BLT Salad with Creamy Vinaigrette

{Image courtesy of Con Paulos via Real Simple Magazine}

This was from Micah's 32nd birthday menu. I found it in the May 2010 Real Simple magazine and didn't change a thing. I love the creamy vinaigrette dressing.

Romaine Salad with Tomatoes and Bacon

• 4 slices bacon
• 1 head romaine lettuce, cut into strips (6 cups)
• 1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
• 4 scallions, sliced
• 4 to 6 tablespoons Creamy Parmesan Dressing
• or bottled Caesar dressing

Directions

1. In a skillet, cook the bacon over medium heat until crisp, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate. Break into pieces when cool.
2. In a large bowl, toss the lettuce, tomatoes, scallions, and bacon with the dressing.

Creamy Parmesan Dressing

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• kosher salt and black pepper

Directions

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, Parmesan, sour cream, vinegar, 2 tablespoons water, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper.
   

These are really really good.

We had these for breakfast this morning. I love them! I love buttermilk pancakes and this is the best buttermilk pancake recipe I've ever tried. Recipe and image courtesy of smitten kitchen.

I didn't sprinkle them with powdered sugar but I did add blueberries. This recipe made a lot of pancakes. I guess mine are closer to 3.5 inch pancakes. So yummy. Maple syrup. Melted butter.

Best Buttermilk Pancakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Original Classics Cookbook

Yield: Martha says this makes 9 6-inch pancakes; I got about 16 4-inch ones, which are closer to the size I like

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, or slightly less table salt
3 tablespoons sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus 1 tablespoon extra for brushing griddle (I’ve made these pancakes with and without the butter mixed in, and can say with confidence they work either way. They’re just richer with it, of course.)

1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen and thawed (optional)

1. Preheat an electric griddle to 375°F, or place a griddle pan or cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl. Add the eggs, buttermilk, and 4 tablespoons melted butter, and whisk to combine. The batter should have small to medium lumps.

2. Test the griddle by sprinkling a few drops of water on it. If the water bounces and spatters, the griddle is hot enough. Using a pastry brush, brush the remaining 1/2 teaspoon butter onto the griddle. Wipe off the excess with a folded paper towel.

3. Using a 4-oz. ladle, about 1/2 cup (for a 6-inch pancake), pour the batter in pools 2 inches apart. If you wish to make blueberry pancakes, arrange a handful over the cooking pancake, pressing them in slightly. When the pancakes have bubbles on top and are slightly dry around the edges, about 2 1/2 minutes, flip over. If any batter oozes or blueberries roll out, push them back under with your spatula. Cook until golden on bottom, about 1 minute.

4. Repeat with the remaining batter. You can keep the finished pancakes on a heat-proof plate in the oven at 175°F. Serve warm.

Ratatouille's Ratatouille

I enjoy following Smitten Kitchen. I've only ever tried one of her recipes. Her pie crust recipe. It is now my pie crust recipe. It's all butter (no shortening or lard) and that's the kind of pie crust recipe I can believe in.

I was really happy today to find this recipe for Ratatouille's ratatouille because I've always wanted to make it that way. She posted it 3 years ago from today. I haven't made this recipe yet, but I'm going to tomorrow after I pick up my local organic vegetable share and also buy a mandolin because I'm sure I don't have a knife sharp enough to slice vegetables 1/16 of an inch thin.

I know that I will be using something besides goat cheese. After finding too many fermented goat's milk bottles in Nigel's crib when we though he was allergic to dairy I just can't eat the stuff any more. Tastes like fermented baby bottle. And also I want to serve it with risotto if I have the energy to stand in front of the stove for that long. I'll let you know how it goes.

Ratatouille’s Ratatouille

As envisioned by Smitten Kitchen

1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
1 cup tomato puree (such as Pomi)
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 small eggplant (my store sells these “Italian Eggplant” that are less than half the size of regular ones; it worked perfectly)
1 smallish zucchini
1 smallish yellow squash
1 longish red bell pepper
Few sprigs fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
Few tablespoons soft goat cheese, for serving

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Pour tomato puree into bottom of an oval baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic cloves and chopped onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.

Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube.

On a mandolin, adjustable-blade slicer or with a very sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices, approximately 1/16-inch thick.

Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables. You may have a handful leftover that do not fit.

Drizzle the remaining tablespoon olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.

Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside. (Tricky, I know, but the hardest thing about this.)

Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.

Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain.

Bacon Wrapped Shrimp and Pineapple

1 lb. thick cut bacon, cut in half
1 pineapple, cut into bite sized pieces
1 lb. shrimp, tails removed

This picture shows pineapple wrapped in bacon, no shrimp. I don't think you have to use toothpicks to keep it together as it bakes. If the bacon overlaps and you place that side down the fat seals it shut.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wrap each shrimp around a piece of pineapple then wrap the bacon around those. Lay them seem side down on an elevated cooking rack placed on a cookie sheet, or you can use a broiler pan. Lining the bottom layer with tin foil makes for easy clean up.

Bake in 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes, checking each 5 minutes after that.

They don't last long :)

Pepper Jelly with Cream Cheese

This isn't a picture of what we had at Micah's birthday party, but it communicates the general idea. This is something I grew up eating at special occasions. It's sweet and spicy and has cream cheese in it.

Growing up my mom would just put the brick of cream cheese on a plate and pour the slightly warmed pepper jelly over the top. Callie and I once experimented by whipping them together. We've also put it on individual crackers as pictured above. If they don't get eaten they get soggy. The whipped together method makes it so there's only one ratio of cream cheese to the sweet spiciness, which I didn't really like. And it turns out hot pink and I just can't get in to serving hot pink things.

What I think I'll do next is spread the cream cheese out on the serving plate and evenly pour the jelly on top. That way it's not pink. It doesn't get soggy. And you can still choose how much of each goes on each cracker.

Ingredients:

Cream Cheese
Pepper Jelly (it comes in a lot of different colors and levels of spice.)
Wheat Thins or other crackers.

Assemble and eat. It does help to warm the jelly in the microwave for a bit before spreading over the top. It's less chunky.

The end.