Easy Dill Pickle Pasta Salad

You may remember this technique from my potato salad with bacon, and it works just as well with pasta salads of all kinds as it does with potato salad.

This pickle pasta salad uses a technique I’ve been relying on for years – dividing the dressing in half and adding it at two different stages.

Have you ever stirred together your pasta and dressing, refrigerated your salad, and then wondered why all of your dressing has disappeared? Sometimes it seems so dry after you get it back out of the fridge, right?

With this technique, you toss freshly cooked pasta with half of the dressing, then chill the salad to allow the pasta to absorb all of that flavorful dressing.

Then, once it’s chilled, just before serving, you add the rest of the dressing and toss again.

This technique ensures that the pasta is seasoned by absorbing some of the dressing, but there’s also more dressing for the surface of the pasta. It also won’t be a gloppy mayo-laden mess from accidentally over-dressing. It’s just a perfectly dressed pasta salad.

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This Shawarma Chicken is a Detroit classic!

I’ve introduced you to many classic Detroit foods, including Detroit style pizza and corned beef egg rolls. And thanks to a large Middle Eastern population, Detroit is also famous for our chicken shawarma!

It’s sold everywhere from ballparks to gas stations, with my favorite being from a restaurant called Bucharest Grill. Today, I am sharing my homemade version of this irresistible wrap sandwich.

While it may look like a long list of ingredients, it’s very fast to put together. In fact, you can make the chicken shawarma marinade and the sauce for the wraps at the same time. I’ll also offer shortcut ideas to make it even easier for a busy weeknight.

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I’ve only been drinking Bloody Marys for ten years or less, but I already have strong opinions on the best part: the garnishes.

When a lot of trendy brunch food spots have gone all in and garnished their drinks with crazy things like chicken tenders or slices of pizza or whatever in recent years, their only goal has been to go viral on TikTok or Instagram.

I’m not here to go viral. I’m here to make Bloody Mary skewers that taste great while I’m nibbling on my vegetarian quiche and blackberry muffin.

As I’ll explain in the post below, the best Bloody Mary garnish skewers are a simple combination of three flavors that our taste buds love.

You can get all of the ingredients needed for these Bloody Mary toppings at your local grocery store. And nobody here will ask you to stick an entire fried chicken on top of your drink. My only request is that you use everything bagel seasoning as bloody mary rim salt. Deal?

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I’ll admit it – I’m not really a football fan. If I go to some sort of tailgate or game watching party, I’m 100% there for the food. You’ll find me lingering around the fajita bar or the healthy buffalo chicken dip and I’m not ashamed of it!

Everybody seems to have their own game day food traditions and fun charcuterie board ideas, but I think we can all agree that cheese, pretzels and nuts are a must, along with a variety of other sweet and salty nibbles.

I don’t really think game day is the time for an elegant wine and cheese board (although I’ve seen tailgates with fancy smoked salmon platters and individual charcuterie cups set up by caterers!).

But personally, I like to think more along the lines of a beer charcuterie board. It’s as easy as corralling a few kinds of cheese and some other snackies onto a nice board.

Plastic trays in team colors aren’t really my style, but I found some fun little decorative toothpicks to keep my Football Charcuterie Board festive.

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DIY Charcuterie Cup Ideas

All the way from a Thanksgiving charcuterie board to a charcuterie chalet and many stops in between, there’s no denying that this time of year is perfect for as many fun charcuterie board ideas as you can dream up.

Whether you’re entertaining a crowd with a wine and cheese board or just having some snacks at home, this type of food is probably at its most popular during the holidays, so you can have a cranberry rosemary cocktail or grapefruit mule in one hand, and a snack in the other!

And sure, I’ve already done jarcuterie, and I know you’re thinking that this charcuterie in a cup really isn’t much different. And you’re right – it’s not! I’m just publishing these mini charcuterie cups to give you even more inspiration for single serving charcuterie this holiday season.

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Thanksgiving Charcuterie Board Ideas for your holiday spread

Coming up with fun charcuterie board ideas is something about my job that I simply never tire of. I’ve already done everything from a Halloween charcuterie board to an Easter charcuterie board to a huge platter of Valentine’s snacks, but I’m not nearly out of new boards to create.

While many of my existing ideas, including jarcuterie and the wine and cheese board (and even my butter board) are already quite perfect for Thanksgiving appetizers, I wanted to create a fall charcuterie board that was truly specific to this holiday.

Below, I’ll walk you through how I shop for and build this lovely Thanksgiving charcuterie board. I guarantee you it’s easier than it looks!

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Do you eat hard boiled eggs all year around, or mostly just after dyeing the eggs for Easter (and then shrimp deviled eggs)? I’ve always loved them at any time of year, and I’ve started packing them in my daughter’s lunchbox, too.

I’ll generally make a batch of them at the start of the week for easy snacking throughout the week. Just peel, sprinkle with salt and pepper or everything bagel seasoning, and eat.

But once in awhile I want to go beyond peel-and-eat, and that’s when I make this Egg Salad with Pickles. It’s a super versatile recipe, great for preparing on Sunday and eating for lunches throughout the week, or as part of a smoked salmon platter on an epic brunch menu for Easter or Mother’s Day.

Whether it’s served as a pickled egg sandwich on croissants or bread, or just eaten with a fork, this is the best egg salad recipe with pickles. And it’s for true pickle lovers, as the eggs are pickled AND there’s chopped pickles in the salad!

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All of Jeff’s friends love pizza, burgers, barbecue, and beer. He’s no different . . . he just like to class them up a bit.

He brews his own beer, makes his own pizza (you’ve read about many of them), smokes his own root beer ribs, and tries every joint in the greater Detroit area claiming “voted best burger”.

With this pizza, he decided to do a fusion (just like my fusion gyro pizza and taco mac and cheese and General Tso’s meatballs recipes). Behold the cheeseburger pizza.

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This Homemade Tartar Sauce Recipe is Perfect For Fish Fries!

Friday fish fries are common at Midwest Catholic churches and VFW halls during Lent. And even though my family isn’t Catholic, we love attending fish fries!

The fish is almost always delicious, and the people watching can’t be beat. The only thing I don’t love about the tradition is the tartar sauce.

A few churches will make homemade sauce, but most of them serve pre-packaged tartar sauce. I got the crazy idea to make my own tartar sauce and take it with me to fish fries this year, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

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My husband and I are still chuckling about a conversation we overheard in a restaurant a few weeks ago (the tables were really close, we couldn’t help it!).

The two couples were discussing umami. I’ve talked about umami quite a bit on this blog already, as understanding this savory “fifth taste” is one of the keys to making meals taste great at home.

But this foursome had just about all of the facts wrong – they thought it was a mouthfeel (it’s really just a savory taste sometimes described as “meaty” or “earthy”), they didn’t know which ingredients included it (good bets for umami are mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, miso and soy sauce), and they even settled on pronouncing it “unani.”

(more…)

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