What are you doing with the leftover eggs?

As promised, here is the Tuna Nicoise Sandwich I did today on WTNH. It's a great way to use all of those leftover hard boiled eggs; it also makes a great salad over arugula for a crowd.

Nicoise Tuna sandwich

• 1 tablespoon red-wine vinegar, plus additional to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus additional to taste
• 1/8 of a small red onion thinly sliced
  black pepper to taste
• 1 6-ounce can tuna packed in olive oil
• lemon juice to taste
• washed arugula
  2 tomatoes sliced
• 2 hard-boiled eggs-sliced
• Niçoise olives, pitted
• Baguette
  
  Combine the onion with 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, red-wine vinegar, salt, and several grinds of black pepper in a bowl. Let sit for at least 10 minutes, can be made 1 day in advance.
  
  Add the tuna (including the oil) and Niçoise olives. Season with fresh lemon juice, red-wine vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste.
  
  Slice baguette in ½ lengthwise. Scoop out a little of the insides of the bread. Add a handful of arugula, a couple slices of tomatoes, then add about half the tuna mixture and 3 to 4 slices of hard-boiled egg. Generously drizzle with a little more olive oil.
  
  *This sandwich can also be served as an appetizer with slices of baguette.

Dinner tonight was barbecued chicken drumsticks, steamed broccoli and egg noodles.

I preheated the oven to 450. Lined a cookie sheet with foil and laid out the drumsticks in a single layer. I doused them with barbecue sauce and baked them in the oven for 25 minutes. While that cooked, I steamed some broccoli and boiled some water for the egg noodles.

I also made a salad with the leftover marinated red onions from this mornings TV show, feta cheese, cucumber, tomato, a large handful of flat leaf parsley and romaine. I drizzled the salad with a little more olive oil, a healthy pinch of salt and pepper and the rest of the red wine vinegar that the onions were in.

It was an easy meal because the chicken needed no tending to and the broccoli and noodles cooked so quickly. The girls loved the chicken and ate 2 drumsticks a piece.

Quiet cooking

The girls had no school today as it was Good Friday. I've gotten adept at scheduling play dates for them on days off so we will all be happy. It's a treat to be able to cook while the girls are happily entertained upstairs.

While the girls played, I made some spaghetti with a little butter and a bit of sauce on the side in case anyone wanted a ladle or two. I also made the salmon I had bought from yesterday.

I heated a little olive oil in a pan with 2 cubes of frozen garlic. Once that began to sizzle, I put the salmon in, skin side down. I added a pinch of kosher salt and a hearty pinch of black pepper. I used the rest of the Riesling wine to poach the fish. I squeezed the juice from 1/2 of a Meyer lemon that my mother had overnight mailed me from California, put the top on the pan and let it poach. After about 6 minutes, it was beautiful and pink. I removed the salmon from the liquid and added in a small pat of unsalted butter, letting the liquid reduce down to a nice beurre blanc to go over the fish.

I had roasted the brussel sprouts earlier in the day for lunch. This is my favorite way to cook them, and they are foolproof. I rinsed the sprouts and cut them in half. I placed them on a cookie sheet lined with foil and preheated the oven to 425. I drizzled olive oil, salt and pepper to them and tossed them lightly to spread them out over the cookie sheet. I let them roast in the oven for about 15-20 minutes until they became crispy and soft. There were a few left over which we had for dinner.

The girls made faces about both the fish and the sprouts, but ate a bite anyhow. Some nights are just plain pasta nights.

The best laid plans...

Tonight's menu was all laid out, I even bought a beautiful piece of salmon for tonight and my fresh brussel sprouts are still sitting on the counter waiting to be roasted. After taking my daughter to her swimming lesson, I called a friend and she invited us over for dinner. Kirk's on a trip and her husband was working late.

It was an all girls night, 7 of us in total. She made some capellini and had bought some chicken francaise. We both agreed the chicken was missing something, but it was nice to have dinner with friends again.

The salmon and brussel sprouts will have to be lunch tomorrow. My in-laws are flying in tomorrow and I don't know what time they'll arrive. The pantry is pretty well stocked with stuff for black bean and chicken taco's or the well worn pasta and a salad.

Tika Tika what?

As many of you know, I am not a huge Costco shopper, but I am slowly becoming a convert. I bought an amazing Tika Masala sauce in the fresh food section of Costco. It came in a quart container and with a bit of doctoring, made a really delicious meal.

I added a little olive oil to a large pot. I added in a sliced onion and let that cook for a few minutes. While that was cooking, I cut up a couple of carrots and threw that into the pot. I threw in a bag of colossal uncooked, peeled, cleaned and deveined raw shrimp and stirred the pot around for a minute as the shrimp began to thaw. Then I added in a new find from Trader Joe's. It's a bag of frozen chopped spinach. I love this product because you don't need to thaw a block of spinach, you can take a handful as needed and add it to any dish. I took about 2 cups and added it to the pot. I added in the Tika Masala sauce and a can of drained garbanzo beans. Finally, I added a can of light coconut milk. I stirred it all around, turned the heat to medium, put the lid on it, and left it alone for 20 minutes.

We went to a friend's house for dinner tonight. These are dear friends and we've been doing family dinners together since our eldest kids were infants. She made a salad and rice.

The kids didn't get to eat this meal, as it was fairly spicy and I won't make the kids eat spicy foods (yet!). They ate rice, carrots and ranch dip, strawberries and some fish sticks that my friend had made.

It was a nice night and I love eating dinner with friends and their kids.

Kirk heads back to work tomorrow, and I have to go to the market to prep for a TV show I'm doing on Saturday morning. The segment is, " What to do with your leftover Easter eggs."

I think tomorrow will be a piece of salmon with roasted brussel sprouts and crispy roasted potatoes.

Fusion food

Week 3 of Kirk and the girls cooking. They decide what to make and I practice keeping my mouth shut.

They made homemade pizza and miso soup. I stayed upstairs while they cooked and came down at the end to make a salad. The girls made 1/3 cheese, 1/3 turkey pepperoni and 1 piece with onions. Kirk bought miso for the soup and everyone seemed to enjoy the meal. Each girl ate exactly one piece of lettuce from the salad, saying the dressing was too tart. I made a simple dressing with rice wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. I sliced some purple onion and added a little sugar and rice wine vinegar. I let it sit for 5 minutes to take the bite out of the onion and added the vinegar to the salad.

They are really enjoying their weekly cooking and I am hopeful they will begin to branch out and try some new foods.

Vegging out.

Another gray day here and quite frankly I had already gone to the supermarket this morning to buy peanut butter, milk and OJ, and I couldn't face going back for dinner. We had quite a few fresh veggies in the bin, and I was anxious to use them before they went slimy.

I made some sushi rice, steamed some beautiful thick asparagus in one pan, and sauteed some baby bella mushrooms in a little peanut oil in another. I cooked the mushrooms for about 3 minutes, then added in a mixture of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, a couple cubes of frozen ginger and a little sugar. I let that cook down until there was barely any liquid left. I also had a handful of sugar snap peas that I threw into the hot water that had steamed the asparagus. I pulled those out after 30 seconds just until their color perked up and served those along side the asparagus.

It was a simple, quiet dinner. Emma was at an extended play date/dinner with a friend, so it was just Abby, Kirk and I. We enjoyed eating asparagus with our fingers, and Abby even tried sesame seeds. She picked them out of the palm of my hand, ate a few, then decided they weren't for her. She ate most of the asparagus, as well as the rice and some mushrooms.

I love vegging out for dinner!

My perfect Sunday

Sunday's can be hit or miss. Today was definitely a home run. We met some friends at our local hangout down the street for breakfast, then we spent a wonderful, lazy afternoon with some other neighborhood friends. The kids played together all day, and we were able to read the paper, chat and laze about. I even got to drink my tea while it was still hot.

I brought those delicious leftovers from Friday's event (which we enjoyed for lunch), and we ended up ordering pizzas for dinner. To top off the day, we did make-your-own ice cream sundae's.

It was a perfect Sunday.