Cooking
One of the many lovely places to eat along College Avenue, in Oakland, is the Red Tractor Cafe.
A very old-fashioned feel about the place; their menu was what I'd expect a farmer's wife, circa 1930, would have served...which means there was very little on the menu I could eat!
But the Red Tractor has great atmosphere, and serve breakfast foods, so I was usually safe.
Sometimes, I'd order a side of the garlic mashed potatoes...simply because they were that good!
And I don't think I've had a better cheddar biscuit anywhere else.
But something I'd often get there was a green apple, candied walnut and bleu cheese salad.
Fantastic!
Big, leafy salad, chunks of bright green apple, a flavorful cheese, and candied nuts scattered all over.
So, in my effort to keep the kitchen under 75 degrees this week, I recreated the Red Tractor Cafe's salad, as best I could.
Mixed greens, green apple, cubed Gorgonzola, and candied pecans...pecan halves coated in a sugar and balsamic vinegar syrup, then baked ten minutes. Fantastic! They're practically candy.
A nice, light dressing of lemon juice, mustard, shallot, fresh thyme and olive oil drizzled on top.
Add some grilled mustard chicken, and a cheddar biscuit (!), and you have a very nice, homey, meal. (Griddle pan for the chicken, which didn't take long, and the biscuits cooked in under fifteen minutes)
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Summer is the season for salads. Some days it just gets too hot to turn on the stove. And you never get quite as hungry on those days anyway. A salad for dinner makes perfect sense. Still I am always challenged to figure out how to make salad feel like...
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Cooking
Riding the Red Tractor
One of the many lovely places to eat along College Avenue, in Oakland, is the Red Tractor Cafe.
A very old-fashioned feel about the place; their menu was what I'd expect a farmer's wife, circa 1930, would have served...which means there was very little on the menu I could eat!
But the Red Tractor has great atmosphere, and serve breakfast foods, so I was usually safe.
Sometimes, I'd order a side of the garlic mashed potatoes...simply because they were that good!
And I don't think I've had a better cheddar biscuit anywhere else.
But something I'd often get there was a green apple, candied walnut and bleu cheese salad.
Fantastic!
Big, leafy salad, chunks of bright green apple, a flavorful cheese, and candied nuts scattered all over.
So, in my effort to keep the kitchen under 75 degrees this week, I recreated the Red Tractor Cafe's salad, as best I could.
Mixed greens, green apple, cubed Gorgonzola, and candied pecans...pecan halves coated in a sugar and balsamic vinegar syrup, then baked ten minutes. Fantastic! They're practically candy.
A nice, light dressing of lemon juice, mustard, shallot, fresh thyme and olive oil drizzled on top.
Add some grilled mustard chicken, and a cheddar biscuit (!), and you have a very nice, homey, meal. (Griddle pan for the chicken, which didn't take long, and the biscuits cooked in under fifteen minutes)
- Endive Salad With Prosciutto Recipe
Growing up I ate a green salad pretty much every night with dinner. In Italy, we did the same, though it was served at the end of the meal. These days, I find it hard to convince my other half to eat salad. My solution is to make main dish salads. This...
- Grapefruit Radicchio Salad Recipe
As part of my resolution to eat more salad, I am trying to buy ingredients that can be turned into a salad without too much fuss. You practically need to buy tender salad greens every day so I've been buying crunchy vegetables and hardier leafy greens...
- Brussels Sprout Slaw With Apples & Walnuts Recipe
This brussels sprout salad recipe is perfect for lovers and haters of the little cabbage-looking sprout. The flavor is so mild, that it barely has any cabbage flavor. Because the brussels sprouts are shredded, guests might not even know they are the...
- Spinach Fig Salad Recipe
Summer is the season for salads. Some days it just gets too hot to turn on the stove. And you never get quite as hungry on those days anyway. A salad for dinner makes perfect sense. Still I am always challenged to figure out how to make salad feel like...
- Pecan Chicken And Spicy Cornmeal Potato Wedges
Every once in a while, I'll troll some of my favorite foodie sites. My purpose? Find new recipes. A couple of weeks ago, I grabbed a bunch from Food & Wine and Epicurious, and we're making our way through them. Monday night, it was Pecan Crusted...