Month: May 2009

Cheeseburgers with a Twist: Chipotle Pork Cheeseburgers

Cheeseburgers with a Twist: Chipotle Pork Cheeseburgers

Taste: **** Difficulty: Easy Cleanup: Quick Here’s a different take on a cheeseburger…use ground pork instead of beef! These pork burgers seasoned with one of my favorite flavors — chipotle peppers in adobo sauce — were delicious.  It’s amazing that such a small amount of 

The Commander in Chef

The Commander in Chef

Amanda Hesser writes a great op-ed piece in today’s New York Times about the need for a “cooking” role model in the White House.  Growing and buying local isn’t enough.  You actually need to cook with those local ingredients! Click here to read the piece.

Giada's Pork Milanese

Giada's Pork Milanese

Taste: **** Difficulty: Easy Cleanup: Quick When I was grocery shopping on Tuesday night, the store had a special on very thinly cut pork chops.  I bought a package not knowing how I planned to prepare them. Yesterday afternoon I did some searches for “thin 

Weeknight Chicken: Hot Pepper Chicken Under a Brick

Weeknight Chicken: Hot Pepper Chicken Under a Brick

I couldn’t resist the title — hot pepper chicken — so I decided to make this dish last night.  The chicken was less spicy than I anticipated but it had nice flavor! This was a very easy dinner to make because after seasoning the chicken 

Bam!…Perfect Barbecue Side Dishes…Emeril's Macaroni Salad

Bam!…Perfect Barbecue Side Dishes…Emeril's Macaroni Salad

Here’s a great alternative to mayonnaise-based pasta salads!  Lots of delicious flavors going on in this salad – goat cheese, olives, proscuitto, and a great vinaigrette. Last night, I made this to go along with our hamburgers on the grill.  I didn’t have any proscuitto 

Healthy Grilling: Salmon with Sweet Onions & Red Bell Peppers

Healthy Grilling: Salmon with Sweet Onions & Red Bell Peppers

After a glutenous rib dinner, I decided we needed something a bit healthier for dinner last night.  I saw this salmon recipe in Food & Wine and loved its simplicity and the fact that there was very little prep work! We used wild sockeye salmon 

Super Simple Key Lime Pie

Super Simple Key Lime Pie

Key lime pie is a wonderful summer dessert.  So refreshing and full of great citrus flavor! I have baked this key lime pie recipe countless times and it is always well received.  In fact, once my father-in-law Peter ate almost an entire pie at one 

Perfect Barbecue Side Dishes: Green Bean Salad

Perfect Barbecue Side Dishes: Green Bean Salad

This is a super simple green bean salad with a refreshing lemon vinaigrette and some thinly sliced grilled red onions. The salad is made with haricot vert — French green beans — which are thinner and longer than typical string beans.  I also find the 

Perfect Barbecue Side Dishes: Cheese-Stuffed Grilled Peppers

Perfect Barbecue Side Dishes: Cheese-Stuffed Grilled Peppers

We made this dish — a more sophisticated jalapeno popper — for the first time last night and it appeared to be a hit! I made the cheese filling and stuffed the peppers before our guests arrived and just kept the stuffed peppers in the 

Perfect Barbecue Side Dishes: Farfalle with Salsa Verde & Grilled Ricotta Salata

Perfect Barbecue Side Dishes: Farfalle with Salsa Verde & Grilled Ricotta Salata

Chances are if you’ve been to my house in the summer, you’ve had this dish.  I first had it our close family friend Judy’s house and have made it countless times since. I take a shortcut and don’t actually make the salsa verde as shown