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Shrimp, Cucumber and Nectarine Salad

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I don’t know about you, but I’m hot these days.  H-O-T.  Hot as in melting in a puddle of Brooks Brothers and humanity by the time I get to the office at 7:30 every morning.  That’s DC summer for you.  Now, I know true Southerners say that the South starts at Richmond, and they’re right, I’m sure.  But it’s still HHHHHHOT in DC, and I’m a New Yorker originally, so even six years into living here, this is still an adjustment.  And on those evenings when I’ve dragged myself home from the metro, feeling like I’m swimming instead of walking in the humidity, and it’s 8,000 degrees in the shade, the last thing I want to do is fire up the stove.  It’s nights like these that call for a simple, slap-together salad of some truly refreshing ingredients.  Already-cooked and chilled shrimp, cool cucumbers and some juicy summer stone fruit – that’s the formula for surviving a July night in DC.  Eat it, then throw open your windows and lie on your living room floor fanning yourself with the Bit ‘o Lit.  Actually, scratch that last bit.  I’ve never done that.  Never.

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Shrimp, Cucumber and Nectarine Salad

1/2 pound shrimp, pre-cooked, chilled and peeled
1/2 cucumber, sliced as thinly as possible
2 nectarines, sliced into thin wedges
juice of 1/2 lime
3 tablespoons (approx.) extra-virgin olive oil
2 pinches cayenne pepper
pinch of sea salt (I like Maldon)
fresh mint (or cilantro)

  • Evenly divide shrimp, cucumber and nectarines on two plates and toss together.
  • In a small bowl, squeeze out the lime half and add cayenne pepper and sea salt.  Stream in extra-virgin olive oil while whisking vigorously to create an emulsion.
  • Drizzle dressing over two salads.  Top with roughly chopped fresh mint or cilantro (whichever you happen to have on hand).  That’s it!  Serves two.

Wine Pairing: This would be great with a really refreshing summer wine, like a crisp Sauvignon Blanc (with green notes to complement the cukes) or a lovely, fruity-yet-dry rose, straight from the chiller, condensating (it’s a word because I said it is) on the glass.

Source: Adapted from Everyday Food, July 2008.

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Grilled Tuna Steaks

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The hubs has a talent for logic.  He’s a lawyer, so I guess it comes naturally.  But so am I, and not everything that comes out of my mouth is as sensible and reasonable as everything that comes out of his.  Take the other day, for instance.  I was planning my weekly menu and the hubs – who doesn’t usually make suggestions – said “I have a question.  I love tuna.  You love tuna.  So why don’t we cook tuna at home?”  It was a good question.  I was a bit concerned because tuna really should be left extremely rare.  But the Wegmans fish counter is perfectly reputable, so I agreed to give it a try.  Clearly, my concern was misplaced, since I’m writing this post, which means I am definitely still alive – and the tuna, which was seasoned very simply and grilled to perfection, was unbelievably delicious; it was probably the best fish I have ever cooked at home.  Still, make sure that your fish is very fresh and that you trust your fishmonger before attempting this recipe.

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Grilled Tuna Steaks

This almost doesn’t qualify as a recipe, it’s so simple.  It’s also insanely quick to put together – season the fish, slap it on the grill (or grill pan, if you live in a condo like me) and then bang! done!  But, for what it’s worth, here’s what I did…

2 tuna steaks (one small for you, one medium for your gentleman)
extra-virgin olive oil
good sea salt (I prefer Maldon)
freshly ground black pepper

  • Prepare your grill or preheat your grill pan over medium heat.  There is no need to oil your grill pan.
  • Drizzle extra-virgin olive oil over the fish, and brush to spread.  Season with salt and pepper, to the point that looks good to you.  Repeat on the other side.
  • Slap the tuna steaks on the grill and cook very briefly – only a couple of minutes per side.  When the fish slides if you poke it with your tongs, you know it’s done and you can flip it.  It should still be rare – basically raw, really, in the middle when you serve it.
  • Take it off the grill the moment it looks like both sides have been cooked, and before the center is cooked.  You might even err on the side of caution and take it off before you think it’s done.  Trust me, it’s done.  It was pretty much done when you put it on the grill in the first place.  Serve it with a green salad.

Note: Tuna is intentionally undercooked.  If you are pregnant, please don’t eat this or any raw or undercooked fish.  Please check www.seafoodwatch.org for the appropriate varieties to buy.  I used a sustainable yellowfin tuna, for instance, not bluefin – and I urge you to make sustainable choices when cooking, especially when it comes to seafood; we all need to be vigilant against overfishing.

Wine Pairing: The hubs and I paired this dish with a medium-bodied red wine, Ruby from Hillsborough Vineyards in Purcellville, VA.  Ruby is a blend of Tannat, Petit Verdot and Touriga Nacional.  It’s delicious, and I would say that even if I didn’t love supporting the wonderful wine-producing community of Northern Virginia.  But if you don’t have access to NoVA wines, any medium- or light-bodied red would be nice with this dish, as would a French or Spanish rose, or a full-bodied white.  The tuna is rich, so you do want a wine with a bit of personality to stand up to your dinner.  Of course, you don’t want a wine that’s going to kick your dinner in the pants, either, so steer clear of really heavy reds.  The next time I make this grilled tuna, and I’ll be making it again and again, I’m going to try to use a little foresight and have a bottle of my favorite Hillsborough wine, Serafina, chilling in the fridge.

Source: Covered In Flour

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Peach and Raspberry Pie

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I’m a Libra, which means that I have certain tendencies and personality traits… if you believe in that sort of thing.  They do seem to check out.  I’m passionately committed to justice… check… a bit spacey… check…  with an eye for beautiful things… my jewelry box says check… And I’m indecisive.  Oh, heavens, am I indecisive.  Case in point: I’ve been wanting a food processor for about 3 years now.  Every time I bake a pie, make homemade pasta, try to slice potatoes or cucumbers or cabbage or anything, really, on my Mandoline, I groan “If I only had a food processor, this would be soooooo much easier!”  Then the hubs says “Then BUY a FOOD PROCESSOR!”  Oh, but if only it was that easy.  What brand?  Which one has the best features?  The best reviews?  Is the prettiest?  This is obviously too big of a decision for me to make – so much is riding on it! – so I give up and go lie down with a cold cloth on my head.  That’s been the state of things for a few years now.

And that looked to be the state of things forever… until I met (drumroll please) The Cuisinart Elite 16-cup Die Cast Food Processor.  Oh, baby.  This cutie is tricked out almost beyond recognition.  1000-watt motor that runs practically silent.  Three nesting bowls.  Three blades, and a dough-kneading function.  Two discs, a double-sided one for shredding and a slicing disc with six thickness settings.  Oh, BABY!  Come to Mama!  I can be a bit of a guy about certain things, so I’ve been waxing poetic about the motor ever since I ordered this beauty… yes, I finally pulled the trigger.  It arrived on Friday.  I set it up on the countertop – it didn’t fit in the space I cleared for it in my kitchen island – watched the instructional DVD because I’m a nerd like that, and then I had to make the REALLY tough decision: what to make first?  I figured this journey started with me painstakingly and begrudgingly (and badly) making pie crust by hand, so it should end with pie crust too.  Thus I present…

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Peach and Raspberry Pie

Ingredients for pie crust

4 cups sliced peaches
1 cup raspberries
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons flour

  • Make the pie crust.
  • Peel the peaches as follows: cut a very shallow X shape into the bottom of each peach and drop it into boiling water for about 15 seconds, no more than 20, to blanch it.  Remove peaches quickly to an ice water bath to stop the cooking.  Peel and rub the skin off – it should come off fairly easily, but if you can’t get some stubborn spots to cooperate, don’t stress over it.  Peach skin is edible, after all.
  • Cut the peaches into wedges – about 8 wedges per peach.  They will cook down slightly in the pie, so you don’t need to get them too fine.  Place peaches in a bowl and add raspberries.  Toss with remaining 3 tablespoons of flour and 1 tablespoon of sugar.  Try to keep the raspberry carnage to a minimum if at all possible.
  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit and butter a 9-inch pie plate.
  • Roll out your first dough disc to your preferrred thickness and place in the pie plate by draping it over your rolling pin and transferring it.  Dump in the peaches and raspberries.
  • Roll out the second dough disc.  (If you like a lattice topping, now is the time.)  Transfer as with the first, by draping it over the rolling pin.  Cut edges neatly and crimp in an attractive manner.  If you did not make a lattice crust, make a few slices in the top crust to release the steam and juices.
  • Make an egg wash and brush over the pie.  Sprinkle with turbinado or other sugar of your preference (I like Penzey’s vanilla sugar) and place pie on a cookie sheet.  (Consider using a pie shield to protect the edges of the pie for the first 30 minutes, so they don’t get too browned.  I don’t have one, and I don’t think my edges browned excessively this time, but I’ll probably have a pie shield on my birthday list.)
  • Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375 and bake for another 30 minutes.  Remove pie from oven, let cool slightly, and serve warm with vanilla bean ice cream.  Yummmm!

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I’m so glad I waited.

Note: Don’t throw away the scraps from your pie crust!  Save them for mini pies next time you have company.  People will be impressed, I promise – everyone likes tiny desserts – and no one but you will know that you made them with dough scraps.  I’ll keep your secret.

Sources: “Good For Almost Anything Pie Crust” from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home To Yours; Filling adapted from allrecipes.com.

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Carrot Salad Three Ways

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Salad: love it or hate it?  Well, it depends.  Limp lettuce + one cherry tomato + one cucumber slice + Italian dressing?  Blech.  But a really fresh salad, using seasonal ingredients and just enough of a creative, healthy dressing to make the whole dish sing?  Yes, please!  Prepared the right way, salads can be a perfect way to showcase seasonal produce and a palate for some truly imaginative “cooking.”  Every year as the weather gets warmer, I get the itch to try new and different salads.  Last year, I went crazy for carrots.  Like Rabbit in Winnie-the-Pooh (oh, how I identify with poor, put-upon, veggie-loving Rabbit), I was hoarding carrots and carrot recipes as if, at any given moment, Tigger could come along and bounce it all away.  In particular, I became enamored with the idea of an incredibly simple but beautiful salad of just carrot ribbons and dressing, and I started thinking of ways that I could vary the ingredients to make completely different styles of salad.  Following are my favorite variations on a very basic carrot ribbon salad that is delicious all on its own.

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Basic Carrot Ribbon Salad

1 bunch carrots, peeled and with stalks trimmed off
extra-virgin olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
coarse salt and pepper

Using a vegetable peeler, shave ribbons off of the carrots until they are too flexible to work with any longer.  Toss with just enough extra-virgin olive oil to coat, squeeze over lemon juice and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Simple!

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Sesame Carrot Ribbon Salad

1 batch Basic Carrot Ribbon Salad
sesame oil (a few drops)
2 teaspoons black sesame seeds

To a basic carrot ribbon salad recipe, add a few drops of sesame oil – it’s very strong stuff, so don’t overdo it.  Add black sesame seeds, varying the amount to your own personal taste.  (I like lots of them.)

This salad looks like Hallowe’en to me, which is one of the reasons I love it!  It’s wonderful all year round, and sesame is a great source of vitamins and minerals, particularly copper, manganese, iron, and vitamin B1.

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Curried Carrot Ribbon Salad

1 batch Basic Carrot Ribbon Salad
1 teaspoon curry powder (I like Sambhar or Madras)
1 teaspoon garam masala
squeeze of lime

Toss basic carrot ribbon salad with spices.  Squeeze lime over and serve – it’s that easy!  Garam masala can be a touch spicy, so if that’s not your thing, feel free to reduce or even eliminate it from this dish.  If you want to get fancy, you can garnish this with a few sprigs of cilantro.  Mmmmmm, cilantro.

Curry is another ingredient that has amazing health benefits.  In particular, it is good for memory and is thought to stave off degenerative diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s if you eat it on a regular basis throughout your life.  It’s not difficult to do at all – curry is wonderful added to scrambled eggs or egg salad, sprinkled over potatoes, stirred into bean dishes (especially chickpeas), or stewed with chicken, fish or vegetables – especially carrots.  Go nuts!  A little curry is better than no curry at all.

There you have it!  One simple but delicious carrot salad, dressed up in two very different but equally wonderful variations.  Try these, and play around with your own ideas – and if you think of something good, please let me know!  I’m always in the market for new ways to eat carrot ribbon salad.

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Tomato and Goat Cheese Frittata

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Frittatas are a standby in my kitchen – one of the easiest dinners imaginable, with endless variations so you never get bored.  You can throw absolutely anything into a frittata, and it’ll be delicious.  Well… maybe not anything.  Chocolate cake, for instance, would make a pretty weird frittata.  But almost anything else is welcome.  I’ve made frittatas with chicken sausage, feta cheese, and all kinds of other ingredients.  They are one of my favorite fridge-clearing meals and one of the simplest things to whip up after a long day at work.  I load them up with lots of veggies to make them filling and boost the nutrition.  They are also good at room temperature, which makes them great for brunches, and they are surprisingly delicious cold in a sandwich for lunch the next day – essentially, my perfect go-anywhere-do-anything dish.  To make them even easier, I oven bake them rather than cooking them on the stovetop and flipping them – a method I saw on “Everyday Italian.”  Bless Giada for making my life so much easier and filled with frittatas!

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Yes, I really love my Emile Henry Artisan baking dish in Pommeterra.  Why do you ask?

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Tomato and Goat Cheese Frittata

7-8 large eggs (try to get organic, free-range brown eggs if you can)
1/4 cup milk
2 scallions
3 Roma tomatoes
2 ounces Chevre
1/4 cup Parmesan (freshly grated if possible)
salt and pepper

  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Spray an 8×8 baking dish with Pam and set aside.
  • Crack eggs into a large mixing bowl and whisk quickly to break up the yolks.
  • Add milk, salt and pepper and whisk vigorously to combine.
  • Slice scallions thinly and dice tomatoes coarsely.  Add to mixture.  Break Chevre into mixture and grate in Parmesan cheese.  Stir gently to combine all ingredients.
  • Pour into baking dish and bake for 30 minutes, until center of frittata is just set.  Let cool briefly and then slice.

Serves 4 for a light dinner with a green salad on the side.

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Note: You don’t have to oven bake this frittata, of course.  I like it because it’s pretty much as easy as falling out of bed.  But if you’re a frittata traditionalist or just have a super cool frittata pan that you like to use, feel free to follow your usual method for stovetop cooking.

Source: Covered In Flour, inspired by Giada de Laurentiis

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Peach Oatmeal Muffins

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Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  How many times have we heard that one?  It might just be that the truest truisms are also the most often repeated, because breakfast really is important.  It jump-starts your metabolism for the day, fills you up so that you are less likely to overindulge at lunch or on snacks, and provides a foundation for healthy eating throughout the day.  For me, breakfast is especially important because I am a morning person, and I need that jolt of nutrition to power my running around until 1:00 or so.  But I don’t really care for cereal – so where does that leave me?  Usually, I grab a yogurt out of the fridge in the morning, stir some granola into it at my desk at work, and get going.  But there are some mornings when I need something special, something homemade, something that reminds me of the weekend.  And it doesn’t hurt if it’s healthy, too.  That’s where muffins come in.  I load them up with fruit and whole grains and bask in the fiber I’m getting – and these are perfect, only very lightly sweet, with bits of juicy peach floating throughout.  If I close my eyes, I can even convince myself that it’s Saturday morning.  Then my desk phone rings and shatters the fantasy… but at least I’ve still got a muffin.

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Peach Oatmeal Muffins

1 cup white whole wheat (or all-purpose) flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup old-fashioned oats
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup honey (or pure maple syrup)
2 large eggs
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 peaches, peeled and diced

  • Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Fit paper liners into a 12-well muffin tin.  Place the muffin tin on a baking sheet.
  • Whisk together flours, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.  In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk, honey, eggs and melted butter.  Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir to blend.  Stir in diced peaches.  Scatter additional oats over top of muffins, if desired.
  • Divide batter evenly amongst muffin wells and bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the muffins comes out clean.  Cool for 5 minutes in the muffin tin, then lift muffins out and cool on a rack.

Source: Loosely Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s “Great Grains Muffins”

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My first blog award!

The lovely and talented proprietress of City Girl Lifestyle has bestowed upon me my very first blog award – the MeMe Blog Award!  City Girl and I go way back – back to law school, in fact, and I am blessed to have her and her husband as friends.  Her blog is absolutely inspiring – a mix of beauty tips, fantastic recipes, ruminations on urban living and so much more – and I’m honored that she thought of me.  Thanks, City Girl!

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The rules of the MeMe Blog Award are twofold: first, I have to write seven things about myself, and second, I have to pass the award on to seven blogs.  So, first, seven things about me, and I’ll try not to make them food-related, since my tastes in food are probably already abundantly clear on this blog…

1) I used to be a piano teacher.
2) My favorite class in law school was labor law, but “Law and Literature” was a close second.
3) I participated in a foreign exchange program in Germany when I was 16.
4) I saw a page of Jane Eyre written in Charlotte Bronte’s own hand at the British Library and almost fainted.
5) I adore the Harry Potter books, and I have tickets to see the sixth movie on opening night.
6) To relax, I like to play Bach and Chopin on the piano.
7) My favorite movie is “Bringing Up Baby.”

And now, seven inspiring food blogs that I love to read, written by seven gifted foodies:

1) Good Things Catered
2) Joelen’s Culinary Adventures
3) Proceed With Caution
4) Tide and Thyme
5) Annie’s Eats
6) Brown Eyed Baker
7) This Little Piggy Went To Market – although the lovely B is on hiatus right now, her blog is still up with all of her yummy recipes, and this is my way of telling B that I love her!

These ladies all post yummy recipes, and they all inspire me, so passing on this award is my way of telling them that I’m reading their blogs and I think they are all wonderful!

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Blueberry Cobbler with Cornmeal Biscuit

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I was having a really lousy day on Friday.  Part of my lousy day – though not all – was due to the fact that I had ordered a new baking book from Amazon on Wednesday, or started to, anyway.  I guess I never completed the order (dratted short attention span) and I had the unpleasant surprise on Friday morning of finding out that the book I expected that afternoon was still sitting in my virtual shopping cart, and not on a delivery truck as I had thought.  This made me extremely cranky, so I did what I always do when I am cranky – I wrote a list of grievances and emailed it to the hubs.  Because he loves to help, and because he knows I love to bake on the weekends, my book arrived at my door the very next day on a rush order.  Does it get sweeter than that?  He deserved a special treat after this one, so bang, on goes the apron and out of the kitchen comes this:

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Blueberry Cobbler with Cornmeal Biscuit

Fruit Filling
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 dry pints blueberries (fresh, if possible)
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Cornmeal Biscuit
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup cold cream (the recipe calls for heavy, I used light)
4 teaspoons turbinado sugar

  • Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Butter a 2-quart baking dish.
  • Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt in a large bowl.  Add blueberries and toss to coat.  Gently stir or fold in lemon juice.  Spoon the blueberry mixture into the prepared baking dish.
  • To make the biscuits, whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl.  Add the butter and cut in with a pastry cutter, or rub in with your fingers (more fun) until the butter is the size of peas.  Pour in the cream and stir to combine.
  • Divide the dough into 8 pieces – if you use a standard-sized ice cream scoop, you will have just enough – and pat into biscuits.  Place over the fruit filling, then sprinkle with the turbinado sugar.
  • Bake 45 minutes, until the biscuits are golden and the fruit filling is bubbling up.  Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

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Thanks for the book, honey!

Source: Adapted from Rustic Fruit Desserts, by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson

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Spinach Salad with Smoked Salmon, Avocado and Pepitas

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My husband and I met at a conference.  We sat together at dinner and both ordered the same thing – salmon Caesar salad – and discussed our mutual love of salmon.  The night he proposed, we went back to that same restaurant and he insisted on our sharing the salmon Caesar salad.  An auspicious start for a foodie romance, wouldn’t you say?  It has been eight years since our first conversation about salmon, and it’s still a popular topic of conversation and a frequent choice for dinner.  We love it all different ways – broiled, roasted, poached, pan-sauteed, grilled, smoked, raw in sushi… you name it.  So when I saw this dish on the Food Network, I knew it would be well received.  I was right – more than right, in fact, since this has become Our All-Time Favorite Salad.  Smoked salmon, avocado, pepitas, crisp greens, lime dressing… what more could you ask for?

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Spinach Salad with Smoked Salmon, Avocado, and Pepitas

1/2 package washed baby spinach leaves (or other salad greens – which is what I had on hand)
2 Hass avocados
4 tablespoons raw pepitas (approx.)
juice of 1/2 lime
extra-virgin olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 package wild-caught smoked salmon

  • Toss spinach leaves with lime juice, extra-virgin olive oil, sea salt (like Maldon) and pepper until nicely coated.  Add half the pepitas and scoop out the flesh of one avocado.  Toss together.
  • Drape smoked salmon slices over the side of a large serving bowl.  Pour salad into serving bowl.
  • Top salad with remaining pepitas, and scoop the flesh from the other avocado to scatter over the top.

Enjoy!

Source: Adapted from Nigella Lawson

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Stuffed Heirloom Tomatoes

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Sunday dinner.  The phrase conjures up images of grandmothers in aprons serving roasts on china platters, doesn’t it?  Growing up, we ate dinner at my grandparents’ house on many Sunday nights and whether dinner was of the roast-and-china variety or was more casual, my grandmother’s table was always warm and welcoming and full of love.   To this day, I love the idea of family coming together once a week for Sunday dinners.  Of course, having given up red meat ten years ago, and having moved hundreds of miles away to another state six years ago, I don’t do the whole big-family-eating-beef-around-the-table thing anymore.  But I do try to put a little bit of extra effort into Sunday dinners, because I have the time and because I like to reserve Sunday evening for my family (which is just my husband and I, most nights) to sit at the table, light candles, and relax together, or to pop in a DVD (tonight, it was “My Fair Lady” with Audrey Hepburn) before we jump back into the rat race for the coming week.

Today, driving home from our long holiday weekend, I had a six hour car ride in which to mull over dinner ideas.  I came up with the idea of stuffed tomatoes with a crispy Italian-seasoned breadcrumb and Parmesan crust.  Stopping at Whole Foods on the way home, I found gorgeous heirloom tomatoes in the produce section – fate smiling on me!  This is the result…

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Baked Stuffed Tomatoes

4 vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes (small to medium sized)
1 lb ground turkey or chicken sausage
1 egg
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs
1/4 cup fresh basil, chiffonaded
1 tablespoon ketchup
salt and pepper (approx. 1 teaspoon of each)
extra-virgin olive oil

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Core tomatoes and remove seeds.  Cut off a small slice from the bottom of each tomato (for stability) and stand tomatoes in a shallow baking dish.
  • Remove sausage from casings and combine with egg, 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup breadcrumbs and half the chiffonaded basil.  Season with salt and pepper and stir gently until just mixed.  Add mixture to hollowed-out tomatoes.
  • Combine remaining breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese and sprinkle over the top of each stuffed tomato.  Drizzle extra-virgin olive oil over top.
  • Bake 30-35 minutes, or until meat is cooked through.

This dish is quick and simple enough to make on a weeknight – in fact, I do something very similar with bell peppers, a recipe from Giada de Laurentiis, and it’s one of my favorite weeknight meals.  But it hits the spot on Sunday too, and served with a simple green salad, it makes a light but flavorful finish to the weekend.  In fact, since this dish is made with chicken or turkey rather than beef or pork, it’s healthy enough to justify dessert – maybe a peach and blueberry crumble?  Sunday dinner.  Think about it.

Note: This recipe makes double the amount of meat you need for four tomatoes.  You can either stuff eight tomatoes and feed 4-6 people on them, or reserve the remaining meat for another use – I made mini meatballs for tomorrow night.

Source: Covered In Flour, inspired by Giada de Laurentiis

And a bonus picture – the new view from my kitchen island, thanks to the incredibly talented artist Amy Giacomelli…

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