This simple recipe for grilled salmon is the perfect appetizer to bring to an outdoor party. Nearly everyone loves salmon and you can grill it ahead and then refrigerate it until serving time. It looks and taste delicious and I guarantee you will get requests for this recipe. I usually triple the recipe and start with about 1 ½ pounds of salmon fillet. If you have leftovers (and Jack and I always hope we do), you can use it in sandwiches or on a salad.

Peppered Salmon With Dill-Caper Sauce 
 
Prep Time: 25 Min
Start to Finish: 1 Hr 25 Min
 
    SALMON
    1/2 lb. salmon fillet
    1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
    3/4 teaspoon coarse ground pepper
    1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
    Fresh dill sprigs, if desired
    SAUCE
    1 tablespoon drained capers
    1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill or 1/4 teaspoon dried dill weed
    2 tablespoons sour cream
    2 teaspoons mayonnaise
    1 teaspoon milk
    2 or 3 drops hot pepper sauce
    BREAD
    24 slices cocktail rye or sourdough bread
 
1. Heat grill. Place salmon, skin side down, on work surface; spread top with mustard. In small bowl, combine pepper and mustard seed; mix well. Sprinkle over mustard; press into salmon.
2. When ready to grill, place salmon, skin side down, on gas grill over medium heat or on charcoal grill 4 to 6 inches from medium coals. Cover grill or tent with foil. Cook 10 minutes or until fish flakes easily with fork. Refrigerate salmon for at least 1 hour or until cold..
3. Meanwhile, in small bowl, combine all sauce ingredients; blend well.
4. Carefully remove skin from salmon, leaving salmon in one piece. Place on serving plate, mustard side up. Garnish plate with fresh dill. Serve with sauce and bread slices.
 
12 servings

Cooking is easier if everyone helps with a part of the meal. When Blake joined us at the cabin last weekend, I put him to work making tot-size burger patties, seasoned with crushed tortilla chips and taco sauce.

We put some tortilla chips in a resealable plastic bag to make crushing easier. What 3-year old doesn’t like to crush, smash and stomp things?

Then we mixed the crushed chips with taco sauce, salt, pepper and ground beef. This recipe for Grilled Taco Burgers makes good-size burgers (six 5-oz burgers) but we cut the recipe in half, using one pound of ground beef to make eight small burgers (or sliders).

Here’s a great tip: To prevent burgers of any size from shrinking too much, it’s a good idea to press your thumb in the center of each patty, to create an indentation.

When the burgers were ready to grill, Papa Jack took over.

Here are our sliders, hot off the grill.

After placing the cheese-topped burgers into small slider buns, they are garnished with shredded lettuce and chopped tomatoes.

While Jack and Blake were busy "cooking", I made this Pinto Beans and Bacon side dish to go with our sliders.

Jack and I will be catering a lunch, this coming Labor Day weekend, for around 20 family members and friends who will be gathering together to celebrate the baptism of Finn, our two-month old grandson.

Blake (now 3 years old), Papa Jack and Finn.

I’m planning to make at least one big salad and this is one of my favorites.  Turkey Rice ‘n Romaine Salad is a light entrée salad made with smoked turkey breast strips tossed with romaine lettuce, cooked instant brown rice, red bell pepper and jicama strips. This is a great crowd-size salad because all of the ingredients can be prepared the day before and then tossed together just before serving. Jack will be grilling beef tenderloins with onions and bell peppers for some delicious sandwiches which are a speciality of his.

Are you planning any special meals for the Labor Day weekend that will include big salads?

Along with summer, the mango season is nearly over. I love hot weather (why do I live in Minnesota?) and mangos and I’m not thrilled to see either coming to an end. I’m reminded of the old adage, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”  My version of this is, “When fall is just around the corner (bitter lemons for me), make mango ice cream using some of those juicy, delicious fresh mangos that you can still get at a supermarket. The ice cream will taste great on our few remaining hot days and will also be a delicious memory of summer if you keep it in your freezer to nibble on when you need a special treat.

Here are three scoops of homemade mango ice cream just for you! I put it on a new Indian runner, given to me by Neetika, a co-worker in Mumbai.

I use a relatively inexpensive Donvier ice cream maker and have used one of these for many years and it works just fine. 

But, I have my eye on a Cuisinart ice cream maker with a compressor so that I wouldn’t have to freeze a container overnight before making ice cream. 

Click on BettyCrocker Store to see some more makes and models of ice cream makers. 

 Mango Ice Cream
From: CHOPSTIX - Quick Cooking with Pacific Flavors by Hugh Carpenter and Teri Sandison, Published (1990) by Stewart, Tabori & Chang

6 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
2 cups half and half
2 cups heavy (whipping) cream
2 cups mango fruit pruée (see my comment below)
2 teaspoon vanilla extract

In medium bowl, beat egg yolks and sugar with whisk until mixture turns pale yellow, about 3 minutes.
 
Fill large bowl with cold water and add generous amount of ice.

In 3-quart saucepan, heat cream over medium-high heat until bubbles appear around edges. Slowly whisk the half and half into egg mixture in bowl; pour back into saucepan.

Place clean, empty bowl in ice water.

Place saucepan over high heat. Cook mixture, beating constantly with whisk, until thick enough to lightly coat spoon and mixture nearly doubles in volume, about 4 minutes. Immediately pour custard into clean mixing bowl and stir slowly with whisk for 2 minutes. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until cold.

When custard is thoroughly chilled, stir in mango purée and vanilla. Pour into ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions.

Makes about 1 1/2  quarts

The first thing I heard today on the morning news was about a new food item being served at the Minnesota State Fair called Chicken-Fried Bacon (thick-cut bacon battered, breaded and fried and served in a boat covered with gravy). Why doesn’t that surprise me? Last year, it was chocolate-covered bacon, which was actually pretty tasty. And we all know about and love bacon ice cream and Kristen’s Brown Butter Cereal Bars with Candied Bacon.

Bacon is “hot” in the media and online. Cookbooks using bacon as the main ingredient are becoming popular. So why not combine our favorite ingredient with some fresh, garden tomatoes—so plentiful and delicious at this time of year? I found a recipe for Bacon and Tomato Jam online and we cooked up a batch in the test kitchens because it sounded so good.

We loved the jam for its bright red color, slightly tangy flavor (from the vinegar) and the chewy, salty bacon in it. We tried it on some sliders and decided it was a nice change from ketchup! It was a bit sweeter than ketchup but very shinny and pretty. The one thing we would recommend changing in the recipe would be to blanch the tomatoes and remove their skins before cooking them with the rest of the ingredients.

In this Easy Chicken and Garden Veggies dish, bacon and tomatoes are combined to make a nice, late summer meal.

The Rojo Mexican Grill opened last night in St. Louis Park, Minnesota and Jack and I met friends there to check it out. Menu listings included: Appetizers, Cheese Crisps, Salads and Soups, Tacos, Enchiladas and Entrees. With only five or so choices under each, we found the shortness of the menu to be a little surprising for such a large, open and contemporary restaurant. 

We started with Fresh Guacamole, made with avocado, tomato, garlic, cilantro and lime. I really liked the nice, big chucks of fresh avocado that clung to my thin, tender and not too salty tortilla chips. We also shared a delicious and slightly sweet Pork Quesadilla, made with flour tortillas filled with Monterey Jack cheese, smoked pulled pork and a sweet mango habanero sauce. The bits of chopped red onions and tomatoes made it look pretty on top.

From the taco list, I chose the Vegetarian Tacos for my meal. Small corn tortillas were layered with roasted corn, sweet potatoes, squash, onions, black beans, and Cotija cheese. After tasting these wonderfully delicious tacos I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to ground beef tacos again. There were two side dishes served with my taco—a sticky rice and a really tasty cabbage salad which according the menu was supposed to be charra beans.

There are lots of great taco recipes on bettycrocker.com including:

Grilled Fish Tacos with Creamy Avocado Topping
Salsa-Shrimp Tacos
Chicken Ranch Tacos
Double-Layer Tacos
Asian Tacos

What is your favorite filling for tacos?

The taste of root beer always reminds me of summer and the root beer floats my grandmother used to make for me. She preferred the flavor of Hire’s root beer while I liked Dad’s root beer better. What is your favorite root beer?

If you like root beer, these cookies are for you. They were brought to a “culinary” and garden sale (hosted by my professional organization), by one of our members. Several members requested the recipe, after tasting the cookies. The member who brough them, shared the recipe in our newsletter. She noted that the original recipe came from a Minneapolis Star/Tribune food section, many years ago.

Root Beer Cookies
Cookies
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup flat root beer
2 large eggs
2 teaspoon root beer extract or concentrate (see what we used at the end of this post)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Icing
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon flat root beer
2 teaspoon butter, softened
1 teaspoon root beer extract or concentrate

Heat oven to 375F.
In medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda and salt.
In large bowl, beat granulated sugar, brown sugar, butter, root beer, eggs, root beer extract and vanilla until well blended.  Beat in flour mixture just until combined.
Form dough into balls, about 1 1/2-inch diameter (using a rounded tablespoon of dough).  Place about 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.  Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until lightly browned.  (Do not over bake or cookies will be dry.) Cool completely on rack.

In small bowl, combine icing ingredients, with spoon, until smooth.  Add more powdered sugar if too thin; add more root beer if too thick. Spread on cooled cookies
Makes about 4 dozen cookies

Food is always a part of family traditions and special celebrations. Whether it a special cake that mom makes every year for our birthday or a roast turkey with bread stuffing for a Thanksgiving Day meal, some of our favorite memories include the food we share with friends and family.

I was reminded of this when I received the following note from my friend, Cindy, who has just moved to Moscow:

“As we got off the bus, someone was passing around a plate of bread with a dish of salt in the middle. The “Bread and Salt” ceremony is a Russian tradition of welcome – the bread stands for the welcome (or for hospitality) and the salt stands for everlasting friendship.  The whole thing was so cool I almost cried!  Here is more information – and if you look at the title you can see the word for bread (nearly impossible) and the word for salt (quite easy).”
 
Click on: Bread and Salt Custom in Russia

This Caraway-Rye Bread is a good bread recipe to share with friends, and it’s made in a bread machine so it won’t heat up your kitchen. Included with the recipe is a recipe for Chive-Swiss Spread that might even taste better than a little salt!