Weekly Cooking Report September 5: Swordfish in Lemon Dill Sauce

Swordfish was on sale, so I had to do something with it. I'm only human. We had some white wine that needed using and some lemons, so I snagged some dill to go with it. 

Now, the baseline recipe for this came from here, but I didn't want to do the full Piccata, so I stripped it down to the following. 

Shopping is a pound or so of swordfish steaks, 1/2 cup flour, some salt and pepper, 1 tbs olive oil, 2 tbs of butter, 1/2 cup dry white wine, a couple of lemons, and some dill. Now, I served it with leftover rice, and you can do rice or couscous for this. Either works. Get that started and set aside before we begin, as everything else in this is quick. 

Mix together the flour and 1 tsp each of salt and pepper into a shallow plate or pie tin, dry the swordfish and dredge the swordfish it in the flour. This means lay it down in the flour on each side, shaking off the excess, so you get a thin coating of flour on the fish. 

Get 1/3 of a cup of fresh lemon juice from the lemons - depending on how big the lemons are this might only need 1/2 of one. Get a slice of lemon for each steak for garnish. Dice up 2 tbs of the dill so it's very fine. 

In a skillet, heat the butter and olive oil on medium high heat until the butter stops bubbling. I love working with butter because it tells you when it's ready. Once the butter says "go" put the steaks on and cook 2-3 minutes until it's golden brown, flip it and cook another 2-3 minutes. Then get it off the skillet and set it aside. 

Add the white wine and lemon juice to the pan and using a skillet-safe spatula scrape up the browned bits - this is called deglazing, if I haven't mentioned this before. Bring to a boil, then reduce the temperature to low. Add the dill, stir, and then add more salt to taste as needed. Plop the swordfish back in so it can heat up and get the sauce all over it, 1-2 minutes. Sprinkle with a little more dill, add a lemon slice, and serve immediately to a grateful family. 

Seriously, this is really quick, so have the starch ready to go when you're putting this together. I served mine with a side salad that you can barely see in the picture. My daughter proclaimed "it's so buttery!" which I took as a positive. 

Weekly Cooking Report August 22: Frittatas of various shapes and sizes

Things have been busy around the house hold, and also I've been in the mood for finicky cooking, so there haven't been as many things for me to highlight here. Still, we had teenager guests here last weekend for the annual in person 13th Age Game/Ren Faire weekend that let me pull back out this classic - great when you've got gluten free or vegetarian guests. (Or whenever, I'm not the boss of you.)

The biggest problem with cooking eggs is that they are so finicky in when they are done, but a frittata has so much egg volume that it's much easier to control. The Frittata is great because it can use pretty much anything you have in your fridge (just ask Harrison Ford) and is probably going to taste good. So here's the ingredient list. (I pulled the base recipe for this from Cooks Illustrated and made it less finicky, because, well, CI.)

12 large eggs (I used 8 while eggs and 4 egg whites to cut the calories a bit, I wouldn't go lower than 6 and 6), ⅓ cup whole milk, Salt and 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil. 

Plus anything you have in the fridge. The prep shown above is 1/2 cup each of sautéed onions, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, and pulled pork. You'll also need a 10-12" oven safe skillet. The recipes I found call for 12", but my 12" isn't necessarily over safe so I went with my 10" sauté pan and it worked fine. 

To prep, get the oven rack to middle position, set oven to 350 degrees. Whisk eggs, milk, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a bowl until it's combined. set it aside as you get everything else ready.

Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Now, if you're not working with pre-cooked veggies here's the bit where you cook them a bit, do your general liking, with 1/4 teaspoon of salt and keeping . Broccoli is great in these - that takes about 7-9 minutes to get crisp tender - and you can also cook your mushrooms, onions or peppers about that long to get them to soften. Tomatoes, scallions, etc. you can toss in a few minutes before, along with any cooked meats to warm them through. (For mine the tomatoes, onions, and pork all hit the pan together because the pork and onions were pre cooked.)

Add any cheeses and the set aside egg mixture and cook, using rubber spatula to stir and scrape bottom of skillet. You want large curds to form and the spatula leaving a trail through eggs, but eggs are still very wet, about 30 seconds in a 12" pan, but a little longer if the pan has less volume. Basically you're making everything fluffy here and then you smooth it out and let it cook without stirring for about half a minute before chucking it in the over for 6-9 minutes. Check every minute from 6 on to see if it's slightly puffy and bounces back when lightly pressed. 

Once it's ready, loosen it with the spatula, take it our of the skillet and give it 5 minutes to rest before serving to a grateful family. My teenage guests went back for seconds, so I'm figuring it came out OK. 

Weekly Cooking Report June 13: Steak in red wine sauce with pan fried potato slices

The most difficult thing for this week is that you'll need two skillets running at once. This is one of the first things I learned to cook, so I have faith in you. It's a bit fiddlier than normal but trust me.

Summertime Shadows

We're gonna tackle the potatoes part of this first. The recipe is pretty damn simple:

• 1 lb. yellow potatoes, preferable Russets or Yukon Gold, washed and cut into 1/4" slices. 
• 4 tbs. of cooking oil; I recommend 2 tbs. of  olive oil and 2 tbs. of butter for maximum flavor but you do you
• A spice mix made up of 1/2 tsp kosher salt, 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika, 1/4 tsp garlic powder and 1/4 tsp. dried thyme. 

Put a skillet over medium high heat, add the cooking oils. Once it's shimmering and/or the butter is melted, add the potatoes in an even layer on the skillet. Flip every 3-4 minutes until both sides are brown, about 10-12 minutes. Sprinkle the spice mix on, serve hot. 

Got that? OK, good, that's running in the background while we do the steak, which is a little less easy. 

• 18 oz or so of rib eye steak, about 1 1/2 inches thick, brought to room temp laying on paper towels and then patted dry. Should take about 30 minutes to come to temp. and salted with 1 tsp. kosher salt.
• 2 tbs. butter, cut in half
• One finely chopped large shallot (remember the cutting device i mentioned before? super helpful here) and 1 smashed garlic clove. 
• two sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 tbs. aka a dash of balsamic vinegar
• 3/4 cup beef broth and 1/2 cup dry red wine, which will be added together
• another mx of 1/4 tsp kosher salt, 2 tbs. butter and 1/4 tsp. ground pepper

Heat a 10-inch cast iron skillet over high heat for about 5 minutes just until it starts to smoke. Carefully place the steak in the hot pan and cook about 2 minutes until enough of a crust has developed on the bottom that the steak no longer sticks to the pan. The flip and cook for 2 minutes. And then flip and cook for 2 minutes, etc. At about 8 minutes cook time start checking internal temp for a 125F medium rare (your preference may very, it will be faster or slower if you have one big steak or a couple smaller ones as I have in my photo). 

Once you're at temp, move the steak to a plate to rest, reduce the heat to medium-high and drop in that first 2 tbs of butter and the shallots, stirring regularly until you can smell the shallot, which will be less and a minute. Then add in the garlic, thyme, and vinegar, and cook until the shallots are brown, another less than a minute thing. Finally add the wine/broth mix and let it cook down for 10 minutes; at the 8 minute mark add in any juices from the steak on the plate. You should end with about a half a cup.

Remove the garlic clove and thyme sprigs, and toss in the final mix of kosher salt, butter, and pepper and whisk until the butter, then remove from heat and move to a pouring vessel. Serve to a grateful family

Weekly Cooking Report June 6: One hour Broiled Chicken with Roasted Veggies and Couscous

Alas I didn't get a photo of this one, but I'm stealing one from the CI site that I took the initial recipe from. But don't put your chicken, even cooked, on a wooden cutting board. Ick. 

Anyway, we had planned to make a longer cook, more complicated chicken dish for company (Here if you're interested) and then realized that we had missed our window for getting it started and fell back on this classic. For shopping you're going to need

• 1 (4-pound) whole chicken, giblets discarded; if you go with a bigger chicken I can't guarantee a 1 hour cook time.
• 1 ½ teaspoons vegetable oil for the chicken and another 1 ½ teaspoons for the veggies
• Kosher salt and pepper
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 garlic clove minced/chopped garlic
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 tbs butter. 
• 1 box couscous of your preference 
• Carrots and Broccoli to make a pound of veggies, or whatever your preferred volume is

Set up your oven so the top rack is about 1 foot away from the broiler -- you don't want to get to close or the chicken skin with scorch - and then butterfly your chicken. We've gone over this before I have faith in you and I have faith in you. Once it's butterflied, use a knife to poke holes in the skin across the whole bird, about 3/4 inch apart. 

Put an broiler safe skillet (I use cast iron, that stuff is indestructible) on the stovetop, add 1 tsp of olive oil, and set it to high. While it heats up, rub the bird down with the remaining 1/2 tsp olive oil, then 1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper on the skin side, flip it over and repeat 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Flip it back over - it's going in the oven skin side up - and put it on the skillet as as soon as the olive oil just starts to smoke. You'll want as much of the bottom of the chicken touching the pan as you can (hence the concern with a bigger bird). Put it in the oven with the skillet handle facing one of the front corners of the oven. Turn on the broiler and let it cook for 25 minutes. 

While that is happening, chop up the veggies to about 3/4 inch chunks, mix them in a bowl with the olive oil and a pinch of salt. Once everything is covered with oil, put it on a cookie sheet and set it aside. 

At the 25 minute mark, rotate the handle of the skillet to the other corner to more evenly cook the chicken, and add a probe thermometer set to 155F to the thickest part of the breast. This should take 20-30 minutes to hit. 

Once the chicken is at temp, take it out, move it to a carving board, and let it sit for 15 minutes. Turn the over to 425 and toss in the prepared veggie sheet, get the couscous started. Mmmmm, couscous. So fast, so versatile. 

Put the skillet full of chicken juices onto the stovetop on low heat, add the minced garlic, thyme sprigs, and 1/4 cup white wine. Deglaze the pan, getting up any brown crust bits, and let it cook down. Once it's just simmering, whisk in the butter until it melts. You may need to season for more salt, but I generally don't. 

At the end of the 15 minute rest, everything will be good to go. Serve to a grateful family. 

Weekly Cooking Report May 23: Pasta with Garlic and Oil

OK team, I've been holding off on the super-simplicity of "just make pasta" but this week we're dipping into a non-traditional pasta sauce to surprise and amaze your family. 

Yes when I made it I had chicken cutlets and chopped veggies on the side; YMMV

Shopping for this couldn't be easier - a pound of spaghetti, some (6 tbs.) extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup minced garlic (the recipe has a count of 30 small, 20 medium, 10 large, or 5 extra large cloves but just use the jar of minced you should already have), some red pepper flakes (1/4 tsp. to 3/4 tsp. to taste), 3 tbs. chopped fresh parsley, and 2 tsp. juice from a lemon. Most of this you probably already have in the house. 

Step 1 is put a heatproof bowl in the oven on a lower rack and set the oven to warm/200F. The make the pasta per the box instructions, adding 1.5 tsp of table salt (don't use the kosher for this, you get more salt from table salt because it's smaller crystals). Save 1/3 cup of the cooking water, and then drain the pasta.

While the water is heating, combined 3 tbs. (half of your total) with 3 tbs. of garlic (there will be 1 tbs. left), 1/2 teaspoon of table salt in a skillet (nonstick 10" if that matters to you) and cook over low heat for 10-12 minutes, or until the garlic foams, turns straw colored, and gets sticky. It's nice when the food has several ways to tell you its done! be careful with the heat - low heat is needed because minced garlic can burn quick. Take it off the heat and add the rest of the raw garlic, the red pepper flakes, the parsley, lemon juice, an 2 tbs of the cooking water. Stir it to keep it from clumping.

Once you drain the pasta, set it in the warmed serving bowl, add the remaining oilve oil and the rest of the reserved cooking water, tossing it around to keep the pasta loose and oiled up. Add the garlic mixture, salt to taste (they recommend 3/4 tsp of table salt), and toss well to combine. serve immediately to a grateful family. If you have parmesan cheese having some of that grated for people to add would be a nice add. 

Weekly Cooking Report May 9: Grilled Chicken Souvlaki with Green Peppers and Onion

 It's still the start of grilling season my friends, so fire that sucker up. 

This week comes from Cooks Illustrated again, so no easy website to link you to, but this one is hardly complicated enough to warrant the longer description. 

Shopping trip: for the skewers (and you'll need 4 skewers if you don't have them; yes I only used 3. Shut up and listen.)
1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 green bell pepper, quartered, stemmed, seeded, each quarter cut into 4 chunks
1 small red onion, ends trimmed, peeled, halved lengthwise, each half cut into 4 chunks

for the marinade: 
⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest plus 1/4 cup juice (2 lemons)
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon dried oregano

for the recommended Tzatziki Sauce
1 bottle of premade Tzatsiki sauce. Don't kill yourself here. 

Also pick up some pita bread. The CI recipe has a whole thing about fancy ways to grill the bread in aluminum foil, but it's not necessary. (The bread isn't even really necessary if you want to serve over rice; just don't forget to the cook the rice! Or... COUSCOUS, the lazy person's rice!)

OK, get a quart of cold water, dissolve 2 tablespoons of salt in it and chuck the chicken in. Cover it and set it in the fridge to brine for 30 minutes. While that's happening take all the marinade ingredients and mix them together; once that's done set 1/4 cup aside in a bowl for serving. 

Once the 30 minute brine is done. dry the chicken with paper towels and toss it into the marinade. Take a skewer and thread 1/4 of the pepper onto it, concave side up. Then thread on 1/4 of the chicken, and then 1/4 of the onions, concave side down. You can see how it looks in the picture. Repeat till you have all 4 skewers ready 

Heat and clean the grill per manufacturer instructions. Once it's hot lay the skewers on it and cook, turning every 4 minutes or so until all sides are cooked. Tae one skewer off the flame and test with a probe thermometer for 160F. If it's not quite there, keep them on another few minutes, rotating every minute or so for even cooking. You should be good at 20 minutes max. 

Use a fork to push the contents of the skewers into the bowl with the set aside marinade, cover with foil and let sit for 5 minutes. Serve with the pita and Tzatsiki for a grateful family!

Weekly Cooking Report May 2: Sumac Chicken Breasts

You remember when I asked you to pick up sumac for those chicken wings? Well, here's where that pays off. 

The recipe for this is so insanely easy I almost feel guilty for using it. The recipe for the chicken is here and you can see the shopping run is almost non-existent. 

2 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts, the Sumac you have from last time I had you get some, some balsamic vinegar that you probably have in the kitchen, salt and pepper. For the rest of the meal it's our old friend couscous and some veggies. When I made it I went with broccoli, but I strongly recommend the ease of getting a bag of baby carrots and roasting them with this in a little olive oil. 

If your chicken breasts run big (and they will with todays breasts) you're going to want to slice them lengthwise before you cook them if you're using broccoli. That will make them cook a lot quicker, but it can be harder to get the thermometer in to track internal temp. If you're using the baby carrots, those take longer to roast so the timing works better. 

Rub the chicken down with the sumac and a little salt and pepper, then put in a container with the balsamic vinegar and let it marinade for an hour. Heat the oven to 375F. Just before cook time put 2 Tbs of olive oil and some salt over the baby carrots. 

Now you can put them all on the same sheet pan, but if you want the flavors separate put down some foil on the pan and fold it at the center to make a crude wall. Carrots on one side, chicken on the other. That will keep most of the process separated. 

Roast until the probe thermometer shows the chicken at temp. Once it is, take it out and check the carrots. If the fork doesn't go in cleanly, take the chicken off to rest, set the oven to 400, and chuck the carrots back in for 5 minutes or so. 

While this is happening, make the couscous from the box... yadda yadda you know the drill. 

The balsamic sumac is a unique and delicious taste. Serve to a grateful family. 

Weekly Cooking Report April 25: Swordfish Steaks with Lemon Parsley Sauce

Starting to get warm enough to use the grill, so we're looking at some simple grilling this weeks with swordfish. For those of you out there who feel more gender-comfortable with directly applying fire to meat for cooking, this is a way to do it that isn't parts of a beef critter as a way to mix things up. 

Ideally you will add other components to this...

As always, this is as simple as I can make it for you. Swordfish has a distinct flavor that isn't too fishy, and the lemon parsley sauce accentuates that. shopping wise you need 

• 2 1-pound swordfish steaks, about 1.5" thick. Cut each in half to make 4 eight ounce steaks
• Some vegetable oil for the grate.
• 2 tbs of olive oil for the steaks 
• ANOTHER ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil for the sauce 
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
• 1 ½ tablespoons juice from 1 lemon
• Some salt and pepper 

to round out the meal also grab 

• Some French bread or sourdough
• A bag salad, ideally with one of those little vinaigrette packets in it. 

Remember, the goal is to make you look good with minimal effort; the fish will do that, you can slack on the veggie. 

Get your grill started, hotted up, and cleaned. You have directions for how to do that somewhere. That will likely take 15 minutes. I'm assuming a gas grill you are keeping at high. If you have a charcoal grill, I don't, so you're on your own. 

While that is happening brush the fish with the olive oil and season with salt and pepper, a pinch or so on each side of each steak. 

The whisk the other 1/4 cup of olive oil with the lemon juice, parsley, and a little more salt and pepper (say. 1/4 tsp of each), taste test, add more salt and pepper to taste. Set that aside. 

Pour out the bag salad into a bowl, add the dressing and any fixings; Slice up the bread and cover it with foil or a small clean towel. Set both on table. 

Wipe down the hot grate with the vegetable oil and grill the fish with the cover on. Flip them at about the 4 minute mark so there are good grill lines on each side. Turn the grill heat to medium cook for another 3 minutes, flip, and give it another minute covered. Check the center, see if the fish is still translucent. If it is, give it another couple minutes before removing to plates. 

Spoon the sauce onto the swordfish and serve immediately to a grateful family. Welcome to grilling season!

Weekly Cooking Report April 18: Pasta Alfredo with Grilled Chicken and Wilted Spinach

This is a recipe I picked up very early in my cooking journey and it's a good one. I'm gonna break it into parts. 

For the chicken cutlets, there's more detail here but its pretty basic: get two chicken breasts from the store, salt (3/4 tsp) and pepper (1/4 tsp) them, add them to some hot oil (2 tbs under medium high heat for 3 minutes/until shimmering) in a skillet, and cook 5-7 minutes on a side. Remember the chicken wants to tell you when it's done, so if you try to flip it and it sticks, it's not ready. The internal temp of the chicken should be 165F. Give it 5 minutes minimum to rest and slice it for serving. 

For the pasta alfredo, get a heat resistant serving bowl and put 1 stick of salted butter, 1/2 cup heavy cream, 3/4 cup grated parmesan (should it be freshly grated? yes. Does it have to be? no, buy the damn tub of grated parmesan if you don't have time), 1/2 teaspoon black pepper (see comments on parmesan r.e. grating) and a touch (1/8 tsp) of fresh grated nutmeg (buy the whole nutmeg and grate some of it; this one matters). set the water to boil and put the serving bowl over the saucepan so the sauce melts and comes together under the heat from the water. It should be ready when the water comes to boil. 

Put the pound of pasta - fettuccini is traditional, spaghetti works - in the water, and let the heat bend it until everything is in the water. Cook per the directions on the box, probably 8-10 minutes. When the pasta is ready, pour it into the serving bowl and mix together. Lay the chicken over it and you're done. 

Now, you can skip the spinach and go with chopped fresh basil on top and it's delicious. Or you can do the spinach, which is what I did here.

For the spinach take 4 oz of baby spinach and mix it with some olive oil (2 tbs, just to coat) lemon juice (1 tsp), a pinch of salt and pepper, and put it into a colander and place that over the the boiling water when you're making the pasta. It will wilt under the steam in about 3 minutes, so save it towards the end of the pasta cook time. (A more complex wilted spinach recipe is here, but the flavors on that don't blend as much)

Sprinkle the spinach over the chicken on the pasta and serve to a grateful family. 

Weekly Cooking Report April 11: Mexican Picadillo

This week we're going a little less fancy than the pepper crusted beef tenderloin with a Mexican Picadillo, which is essentially my grown up Manwich 

This one comes out every once in a while when we have ground beef and want something different with it. My baseline recipe is here but we have alterations. Those alterations don't make it any more complicated.  

So the shopping list is easy, as always - a pound of ground beef, a small onion, a large green bell pepper and 2-3 medium potatoes. Don't sweat the specifics sizes, it's not that kinda recipe. You'll also need 

• 2 to 3 teaspoons garlic from the giant jar of minced or chopped cloves I told you to get
• 1.5 cups of beef broth. If you get this with low sodium this will come out bland and you'll need to add extra salt at the end, so splurge on the salt in kind,
• 8 oz of tomato sauce and some tomato paste for extra body - we really feel the tomato paste helps. 
• 1 tsp each of salt, ground black pepper, cumin and coriander. I like the extra black pepper, you may want to stick with the 1/4 tsp. You should also add one bay leaf to round the flavor out, just remember to remove it before serving. 
• Some rice or flour tortillas or both.

To prep the veggies I use one of these, which the family refers to as a 'shunker-shunker' and is damn helpful for getting things diced or chopped to a consistent size. Highly recommended. Plus since all the veggies go in at once you can just keep everything in the collection tray and drop it in at once. 

First, get the rice started per the instructions on the rice box. I used white rice but if you have some Mexican yellow rice mix, that works great too. 

Plunk the ground beef in a large skillet over medium heat and cook, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon, until it's mostly browned. Once it's, say, 75% browned drain the grease off (NOT INTO YOUR SINK! Find a can or bowl or something) and return to heat. Toss the veggies in and let cook for about 8 minutes, stirring regularly. The add the garlic and stir for about 30 seconds. 

Finally pour in the tomato sauce, broth, and all the spices. Stir, bring it to a simmer, and cover. Leave it for 10 minutes, check, and if the potatoes aren't soft and you still have a lot of liquid, leave it for longer. You want the potatoes to smoosh under a fork and most of the liquid gone. 

The rice should be done right about now as well. Remove everything from heat and serve to a grateful family. 

Weekly Cooking Report April 4: Pepper-Crusted Beef Tenderloin

 I know That you're reading that and thinking "he's crazy, I can't cook that!" but the secret to beef tenderloin in that it is crazy easy to cook. It's also crazy expensive, so that makes it a sometimes thing - find it on sale and freeze it until the big family gatherings. 

So grocery wise you're going to need the tenderloin (about 6 lbs), and that takes some prep. You can pay a butcher to do it for you, but its easier than you think, so you can watch a butcher teach you to do it here. Obviously he makes it look easy, but I've done it as well and I'm far from a professional. 

So here's the secret - set an oven to 300F, put a cooling rack in a cookie sheet, lay the tenderloin on that, stick a probe thermometer in and cook it until it hits 120, 125F and you're done. That's it. it will taste great. Stop worrying. Everything else is accompaniment.

Now, the accompaniment in this case is cracked peppercorns. This requires a little work. You're gong to need: 
4 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
1 ½ teaspoons sugar
¼ teaspoon baking soda
9 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup coarsely cracked black peppercorns
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

A lot of which you likely have around the house but some you're probably going to need to buy. 

So the salt, sugar and baking soda get mixed together in a bowl and set aside. 

The take the peppercorns and put them in a ziplock bag, get all the air out and seal it. Place that on hard surface - countertop, marble board, that sort of thing - and roll a rolling pin or, more likely, a full wine bottle, back and forth over it. Youll hear them crack and pop as they split. This will take a few minutes effort, but a peppermill won't give you a course enough grind for this. 

Put 2/3rd of the olive oil (6 Tbs) in a saucepan with the cracked peppercorns and heat it on low for about 15, 20 minutes. The recipe I'm pulling this from calls for 7-10 minutes after it comes to simmer, which also takes 7-10 minutes. You won't hurt anything with, say, a 15 minute time. Just keep the oil from coming to a full boil. Then use a strainer (lined with paper towels if it's not a fine mesh) to get the peppercorns out, and put them in with the remaining 3 Tbs of olive oil. (You might a use for the pepper infused oil later, but it's not here.)

Add the orange zest and the nutmeg to the peppercorn/olive oil mix. 

Now rub the salt/sugar/baking powder mix all over the top of the tenderloin until the salt disappears and the meat gets a little wet and sticky. Once you have that, fold the smaller thinner end of the tenderloin on itself so then meat has kind of a consistent size and put it on the cooling rack/cookie sheet rig. Press the peppercorn mixture onto the meat, covering the top and sides. The recipe I follow calls for tying the tenderloin with butchers twine at the folded lower end so it keeps its shape while cooking but I don't know it's needed. Insert the probe thermometer and chuck it in the oven. 

Once its at temp, pull it out and let it rest on the cutting board for 30 minutes. During that time you can do what I did and put halved baby potatoes and chopped broccoli (both mixed with 2tsp of olive oil and 1 tsp salt) on the hot cookie sheet and leave it in the 300F oven. Everything should be good to go at the end of the rest. (300F is a bit low for these normally, but 30 minutes is a bit long, so it works out, especially if you halved the potatoes for more surface area and the cookie sheet is hot.)

Carve and serve to a grateful and potentially amazed family. 

Weekly Cooking Report March 14: Chicken Wings with Garlic and Sumac

So yes, I should have given you this one before the Super Bowl, giving the wing consumption per capita that day, but better late than never and these are good at any time. Also, very simple as either the body of a meal or as the perpetual sporting event home viewing snack food. Last night we used them for dinner and my teenager was making audible "mmmmmm" noises as she ate. 

Note that in the picture above I am serving with my wife's homemade sourdough. If your spouse does not make homemade sourdough, well, middle eastern food goes great with couscous! (Also served with carrot and celery sticks because... wings.)

Shopping wise you're going to need one of those big packages of wings from your megamart - mine ran 5 lbs. and had about 20 wings in it. (why yes, we have leftovers that will serve me well). You'll also need one onion, a quarter cup of olive oil, a garlic bulb for 4 crushed garlic cloves* and some ground sumac. That last took my hitting a couple of megamarts to find, but like last week the concept of the meal is the main thing: if you like your food hotter rather than sharper, you can swap out the sumac with zaatar spice mix, which has sumac in it and is easier to find. Some kosher or sea salt finishes tings up. 

(* The thing about garlic is that it is sharper the more you cut it, but it also loses pungency over time; if you don't want to bother with buying a garlic head to get cloves, just swap in a like amount of the pre-minced garlic in a jar I've been asking you to use. Garlic is always to taste, not likely to hurt anything here.)

So the first thing to do is prep the wings. For me this just meant cooking shears to take the nubblins - the little end of the wings bits you don't eat - off of each one. If you're serving these as a game day snack, you can also use a knife to cut each of the wings in half into their two bone flatty and one bone roundy parts, but it's not necessary. 

Next, the marinade: juice the lemon (go ahead! no need to zest it this time!) into the olive oil and add the garlic (again, 4 bulbs crushed flat with the blade of a knife, or 1-2 teaspoons minced) and 1 tablespoon of the sumac. If you make this and find you want a sharper flavor and redder coloring (as we did) boost that to 2 tablespoons. Whisk everything together with a fork.

The recipe I used called for putting all the wings in a shallow dish and then rubbing the marinade all over them. If you get creeped out by handling all that cold dead flesh, put all the wings in a zip lock bag, pour the marinade into that, seal it, and mix/rub everything together through that. Cover the dish and chuck the wings into the fridge for 2-2.5 hours. 

About 40 minutes before meal time, move your oven shelf the 2nd highest position (assuming heating element is on top...), put some aluminum foil down on a cookie sheet (or don't if you don't mind the clean up on the sheet....), put the cookie sheet in the oven and start heating it to 400F. 

20 minutes before mealtime, take the chicken out of the fridge, carefully get that very hot cookie sheet out, and pour the chicken onto it, moving it with tongs to get them evenly distributed. You don't want them laying across each other. Try to get as much marinade as you can onto the wings. Put the sheet back in the oven and cook for 10-15 minutes. 

You want the chicken to be between the brown that i have in the picture above and lightly charred. Check it at the 8 minute mark, and if one side is getting too dark for your taste, flip them over. 

While this is happening, cut up the carrots and celery. I don't think you need me to tell you how to do that. 

Once the chicken is done, sprinkle lightly with salt and put it on a serving platter. Pour out all the juices and marinade into a bowl and whisk quickly for people to spoon onto the wings or bread (or couscous!) as they desire. serve to a grateful family. Or to whoever is watching the game. 

Weekly Cooking Report March 7: Greek Branzino

 You may ask yourself "why does Brian do so much chicken cooking" and the answer is "because it's easy" but the other answer is "my beloved wife is a monster who doesn't like fish". This means the fish recipes only get trotted out for special occasions, which is a shame because they are easy and tasty. Like this one! 

The recipe for this one comes from here and here, but I do want to break it down for you. 

You're going to need one or two whole fish at about the 1 lb. level, but have the fishmonger clean and scale it for you. These things might look intimidating if you haven't done this before but you'll be fine. Trust me. The recipe called for branzino but you can substitute striped bass, black sea bass, flounder, or red snapper. Lots of options. 

I want to focus on the cooking the fish part. Set the oven 20 400F, with a rack in the center and another closer to the top. Pat down the fish, cut slits on both sides. Rub the surface of the fish, and the cavity with salt and pepper, getting the seasoning into the slits you just cut. Fill the interior with sliced lemon and onion (1/2 of each for each fish) and place on cookie sheet to roast. Roast for 5 minutes. Then flip them with a spatula and roast for another 5-7 minutes. Move the cookie sheet to the top rack and broil until skin starts to char, 3-4 minutes. 

THAT'S IT. Flipping the fsh can be intimidating but take two spatulas and get it done. It doesn't have to look perfect and just like that, the fish is ready to eat. Everything else is gravy. 

OK, not gravy, but you get the idea. 

Now, for this recipe you then drizzle some Greek lemon/olive oil dressing over it, add some halved tomatoes that have a pinch of salt on them and some dill. I included a link to the ladolemono dressing recipe but you know what else works? This bad boy right here. The dressing is simple to make, I recommend doing it, but you don't need to. 

That being said, you don't need to use that dressing - pretty much any oil and herb based dressing will work, especially if you skip the dill (which has a distinctive taste... works well with fish, not for everyone). Or you can stick half the dill into the fish before it roasts. Or add the tomatoes to the sheet pan when you broil it to change their flavor. 

The trick is to a) not be afraid of the whole fish and b) serve to a grateful family. 

Oh, you know what goes really well with Greek fish? Couscous. You know what to do. 

Weekly Cooking Report February 29: Leap Day Agrodolce and other things

Happy Pirates of Penzance day everyone! Also, today is the day you ladies can safely proposition your menfol... <holds finger to ear> Oh... Propose to! Yes, that tracks more to old folk customs. 

This week we're going to do some simple things in order to have fun with the sauce, which is also simple.

The man body of todays meal is boneless pork chops cooked with Shake and Bake, couscous, and roasted cauliflower. Yes, I use Shake and Bake, it's freaking delicious, easy, takes 20 minutes, and the goal is to put dinner on the table inside your capacity with minimal effort. The Couscous we've covered before - boil water, add couscous and spice pack from box, cover, take off heat, wait 10 minutes. During the time the water is coming to a boil chop up the cauliflower head and put it on a sheet pan. Slide that pan in on the rack under the pork chops so they cook for 10 minutes. Chops, couscous, cauliflower, it's a beige alliterative meal! 

Now on to the fun stuff: Agrodolce sauce. This stuff is delicious and super-versatile. You'll need some olive oil (1 TBS), 2 medium onions sliced thin, 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and two plum tomatoes seeded and diced. You should have about 2 cups of onions and 1 cup of tomatoes. 

Now, in theory, the recipe I have calls for 1/4 cup of golden raisins and 1 tablespoon of capers but raisins in savory is anathema and I'm not a fan of capers. Your mileage may vary. 

Just heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until they are softened and golden, about 10-12 minutes. Add the vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper and I suppose the raisins and capers (if you're some kind of goddamn monster) and simmer until it gets a syrup consistency, 2 to 3 minutes. Then stir in the tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes or so until they are softened, and transfer everything to a bowl. 

Does that look like it will take about the 20 minutes it takes to get the pork chops done, assuming you slice the onions first? WHY YES, YES IT DOES. When everything is out spoon the agrodolce over the cauliflower, or over any part you want, I don't judge. 

Except about the raisins. I just the raisins. 

Serve to a grateful family. 

Weekly Cooking Report February 22: Slow Roast Chicken and Vegetables

You may have noticed that the recipes for chicken call for birds of modest size - especially modest sized breasts - and when you shop for chicken the store is full of brazen hussies with inflated bosoms. a pack of 4 bone in chicken breasts will measure at 6 lbs! What to do?

I have an amazingly simple solution which will make you look good as a cook: slow roast those suckers! 

So here's the deal - get one of those monster breast packs, a box mix of rice pilaf, some vegetables (I went with carrots and cauliflower) some chicken stock, some sprigs of fresh rosemary, diced garlic (you do still have that jar, right?) and 2 tbs of butter. 

Salt and pepper the chicken on both sides, just to get it seasoned, about 2 teaspoons of each. 

Set three over racks - one at the bottom, one 8" from the broilier (I am assuming you have an oven with the heating element at the top) and one in about the middle. Heat the over to 250F. 

Put some aluminum foil on a cookie sheet, then put a cooling rack on top of that. That's the roasting rig for the chicken. 

Take a second cookie sheet, coat it with aluminum foil and some cooking spray, and chop up the vegetables into fairly big chunks - a inch, inch a half per side, enough to be an independent bite - before mixing a tablespoon of oil over them. Put those on the second cookie sheet. 

All that prep done, heat some vegetable oil in a skillet until it's shimmering. Which honestly just looks neat. Then lay two of the chicken breasts in the skillet skin side down, cook for 3-4 minutes till the chicken skin has some color and come away from the pan easily. Flip and cook for another 2-3 minutes It will not be cooked all the way through by a long shot. Move to the cookie sheet cooking rack rig, skin side up.

Repeat with the other breasts. Put the chicken on the middle rack, and the vegitables on the lower rack and let it cook FOREVER! Well, until the inside of the biggest piece is 160F which could be 1.5 to 2 hours. (If you have a probe thermometer with the cord and outside sensor, that's ideal for this.)

Take the skillet off heat, add 3/4 of a cup of chicken stock, scrape the bottom of the skillet with a spatula or wooden spoon to get the browned bits up, and add 2 teaspoons of garlic and the rosemary sprigs and just let it sit while the chicken cooks.

When the chicken gets up to about 140F or a half hour before dinner time, make the box rice per the box rice instructions. Come on, you can do this. Or, if it worries you, use couscous instead. NO ONE CAN SCREW UP BOX COUSCOUS!

When the thermometer indicates the chicken is ready, take it out, and set the oven to Broil. Leave the veggies where they are. Pour the drippings off the cookie sheet into the now cool skillet of chicken stock, rosemary and garlic. Then turn the heat back on, bring it to a boil and then down to a simmer, which is like a boil, but slower and less bubbly. In 10 minutes put the chicken back on the upper rack and let it cook for 4-5 minutes, or until the skin gets nicely brown and crispy. Keep an eye on it so it doesn't blacken. 

While this is happening, cut up the butter and whisk it into the sauce. Once the butter is fully melted in, run the sauce through a strainer to get the garlic and rosemary out. The rice should be done and the chicken and garlic will come out at the same time. 

Serve to a grateful family. Note that in my family of 4 we needed ONE of these chicken breasts for the first nights dinner. You now have a metric fuckton of leftover perfectly roasted white meat chicken for any number of other uses. We used one for chicken salad one meal and quesadillas the next 

Weekly Cooking Report February 15: Marry Me Chicken

Another Week, and other recipe, and we're back to playing with chicken breasts in a skillet because it's a very simple go-to. This week its a riff on the internet classic Marry Me Chicken, which I threw together for the first time earlier this week to general acclaim. It's pretty damn simple, being just sautéing the chicken, making a sauce, and putting the chicken in it. I ended up serving it over couscous, with added fresh tomato in the sauce to have it double as the vegetable. 

Why, you ask? well, I found some other recipes for similar things that add kale into the sauce but a) I don't like kale and b) don't trust kale. We only ever use it chopped up in soups and stews, otherwise its ridged texture is too noticeable. Whereas the extra chopped fresh tomatoes add a nice hit of acid depth to the very savory baseline sauce, pair really well with the basil and the rest of the tomato flavor, and get you some veggies. 

Why pair with couscous? Because couscous is the student cooks best friend. It's the starch you can't mess up! Boil water. Add couscous and flavor packet from the box mix. Let sit. Fluff with fork. Tastes yummy, looks good, fills a hole on the plate, and is very versatile with the box you buy. 

Speaking of buying, the rest of the shopping list is pretty simple: garlic (and you should have that jar of diced or minced garlic already, use that...), Olive oil and kosher salt (you probably have both), some chicken broth and heavy cream (may already be in the fridge), a jar of sun dried tomatoes of which you'll be using about 1/3rd to 1/2 along with some of the oil, and some red pepper flakes, which are handy to have around. I also chucked in some fennel seeds because the recipe that used kale recommended them and I have those around... they added some nice pops of flavor. Finally fresh basil, which if you can find I heartily recommend over the dry. When you chop it up you'll smell it and ask yourself why you don't use basil more often. 

The recipe I linked to calls for pounding the chicken breasts down. I mean, you can...? Or you can cut them in half to get the right thickness. Or you can let the store do the work and buy chicken cutlets. If whatever you're cooking is less than 1/2 an inch thick (and cutlets usually are) cut the cooking time down to 2-3 minutes per side. You're still going to need to work in batches, so have a plate ready. 

Salt the chicken. Heat oil for a couple of minutes, add half the chicken, 2-3 minutes and flip, 2-3 minutes and put on plate, repeat for the other half of the chicken. The hard part is done. Yes, that was the hard part. 

Add a little of the oil from the sun dried tomatoes jar, heat that, and then toss in the garlic, the chopped sun dried tomatoes, and a smidge of red pepper flakes. 30 second later add the chopped fresh tomatoes and the tomato paste, keep stirring everything for 1-2 minutes. Then add the chicken stock and heavy cream, along with another hit of salt. Let it simmer (a very mild boil, just barely bubbling) for 4 minutes so it reduces and comes together. Add the chicken back in and cook for 4-7 minutes (4 will be enough if you're using cutlets). 

Serve over the couscous with sprinkles of chopped basil to a grateful family. This should only take a half hour, 45 minutes tops. 

If you have sauce left over but not chicken, buy a rotisserie chicken the next day, strip the skin off the chicken breasts, chop those off and put them in the leftover sauce to reheat. It's not AS GOOD, but it's still pretty damn good. 

Weekly Cooking Report February 8: Tuna Salad

I sometimes struggle on how complicated to make these. The goal is to give people who are afraid to cook things that I know that they CAN cook, in order to open their perspective and also have their families be grateful for the reader for their family meal contribution. 

And it doesn't get much easier than Tuna Salad, which is often dismissed as something too simplistic for a family meal. But it's nothing of the sort. Cooked, canned tuna is a versatile player that you can jazz up in a lot of different ways. Below is my normal spread

That's a single can of water packed, drained Tuna (which is smaller these days than it was in the past) but for a whole meal you're looking at one can per two diners. You'll need a binding agent for the tuna, which is normally mayo. You need less of this than you think. In my case there's 2 tablespoons there (red on the right). The rest of the binding agent is coming from stone ground mustard, but everyone has their own mustard taste. I generally use the healthier mustard as the rest of the binding agent so I'm not adding all of mayonnaise's fat and oil. And since you need less binding agent than you think, this is a tablespoon of mustard (blue front center). 

That's the bare minimum: the tuna is now technically a salad. I then add minced onions (pink right) and garlic (green), diced celery (pink left) and pickles (yellow), some pickle juice and a spalsh of lemon juice. If i were some insane purist I'd insist you get an actual lemon and juice it but I'm not; the RealLemon works fine here. You can basically eyeball this - celery is your number one add in for texture and just a hint of flavor, and then some volume of the others. 

Some people leave out pickles. Those people are wrong. 

The goal is to balance the flavors and textures, with the tuna providing some fishy umami, the mayo bringing some unctuous oil, and then a little heat from the mustard, crunch from the celery, brine and more crunch from the pickles, acidity from the onions, and a hint of garlic to round it out. I generally don't add salt, but you can. Done properly you get a lot going on in each bite, and each bite is just a little bit different. 

You can serve this the way I normally do, which is pretending to be healthy on romaine lettuce leaves. 

but the other popular option is the Tuna Melt. This application is why God invented American Cheese, which melts and browns perfectly for this. I use slices of store bought rye bread for this, just so the bread is brining some extra flavor, and it's sized properly for a single slice. Lay out the bread on a cookie sheet and cover each piece with the tuna salad. You should be able to get four slices of cheese-sized bread per can made. You don't want to over-stack this or it gets messy to eat. 

Finally you stick the cookie sheet in the oven, set it to Broil, turn on the oven light and keep an eye on in. In a few minutes the cheese will bubble and start to brown. That's when you're done. These are meant to be open face, and you may need a knife and fork to cut them up while the cheese is still warm. Or not. 

Serve to a grateful family. If you're not serving them on Romaine, a small side salad might be in order. 

Weekly Cooking Report February 1: Lemon Possets

My wife recommended this one as something dead simple and incredibly delicious, so order a pizza or make some pasta with a canned sauce for the main meal and then amaze your family when you whip these out for dessert. 

The recipe for this one comes from Cooks Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen so I can't link you to their article due to paywalls and stuff. That being said, I have gotten lots and lots of great stuff from CI over the last 13 years. 

When I say dirt simple I'm not kidding. One Pint (that's two cups, or one of the smaller cardboard containers) of heavy cream, 2/3rds cup of granulated sugar, and 2-3 lemons based on their size. That's it. 

First up, zest the lemons to get a tablespoon of lemon zest...it'll take 2 small lemons or one big one, more like than not. Then squeeze the lemons to get 6 tablespoons of juice. for me that was 2.5 small lemons. Amounts may vary. Set the lemon juice aside, you don't need it yet. 

Pour the heavy cream into a medium saucepan, then add the sugar and the lemon zest. Set the heat to medium and bring it to a boil. THIS CAN TAKE A WHILE. The heavy cream was in the fridge at 35F a few minutes ago, and you don't want to risk scalding it. Stir it every few minutes to help the sugar dissolve. Once it come to a boil, let it boil for 10 minutes. If it starts to boil over briefly remove it from heat. 

After a 10 minute boil, take it off heat and stir in the lemon juice. Let it sit for 20 minutes. then pour it through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl (or, ideally a glass 2 cup measuring cup with a bit of a lip). This gets all the zest out of it now that you've extracted its lemony goodness. You should have about 2 cups, give or take of liquid. 

Split the mixture into however many servings you want. The recipe says 6, but if you want 4 bigger servings I'm not there to stop you. Refrigerate uncovered for 3 hours and serve to a grateful family. 

(Or wrap with plastic wrap and they keep for 2 days. If you want to be extra fancy add some raspberries or blueberries to the top when you serve, but it ain't hardly necessary.) 

Weekly Cooking Report January 25: Arroz Con Pollo

OK, this week what looks simple is actually a little complex due to two stages of it, but I have faith in you! Arroz Con Pollo is a classic dish that brings to mind Mexico and the American southwest. I have NO IDEA how accurate it is to actual Mexican food, but this version is yummy and comforting and warm on cold winter nights, so that's what we're making 

This recipe from food network is my go-to for this, which may not speak too well to its authenticity but there you go. She says this makes four servings but we always end up with closer to 6-8; if you know you're feeding more people, get a larger bird. 

Of course, you may have to get a larger bird anyway. Trying to find a 3.5-4lb chicken as opposed to a 6-8lb one can be hard in today's megamarts. Given how long the chicken cooks anything you get under 8 lbs is going to be cooked through. If you don't want the hastle of breaking down the bird you can buy either pre-broken birds or just a 3-4 lb collection of parts (thighs would be my choice, drumsticks works)

Shopping for this is the aforementioned bird-of-varying-size (not a lesser known Figurine of Wonderous Power), an onion, a couple of bell peppers, some garlic (which ideally you have in one of the pre-minced or pre-diced jars because they work fine), some long grain rice (rice gets surprisingly complicated but as long as what you have isn't sushi rice you're probably OK) and some tomato sauce. 

You also need a salt, black pepper, cumin, cayenne, and powdered garlic, which if you have one of those spinning spice racks you already have. But if you instead want to by any sort of Mexican or Tex-Mex seasoning blend those will all work too. Not caring if you're authentic opens a lot of options. Put the seasonings into a gallon plastic bag, or bowl honestly. You just need a place to mix it with the chicken. 

So the first complex bit is breaking down the bird: assuming you didn't go with the pre cut option. It's a few more steps than butterflying the duck, and can be intimidating, but it does let you play with knives, so give it a shot. The one minute instruction video is here. Given how large the breasts are compared to the other body parts I will often then cut them in half widthwise, so I end up with one slightly longer wedge and a kinda cube. The recipe calls for the skin to be pulled off, but I don't. Do as you will. 

I know, precision. 

Once you break down the bird toss it in with the spices and mix till the spices are evenly over the bird. Now is the time to chop up your peppers into big pieces and dice your onions into smaller pieces. The big pepper pieces make it look pretty. 

Then heat the oil in your skillet. You want the oil the 'shimmering', which is one of those things that you'll know when you see it. Then put the chicken into the pan, making sure there's space between each piece. This may mean doing the chicken in two batches. 

NOW HERE IS THE TRICKY PART: how long the chicken takes depends on so many factors that you just have to keep an eye on it, occasionally trying gently to lift a piece with a fork. If it freely comes up it's ready, but you can let it sit a little longer if you want more browning. If it sticks, leave it unless it starts to look deeply brown. it's one of those weird things in science where the sticking to the pan thing is nature trying to help you out. When you flip it over it should be about this brown. This could be anything from 3 to 6 minutes per side. You're just browning it - it's gonna cook the rest of the way later.

Once these are done on both sides, move these to a plate, do the other half of the chicken, move them to the plate, and then toss in the onions, peppers, and some salt. Turn the heat down a little, and stir occasionally until everything softens. That'll be about 7 minutes, and stir it once every 30 seconds to minute. No stress, but don't wander. Once that's done, toss in the rice and garlic, stir it for one minute, and then add all the fluids. Then nestle the chicken pieces inside the water/sauce/stock/rice/veggie mix. it will look like this 

Bring to a boil, then take the heat down to medium/low (about 3 if you have a 1-10 scale on your cooktop). Cover and leave it for 30-35 minutes. Take it off heat and let it sit for 10 minutes. 

Serve to a grateful family. It's a protein, starch, and veggie all in one skillet. And if you buy the broken down chicken parts the only complex technique is browning the bird parts. Give it a shot! 

Weekly Cooking Report January 18: Wedge Salad

Last week I tasked you with making a whole duck meal, but that is a very big, very rich meal. This week lets go a little smaller and ostensibly healthier. As healthy as anything with a lot of bacon and blue cheese can be. 

To my money the Wedge Salad is the best salad in the world. And it has the advantage of being both a whole meal if you do it right. Or it can be side dish that you use to support someone else making the main meal. Either way it's delicious and easy. 

Now, this here recipe goes all in on how to make it, including making your own blue cheese dressing. Yeah, you don't need to go that far but it's here for reference. 

The shopping run for this is easy: A head of iceberg lettuce. A pint of cherry tomatoes. A jar of blue cheese dressing and hopefully a container of blue cheese crumbles. A rasher of bacon. a bag of croutons. As usual you may have a bunch of this in the house. 

Got all that? OK, get the bacon cooking. If you aren't comfortable with cooking bacon on the stovetop in a frying pan, you can use this technique to make it in the microwave. This may be better as it is uniformly crispy bacon. If you really, really, don't want to cook bacon, by a bag of 'bacon bits', but real bacon is much better. If this is meant to be a meal, use 3 slices per person. 

While the bacon cooks and drains, whack the lettuce head on its root to break it out, remove it, and then cut the head into at least 4 wedges, but otherwise one for each person eating, up to say, 8. You can also gauge this by how much people like lettuce. Then take about 4-5 cherry tomatoes per person, slice them in half. 

Pour on some of the blue cheese dressing. Then add the tomatoes. Then the blue cheese crumbles to taste. Crumble the bacon over the salad. Finally right before serving add the croutons and a little more dressing. Serve to a grateful family. 

The richness of the bacon, the tang from the cheese, the bright acidity of the tomatoes, the creaminess of the dressing against the crispness of the lettuce and the crunch of the croutons... it's nigh unto perfect. Enjoy!