<p>Anybody have a good recipe or technique for caramelised nuts like you see in all the yummy restaurant salads with fruit?</p>
<p>Hanna - I made your zucchinis with ricotta - GREAT!. This will definitely become one of my summer dishes.</p>
<p>Marite - also made your zucchini soup and it was Excellent!!! I guess I must have added a little less of chicken stock (I always use my own and this time did not have much left over), because the soup came out of a blender nice and thick - did not have to thicken it with sour cream etc., which was a bonus!</p>
<p>I have also made salsa according to orchid_2010 recipe and it was a hit!</p>
<p>Thank you all for those great ideas.</p>
<p>Kelowna:</p>
<p>Glad you enjoyed the soup. I’ve had it thickened with sour cream or heavy cream or millet or cooked rice. Each tastes slightly different, and each is excellent.</p>
<p>I need to bring a salad to a pot luck tonight. All women. The hostess is providing drinks, appetizers and desert. The other women are each suppose to bring a salad. I am looking for something that might be a bit more filling then just lettuce and vegetables.
What are some of your favorite potluck salads?
Need something without cilantro for this event.</p>
<p>Made these last night—yum
Watermelon Margarita
1 cup pureed watermelon (seeds removed)
2 tblspoons lime simple syrup (boil 1 cup sugar with 1 cup water and the zest of 1 lime-strain, keeps FOREVER in fridge)
limes (a few squeezes to taste)
1/2 cup silver agave tequila
2 tblsp Cointreau (or similar)</p>
<p>Combine above ingrediants in cocktail shaker with ice. Shake to the rythms of Perez Prado. Strain and serve in chilled in salt rimmed glasses.</p>
<p>Not a salad, but how about linguini with basil, tomato, brie, and olive oil?
Or a salade nicoise (ithis word needs a cedilla but my keyboard does not do it): boiled potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, lettuce, hard boiled eggs and tuna. Canned tuna is fine, grilled tuna is even better. Use a vinaigrette on the salad.</p>
<p>I was just thinking about this thread today as I watered my eggplant. There will be some ready in a day or two, and I would welcome recipe suggestions. My husband does not like cheese, epecially parmesan. Any other ideas?</p>
<p>ReneeV- how about grilling the eggplant along with some other summer vegetables as a side dish?
Marite- Could I serve the linguine cold or at room temp?
I have only a few foods that I do not touch. One of them is tuna. Don’t know why. Goes way back to childhood.</p>
<p>Room temperature is best. Mix the other ingredients together beforehand, maybe a couple of hours (I forgot to include some garlic and salt). Then mix in the linguini close to serving time.</p>
<p>If you don’t like tuna, another kind of fish would do. I’ve even substituted grilled beef or chicken.</p>
<p>Marite- fresh tomato or canned? Do I cook the tomatoes and basil in olive oil or is everything fresh? Do you have a recipe or is it just something you put together?</p>
<p>mom60: It’s from the Silver Palate cookbook, but I reduce the amount of oilive oil. The tomatoes are fresh. I use something like 4 tomatoes, 1 lb of brie, with rind taken out (it’s easier if the brie is cold) and chopped into small cubes; 1 cup of basil, shredded, 1 tsp or more of salt, three cloves garlic, minced; 1/2 cup extra-virgin oil. You do not have to cook anything. Mix all the ingredients and leave out at room temperature.</p>
<p>I also use fresh linguini; it cooks faster than packaged dry linguini and tastes much better.The sauce should be good for 2lbs of linguini.</p>
<p>Marite- Thank you.
That is what I am going to bring.</p>
<p>OK, cheese-eating D and I will have the linguini with a bit of sliced grilled steak, H will get a whole steak, and we’ll all have grilled eggplant. Mmmmm! Thanks!</p>
<p>Let me know how it turns out!</p>
<p>renee- how big are the eggplant: diameter? The small, skinny kind (1 inch) or the bigger bulbous kind (3 inch at widest part)?</p>
<p>I just made a delicious variant on summer pasta from the NYTimes:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/health/nutrition/22recipehealth.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/health/nutrition/22recipehealth.html</a>
delicious.</p>
<p>And the SF Chronicle had a nice article on the perfect nicoise last week:
[The</a> Roving Feast: Nice’s signature salad inspires a Nicoise a la Marlena](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/22/FDCA11MJOF.DTL]The”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/22/FDCA11MJOF.DTL)</p>
<p>Renee, do you like caponata? I love it and even occasionally eat it over pasta. </p>
<p>I want to be someone who makes watermelon margaritas on a Monday night!</p>
<p>patient:</p>
<p>Thanks for the two recipes. We have a house guest who is a pasta lover, so I’m trying different pasta recipes and those that don’t involve cooking earn my vote.</p>
<p>patient, the Times pasta does sound out of this world! Can’t wait to make it.</p>
<p>hi worrywart, yes, was so good I made it two days in a row. The arugula really makes it yummy. And marite, yes I’m the same way!</p>