Sharing Plate – Your Cooking Coach |

I love collecting vinegars. They are relatively inexpensive and last a long time. Well, I guess depends how often you use them. I do end up making salad dressing at home but also have a bunch of store bought salad dressings in my fridge. So, the point of this list is not to make you feel guilty if you don’t make your own dressing. Although it is the most easy thing you could do. It takes all of 5 minutes to whip up a yummy dressing. Especially if you have the necessary ingredients- hence the vinegar list.

I recently bought the muscat orange champagne vinegar from Trader Joes. It is delicious. I made a blood orange salad and used this vinegar and it was unbelievable. I paired it with extra virgin olive oil and a bit of honey. The vinegar is very soft and subtle, yet very flavorful.

I would love to know which vinegars you have in your pantry…

1. All purpose white vinegar- it really is an all-purpose vinegar. It can be used for cooking and cleaning. If you ever run out of a particular vinegar- use this one.
2. White wine vinegar- delicious in any salad dressing and/or a sauce.
3. Balsamic vinegar- I use this for everything, mostly an everyday salad dressing. A bit of balsamic vinegar, honey, salt and pepper – just drizzle some extra virgin olive oil and you are done…
4. Rice vinegar- Great for stir fry sauces, etc.
5. Red wine vinegar- I consider this an all-purpose vinegar as well. Good have.
6. Sherry vinegar- Special vinegar- for spanish dishes and to give a kick to your usual salad dressings.
7. Malt vinegar- I used it for some Indian recipes.
8. Raspberry vinegar- Same as sherry vinegar. Great to have. This goes fabulously well with walnut oil and makes a great salad dressing.
9. Champagne vinegar-Special occasion vinegar- love it.
10. Apple Cider vinegar- Any time I add apples to a salad, I use this vinegar to make the salad dressing.

As I may have mentioned before, I recently started writing for the Patch. One of the things I am doing is reviewing local restaurants and then coming home to replicate a favorite dish. It is going really well and I do enjoy the replicating part- and I can’t complain about the eating part either.

I recently went to a Jewish deli in Livingston for reviewingpurposes. I had a friend come with me since I had never had matzoh ball soup before and that is definitely one of the dishes I wanted to try. We had the soup and a pastrami sandwich. My friend explained to me how the soup should taste and what the matzo ball texture should be. The soup was okay- I think I was expecting a lot more flavor in the broth.

After writing the review, I started researching soup recipes to educate myself on how it should be made. After chatting with a few friends, I decided to give it a try.

I made the soup and wrote a another piece for the Livingston Patch explaining how the recipe came about.

Try it and let me know what you think of my matzoh ball soup with dill….
Click here for the recipe… »

I had forgotten about this dish. I grew up eating it. My Mom would make it with green peppers and served it over white rice.

While she was a young girl, she stayed with her brother and sister-in-law in the UK. She learnt a lot of local cooking and one of the dishes my aunt used to make was chicken paprika.

Even after moving to the US, my Mom made this particular chicken dish quite often. I am usually not a big rice eater, but love white rice with this particular dish. As some of you know I am big into healthy eating and brown rice is part of the repertoire- but with this meal white rice tastes the best.

The dish itself is very easy to make. The gravy consists of onion and garlic and the main ingredient is sweet paprika. A pinch of cinnamon brings out the sweetness in the chicken and the peppers. As I mentioned before, my Mom would use green peppers but decided to use one green and one red. It makes a delicious and colorful dish.

My daughter was very curious while I was cooking it. She was a bit put off by the peppers- she doesn’t like them. I told her I would give her the chicken with the rice and one or two pieces of peppers. She loved the chicken and tolerated the peppers. Overall she enjoyed and so did my husband- he thought it was delicious.

Next time you are wondering what to do with the chicken in the fridge- try Chicken Paprika.
Click here for the recipe… »

I can’t think of a better way to use up a bunch of left over vegetables in the fridge. I had half a cauliflower head, yellow and red pepper, asparagus and most importantly, I had green onions. I love using them for their mild oniony flavor and beautiful green color.

I doused the cauliflower florets with some tamari and roasted them. I then sauteed the vegetables with ginger and garlic. I went through my pantry and hoisin sauce stood out. I added some rice vinegar and honey to finish off the sauce.

It was simple, quick and most of all delicious. It was a perfect pairing with the sausage fried rice. My daughter ate all the vegetables except the peppers- she does not like them. I have learnt to pick my battles with her. She is such a good eater and everyone is allowed not to like a few things.

Next time you have left over vegetables, try this delicious stir fry.
Click here for the recipe… »

I used a Chinese style sausage in this recipe. A friend bought it for me from an Asian store. She makes a delicious Vietnamese style fried rice with this particular sausage.

I first had it back in college- I will not share how long ago that was. She would make it in our small apartment kitchen that we shared with three other girls. It was so hard to keep that kitchen clean- maybe that is where I get my anal cleaning habits… Anyway, the rice was delicious.

I had the sausage in the fridge and it had been there for a while. I decided to use it and make my own version of a fried rice. I usually add a lot of chopped vegetables but for this dish I used protein only. I was using brown rice to make a healthy dish and tamari as the primary flavoring. It is a concentrated soy sauce and packs a punch in any dish.

To make a balanced meal, I stir fried vegetables on the side. Recipe to follow tomorrow…

In the meantime, try this Chinese sausage fried rice- it is delicious.
Click here for the recipe… »