Summer fruit salad

Summertime and the living is easy...

With all this amazing fruit what could be better than a nice fruit salad. Here in Portland, when I don't make it by one of our many farmer's markets, I like to get my fruit at the Kruger's Farm Market on Hawthorn.

I like to get one of each kind of fruit that looks delightful. Wash, pare, mix with a little lemon juice.
Chill.
Chill the bowl too.
Serve.

Toasted Cheese Sandwich Lesson

Today I had an opportunity to provide a cooking lesson for Rachel: how to make a toasted cheese sandwich.

First we discussed how a toasted cheese sandwich was similar to and different from a pancake: Similarities

• Tools: Same pan, same spatula
• Heat transfer fluid: butter the pan
• Process: Cook, flip, remove

Differences

• You could eat the cheese sandwich without cooking it
• The pancake batter, not-so-much

Chicken Soup

We have been fighting off colds so it seemed like a good time for some simple chicken soup.

A couple carrots, a leek, a potato, some leftover roast chicken and some good homemade chicken stock and a little water. Oh, and bacon.

While the carrots and leeks were sautéing in some bacon drippings. I diced and par-boiled the potato. Then into the pot with the diced chicken and diced, frozen, pre-cooked bacon.

Once I had a little browning I added some stock and equal parts water. Simmer and serve with salt and pepper.

Quick lunch Potatoes, Turkey, Brussels Sprouts

I was having a low-energy day, but needed to throw together a quick lunch.

Rummaging around in the fridge and putting the microwave to work reheating in parallel with a quick sauté produced a quite tasty ensemble in 10-steps.

Mac 'n' Cheese

Here is today's take on Mac 'n' Cheese:

Start with some chard, kale, basil, italian parsley, thyme, ham, aged white cheddar cheese, a zucchini, a bunch of tomatoes, butter, milk, and a box of mac 'n' cheese (in this case white cheddar from Trader Joe's).

Saladpalooza continues

We continue with our emphasis on saladacious dining as started in Saladpalooza.

An everything salad.

Saladpalooza -- return of the mixed greens

Time to make more salads. Here are some recent and some not-so-recent efforts...
I pan-fried some chicken to make a chicken salad with pecans and dried cranberries.