Solid Potato Salad

This song is a real earworm. For some reason it just sticks. Like glue. So all the time, I'm singing about potato salad. Singing about potatoes is probably a bit odd. It's a good thing that most people already think I'm a bit strange.

Solid (Roasted) Potato Salad

2 lbs potatoes, medium dice
3 tbsp Sun Dried Tomato Parmesan & Garlic Olive Oil
Garlic Sea Salt
1/4 red onion, small dice
2-4 stalks celery, small dice
1 tbsp mustard
2 tbsp White Honey Ginger Balsamic
     or White Jalapeno Lime Balsamic
3 tbsp Mayonnaise
1 small bunch cilantro, 1/4 cup chopped

Preheat the oven to 400°. Toss the potatoes with the oil and salt until well coated and spread out in a single layer on a baking sheet. Roast for 30-40 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Whisk the balsamic, mayonnaise and mustard together. When the potatoes are cool enough, toss with the dressing and stir in the celery, onion and cilantro. Top with a sprinkle of the Garlic Salt if desired.

Your song.

Ella Mae Morse: Solid Potato Salad

Tomato Pesto Cream Pasta

Sorry I've been gone so long. It's been a busy week.

This was a quick whip up. I love our tomato pesto by itself, but I like to stretch it out so I can enjoy it longer.

Tomato Pesto Cream Pasta

2 tbsp Sundried Tomato Parmesan and Garlic Olive Oil

1/4 cup Trapanese Pesto (sundried tomato pesto)

1 lb angel hair pasta, cooked and drained

1/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup heavy cream

In a very large saute pan over medium heat whisk everything but the pasta together and let cook for a couple minutes. Add the pasta in and toss to coat.

Keep stirring over a low heat until everything is warmed through. Serve.

White Pizza with Broccoli and Tomatoes

Happy Birthday to my mom and to my husband! Both of them have birthday's this week and they both like white pizza... So this one is for you guys!

This started with a big ball of store bought dough. Feel free to make your own, but right now I don't have a go-to dough recipe of my own. Well, I have one I really like, but I never plan my meals ahead and waiting for dough to rise is just torture! I even think the pizza dough in the pop-can is pretty good. Don't tell anyone though. I just love a fast meal.

White Pizza with Broccoli and Tomatoes

1 ball pizza dough, enough for one pizza
2 cups chopped broccoli
3/4 - 1 cup ricotta cheese
2-3 plum tomatoes
4 tbsp Sun-dried Tomato Parmesan Garlic Olive Oil
     plus a little more for serving
1 large ball fresh mozzarella, 3-4 inches diameter

Heat your oven to 450 degrees.

Bring the dough to room temperature. Stretch out the dough gently on a baking stone or a greased baking sheet. Make sure not to over work it, or it will get clumpy and stringy. If you get any tears, continue working the dough until you get the right size and then go back and pinch the tears together. Drizzle, spoon or brush the olive oil over the entire surface of the dough, going all the way to the edges.

Spread the ricotta cheese and broccoli in an even layer across the dough. Slice the tomatoes in a medium slice and sprinkle around. Slice the mozzarella into thin slices and distribute around. Make sure not to get the cheeses too close to the edges, stay back about 1/4 inch on all sides.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Until the cheese and crust start to brown and everything is all bubbly.

Sprinkle with a little more olive oil and serve.

Zippy Pasta Salad

I was been intending to make this salad for awhile now. Finally got to it. Whoo! And it is soooo good. Very sad I waited this long.

Think I'm making this for the next BBQ.

Zippy Pasta Salad

1 lb tri color rotini

1/4 - 1/3 lb sliced pepperoni

1/4 - 1/3 lb sliced salami

1/3 - 1/2 lb pepperjack cheese

2 tbsp White Kiwi Balsamic

2 tbsp Sundried-Tomato Parm and Garlic Olive Oil

--Extra 1 tbsp Olive Oil

Cook the rotini. Run cold water over it and put in the fridge to cool completely. 

Dice the meats and cheese and toss with 1 tbsp of the olive oil. I do this to try and break up the meat slices. You could also get them unsliced and make cubes. 

Toss the meats with the chilled noodles and the remainder of the olive oil and the balsamic vinegar.

Tomato Stuffed Chicken Breasts

I love caprese salad, but even though it is getting warmer, the tomatoes are not at their best. Winter tomatoes are best for making sauce out of and cooking with. Fresh tomatoes are best for eating raw.

So I did what I could and took caprese salad in a different direction by stuffing it inside a chicken breast. It is a very pretty meal you can serve to guests and healthy enough to go into the family meals rotation too. And what can you say about melted cheese? I know that as a child whenever a meal involved melted cheese, I was ready to eat it, even if it involved tomatoes.

Tomato Stuffed Chicken Breasts

4 chicken breasts
1 medium tomato
4 large basil leaves
       or a small handful of sage leaves (fresh only!)
Mozzarella cheese, 4 slices
     or Gruyere
4-6 tbsp Sundried Tomato Parmesan and Garlic Olive Oil, divided

Heat your oven to 350degrees.


You can buy your chicken breasts already cut in butterfly fashion, or you can pound them out very thin and just wrap them around themselves. I always spatter my whole kitchen with chicken bits when I pound them, so I butterflied them myself. Just be careful not to slice yourself up if you do it that way.

Now, this is unnecessary, but I did it anyway. Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a pan on medium high heat. Place in the chicken breasts and brown on each side. 2 minutes a side.

Stuff them with a slice of tomato and the basil or sage. Really stuff the cheese in there too. If it sits too near the front, it all melts out the side. Brush 2 tbsp oil on top.

Arrange them in a well oiled casserole dish and cover. Place them in the oven and cook for about 45 minutes. If you didn't brown the chicken before hand, in the last five minutes, remove the cover and brush with the remaining olive oil.

Easy Parmesan Meatballs

If you have a pound of ground meat in the fridge, some cheese, breadcrumbs and a little oil, we are in business to night!

Lets go with my husbands favorite: meatballs. Parmesan ones!

Easy Parmesan Meatballs

1 lb ground meat, I like turkey
1/4 cup Sun dried Tomato, Parmesan and Garlic Olive Oil
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs

Start by preheating your oven to 350degrees.

Mix all your ingredients in a large bowl. Form into about 12 meatballs.

Arrange on a baking sheet. As these bake, the parmesan gets everywhere, don't worry about it, they still taste great. But use a pan with sides, not a cookie sheet.

Bake 25-30 minutes.

I used my slow sauce to turn these into a sandwich. Life is good when you have food in the fridge!

Olive Oil Biscuits

Sundried Tomato Parmesan and Garlic Biscuits

2 1/2 cups biscuit mix
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup SunDried Tomato, Parmesan and Garlic Olive Oil
1 egg
1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese

Mix biscuit mix with milk in a large bowl. Stir in Olive Oil, egg and cheese. Stir until all evenly mixed.

If the mixture is too sticky, add flour by the teaspoonful until you get something you can handle without becoming dough covered. If the mixture is too dry, add Olive Oil by teaspoonful to the same point.

Roll the dough out lightly, 1/2 inch thick on an oiled cutting board. Cut with a biscuit cutter as many times as you can.

If you want to, you can brush the tops with Olive Oil and sprinkle more parmesan on top. I didn't, but I should have!

Bake on a lightly greased sheet at 425 degrees for 10-12 minutes. They should be golden brown.

This only made about ten, so you probably need to make a double or triple batch.

Spaghetti Squash and it's Seeds

Spaghetti Squash is a strange food. It sure smells like squash when you bake it, but shred it and put some tomato sauce on top and it's a grain free spaghetti.

It has been on sale recently, so I bought a couple. My favorite thing about them is the seeds. I toss them with a little Sun Dried Tomato, Parmesan and Garlic Olive Oil, some Himalayan Pink Salt and bake them until they are nice and crispy.

How do you like your squash seeds?

Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza

Another easy dinner for a day that is just too hot to cook. 

Easy Pizza

1 pre-made pizza crust

1/8 cup pepperoni

1/8 cup mushrooms

1/8 cup onions

1/2 cup cheese of your choice

1 cup pizza sauce

Drizzle of Sundried Tomato Parmesan and Garlic Olive Oil

The crust goes first of course and the sauce goes on top. The measurements for the ingredients are just really suggestions. Put on as much or as little as you want on this. The important part is that it only takes about 10 minutes in the oven and that's just to crisp everything up and melt your cheese. You can even do this on the grill if you want. I drizzle with the olive oil right before putting it into the oven, then add a little more right before serving it.