wednesday woes... No Lettuce Summer Salad

Wednesday is a hard night to cook... really it should be named "take out night". Monday is easy because I have just gone to the store the day before and planned the meal for the first few nights of the week. By Wednesday you are tired and doomed and most likely some kind of drama has happened at work to "allow" you to break out the first bottle of wine for the week... thus my wednesday night ensues...

I started with some chicken that I quickly through into a plastic bag with Very Very Teriyaki and onion salt to marinate for 15 mintues while I got into grubs.

With my delishhh pinot noir open, I chopped a yellow potato and steamed for 10 mintues. While that was on the stove I cut up green beans (bite sized) and set aside for steaming next. I chopped a handful of cherry tomatoes and put in a salad bowl.

Once the pots and green beans were steamed I dropped them in with the tomatoes. I had some frozen edameme that I had thrown in with the green beans at the end of their steaming. I wasn't really sure at this point what I was going to season all of this goodness with. And then I could taste balsamic vinegar over the pots / beans and realized that with some basil and fresh garlic, S&P would be just perfect. Also, this will compliment the sweetness of the teriyaki chicken.

Crap, the chicken! This is always my problem in the kitchen... timing everything right so it is all ready at once! Luckily I have a Le Crueset pot (thanks, Les!) that I knew would cook the two breasts up in less than 1o minutes without burning. I put 1 tblsp of butter at the bottom and dropped all the contents into the pot - teriyaki sauce included. 5 mintues on each side with a bit of browning and they were prefect.

Lesson 1: This new creation no lettuce summer salad could be done with or without potatoes and could be served cold, if put in the fridge ahead of time.

Lesson 2: Don't overcook the potatoes because when mixed with the other contents they will crumble

Dressing for the salad:
1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar
2 tblsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves
2 tblsp basil (fresh is best)
s&p to taste

the reality of onions

Being in the kitchen every night you realize how much you do the same thing over and over... like chop onions. Every time I am chopping onions I think, "wasn't I just chopping onions yesterday and the day before"... but there is no getting around it because so many dishes require the use of onions. I have often thought (while in the act), 'there has to be something out there that can do this for me' - ok I have a cuisinart already - so yes, I could pull that big thing out and do it the lazy mans way but the reality of chopping onions is there is this twinge of great pleasure and pride! you get when you cut that onion in half and chop it just right and at the perfect speed. You almost want to look up and see the cameras in front of you and say to the viewers "and see it is just that simple". Chopped onions is the foundation for many great meals and really it is the foundational art for a great cook in the kitchen. So there is no getting around it... we must chop onions for the rest of our lives, although not as our doom but as our art. And that is that.