Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

Here's a great dish that does double duty: it can be dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow. It's delicious served slightly warm or chilled. And it's especially great for a Friday night Lenten dinner. Using readily available ingredients including my favorite cans of tuna, this dish is light on the wallet too. For the best taste and texture use white albacore tuna packed in oil. It's much better than the chunk light in water.

My version of the French salad Niçoise is crossed with the American macaroni salad. Instead of boiled potatoes, I use pasta as a delicious alternative. Cavatappi, a corkscrew-shaped pasta, makes a playful addition, but elbow macaroni works well too. Green beans are quickly blanched and pasta is then cooked in the same pot before being combined with all the ingredients. A finish of briny olives and capers and a fresh vinaigrette make it feel like springtime on the Mediterranean coast.

Omelets are a great main course. Perfect for breakfast but also satisfying as lunch, dinner or a snack.

Easy to make, infinitely variable, filling, healthy and affordable, they are warming and delicious.

Just about any ingredients that can be sauteed can be used as a filling. (Why saute the fillings? To eliminate excess water and caramelize the ingredients.)  I like mine with cheese, but that's a matter of personal choice.

For breakfast this morning, I made my wife a vegetable omelet with spinach and shiitake mushrooms while I had a bit of bacon in mine.

When I was a child I felt sorry for kids whose moms made "meat and potatoes" dinners. That was until I heard of moms who were vegetarians. I thought that was tragic.

I think I was about eleven when I discovered vegetarianism from a student teacher who was raising her children to be vegetarians. No hamburgers on the grill? No hot dogs at baseball games? No chicken parm sandwiches on Sunday night? What kind of a mother does that to her children? I wondered. If it weren't for my mom's meatball sandwiches, I don't think I would have made it through middle school.

Then one day several years later, I did the unthinkable. I became a vegetarian; not because I wanted to ruin my children's lives (I don't have children), but because of an unfortunate incident with some tainted chicken. I didn't eat meat for years after that.

I do eat meat now, but I still love vegetarian meals which I eat several times a week. For those of you who wonder whether or not a vegetable stew can be as satisfying as beef stew, I'm telling you, Yes, it can.

I discovered the love of cooking at age 7. Since that first cake that I baked for my dad’s birthday, I have always cooked using ingredients found in the kitchen. I can probably count on one hand how many times I created something from a box or a mix and never really thought there was any other way.

I have always had weird food aversions(which is what I believe kept me out of culinary school). I didn’t like “white” food. Sour cream, ranch dressing, mayo, cream cheese, and anything with that consistency, or white – made me gag. Thus, at a very early age, I started making my own salad dressings; oil and vinegar based. When I order in a restaurant, it’s very, very specific and I can’t order a Caesar salad out.

Although I know exactly what is in the dressing, it really comes down to the consistency. If it’s too creamy or looks mayo-like, I can’t do it. I don’t like creamy food. My ice cream cannot get too soft, a Dijon vinaigrette has to look more oil based, and although I love hummus, tahini cannot be anywhere near me. Thus, my quest for the perfect salad dressings began.