Easy summer dinner: New potatoes and peas

We all have a button, some kind of trigger, that immediately catapults us back in time to a moment from childhood. One of mine is peas.

For two glorious weeks in the summer, nature aligns and a garden will give you all of the sweet peas and new potatoes you can ask for. As a kid, this occurred during summers in Idaho at my grandparents' house and all I have to do is see a pea on the vine and I am transported. Nothing tastes like a young pea, straight from the pod.

When we put in the garden four doors down, my mom's sole request was to plant peas and potatoes. She's making memories with my boys, much like her own mom did with my brothers and me, teaching them how to pick the fattest pods and split them down the seam with their thumb to reveal the perfectly straight row of plump peas hidden inside.

And this weekend, we finally sat down to a meal of new potatoes and peas. What was once a staple on my Grandma's summer table has made it to my own weekly menu.

It's a great option for Meatless Mondays and a simple way to show off produce from the garden or farmer's market. And, if you're lucky like me, it will take you right back to being a kid.

New Potatoes and Peas - a loose recipe (the kind I hated when I first started to cook)

To serve a family of 4 with leftovers I dug up roughly 30 new potatoes of various sizes, and as many peas as were ripe. You can never have too many peas, so pick more than you think you'll need.

Wash the potatoes, quartering the larger ones, cutting some in half, and leaving the littles whole. Boil in a pot of heavily salted water until easily pierced with a fork. While the potatoes cook, shell the peas.

When the potatoes are done, turn off the heat and add the shelled peas to the hot water.

Make a roux. I used 4 TB butter and half a cup of flour, mixing over medium heat until it was a golden brown. Then whisk in whole milk - taking care to smash the flour chunks - until you have a thin gravy. There should be enough liquid to act as a sort of soup when combined with the potatoes. Liberally salt and pepper the gravy to taste.

Drain the potatoes and peas. Put in a serving dish, pour the gravy over the top, and serve.

Happy eating. Let the memories begin!

Perfect Pasta Salad

In theory I've always loved pasta salad. A quick meal in the summer. An easy side dish for get-togethers. Something I can make the night before and dinner is already taken care of the next day. In actuality, most pasta salads I've tried have been pretty to look at and nothing for the palate to write home about.

So, I made up my own. You may think it looks just like everybody else's, but the key is in the type of ingredients. And a homemade dressing. I encourage you to make it once, as is, before you stray. Also, I am not responsible for a lesser choice in tortellini, meats or cheeses.

Perfect Pasta Salad

serves 4

1 12 oz bag dried Barilla Cheese and Spinach Tortellini 
4 oz Tillamook Monterey Jack cheese, cubed
4 oz Olli Norcino Salame, cubed (FYI - in Denver you can get this at Marczyk's)
3/4 C fresh or frozen organic peas

1/2 C Quick and Easy Vinaigrette, heavy on the red wine vinegar

Boil pasta according to package directions. Add peas in the final 30 seconds if fresh, 60 seconds if frozen. Pour contents into colander and rinse with cold water. Allow to drain while you prep the vinaigrette.

Mix all four dry ingredients gently in a large bowl. Mix in vinaigrette, salt and pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour, preferably overnight. If it's a little dry when you serve it, add a few dashes of red wine vinegar. The acid balances the meat and cheese.

When accompanied by crusty bread and sliced fruit, I can easily feed my family of 4 with lunch leftovers for my husband and I. We drank an excellent three-buck-chuck Shiraz with dinner and found that it paired quite nicely. Enjoy!

Quick and Easy Vinaigrette

Salad dressing from the grocery store, even the semi-sacred natural grocery stores, are overly sweet concoctions that lack body and overflow with additives. This simple vinaigrette can be made fresh in 60 seconds and is easily adapted to suit your family's tastes. I can't attest to how it stores, since I make it when I need it.

Basic Vinaigrette (yields 1/2 cup)

Mix the following ingredients in a bowl:

2 TB red wine vinegar
1/2 TB dijon mustard
2 tsp honey
1/4 tsp salt

Whisk in 1/4 C Extra virgin Olive oil. Adjust seasonings to taste. Serve immediately.

Variations:
Add 2 cloves minced fresh garlic or 1 small minced shallot.

Add fresh herbs - rosemary or thyme mix well in this.

Add 1/4 C finely diced tomatoes.

When I am making pasta salad, I add more vinegar or fresh lemon juice so that the bite in the dressing doesn't get lost in the pasta.

Mix and match any of the ideas above - or experiment with your own - and leave the bottled junk at the grocery store for the rubes.

Simple Skillet Recipes - Zucchini and Eggs

I can thank my Italian grandma for my great hair, pleasing peasant build, and this recipe that takes advantage of baby zucchini and (eventually) my own eggs. Farm to table in 8 minutes or less.

Zucchini and Eggs

(serves 1)

Ingredients

2-3 baby zucchini (less than 6 inches)
1/2 TB butter
2 eggs, slightly beaten
salt and pepper to taste
fresh salsa (or pesto...or a nice slice of stilton...maybe a fruit compote...)

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat and add the zucchini, sliced thin. Sauté until softened. Add eggs, salt and pepper, and let set. (I scramble them - easier!). Remove from heat, top with salsa and enjoy!

(This pairs well with an NPR Tiny Desk Concert and San Pellegrino Aranciata over ice.)

Gourmet lunch on the fly

Typical work day at home - it's 12:30, I've only consumed caffeine since waking up, I'm starving, and there are still 18 things on my To Do list.

Today's solution rocked it. Cooked and eaten in under 10 minutes. So great I had to share.

Sauteed Spinach Delight 

Ingredients:
splash EVOO
small handful pine nuts
a few cloves garlic, chopped
3 large handfuls of spinach
feta
tomatoes
half a lemon, juiced
salt and pepper

Put a saute pan on medium low heat. Add EVOO, pine nuts and garlic. After pine nuts start to brown and the garlic is fragrant add spinach. As spinach wilts add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Turn off heat and stir in crumbled feta cheese. Top with grape and cherry tomatoes.

I made do with what I had on hand in the refrigerator, and no measurements were precise. Change it up! This would have been a perfect dinner for one if topped with a soft fried egg. I can't wait for my chickens to start laying! As it is, I gave them the extra stems I chopped off of the spinach. Added bonus, I get to cross "blog entry" off my To Do. Only 17 more tasks and it's wine time...

Quick and Easy: Dijon maple baked chicken

I'm always on the the lookout for dinners I can make at Chef Boyardee speed that don't ever, EVER, involve actual Chef Boyardee products. Because if I were going that route I'd just serve Alpo over rice. Mmmm...hungry yet?

This is my new favorite go-to meal. A rare find that everyone, including the macaroni and cheese set, devours. I found the original recipe on wittyinthecity.com, and she modified it from a Trader Joe's recipe book. Any iteration is delicious and you can modify the ingredients to your family's tastes.

Best thing for working parents - you can prep this meal in 5 minutes in the morning or the night before, throw it in the fridge for the day, and put it in the oven as soon as you get home at night. By the time everyone is settled dinner is ready.

DIJON MAPLE BAKED CHICKEN
serves 2 adults, 2 kids (excellent as leftovers so consider a double-batch!)

Ingredients:
1 lb boneless, skinless organic chicken breasts (any cuts work)
1/2 C dijon mustard
1/4 C pure Grade A organic maple syrup
1 TB rice wine vinegar
salt and pepper
chopped fresh rosemary

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

NOTE: If your chicken has been prepped in the morning and sitting in the refrigerator all day, place it in the cold oven and allow it to heat gradually as the oven warms up. Then bake as normal.

Cut chicken breasts into thick pieces. Place in a single layer in an 8x8 Pyrex dish. Salt and pepper chicken. Mix the mustard, syrup and vinegar to make the sauce. Pour over the chicken and bake in hot oven for 30-40 minutes or until chicken is done. Serve over quinoa, rice or pasta.  Top with fresh rosemary.

To cut time on really busy days, I use parboiled quinoa or brown rice like these that can be heated in the microwave and ready in 90 seconds.

VARIATION: If you like a sweeter sauce, reverse the dijon:maple ratio. Toss in some diced pineapple and jalapenos before baking and skip the rosemary.

Happy eating!

Quick and Easy Sides: Roasted Kale Chips

Kale is my new favorite super food. It has replaced spinach in all of my soups and stir-fries, and I make it all the time in chip form. Thanks to my cousin-in-law Eryn for turning me on to this recipe. It makes a great pairing with the Quick and Easy: Salmon filets.

Toddler tip: We flat out lied to Jude and introduced these as green potato chips. He loves them.

ROASTED KALE CHIPS

Ingredients:
Organic kale
EVOO
salt


Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Wash and dry your kale thoroughly - the leaves hide a lot of grit. Then cut off the ribs and chop the leaves into roughly chip-sized pieces.

Put the chopped kale in a baking dish, sprinkle on some EVOO and salt, mix it up and pop into the oven for 15-20 minutes. I usually give it a stir halfway through.

A note on baking dishes: This is perfect for a trusty 9x13 Pyrex dish. Don't use the dark, dented metal cake pan that we all have in the back of our cupboards. This will make the kale taste more like burnt pot. Not that I'd know. (Hey, Mom. Dad. So...what's new with you guys?)

The final result is crispy and addictive. This basic recipe also works with the addition of any spice mix you like, and was quite delicious with a little good balsamic as well. Eat up!

Quick and Easy Sides: Baked Butternut Squash

Gabe hates squash. I know, crazy. But he ate this and it was wicked easy and crazy wonderful. I got the recipe off the sticker on the squash. Reading, the gift that keeps on giving...

BAKED BUTTERNUT SQUASH
(prep time - 5 minutes; oven time - 50 minutes)

Ingredients:
whole butternut squash
salt
brown sugar
butter - real, unsalted, organic*

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Cut the squash in half lengthwise. Make sure your knife is really sharp and you use some muscle. (I peeled the squash, but it is totally unnecessary for this recipe and actually made it harder to eat. Leave the exterior alone.)

Scrape the seeds out of the center with a teaspoon. Cut each half into thirds. Place them in a glass pan flesh side down and cook for roughly 45 minutes or until fork-tender.

Pull the pan out, flip the squash over, and lightly salt. Next sprinkle with brown sugar. The brown sugar will immediately start to melt and get all frisky with the salt. You want to encourage this melding of sweet and savory, so sing a little love song and dim the lights.

That's right, little granules. Let's get it on...

Return the pan to the oven until the tops are nicely browned, about 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and top each piece of squash with a nice pat of butter. Who's your daddy now?

*A moment of silence for the glory of Straus butter. If you haven't tried it, I'm sad for you.

Quick and Easy: Salmon filets

I may not have been writing over the past week, but I have been doing. So today we get a flurry of blog activity. If I were some not-so-clever copywriter I'd call it blogtivity, but then I'd hate myself. Don't get me started on why I refuse to eat at Subway and support an establishment that utilizes words like "Febru-any."

But I digress.

I'm starting a new blog category (ugh, blog-egory) dedicated to the working parent called "Quick and Easy." These are delicious "get it on the table fast" foods that you can prepare in less time than it takes to organize your family's order and hit the drive-thru.

We'll kick it off with fool-proof salmon filets courtesy of Ina Garten. I love me some Barefoot Contessa. Thanks to Ina, I will no longer serve overcooked, under-seasoned salmon. I will give my family fish once a week in order to make us all smarter. And since this dish is so wonderful, I will now buy enough for 3 meals since Gabe, Jude and I polished off both the original dinner and the planned leftovers in one swoop. (Win!)

Toddler tip: Jude loves sharks. Sharks eat fish. So we encourage Jude to eat his "shark food" when we serve fish for dinner. Great introduction and now he actually asks for this meal.

PAN-SEARED SALMON FILETS
(on the plate in 15 minutes)

Ingredients:
Salmon
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper


Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Heat a dry oven-safe skillet on high heat for 4 minutes. (This would be great in a cast iron skillet.)

Pull your pre-cut salmon filets from the fridge. Remove the skin as it's gross and there is no place for it in this recipe. Rub the filets with EVOO and generously salt and pepper the tops.

Place filets, seasoning side down, into the hot pan and LEAVE THEM ALONE FOR 2 MINUTES! I mean it, don't peak or pull at them.

They are ready to turn over when they release from the pan without sticking and are a deep brown.

Place the pan into the pre-heated oven for 7 minutes. This would be a great time to make a salad or shoot a glass of wine before the family comes to dinner and spoils your buzz. If you want to include your significant other in the alcohol-based love, let me recommend a nice Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio with this meal.

Once you've got your drinks sorted out, remove the pan from the oven and the salmon will be rare to medium rare in the center. This is a tad too raw for my family, so I let the salmon rest in the hot pan for 3 or 4 minutes while I plate the sides. This gives us a perfect medium every time.

Melt in your mouth delicious. Enjoy your dinner.