Truffle oil again

mashed potatoes + truffle oil + just picked organic oyster mushrooms from the campus organic garden = AMAZING mashed potatoes. Just fyi.

Salad question

Okay, it's mostly me posting here, I know, but screw it. I have a salad question and I'm hoping to get some suggestions.

I eat a garden salad pretty much every day now. Sometimes twice a day. I really like a good garden salad. But there are a few things in a typical salad that I don't like, namely tomatoes and cucumbers. I'm warming up to the cucumber (well, you know what I mean) but I strongly dislike tomatoes. Sorry tomatoes.

So my garden salad is usually some version of spinach or 50/50 spinach and spring mix, celery, carrots, red cabbage, red bell pepper, and red onions. Sometimes I'll throw in some sprouts, sometimes some raw fresh green beans, sometimes some raw snow peas (in pod).

I don't love salad dressing, but I've grown to really like a tsp or two of Italian dressing, or just a little balsamic and olive oil. HATE ranch and all "creamy" dressings. Hate them.

Okay, all of that is to say, am I missing something? Should there be something in this salad that isn't? It's not that I'm sick of this salad -- when I'm eating it regularly (and i have to say this last week I've been eating HORRIBLY due to job stress), I CRAVE it -- but I'm wondering if there's something I might think about adding to it. Keep in mind, we're talking garden salad. No eggs. No ham.

Thanks for the (hopefully upcoming) suggestions.

Truffle Oil Follow Up

Follow up: black truffle oil is amazing. I pretty much succeeded in recreating the sandwich I wanted to. Let's be clear: this is a simple recipe. I've posted it before, I think. I sauteed a lot of (1-1.5 cups) sliced baby bellas in a little butter, garlic, and salt. Spread those mushrooms and garlic on some good bread (cut a small loaf, this time of 3 cheese bread, in half, then in half length wise, so that I have two slabs of bread, crust side down, of course), put some fresh mozz on it, and put it in a 300 degree oven for maybe 7 minutes or so, till the cheese has started to melt. Then I broil it for a minute or so until the cheese is just a smidge bubbly.
This is nothing revolutionary, nothing new. Often I put onions on it, too, sometimes olives, sometimes basil. But this time I just went with mushrooms and a two chopped cloves of garlic. Because I knew I had this black truffle oil, and I wanted to be able to taste it. So I took it the mushroom cheese bread out of the oven, let it sit for just 30-60 seconds or so, then drizzled the truffle oil over the top and added just a touch of sea salt.


Oh. my. GLORY! It was sooooooo good. And it was better, honestly, simply for the truffle oil. Totally worth the $, fyi.

Truffle Oil Suggestions

I've always wanted to cook with truffle oil. They do it on Top Chef all the time. So, when I saw that our local grocery store had some black truffle oil, I bought it. Now I don't know what to do with it. Tonight I'm going to try to recreate my favorite open faced sandwich from The Portsmouth Brewery -- sauteed mushrooms on fresh bread, truffle oil, and fresh mozz. Toasted, 'natch.

I'm also thinking there should be lovely things I can do with truffle oil and pasta. And maybe fish? Anybody have any suggestions?

Beej and I still haven't had time to try out the ahi tuna recipes. This week was MADNESS for me -- still is. But maybe next week.

Impending recipe update

I don't so much have a new recipe to post; instead, I have plans to post a new recipe soon. Beej and I are planning some grilled ahi tuna next week and I've been scouring the internet looking for good recipes. So keep an eye out next week for some ahi tuna recipe or recipes, and possibly a recipe for wasabi mashed potatoes. Who's excited?

Herb Yogurt Dip

I'm all about the fresh herbs. My dad keeps a pretty intense herb garden, and I plan to do the same.

I whipped up this sauce / dip and then put it on some smoked gouda quesadillas.

Ingredients:

Plain greek yogurt

3-4 sprigs of fresh rosemary

5-6 sprigs of fresh thyme

juice of 1/2 lemon

Peel of 1/2 lemon

Black Pepper

Ground Crushed Red Pepper

Direx:

Chop up the rosemary and lemon peel as small as you can get 'em. Add all the ingredients together and stir it up. It'll probably be extra good the day after you make it. I can see slathering this al over cucumbers.

Szechwan-Style Stir Fry

I thought I'd already posted this on here, but I can't find it. So if this is a repeat, apologies. This is slightly modified from my ever-trusty Menus in Minutes. This is one of our favorite stand-bys. It's easy to make a bigger batch, if you've got a wok (hard to find a big enough skillet). I actually like this cold, too. I serve it over basmati or jasmine rice (which I make in my rice cooker), but you could do it with hot cooked rice noodles, too. Or probably just linguini. I haven't tried it, but I bet it'd be good.

Stir together (whisk, really)

1/3 C. bottled teriyaki sauce

3 Tbsp Szechwan spicy stir-fry sauce

2 tsp cornstarch

Set aside, but stir ocassionally through prep & veggie cooking process.

Prepare:

• 1/2 C chopped red onion (these are all approximate and to taste. Add whatever you like. I chop the onion into maybe 3/4 inch pieces)
• 1/2 C. broccoli florets
• 1 medium sweet red pepper, cut into bite sized chunks
• 1 medium green pepper, cut into bite sized chunks
• I love mushrooms, so I use about a big bag and a half of sliced baby bellas, maybe 4Cs? But that's just me. The book calls for 1 4&1/2 oz jar of sliced mushrooms, drained. I think fresh are way better.
• 1 14-15 oz can whole baby corn, drained and cut in half
• 1 C. fresh snow pea pods if you've got 'em, trimmed.

In a large skillet or wok, preheat about a tsp or 2 olive oil over medium-ish. Add the onion; cook and stir for about 2 minutes. Add mushrooms; cook and stir for maybe 4-5 minutes. Then broccoli, cook and stir for another minute or so, then peppers for another minute or so. Then the corn and pea pods. Basically, you want all of this sort of hot and tender crisp.

You can do this next part by pushing the veggies aside, but it works best if you remove them from the pan. Then stir the sauce, add it to the skillet. Cook and stir until it thickens and gets bubbly. It'll get darker, too. This won't take very long. Dump the veggies back in, stir to coat with sauce and heat through.

Serve over basmati or jasmine rice.

If you want, you can add shrimp to this, as I do sometimes. I buy the precooked, just cuz it's easier. I make sure it's thawed, take the tails off, cut it into bite sized pieces if it's not bite-sized already, and throw it in when I throw in the baby corn.

IF you want to do chicken, you want to cut a 1 lb skinless boneless chicken breast into bite-sized strips. Once the veggies are done, take them out of the skillet, then add about 1/2 the chicken at a time, cooking about 4 minutes. Remove when no longer pink in the middle. Then take the chicken out, too, and do the thing with the sauce.