What’s for dinner?

Usually, when we don’t know what else to eat, we have lobster. I know. Tough, right? But geez, this spring weather has not been conducive to spending time on a lobster boat. Bruce is hoping to get out (haul traps) tomorrow if the wind dies down. It’s been a week since he has been fishing. At least the sun came out today, and it was warmish despite the wind.

Instead of lobster, tonight we had a big salad. It may sound boring, but we both like coming up with stuff to turn a regular salad into dinner.

Hard boiled eggs are a given. It’s an easy way to get protein into a salad. What looks like bacon is actually thin strips of speck, (prosciutto’s brother) that I picked up at Casa Della Mozeralla in the Bronx. (We’ve already finished the world’s best mozeralla.) I add strawberries to my salad because I like the texture and color. Bruce prefers tomatoes.  We also put in yellow pepper, cucumber, avocado (if it has not gone bad like the one I cut into tonight), olives, and parmesan cheese.

One of my favorite thing to put in a big salad is chick peas. The canned ones are fine. I rinse them, drain them and spread them out on a paper towel to dry out.  I then toss them in a mixture of flour and cayenne pepper, and saute them in a pan with oil until they are crispy. Martha Stewart has a similar recipe for roasted chickpeas, but I like using the saute pan. It’s quicker. Instead, I used the oven to make sourdough garlic croutons. The finishing touch for our salad.

This was a perfect dinner after spending most of the day in the studio.The whole day was actually  pretty perfect, including the walk we took right after lunch. At the end of the island, by the old Coast Guard Station, you can get a 180° view of the water.

To the northeast it was rough, windy and full of whitecaps.

To the southwest it was calm as could be.

And in the middle, Baker Island.