Smoked salmon isn’t just for bagels and cream cheese any more — it’s too delicious and convenient to not serve it in a wider variety of ways. And as long as you opt for wild salmon, you’ll be enjoying an anti-inflammatory omega-3-rich boost to your meal. Here’s why: that gorgeous salmon hue is due to [...]
Continue reading about Starting Off the Day with Wild Salmon
A lot of us are used to thinking of cucumbers as a summer veggie — especially when they’re growing like mad in our gardens and we’re trying to figure out who we can foist them onto — but I think cucumbers are the perfect winter veggie: they’re crisp and versatile and have long been popular [...]
They call it raita in India, tzatziki in the Middle East, and tarator in Bulgaria. We call it tartar sauce, and we make it with pickles instead of cucumbers and mayonnaise instead of yogurt. Frankly, though, it’s time to revisit the original versions for some inspiration, because rich, creamy Greek yogurt kicks commercial mayonnaise to [...]
Continue reading about Adventures in Sauce (or How to Make the Dip Your Own)
‘Tis the season for fresh wild salmon … and, while you’re at it, smoked wild salmon, too. Wild salmon is already far more flavorful than most other fish, and when it’s smoked, it’s an even salmonier version of itself. (Which is a good thing to me!) And in a new twist on “surf & turf,” [...]
Now that summer is in full swing and we have zucchini and greens and herbs growing everywhere they can (found random cilantro in my garden yesterday!), it makes sense to combine these in-season favorites to create an easy summer meal. Adding pecans and raisins to this dish gives you nutty-sweet kick + crunch, and using [...]
Continue reading about Having Scrabble for Dinner (a Q & Z Dish)
If salads were clothing, they’d be mix-and-match separables — nearly any combination of ingredients can become a great salad. It’s just a matter of choosing complementing contrasts: salty/sweet, soft/crunchy, earthy/bright. Those contrasts are what makes each ingredient a noticeable part of the whole. In this salad, for example, the lettuce is crunchy, but the papaya [...]
What people traditionally eat depends on what their weather is like — citrus doesn’t like cold weather, but berries don’t like it hot. (Good luck finding strawberries in a tropical rain forest! Temperate rain forests are another story…) Root vegetables and cabbages also like their days and nights to be on the crisp and cool [...]
Bacon. Potatoes. Sublimity. Those were the guiding principles behind a recent bacon-infused dinner. After cooking my two strips of bacon, I knew I was going to have plenty of tasty bacon grease happily burbling away in the pan. Why throw that out when you can cook something in it…say, something that would absorb that luscious [...]
Scandinavians do a lot with crisp, sweet vegetables and fruits. So do Russians and Pols (and anyone else who lives in cooler climates where you’re more likely to grow carrots than bananas). I drew on those sweet-and-cool traditions to make a simple summer salad featuring two of Michigan’s best crops: apples and cucumbers. Nothing beats [...]
