I would call this the Big Healthy & Filling Salad or BHFS! But since it’s not my recipe and I’m not the one one called it the Big French Salad…it’s not up to me. It took longer to assemble the ingredients than for me to eat it. Andy hates eggs (unless it’s only the yolk) so he put some pepperoni on his. I was thinking of adding bacon and come bleu cheese, but voted (in my head) against it.

There really isn’t much I can say about the salad that you can’t see for yourself. It’s chock-full of different vegetables and the eggs. You can easily make it your own by adding some ingredients not listed. I wanted to add beets but my pregnant brain completely blanked out by the time I got home.

I would’ve liked not to use canned corn, but I just didn’t have time to cook everything - eggs, potatoes, green beans, and corn separately. I suppose you can cook potatoes and eggs together, but I didn’t even think of it until after I cut up the potatoes and started boiling them.

I had a ton of leftover and, although I’m a huge fan of leftovers - some things just taste better the 2nd day you know? - this isn’t one of them. Maybe I OD’d on the salad last night or just didn’t have a taste for it today. Whatever the reason, it just didn’t taste as good today as it did last night.

Oh and I totally spaced out, once again, and forgot to add carrots.

Big French Salad
(recipe from Dana Treat)
Serves 2

Salad:
1 handful green beans, trimmed
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes
1 handful cherry tomatoes, halved
1 10-oz. can corn, drained
1 carrot, peeled and shredded
½ small avocado, cut into ½-inch pieces
2 hard boiled eggs, peeled and halved
Several leaves of romaine lettuce, torn

Lemon Mustard Vinaigrette:
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 tbsp. white wine vinegar
Juice of ½ a lemon
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. chopped chives (optional)

Directions:

For the salad: Bring a medium saucepan of salted water to a boil.  Have a bowl of ice water ready.  Put the green beans in the water for 2 minutes, then scoop them out and into the ice water.  You want them blanched, not cooked, so they still have a crunch but are not raw.  Once they are cool, drain the beans.

Meanwhile, add the potatoes to the water and cook until just tender, about 10 minutes.  You don’t want mush so if anything, undercook them a bit.  Drain the potatoes.

Lay some lettuce down on each of two dinner plates.  Group the remaining vegetables around the plate and don’t forget the green beans.  Drizzle dressing over the salad and serve with a crusty French bread.

For the dressing: Put the mustard, vinegar, lemon juice, a healthy pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper into a glass jar.  Top with the lid and shake vigorously.  Remove the lid and pour in the olive oil.  You want this dressing to have a lot of bite, so you will use less oil than the traditional 3:1 ratio.  Top with the lid and shake vigorously once again.  Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.

French Salad (by V+I+K+A)

Super super delicious, very healthy, very easy, and extremely filling.

(recipe to follow)

We’ve all heard of urban legends, those plausible sounding but false stories that circulate so widely on email and news groups, such as the old lady who microwaved her cat or the Nieman-Marcus $250 cookie recipe. There are several web sites devoted to researching and exposing these fake stories. The same sort of thing happens in the world of food and cooking, although on a much smaller scale. This page is my answer.

The plan was to go to the farmer’s market, get rhubarb and strawberries, and make a strawberry rhubarb cobbler. Unfortunately, I waited a week too long and rhubarb is now out of season. What did I do? Well, next best thing of course! I bought peaches and apricots and decided to make a Peach and Apricot Cobbler instead.

Problem #1 - I’ve never actually had a cobbler before. At least not that I can remember. So how am I to cook something I’ve never had? That’s where my lovely husband comes in and helps me out as a very handy-dandy taste-taster.

Problem #2 - Finding a recipe. Well, that’s not really a problem. There are lots and lots of recipes for peach cobbler, I figured I’d just add a bit of the apricots.

Problem #3 (post cobbler making) - why did the pictures come out so freaking yellow?! I usually take photos outside but we had a pretty bad rainstorm and that was out of the question. So, hopefully, I’ll get to make this again and have better pictures to show you.

(see what I mean?)

The recipe’s really really easy. There’s even a 5 minute video to go along with it. I picked Paula Deen’s recipe because a. it has awesome reviews and b. it had the least amount of ingredients. I used 4 tablespoons of butter instead of 6, 1% milk, and about 3/4ths the sugar in the recipe. I didn’t peel the peaches and didn’t really have much problem with the skin. Honestly, you can’t even tell where the skin is because it’s so cooked by the time you eat it.

The cobbler came out ok. Not perfect, not even close. I think the problem is that I added too much liquid or maybe the peaches gave off more liquid while baking and, thus, the crust didn’t rise like it was supposed to. I baked it for almost an hour, well over the suggested time, and the “crust” just felt under-cooked to me. Let me tell you, even though I knew this was partially a failure, it didn’t stop us from indulging on this yummy goodness. I mean, how can you go wrong with peaches, sugar, and butter?

Peach Cobbler
(Recipe from Food Network/Paula Deen)

Ingredients

• 4 cups peeled, sliced peaches
• 2 cups sugar, divided
• 1/2 cup water
• 8 tablespoons butter
• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• Ground cinnamon, optional

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the peaches, 1 cup sugar, and water in a saucepan and mix well. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Put the butter in a 3-quart baking dish and place in oven to melt.

Mix remaining 1 cup sugar, flour, and milk slowly to prevent clumping. Pour mixture over melted butter. Do not stir. Spoon fruit on top, gently pouring in syrup. Sprinkle top with ground cinnamon, if using. Batter will rise to top during baking. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

To serve, scoop onto a plate and serve with your choice of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Made and ate my first peach and apricot cobbler for the first time. Ever. I don’t think it was an entire success, although Andy disagrees. 

Potatoes @ Farmer’s Stand (by V+I+K+A)

The one thing we didn’t get were these potatoes.

Crisp Kernals (sp) (by V+I+K+A)

First Crop of Sweet Iowa Corn (by V+I+K+A)

Home Grown Tomatoes (picked up 1lb) (by V+I+K+A)

Andy and I drove to Dubuque Iowa yesterday to see his aunt and uncle. On the way back, we stopped at a farmer’s stand and picked up a few veggies. We got 1/2 dozen (=7 ears??) of first crop of sweet Iowa corn, 3 tomatoes, a fresh white onion, some green beans, and cucumbers. 

I have never had rhubarb. At least not that I know of. I want to stop by the farmer’s market and pick a bunch (is that how they’re sold? In a bunch?).

Here’s my question, rather questions:

1. When buying rhubarb, what do I need to look for?
2. What do I do with it? I want to use it either tomorrow night or Wednesday night. Is dessert the only thing it’s good for?
3. What exactly does it taste like?

As always, I will follow up and tell you exactly what I decided to do and even, maybe, include pictures!