Dinner at Chez Foodie

The Foodie Daughter is tired of salads

with Romaine lettuce.

However,

I absolutely adore salads.

What would Brian Boitano do?

Er, what would the Foodie do?

Let's try switching out the salad base.

Since the dear husband was diagnosed

with gout a few years ago,

we have not had fresh spinach at home.

You see, spinach is high in purines,

which can raise uric acid levels in the blood.

For a person prone to getting gout,

a type of arthritis,

this can lead to a very painful joint

(often the big toe).

When my husband suffers

from a bout of gout,

I immediately know that he has

been skipping lunches

as well as dinners

when he has evening meetings

and is away from home.

Oh well, you can lead them to

a fine dinner,

but you can't make them eat.

I wanted something different for this salad.

I knew I wanted orange with the spinach.

I finally settled on a recipe* from that

Food Network cutie,

Giada De Laurentiis.

*Of course I couldn't follow the recipe exactly.

My mise en place:

spinach

extra virgin olive oil

honey

good balsamic vinegar**

kosher salt

black pepper

garlic

cooked bacon

orange

red onion.

**As this is a salad dressing,

a better quality of balsamic vinegar should be used.

Remember my rule of thumb:

The closer to the dinner table

the balsamic vinegar is used,

the better quality it should be.

And by the way,

I really hate to hear people

refer to balsamic vinegar as simply "balsamic".

They don't call cider vinegar "cider",

or red wine vinegar "red wine".

The word "Balsamic" is an adjective,

not a noun.

Stop being lazy, people.

As I was grating the orange zest,

I also grated my thumb.

The Foodie Daughter was not amused

when I told her
that I was grating blood oranges.

So I found a band-aid and no food was contaminated.

I cut an orange into supremes.

That means that I peeled the orange

before slicing the sections out between the membrane.

The membrane was squeezed,

releasing the juice.

I had to add some orange juice

to make sure I had enough juice for the vinaigrette.

The Foodie Daughter

happened to wander into the kitchen

and she was pressed into service

as a blog photographer.

Here she emulates her foodie idol,

Rosie Hawthorne.

Action shot!

I dug through my freezer and found a

turkey breast tenderloin.

I sliced it into 1-1/2 inch sections

before wrapping bacon around each piece.

Kosher salt and cracked black pepper

season each piece of meat.

These were seared in olive oil in a hot pan.

Remember to sear each side,

including the bacon-wrapped sides.

After all sides were seared,

a lid covered the pan

and the heat was turned down to medium-low.

The meat was cooked to an internal temperature

of 155 degrees.

Then the meat was placed on a plate and covered in foil.

After resting for 5 to 10 minutes,

the temperature rose to about 160 - 165 degrees.

Buttered noodles rounded out the meal.

The salad was good,

but we all agreed that more honey would have been better

and that a bit of Dijon mustard would not be remiss.

A simple sauce of honey mustard and honey

lent the perfect finishing note to the turkey medallions.