TOSSED!

Tuesday, September 13

Tuesdays are my busiest nights. I have class all day, until 7:30, and when I get home, I'm both exhausted and starving. Tossing ingredients onto a plate is a great way for me to fix the hunger part without adding to the exhaustion. With grilled chicken from the night before, some strawberries, goat cheese, red and green onion, bacon, and a simple dressing, this salad comes together in no time flat. AND, it tastes good. (Which when I'm really, really tired is sometimes beside the point. But not often). Here's how this one comes together, for 2 servings:

Cook 6 slices bacon in the microwave. While the bacon's cooking, slice about 8 strawberries, small-dice about a quarter of a red onion, slice 2 or 3 green onions, chop the leftover chicken, and chop some nuts (I used walnuts; pecans would have been better.) Lay out some greens on 2 plates, top with your prepared ingredients, sprinkle with a good handful of goat cheese, and top with the cooked bacon, crumbled. Drizzle each salad with about 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and 1 teaspoon honey. Sprinkle with Kosher salt and cracked pepper. If you have some crusty French bread (as you can see I did not), it would be a great accompaniment. The key to the dressing is to make sure you toss the salad together on your plate really well before you eat it, mixing it so that all the salad ingredients are coated with some of each component of the dressing.

BALSAMIC VINEGAR AND MAYONNAISE?

Monday, September 12

This week's menu is the one I fixed after the hurricane, so it represents a new start (at least in my refrigerator, which had to be completely purged). We came back from staying with friends in Mississippi to a city where groceries were hard to come by (at least that's what we'd been told). So, I sent David to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and this is what we ended up with: chicken, chicken, and chicken again. So, if you find yourself with a whole bunch of chicken and you don't know what to do with it, this week's menu is for you. With just a few other purchases, you'll have a week's worth of meals at your fingertips (even if they are all, well, chicken).

For this first one, David grilled all but 4 breasts, and I used the leftover grilled chicken for the Strawberry-Goat Cheese Salad and the Pesto Chicken Salad. I made my own focaccia bread and mayonnaise for these sandwiches; the mayonnaise I divided in half: one half for tonight, and one half for the pesto chicken salad. Now, I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about the balsamic mayonnaise, as I am particular about the use of both balsamic vinegar and mayonnaise. My Aunt Prissy forbids the use of store-bought mayonnaise in anything but comeback sauce, and I don't like the taste or texture of the congealed, eerily white store-bought stuff.

The focaccia bread, I like with lots and lots of rosemary. But strangely, when I went out to cut some sprigs from my favorite evergreen herb--from the plants my husband gave me as GIFT, mind you--I discovered that they were all, well, dead. My idea was to leave them in their pot because they seemed so happy there, but no, my expert gardener husband just had to try to put them in the ground. Thanks, David, thanks a lot. (Do you sense the bitterness?) I had to use the sprigs in my window I'd been trying to root, which only amounted to about a tablespoon. If you make it, please use as much rosemary as you can get your hands on (and don't let David anywhere near your rosemary plants).

My sister-in-law, Hannah (that's her below on our trip this summer to Napa Valley), emailed me the recipe for these yummy sandwiches; the original recipe comes from Jane and Michael Stern's Southern California Cooking from the Cottage: Casual Cuisine from Old La Jolla's Favorite Beachside Bungalow, reprinted in The Splendid Table's e-newsletter, The Weeknight Kitchen. Here's my version:

Grilled Chicken Breasts

4 pounds chicken

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup rice vinegar

2 T. honey

Combine all liquid ingredients and pour over chicken breasts; salt and pepper well. Marinate at least a few hours, preferably overnight. Grill the chicken over a medium flame for a total of 12 minutes, turning every 2-4 minutes to prevent the honey from burning. Baste as you turn it.

Tomato-Basil Relish

This is best after it's marinated for several hours, so I make it when I marinate the chicken.

3 ripe Roma tomatoes, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

2 T. chopped basil

2 t. olive oil

1/2 t. Kosher salt

Cracked black pepper

Combine and refrigerate.

Focaccia Bread with Rosemary

1 pkg. yeast

1 t. sugar

2 cups warm water

5 cups flour (I used a combination of all-purpose and bread flour because I only had 3 cups of all-purpose in the house)

2 t. salt

2 T. olive oil

4 T. chopped rosemary (or more)

Mix the yeast and sugar together, and sprinkle the mixture over the warm water. Let it stand for about 5 minutes, or until the yeast dissolves. In a mixer, combine the water/yeast with the remaining ingredients with a dough hook until it forms a ball (or something resembling a ball). Remove dough to a floured surface and knead with your hands. (This is my favorite part--I love the feel of the smooth, elastic dough and the smell of the rosemary). Return to mixing bowl, cover, and let it rise for about an hour. Divide the dough into two balls and place in greased cake pans (some people use cookie sheets, but I think the bread stays more moist if you bake it in a pan). Preheat the oven to 475, and let the dough rest in the pans until the oven is heated. Stretch the dough to fit the pans, drizzle with more olive oil, sprinkle with Kosher salt, and bake for about 10-15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Homemade Mayonnaise

1 egg

1 T. cider vinegar

Juice of 1 lemon

1/2 t. Kosher salt

1/2 t. paprika

1/4 t. cayenne pepper

3/4 cup salad oil (canola or vegetable or a combination), divided

Place all ingredients in the blender, but start with only 1/4 cup of the oil. After the ingredients are blended, with the motor running, add the remaining oil in a very slow, steady stream. The mayonnaise should emulsify, creating a very thick consistency. Remove one half of the mayonnaise from the blender, and reserve for the pesto chicken salad later in the week. Add to the remaining mayo in the blender 2 tablespoons of balsamic mayonnaise and blend just until the vinegar is incorporated.

To assemble the sandwiches: Cut the focaccia loaves into fourths. Slice open one of the fourths, spread liberally with balsamic mayonnaise, add a chicken breast, and top with about 2 tablespoons of the tomato relish. Serve the sandwiches with a green salad, or with chips and the remaining tomato relish.