Our CSA share came with a lovely head of Napa Cabbage and some beautiful green onions last week, and I knew I could make a delicious Asian-inspired salad with just a few more ingredients. The salad was delicious - crunchy, sweet and sour, and fresh tasting. It paired beautifully with the sesame tilapia, which is a really simple recipe that cooks up in no time and tastes amazing.
I have to apologize in advance - this dish is half eaten. The smell of the steak cooking in the house had tormented us for hours, and by the time these came out of the oven, toasty and delcious, we had to dig in right away. Only halfway through did I remember the camera. Believe me, you won’t want to stop in the middle of eating this delcious flatbread pizza to take a photo; I can only imagine how difficult it was for John to postpone his enjoyment even for a minute (I kept eating mine; I’m selfish like that sometimes). :)
You can use this filling in regular taco shells or soft corn tortillas as well. I make the filling fairly frequently and it never fails to be delicious.
As soon as cherries became reasonably priced we started buying them in large 2lb bags from the produce market. At first we just ate them out of the bag, pitting the cherries with our teeth and spitting the pits into a separate bowl along with the stems. And they were delicious! Fresh cherries are such a treat.
Eventually, though, I wanted to make something with these lovely cherries. I don’t own a cherry pitter and I didn’t feel like spending $14 on a tool I might use once a year, so I wound up pitting all the cherries in this recipe by hand, with the tube portion of a turkey baster and a plastic bag to protect my hand from cherry juice stains. It was a lot of work, I won’t lie - but the end result was very yummy. This dish can be eaten for dessert, certainly, but it also works as a sweet morning treat, almost like a coffee cake. It’s pretty decadent, so you’ll want to share with some friends. Or, maybe not! I won’t judge you. :)
I’ve been on a balsamic vinegar kick for a while. Somehow, I got the notion that vanilla and balsamic might go together, and google agreed, leading me to a recipe from Cooking Light for Vanilla Balsamic Chicken. I also had a strong desire to use spinach fettuccine and beets, and there you go, dinner. The carrots add a nice pop of color to the plate, don’t you think? Not too shabby for simple boiled carrots.
Anyway, back to the chicken. It was good! I’ll tell you what, though, as yummy as it was for dinner, it was a million times better the next day as chicken salad. I chopped the chicken tossed it with a little red onion, half a diced apple, and a bit of mayo, and seriously, it was amazing. Make sure when you coat the chicken with the sauce that you get all of those delicious minced shallots on there. They are so sweet and rich and delicious - they really make the dish - so don’t ignore them in the bottom of the pan.