Food Fabulous Food

If you ever stop and think of all the food choices we have, you could be stupefied. Holy Extravaganza Batman! I love food! I revel in cooking extravagant and delicious recipes. The "what's for dinner" stuff...not a big fan; but even then some of that can be pretty great.

I can get lost in a fabulous cookbook. I'll sit in bed and read those instead of a novel some days. My all-time favorite is "The New Best Recipe" by Cook's Illustrated. I'm a fan of all the Cook's Illustrated publication wonders actually. The chefs have tested many recipes of beloved favorites and popular staples, and choose, and often perfect the best one. They even taste test ingredients, as well as try out the different cooking tools and give a review on them, and which brand to buy. They do the work so we don't have to. Love it!

There are many amazing food magazines, but my favorite is Chocolatier. Unfortunately, it doesn't exist any more, but it has been combined into what promises to be another irresistible wonder, Dessert Professional. It now gives tips and recipes, etc. for chocolate and pastry, which is a very tempting combination. If you go to the website: http://www.dessertprofessional.com/ you can see a video on an chocolate Octopus' Garden - How do they do it?!

Now, many of you know that I love to give Garden Tea Parties. I feel so la-de-dah when I give them, so it's vanity and a good time that keeps me interested...but as anyone who has come can tell you, they are so FUN. (I'll have to do a post - yippie!) A perfect specialty cookbook is "Celebrating Tea". My mouth starts watering just thinking about it.

Over the weekend I attended a family dinner. One of the ladies there brought a scrumptious salad. Since I'm posting about food and recipes today, I thought I'd share the recipe. It is inspired by a salad from a restaurant. I was told the ingredients and then came up with the amounts. Feel free to adjust and change at will.

Strawberry Spring Salad

1 bag of lettuce, "Spring" variety

1 cup red grapes, halved

1 pint, or 2 cups strawberries sliced

1/2 cup chopped cashews

or for variety, 1 cup carmelized slivered almonds*

1/4 cup dried Cranberries, optional

2 chicken breasts, cooked, and chopped

1 bottle BRIANNAS Home Style Blush Wine Vinaigrette salad dressing

Place lettuce in bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients except the dressing, and toss to mix well. Lightly drizzle dressing over the top. I would only use half of the bottle at first, you can always add more, but you can't remove any. Serve and enjoy. Serves 4, large portions, or eight side dishes.

To Make Carmelized Almonds:

Place 6 Tbsp sugar and 1 cup sliced almonds in frying pan over med. high heat. Stir constantly so sugar doesn't burn, until dissolved. The first few minutes go slow, but don't be fooled. Once it gets going it cooks FAST and will burn. I know from experience. Remove from heat and spoon over lightly oiled wax paper. When cool, crumble into pieces. Use on salads and avoid the temptation to eat them all then and there!