freySite
the life and times of J T Frey
Adapted from a recipe I found online (source: Ted's Bulletin, an upscale comfort food diner in Washington). My daughters love tomato soup, but aren't excited for any deviation from basic tomato flavor — I once added some ginger and was chastised for making the soup "too spicy." This recipe elicits high marks from the kids and the adults.
This recipe is a mashup of several salad recipes we found online and in cookbooks. The roasted squash, pumpkin seeds, and smoky gouda are meant to evoke a feeling of fall. We happened to have a bottle of grenadine on hand (Juliet had a thing for Shirley Temple sodas at one point) and the sweet pomegranate dressing went perfectly against all the other flavors.
Serves ~ 6 people.
Juliet was browsing a crock pot cookbook one day and came across a recipe for Indian-spiced lamb meatballs. Being a big fan of lamb curry, she voted it into our menu for the week. We're all glad she did. This variant of the original recipe tailors the flavor to our tastes and scaled-back to enough for our family of four.
Rather than buying a pre-made curry powder blend, why not make it yourself? That's what I thought when I read the ingredient list on an expensive bottle of the orange-yellow spice mix. This particular recipe mimicks the Spice Islands brand very closely.
The plain dill pickle. No garlic or spices here, just a plain dill pickle, like what you'd get on a McDonald's hamburger. Heinz used to make these, but no more. Mt. Olive makes them, but few stores carry them. You can find dozens of varieties of kosher dill, but if you want a plain dill it's up to the DIY pickle-maker.
I like to use freshly-sliced onion every now and then: the pickled onion slices taste great on smoked pulled pork sandwiches. That is they in the jar on the right; the jar on the left doesn't have the brine poured over it yet.