Recipe for Red Rock Brewery Style No-Mayo Vinegar Coleslaw with Oregano

I love coleslaw with mayo, but I'm also an equal-opportunity coleslaw eater!

A couple of months ago The Salt Lake Tribune posted the recipe for Red Rock Brewery's Vinegar Coleslaw.  In that story Tribune food writer Lesli J. Neilson admits never liking mayo-based coleslaw.  Of course I immediately went "HUH?" because I love all things mayo!  However, I also love all things cabbage and I try hard to be an equal-opportunity eater, so I printed the recipe for the Vinegar Coleslaw and experimented with it.  I realized I like coleslaw with oil-and-vinegar dressing almost as much as the many mayo-based coleslaw recipes I make so often.  Today is Memorial Day and I'm probably posting this too late for you to add it to your holiday menu, but if you want to be an equal-opportunity coleslaw eater I recommend trying this soon!

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Friday Night Photos: Farmer's Market Envy and Thoughts on BlogHer Food 2011

Atlanta sweet potatoes were enormous compared to the ones I see at home!

Last weekend I attended BlogHerFood 11 in Atlanta, where I developed a serious case of farmer's market envy after seeing the gorgeous produce the DeKalb Farmer's Market and the Sweet Auburn Curb Market had to offer.  The Salt Lake City Farmer's Market doesn't start until mid-June and our produce is rather puny in comparison.  My "real" camera is still in the shop (sigh) but I did take a few photos of the veggies with my old camera (and some with the iPhone when I was too lazy to carry the camera around!)   I don't know if it was the lack of my favorite camera but I didn't take any photos at the conference this year.   But But even without photos, I'm sharing thoughts about BlogHerFood and links to the official "liveblogging" of the sessions, plus how to find other bloggers who wrote about it.  (Edit:  Thanks to Susie from Eat Little, Eat Big who later sent me a photo of a dinner we shared with a few bloggers, so I do have at least one conference photo!)

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Recipe for Marinated Beef Kabobs

This favorite recipe for Marinated Beef Kabobs is something I used to make at Lake Powell.

(This recipe was revisited and updated with photos and better recipe notes in May 2011.)   In one of my previous lives (before food blogging!) I used to cater houseboat trips on Utah's beautiful Lake Powell, and this recipe for Marinated Grilled Kabobs was one of my favorite things to make on the houseboat.   It's hard to believe that this recipe has been hanging out in the recipe archives without a single photo since 2005!  It's nearly Memorial Day Weekend, and everyone should be breaking out their grill by now, so I made this a few days ago and took some photos.  If you can find the wonderful double kabob skewers like you see in the photo they're perfect for this recipe, or any other type of kabobs.

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Recipe for Curried Chicken Salad with Asparagus and Peanuts

I loved this Curried Chicken Salad with Asparagus and Peanuts.

When I spotted a recipe for Curried Chicken Salad with Peanuts in The South Beach Diet Taste of Summer Cookbook, there were two things that intrigued me about the recipe.  The first was the technique of adding a generous tablespoon of lemon juice to the pan when you browned the chicken breasts; something I'd never done before.  I'm a lemon fan, so I loved the way this added just a bit more lemon flavor.  The second thing that drew me to the recipe was the dressing made with mostly fat-free Greek yogurt, with just a touch of mayo.  I love mayo-based chicken salads but in this recipe I really enjoyed the tang of the yogurt.

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Friday Night Photos: Planting Tomatoes and More Herbs (2011 Garden Update #2)

I'm currently attending BlogHer Food while the garden grows!

Here's another update on the 2011 garden, which is finally shaping up.  I started planting herbs a few weeks ago, and then it seemed like it rained for days in Salt Lake.  That meant  I was really scrambling earlier this week to get my tomatoes, vegetables, and the rest of the herbs planted before I left town for BlogHerFood in Atlanta.  Thanks to my brother-in-law Clayton and my nephew Jake who helped with the garden prep so I could get everything planted!  After I finished planting I took far more photos than any faithful reader would want to see in one post (!) so today I'll show you the tomatoes and the rest of the herbs and I'll focus on the vegetables next week.

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Asian Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Radishes and Edamame

This crunchy salad has sugar snap peas, radishes, and edamame with a slightly-spicy Asian dressing.

(This recipe was revisited, updated with new photos, and added to Recipe Favorite May 2011.)  Early tomorrow I'll be on my way to Atlanta for the BlogHerFood Conference, where I'm looking forward to seeing friends, and meeting some new ones.  I've been planning for BlogHerFood for weeks, and had a couple of posts written and saved to be published while I was there.  Then Blogger had a widespread outage, and this morning when I opened the posts to schedule them, everything I had written was gone. If it's a bit quieter than usual around here you'll know why, but I did want to share this updated recipe for Asian Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Radishes and Edamame.  I've been enjoying this for lunch the last couple of days, and I'm glad to have new photos to replace the original  one (which you can see right after the step-by-step photos if you want to check it out.)

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Recipe for Whole Wheat Couscous with Saffron and Onions

Plain Couscous can be a little ho-hum, but this Whole Wheat Couscous with Saffron and Onion is delicious.

I was a slow to gain an appreciation for couscous, but after my neighbor Nancy introduced me to Whole Wheat Couscous it's something I find myself thinking of much more frequently when I need a quick whole-grain side dish.  I've enjoyed it in recipes like Whole Wheat Couscous with Green Onions and Parmesan and Whole Wheat Couscous Salad with Persimmons, Grapes, Green Onion, Mint, and Pine Nuts.  Do you see the common theme here with both those recipes using pine nuts?  I'm a firm believer that everything tastes good with pine nuts, and I found myself thinking that some pine nuts sprinkled on top would make a great addition to this recipe as well!  But even if you skip the pine nuts, this whole wheat couscous with saffron and onions was a lovely side dish for some fish cooked on the grill.

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Friday Favorites: Ten Favorite Grilling Recipes and Tips for Grilling for National Barbecue Month 2011

Did you know that May is National Barbecue Month?   I love late spring when it's finally time to get serious about cooking on the grill again (even though my grill is on a covered deck and hooked into the natural gas f my house and I've been known to grill when there's snow on the ground.)  I've been writing about grilling for quite a while, both here on my blog and on BlogHer.com, so this post is going to spotlight my ten favorite grilling recipes from last summer, plus lead you back to some other grilling round-ups and grilling posts you might have missed in the past.  There are ideas here for grilled chicken, pork, and beef, as well as grilled vegetables, grilled zucchini pizza, and even some grilled salads! 

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Recipe for Grilled Pork Chops with Asian Black Bean-Garlic Marinade

I'm pretty sure this is my first new grilling recipe for 2011!  Even though my grill is on a covered deck where I could use it all year, the weather in Salt Lake has been so cold and rainy this spring that I've been thinking  more about soup than grilling.  Then a couple of very cute boys stayed at my house a few weeks ago and my nephew Ethan washed off the grill so we could cook hot dogs.  Not a very gourmet start to the grilling season, but I made up for it this week with these grilled pork chops with a very interesting Asian-flavored marinade. If you're not a pork eater, I think this would also taste wonderful on beef.

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Recipe for Leftover Chicken Chopped Salad with Red Pepper, Olives, and Feta

Tossing the diced chicken, red pepper, and olives with dressing gives this salad that extra something.

(This Recipe Favorite was updated with better photos May 2011.)  For many years it was considered poor form to cut lettuce, but then someone came up with the idea of chopped salad, and food history was made. Of course you don't really need a recipe to make chopped salad, but what makes this version memorable is the step of tossing the leftover chicken, chopped red pepper, and olives with some of the dressing before you add it to the salad.  If I'm not starving, I'll even let the chicken marinate in the dressing for a few minutes before I finish the salad.  This is something I've been making for years, whenever I have leftover Grilled Chicken or rotisserie chicken in the fridge.

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Recipe for Garlicky Roasted Chickpeas (Garbanzo Beans) with Feta, Mint, and Lemon

I think these Garlicky Roasted Chickpeas with Feta, Mint, and Lemon are perfect for Meatless Monday!

On Friday I talked about how I'm doing a weekly Meatless Monday recipe feature on BlogHer.com.  Of course this is all part of a world-wide Meatless Monday campaign designed to get people to eat less meat, both for health and for the health of the planet.  I got interested in eating less meat after my doctor recommended a book called The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health. (Apparently this is the book that convinced Bill Clinton to become a vegan.)  I don't plan to become a vegetarian, but I do love plant foods like vegetables, beans, and grains, so I thought doing the weekly spotlight on BlogHer would be a great way to nudge myself towards a few more meatless meals.

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Five Fun Things on Friday (5-6-11)

On Mondays I'll be spotlighting meatless main dishes on BlogHer.com.

It's Friday, and if I was still teaching school I'd definitely be counting how many more Fridays were left in the school year.  (Anybody out there doing that student or teacher countdown?)  Even when you're "retired" Friday has a different feel to it than other days of the week and we can all use something fun on Friday, so here's another list of things I've spotted online.  Hope one of them might make your Friday just a bit more fun.

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Recipe for Green Chile and Cheese Egg Muffins

These Green Chile and Cheese Egg Muffins are a great make-ahead breakfast.

(This recipe was revisited, added to Recipe Favorites, and updated with new photos and better instructions in May 2011.)  One thing that can be frustrating about food blogging is that you're always thinking about new recipe ideas, and sometimes old favorite recipes can be neglected in the menu rotation.  That's why it's remarkable that I've made these Green Chile and Cheese Egg Muffins at least once a month since I first posted the recipe back in 2006.  There have been a lot of different Egg Muffins on the menu during that time, but I come back often to this favorite version which uses ingredients I nearly always have in the house.

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South Beach Diet Phase One Recipes Round-Up for April 2011 (Low-Glycemic Recipes)

Sausage, Mushrooms, and Feta Baked with Eggs was Kalyn's favorite Phase One Recipe for April 2011.

Wow, am I ever happy that the calendar has flipped over to May!  Of course you've heard the saying that April showers bring May flowers, and if that's true the entire state of Utah will be covered with flowers this May.  And seriously, there are real concerns about a possible repeat of the Utah flood of 1983, when downtown Salt Lake City had a river created from sandbags running down one of the main streets.  On the blog the first day of a new month means rounding up the Phase One Recipes I've made during that month or found on other food blogs.  Last month I mentioned that since I've been doing these round-ups since March of 2008, I was going to start focusing more on new ideas for Phase One rather than trying to save every Phase One Recipe I find.  I hope that will make the Phase One Round-Ups even more useful.

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