It is November 19th and I am sitting at my counter drinking coffee and trying to mentally prepare myself for the first snow. For many people they equate this to the first snow of the year. However, for me, when I say first snow I mean "first snow" EVER!!! This Cali girl is getting ready for snow and all that comes with snow-driving in snow, walking in snow, breathing in snow, living in snow, sleeping in snow, eating dinner in snow and wearing a jacket.

The crazy thing is that yesterday it was 68 degrees and we actually had dinner outside so not only am I confused, but obviously so is Mother Nature. Anyway prior to today I have enjoyed some beautiful fall days and we have embraced the crisp and incredible weather by making some amazing grilled sales. Last night we made a Grilled Mexican Chicken Salad and a few weeks ago we made a Grilled Salmon Cobb Salad. Both of them were awesome!! The marinade for the chicken in the Grilled Mexican Chicken Salad was too die for and made the chicken so moist even after grilling. The Grilled Salmon Cobb Salad was the perfect modern twist on a cobb, however if I did it again I would definitely toss some blue cheese in there as well.


Now as many of you know I have been enamored with my new home and the wildlife that lives in my neighborhood. I have also been excited by the fact that you can feed the deer and actually even buy feed at the gas stations here. So a few weeks ago we bought feed and although I thought this was a nice way to supplement the deers diet during the colder months I quickly was schooled and a little devastated to learn that it was used by hunters to lure them in so they could shoot them!! Don't get me wrong I have nothing against hunting, but in my opinion it is not necessary to cheat and play dirty. That is like luring me in with a good glass of wine and a dark chocolate bar-straight up just not fair!!


Anyway once we bought the feed, the discussion in my household was centered around presentation and whether or not the deer would prefer their dinner served on the ground or in a football platter. I voted football platter since well as you know it is football season. Therefore, you will also notice a football platter being used in both of our grilled salads. I promise it is different football platter because yes we have 2!!

For the Grilled Mexican Chicken Salad, you start by grilling the jalapeño, tomatillos, orange and lime. Toss them into a blender with fresh oregano, cilantro, chili powder, garlic, salt and pepper.










Mix the chicken with half of the salsa/dressing mixture and marinate for 4-6 hours. Refrigerate the rest of the dressing.

After the chicken has marinated grill the poblano pepper, bell peppers, pineapple and red onions. Grill the chicken. You can also grill the tortillas or cook them on your cooktop, whatever you prefer.






















Arrange the lettuce on a platter and serve with the sliced bell pepper, poblano, chicken and pineapple. Put the red onions, cheese, tortillas and dressing on top.


This had incredible flavor! It had a slight hint of spice and all of the charred vegetables just made this dish amazing!! To be honest, the hardest part of this recipe was trying to explain to the grocery store clerk what all of the vegetables were as he had never seen anyone purchase them before. Welcome to the Mitten!

Here is the actual recipe:

Ingredients
Vegetable oil, for the grill
1 jalapeno pepper
1 pound tomatillos, husked and rinsed
1 orange, halved
2 limes, halved
1 small bunch cilantro, chopped 1 tablespoon fresh oregano
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 cloves garlic
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken thighs (about 6)
3 assorted bell peppers, halved and seeded
1 poblano chile pepper, halved and seeded
2 small red onions, cut into 1-inch-thick rings
1/2 pineapple, cored and sliced 1/2 inch thick
6 corn tortillas
6 heads Little Gem or other baby lettuce, quartered
1/2 cup crumbled Cotija cheese


Directions
Preheat a grill to medium high and brush the grates with vegetable oil. Make the dressing: Grill the jalapeno and tomatillos, turning, until well charred and softened, about 5 minutes for the jalapeno and 20 minutes for the tomatillos. Transfer to a platter. Grill the orange and 1 lime cut-side down until well marked, about 2 minutes. Remove to the platter. Turn off the grill.

Stem the jalapeno (remove the seeds for less heat); transfer to a blender. Add the tomatillos, the juice from the grilled orange and lime, the cilantro, oregano, chili powder and garlic. Season with salt and pepper; puree until smooth. Transfer half of the dressing to a large bowl; add the chicken and toss. Cover and refrigerate 4 to 6 hours. Refrigerate the remaining dressing until ready to serve.

Reheat the grill to medium high; brush the grates with more vegetable oil. Brush the bell peppers, poblano and red onions with vegetable oil. Grill, turning, until charred and softened, about 15 minutes; transfer to a cutting board. Meanwhile, remove the chicken from the marinade and grill, turning once, until cooked through, 10 to 12 minutes; transfer to the board. Brush the pineapple and the remaining halved lime with vegetable oil. Grill until marked, about 3 minutes; transfer to the board. Warm the tortillas on the grill.

Arrange the lettuce on a platter. Slice the bell pepper, poblano, chicken and pineapple. Arrange on top of the lettuce along with the red onions. Sprinkle with the cheese and season with salt and pepper. Serve with the grilled lime, tortillas and reserved dressing.

The next salad is the Grilled Salmon Cobb Salad. To begin with make some hard boiled eggs or you can cheat like I did and just buy some hardboiled eggs.  Ya know on a busy work night any time saved is a reason for celebration.

Season the salmon with lemon and salt and pepper. Let it sit for 10 minutes.


Make the dressing which consists of lemon juice, lemon zest, vinegar, shallot and fresh tarragon. Whisk in the olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Next grill the romaine lettuce, avocados and corn. I had never grilled avocados before and I don't know if it was psychological or natural but it seemed to give them a creamier texture. Grill the salmon.

Chop the lettuce and add fresh basil and fresh dill. Cut the kernels off the corn and chop the avocado and salmon. Arrange the corn, tomatoes, egg, salmon and avocado over the bed on lettuce. Drizzle with the dressing and top with parsley.


I loved the fresh herbs and pretty much anything with avocado in it makes me happy. This salad was just straight up perfect!

Here is the actual recipe:

Ingredients
3 large eggs
1 1 -pound piece skinless center-cut salmon (preferably wild)
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest, plus the juice of 1 lemon
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/2 shallot, chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Vegetable oil, for brushing
2 heads romaine lettuce, halved lengthwise
2 avocados, halved, pitted and peeled
2 ears of corn, shucked
1 cup fresh basil, torn
1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh dill
1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
Chopped fresh parsley for topping

Directions
Preheat a grill to medium high. Put the eggs in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, then remove from the heat and let sit, covered, 10 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water until cool. Peel, chop and set aside.

Meanwhile, drizzle the salmon with the juice of 1/2 lemon and season generously with salt and pepper; set aside 10 minutes.

Make the dressing: Combine the juice of the remaining 1/2 lemon in a small bowl with the lemon zest, vinegar, shallot and tarragon; whisk to combine. Gradually whisk in the olive oil until combined; season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Brush the grill grates with vegetable oil. Lightly brush the lettuce, avocados and corn with vegetable oil. Grill the vegetables, turning, until well marked, about 2 minutes for the lettuce and avocados and 5 to 6 minutes for the corn; transfer to a cutting board. Meanwhile, grill the salmon, turning once, until just cooked through, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer to the cutting board and let rest 5 minutes.

Roughly chop the lettuce, discarding the core; transfer to a large platter. Add the basil and dill and toss. Cut the kernels off the corn and chop the avocado and salmon. Arrange the corn, tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, salmon and avocados in rows over the salad; season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with the dressing and top with parsley.

I would love to write more, but I am pretty sure I need to go chop wood and gather nuts to store for the winter or my upcoming hibernation. Cheers everyone and stay warm!

Does anyone else have that one food that they are just a little afraid of? I am not referring to being afraid of eating it because I will eat anything, at least once, that someone puts in front of me. I am talking about cooking it. So for me, mussels have been one of those foods.



It was a beautiful fall day here in the Mitten and I let the man head to Costco on his own. Yes, I know that is a completely different mistake. Anyway I am running my errands and I miss a phone call from him and seeing as he isn't a chatty phone kind of guy when my phone rings it is usually some form of crisis. Little did I know that the crisis would be mine. By the way I missed his call because I was getting a spray tan. On a side note, another little thing I have learned about beautiful Michigan is that you become VERY pale very quickly. You may find the need for artificial tanning so that you don't resemble Casper the friendly ghost for 8 months out of the year and not just on Halloween.

Anyway I digress....so by the time I called him back he excitedly told me he had purchased....4 lbs of mussels. Um what? I don't know how to cook mussels, I don't know what to do with mussels, um what the hell!! And not just 1 lb of mussels or even 2 lbs of mussels, but we are talking about 4 lbs of mussels. However, I did not want to kill his enthusiasm and so I promptly told him I would google how to cook mussels and promptly got off the phone so I could freak out on my own.


The mussels came home...all 4 lbs of them...and during that period of time I learned just how to cook them. The first thing you need to know about mussels is how to clean them. So thanks to YouTube I learned that you scrub them with a brush and then debeard them. No, that is not a typo, just must debeard a mussel. There is strands of tissue attached to the shell of mussel and you must pull the strands off. To make matters worse cleaning mussels comes with a time crunch as they spoil quickly after debearding and so you must cook them immediately.

Therefore, I quickly got to work scrubbing and scrubbing some more all 4 lbs of mussels and then individually pulling off their beards. By the time I finished I had soaked through an entire set of clothes from the amount of water utilized and I had partially moistened another apron. I pretty much felt and looked the part of a fish monger.

However, once they are clean and I am not diminishing the chore of cleaning them, they are super easy to cook. I found a recipe in Cooking Light for Steamed Mussels with Garlic, Wine and Cilantro and I decided to give it a go.

To begin, heat olive oil in a large pot (very large pot if you have 4 lbs of mussels) and sauté the garlic. Add water and wine and bring to a boil. I was sold on this recipe as soon as I saw the wine part because that justified me having a glass of wine while I cooked.


Next add the mussels to the pot and cover and cook for 6 minutes. Remove from the heat. Any mussels that did not open in the cooking process you should throw away as those are not recommended for human consumption. My understanding is that if they remain closed that is an indication that they were either deceased prior to the cooking process or there is something wrong with them and you don't want to pry them open and eat them.


Sprinkle the mussels with pepper and cilantro and eat!! We ate them with some baguette bread and a glass of Chardonnay and it was absolutely perfect. I have to admit that I was pretty dang proud and I would totally make them again. My only critique of this recipe is that I missed the butter. Yes, I know this was a Cooking Light recipe, but sometimes you just want some good old fashioned fattening butter and I do have to admit I missed it.

Ingredients

1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups water
3/4 cup dry white wine
4 pounds small mussels, scrubbed and debearded
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation

1. Heat oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Add garlic; sauté 3 minutes. Add water and wine; bring to a boil. Add mussels; cover and cook over medium-high heat 6 minutes or until shells open, stirring well after 3 minutes. Remove from heat; discard any unopened shells. Sprinkle with pepper and cilantro.

2. Remove mussels with a slotted spoon, and arrange in each of 8 shallow bowls.


Slight confession though...last week we were back at Costco...together...and he says oh look mussels do you want to get some more? I promptly thought of being soaked in mussel liquid and my raw battered hands from the cleaning brush and I said how about some shrimp instead? Cheers!