Recipe for Roasted Asparagus Wrapped in Ham

Roasted asparagus wrapped in slices of lean ham.

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  This roasted asparagus wrapped in ham tastes perfect this time of year.)

It's a sure sign of Spring when recipes featuring asparagus start popping up on the food blogs. Both of the markets where I shop regularly are selling low-priced asparagus, so I've been having fun experimenting with it lately. I've seen recipes using asparagus paired with prosciutto or bacon, but to make it more South Beach Diet friendly I thought I'd try asparagus roasted with lean ham. The smoked and slightly browned ham paired wonderfully with the barely roasted asparagus, and this is something that would make a nice addition to a menu for Easter brunch or lunch.

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Roasted Asparagus Recipe with Creamy Tahini-Peanut Dipping Sauce

Delicious roasted asparagus with a tahini-peanut dipping sauce.

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  I love the tahini-peanut dipping sauce here and think it goes perfectly with roasted asparagus!)

Don't you think there's something special about asparagus when it finally comes into season in the spring? Before I started blogging I wasn't nearly so much of an asparagus fan as I am now. A lot of my asparagus apathy was because I'd mostly eaten asparagus cooked in water, a method which can simmer out a lot of the flavor. When I fully entered the ranks of the food-obsessed and started reading lots of blogs I learned about roasted asparagus, grilled asparagus, and sauteed asparagus. Since then I've been on a yearly spring quest to find as many new asparagus recipes as I can. This roasted asparagus with tahini-Peanut dipping sauce was a fantastic success. The sauce was slightly adapted from Chicken and Quickly Roasted Asparagus with Tahini Sauce, but the added peanut butter produced a thicker sauce and I subbed agave nectar for sugar or splenda. This is a recipe I can't wait to make for guests.

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Recipe for Sauteed Asparagus with Melted Gorgonzola and Pine Nuts

This Sauteed Asparagus with Melted Gorgonzola and Pine Nuts tasted amazing

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  This recipe was first posted in 2006 as part of Asparagus Aspirations at Seriously Good, sponsored by blogger Kevin Weeks.  Kevin passed away last week, and I'm dedicating this recipe to his memory.  His insight and cooking expertise were something he shared freely with many people, and he will be greatly missed.)

When I first made this recipe in 2006, I said "At the risk of sounding like I'm completely lacking in modesty, let me say that this was one of the best tasting things I've ever eaten in my life!"  Now years later this is still one of my favorite ways to cook asparagus, even after I lightened it up a tiny bit from the original recipe. I'm still on a bit of an asparagus binge around here, and when I made this to take new photos I ate about half of it for lunch that day.  You can see the original picture after the step-by-step photos, and if you're joining my asparagus binge you'll find lots more ideas for cooking asparagus after the recipe.

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Recipe for Thai-Inspired Turkey Mini-Meatball Lettuce Wraps

Turkey Mini-Meatball Lettuce Wraps with spicy Thai Flavors!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.   These little mini-meatballs are served inside lettuce leaves with a spicy Thai-flavored dressing, and I could eat this every day!)

It was pure serendipity that I discovered this recipe for ultra flavorful little turkey meatballs, served inside lettuce leaves with a spicy Thai-style sauce, some diced cucumber, and fresh mint. I didn't have anything like this in mind when I thawed out a pound of ground turkey; I was actually thinking about using it in the Horseradish Meatloaf, before I changed my mind. So there I was with a pound of turkey that needed to be used, and when I need recipe ideas in a hurry, I often stand in front of my wall of cookbooks and just flip through books, using the index to see what recipes I can find for that ingredient. I found this recipe in The South Beach Diet Taste of Summer Cookbook, but this is a recipe I'd enjoy all year, maybe substituting cilantro for the mint when it's out of season.

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Recipe for Spicy Stir-Fried Sugar Snap Peas with Soy Sauce, Sesame Oil, and Sriracha

If you love sugar snap peas like I do, you have to try these Spicy Stir-Fried Sugar Snap Peas.

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  I'm crazy about sugar snap peas, and this easy stir-fry is one of my favorite ways to use them in a cooked dish.)

Recently I talked about my profound affection for sugar snap peas, and I decided it might be fun to experiment with them as the starring ingredient in a stir-fried vegetable side dish.  Not that I hadn't stir-fried sugar snap peas before, but never like this with them sliced diagonally to reveal the tiny peas inside.  I have no idea where I got the idea of slicing the peas for a stir-fry, but I loved the results.  The pods cooked more quickly, and a few tiny peas spilled out, adding visual interest and a lot of sweet pea flavor to the finished dish.

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Spicy Grilled Eggplant Recipe with Red Pepper, Parsley, and Mint

This spicy grilled eggplant is a favorite of my brother Rand, who does the fun headers for Kalyn's Kitchen

 
(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  I'm on the road driving home from Los Angeles, where I've been visiting my brother Rand and attending Camp Blogaway.  This Spicy Grilled Eggplant is Rand's very favorite recipe on Kalyn's Kitchen, and I'm glad I have my eggplant planted this year so I can make it later in the summer.  Meanwhile, if you have eggplant from the supermarket or Farmer's Market, I highly recommend this recipe.)

If you saw my last garden update, then you know I'm growing eggplant this year, and my first one was ready to harvest recently. I've grilled eggplant before, but I'm certainly not what you'd call an expert at cooking it, so I consulted a couple of cookbooks and settled on a recipe from Williams Sonoma Complete Grilling Cookbook, one of my favorite cookbooks, which I return to every summer for more grilling recipes. I followed their recommendation for salting the eggplant to remove some of the water before grilling. I sliced my eggplant about 1/2 inch thick, but next time I might slice it even thicker.

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Grilled Chicken Recipe with Tarragon-Mustard Marinade

Chicken breasts are marinated in a flavorful mustard-tarragon marinade and then grilled.

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  Right now the tarragon in my garden is in overdrive, and this favorite grilled chicken from 2007 sounds great for dinner!)

Recently I realized it had been a while since I've had a new grilled chicken recipe. It was one of those thoughts that just flitted through my mind, not seeming to lead anywhere, and then a few days later I thought of grilling and tarragon in the same moment and this recipe was born.  If you haven't tried the distinctive flavor of tarragon, give this a try!

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Recipe for World's Easiest Grilled Vegetables (How to Cook Vegetables on the Grill)

These easy grilled vegetables are something I make all during grilling season!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  These easy grilled vegetables are something I make at least once a week during grilling season!)

I regularly get comments from people who tell me they are learning to cook from my blog.  Feedback like that is partly what's motivating me to share this simple not-really-even-a-recipe way that I cook grilled vegetables all during the grilling season.  Whenever I'm cooking grilled chicken, meat, or fish, there will usually be one of these grill pans full of vegetables cooking alongside it.  Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of grilling season for many people in the U.S. so I'm sure there will be vegetables on the grill at my house over the weekend!

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Recipe for Asian Flavored Wild Salmon Patties with Ginger, Scallions, and Sesame-Lime Mayonnaise

These Salmon Patties start with chopped raw salmon that's seasoned with Asian flavors.

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  Since I am in Seattle enjoying the seafood and attending BlogHerFood, it seemed like a perfect time to feature this wonderful recipe with wild salmon.  Enjoy!)

Last year my brother Dave and his four sons went to Alaska and fished for salmon and halibut.  I've been the grateful recipient of some of the frozen wild salmon and halibut they had shipped back to Utah, so lately I've been looking for some new ideas for cooking both these types of fish.  If you enter "salmon recipes" into the search bar on the blog, you'll see quite a few recipes for salmon, including Salmon Patties made with canned salmon, but this type of salmon patties are a completely new way to cook salmon for me.  They're made with chopped raw salmon, flash frozen so they keep their shape, and then pan-fried in a small amount of olive oil.  The salmon patties are seasoned with Sriracha and plenty of ginger and scallions and served with a delightful sesame-lime mayonnaise that goes perfectly with the salmon.

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Recipe for Zucchini Bake with Feta and Thyme

A delicious side dish with zucchini, yellow squash, eggs, Feta, sour cream, parmesan, and thyme.

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  I am just starting to get zucchini and yellow squash in my garden, and this is favorite zucchini side dish will be on the menu soon!)

This is a recipe I came up with to use the surplus of zucchini in the garden, so I'm begging for understanding from readers who don't have garden veggies available. The good news is that this recipe can easily be made with zucchini and yellow squash from the store or farmers market too. I consider this to be a season-spanning vegetable side dish, but with the protein from a couple of eggs and the feta cheese, it could easily be a main dish too.

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How to Grill Zucchini - Perfect Every Time!

Perfect Grilled Zucchini, something I make as a side dish all summer long!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  This easy recipe for Grilled Zucchini is something I make several times a week all summer long!)

For most of my life I was kind of lukewarm about zucchini. When I was a kid, my mom would dip it in egg and fry it, something I liked ok, but didn't love. It wasn't until I discovered how great grilled zucchini can taste (and my mom started making "creamed" zucchini") that I really started appreciating the zucchini that sprout up overnight in the garden.

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Recipe for Grilled Halibut with Cumin and Lime

If you have leftovers of this Grilled Halibut with Cumin and Lime, use it to make fish tacos!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  This delicious recipe for grilled halibut is something I made regularly back in the days I was organizing houseboat trips, and it's still one of my favorite marinades for grilled fish.)

Imagine you're sitting on the top deck of a houseboat looking out at the beautiful scenery of Utah's gorgeous Lake Powell while you're eating a wonderful dinner featuring this Grilled Halibut with Cumin and Lime.   That's the memory I had when I sat on my deck eating this a few days ago.  The marinade is perfect for halibut, but you can use any kind of mild white fish that's firm enough to stay together on the grill.  And the leftover fish is perfect for making fish tacos (if you have any leftovers!)

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Recipe for Julienned Zucchini "Spaghetti" with Quick Sausage, Tomato, and Basil Sauce

Don't think of Zucchini "Spaghetti" as a replacement for pasta, think of it as a delicious zucchini dish!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  I made this julienned zucchini "spaghetti" over and over after I tried it last summer.)

Have you ever used a Julienne Cutter or a Mandoline Slicer to cut zucchini into thin "spaghetti-like" strands and then served it like pasta?  I have both those handy cooking tools and I certainly have an abundance of zucchini every summer, but I just tried doing that for the first time this week.  I ate my zucchini "spaghetti" with a very tasty quick sauce made from spicy hot Italian sausage, tomatoes, and lots of chopped basil, parsley, and oregano, and completely enjoyed it for a quick dinner.

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Monster Zucchini and Basil Strata Recipe

This is a tasty casserole or side dish made with those inevitable monster zucchinis!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  When my neighbor Mike showed me a monster zucchini hidden among the zucchini leaves in his garden, I knew it was time to feature this really delicious way to use those huge zucchini.  

People who haven't grown zucchini themselves may see the title Monster Zucchini and Basil Strata and wonder if monster zucchini is a new zucchini variety, but anyone who's had a garden knows about those monster zucchini that hide under the leaves.  You don't discover them until they're so big that it seems like the only thing to do with them is make Zucchini Bread or Zucchini Muffins.  I'm not a fan of monster zucchini, so I try to watch my plants and not let them get too big, but when the garden is winding down I always have a few that get out of control.  When I discovered an enormous zucchini recently I decided to update this recipe that I first made in 2005 with a monster zucchini that greeted me when I got home from a trip.  This recipe does have a few eggs to hold it together, but I'd consider it a casserole or side dish and it's one dish made with monster zucchini that really is very good.

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Recipe for Meat, Tomato, and Mozzarella Stuffed Zucchini Cups

"Cups" made from giant zucchini slices and filled with a meat, tomato, and mozzarella mixture.

 
(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  It's monster zucchini season here and last Friday I spotlighted Monster Zucchini and Basil Strata.   This recipe for zucchini Meat, Tomato, and Mozzarella Stuffed Zucchini Cups uses "cups" created from slices of overly-large zucchini, and this is another of my very favorite things to make when the zucchini gets out of control.  Enjoy!)

Despite the rather messy plating job, I'm excited about this new way of making stuffed zucchini by slicing an overly-large zucchini into two-inch slices, then hollowing out the slices to make zucchini "cups." Normally I'm a fan of round 8-ball squash for Stuffed Zucchini, but this year my 8-Ball squash hardly produced anything. Meanwhile, my regular zucchini plant kept producing zucchinis that were too big, causing me to get creative. Don't you think hollowing out a zucchini cup like this and filling it with meat and cheese sounds like a delicious way to use zucchini? Zucchini is definitely on surplus status around here, so there may be some other zucchini recipes coming up this week as well.

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Recipe for Green Goddess Tomato-Mozzarella Stacks (with Green Zebras and Fresh Mozzarella)

Simple stacks of green zebra tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and Green Goddess dressing!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  Right now Green Zebra tomatoes are abundant at my house, and I love these little stacks of fresh tomato goodness.  Of course you can use any type of tomatoes if you don't have Green Zebras.)

Now that I've finally made Green Goddess Salad Dressing, I've been thinking about creative ways to use this dressing other than just drizzling it on a green salad (although salads with this dressing are spectacular!) Right now the garden is giving me lots of Green Zebra tomatoes, and I created this dish by imagining how the slightly-citrusy flavor of the Green Zebras would work with the complex flavors in the Green Goddess dressing. And wow! I loved this take on Caprese Salad with Green Zebra tomatoes, slices of fresh mozzarella, and Green Goddess dressing drizzled over. Of course, there are endless variations on this theme, so feel free to use any tomatoes you'd like and experiment with other kinds of cheese to enjoy with your Green Goddess dressing.

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Recipe for Tomato, Olive, and Fresh Mozzarella Salad with Basil Vinaigrette

All the flavors of summer in this Tomato, Olive, and Fresh Mozzarella Salad with Basil Vinaigrette

For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  I make this salad every summer, as soon as Costco starts carrying the fresh mozzarella pearls and I have fresh basil in the garden!)

This is the perfect salad to make when it's fresh tomato season and your garden is bursting with tomatoes and fresh basil. However it can also have mood-enhancing properties if it's a very rainy first week of summer where you live, even if you have to buy tomatoes from Costco and it takes every basil leaf you can manage to snip from your puny plants. I have to confess though, it was the adorable mozzarella pearls made by Bel Gioisio Cheese I found at Costco that really inspired this salad. If you're not familiar with fresh mozzarella, it's a very soft cheese that comes packed in brine. The "pearls" are tiny pieces about the size of marbles, and they were delicious with the tomatoes and fresh basil.

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Recipe for Braised Green Beans with Garlic, Tomatoes, Olives, and Capers

Delicious fresh green beans braised with garlic, tomatoes, olives, and capers.

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  When the garden starts exploding with green beans, this is one of my favorite ways to use them.)

Although I love having a garden where I can grow a lot of my own vegetables, keeping up with garden vegetables can be a challenge, and if you're not diligent vegetables quickly grow too big. Green beans are the plant I have the hardest time with; they come on so quickly that often when I pick them I find a bunch of over-sized green beans. If you have garden where the beans sometimes get a little too big, this recipe for beans are braised with garlic, tomatoes, olives, capers, and a little water is a good method for making larger beans tender. (I'm mentioning that as a public service announcement, since I tried this recipe before I even had beans in my garden and the pictures in these photos are thin green beans from Costco!)

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Recipe for Lemony Green Beans (Green Beans with Lemon Juice and Lemon Zest)

Super easy and delicious Green Beans with Lemon Juice and Lemon Zest.

 
(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  Right now my garden is producing more green beans than I can keep up with, and these lemony green beans are one of my favorite ways to use them.)

If you have a garden that's producing green beans, I enthusiastically advise that you bookmark this recipe and make it over and over again. I didn't even have garden beans when I first tried the recipe, but I made it three times with the French green beans that come from Costco. In fact, the first time I made it, I ended up eating a whole pound of green beans myself and calling it lunch! Thanks to Cheap Healthy Good for inspiring me to buy Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers, which is where I found this idea for my new favorite way to cook green beans!

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Garden Cucumber Salad Recipe with Tuna and Sweet Basil

This simple salad with cucumbers, tuna, and fresh basil is perfect for a quick lunch!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  This simple salad with garden cucumbers, tuna, and fresh basil is perfect to make with garden cucumbers, and it's one of those recipes where the sum of the ingredients ends up being more than the parts!)

If you haven't had homegrown garden cucumbers, you may not realize how much better they are than the cucumbers you buy in the supermarket. Garden cucumbers are sweet and crisp, and when they're abundant in my garden I'm forever coming up with new cucumber salad recipes. This combination of tuna in olive oil and fresh basil was fantastic, and I thought it was such a nice blend of flavors I ended up making it again the next day so I could take photos. If you have a garden with fresh cucumbers and basil, don't miss trying this salad.

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