The Dinner Winner

Meatless food for all!

garlic

1 Dinner

The Salad Dressing

The Salad Dressing

This dressing is a vinaigrette. It is garlicky, salty, and goes amazingly well on all sorts of things. Use it on savory salads, on top of roasted potatoes, to dip carrot sticks in, on top of grilled protein, or as a marinade. Once you get the hang of making this recipe, you’ll be able to easily make it with no recipe at all. This is Silvia’s favorite salad dressing by far. Believe it or not, she will whip this up in the morning to put over a salad for her school lunch.

To make the dressing, you should ideally have a mortar and pestle. We use this set, made by Le Cruset, but anything should work.

The Salad Dressing

Ingredients

1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp capers
2 tsp dijon mustard
1 tablespoon plus 1 tsp white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Method

  1. Place the garlic clove and salt in the mortar and pestle. Mash to a paste. Add the capers and mash to a paste.
  2. Add the dijon mustard and white wine vinegar. Mix until totally combined.
  3. While mixing continuously, stream in the olive oil. Keep mixing vigorously until the dressing forms an emulsion and everything is well mixed.
  4. Taste the dressing and adjust the seasoning to your liking.
  5. Pour over your favorite salad, roasted potatoes, grilled chicken or tofu, or anything else you can think of.

Notes

This is a very simple recipe, but incredibly delicious. The capers replace anchovies in the original, and I think they do a great job of adding a nice briny saltiness to the dressing while keeping everything vegetarian. Silvia likes to keep the caper bits somewhat chunky, I like them more mashed up. There is no wrong answer. The dijon mustard serves as an emulsifier; it makes it easier for all of the ingredients to stay combined. Even with the mustard, this will separate after it sits for a while. No worried, just mix it up some more and it will come back together. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, just push the garlic through a garlic press and mince the capers as fine as possible. Just make the recipe in a small bowl and it will be great.

This dressing is adapted from David Tanis’ French Potato and Green Bean Salad.

2 Dairy-Free

Dead Simple Tomato Sauce

For me, pasta sauces fall into two categories, fast sauces, and sauces I never make. This dead simple tomato sauce is the former. You can easily throw it together in a couple of minutes, though it tastes best when it has at least 10 minutes to simmer. It is an incredibly forgiving recipe, so feel free to play around with the proportions if you want something different out of your sauce. This dead simple tomato sauce is of course great on pasta, or use it in my weeknight baked eggplant Parmesan recipe, or on a pizza.

Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced (I like yellow, red, or white. Not a Vidalia)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 28 oz cans whole tomatoes in juice
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

Method

  1. Open the cans of whole tomatoes and dump them in a large bowl. Squeeze the tomatoes with your hands to break them up into small bits.
  2. Heat the oil in a large (12” or so) pan with a lid
  3. Sauté the onion for 5-6 minutes until translucent 
  4. Add the garlic, stir and cook for 45 seconds or so
  5. Add the tomatoes and basil, salt and pepper to taste and red pepper flakes if you are using them.
  6. Turn heat low enough that the sauce isn’t splattering everywhere, partially cover and simmer for 10 minutes to so, stirring occasionally. 

11 Dairy-Free

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Garlic and Balsamic

because This recipe for roasted Brussels sprouts with garlic and balsamic vinegar found its way into my life over a decade ago. I’m pretty sure I fist came across it in Mark Bittman’s excellent cookbook, How to Cook Everything. There is even a vegetarian version! This recipe, along with my amazing wife, is responsible for turning me into a serious devotee of the humble Brussels sprout. 

Roasted Brussels Sorouts with Garlic and Balsamic

My sprout awakening

I remember avoiding Brussels sprouts like the plague growing up, probably because my only exposure to a Brussels sprout was in the school lunch line, where they had been steamed or boiled for a fortnight before serving. They smelled terrible, and looked inedible. I don’t think I ever even tried them because of that. Fast forward to today, and I think I probably have sprouts in my fridge from mid-September through May. Chances are, tif I have Brussels sprouts, they will be made into this roasted Brussels sprouts with garlic and balsamic vinegar because its so easy.

Brussels Sprouts in a colendar

M daughters even love this recipe. That may be because we told them they were called “tiny cabbages,” but whatever the reason, they love them. A little rebranding goes a long way. There has never been a leftover sprout in our house, no matter how many we make. 

This recipe is so easy to love. It is incredibly fast to throw together, more or less hands off, and absolutely delicious. All you need is a big, ovenproof skillet, I usually use cast iron, and a couple of simple ingredients. I would stay away from using a nonstick skillet. There has been some bad press about possible chemical off-gassing from the coatings at high temperatures, and I air on the side of caution here. I have used Calphalon aluminum skillets as well with great success.

Kitchen safety

It is really easy to forget to put an oven mitt on your hand after you have taken the skillet out of the oven and it is sitting on the stovetop. Do not forget to do that. We are conditioned that pot handles are safe to grab when they are on the stove because we do it all the time. Nothing will ruin your day faster than grabbing a 400 degree cast iron pot handle with your bare hand. 

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Garlic and Balsamic
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INGREDIENTS

  • 2 pounds Brussels sprouts
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 6 cloves garlic
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

METHOD

  1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Trim the bottom off of all of the sprouts and slice the sprouts in half. If there are any really. Small ones, you can leave those whole, you just want them all more or less the same size.
  2. Heat a large cast iron or other ovenproof skillet over medium high heat. When hot, put in the olive oil and tilt the pan so the bottom is coated. Add the Brussels sprouts to the pan and arrange them so they are cut side down. Sprinkle a few pinches of salt an a couple of good grinds of black pepper on top and walk away for 7 minutes.
  3. After 7 minutes, add the peeled, whole cloves of garlic to the pan and scrape the sprouts up to toss them around a bit. Put the pan in the oven for 15 minutes.
  4. After 15 minutes, stir the sprouts, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan. Return the pan to the oven for about 7 more minutes, or until the sprouts are nicely browned, and crispy in some places.
  5. Take the pan out of the oven and immediately pour the balsamic vinegar around the pan. It should sizzle quite a bit. Stir everything around to coat and transfer the sprouts to a serving bowl. You’re done!
7.8.1.2
15

https://thedinnerwinner.com/roasted-brussels-sprouts-with-garlic-and-balsamic/

Nutrition

Calories

787 cal

Fat

43 g

Carbs

91 g

Protein

32 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info


 

 

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0 Dairy-Free

Grilled Asparagus with Garlic

Quick … you have 15 minutes, some asparagus, garlic, and lemon and you need some veggies … what do you do? Make this dish! This recipe is hands down, one of the fastest, easiest, and most delicious things you can do with the king of spring, asparagus. You can use this preparation to add into dozens of other recipes as well, making this not only a standalone side dish, but a building block of lots of other great food. A great option is this couscous with grilled asparagus. The whole thing will take 30 minutes, including grilling the asparagus.

Asparagus pro tip: Thin, thick, it doesn’t really matter, just make sure that the asparagus ends were submerged in water when you bought them. The thin stalks cook much faster, so adjust cooking times accordingly. Personally, if you are going to be chopping them to use in another dish, I think the fat stalks stand up better.

If you don’t have a grill, or just don’t feel like using it, you can easily do this in the broiler. Just make transfer everything to a large, rimmed baking sheet. Preheat the broiler on high, cook for 2-3 minutes, then shake the pan and roll the asparagus over and cook for 2-3 more minutes.

 

Grilled Asparagus with Garlic
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INGREDIENTS

  • 1 large bunch of asparagus, 1 to 1.5 lbs
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

METHOD

  1. Preheat the grill to medium. (You can also do this in the broiler. See the introduction above for the method).
  2. Snap the stiff, fibrous ends off of the asparagus stalks. Wash the asparagus.
  3. Transfer the asparagus to a flat bottomed baking dish long enough to let everything lay flat. The asparagus does not have to be in one layer.
  4. Mush the garlic through a garlic press directly onto the asparagus in the dish. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.
  5. When the grill is ready, lie the asparagus in one layer on the grill. Cook for about two minutes and try and roll everything to the other side. You’ll probably have a piece or two fall through the grate. No worries, really. After about 4 minutes total cooking time, put the asparagus on a serving plate and you’re all done. If you have really thin stalks, the entire cooking time can be cut in half.
7.8.1.2
3

https://thedinnerwinner.com/grilled-asparagus-with-garlic/

Nutrition

Calories

458 cal

Fat

41 g

Carbs

20 g

Protein

10 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info