TRL Salad: Tomato, Ricotta, Lemon

For a great weeknight side that will go with virtual any meal, don't look beyond a simple tomato and ricotta salad. Fresh tomatoes, creamy ricotta cheese, and tangy lemon will liven up a Tuesday chicken dinner. Enjoy!

Ingredients (serves 2):

3 cups medley tomatoes

2/3 cup ricotta cheese

1/4 red onion

1 tbsp. parsley

1/2 lemon juiced and zested
1 tsp. olive oil

sea salt and black pepper

1. Halve the tomatoes, slice the red onion, and zest the parsley. Bring the ricotta to room temperature.

2. Add the ricotta, tomatoes, red onion, parsley, lemon zest, lemon juice, and olive oil to a mixing bowl and season with salt and pepper.

3. Mix thoroughly and serve.

A Lamb Recipe from Food & Wine

This recipe turned out fantastic. I made it earlier in the fall when my future mother-in-law came to town. It was simple to make and came out great. When I went shopping for ingredients, lamb rib chops were actually on sale for less than lamb shoulder. As lamb chops are much more tender, I did not let them stew in the sauce for as long as you would a tougher cut like shoulder. I added the sauce to the chops with about 10 minutes to go so the chops would not turn to mush in the pan. I sliced some premade polenta and grilled it with olive oil and sea salt.

Take a look at the full recipe here. 

Carrots Need Appreciation Too

When we think of carrots we think of Bugs Bunny cartoons. Some of us might think about cake. Others reminisce to a college trip to Italy and the carrot-orange juice they would have after waking up in Rome. Few would see carrots and think of a hard-working, oft-overlooked vegetable. Carrots are just that. Not glamorous. Not trendy. Carrots are rustic. Carrots are the food that's always there.

Carrots, however, are more than just that staple. Originally they were not even grown for their roots - the orange food we eat today - but rather for their aromatic leaves. This is still the case for its cousins, parsley, fennel, and cumin today. Carrots also help other vegetables. They are the good Samaritans of the garden. When planted along with tomatoes, tomato production increases and if carrots are left to flower, the wasps it attracts kill garden pests.

We need to show some respect to our orange friends. I recently celebrated an impromptu carrot appreciation day, and the result was a tasty side to a weeknight chicken dinner. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

6 baby carrots

2 tbsp fresh cilantro

1 tsp fresh thyme

1 tbsp yogurt butter

1 tsp sea salt

1. Trim the leaves off the carrots. If desired, leave a bit of leaf on top if you plan on roasting the carrots whole. Otherwise trim the ends of the carrots and quarter them.

2. Chop the fresh cilantro and thyme. Mix the herbs and sea salt in with the yogurt butter.

3. Heat an oven to 375 degrees. Add the carrots to a baking pan and spread the herbed butter over them evenly and lightly. If you have leftover butter after coating set it aside.

4. Add the carrots to the oven and let it cook for 20 to 25 minutes. Every 5 minutes, take the carrots out and move them around so they brown evenly. When you remove them to serve, they should not be too soft, but have some 'snap' left in them.

5. Let the carrots cool for 2 to 3 minutes before serving. 

Egg-lection Day!

Election Day is here. No more polls. No more back and forth. We all get a rest ... at least for 12 hours until we have a winner (let's all hope this doesn't drag out beyond today!). I voted early this morning and when I came home, I felt I needed a slight reward for performing my civic duty at such an early hour. I raided my refrigerator and made some eggs. It is Egg-lection Day after all! 

I heated a pan over a low-medium heat for a few minutes until it was hot, then I added a slice of butter to coat the pan. I pulled 3 eggs from the carton, cracked them in a mixing bowl, added a drop of olive oil, a few squirts of Frank's Red Hot, and some black pepper. I whisked the eggs for about 30 seconds before adding to the pan. From the shelf I grabbed some leftover sauteed kale from dinner last night, a few thin slices of Genoa salami, and a slice of New York White Cheddar which I diced into tiny pieces so it would melt. Next, time to mix up the eggs and add my meat, cheese, and veggies. I continually mixed for a few minutes until the eggs were cooked.

Scrambled eggs. Kale. Salami. Cheddar. I wish Election Day was every day. Enjoy!