This is the best time of year to make Caprese salad. I have a farmers’ market a half-mile from my house and they have so many varieties of tomatoes in varying stages of ripeness right now. I always hate how the oil and vinegar in Caprese salad drips below the sliced tomatoes, so I make a chopped version that can be tossed to coat the tomatoes.
As I’ve mentioned before, the wife doesn’t like hard-boiled eggs. Since the standard Southern recipe for chicken salad is swimming in chopped eggs and mustard, I’ve had to develop another recipe. This one comes out so creamy and mild that we usually eat it on crackers like a dip instead of spread over white bread.
Asparagus was on sale at the grocery store, so I decided to take another stab at my potato and asparagus salad. Last time I made it with our homemade mayonnaise.
This time I simplified the recipe to cut down on time an effort.
Encouraged by our recent experiments with butter and mozzarella, we decided to make some homemade mayonnaise. I’ve never been a huge fan of mayonnaise, but I’ve been enjoying it a little more than I used to. I’ve mixed all kinds of ingredients with it to balance out various sandwiches and burgers, and I started wondering if I’d like mayonnaise more if I could adjust the flavor, as was suggested in this Bon Appetit column. Well, we rolled up our sleeves and decided to try our hand at making a better mayonnaise than Mr. Hellman and Mrs. Duke. We based our recipe on this one, but dialed down the mustard and vinegar a bit.
Believe it or not, this is everything you need.
This weekend, my wife and I dropped by the local Farmer’s Market to kill some time before the post office opened. I bought some ground beef and pork sausage, as well as the requisite peppers to make chili on Saturday. My wife noticed that they had some raw milk, so we bought a gallon and decided to make some more mozzarella. On Sunday, I used my kit and made a softer, fresher-tasting cheese than last time:
We had some chicken on hand, so we decided to try to merge Insalata Caprese salad with grilled chicken salad.
