One Year Later

A year has passed and life seems to be settling down here in Arizona. I am hoping that we can pick up and try again to share our creative efforts with food. If you know of anyone else who would like to join in on the fun, let me know. I hopefully will be able to remember how to add members to the blog. I think I will have to relearn everything about how to do the blog since it has been so long since I worked on it.

We have tried a couple of recipes with great success. The first one that was delicious was done by Ally. It is from the April 2009 issue on page 89 and is called Cilantro-Lime Chicken with Avocado Salsa. We have made it a number of times and it always tastes so yummy.

The second one I did was fabulously refreshing. It is Limoncello-Mint Sorbet with Fresh Blackberries. This one comes from the May 2009 issue. you do need an ice-cream freezer since it needs to be churned but oh, is it wonderful. I served it with brownies at the May Bunco gathering and it was a real hit among the ladies.

I hope that you have tried some new recipes and are ready to share. Bon appetite!

Cherry Tomato Salad with Walnut-Tarragon Dressing

Will a June 2007 Cooking Light recipe do? What do you think? Life has been moving too fast for me to even scan my new Cooking Light magazine, but this weekend I did make a lovely recipe from last June's issue. We first had this unusual salad at a dinner party at our neighbors' home last summer, made with her own home-grown, sparkling fresh tiny heirloom tomatoes. Heather had varying shades of red & yellow -- golds & pinks -- so beautiful as well as tasty! I fell in love with this combination of mysterious flavors that night, and knew then that it was a keeper recipe. (The mystery that evening was mostly from the very finely minced walnuts.)

It's barely June in Kansas now, so my little tomatoes this weekend were all bright red & from the grocery store. We've planted 2 kinds of babies this year, so maybe after several years of eating only OPT (other people's tomatoes) we'll have our own in late summer. The tarragon I used was from my own herb planters on the deck railing -- my first year to plant French Tarragon! Lots of rain & sun so far, & the 3 little tarragon plants seem to be keeping up with my current craving for that fresh flavor.

Here's the Cherry Tomato Salad with Walnut-Tarragon Dressing recipe. I used EVOO instead of walnut oil, & at least 3 times as much tarragon as called for -- it was very mild & delicious. My walnuts were purchased already chopped, but I should have whizzed them in the blender to be more like Heather's were last summer -- that mystery ingredient. Still, they were good straight from the cooled toasting skillet.

Cherry Tomato Salad with Walnut-Tarragon Dressing

(Thanks, Wes, for the quick lesson in pasting in a hyperlink! Let's hope I can remember how to do it the next time!)

June Issue

Now that life is starting to settle down, I thought it was time to try a new recipe from the current issue of Cooking Light. Friday night I did the Chipotle Salmon Burgers on page 106. I used 2 frozen salmon fillets from Costco so I'm not certain what the total weight was. I thought I had less than a pound so I tried to adjust the other ingredients accordingly. I chose to not do the flavored mayonnaise. The result was rather spicy for all of our tastes so I would try to use only a half a chipotle chile next time. Angie has a wonderful mango salad that would have been a great side dish to the salmon burger and the mango could have been used in the flavored mayonnaise.

Be sure to post your attempts with any of the recipes. Have a delicious month of June!

Posting

Once you have signed in, you will be ready to post on the blog. I am hoping that when you are in the blog, that in the upper right hand side, there is a heading that should say "new post". If it isn't there, on the far left side next to the search option, there is the orange symbol. You can try clicking on that symbol. That sends you to the "Dashboard" which has the option for "new post".

If "new post" and "dashboard" aren't available, you will need to "sign in" again. Go to the top left hand corner of the blog and hit the orange symbol. Then sign in using, I think, your address and password. At that point you should be able to post by following the above directions.

Hopefully, this will go smoothly for each of you. Do let me know if you are having problems. Again, have fun.

Count Angie in!

This is a fun idea -- I look forward to lots of good ideas from good cooks!

From the April 2008 issue of Cooking Light, one or two of the halibut recipes will probably be my choices. Recently we were generously gifted with some fresh-caught Vancouver halibut. Mmmmmm! The package we still have in the freezer looks like enough for 2 dinners for the 2 of us. Will let you know soon.

Thanks for the invitation, Hildie -- & to Erica for the set-up & lessons.
:)

Invitation

This is an invitation to get creative and healthy with our cooking. Since we all enjoy food and spending a bit of time in the kitchen, we might as well have some fun trying out new, healthy recipes. Using the Cooking Light magazine as our starting inspiration, we can select a couple of recipes during the month to try and then report on the varying successes of the results. Knowing that we are all have a creative streak, we can also share the adaptations we make to the recipes based on individual tastes or what we actually have available in the kitchen. Feel free to invite your friends who also receive the Cooking Light magazine to join in on the fun.

A couple of general guidelines. We are not to rewrite an entire recipe on the blog since that would infringe on copyright laws. Do not use first and last names on the blog since we want to protect our privacy. The last one is to have fun trying something new!