This Kale with Glazed Chicken was inspired by a salad that Mark and I enjoyed at Peli Peli in the spring of 2018 between visiting friends in Houston, Texas. Guava has a flavor that is a cross between strawberry and pear. If guava preserves are too hard to find, strawberry works just fine. Sometimes we like to add a little crumbled goat cheese.
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No one enjoys dry braised pork loin, and yet many recipes call for a blazing hot oven that shrinks the flesh, leaving it mealy. I prefer a gentler approach, first searing on the stove top, and then covering for a gentle braise in the oven. We use seasonings that rev up the overall flavor while allowing for various condiment pairings. Our personal favorites are red pepper onion relish, orange marmalade, and Kansas City-Style barbecue sauce. The relish and the marmalade are particularly wonderful if warmed before dressing the meat. Decorative and delicious!
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Panzanella (pahn-zah-NELL-la) is a practical Italian dish transforming stale bread into a delicious salad. Traditionally it is made entirely from cold ingredients, but we like a roasted layer topped with a contrast of chilled. Mark said that it’s “like” salad, but without all the “boring” stuff. Ironically, a minute later he suggested it would be good over spinach leaves. I think I may be cracking his anti-vegetable platform.
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This Butter Chicken with Cilantro will knock your socks off! In 2009, Mark taught a class in India, and so we added a few days of vacation. We visited our friends Ed and Greta in Hyderabad and then flew on to Bangalore (Bengaluru) for the remainder of the week. Our love of flavorful, spicy food made every day a culinary adventure. Years later, to our surprise, we discovered a fantastic butter chicken at Essex, a restaurant just a few blocks from our condo in Charlotte. After countless orders, we finally decided to try making it at home. If you love Indian food, you have to give this a try.
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Roasted Kielbasa and Potatoes is one of our favorite inherited German family recipes. In the early 1900s, my grandparents and Mark’s great-grandparents all settled in the same tiny rural community of Paxico, Kansas. It was such a strong German/Polish immigrant community that many of the “old folk” never bothered to learn English. Hard work necessitated hearty food, and this one sure fits the bill!
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The first time I made The Reuben for Dane and Jessi, I assured them that they would NOT like them because of the sauerkraut. So, of course, they proved me wrong by promptly gobbling them down.
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