My friend Liz is doing it. My friend Elizabeth, too. And so is everyone on the blogosphere. What are they doing you ask? Whipping up the easy-peasy Martha Stewart one-pot pasta. Made with gluten-free rice pasta and some homemade chicken stock, this is one of the easiest dishes I’ve made in ages. And after all […]
Author: Lisa Dearen
Watermelon and Goat Cheese Salad
Last weekend we hosted a BBQ for my cousins, and naturally I wanted to impress with a wide array of salads and sides, not to mention my homemade chocolate ice cream.
Bacon, Avocado & Corn Salad
Fresh sweet corn, creamy avocado, plump tomatoes and smoky bacon. What’s not to love about this salad, adapted from Gaby Dalkin’s new book, Absolutely Avocados?! This is a great recipe for your end-of-summer BBQs. So if you love avocados and you love a good cookbook, be sure to whip up this recipe before summer comes […]
Parmesan & Pea Risotto
It’s been a summer of beach BBQs, picnics in the park, sunset surfing on the beach, and day camps and play dates for my little Gigi. We’ve had sun burns and scraped knees at the beach, played endless rounds of ball with the dogs, and whooped it up during our weekly hula hoop contests in […]
Chocolate Ice Cream
Homemade chocolate ice cream is one of those things that seems like it should be challenging or take too much time when it fact it’s super easy and takes about 30 minutes (plus a few hours resting time). And nothing, and I mean nothing, brings in the raves like a bowl of homemade chocolate ice […]
Basil Cottage Cheese Dip
I feel like I’m pretty close to perfecting my summer picnic menu. For beach BBQs I do a savory grilled flank steak, juicy watermelon, deli potato salad and a corn and tomato salad; I add margaritas or wine depending on the crew. As a crowd-pleasing appetizer, I’ve been trotting out my cottage cheese guacamole here […]
Chicken & Strawberry Balsamic Chopped Salad
I’m back with another one of my signature chopped salads. This Chicken & Strawberry Balsamic Chopped Salad is a favorite around here. I hope you’ll love it, too! In the summer and warmer months (i.e., all year long in San Diego) I layer everything on a bed of salad greens. For a heartier meal, I […]
Margaritas
Today is a day for church picnics and beach BBQs, for slip-n-slides and bounce houses. It’s a day for chopping, slicing and dicing, for marinating steaks, and for packing food into small containers and big ice chests. It’s a day to cram kids into third row seats, drag sand into cars and lick ice cream […]
Quinoa & Chicken Summer Salad
This dish is perfect for your fourth of July picnic. It’s elegant, flavorful and makes healthy use of my favorite food groups: leftovers.