Grandma Evert’s “Garbage Salad”
My Grandmother created this salad probably before I was born. I am told she came up with it when she was dieting and would have this salad as her entire meal. My Grandmother would chop whatever vegetables she had on hand along with iceberg lettuce, hard boiled eggs and then mix everything together with her…
Grandma Evert’s Salad Dressing
This is the salad dressing my Grandmother created for her “Garbage Salad”. This salad dressing becomes very rich and creamy once it is tossed with the salad and the hardboiled egg yolks breakdown and are incorporated into the dressing. When my Mom makes hers, she will take one hard-cooked egg yolk and incorporate it into the mayonnaise
Kalua Pork
Wow, this pork is GOOD. It’s smoky and salty, and I love it! It’s made with a few very simple ingredients: pork, salt, liquid smoke and banana leaves. The hardest part about this recipe is finding the banana leaves. I learned that they are available in most Asian markets, and they come fresh or…
Hummus
Like many people, I have always thought that hummus originated in Greece, but recently I’ve learned that many in the Middle East claim it as their own. Growing up, I ate in several Greek restaurants in the Milwaukee area and loved the hummus with pita bread that was on most menus. Back then I never…
Creamy Polenta
This recipe was discovered while I was at Scott Conant’s Scarpetta Restaurant in the Cosmopolitan Hotel of Las Vegas trying the $24.00 Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce. One of my friends ordered a dish called “Fricasee of Truffled Mushrooms over Creamy Polenta”. Of course, I had to try it. Wow that was good! As we were leaving the…
Hot Buttered Rum
Hot Buttered Rum is a drink with rum, butter, sugar, spices and either hot water or apple cider. I first discovered it while working as a bartender at TGI Fridays. After making the hot buttered rum batter countless times, I finally decided to try the drink and found that I just loved the smooth, savory…
Angelo’s Pizza
I was recently in New York for the Memorial Day weekend. On Monday, the actual holiday, we were looking for a place to eat lunch and I was having a pizza craving. New York is a great place to have a pizza craving, since there are pizzerias everywhere. Unfortunately, since it was a holiday, many…
Cuba Libre
I remember years ago when I first started as a young bartender and a customer ordered a Cuba Libre. I had no idea what she was asking for, so it took a minute for us to get on the same page. (I kind of felt like Tom Cruise in that movie “Cocktail”) When she explained…
DiPiero’s Pizzeria & Ristorante
I found this restaurant by accident several years ago. I was having lunch at a restaurant in a local mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. Because I had always heard that there are a lot of old family-operated Italian restaurants in the Chicago area, I asked the waitress if she knew of any nearby. She suggested DiPiero’s…
Peanut Butter
The best peanut butter recipe I have made so far. I like to use the extra large salted and roasted peanuts in this recipe. These peanuts are roasted using an old fashioned process called “blister roast”. I have tried several other types of peanuts and find these to have the best flavor. I have…
