One of my favorite side dishes is potato salad, especially in the summer. Too often potato salad is bland and gloppy with too much mayonnaise and mushy, without enough crunch. This simple, lightened up potato salad is made with tangy Greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise. A zesty reimagining of a classic summer side, this potato salad is full of fresh herbs for flavor that’s perfect for adding some unexpected zing to your next cookout.
Rice or potatoes, rice or potatoes. That’s the question that often dogs me during the late afternoon when I’m trying to figure out what to make for dinner, and which starch would better complement it. I happen to be a big fan of wild rice – the chewy texture, the nutty flavor – but sometimes it’s nice to mix it up a little. So, one night when I was whipping up a Mediterranean style dinner, I threw together this cool and flavorful wild rice salad. Simple to assemble and easy to prepare ahead of time, it’s filling and delicious on its own, but makes an excellent side dish, too. It’s a perfect accompaniment to lighter summertime cooking.
Growing up in California, one acquires a taste for Mexican food early on. Hearty, mildly spicy enchiladas with a fresh sprinkling of piquant cilantro over melted cheese are true comfort food to me. Nearby avocado orchards make guacamole a cinch to mash up. And with truly high quality bottled enchilada sauces available from grocery stores like Trader Joe’s, there’s no need to go to all the trouble of making your own–even though normally I’m an advocate for everything homemade. Though the process of making enchiladas can be on the messy side, once they’re in that casserole dish, a celebratory Cinco de Mayo dinner is as simple as popping ‘em in the oven. Though, once prepared, they can sit in the fridge for up to a day, once you make a tray you’ll be hollering “Andale, andale!” so you can sink your fork down into one of these enchiladas.
One of my favorite restaurants in the whole world, which you may already know if you read Part 2 in our af
oories on Santa Cruz, is Riva Fish House, out on the municipal wharf. They serve a dish there called Tilapia Vera Cruz. When I was younger, it was made with shark, then snapper, but now they serve this dish with the more environmentally-responsible farmed tilapia. A thick, tomatoey sauce studded with tender vegetables and black beans covers the broiled fish, draped in jack cheese. Spilling over rice pilaf, this is hearty and healthy, with a nice kick of heat. Though my version sadly lacks the exquisitely deep-fried zucchini spear as a garnish, it does a pretty good job of summing up all the flavors I’ve come to crave. When I can’t get to Santa Cruz for the original, I whip this up and suddenly it’s like I’m there; surfers cutting arcs across the break at Steamer’s, seagulls coasting on thermals, and the convivial bellows of sea lions, echoing in the distance.
A couple years ago, I went over to a friend’s apartment to hang out. Since we were about twenty two at the time, it seemed reasonable to assume that, since I got there around five, we would all — at some point — go in search of some sustenance. So, imagine my surprise when everyone had already eaten! I think may have indicted everyone with a round of zippy insults that relied heavily on references to nursing homes and early bird specials, and when I had resigned myself to silencing my rumbling tummy with the battered protein bar that swims around in the bottom of my purse for the occasional unforeseeable emergency such as these, good ole Dave gave me a pitying look and sprang into action. He whipped up this pasta for me: a simple sautee of veggies you probably already have languishing in your crisper drawer, multi-grain rotini pasta and that wonderful gilder-of-lilies, feta cheese. Ever since, this has been one of my favorite go-to quick meals for a healthy serving of veggies combined with that wonderful chew that only pasta can deliver. When the feta melts into a kind of sauce, all I can say, my friends, is “Opa!”