Texas toast bruschetta

• frozen garlic toast Texas style
• fresh tomatoes
• fresh basil
• Balsamic vinegar

Prepare toast according to package instructions. Dice tomatoes and basil finely and blend together, taking care not to over mix. Pile tomatoes on toast and drizzle with vinegar, serve immediately.

The dish: It's pretty scary to look in someones eyes and see pure hate. It's even scarier when that person is a friend you've known most of your life; scarier still when the occasion is his wedding. Yet this happened a few weeks back, and I feel nothing but proud of my comrade. You see, the good friend is a surgeon who specializes in oncology, practicing at the prestigious Fox Chase Cancer Center. I've never seen him as happy as when he was standing next to his beautiful wife, yet when the conversation turned to work he spoke with great admiration for the doctors who have taught him, compassion for the patients he's helped, and disdain for the ugly pile of cells he pulls out of the folks on the operating table beneath him. Having lost his father at a young age to cancer he has his reasons to dislike the disease, but has channeled it using his knowledge and dedication in a way that inspires awe. Like all great doctors, I'm amazed by them and yet hope to never have the occasion to be their patient. Doing things like not smoking and using sunscreen are obvious ways to keep cancer at bay, but there's much more we can do. Eating tomatoes gives our bodies lycopene, which some studies have shown will slow the growth of certain types of cancer. I can't think of a better way to get my dose of lycopene than the festival of tomatoes that is bruschetta. I would have used fresh bread but this batch was made at the last minute using some of my sister's bumper crop (you have a green thumb- you're adopted) and we had some Hannaford garlic toast Texas style on hand. It was delicious and our bodies were better off for the offering.

spinach salad with warm cider vinaigrette and seared scallops

• fresh baby spinach, washed and dried
• good quality bacon bits
• fried onion strips
• 1 cup apple cider
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• fresh sea scallops

In a saucepan over high heat, bring apple cider to boil, reduce heat to medium high and continue to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add vinegar to cider and reduce heat to medium low, continue cooking while preparing scallops. Heat olive oil in pan over high heat. Season scallops with coarse salt and fresh pepper and add to pan when fully heated. Cook for 3 minutes, flip and continue to cook for three minutes or until done throughout. Arrange spinach on plate, build with onions and bacon, pour dressing over it and top with scallops.

The dish: Every now and again I'll have a dream that's so vivid that I'll wake up and not be sure if it really happened or not. While this phenomenon isn't always so pleasant when my dreams have bad twists to them, sometimes it can be quite enjoyable. Awhile back I woke up after having dreamt that I was at some social function where I stood with a drink in one hand and a bacon wrapped scallop in the other. The server was always nearby and by the time I pushed myself out of the REM cycle there was a formidable pile of discarded toothpicks on her tray and my drink had been refilled more than once. It was such a nice memory that I wasn't sure it didn't actually happen until Kim insisted it occurred only in my frontal cortex. From that moment I was on the hunt: I had to have some bacon wrapped scallops. Naturally things like this only happen on weeks when every minute I have is well spoken for in advance. It was about 6 days later when I finally dug into some and they tasted as good as I had been expecting (fortunately I didn't have to wait that long eternity for a cocktail). Bacon really does make most things better, but scallops in particular seem to benefit from their salty goodness. Throw in some spinach and a vinaigrette and you've got some nutritional absolution that tastes like a dream.

garlic onion refrigerator pickles

• 1lb small cucumbers (I've seen them called kirby and kuke, so I have no idea what is right)
• pickling salt
• fresh garlic, chopped
• 2 onions, sliced into rings
• cider vinegar
• sugar
• fresh dill
• mustard seed

Combine about 1.5 cups of salt with 4 or so cups of water. Make sure that salt is well dissolved and pour over cucumbers in a tight container. Let sit at room temperature, out of the sun, for two days. Drain and rinse the cucumbers well. Combine 3 cups cider vinegar with 1.5 cups of water and 1/2 cup sugar, cook and bring to a boil stirring occasionally. Let cool for 20 minutes. In a tight fitting container, layer the cucumbers with the garlic, onion and dill with a few shakes of mustard seed. When vinegar mixture has cooled slightly, pour over the mixture and refrigerate for 1 week.

The dish: I once remarked to our favorite farmers that making pickles was more of a commitment than marriage was. I was being facetious, but there's an element of truth to that statement. There's no one step in making these pickles that's difficult, but if you skip one or screw it up your finished product will suffer. You can screw up in marriage pretty frequently and it can all end well anyway. Much like marriage, pickles are worth the effort, you'll never want to eat a pickle from a jar after you make your own. We used these on top of some pulled pork sandwiches and the taste was out of this world.

zucchini ribbon salad with pine nuts and goat cheese

• fresh zucchini
• pine nuts
• crumbled goat cheese
• white wine vinegar (I had some Chardonnay vinegar, but any would work)
• olive oil
• fresh ground pepper

Cook whole zucchinis in boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Rinse under cold water until they are chilled enough to handle. Using a vegetable peeler, slice strips of zucchini until you reach the seeded center. Combine zucchini strips, nuts and cheese in large bowl. Whisk together olive oil and vinegar and pour over salad, toss to coat. Season with fresh pepper and serve chilled.

The dish: If you live in the sunny Mid-Hudson Valley, one sure way to know that the summer is right at the halfway mark is to look for the Orange County Fair to come to town. The OC fair combines the elements of an old time farm fair with modern amusements and enough of a sleazy element to keep things interesting. I'm a regular visitor and long about March I start looking forward to my annual day of eating fried foods and hanging upside down on a ride that dubs as a truck trailer. After I've eaten my annual allowance of trans fats and my stomach can't take anymore of giving gravity the finger, I know it's time to settle down for some games on the midway. The best and fairest of the amusements is a game called "Jone's I Got It", or "bingo with a bounce" if you're a regular. The concept is pretty simple; 10-25 players sit on stools about 3 feet away from bins that have grids of holes. In front of the players is a reservoir filled with little rubber balls (think the kind in the red vending machines in the front of the supermarket that you'd beg your mom for and then throw once and realize it was like watching your allowance bounce down the street) and when the announcer calls it, you have to toss the balls into the bin ahead of you and be the first to get 5 in a row. There's really no skill to it and it's only $.50 a game, so it's a great way to spend some time. We usually play long enough to win at least a few games, which means we can visit the illustrious Jone's prize table. They do a good job of making the junky prizes seem high end, keeping the table surrounded by a velvet rope and a having a prize official in a Jone's polo shirt to help you pick out your loot. We were on a pretty good streak this year and got to choose from the second tier of prizes. I saw the plain glass serving tray pictured above and knew I had to have it (really, I didn't just scoop the zucchini salad onto my counter). It was a little awkward carrying a platter around the fair while everyone else had stuffed bears and such, but it was worth the effort. I took it home and after scrubbing the fair funk off it (it was sealed in a package, but still) realized what a great tray I had. I do my best to keep things in a healthy rotation around here, but I'm sure you'll be seeing more of it in the future. Let's just hope that in 2010 I'm really lucky and can get that lighted picture of the New York skyline I've been eyeing.

PBMD

• bagel, toasted
• fresh tomato, sliced
• cream cheese
• balsamic vinegar

Prepare bagel; you can use fresh or frozen (I used Ray's frozen, which really are the best), toasted or not. Spread cream cheese on bottom half of bagel, top with tomato slices and vinegar to taste.

The dish: If you look at a map of the earth you'll notice that Japan is pretty much all the way to the right and California is way to the left. The land of the rising sun is so named because they're the first on the globe to get drenched in the fresh sunlight building from the east (this is also the reason why on New Year's Eve while we're still chilling the bubbly and wrapping the pigs in blankets, Dick Clark is cutting to shots of tired Asians that look like they've been partying awhile). By contrast, the folks in the Golden State are the last ones to roll out of bed in the morning. For this reason, through my admittedly limited research, I've come to the conclusion that Californians are more prone to an earlier and healthier lifestyle. They have no choice but to be early risers; the rest of the planet is already awake and going strong. This phenomenon can be clearly seen on the greatest show of all time, Melrose Place (the original of course, the new one premiered last night so it's too soon to tell). Although their lifestyles may not be psychologically healthy, all the young residents of LA wake early and always eat breakfast. Kim and I were watching some older re-runs of the show recently and were having fun noticing how not only does everyone always eat three squares, but those meals consist of lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. On one such episode, Dr. Peter Burns is having an early meeting with his colleague Dr. Michael Mancini, while fixing himself some breakfast in the break room of their posh office. Burns takes a cut bagel and spreads it with cream cheese and then piles on some fresh tomato slices and finishes it with some salt and pepper. I basically stole the good Dr's recipe, save the vinegar difference, but I did give him props naming it after him. Now that tomatoes are in full bloom, this is a great way to start your day like the residents of 4616 Melrose do, minus the waking up next to your ex/in-law/friend/friend's other, etc.

warm zucchini salad

• 1 lb whole wheat pasta
• fresh zucchini, cut into bite sized pieces
• balsamic vinegar
• 1 red onion, chopped fine
• dried red pepper flakes
• fresh parsley, chopped fine
• grated Parmesan cheese

Cook pasta according to package directions. In a swirl of olive oil, saute onion over a medium high flame for 3 minutes, add zucchini and pepper flakes, reduce flame to medium, stirring occasionally. After about 7 minutes add a few splashes of vinegar. Once pasta is cooked, drain and add to the zucchini, tossing to coat, adding parsley and more vinegar as needed. Serve immediately with grated cheese on top.

The dish: As Yogi Berra said, "it's like deja vu all over again". At first glance, it might look your faithful blogger hit the post button one too many times, but I beg you to read closer. If these two dishes were served in succession, I think you'd be amazed at how different they wind up tasting just by altering a few basic things. Although they were cooked as two different meals (really, look the pasta is different) this could have been a planned-over. Simply serve warm for dinner and then you've got a great cold lunch for the next day. Between the whole grain pasta and the bulk of the zucchini, you'll be amazed at how far this dish goes, which makes it easy on the wallet. Saving a few bucks in these tight times is important for all of us because as Yogi also said, "a nickel just isn't worth a dime anymore".

cold zucchini and pasta salad

• 1 lb whole wheat pasta
• fresh zucchini, cut into bite sized pieces
• fresh parsley, chopped fine
• balsamic vinegar

Cook pasta according to directions on package. About 2 minutes before finished, throw the zucchini in the pot and allow to cook until just tender. Rinse under cold water and allow to cool. Stir in good quality balsamic vinegar (I'm using some Private Harvest I got from Marshall's and it's the best I've ever had) and parsley. Refrigerate until served.

The dish: One of the original goals of starting this blog was to improve my camera skills. In addition to certain basic staging and lighting techniques, I've learned the most important rule in successful amateur digital photography: take lots of pictures. The finished product that ends up on this page (btw, if you click the above picture it takes you to a jumbo version of it) is the best of many out of focus and poorly lit attempts. I've begun a snap fish page to showcase some of the not ready for prime time shots. Feel free to check them out and let me know if you think I picked the best ones.

white bean summer salad

• 2 cans cannellini beans
• secret sauce
• 1 carrot, peeled and sliced
• roasted asparagus, sliced into bite sized pieces
• malt vinegar

Combine all ingredients, adding vinegar and sauce to taste. Stir well to mix and serve chilled.

The dish: This dish was purely the result of using up stuff I had on hand. When I made the secret sauce it took a little adding and seasoning to get it just right, and before I knew it we had about 2 cups of the stuff, so I had to find some uses for it other than a sandwich condiment. It worked well on top of a couple of cans of beans and some leftover veggies I had, but I could have used whatever was in the fridge and I think it would have turned out just fine. Kim and I have a theory with recipes: if you like everything going into the dish, then you'll most likely enjoy the finished product. This theory works especially well in the red room where Kim and I love just about any ingredient you can think of, so as a result we wind up liking most dishes.

grilled balsamic salmon

• salmon fillet
• balsamic vinegar
• olive oil
• garlic cloves
  

Marinate salmon, vinegar, olive oil and garlic for at least 3 hours. When ready to cook, wrap salmon in tin foil, discarding marinade and garlic. Grill over a low flame for about 10 minutes or until cooked. Don't be fooled, cooking it in foil won't yield the prettiest salmon, but it will taste great.

The dish: Here's the deal: I love salmon, but I'm getting sick of saying the same things about it over and over, so today I'll do something different. Instead of touting the virtues of our friend who swims upstream, I'll give some insight into why this blog has been idle most of July. As I've said before, I love to ride my mountain bike but with all the rain we've had this year it's been tough to get on the trail. I've spent a fraction of the amount of time on my bike this years as opposed to years past, which is why I think I recently forgot a valuable lesson in riding; things go best when the rubber side stays down. The stretch of trail I crashed on is so familiar to me that I often will ride through it in my mind on nights that I have trouble sleeping. I have an intimate knowledge of every twist, every hill, and every obstacle, which is why I wasn't shocked when the trail crossed the path of a wet tree root, I had ridden over it countless times before. As is the case with such things, I'm not really sure what went wrong, but my front tire bounced in a way I didn't expect it to and I had an immediate yet brief sensation of soaring through the air, right over the front of my bicycle (impressive since my feet were still clipped to the pedals). I painfully landed face down a pretty good distance from both the trail and my bike. Without getting too graphic (you did come here to read about food after all) it was clear that my shoulder had popped out and just getting up was going to be a challenge. With the help of Kim and our friend Chris I began to roll over and miraculously (and quite audibly) my shoulder righted itself and 90% of the pain instantly went away. I was able to limp back to the car and decided to play it safe and go to the ER and have things checked out. Other than quickly dropping the bikes off, we went straight to the hospital and waited long enough to watch the movie The Minority Report (it sucked) on the TV that each emergency room bed now has (who knew?). As I suspected, nothing was broken and the hospital sent me home with my arm in a sling and a warning of pain to come the next morning. It was about 7 hours after the crash when I was finally standing in the shower and letting the hot water pound onto my traumatized joint. I didn't think much about all the elapsed time until two days later when I had an unbearable itch all over my body and my skin began to look diseased. Turns out it was a big patch of poison oak that broke my fall and I pretty much let it soak into my skin all day long. The subsequent reaction was bad enough to warrant my doctor putting me on heavy duty steroids and me trying every topical remedy I could find, which none really worked, which is good because the mind numbing itching took my focus away from my sore shoulder. Needless to say, I didn't much feel like blogging. If you want to be grossed out, feel free to check out my left leg and just picture the rest of me covered in similar bruises and red splotches. Things seemed to have turned the corner, I'm looking less like a leper with each passing day so expect to see more updates soon.

sauteed kale

• fresh kale, roughly chopped into bite sized pieces
• fresh garlic, chopped fine
• nutmeg
• coarse salt
• red pepper flakes (I use Simply Organic)
• 3/4 cup of vegetable stock
• sherry vinegar (or any red wine vinegar)

In a swirl of olive oil over a medium-high flame, saute the garlic and red pepper for 3-5 minutes. Add the veggie stock and stir for about a minute. Begin adding the kale in batches, letting each one wilt a bit before adding the next. Once all is added, season to taste with salt, vinegar and just a touch of nutmeg (thanks Rachael Ray). Reduce flame to low and continue to cook an additional 5+ minutes, or until kale is tender. Add more stock if needed.

The dish: I know a few posts back I promised you were reading what was the beginning of a long and exciting bbq phase of the red room. Turns out that Mother Nature has made a liar of me and my grill has sat under its cover for pretty much all of June, just as it did in the chilly winter months. If you're reading this from the lovely Empire State, then you're probably wet and not quite sure what the sun looks like anymore. As it happens in life, while I was in the middle of bitching about the impact the rain has had on my biking (or lack of), I bumped into someone far worse off because of this crazy weather. I was at the farmer's market and got to talking to a few of the vendors whose crops were rotting under water with no end to the rain in site. Couple that with low attendance at the markets because people are afraid of getting wet, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Farmer's don't have it easy anywhere, and in our region where land is in pretty high demand for the never ending suburban sprawl, disastrous weather can be the proverbial straw on the camel's back. The easy solution of course, is for all of us to do our best that when possible we eat something that was grown close to home. Check around for a farmer's market in your neck of the woods, if you're around Goshen on Fridays theirs is great (Bialas Farms is my fav, but all the farms are good). Not only will your food taste better and be better for you, but you'll be supporting an important way of life that's quickly vanishing. So with this crazy weather we've been having, go ahead and put on that sweater that you packed away long before June, stop payment on the check to the global warming folks and take that cash to your local farmers market and pick up some kale or any of the other delicious veggies they have.

basic coleslaw

• 1 bag shredded coleslaw mix
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sugar (or more if you're not already sweet enough)
• poppy seeds (optional)

Combine the mayonnaise, lime juice, vinegar and sugar together. Pour over the cabbage mix and add poppy seeds. Toss to coat. Let mixture sit at least one hour prior to serving. When made, the mix should look a little on the dry side as it will moisten as it sits.

The dish: I'm not even that old, comfortably in the second half of Gen X, and I went to public schools, and yet I still took Latin. Six years of it. Being a dead language and all, it has limited usefulness when trying to order a drink on a different continent, but it's great for finding word derivatives. Take for example coleslaw; I can tell you that the Latin word for cabbage is colis. I think the term slaw was invented by lazy southerners who never received the memo about annunciation, but I'm certain where the first half of the word came from (I can also tell you where plumbers got their name from, but that's a different story). Latin actually turned out to be one of my favorite classes in high school, thanks to the fact that there was a small group of us taking it and we all got along pretty well and Mrs. N (anonymous to protect the innocent, et cetera- damn, more Latin!) kept class amazingly relevant and fun. So go ahead and carpe diem and try e pluibus unum the recipes from this blog. Ilia acta est on your dinner plans for tonight, just make sure to ubi sub ubi.

spinach and cannellini bean salad

• 3 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 yellow pepper, diced
• 1 orange pepper, diced
• 1 bag baby spinach
• fresh parsley, chopped fine
• white wine vinegar
• olive oil
• 1 lemon

Combine juice of lemon with a equal parts olive oil and vinegar, whisk until combined, set aside. Combine all other ingredients in large bowl, pour dressing over salad and toss to coat.

The dish: This is basically a variation on the theme of bean salads. They all start off with a base of beans with a few other veggies mixed in for good measure, and then they get topped with a oil and vinegar dressing. Even though this salad is only 1 or 2 ingredients different than a few others I've posted, each one tastes pretty distinctive and we haven't gotten bored of eating any of them. Beans and veggies are a great thing to load up on and these salads are an easy and tasty way to do just that. I suggest trying one for yourself, I think you'll be surprised at how much you like it.

carrot and endive tossed salad in balsamic vinaigrette

• fresh leaf lettuce, cut into bite sized pieces
• plain or mixed carrots, cut on the bias
• endive, chopped fine
• fresh dill, chopped
• balsamic vinegar
• olive oil
• sugar
• croutons (I used Texas Toast garlic and herb)

Combine lettuce, endive, carrots and dill. If you cannot find mixed carrots, or don't feel like paying more for them, plain works just fine. In a separate bowl whisk together equal parts vinegar and olive oil. Add sugar to taste and continue to blend. Serve salad in bowls and drizzle dressing on top.

The dish: This is the method for a basic vinaigrette. I used balsamic, but you could use sherry or champagne or any other wacky vinegar you have on hand. Where to find such succulent sounding condiments? On close out, of course. Stores like Marshall's or TJ Maxx or Home Goods are great for finding cheap and unique provisions. I've found the ones I've mentioned as well as lemon infused olive oil, orange infused olive oil, white truffle oil, raspberry champagne vinegar, Cabernet vinegar and many others. These are bottles that originally were much more than any of us would spend, but now you can have them for around $7 or less. Good vinegars can be cooked or used raw, but good oils should be reserved for when there's very little or no cooking involved. Go ahead and get the cheapest stuff you can find to saute with, but if you're going to use it as a dip or dressing splurge and pull out the good stuff.