

A New Take on "Pasta Salad"

Tonight I created a light, Italian inspired dish perfect for a spring evening. It begins with a bed of fresh spinach topped with pasta, veggies, and two proteins. Much of the preparation lies in the dish's assembly, as the mushrooms, egg, and bacon need to be chopped and the garlic and pasta must be cooked (bacon should be pre-cooked.) Once ingredients are ready, all that remains is put together your salad.

Here’s what you’ll need:
2 cups fresh, washed spinach leaves
1 handful spaghetti noodles
2 crimini or white mushrooms
1 hardboiled egg
3 strips of bacon, baked or fried until crispy
3 whole cloves garlic
1 tsp. ground black pepper
3 tbsp. truffle oil
1 tbsp olive oil

To create the dish, you’ll be working on several things simultaneously. First, boil a large pot of water in which to cook the spaghetti, and preheat your oven to 400 degrees. As the water boils, peel garlic cloves and place them on a small sheet of aluminum foil. Wrap the foil around the cloves to create a package. Before closing the package, lightly drizzle garlic cloves with olive oil and salt. Add pasta to boiling water and sealed package of garlic to hot oven. Slice the mushrooms in half lengthwise and then chop into pieces down the width. Crumble cooked bacon into bits, and dice hardboiled egg.  When pasta and garlic cloves are tender (after about 15 minutes), remove garlic from the oven and drain pasta.  Chop garlic cloves into bits.

To assemble the salad, make a bed of spinach leaves and cover with pasta. Then top with mushrooms, egg, bacon, and garlic. To finish, drizzle with truffle oil, olive oil, and fresh ground black pepper.

The dish is best served cold, accompanied by a chilled glass of white wine. I recommend a pinot grigio.


Sandwich for dinner, s'il vous plait.






Here's a rough outline:

1/4-1/3 of a baguette

1 egg per person, hard boiled


2-4 anchovy fillets, optional

2-4 black olives (nicoise or kalamata)

good mustard

good mayonaise.

veggies of choice




Fried Matzo: Jewish French Toast

When I was growing up, my dad used to make me breakfast in the morning. We had all sorts of inventions: Hotdogs and Eggs, Fried Salami, Potato Chip Omelettes, and my favorite: Fried Matzo. This is a fairly simple recipe which my grandmother passed along to my father, who in turn taught me. It's supposedly an old Jewish standard, but I've never seen anyone else make it outside of our family. The recipe is similar to French Toast, except here, the matzo is first softened with hot water in order to be able to soak up the eggs. Here's what you'll need to make a large serving of this delicious and easy recipe:


-4 sheets Matzo

-2 eggs, scrambled

-1/2 cup hot water

-1 tbsp vegetable oil


-butter and jam for topping (I recommend blackberry, boysenberry, loganberry, or lingonberry jam for best results.)


To make:

-break your matzo sheets into bite sized pieces (should be about 2” x 1”)

-place broken matzo into a bowl and pour hot water over matzo pieces, stirring to insure every piece soaks up some water

-pour scrambled egg over matzo and mix well

-heat a large, nonstick frying pan and add cooking oil

-pour matzo and egg mixture into pan, spreading out evenly

-cook over medium heat for about 2 minutes until bottom is cooked and beginning to crisp (but be careful not to burn!)

-flip and repeat process for the other side until every piece is thoroughly cooked

-remove from heat and serve lightly salted with jam and butter

Ham, Cheese, and Steamed Egg Croissant

Having breakfast today at Atlas Cafe because I am too lazy to make it myself. Luckily, they make the most delicious breakfast croisant sandwich. They steam their eggs, which is kind of like scrambled, but they are super fluffy. White cheddar cheese and black forest ham on a super flaky buttery croisant. Add some tapatio (hot sauce), salt, and pepper,and it is an unstoppable combo. I'd make this myself, but the recipe I found for croisants in the Tartine Cookbook is 5 pages long and takes at least two days.
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