The vegan grill: Spicy, smoky peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, zucchini and peppers with dill

Homemade Strawberry Jalapeño Jam adds a grown-up kick to the classic kid food, PBJs, and dill gives grilled vegetables a fresh, summery finish in this satisfying vegan grilled meal. Recipes below.

Peanut butter sees almost daily action at our house, often as a simple spoonful scooped from the jar for a quick snack while dinner is cooking. And we’re not alone in our love of the stuff—Americans eat almost three and a half pounds of peanut butter a year per capita, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center. (Given our consumption, I have to admit that sounded low to me.) Continue reading “The vegan grill: Spicy, smoky peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, zucchini and peppers with dill” →

Big flavor in a hurry: Asian Turkey Burgers with Sriracha Mayonnaise

Weeknight quick to make, turkey burgers get a flavor boost from hoisin sauce, green onions, ginger, garlic, soy sauce and a topping of Sriracha mayonnaise. Recipe below.

There are Sundays that lend themselves to giving in to indolence, lounging about and doing nothing more ambitious than occasionally stirring a pot that cooks for hours. This past Sunday was not one of those. We spent much of the day hiking around the National Restaurant Association Show in the cavernous McCormick Place (motto: “You’ll love our 2.6 million square feet of hard concrete floors”). Then, because we apparently hadn’t walked enough, we did a little more hiking along Chicago’s lakefront.

After a day of walking and grazing on various delicious, mostly fatty foods (more about the restaurant show next week), we wanted a dinner that wasn’t a fat bomb, but still delivered big taste. And personally, I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on my feet in front of the stove. These Asian turkey burgers were just what we needed. Continue reading “Big flavor in a hurry: Asian Turkey Burgers with Sriracha Mayonnaise” →

Talking cheese in Oregon, making grilled cheese sandwiches in Chicago

Two variations on classic grilled cheese sandwiches—one with pear jalapeño chutney, one with roasted tomatoes, both with delicious Tillamook cheeses from Oregon. Recipes below.

A FEW YEARS AGO, OUR FRIENDS BUD AND CHRISTINE WERE VISITING FROM FRANCE. Before dinner, we put out some Tillamook aged white cheddar with crackers. Between bites, Christine kept exclaiming in her charming French accent, “You can’t get cheese like this in France!” Her words alone might have simply referred to the fact that the French don’t make cheddar-style cheeses. But the way she and Bud were happily gobbling it up said it wasn’t just cheddar—it was the Tillamook cheddar. Continue reading “Talking cheese in Oregon, making grilled cheese sandwiches in Chicago” →

Five late summer recipes from fellow bloggers

I don’t browse food blogs often enough—it usually just makes me hungry. I did a little browsing just now. Here are some delicious recipes I found.

Melon Mozzarella Salad with Honey, Lime and Mint

This refreshing looking dish from Nicole over at Pinch My Salt not only sounds like the taste of summer, it also has a nice kick of crushed red pepper. Because, as Nicole puts it, “After living in Sicily for four years I now put crushed red pepper in just about everything.” Continue reading “Five late summer recipes from fellow bloggers” →

Hold the mayo, not the flavor: Grilled Lamb Feta Burgers get boost from Light Rémoulade Sauce

Grilled Lamb Feta Burgers are made even more flavorful with a lightened rémoulade sauce that substitutes Greek yogurt and olive oil for mayonnaise. Recipes below.

I remember feeling all grown up and adventurous the first time I ate feta cheese. Of course, I was in college at the time, and just about everything that didn’t make me feel idiotic, overwhelmed and scared made me feel grown up and adventurous.

If anything, my first experience with feta made me feel all of those things at once. This cheese didn’t come wrapped in individual slices, and it was decidedly not what was, to my then culinarily naive ears, comfortingly called ‘American.’ Most daunting of all, you couldn’t find it in the supermarket (at least not the ones of my college days). When a friend announced she was going to try a recipe that required the exotic substance, I was assigned the challenge of finding some. Continue reading “Hold the mayo, not the flavor: Grilled Lamb Feta Burgers get boost from Light Rémoulade Sauce” →

Grilled cheese with an autumnal touch, lentil soup with cilantro and cumin

Two recipes create a satisfying vegetarian dinner this week: Quickly sautéed apple slices and arugula liven up a classic grilled cheese sandwich, and cumin and fresh cilantro do the same for lentil soup.

grilled-cheese-lentil-soup

The Russet apples Marion had picked up at the farmers market had sat in a bowl on the kitchen counter for days now, their rough skin inviting an occasional touch and the promise of delicious tartness encouraging ideas for their use. Continue reading “Grilled cheese with an autumnal touch, lentil soup with cilantro and cumin” →

Five easy meals for summer

With the fourth of July weekend in the rearview mirror, summer is officially in full swing. And as much as we may like to cook, there’s no shortage of diversions ready to lure us from the kitchen. These five recipes run the gamut, from quick cooking to outdoor cooking to no cooking at all. Gathered from the Blue Kitchen archives, they’ll help you get great summer meals on the table with minimal time and effort in the kitchen.

tomato-basil-cruda

1. Tomato Basil Salsa Cruda with Pasta

Cooking doesn’t get much easier than this—salsa cruda is Italian for uncooked sauce. The only thing you cook for Tomato Basil Salsa Cruda with Pasta is the pasta itself. The hot pasta warms the salsa of raw, chopped tomatoes, basil, garlic and olive oil, filling the kitchen with a big, delicious fragrance. And the uncooked salsa slightly cools the pasta, making for a light summery meal.

spicy-turkey-burger

2. Spicy Turkey Burgers

In the days before air conditioning, a separate summer kitchen was sometimes added to homes to keep the heat of cooking out of the house. Today, the ubiquitous grill Continue reading “Five easy meals for summer” →

Spicy turkey burgers: A little hot but not haute

Chili powder, cumin, fresh jalapeño peppers and cilantro liven up quick and easy turkey burgers. Recipe below.

When did burgers get all uptown? The New York Times reports on this growing trend “In Paris, Burgers Turn Chic.” Beef patties on sesame seed buns are even turning up in three-star restaurants there. The attraction? The Times quotes Paris restaurant consultant Hélène Samuel, who sums it up thus: “It has the taste of the forbidden, the illicit—the subversive, even. Eating with your hands, it’s pure regression. Naturally, everyone wants it.” No, Hélène, tearing apart an entire roast chicken with your bare hands and eating it is pure regression. Eating a burger with your hands is just how you do it. But if you read some of the amazing things French chefs are doing with the lowly hamburger, you’ll be as inclined to forgive Ms. Samuel’s primal enthusiasm as I was.

I’m not so inclined to forgive the excesses reported by Yahoo! Travel in “America’s Most Expensive Burgers.” Okay, so $17.50 for a caviarburger at Serendipity 3 in New York City sounds reasonable enough. And $27 for a Daniel Boulud hamburger stuffed with short ribs, foie gras and truffles isn’t out of the question [sounds pretty good, in fact]. But no amount of shaved black truffles makes a hamburger worth $150. And a couple of restaurants, both in Las Vegas, even pair burgers with rare bottles of French wine and charge $5,000 and $6,000 respectively. Ordering these is a sure sign you’ve got too much money and not enough brains.

But on a simpler, less astronomical level, we like burgers a lot. They’re a quick and easy, totally satisfying weeknight meal. And if eating them with your hands isn’t exactly pure regression, there’s undeniably a nice, relaxed informality to it. Generally, we use ground sirloin for its low fat content. I know most chefs advocate using fattier ground beef for its juiciness, but as long as you cook ground sirloin on the medium rare side, it remains plenty juicy.

Lately, though, we’ve been occasionally enjoying the lighter taste of turkey burgers. Unlike whole roasted turkeys with their distinctive robust flavor, ground turkey presents kind of a blank canvas not unlike chicken breasts. Here, jalapeño peppers, onion, fresh cilantro, chili powder and cumin create a lively, satisfying burger with just a little heat Continue reading “Spicy turkey burgers: A little hot but not haute” →

Chicken, goat cheese, arugula and… apricot jam?

Yes, apricot jam adds a perfect unexpected note to this summery sandwich of chicken, goat cheese and arugula. Recipe below.

As anyone who spends much time in the kitchen knows, inspiration can come from anywhere. A recipe you’ve seen, a farmers market find, what’s on sale at the grocery store—even something you found in the back of your pantry. The inspiration for the sandwich above began with a photograph. Specifically, this one: Continue reading “Chicken, goat cheese, arugula and… apricot jam?” →

Spicy Chicken Salad: A little hot, but very cool

Hot giardiniera gives this summery Spicy Chicken Salad a little heat and big flavor. It’s great on sandwiches or on its own. Recipe below.

When the warm weather hits and the great outdoors beckons, we tend to get lazy in the kitchen. We still want good food, but we want it to be fast and easy to make and satisfyingly filling but not too heavy. Like chicken salad. To me, some leftover chicken and a little mayo is one of the great blank canvases of summer, ready to take on all kinds of flavors and personalities. Continue reading “Spicy Chicken Salad: A little hot, but very cool” →