Half Assed Kitchen

Cobb salad

We love a salad you don't even have to toss. A salad in which all the ingredients are tantalizingly arranged side by side so you can see exactly what you're getting and when.

A cobb is just such a salad. A mainstream, easy go-to when you need a simple summer meal.

The one you see pictured above is pretty basic, but you can get crazy with the ingredients if you want. Add feta or bleu cheese! Dried fruit! Carrots! Cucumber!

Effort rating: Truly 1/2 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it:

2 heads romaine lettuce, washed and torn into bite-sized pieces

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

4 hard cooked eggs, sliced

8 pieces of bacon

4 tomatoes, chopped

2 avocados, diced

For the dressing we used Elise's from Simply Recipes. It was simply divine!

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1 Tablespoon dijon mustard

1-2 teaspoons sugar

Salt and pepper

2/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup finely grated Roquefort cheese (we skipped this)

Wash your veggies, then cut off the thick end of the romaine and tear the rest into bite-sized pieces.

Fry bacon in medium-hot skillet until crisp. Remove from heat. When cool, crumble or dice. Add chicken breasts to pan and cook for 30 to 40 minutes, or until juices run clear.

Hard cook your eggs, cool under cold running water, and slice.

Dice tomatoes and avocados. 

Divide ingredients into fourths and arrange around four dinner plates.

Whisk dressing ingredients together and drizzle over top of salad.

Serve with whole grain bread.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Cioppino

 

You know how we love stews around here. Even in summer. Toss everything into one big pot and cook. That's our kind of recipe. Cioppino is a tomato-based seafood stew that hales from San Francisco (not Italy, as many assume). It's hearty, yet light. Rich, yet fresh. You can make it as complex and fancy as you want, or dumb it down, as we like to do).

We used the epicurious Easy Cioppino, with just a few modifications. If you can get your hands on a fennel bulb, it adds a lot of flavor, so go to extra lengths for this ingredient. The red wine also lends luxurious extravagance to this dish, but if you can't cook with alcohol, substitute fish or mushroom stock.

Typically, cioppino calls for shellfish to remain in the shells, which can be fun, but a mess. In this recipe, we pre-steamed and shelled the mussels. If you don't go this route, add the mussels about five minutes before the rest of the broth is done and cook until mussel shells open wide. Throw out any that don't open.

Effort required: 3/4 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it

1 fennel bulb, stalks discarded and bulb chopped (or substitute 1 chopped green bell pepper)

1 medium onion, chopped

1 shallot, chopped (optional)

3 garlic cloves, minced

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, grapeseed oil, or canola oil

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Black pepper to taste

2 bay leaves

1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme or a large pinch of fresh

1/8 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes or tabasco sauce to taste

1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes in juice

2 cups water or fish stock

1 cup red wine

1 (8-ounce) bottle clam juice

1 pound skinless fillets of thick white-fleshed fish such as halibut, hake, or pollack, cut into 2-inch chunks

1 pound cultivated mussels (Here's some info on the difference between cultivated and wild mussels). (Can substitute little neck clams or oysters.)

Fresh parsley for garnish

In a large saucepan, heat oil. Add fennel, onion, garlic, and shallot and cook until just tender.

Add red pepper flakes, bay leaves, thyme, salt, pepper, tomatoes (with juice), wine, water, and clam juice and bring to a boil. Let boil uncovered for about 20 minutes. Stir in seafood and simmer, uncovered, just until fish is cooked through. Be careful not to overcook your cioppino.

Serve with sourdough (perfect for sopping up broth).

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Grilled romaine

Okay, so grilled romaine isn't the most photogenic salad in the world. But it is amazingly tasty and absurdly easy. We've been wanting to try this for a while, so we finally got a mess of romaine and went for it. Grilling it gives it a pleasant, wilty/crunch and all that's required (besides the lettuce) is olive oil, salt, pepper, and your dressing of choice.

Effort required: 1/4 assed. If you're making your own salad dressing, bump this up to 1/2 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it:

1/2 to 1 head of romaine per person

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Feta cheese (optional)

Light the grill.

Wash romaine, shake dry, then cut each head in half (be sure to keep the core intact so the leaves don't fall apart).

Brush or spray romaine with olive oil.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Reduce grill heat to low (if using gas), place romaine on grill and cook about five minutes per side. Remove and serve warm with dressing and feta.

We used this caesar dressing recipe and it worked wonderfully.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.