Pasta with Sausage, Peppers, Mushrooms and Onions

This is one of my go-to weeknight dishes mostly because it's super simple and I love a one dish meal. Toss your favorite cooked pasta with sauteed red peppers, a medley of mushrooms and onions, add some cooked sausage, season with olive oil, salt and pepper and fresh grated Parmesan cheese. Voila, you've got a meal you will not soon forget! Serve with slices of good quality ciabatta bread or rolls and olive oil for dipping.

Marinated Skirt Steak with Summer Tomatoes

I love skirt steak especially during the summer months, its a lean and very flavorful cut of meat that is relatively inexpensive. The marinade with all its abundant and complementing ingredients enhances the steaks flavor. I'll be serving it for dinner tonight with sauteed summer zucchini and slices of yellow and red tomatoes with fresh basil leaves.

Tidbits for perfection: Plan according the steak needs to marinate for several hours.

¼ cup cooking sherry

¼ cup soy sauce

¼ cup honey

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 tablespoon fresh gingerroot, minced or 1 teaspoon powdered ginger

1 teaspoon dark sesame oil

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1¼ pound skirt steak

In a baking dish to accommodate the steak, combine the sherry, soy sauce, honey, vinegar, gingerroot, sesame oil and garlic. Place the steak in the marinade turning to coat, marinade for several (3-4 hours is perfect) hours. Turn steak occasionally to marinate evenly.

Allow steak to come to room temperature before cooking.

Set oven temperature to broil or prepare grill. Drain marinade from steak. Place steak on a rack or grill and broil or grill anywhere from 3-8 minutes on each side for medium rare or cook to desired preference. Let the steak rest for about 5 minutes. Slice against the grain into thin slices. Yield: 4 servings.

Summerlicious Chicken Salad

Tarragon and Basil Chicken Salad

Here's a unique variation on the traditional chicken salad recipe. Chicken breasts are slathered with Dijon mustard, seasoned with tarragon and basil and then baked. It’s a marvelous combination of flavors. 

With temperatures hovering in the triple digits, it's perfect for the ladies luncheon I'm catering today because its cold and light - seasoned slices of colorful tomatoes wedged between sweet slices of red onion and mozzarella cheese are a complementing accompaniment.  I'm serving with homemade focaccia and peach iced tea. 

Helpful to know: The chicken can be baked prior to the day you're planning to serve it. When I'm not preparing this for a catering party, I often double or triple the recipe, it's makes, "What's for lunch?, What's for dinner?" super easy.  Whole Foods Market produces a delicious canola mayonnaise that has the consistency of a thick salad dressing. It works beautifully in this recipe.  

  

1½ pounds chicken breasts, skinned and boned

¼ cup Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon dried tarragon

1 tablespoon dried basil

Preheat oven to 350°. Arrange chicken in a single layer in a baking dish. Spread Dijon mustard evenly over chicken, top with tarragon and basil and bake for 45 minutes. Allow chicken to cool before cutting into bite size pieces.

1 cup celery, minced

⅓ cup mayonnaise (more or less to taste)

Salt to taste, optional

In a large bowl, combine chicken, celery and mayonnaise; season with salt to taste. Toss to evenly distribute ingredients. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Yield: 4 servings.

Reminiscing Dad's Tasty Burgers on Father's Day

My dad loved beef, especially burgers and steak. Whenever we had either, he was usually the head cook for our steak and burger meals as opposed to my mother who was for the most part the primary cook in our family. Dad made the best burgers, for starters, (and this was very important) patties were made using ground chuck. Ground chuck is made from only boneless chuck roast and has just enough fat to make it juicy, but not too much to make the burgers shrink down to nothing. He would gently form the meat into patties and season them with salt and pepper. He'd fire up the grill or get our mainstay cast iron skillet nice and hot and cook the burgers a perfect medium rare. "Flip the burgers just once," he would tell me.

Mr. Fabulous and I don't consume a lot of meat, but when we eat a burger, I can't help but reminisce all the times my dad cooked the best tasting burgers. We'd set out a big selection of toppings for the burgers, each of us preferring something different than the other. Ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, relish, cheese and onions was usually the typical topping selection.

Today in honor of Father's Day Nick and I will be eating burgers topped with two of our favorites ... white cheddar cheese and tons of smothered onions. The burgers will get placed on buns (another very important component) the best are those that come somewhere in between a squishy supermarket bun and a fancy bakery version, (although dad wasn't as concerned about the bun as we are).

Dad preferred starchy sides in lieu of vegetable based accompaniments. As a tribute to what he loved, I'll be preparing his all time favorite potato salad, a recipe my mother began making for him shortly after they married.

Dad made my life (and the life of so many people) interesting and fun. I miss him and wish more than anything he was here with us today.

Braised BBQ Brisket "Gliders"

Nick loves my Braised BBQ Brisket recipe so I prepared it for some friends we had in for dinner the other night. He suggested making sandwiches from what was leftover. So I prepared a batch of homemade rolls and piled them high with warm brisket. The soft rolls combined with the ultra tender, sauce-drenched brisket "glided" down our throats like a fantastic single malt scotch. Maybe we've got a new thing going on with Nick's newly coined, "glider"... after all it's only been since the 1920's that the White Castle "slider" began making news!

Braised BBQ Brisket

Covered with tenderizing lemon slices and flavorful onions and cooked for several hours at a low setting, and then flooded with a bold flavored BBQ sauce, this brisket promises to be one your guests will not soon forget. So pronounced the flavor, I recommend serving with non-distracting accompaniments like steamed green beans and boiled potatoes.

Tidbits for perfection: Plan accordingly; the brisket has to be cooked the day before you plan to serve it. Make certain the brisket is completely covered with lemon and onion slices. Liquid smoke can be found in the condiment aisle of most grocery stores nationwide. It’s very important the meat gets sliced against the grain; it makes a difference in the flavor and tenderness. Check the meat for lines that are running in the same direction, this is the grain. Position the knife perpendicular to the grain and slice.

Day one …

Brisket

One 5 pound brisket, after the butcher has trimmed off the fat

3-4 lemons, thinly sliced, seeds removed

3-4 medium onions, sliced

Preheat oven to 250°. Place meat in a 15 x 10½-inch (4 liter) baking dish. Cover brisket with lemon slices, top lemon slices with onion slices. Cover and bake for 6 hours.

6 hours later …

When brisket has cooled, drain essence from meat and discard lemon and onion slices. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

BBQ Sauce

2 cups ketchup

2 cups water

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

2 teaspoons liquid smoke

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

A few dashes TABASCO® brand Pepper Sauce

In a large bowl, combine ketchup, water, Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke, brown sugar, salt and Tabasco sauce.

The following day …

Allow brisket to come to room temperature. Preheat oven to 350°. Thinly slice meat against the grain. Pour BBQ sauce over brisket slices, cover and bake for 1 hour. Yield: 12 servings.