Freddie’s Baked Shrimp

it’s actually flour first!

Always flour first then egg. Helps make everything stick to the breadcrumbs and not in the pan.

I can ask him!

I’ll ask! xx

sounds so good!

haha we argue like any couple, etc — but I do adore him :)

She mentions them in this post. I believe they are Carrick (with tinted lenses) by Warby Parker. https://cupofjo.com/2025/07/31/four-sweet-things/

OMG you are an A++ reader, thank you!

Did you use pre cooked shrimp as the recipe says? It turned out good? Thanks so much!

So did I! I had some cooked prawns and raw prawns in the freezer, enough for dinner. It was delicious! Also the raw prawns were better, much more tender.

What charred cauliflower quesadillas? That sounds amazing but don’t see them mentioned anywhere?

Agree; I love Nat’s Nourishments. She has gotten me into eating a lot more beans. Her combos are delish, and the ideas I get just from watching her reels make her a worthy follow.

Haha

I’m so so sorry. I’m so glad you were with him. I haven’t been through this yet but wanted to send love and support.

Oh, Anen. Sending love to you ❤️ That ache never really goes away. My soul dog passed on Nov 8, 2013, and I still miss her so much. But I think the pain of grief turns into an adoring tenderness. Like, how lucky was I to have this experience of unconditional love, even for a little while? Man, I miss my Lola. I did find solace continuing to rescue. I’ve fostered or adopted 4 dogs since then, now with a crazy 2yo lab who is definitely not my soul dog, but she does bring joy to our home. Be kind to yourself, this is a big loss.

This is a super unpopular method but I got a new dog immediately after. I was judged fairly harshly for it but I know myself and I need a canine companion in my life. She made grief both harder (why is she so different) and easier (gosh I love you little bunny). For me, it’s BECAUSE I love him that I was ready to sign up straight away. His life weighed so much more than his death and I couldn’t to begin again.

*couldn’t wait to begin again.

I lost a loved one recently (not a pet though) and although it seems counter-intuitive to many, the one thing that helped a lot is to look at pictures and videos of your pup and to talk about him to those who knew him and would love to know more. Don’t worry about burdening others if you tear up talking about him. It really helps to know that he lives on through and in your memory. Also, the only way forward with grief is through it. Hugs ((:-)))

I wish I could give you some solid steps to healing, but having been through this with our sweet boy last fall, I would say it just comes in time….we miss him every day but it hurts less now. We rescued a baby of his same breed this summer. At first I felt guilty(?) for “replacing” him, but quickly realized that having the new kid helps us remember and honor him even more. Just know he is with you always and wants you to be happy. Sending you a big hug

I am so very sorry. For me, time is the only thing that helps.

Anen, I’m so sorry for you and your boy. Know that you gave him the best life and the deepest comfort of being there for him! I lost my first pet (my first “just mine” not my family’s pet) last July, and it was excruciating, constant pain at first. I let myself cry (usually multiple times a day!) whenever I needed it and found that it really REALLY helped me to explain WHAT hurt out loud to my partner (“I can’t stop think about…” “I’ll never….” “I miss his…”)… slowly (and it was SLOW for me) it got easier to vocalize, it got easier to look at pictures, it got easier to recount memories. Like everything, it just takes time (and more time than you or anyone else around you will think is reasonable!) Take gentle care of yourself! I’m sending you a million hugs.

I’m so sorry for your loss Anen. I’ve said goodbye to two furry friends in my adulthood, and there’s no easy way through it. It’s just awful. The first time I got another dog after about a month, and that helped some, but it certainly wasn’t the same and ultimately I wouldn’t recommend it. This last time it’s been about a year. It was a solid six month before I got used to life without him, and the grief is much softer, now. While I miss having an animal pal, I’m not ready to get another one and not rushing into it. It feels better. It feels right. Holding you in my heart while you grieve.

If you don’t have it, get the book Dog Heaven by Cynthia Rylant. I have my doubts about the existence of heaven for humankind, but dogs surely deserve heaven. This book captures the essence of dog and what we wish for our beloved pets. It makes me smile through cathartic tears and has helpd me through the deaths of four beloved dogs.

I am so so sorry! I lost my soul dog in June 2024 and I think of her every day. I am not a woo-woo person, but I do feel her everywhere, and she is a source of unconditional love that is always with me. The grief is exquisite, but the love doesn’t go anywhere.

Time helps, but ultimately you just miss them. They’re a member of your family. It’s ok to grieve, and sometimes it helps to be around other dogs, too. But it’s ok if it hurts too much. Years have passed, and I still miss my dogs who have gone.

I’m so sorry, Anen. The Grief is a black hole for awhile, that’s for sure, and I will be forever heartbroken, I think, for my irreplaceable loss. Peace, on the other hand, slowly washed over me, and now I am just so grateful and honored to have been a part of the life of such a precious soul, and know that I gave him the very best life that I could. Peace is the thing that keeps the broken heart from shattering. It will find you, too. xxxooo

Ugh, that’s just the worst feeling. I lost my sweet rescue cocker spaniel nearly a year ago–he was my soul dog. A couple of days after I lost him, one of my best friends sent me a stuffed animal that looks just like him. I put my dog’s collar on it and carried it with me everywhere (I’m talking up and down the stairs of my house as well as out and about in my purse) for months. Now that I’m almost a year into my grief, I just keep the stuffed animal in my bed and sleep with it at night. It sounds childish but just being able to touch the stuffy’s fur and imagine my fingers in my dog’s hair really helped me. I also read this article over and over; something about it spoke to me: https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/essays-culture/pet-loss-dog-grief I don’t know you, but I’ll be thinking about you! <3

I am so sorry, Anen. I lost my beloved dog two months to the day after my father-in-law passed away, and the grief was staggering. For me, the only thing that helped was time. I still miss my dog (and have yet to get another, 3 1/2 years on!), but it’s more of an ache than a sharp pain now. Feel your feelings and know that it WILL get better. Sending you love <3

I had to say goodbye to my beautiful boy recently. He got very sick suddenly. He was a rescued dog and came to us with a bunch of anxiety issues that made him tricky but we could not have lived him more. He was our second beloved dog and we waited 12 years to get him because I did not think I could ever love a dog as much as my first dog but I was wrong. So I have jumped right in and have a new boy, also a rehomed/rescue dog (a failed working dog). We loved him instantly and he has filled a gap in our family. There are so many dogs that need humans (and we need them too!). Can you open your heart to another? You won’t regret it.

The Frankie shop! Xo

Was your Nana from Philly? I’ve only ever heard anyone call it “gravy” here

I am from an Italian-American family in Boston and we call it macaroni and gravy!

Made me laugh. This is me too!

I guess I just learned out of necessity! I hate dragging all my kids into the grocery store so I will invent a meal out of the fridge ten times over before I’ll go do a big grocery run, ha ha. I usually start with what’s about to go bad in the fridge and work backwards from there so we don’t waste food.

I think I cook like this! My niece once asked me if I had been a contestant on Chopped when we were cooking together on the boat she was living on with her parents. Lol, no. But I was a line cook for years and often responsible for making ‘family meal.’ Which is much more like making an actual family meal than restaurant cooking, by the way. Some of my strategies: – Regardless of cuisine or ingredients, most well-rounded meals have some form of protein, something green/vegetables, and something to make it filling/give energy (generally carbs). That’s a great basic formula to start with. – Try to develop a sense of portion size, and some strategies for stretching various ingredients depending on how many people you’re feeding. Soups and a lot of rice-based cuisines are really flexible. Salads are also a great way to stretch proteins. – Always have a sense of what you need to use up first. If you don’t have anything perishable, then sometimes I will look for the “odd” item in the pantry that I would like to get rid of, haha. – If you’ve figured out what you need to use up and how many people you’re feeding, then I try to determine a cuisine and/or format–am I making a quiche? Something with rice? Something with noodles/pasta? A big salad? Rice and salads are great for most vegan and gf eaters. Sometimes you may be limited by time so you might have to figure out how long you have (quiche might be out–or it might be ideal if you make it in advance, since it can be served room temp). – While I rarely follow recipes strictly, I do try to stick with a region’s “palette” of ingredients most of the time. I’ve mostly cooked at Italian-leaning restaurants so that’s the cuisine I’m the most familiar with, but to learn different classic flavor combinations, spice blends, etc. I will try to follow some traditional recipes with precision first, before winging it. – Restaurant food is typically “finished” with something, whether that’s chopped herbs, chili oil, or even just a fancy salt or freshly ground pepper. Fresh herbs or killer condiments can really turn a meal up a notch with minimal effort or planning. Also… cannot recommend Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat highly enough! I also love Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal (which I read many, many years before I was a cook). Both give a lot of great practical advice in this department.

Maddie you can do it…It really is just time in the dinner trenches-like Malcolm Gladwell said it takes10,000 hours to master a skill. As a mom I have that in spades. When my kids were growing up I felt like I was always on an episode of ready-set- cook. Now that it’s two of us I’m still amazed with what I pull off every night. Of course I didn’t do it alone I had a lot of virtual foodie friends on my side like Jenny Rosenstrach :)

Growing up with parents who cooked; working as a sous-chef in a kitchen as a broke student; being a voracious eater of all cuisines. It’s definitely a skill you can learn from cooking often from cookbooks to start and also from pulling up the NYT cooking app when you’re at the veg market or butcher. It’s the best skill — you’ve got this! Think of all the wonderful meals ahead!

I have the same goal! Listening to both of Stanley Tucci’s books was oddly helpful. (And they’re just amazing regardless)

Me again — this is too interesting a question to let go! Tonight I had carrots and zucchini in the fridge so I pulled together roast carrots rubbed in rose harissa, which I served over a whipped yoghurt-tahini dip and then a rapid couscous of zucchini, chickpea, black olives. Two tricks: my pantry is fully stocked with a gazillion herbs, spices, grain and legume staples and I’d eaten variants on both these dishes before. I quickly pulled up two reference recipes from the NYT cooking up but only consulted them for general progression of steps and timing. Didn’t sweat lack of ingredients and have the basic cooking skills to know how to prepare each vegetable and what typically cooks first, etc. My kitchen training does come in handy for rapidity (I got this on the table in 30 min) and for timing (nothing overcooked, all ready at the same time). This skill may take time to build, but it’s so worth it for eating properly delicious food every night!

I started to cook a lot more, using cookbooks and following recipes. This (1) increased my basic kitchen/cooking skills, (2) expanded my palette, (3) helped me start to see patterns around meals. Between these three and over a few years, I developed the ability to look in the frigge and realize that I have ingredients that could go together and the willingness to taste and eat and enjoy whatever meal came out of that. Use your library for cookbooks. Some are great and some are not so great. Cookbooks I highly recommend for this purpose — Sam Sifton “No Recipe Recipes”, Julia Turshen “What Goes with What” and Samin Nosrat “Salt Fat Acid Heat”. Julia does very affordable cooking classes and offers the library of them free on her website — highly recommend. Good luck! It’s so fun!

Hi Maddie, I would say that watching cooking shows like Master Chef and Chopped helped me. Then there are some things to just keep on hand in your pantry — a good pasta, some kind of canned fish, panko or some kind of breading, rice, olive oil, balsamic, chili crunch, etc. Then keeping a solid rotation of fresh veggies in the fridge. I find that I can throw things together quite often with these staples. – Broccoli with chili crunch over rice (add tofu if around) – Breaded zucchini stuffed with rice – Salad with tuna on top – Tuna with pasta – Pasta with any veggie and maybe some pan fried panko for crunch I think it has to do with keeping the pantry and fridge stocked in a way where things work together. Like a lot of these dishes will benefit even more if i have small block of Parmesan. Hope that helps!

1. Learn to make 8 true/ tried family favorite recipes that you can cook with your eyes closed. 2. Ensure your pantry is always filled with the ingredients that’s needed for those recipes. 3. Now you can experiment with some of the ingredients in those recipes, swap shrimp for chicken, paprika+ sriracha instead of cayenne, coucous instead of rice, sky is the limit. And eventually you’ll come up with your own recipes with the same ingredients. I’m sure you’d think of making lemonade if I give you lemons, water and sugar. You got this 💛.

I think there’s a few ways you can learn to become this type of cook if that sounds fun to you (and if it doesn’t sound fun, then just stick with recipes!). I learned mainly through trial and error because I love improvising and experimenting and I have a good idea of what types flavor combinations I enjoy. My approach is usually to pick a starting point. Starting points could be a main ingredient, oftentimes a protein or maybe a seasonal vegetable I want to highlight (examples: chicken thighs, chickpeas, tomatoes), or a basic technique (examples: roasting, stir frying) or type of food (examples: taco, grain bowl, salad) and build from there. The more you cook this way, the more intuitive it feels. Another approach is to cook from recipes (try to identifying 1-3 recipe developers or cookbook authors that you really vibe with in terms of similar taste and start there) and start making tweaks and substitutions based on what you have. This will help you understand how flexible and adaptable most recipes are and help build your repertoire of types of food you feel comfortable making and slowly wean you off from recipes (Disclaimer: This applies to cooking by the way, NOT to baking. You have to be a very experienced baker to start messing with baking recipes!) I think of recipes as a starting point and love looking at them for flavor combo inspiration or to learn a new technique. But in general, the more you cook, the more you will trust you own judgement about what will work or not. Lastly, building a solid pantry (lots of cook books have this section at the beginning with great lists) of non-perishable items and then go-to fridge items also helps. I always have eggs, good cheddar cheese, some type of green (spinach or kale) in the fridge and tortillas, frozen shrimp, and good bread in the freezer. Only build your pantry with stuff you love and use regularly. I hope this helps!

I think the two main things that help the most are: 1. Good pantry staples (i.e. pasta, rice, panko, eggs, canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, lemons, etc.) 2. Learning certain dishes as templates that can be endlessly riffed on. Such as stir-fries, pastas, fried rice, etc. where you can toss in whatever veg and protein you have on hand and tweak the seasoning and cook times accordingly and it’ll still taste good. Once you’ve gotten the hang of that then you can learn how different ingredients in the same type of veg family can work similarly which makes it easier to sub out ingredients in a recipe with whatever you have on hand. Don’t have spinach? Chard or even kale works. Don’t have shallots? Mince up some onion and garlic. It might not be exactly the same as the recipe but it’ll still be good.

I love to eat and to cook. Read a ton of food blogs (or used to), cookbooks, and experimented a lot. Cooked with recipes in the beginning. I’ve been cooking now for 16 years so it just comes from experience, I think. But start with looking up how to make things that interest you! Learn the basics of flavors for cuisines you like. Go from there.

The easy way to start is converting something into a solo breakfast or lunch. Leftover potato: breakfast home fries. Leftover steak: quesadilla. You get the idea. A small something can turn into a whole meal for one person on another day. A little practice and then your eyes will start to see bigger and you’ll be able to convert things into full meals for more people. And suddenly one day… Leftover corn on the cob: cut it off, sautee in butter and whatever else is lying around, toss with pasta (often a misc blend of boxes, the people love it!), and a little pasta water.

I’m like this, I think mainly because I made a lot of meals for my family growing up and rarely had a say about what was purchased during the grocery shop, so I had to make do with whatever was in the fridge/pantry. I also worked in a deli where we were expected to make soups/stews/casseroles from whatever excess produce we had. So, practice. But I also really got into watching cooking videos (Bon Appetit, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, etc.) in my early 20’s and I think that’s where I started getting my sense of “these flavors go together”. You start putting together mental categories of ingredients for different dishes/cuisines, and then you’re not thinking in individual ingredients but in the categories…if that makes any sense. Samin Nosrat’s “Salt Fat Acid Heat” is another great resource for learning how to do this. It’s funny, I often feel resentful of having to make meals because of the relentless nature of the whole thing, but when my brain starts putting together ingredients into a dish, I get excited to cook. I’ll be hangry one minute and then next I’m like “oooh I can make black bean tostadas!”

Use the internet – it is amazing for meal inspiration. For example: I decided to try a maker’s homemade pelmini at the local farmer’s market. I forgot they were in the bag and it was a very hot day. By the time I remembered them, they had melted together into one giant ball of very very tender dough. Impossible to separate! Oh SHOOT. With zero expectation, I typed in “what to cook when your raw dumplings have melted together”, (lol). And a recipe for broken dumpling soup popped up! What the hay…? Never heard of it but it’s a Mark Bittman recipe so… I sliced small chunks off a portion of the gooey blob and dropped them into a broth piece by piece to make a sample soup with a greatly simplified version of the recipe, and had an AMAZING soup for lunch! Still thinking about it a day later! Yay, internet! It helps that the pelmini were obviously things of beauty, flavorwise.

Two tips: 1. What grows together, goes together. That is not to say wacky combos don’t work. But if you stick to flavours from one region of the world then you will have a great starting point. 2. Varied Elements. Texture: have something crunchy, something soft, something creamy. Flavours: have something sharp, something sweet, something savoury. So lets think of sandwiches: Crusty bread (crunchy), ham (soft and savoury), cheese (sharp and creamy), what’s missing? Relish! (Sweet and Sharp). Now let’s do dinner. Pasta (chewy), carbonara sauce (savoury and creamy), what’s missing? A salad giving crunch and sharp acid! So if you are cooking and feel like something is missing. Fill in the gaps.

I started cooking family meals about the age of 12…. It was a learning curve, my sisters still laugh about the time I washed lettuce with hot water…. It’s a grind. It helped that I loved eating, read ALL the cookbooks, and had a whole lot of fun with cooking in my teens and twenties. Then came children and solo parenting. Home made food is one of our “anchors” that I’m unwilling to forego for longer than a few weeks even in a crisis. It grounds us all and that’s what makes it worth it. But the grocery shopping has to happen, the ingredients need to be washed or chopped or cooked, and it’s gotta get to the table…… and then the kitchen fails to magically clean itself while I watch my show. Cooking is work. Some of us have been working doing this for so long it seems like second nature, but it’s definitely work. And I think we all underestimate the hours clocked up over a week, a month, a year. When my kids go on holidays with their dad I rarely do more than butter toast.

I cooked my way through the more-or-less one pot recipes from two cookbooks: soups, stews, pastas, risottos, etc. It taught me so much about flavor and texture combos that work well together. Once you know a few of those combos, you can start finding other recipes with those ingredients/flavors, and you’ll start to see how it’s working together behind the scenes. I took my time and had fun with it! I’ll never have my former-chef husband’s ability to whip up stunning gourmet meals from absolutely nothing in the pantry, but I can make solid meals and almost all my cooking is improvised.

I agree with everyone that the more you cook, the more comfortable you’ll get riffing on your own. I specifically think it’s helpful to get comfortable with substitutions. Don’t have the scallions the recipe calls for? You can use the extra shallots, onions, or chives leftover from another recipe. Lots of herbs can be substituted for each other in different combinations in a pinch. You get the idea… Sometimes I just google a few ingredients and see what recipes pop up for an idea.

Try using Claude or chatGPT! Take a picture of the inside of your fridge and/or pantry and ask AI to suggest a few meals you can make with the ingredients you have. I am a proficient cook and able to make things up off the cuff, but I still use this trick sometimes when I’m in a rut!

I agree with a lot of other folks said, but I will add in my most important strategy: It’s okay if dinner turns out just okay (or even not great). As long as it’s edible, you can consider how you’d change it the next time (or even if there should be a next time). Not every meal will be stellar, but you will be fed. The more you do it, the fewer just-okay meals you’ll have. Our fridge hasn’t worked for 2 weeks. We’re waiting on a repair, it involves a warranty, so it’s taking forever. We evacuated most of our food to friends’ houses and are living out of our bar fridge. So tonight we made burritos with canned black beans, rice, onion, the end of a ball of fresh mozzarella, and an on-its-way-out tomato in red pepper tortillas. Shook on some hot sauce and adobo for more flavor. Normally, we’d load burritos up with veg, but we’re working with what we’ve got. It turned out just okay, but we’re fed!

Wow! I love the comments in answer to Maddie’s question! I’m 64, from a family of avid cooks and eaters. I think it’s easier to improvise dinner when you have some dependable staples. We aren’t vegetarian, so my list would be different than others. In the freezer whatever proteins you like – repackaged into dinner sized portions if need be. Chicken thighs, chicken breast, salmon, cod, shrimp, ground meats, steak, roasts. In the fridge – eggs, milk, butter, cheese we keep sandwich bread in the fridge. fresh veggies for salads, stir fry, sautées Condiments, olives, capers, barbecue sauce, teriyaki sauce, salad dressings. In the pantry – Canned tomatoes, beans, broth, tuna. Long pasta and short pasta. Rice and grains, panko. Baking shelf – flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, Also, cook and preserve leftovers. If you make soup, stew or casseroles, carefully wrap, label and freeze for next week. If you’re cooking a protein, do double, and plan on a main dish salad, or taco Tuesday!

I think it comes from watching lots of cooking shows from when I was little and then just also cooking a lot myself, and being bad at buying groceries that actually go together 😂 like I don’t write down what recipes I’m gonna make then shop accordingly so really we aren’t gonna eat if I don’t make something up

A great book for beginners who want to learn how to cook like this is That Sounds So Good by Carla Lalli Music. In it, she talks a lot about pantry staples and how to “spin” things, aka swap some ingredients for others. I have a pretty good intuition for whipping up dishes (yay to being raised by a dad who was a chef!) but she had some really creative ideas that helped me expand my horizons.

I love this thread and seeing how so many of us became “open the fridge and get creative” people! I am this kind of people and what has helped me cultivate this skill over the years are a few simple things: 1. Keeping in mind delicious things I’ve eaten in the past. I know I like curries, pastas with veg and big salads with a lot of crunch, so I often keep one of those in mind while hunting around. 2. Get good at knowing swaps and dupes. It’s helpful to know that my half and half for coffee is an acceptable stand-in if I’m out of coconut milk. It’s good to remember that pinto beans can swap for black beans in a chili. Tomatoes and zucchini both have high water content, so you can mix and change your ratios if using them in a recipe. Carrots and radishes are another vegetable that can be swapped for each other in something like a stir fry. Almost any nut is fine in pesto!! Knowing what I can swap out for something else helps me think creatively and use what I have (vs. think I need to run to the store or get defeated and not even try to cook.) 3. Think about balance, whatever that means to you. Patron Saint Samin will teach you to balance flavors, nutritionist Kelly LeVeque will teach you to think about nutritional balance. Read and learn from experts. I often read cookbooks before bed to get ideas. 4. Practice! Have fun in the kitchen! Have fails in the kitchen! The only way to learn what you like and what tastes good together is to try. I’ve eaten some weirdo things in my time, but I’m always proud of myself for “using the whole buffalo” as we call it, aka, using up what’s in the fridge. Good for the planet and good for the kitchen confidence, too!

OMG, I was thinking who else remembers to NOT SHOP on THURSDAYS for GAZA. I’ll soak the shrimp when Gaza is free. My heart goes out to the journalists that Israel murdered. Shame on the “journalists” who were bought with Zionist money to stay silent. What goes around WILL come around.

LOL same!!

LOL

My mom growing up called making dinner “the bane of her existence” and I FEEL THAT so much now that I’m the mom…

Meredith, I almost used that exact phrase but it felt a little dramatic in light of what is going on the world. But I definitely feel the same way your mom felt!

I distinguish between cooking and feeding. Cooking is finding a wonderful recipe, enjoying preparing the dish, and serving it to a grateful recipient. Feeding is making the same few dishes (spaghetti, hot dogs, mac and cheese, burgers, etc.) over and over until you die. In our family, my husband is the very picky one. I call him the lowest common denominator. What works for us are meals where everyone is okay with the base and each person can add toppings (taco bowls, baked potato bar, chicken curry with a bunch of mix ins, etc.).

@M & M: Can you possibly ask your partners to take on that duty? Swap it for something they usually handle if you like. But it is not 1955. Your partner is capable of figuring it out. Let them.

Becoming a mother is the thing that has forced me into being a meal planner, and when I say forced I mean I feel like I drag myself through mud every Saturday morning to decide what we’ll eat for the coming week. I was struggling hard with deciding what we’d have every night, but the kind of forethought that meal planning requires felt beyond me. A few months in, though, and I am seeing the benefits, and that is how to make a good habit stick. I’ve found the key is to pick one meal I’m excited to eat and cook, and then plan around those ingredients. Tonight we’re trying the Caprese pasta bake that was in the tomato article a few posts back, which led to needing mozzarella and basil, which meant we had pizza another night to make the most of those ingredients. And suddenly I was two meals already planned. I hate to admit it because I would rather be this kind of spontaneous look in the pantry and whip up a dish cook, but planning things out is working well for me and it also gives my particular little boys some structure, so they know what’s coming for dinner in advance.

I only buy whats on my mind for a meal, but since I have a small family there is often leftover bits of each ingredient for each meal, which can form multiple other meals.

Haha I think they’re very normal in real life! But I do like crest white strips now and again :)

he says it turns out well, if you just cook them briefly

I made this last night and used both raw and cooked prawns (shrimp) because I had both in my freezer. It was so delicious and the version that started with raw prawns was much more tender.

I like arugula with olive oil, a splash of Costco aged balsamic, and garlic salt. Or spinach + tomato (or strawberry or peach) + herb (chive? mint? basil?) with a vinaigrette (equal parts olive oil and balsamic, crushed garlic, dash of Dijon or maple syrup depending on the mood, and salt and pepper)

oh yes! here are jenny’s tips: https://cupofjo.com/2024/09/11/simple-green-salad-recipe/ https://cupofjo.com/2022/06/15/5-ways-to-upgrade-a-regular-green-salad/

I think the trick is to use lots of different kinds of greens, different colors, textures, bitter and mild. Lay down a bed of something crunchy like romaine, add gem or butter lettuces, bitters like arugula, radicchio, the pale inner leaves of escarole, and frisee for texture. Nasturtium flowers or other edible flowers for color. Scallions, radish. That’s about it. You’ll find out what proportions you like best. Vinaigrette is best; again, you’ll find the proportion you like. Mine is 1 vinegar (I use tarragon vinegar) to about 4 or 5 olive oil. About a tsp of Dijon mustard. Sometimes shallots. My uncle, who was Greek, used to rub a cut clove of garlic around the wooden salad bowl and then toss the salad with dressing. That was as much garlic as he used for salad. I rarely use garlic for dressing, but if I do, I try to do that. Then I salt my own salad portion, usually Maldon salt. Fun fact: the word salad comes from “salata” which means “salted”. A bit of salt on the dressed salad itself, not in the dressing, makes a big difference. Bit of crunch.

Truly, truly the best and easiest dressing is Alice Waters’s Garlic Vinaigrette – microplane/grate one small clove of garlic into 2 tbsp vinegar (I like white balsamic, she uses red wine vin), and 3 to 4 tbsp olive oil. Add salt and pepper. Give it a lil shake before you pour it. I like butter lettuce or little gems for a sweet green salad, and restaurants often dress just the leaves with olive oil and salt before putting on the dressing (but not too long before serving).

Seeds! Sprinkle a lot of seeds – sesame, pumpkin. It’s visually nice, adds some nice texture variance, and makes it seem richer. Also, a simple home lemony vinaigrette is like a little moment of salad care. Like, I care enough about this salad to give it the very best. I also like to cut up the vegetable in various shapes and add colors, again for that visual variance. And fat! Avocado or liberal dressing. A salad should feel just as indulgent as the rest of a meal. For me, adding fats is a de-programming my 90s low fat training.

I used to have the same problem until I worked out that the secret is to skip the grocery store. Freshly picked mixed greens and high quality olive oil and balsamic… that’s the trick and what all the best restaurants are doing. Every ingredient tastes great individually and even better together.

My go to dressing for a simple green salad is: 1 tsp vinegar (red wine/sherry/balsamic) 1 tsp Dijon mustard 1 tsp shallot, chopped fine 3 TBL oil (for a simple salad I like to use a neutral oil like sunflower or safflower, but you can use olive oil or a mix) Method: Plop the mustard and shallot and vinegar in a bowl and whisk to combine. Add the oil one TBL at a time, whisking to emulsify before you add more oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. It will be thick – like a slightly thinner homemade mayo. For the salad put a tablespoon in the bottom of a bowl, add greens and a little salt, toss the greens with dressing and add more as you like!

I love Trader Joe’s sliced, toasted almonds on a salad. Adds crunch and some heft. Greens, one or two chopped vegs from whatever you have in the fridge (or thin sliced apples?) and some almonds.

it’s a proven fact that salad made by other people just tastes better. :)

A whole bag of Trader Joe’s Herb Mix, with a couple tablespoons of homemade miso vinaigrette: A tablespoon of sweet white miso added to any basic vinaigrette – mine always has a spoonful of dijon and a dab of honey; salt, pepper, avo or olive oil, rice vinegar or my favorite, white balsamic. If I want to make it a meal, I’ll add roasted beets, (any roasted veg in fact), toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds or both, shaved parm on top.

Okay, so after a lot of trial and error, I’ve found (at least for me) the perfect formula for a good at-home salad: – interesting greens (usually those bags of ‘spring mix’ or arugula) – something sweet (peaches, strawberries, dried cranberries, etc.) – a nut or seed – something creamy (could be the fruit, an avocado, the dressing) – cheese (feta, burrata, parmesan, etc.) – a “finish” (Trader Joe’s everything but the bagel seasoning is a fave, but also some flaky salt and fresh cracked pepper or a drizzle of fancy olive oil) I’m a little lazy about homemade dressing, but my go-to is mixing whole-grain or dijon mustard with balsamic, whisking in honey, then olive oil. Or I’ll just use whatever store bought one I have. I’ve been making salads all summer this way, and it hasn’t failed me yet!