I love a good salad, but salad isn’t usually what comes to mind when I think of comfort food. Or super satisfying food. Or I’m-totes-craving-that food. This salad, though? Oh man, guys. This is the stuff. This warm chicken salad with roasted potatoes and chives has everything you’d want in a meal: fresh ingredients, a…
Every grill has its day: Chopped barbecue chicken salad
When we lived in Missouri, Jared and I had a beast of a grill that took up about a third of the deck space at the back of our small apartment. It sat largely unused for a good five months of the year, but once the weather warmed up enough for Jared to remove his…
Easy breezy summer salad: Avoca roasted peppers and chickpeas
Like anything worth its while, blogging is one of those adventures that takes time, work and tinkering to really find your groove and get things exactly how you like them. Of course, then another few months go by, and you’ve changed your mind entirely. It’s the mark of any creative endeavor I suppose. Switcheroos and…
Spring, salad and photo shoots
Except for a few sporadic drizzles, it’s been absolutely gorgeous here the past few weeks. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and our puppy and toddler are both filled with more energy than usual. Hooray for spring around the corner! I’m a winter girl through and through, but being a mom makes me…
Food for a fairy tale: Wheatberry salad
Don’t you just love when an ingredient sounds like it was invented in a fairy tale? Beneath the leaves of an unassuming bramble bush, in a wooded field not far from your backyard, the wild wheatberries lie. They’re the tiniest of berries, no larger than a flea, and none too impressive in appearance, but please…
Horseradish, I think we can be friends now.
What in the world did we do before Google? Remember in the olden days, when we’d have a question about something and had to dig around in the encyclopedia (or Encarta on the computer, for the high-tech folks), the dictionary or our own noggins to find the information we were looking for? Now when I’m…
Hi ho, asparagus! ‘Tis the season
Asparagus is one of those vegetables that (prior to this pasta salad escapade) I only knew how to make one way: roasted in the oven with a dot of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. It’s a simple method, but it’s always delicious and nearly foolproof. And it’s no secret that I…
Amber’s Magic Salad
Sometimes our love for a particular food isn’t entirely explainable. Maybe it stems from a certain ingredient, the perfect texture or a favorite memory. Whatever the reason, it only takes a single bite to know when something has hit the spot. And once that spot is hit, the food adoration ensues. Amber whipped up this…
Project NYT: Mark Bittman’s Real Ranch Dressing
Five or so years ago, I was having a conversation with my brother about salad dressing nationality when I made the observation that our U.S.A.-made salads were in need of a little patriotism. Italy, France and Russia all have dressings bearing their names. “What about America?” I wondered out loud. “Why isn’t there an American…
Winterizing summer favorites: Spanish roasted potato salad
My Grandpa Smith is a jack-of-all-trades sort of guy. A general contractor by profession, he’s been building houses for years and years and knows his way around pretty much any tool or project that Bob Vila could throw at him. When I was 10 years old, he built an amazing set of furniture for my…