An American Invention With Italian Style

About as authentically Italian as Mama Celeste but still delicious. Antipasto salad. Basically just a delivery vehicle for cheese, cured meats, olives and pickled peppers -- an Italian sub without a roll given a "healthy" appearance by incidental crisps of crunchy lettuce.
I love any dish that doesn't need a strict recipe. With a little of this and some of that (what else could I do with that last kohlrabi?) we've got a quick dinner James is happy to eat "any night of the week."

Turning Over Another New leaf

I can't say that I'm fatter than I have ever been but I am certainly fatter than I want to be. I'm starting a new -- going to the gym, fitting in pilates, and eating better, lighter foods. Just the opposite of how I usually feel with winter around the corner but none the less -- no time like the present as they say.

Fall Garden Salad

A home grown combination.
I started cleaning out the garden. Clearing vines, pulling squash plants, gathering teepees and fences and tucking them away for spring. While I cleaned I harvested the last of this year's beans. I combined those shelled beans and some of our last potato harvest into a dinner salad with Italian tuna and a fresh lemon rosemary vinaigrette. An antipasto for everyday.

A Salad James Won't Eat

James won't eat beets. He won't even try them. But I had some in the fridge so I made this lovely salad -- something James won't eat. Thinking back to that long gone pledge to cook every recipe in Jim Lahey's My Bread cookbook. I roasted my beets and followed Lahey's "recipe" for marinated beets which is basically red onions and sliced beets left to marinate in red wine vinegar. Hardly a taxing recipe. I left my beets to marinate and then in my own version of Lahey's marinated beet sandwich I tossed the marinated veggies with olive oil, arugula, and -- because I didn't have goat cheese in the house -- Nicasio Valley Cheese Company's Foggy Morning, a tangy but delicate fresh white cheese.