• Start off with a simple Great Greek Frittata—pretty much a quiche without a crust—add Carrots with Fennel Cream Sauce and a bright garden salad.  Cafe dining for any night.
• Then there’s a stop at a roadside diner.  The recipe for Chopped Steaks with Mushroom Gravy was developed for a Fizzy Meals week celebrating country tables from Provence to Anywhere USA.  Add some brown rice and Simply Green Beans for your own blue plate special.  This just begs for a bit of Banana Pudding (p. 120) to polish off the meal.
• Treat yourself—or company—to an elegant evening with Rosemary Dijon Pork Tenderloin.  The Caramelized Pears Parmigiana are super easy and super special.  Fruit with cheese is a classic combination for good reason and this one works as a side (think warm salad) or with just a little variation as a dessert.  Great addition to a brunch menu.
• The Muchos Caminos seasoning was adapted from the Black Dog Tavern southwestern rub.  From the Southwest U.S. to Cape Cod and back to Texas, this seasoning blend has traveled many roads, Muchos Caminos.  It is terrific to have on hand as a rub or seasoning for beef, pork chops, pork tenderloin, salmon steaks, tilapia, even shrimp.  It stays in my pantry as a dinner saver.  If you check out the picture, you’ll see why the Summer Stir Fry will have fans before the first bite.

I’d love to hear how the recipes and menus work for you.

• Seared Ahi Tuna with Sesame Crust served on a bed of Ginger Mushrooms & Baby Bok Choy with a side of Wasabi Mashed Potatoes is adapted from a menu shared by Chef Josh Thomsen of the Boa Steakhouse in Santa Monica on a Today Show series on “stolen” recipes.  According to Thomsen, when you cook this at home, the cost is about $5.89 per serving.  At the hip, trendy restaurant, it’s $33.00.  Per.  Serving.  Indulge at home and file this one away for when you want to treat your friends.  We substituted the sesame crust for the soy finishing sauce to reduce the sodium and add the healthy seeds.
• Two Food Network recipes, Peppered Pork and Peas & Prosciutto take center stage.  The Poppy Seed Dressing is a taste ringer for Helen Corbitt’s original and famous recipe.  Corbitt was known to have a sharp tongue for folks who “improved” on her recipes.  But since in the later years of her career, she developed spa recipes for the Neiman-Marcus Greenhouse Spa, perhaps she wouldn’t be too upset at the comparison.  If you don’t know about this fascinating and groundbreaking chef, you can read about her here.
• I have had an on-going quest for a better turkey burger.  And one made with breast meat only—no cheating with the mixed turkey meat that has as much fat as lean beef.  I had all but given up when I found a recipe that encouraged me.  So the quest continued until we found this recipe.  Kickin’ Turkey Burgers with Coleslaw are terrific pan-grilled, but when it’s time to fire up the outdoor grill in your part of the world, try these over an open flame, too.  And if burgers made with turkey and topped with coleslaw isn’t enough of a surprise, add a little more with Sweet Potato Chips.  From the comments we received about this recipe, I can safely say that they were a favorite with Fizzy Meals subscribers.
• A few years ago, a daily recipe exchange that I participate in was having a conversation about “goulash.”  Not real goulash as in Hungarian, cook all day, and don’t forget the paprika, but the mac and beef and tomato skillet supper of my childhood.  One reader remembered such a dish that her mother made and asked if anyone recognized it and knew of a recipe.  This brought a flood of responses all fondly recalling a similar dish with variations on bake or no bake, macaroni or broken spaghetti, stewed tomatoes or diced tomatoes or tomato soup.  Mom’s version was bake, broken spaghetti, and diced tomatoes.  Her recipe was even printed in our local paper since she added a fancy ingredient:  green pepper (which I meticulously picked out).  And as far as I can remember, goulash was always served with saltine crackers since the phrase “a good French bread” was not in the small town lexicon of the 1950’s.  You couldn’t pick up a fancy bread at the supermarket—there was no supermarket.  Here’s to remembering simple family dinners and Remembering Goulash.

I’d love to hear how the recipes and menus work for you.

• The Health Club Burritos are adapted from a twenty-year-old Houston Chronicle recipe designed to get kids to eat more veggies—some things never change.  During the first year of Fizzy Meals newsletters we did a week of “pretending” that we were having dinner each night on Wisteria Lane with the Desperate Housewives.  This was Gabrielle’s night–good for you, low fat, some chopping, but very little cooking.  The Fruits with Chili Orange Dressing is great to have in the repetoire when you want more than a stack of lettuce for a TexMex complement.
• Flank Steak O’Larnic, invented on the spot by a Central Market foodie, features a great technique for quick-cooking lean beef with tender results.  After you try this recipe, adapt it to any number of flavors—Japanese, Italian, Greek.  (Speaking of flavors, there’s often confusion about using marinade that has come into contact with raw meat.  Here’s the deal.  You can baste with it at the beginning of cooking or grilling, but don’t continue basting.  You can also reserve the marinade, then cook it to serve as a sauce, as this recipe does.  The point is feel free to use it.  Just be sure that it is cooked/heated to kill any bacteria or other gremlins that it picked up from being in contact with the raw meat.)
• Chicken with Artichokes is a dinner-in-a-minute favorite around here.  Paired with the pretty couscous and the jazzed up tomatoes, it really could go to a dinner party.  For us, it’s a standard busy day rescue.
• Every set of menus needs a comfort night; don’t you think?  I do not like lima beans, but I love the Ham & Lima Soup.  And the blast-from-the-past Homemade French Dressing will bring back of flood of memories if that bottled orange-y dressing was a staple in your mom’s fridge.  But this one has just enough freshness and zing for a new generation.

I’d love to hear how the recipes and menus work for you.

• Just a hint of spring and visions of carefree Southern California with Baja Fish Tacos. 
• Fancy enough for company, but quick and easy enough for a weeknight staple when Even Pork Chops Get the Blues meets Peas at a Party, the dish that gave this blog its name.
• Takeout tonight?  The only thing missing are the little white cartons with Sticky Sesame Chicken and Veggie-Full Fried Rice.
• Hamburger steaks, steamed carrots, and slaw get a makeover when you add a balsamic reduction to the beef and team it with Jacksonville Carrots and Broccoli Cranberry Slaw.

I’d love to hear how the recipes and menus work for you.

• Magic squash and everybody’s favorite s’ghetti make for a fun supper.
• “So simple and almost hands-free, but with a company air” is the best way to describe Pork Medallions in Mushroom Cream Sauce paired with Spinach Pignoli.
• Imagine a farm-table supper updated for today . . . a mess o’greens and warm sweet peaches along with a sweet and savory apricot-flavored chicken.
• It’s Greek tonight with gyros and tzatziki, Greek-style potatoes, and a Greek salad right out of your favorite Greek cafe.

I’d love to hear how the recipes and menus work for you.

• Tiny salmon cakes are a quick and healthy stand-in for deep-fried salmon croquettes.  Serve with yogurt dill sauce, a colorful skillet of veggies, and a sweet, tart spinach salad.
• A simple supper of ham, asparagus and warm, sweet apples comes together in an explosion of flavors.
• It’s pronounced ka-soo-LAY, and it’s classic French country cooking.  This fit and fast version retains the wonderful blend of simple foods—usually leftovers in the original—but makes it manageable for a comforting weeknight meal.  “Traditional” ingredients vary from region to region, but often include leftover goose.  I rarely, okay, actually never have goose, so we skip that and raid the freezer stock for leftover rotisserie chicken.
• Then think Italian with the pesto-stuffed rolls of beef, the gently seasoned green beans, and what just might be the best-ever carrots.

I’d love to hear how the recipes and menus work for you.

• Sweet potatoes and chili?  It may sound crazy, but it’s a favorite and it’s super fast with the 10-layer salad.
• Mastering the art of great chicken starts with a simple (and quick) pan grill.  Team this with sweet, colorful, caramelized vegetables for the best of natural flavors.
• Whether you call them loosemeats, Tastees, taverns, or just Maid-Rites (after the Iowa chain founded over 80 years ago), loosemeats sandwiches are so popular in the upper Midwest that you’ll find them on the menu at the Dairy Queen, another Iowa invention.  The Maid-Rite(r) secret brown flavoring syrup is widely reported to be cola syrup (still available from Walgreen’s), and this homemade version uses cola.  But whatever you do, don’t add tomato sauce else the Midwest food police will come knocking, and you’ll have to explain why you turned a loosemeats into a sloppy joe!
• The apple salad will have you looking around for some golden arches, but when the menu comes together you’ll be thinking elegant.  This award-winning pork tenderloin recipe is one of our three favorites for this lean “other white meat.”

I’d love to hear how the recipes and menus work for you.

• Super easy and simply elegant . . . maple-glazed salmon, French peas, and a company couscous.
• Think of a country table . . . almost fried chicken, a skillet of collards, and warm, rich peaches.
• Where are the little white cartons?  This beef-and-broccoli must be take out.  Watch out for the salad; it’s addictive.
• Enjoy a casual evening at your favorite Italian cucina with pasta fazool and another favorite salad.

I’d love to hear how the recipes and menus work for you.  I’m still stewing (pardon the bad pun) over the format, so send along any suggestions.

• a casual supper, New Orleans’ style
• a fit and fast version of King Ranch Chicken
• tiny meatloaves paired with carrots that just might convert a veggie-phobe or two
• pork chops, smashed potatoes, and a “company” salad

I’d love to hear how the recipes and menus work for you.  I’m still stewing (pardon the pun) over the format, so send along any suggestions.

I’d love to hear from you.