chinese Chicken Salad

This salad could go either way. It could be called a Chinese chicken salad or it could simply be called a chopped salad.

The only real difference between the two is the dressing and the crunch.

In the past, I’ve used dry, fried chow mein noodles to achieve the crunch. In restaurants, I think the guest expects this. But because I’m trying to cut down on white flour (and fried foods), I substituted a little fresh cabbage.

There was definitely less crunch, but it wasn’t really missed in the texture. And the cabbage added better flavor than chow mein noodles, which to me always taste kind of sawdust-y anyway.

The other difference is the dressing. On a chopped salad, I would use a simple vinaigrette or a low-fat creamy dressing. But because I was going for an Asian feel here, I used a fat-free sesame soy ginger vinaigrette I picked up at Trader Joe’s.

My sesame soy ginger vinaigrette is delicious, but it is not fat free. I wanted to try TJ’s version, and although it was sweeter than mine, I found it to be delightful.

On both a chopped salad and this Chinese chicken salad, all the ingredients are cut into small peices. This gives it a texture that is a little different and is easier to eat.

Any salad can be made into a chopped salad, including a Caesar salad, a Salade Nicoise, a Cobb salad or a chef’s salad. It’s all about the size that you cut the ingredients and it makes for a nice change of pace once in awhile.

This salad also is sometimes called a garbage salad, although I’ve always stayed away from that name on my menus. It just has kind of an off-putting connotation to me: “And here’s your plate of garbage, madame!”

Chinese Chicken Salad

1 Boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked and small dice

1/2 head Green leaf lettuce, chopped fine

1 cup Shredded green cabbage

1 large Tomato, ribs and seeds removed, small dice

1/2 Red onion, small dice

2 Green onions, sliced thin

1/2 Green bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, sliced thin

1/4 cup Crumbled Blue cheese

1/4 cup Crumbed Feta cheese

For Sesame Soy Ginger Vinaigrette

1 TBS Sesame oil

1/2 cup Extra virgin olive oil

2 TBS Rice wine vinegar

2 tsp Low-sodium soy sauce

1 tsp honey

1 TBS Fresh ginger, chopped fine

1 clove Garlic, crushed

Sea Salt

Fresh Cracked black pepper

1. Combine the oils in a bowl and mix. In a separate bowl, combine the vinegar, soy sauce, honey, ginger and garlic. Slowly add the oils to the vinegar mixture, starting with a drop at a time and slowly building, until dressing is emulsified. Then season to taste with salt and pepper.

2. Combine all salad ingredients in large bowl. Dress with vinaigrette and mix throroughly. To plate, use a tongs to pile the dressing high in the middle of a large salad or pasta bowl, trying to attain as much height as possible. Make sure large peices of the chicken are visible.

A word about lettuce: In this salad, I used a green leaf lettuce, which is my lettuce of choice, along with red leaf. You also could use Romaine, a spring mix blend or a mixture of escarole and any other kind of lettuce to get a great texture and a healthy salad.

One lettuce I would never recommend is iceburg lettuce, which ironically is the most popular because it also is the cheapest. Iceburg lettuce is composed almost entirely of water and that’s exactly what it tastes like. Also, it has almost no nutritional value.

It pains me to say this because this is supposed to be a budget cooking column, but where’s the savings if the flavor is poor and there aren’t any usable vitamins or minerals? Do yourself and your family a favor and spend the few extra pennies for greens that not only taste better but are much better for you!

 

Egg Salad

When I was in culinary school, there was an entire class devoted to egg cookery.

That’s because in the restaurant business, eggs are one of the things you cook the most. You need to be able to cook eggs any style quickly, with several different types of eggs going at the same time: Over easy, scrambled, poached, over medium, omelets. Behind the line during the breakfast rush, it can get pretty complicated quickly.

Depending on the restaurant, eggs are cooked either in non-stick pans or on the big skillet. The key to mastering egg cookery is simply practice. After the first day on the job, after you’ve dropped dozens of eggs on the floor and accidentally broken countless yolks (you need to start over), eventually you get the hang of it.

One of the simplest methods for cooking eggs is hard boiling them. To get perfect hard boiled eggs that are easy to peel every time, there are a couple things to remember:

1. Older eggs work better than fresh eggs. If you are planning on making hard boiled eggs, use the eggs that have been sitting in your refrigerator for awhile. They will be easier to peel later.

2. It’s almost impossible to overcook hard boiled eggs. If you do, the worst thing that will happen will be that the outside of the yolk will become a little green. Once you mix all the hard boiled eggs together into a salad, you won’t even notice it.

3. Start your eggs barely covered in cold water. This will reduce the likelihood of the eggs cracking when you boil them because they won’t jump around as much.

4. To keep the egg whites from seeping out if they do crack, add a capful of vinegar to the water. This won’t effect the taste much and will discourage the whites from leaving the shell.

5. Bring the cold water to a boil, reduce it to a simmer and let simmer only about 2 or 3 minutes. Then turn the heat off, cover and let the eggs sit for about 15 to 20 minutes. Then pour out the hot water and replace it with cold water and let the eggs sit another 15 to 20 minutes.

These same principles apply whether you are hard boiling one egg or one hundred eggs.

Because Sunday was Easter, a lot of people this week have an ample supply of leftover hard boiled eggs. And you know what that means: Egg salad!

Egg Salad

1 dozen Eggs, hard boiled

1 cup  Mayonnaise (Reduced fat preferred)

3 TBS Dijon mustard

Sea salt

Fresh cracked black pepper

1. Peel the eggs under cool running water to wash off any excess shell. One gritty peice of egg shell will ruin your egg salad. If you are using Easter eggs and some of the stain has seeped through to the egg, you can still use it, but use your best judgement because you don’t want to discolor your entire salad. Use the little air gap at the bottom of the egg to start your peel.

2. Dice eggs using either an egg dicer or a knife. Combine with mayo and mustard, season with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.

I served mine on some whole wheat bread thins with my new favorite chip — quinoia and black bean infused tortilla chips – both of which I bought at Trader Joe’s. Add a pickle and some cole slaw and you are good to go.

If you are making devilled eggs, the procedure is the same except cut the peeled eggs in half and combine just the mashed yolks with 1/2 cup mayo and 2 TBS mustard. Then pipe or spoon the yolk mixture into the egg halves and sprinkle with paprika.

Or you can make low-cholesterol egg salad by discarding the yolks altogether.

A belated Happy Easter to everybody!

Low Carb Chicken Roll-Ups with Spicy Avocado Sauce

I have been trying to cut out white sugar and white flour from my diet to drop some weight for the summer, but it’s been difficult.

Not so much that I have been craving these things, but because it seems like they are in everything!

So far, I’ve had to settle for drastically cutting back. This recipe, for example, features low-carb whole wheat tortillas, but they still contain some flour and a little sugar as well. Even the products that are suupposed to be better for you have sugar and flour!

This is a great use for leftover chicken. When I make chicken, I usually roast or grilll a whole chicken for just the two of us, so there is typically at least half of a chicken leftover. The next day, I separate the chicken from all the bones and skin, then pull the chicken into strips. Then I can either make it into a salad or toss it with some barbeque sauce and use it as a delicious pizza topping.

Avocados are one of our favorite foods, but because the weather has been so warm here in Chicago, we’ve had guacamole a lot already this year (OK, let’s face it, we never stop eating guacamole, even in the dead of winter).

So this time I went with a spicy avocado sauce that was super simple to make and was a delicious dressing for this wrap. The Sriracha sauce is very spicy, which was a refreshing compliment to the mellowness of the avocado and sour cream. But if you don’t like heat, you can reduce the amount or leave it out altogether.

This makes a delicious warm weather lunch or light dinner. I served it with plantain slices that I pan fried then simply seasoned with a little salt and pepper to give the dish a Carribean feel. The plantains were very good when they first came out of the pan, but they became soggy fast. Next time, I think I will either slice them thinner or grill them.

Low Carb Chicken Roll-Ups with Spicy Avocado Sauce

4 Low-Carb Whole Wheat Tortillas

1/2 lb chicken, pulled into thin strips

1/2 green bell pepper, ribs and skins removed, julienned

1/2 yellow bell pepper, ribs and skins removed, julienned

1/4 cup cabbage, sliced thin

2 green onions, sliced on the bias

4 to 5 leaves red leaf lettuce, chopped into thin strips

1/4 red onion, very thinly julienned

For the Spicy Avocado Sauce

2 avocados, mashed

1/2 cup fat free sour cream

1 TBS Sriracha Sauce

Sea salt

Fresh cracked black pepper

1. Basically, you are making a chicken salad. Put the chicken and all the vegetables in a mixing bowl and toss together.

2. Combine mashed avocados, sour cream and Sriracha sauce in a separate bowl and mix together with a fork or spatula. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

3. Combine chicken mixture with dressing and toss until evenly coated. Lay tortilla on a flat surface, spoon filling into center then carefully roll up into a tight wrap. Try to prevent the salad from coming out the ends. Seal with a toothpick placed in the center of the roll-up.

What kind of warm weather dishes are you looking forward to making in the summer months? Share your ideas in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Meat Free Mondays — Grilled Vegetable Salad

Now that the weather is warming up, it’s time to clean up the grill, get some fresh propane or charcoal, and start thinking about the best menus for cooking out.

Cooking on the grill can be more limiting for vegetarians than it is for carnivores, but for those looking to avoid meat the backyard barbeque need not be avoided altogether.

For example, I recently wrote about a party I catered that featured a California vegetarian menu — with meat options — that focused on grilled vegan burgers and tofu dogs.

Today we will consider the grilled vegetable salad, one of my personal favorite summertime vegetarian meals.

The grilled vegetable salad offers a lot of different options for the home chef: various kinds of vegetables to include, fun plating opportunities, and a variety of salads that can anchor the plate — including those made with greens, grains or even beans.

Any kind of vegetable can be grilled: If you can cook it, you can grill it. Some, however, benefit from being blanched — the process of steaming or boiling until softened, then immersing in ice water to halt the cooking process — before being “marked” on the grill. Among these would be asparagus, potatoes, carrots and other harder textured vegetables.

Others grill perfectly from the raw state. These include any kind of peppers, onions, eggplant, mushrooms and other softer textured vegetables.

When grilling vegetables, there’s a couple of key concepts to remember:

• You are grilling vegetables, not charring or burning them. Usually, veggies work best if you simply mark them for a few moments over the hottest part of the grill, then move them to a cooler spot where there is indirect heat for them to complete their cooking without becoming overcooked.
• While you can grill any kind of vegetable, try to include a variety of colors, shapes and flavors to liven up your final plate. If all your vegetables are green, for example, the final product will look boring.
• Grilled vegetables give you a lot of freedom for creative plating. Think of your plate as a frame and arrange your vegetables artfully for the most appealing visual effect. Don’t forget about the 3-D opportunities your plating can include: Consider stacking your vegetables into “towers” so that they come up out of the plate.
• Don’t forget to use pan spray and seasoning for all your vegetables. A tiny bit of salt and pepper will bring out the natural flavors of your grilled vegetables.

For this salad, I used zucchini, yellow squash, red bell pepper, asparagus and eggplant (it’s under the salad where I used it as a pedestal), then topped it with a chopped salad of red leaf lettuce, sliced cabbage for a crunchy texture, and julienned tomatoes and radish, all topped with crumbled Gorgonzola cheese.

Grilled vegetables can be served warm or cold and can easily be marked off hours before you serve them. In restaurants, we would arrange our intricate vegetable platters long before service then simply warm them up for a few moments under the broiler, in the oven or even in the microwave to speed up service.

Finally, leftover grilled vegetables can be chopped up and served again later as a ratatouille if you like.

Grilled vegetables are a welcome addition to any plate at any time of the year, but take on a more prominent role on summer dinner menus. As this year’s grilling season begins, it’s time to start thinking about the best ways to feature our vegetables by grilling them.

What grilled vegetable dishes do you love to make? Share your ideas in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Seafood Fridays – Grouper

Grouper always reminds me of family vacations in Florida.

That’s because my parents used to have a condo on Siesta Key, which is near Sarasota on the Gulf Coast, and grouper is very common on restaurant menus in that area because it is plentiful in the Gulf.

Grouper is one of my favorites because it is from the sea bass family. It is firm fleshed like mahi mahi or even tuna, yet its meat is slightly sweet and still flaky.

I find grouper to be one of the most durable fish to cook. It is most commonly deep fried, but it also will stand up to grilling, like salmon or tuna. Most importantly, it is delicious.

Grouper is a very interesting fish. In comes in a lot of different varieties and can be found all over the globe. In the Gulf, it is sometimes called jewfish and can grow up to 700 lbs. Yet it is commonly caught with a fishing line under bridges and in narrow creeks.

Fun fact: Groupers are born and mature as females, then become males when they grow older. They also have no muscular bones, so they are easy to fillet, although the skin is extremely tough and difficult to remove.

Because grouper meat is so chunky and can withstand a lot of cooking, it is used a lot in stews and chowders. It is also commonly found in bouillabaise and paella.

In Florida, we most commonly ate grouper that was deep fried or grilled and served on a sandwich. So that’s how I prepared it for this recipe. I served it with a chipotle aioli, quinoa salad and braised mustard greens.

There are two ways to make the chipotle aioli: The easy way and the hard way.

For the hard way, you use a food processor to blend one egg yolk, one TBS of lemon juice and just a touch of Dijon mustard together, then slowly add 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil until it is emulsified into a mayonnaise, seasoning it with salt and pepper. Then you fold in 3 TBS chipotle salsa.

For the easy way, you just mix one cup of mayonnaise (preferably reduced fat) and the chipotle salsa. Most of the restaurants serving chipotle aioli make it the easy way, in my experience.

The grouper is simply sprayed with pan spray, seasoned with sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper and then grilled until done. It was served on whole wheat rolls.

Here’s the recipe for the quinoa salad:

Quinoa Salad

2 cups water

1 cup quinoa

1/4 cup red onion, small dice

2 stalks celery, medium dice

1/4 cup cucumber, peeled and seeds removed, medium dice

1/3 cup parsley, chopped

3 radish, small dice

2 green onions, sliced thin

1 jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed, small dice

1 clove garlic, crushed

Juice of 1 lemon

1/2 cup EVOO

1. Bring water to a boil and whisk in quinoa. Return to a boil, reduce heat and cover. Cook 12 minutes. Turn off and let sit 15 minutes so all the liquid is absorbed. Remove cover, fluff with fork and let sit until it’s at room temperature.

2. Combine cooled quinoa with onion, parsely, cucumber, radish, green onion, celery and jalapeno in a mixing bowl. Juice lemon into a separate mixing bowl, add garlic, then slowly whisk in EVOO until emulsified into a dresssing. Season with S&P, then fold into the quinoa salad. Season salad with S&P, then refrigerate at least 30 minutes so the flavors can meld together.

Are there any foods that remind you of your family vacations? Let us know what they are in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Avocado Chicken Salad

For some reason, I keep encountering South America lately.

For example, I recently saw this recipe on “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” where it was being made at La Caraquena, a Venezuelan restaurant in Falls Church, Virginia. They called it Sifrina and it looked so delicious I just knew I had to make it right away.

Then, I saw these amazing plans for a solar-powered waterfall that will serve as the symbol of the 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. How awesome is that thing?

Next, my older brother just returned from a vacation in – you guessed it — Columbia, which is in South America. This can’t be a coincidence!

Whatever the reason, I’m glad South America keeps coming into the picture because it’s a continent that many Americans know little about, but which has incredible culinary treasures for us to explore.

Among them is this recipe for avocado chicken salad. Avocados, especially when made into guacamole, is one of my wife’s and my favorite foods. This little fruit — which is sometimes called alligator pear in the South — is the perfect combination of creamy richness and healthy vitamins.

Even though avocados grow on trees, they are high in monosaturated fat, which accounts for about 75 percent of the fruit’s soft and lush meat. As a result, they blend well with chicken and suspend the flavors of the other ingredients perfectly in this salad.

Plus, avocados are good for you. They have more potassium than bananas, and are rich in Vitamin B, Vitamin E and Vitamin K. They can lower your cholesterol, reduce hypertension, help prevent diabetes, and may even prevent you from getting cancer!

When buying avocados, you can determine their ripeness by gently pressing on them. If they give just a little, they are perfectly ripe. If they don’t give at all, they are underripe and can be ripened quickly by putting them in a sealed paper bag for a day or two. If they are squishy, they are overripe and unusable.

Avocado Chicken Salad (Sifrina)

3 ripe avocados, peeled and seed removed

Juice of 1/2 lime

1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked (about 8 to 12 ounces)

1/4 cup red onion, small dice

1 jalapeno, seeds and ribs removed, small dice

1 medium tomato, seeds and ribs removed, diced

1 TBS mayonaisse

1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Sea salt

Fresh ground black pepper

Dash hot sauce

1. Place avocado and lime juice in mixing bowl and mash with potato masher until smooth. Add chicken, mayonnaise, onion, jalapeno, tomato, cheese, and hot sauce and fold together with spatula.

2. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper to taste, then refrigerate for at least 30 minutes so that the flavors can meld together. When you are ready to serve, use an ice cream scooper to scoop a generous portion of the sifrina onto whole wheat burger buns.

Although avocados usually turn brown due to oxidation fairly quickly, the lime juice prolongs this process and this stayed fresh in my refrigerator overnight with little to no reduction in quality. I served mine with oven-roasted sweet potato fries.

An aside: I just returned from a relaxing week’s vacation in Los Angeles, where my younger brother and his wonderful new wife live and where I ate like a sultan! I swear, we ate our way across that city and I probably gained 10 pounds, but it was so worth it! I will write a blog soon about the incredible food I enjoyed on the West Coast, but it’s also great to be back home.