There is nothing more fun or more challenging for a seasoned cook or chef than dealing with an overage of product (leftovers for us laymen.)  While you could just reheat and serve, it will almost never be as good as the original dish was (unless it’s a soup or stew, which are sometimes made a day in advance and allowed to get better overnight.)  The idea of turning something previously wonderful into something completely different, but just as memorable is one that some shy from, but I embrace.

This dish is the result of having made far too much braised pork.  I’d used soy in the original marinade and the rest of the ingredients are just pantry staples mixed in a new way.  The difference in textures and flavors was amazing and even though the pork was braised for hours, the dish still had a light, bright flavor that was perfect for a quick breakfast.

The recipe below is for one person, but makes enough dressing for 3 or 4, so feel free to make several plates with a bit more pork and you’ll be fine!

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I think at the end of the day I’d have to say with confidence that I’m a fusion cook.  No matter what the combinations or origins of my recipes may be, I have to toss in something out of somewhere else, just for fun. by far my favorite inspiration is Asian cuisine.  The mix of subtle flavors with bold accents is amazing, versatile and fast, all things which my busy schedule and I embrace.

This dish was simply a throw-together dinner.  I had chicken, i had salad greens and I had an orange, this is what came of those ingredients.  Totally unplanned, unfettered by preconception or planning, it’s a simple tasty meal that easily serves as a main course in its own right and honestly could only be made more perfect by sharing it with someone else.

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I may not have been born Texan, but Texas is where I call home these days and proudly so at that. Texas has been good to both my wife and I from the day we set foot here and even though we’re sure to leave her eventually, for now I’m Texan, and a piece of my heart will always be in the Lone Star State. A part of me will always be Texan. The place is just like that, it can’t help itself.

Having said that, you might be able to surmise how tickled I was to get a message from the Texas Beef Council asking me to help spread the word about Texas Beef.   We really don’t need to go into all the yelling and carrying on that happened on this end of that conversation, so let’s just say I was happy to accept shall we? The nice folks over at Texas Beef sent me a few recipes and a $25.00 prepaid card to buy whatever ingredients I’d need for the party, which was nice of them since I would have done it on my own dime anyway.

After looking over our choices, my wife and I decided on the Gazpacho Steak Salad. It looked pretty refreshing for days still well into the 90’s with an average 45% humidity and it sounded a bit different from the dishes we’d been having over the past few weeks, which would make for an interesting change of pace, so I set off for the store to get what I needed and got to work.

Of course I couldn’t follow the directions 100%, could I? That’s not in my nature unless bread making is involved. (which is why I leave that up to my wife when possible).  Not only did I forget I’d used up one of the ingredients, but I managed to misread the recipe in the process of making the dish, though neither change was that large a departure from the original.

My thoughts?  Well, you’ll have to read through my version of the recipe to get those.  I wouldn’t want to give everything away at the very beginning of the story.

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If you think that food bloggers, even those who generally cook by the seat of their pants, live in a complete vacuum when it comes to recipe inspiration you would be completely mistaken.  When in need of a new concept or glimmer of an idea I turn to the most talented group of recipe wranglers I have ever had the pleasure of associating myself with;  Other food bloggers!  And without a doubt, one of the bloggers who tops the list as a great source of inspiration is Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes.

This recipe is a revamped version of Elise’ Shrimp and Avocado Salad, which was posted on Simply Recipes several years ago and even though it might be an older recipe, it’s still absolutely with the times, full of flavor and could be served at the trendiest foodie get together without feeling out of place.  Of course I made a few modifications to her original recipe, but it’s the nature of any cook to adapt a concept to fit his or her tastes or the tastes of those being served.  In all I’ll give this one a 10, but I still have to blame elise for tempting me with the idea in the first place.

As a temptress, she’s a great muse.  Just don’t blame her for the low quality of this photo.  I was starving!

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(You could also call it a California Steak Salad, but I hate branding a thing “Californian” just because it uses Avocado and Sprouts.)

It was all about a quick and healthy lunch.  I had a basic idea of combining a few Asian flavors with some darned good fruits and veggies I’d found at the market.  For the protein, some beautiful beef top chuck blade steaks.  For the fruit, a nice avocado. And for the veggies, some of the freshest alfalfa sprouts I’ve seen since moving to Texas.  The dressing was pretty simple to figure out as well, since stone fruit is to beef what apples are to pork and citrus is to chicken, I’d just use a little plum sauce to make a vinaigrette and call it fantastic.

Fantastic isn’t even close.  Not by a long shot.

I have a new go-to meal.  The flavors, the textures, the aromas…  All of them make me a bit woozy in their perfection and balance.  Just the right amount of sweetness from the dressing, tanginess from the vinegar and the succulence of the avocado and beef paired with the bitter crunch of the scallions and alfalfa sprouts sing a kind of symphony of wondrous voices.  It’s truly a thing of beauty, and one I highly recommend to anyone.  The fat lady has sung.  It was perfection.

If you only ever make one of my more California inspired dishes, make this one!

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Another month and another blog event.  This is my first time joining in with a lot of my blogging friends for the Royal Foodie Joust, hosted by the lovely Jenn (a.k.a. The Leftover Queen).  The joust really is the perfect challenge for me, since you’re presented with a triplet of ingredients and challenged to come up with something unique using them.  What more could the king of cooking without a recipe ask for?!?

The ingredients for this round of the event were chosen by Elle, the winner of last moth’s joust. Her choices?  Raspberry, almonds and lime.  While these three could easily be used to create something very sweet and decadent, there was a hint that she’d like to see something savory come out of it.  I knew what direction I was going to take these ingredients immediately, all I had to do was go get some berries!

While I would have loved to use fresh raspberries for this, we’re not exactly in raspberry country.  The “fresh” raspberries in the market were not only outragiously priced, but smelled more of plastic than berries, so they were out.  I considered using frozen berries, but they tend to muddle the colors of other ingredients, and don’t present well, so I went with 100% all raspberry preserves, and the result was just a bit on the sweet side for me, but still fantastic!

If you’re looking for the perfect main course for a hot summer night, this is your dish.  The texture is cool and wonderful, with a load of crunch from both the iceberg lettuce and the almonds, but still quite a bit of toothiness from the romaine.  The queso fresco is the perfect accompaniment, as it has a texture much like feta but is more mildly flavored, like a cross between a goat cheese and ricotta, and blends perfectly with the other flavors.

My wife’s response was simple.  She just looked at me and asked; “We’ll be making this again, right?”

Yes honey, we most definitely will.

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If you thought canned tuna had to be boring, think again. If you look past the American tradition of slathering this delectable fish in mayonnaise and stuffing it between two pieces of bleached white bread, you’ll find that there is a world of inspiration waiting to be found in that tin, and this is but one of many I’ve had lately.

The same holds true of iceberg lettuce, it’s gotten a bad rap in these days of micro greens and baby field greens, but on a hot summer day in Texas there’s just nothing as refreshing as the cool, crisp texture and flavor if a good iceberg salad, whether that be a traditional wedge salad or a more composed dish like this one.

This dish stems from the need for both my wife and I to eat more Omega3 rich foods, and on the day it was served, the temperature here had soared well past 90, so a salad seemed in order, and as I dug through the pantry searching for viable ingredients the tuna caught my eye. I thought that I’d seen something similar from Elise at Simply Recipes, but when i went to look for it, I couldn’t find it. Therefore this tuna salad recipe is an original, based on my tastes for the day.

The end result was light, cool and infinitely satisfying. More than enough of a meal to carry me through a long hot afternoon until dinner and with no guilt at all, as this is probably one of the healthiest lunches I have prepared in a very long time. If you’ve been feeling a craving for seafood but don’t have the budget for a good piece of fresh fish from the local fishmonger, this is a dish that I highly recommend!

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What do you do with a lonely little piece of leftover chuck roast? You can always make a barbecue beef sammich, or just nibble it to death as a snack, but why not give it a bit of pride in its demise and turn it into something completely different and absolutely fabulous!…

But what would that be?

In this case, the inspiration came from my sister, who sent me a wonderful birthday gift, including plum sauce, sea salt, black bean garlic sauce, a couple sea salt grinders, the cutest outfit for Mr. seat of his Diaper, and a jar of oriental barbecue sauce.

A quick look in the crisper showed half of a bag of Italian salad greens, some arugula, shredded carrots, and my course was set. That lonely lil’ piece of leftover roast beef had a new destiny, and it was going Asian.

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Due to my recent round of heath issues, this round of Your Pantry or Mine has gotten off to a slow start. I want to apologize to everyone who’s been waiting, it took me a few days to get back into the swing of things.

This round of Your Pantry or Mine highlights the ingredients in dew’s pantry, which was more challenging because it holds almost the same ingredients I have in mine, with the exception of just those few I would have normally used to finish off a dish.

With this in mind, and the fact that dew appeared to have an eye for healthy fare, (and an allergy to nuts) I decided that the first round of Your Pantry or Mine, No. 2 should be something on the lighter side, using the freshest ingredients from her list.

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When the weather gets warmer, it’s time for a bit lighter fare. This salad was the perfect answer to the heat of a Texas spring day. Crisp, refreshing and light, with the zing of a fresh vinaigrette to perk up the palette.

I used a store bought bag greens mix containing frisee, arugula, romaine, red leaf lettuce and carrots, though this would be just as wonderful with baby spinach or plain-ol’ romaine. You can also substitute your favorite crumbled cheese for the feta, if you’re not a fan.

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