Side dish – Page 8 – Rosemary and the Goat

Potato and Green Bean Salad

No mayonnaise in this potato salad.

What would a picnic be without some type of potato salad. It’s a given we will probably have some ants, flies, and a few mosquitoes; and I’m just as sure that there will be someone bringing potato salad. I mean, who doesn’t like the creamy stuff and this would would be great for a Labor Day cookout.

I’m sure everyone has had their favorite potato salad recipe that they have prepared for years. Seems like you never go to a backyard bbq that there does appear at least 2 varieties of potato salad and most of which will probably have mayonnaise as one of the main ingredients.

I love this recipe because it actually has a good healthy green vegetable in it — green beans; and along with a few other ingredients this is a very light tasting cousin of the old traditional mayonnaise/mustard based potato dish.

The next time I make this dish I plan on baking some potatoes scooping out the pulp and then filling the shell with this potato salad. I think it will look so cool that the potato salad has it’s own little container.

August 20, 2012 By Sherry

Entree/ Side dish/ Vegetables

Aloo Bainsan (Eggplant and Potato)

My first Indian dish.

Normally I have an endless flow of ideas for recipes to blog. This time though, I found myself staring at white and graffiti eggplants (I bought because they were so darn cute), one potato and a Serrano pepper and thinking what could I possibly make with this. So I did what I do best and I googled the ingredients. One of the first recipes that caught my attention was a Eggplant and Potato Curry recipe from Food & Wine magazine and my first thought was that I could do better than that. So I dug a little deeper and found this wonderful video from Manjula’s Kitchen (Indian vegetarian recipes).

Don’t you just love YouTube. I use it for anything I don’t know how to make and watching Manjula do this recipe I just knew it was going to be good. (One of these days I’m going to YouTube knee replacement surgery and see exactly what was done to my knee.)

August 5, 2012 By Sherry

Side dish/ Vegetables

Elote (Spiced Mexican Corn)

Corn for the 4th of July

A squirt of lime makes this even more delicious.

What is it a backyard bbq without some type of corn. Whether it is corn on the cob, corn relish, corn casserole, corn fritters, or corn and black bean salsa…. I could go on and on about the many uses of corn.

Don’t you just love the summer months where so much of your time is spent outside either tending your flowers, gardens or getting ready for a party. I tend to go overboard in the amounts of food I prepare but what the heck, it’s a holiday, a family gathering or a party with of friends coming over for something delicious to eat and that’s what I like to do.

My motto has always been it’s better to have too much food than not enough and if someone doesn’t want to eat EVERYTHING I make, then they can make the decision on which of the foods to pass on.

July 3, 2012 By Sherry

Side dish/ Vegetables

Baby Bok Choy with Brown Butter Garlic Sauce

Bok, Bok, Bok, doesn’t that sounds like some kind of strange bird?

Ok, so it isn’t a bird. I don’t think I have ever eaten this vegetable until back in February when we had our annual dinner of golf husbands and their wives. Our golfers have come to call this “wife appreciation dinner” because we let them play so much golf. Not that they really need our permission to do so, but it’s always nice of them to take us to dinner.

(I’ve been saving a few recipes so while I’m having the knee surgery and the first couple of weeks of rehab I can use some things from my draft folder — so here’s the first, hope I’m up and walking soon.)

I used the bok choy under the mashed potatoes here and then topped the potatoes with a little brown butter. For our dinner that night we had a beef fillet on top of the potatoes. Really nice.

June 25, 2012 By Sherry

Morning Foods/ Side dish/ Vegetables

Parmesan Baked Tomatoes

Campari — The tomato lover’s tomato.

Campari tomatoes are one of my favorite types of tomatoes. They are known for their juiciness and extraordinarily sweet taste and low acidity. They are deep red, bigger than a cherry tomato and so cute to boot. As baby bear said, Not too big, not to little, but just right.

Brunch for my daughter’s birthday on Memorial day consisted of ham, bacon and mushroom quiche, tiny cinnamon rolls, these Baked Parmesan Tomatoes, and some pork belly that was fried up by my husband and of course a bunch of mimosas.

These tomatoes are great to add into any menu. I’ve never been accused of not having enough food but I like to cook and I’m not force feeding anyone. Guest can always pick and choose what they want to eat with no retribution from me not even a hurt feeling or two.

It does take me awhile to get over failures. I tend to dwell on something for days (don’t know why) if it doesn’t turn out like I expected. I think I am far, far from a perfectionist but when someone doesn’t like a recipe I know I should have tried it before serving the dish. I feel like if I read a recipe and know the ingredients the end results will be good. Anyone that knows me is aware that I’m not a taster. Never tasted raw cookie dough, can you believe that? All the years of catering did not change that. Now if I was making something chocolate I would probably taste it (after it is cooked, of course) but I guess I feel like if I like the ingredients then I don’t need to be picking on it the whole time taste testing it. Sometimes I do not hit the nail on the head with a recipe and it may need to be tweaked at another time but most of the time I think I do pretty well without sticking my fingers in the pot.

June 13, 2012 By Sherry

Side dish/ Vegetables

Asparagus with Orange Sauce

Inspired by French cooking class to try this recipe.

My favorite part of France was walking around the markets that were in our neighborhood in Paris and also in the small towns we visited while in Provence.

It is hard for me to imagine (except I was there and saw it) what it would be like to shop daily for your food, to see just picked vegetables and know that they probably still have an earthy smell to them. One day we saw the most beautiful turnips (see picture below), they still had green stems attached and looked just minutes picked from someone’s field.

One of the things we prepared in our cooking class was a simple sautéed asparagus (see pictures below) with salt and pepper and when it was done, Erick, our chef teaching the class, took a jar of orange oil (I think this is the kind sold in a pharmacy) and with an eye dropper, carefully dropped just a few drops of the oil over the cooked asparagus. Having this that day reminded me of a recipe of Laura Calder’s that I had been wanting to try – Asparagus with Orange Sauce. When I saw her make this dish, I wasn’t sure about orange and asparagus but after tasting our dish in our class I thought, why not give her recipe a try.

May 5, 2012 By Sherry

Side dish

Red Ginger Rice with Chick Peas

From our cooking class in Arles, France

Just as beautiful as the one we made at our cooking class in Provence.

Our cooking class in Arles back in March was one of the highlights of our trip to France. The class was taught by Chef Erick Vedel and featured fresh ingredients from the market (we shopped with him) and the surrounding country side. We helped to prepare the meal (enjoyed wine along the way) and then enjoyed a feast of our labors. He opened a bottle of his 1999 Chateauneuf-du-Pape to go with our meal.

We were about 30 minutes late for the class that day. Our GPS got us to the exact area but then the streets split off in three directions. After stopping at one place for directions, the man pointed me towards the end of the street. I then stopped at a local pub. I asked a man about the address and he said, “oh, Erick Vedel”. I said yes and then he said “Erick is a friend of mine” and he pointed us in the right directions. Everyone was so nice in Paris and in all the towns we visited in Provence.

We got there just in time to head out to the market. Our market visit included buying cod, giant calamari, apples, olives, asparagus, lemons, and fresh ginger and then we went back to his house to prepare the meal. It’s hard to explain what his kitchen looked like, every little corner of the two room kitchen was filled with things that he cooks with, stacks of mortal pestles, graters, knives, pans, everywhere (see some of the pictures below). It looked about 200 years old at least. It was a very fun class for the four of us. His helper, Isabel, interpreted much of what he said. We just followed his directions and did what we were told especially when he poured us wine and said “drink”.

April 30, 2012 By Sherry

Side dish/ Vegetables

Spring Peas with Dates and Walnuts

Just love those little sugar snap peas!

Are you old enough to remember your mother or grandmother sitting in a chair with an apron cupped in her lap and a bowl of peas. I remember my dad’s mother doing just that and she was in a rocking chair rocking away the afternoon shelling peas that she was probably going to be cooking for dinner that night. My mother shelled peas and so did my other grandmother. Do we have time for that now in our busy lives? Maybe we need to make the time and slip back to a more relaxed day where our mother’s and grandmother’s did such a simple task and how they probably benefitted mentally just to chill and think of the day’s activities.

I actually did try to find English peas in the shell, but no luck. Now if I was still in France, I probably could find them in one of the local market places. I loved this recipe before I even had it on my dish. Sugar snap peas are one of my favorites with a good dill dip and snow peas I have been using for years. I actually use to stuff each one for an appetizer — Honey Pecan Stuffed Snow Peas. My kids were never a fan of English peas when they were young, but I’m sure they would like this dish. I plan on making this for my daughter-in-law in Chicago in a couple of weeks; she loves English peas.

I found this recipe in Food Network magazine and all I added was the pancetta. And I would only make one change in the cooking directions and that would be to add thawed English peas at the end so they don’t overcook and become too dark. I would prefer them to stay bright green.

April 20, 2012 By Sherry

Food Stories/ Side dish

Swiss Chard and the French Markets

Oh how I loved those French markets!

I snapped this picture of Swiss chard one day. A little lady was hand picking her chard probably for her dinner that night.

It is hard for me to imagine (except I was there and saw it) what it would be like to shop daily for your food, to see just picked vegetables and know that they probably still are covered with dew drops and an earthy smell to them. One day we saw the most beautiful turnips, they still had green stems attached and looked just picked from someon’s field.

We live in a world where we get our grocery ads on a Wednesday to see what’s going to be on sale this week at our local market. Just think what it would be like if all we had to do was take a leisurely walk down the street (or up a hill) with our basket over our arm and shop for what we needed for the day; or go to our local bakery and line up with others waiting to buy a baguette for today’s meal (we saw that in Eylgaliers).

I can’t say that I have ever eaten Swiss chard, I have eaten other greens, like kale, turnip greens, spinach, but after seeing this in the market in France, it just made me want to try it. I’m sure chard that is bought at a farmer’s market is much more sweet and buttery tasting than the bunch I purchased at a grocery this week. Who knows how long that has been laying around in their cooler. So, I’m thinking if you have never eaten Swiss chard before maybe your first time should be with some fresh leaves from a local farmer’s market. (This chard I made was really good. I would definitely buy it again.)

April 20, 2012 By Sherry

Side dish/ Vegetables

Balsamic Cippolini Onions with Tomatoes

Pronounced chip-oh-LEE-nee.

Another side dish to go with any meal. Not too many calories either.

These were great with the pulled pork sandwich and the cheese grits. You can’t see much of the onions in this picture but there were more onions than tomatoes in the dish.

While in Houston a few weeks go, I was at Central Market grocery. I love walking around in specialty grocery stores, especially this one because they have so many different kinds of produce than you would ever see in your corner grocery. They have more than 100 kinds of fish and have so many kinds of bread and cheeses it makes you just want to stand and drool over them. I am always looking for something different to try for the blog and I knew this store would have it. At first I saw this “budda’s hand” fruit (see below)

and thought that that might be interesting to try, but frankly it was a little scary looking and I had no idea what I would do with it.

I was looking at their selections of onions and they had so many to choose from. The cippolini onions were so cute I couldn’t resist them. These onions are specific to Italian cooking and a smaller, flat with a yellowish skin and are sweeter onions that have more sugar than the garden-variety of yellow or white onion. This onion is great for roasting. Cippolinis are actually the small bittersweet bulbs that come from the grape hyacinth.

Using balsamic vinegar when roasting these at high heat makes for a perfectly beautiful glaze and the onions become caramelized and the tomatoes soft and sweet. This makes a great side dish with just about anything you are putting on the table.

We use to grow both onions and tomatoes and did so quite successfully until we moved to Texas and got a dog. We could always tell when the tomatoes and onions were ready to be picked because our dog would return to the house after doing her business smelling like either tomatoes or onions. She enjoyed them quite often; and two dogs later (we now have no dog) I buy my onions and tomatoes at the grocery. Maybe some day we will give them another try — that is if we can keep the squirrels from eating them.

When we went up to my sister’s back in January, I took these tomatoes and onions. One of her friends brought over a smoked pork butt for us and I decided that the onions and tomatoes would be a great side dish to go with our pulled pork sandwiches with creamy cheese grits.

February 28, 2012 By Sherry

Side dish

French Breakfast Radishes and Baby Carrots

Rabbit food you say!

While strolling through Hubble and Hudson grocery awhile back I was looking for a cute and interesting vegetable to make on Valentine’s Day for my husband. I’ve always loved radishes but these French Breakfast radishes grabbed my attention with their candy cane colors; and right beside them were the cutest French baby carrots. Both of theses vegetables are from Babé Farms in Santa Maria, CA.

I’ve read that these breakfast radishes with butter and salt is a French classic and a radish sandwich with fleur del or sea salt and unsalted butter on a baguette is a great children’s snack in France. Doesn’t that sound a lot healthier than that bag of Doritos the kids might grab after school. Don’t underestimate this little radish it has an elongated shape and a crisp texture with a delicate sweet flavor and it has much more going for it than those little globe radishes that get thrown into the salad mix.

I’m hoping we are going to be seeing these radishes in France next month at the markets we will be visiting because I will be grabbing a crusty French baguette and some great butter and taking that back for an evening snack with a nice glass of wine.

So my Valentine’s dinner was a filet mignon with King Crab piled on top with a compound butter with a Salad Lyonnaise (posting soon) and these French Breakfast Radishes and Baby Carrots as a side dish.

February 23, 2012 By Sherry

Entree/ Pasta/ Side dish

Zucchini Pasta with Pine Nuts

Want a healthier pasta recipe?

Again, I find myself sitting around trying to dream up a new recipe. While in Austin last weekend for our grandson’s birthday I was 2 days into the South Beach diet. It’s easy for me to get started on any new diet because I tend to obsess over what to cook and make. If someone likes to cook, then any diet should be easy, it’s a challenge for me to take something boring and make it more delicious.

Seems like everyone is always looking for a healthier way to prepare recipes. This can probably be made even healthier than I made it, so feel free to change up any of the ingredients. My daughter makes julienned zucchini all the time in place of pasta. I just wanted to add a little whole wheat pasta for some texture.

For our Christmas dinner this year we made mashed potatoes mixed with sauteed kale and onions. So, I’m sitting over the weekend thinking how good those potatoes were and maybe I could try doing a cauliflower mash and add the kale and onions to that mixture instead of mashed potatoes. I’m doing that this week and will post the results if they are worth mentioning.

Back to the weekend and the dieting. Well, I blew the diet and it was worth it. My son made about 7-8 different kinds of homemade pizza and a beautiful Mickey Mouse Birthday cake. (Remember the train wreck cake from last year?) I was only two days into the diet so why not just wait until Tuesday to restart.

So, before I get back into “the diet” why not try a healthier pasta dish. The third week of this diet allows for some whole wheat pasta. Here’s what I decided to do. Since whole wheat pasta is suppose to be so good for you, I cooked a very small amount of pasta and then julienned 3 zucchini which I sauteed along with some garlic. A few toasted pine nuts were added along with some Parmesan cheese and some parsley out of my herb garden. I drizzled in a little browned butter but that could easily be changed to olive oil. (I used four tablespoons of butter; but two probably would have been plenty.)

January 25, 2012 By Sherry

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