Phew! Welcome to the New Year.  I am so ready for life to slow down.  How about you?  My resolutions for this year are to get organized in my housekeeping, cook more, spend less, eat healthier-all typical perhaps, but sincere.  Did you make any resolutions this year?

If you are looking for a nice, light meal this is a great, impressive dinner salad that you can make completely from scratch or use a few cheats to make it faster and easier.  The dressing is tangy and creamy and just a bit spicy and the cilantro makes it all so fresh and green.  Feel free to use purchased croutons or follow the easy steps below to make your own.  I went half way by using toasted unflavored croutons from the bakery to skip step 6. You could make the home-made croutons even easier buy buying pre-made garlic infused oil in the salad dressing aisle (the kind often labeled “dipping oil”).

If you make this much salad you will have extra dressing to use another night, or double or triple the croutons and salad ingredients to serve a large dinner party.

Mexican “Caesar” Salad

makes 2 large dinner salads and about 1 1/2 cups of dressing, prep 20 min, adapted from Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen

Dressing

• 1 cup olive oil
• 1 1/2 tbsp sherry vinegar
• 4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Serrano pepper, stemmed and deseeded as desired
• zest from 1 1/2 limes
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt, or more as desired

Croutons

• 1/4 cup olive oil*
• 4 garlic cloves*, smashed
• * you can substitute 1/4 cup purchased garlic infused oil from the store
• 2 cups 1/2 inch cubes of firm bread, like sourdough

For the Salad

• about 8 cups salad greens, 8 oz or 2 medium-small heads of romaine
• 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
• 1/4 cup dry aged cheese, like manchego, queso añejo, dry Jack or Parmesan, grated

1. To make the dressing, combine a 1/2 cup of the olive oil, vinegar, Worcestershire, serrano, lime zest, egg and salt in a blender or food processor.  Process one minute.
2. Scrape dressing into a small bowl and whisk in the remaining 1/2 cup oil.  Taste for salt. Transfer dressing to a seal-able jar and chill until serving time. You can make the dressing several days ahead if desired.
3. To make the croutons, first make the garlic infused oil buy adding the smashed garlic cloves to the olive oil.
4. Keep oil warm on the stove for 20 min until garlic is very soft and beginning to brown.  You can skip this process by buying garlic infused oil at the store.
5. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Chop firm bread into small cubes (or buy pre-cubed bread at the bakery).
6. Toast bread cubes on a baking sheet while oil infuses, 20 minutes.
7. Strain garlic from the oil and toss the toasted bread cubes and oil together until evenly coated.  Return croutons to the oven and bake 5 more minutes or until golden brown.
8. To make the salads, combine lettuce, 1/3 cup of the dressing, 2 tbsp (half) the cheese, and the cilantro in a large bowl.  Toss to evenly coat.
9. Serve salad on individual plates topped with remaining cheese and croutons as desired.

I served it alongside my French Onion Soup for a satisfying meatless dinner, but it would also be great topped with a few garlic and lime grilled shrimp or strips of chicken breast.

Just popping in briefly to direct you over to refrigeratorsoup.com where chaos in the kitchen is being featured in their 20 questions series.  The refrigerator soup people are good folks and I am honored to be featured alongside their other favorite bloggers.  So head over there to find out everything you’ve ever wanted to know about me and citk.

Oh yeah, and if anyone wants to nominate me for a Homie, click here.

Resuming vacation.

One last nibble before I leave you to enjoy your holiday.  I definitely have a salt tooth.  Its easy for me to avoid the candies and fudge and truffles of the season.  Its the spinach dip, cheese snaps, and crisp roasted turkey skin that I can’t control myself around.  I guess I could call it a fat tooth!  Since you get one month a year to really blow your diet, this is the party mix your guests will reach for when they’re sick of all the sugar.

You keep your bacon grease in a jar in the fridge, right?  If you don’t you should-it adds tons of flavor to your regular dishes.  Just cook your bacon, strain the fat into a glass jar and refrigerate.  Of course, you can use all butter for this if you really must.

Oven Baked Chex Mix

makes 12 cups, prep 5 min, cook 1 hour

• 3 tbsp bacon grease
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp dry mustard
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp hot sauce (like Tabasco)
• salt to taste
• 9 cups Chex cereal (in combination, such as 3 cups corn, 3 cups rice, and/or 3 cups wheat)
• 1 cup small pretzels
• 1 cup broken garlic bagel chips
• 1 cup mixed nuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 250°F.  Place butter and bacon grease in a large roasting pan and place in the oven to melt.  You can also melt butter and bacon grease in a small saucepan.
2. Once butter and grease are melted, whisk in Worcestershire, mustard, garlic, onion, and hot sauce.  Taste and salt to desired amount. I used unsalted butter and about 2 tsps of Kosher salt.  You can also sub ranch dressing mix for the spices if you want ranch chex mix.
3. If using a sauce pan, pour mixture into a roasting pan.
4. Quickly add cereal, pretzels, bagel chips, and nuts to the pan and toss to coat as evenly as possible.
5. Place roaster into the oven and bake for about 1 hour, stirring thoroughly every 15 minutes.

If you are looking for more holiday recipes check out this post here from Thanksgiving, it lists most of our tried and true holiday recipes.  I hope you get some rest and quality time with family and friends.  See you next year!

Wow. Polenta, guys.  This was my first attempt at polenta and-wow!-it is some good stuff.  The short ribs were great and if you are looking for a short rib recipe that takes less than two days you can follow this recipe here.  It was very good and very easy which is pretty much what I look for in a recipe.  The polenta was also super easy and delicious.  I didn’t really know what to expect and if you haven’t tried polenta yet, there is really no way to explain it.  It’s somewhere between mashed potatoes and risotto in that it is thick and creamy with a nice full mouthfeel, soaks up sauces, and rounds out the meal.

Basic Polenta

serves 4, prep 5 min, cook 20 min, adapted from Bitten, October 2009

• 1 cup milk
• 2 cups water
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup corn meal
• fresh ground pepper
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

1. Combine milk, water, and a large pinch of salt in saucepan.  Bring to a boil.
2. Pour cornmeal into boiling milk, whisking constantly until combined.
3. Bring polenta back to a boil then turn heat to low to keep polenta at a simmer.
4. Stir occasionally and cook about 20 minutes or until polenta tastes creamy.
5. Salt and pepper to taste.  Remove from the heat and stir in butter and cheese.

What’s great about polenta is, unlike mashed potatoes, it is made entirely of items you either typically have on hand or can keep in the pantry.  I actually think it has much better flavor and texture than potatoes as well (I’ll admit that I make lousy potatoes though).