Shrimp-Quinoa Salad with Feta and Tomatoes

Hot nights:  if you skip the quinoa and buy cooked shrimp, this is a no-cook dinner.  Another option is microwave rice.

Coming back from Colorado (where we spent most of the summer with Dave working on our old house and me writing the soup book), we took mostly back roads. You can go all the way from Colorado Springs to St. Paul almost without super-highways.   Perhaps it's possible to go all of the way, but we opted for a bit of interstate here and there.  (Once you get near the Twin Cities, it's a bit tougher to accomplish since someone changed the routes from roads to vrrrooomms years ago now.) What we saw, almost all the way, was dead corn.  Miles and miles of it.  Dried out, brown, or with sprigs and shadows of green here and there.  In some cases the farmers were just cutting it down unharvested.  The photos and stories of the drought when seen on tv are one thing; feasting your eyes on hundreds of miles of it is another.  Sad.  I occasionally tried to get a photo, but nothing really came out from the car window.  My mind kept going to increased fuel prices, food prices, and hunger.

Tomatoes Stuffed with Chicken Salad

Serve with saltines.  What else?

This is an old-fashioned lunch counter meal.  You know the kind of place I mean; they still exist in some places.  If you're lucky enough to have a drugstore nearby with a counter (as am I), you might still order this blue plate special once in a while.   Living in Colorado this summer, I've missed my Minnesota haunts.  (State Fair starts Thursday; you can finally get your cheese curds on a stick fix.)

Would You Make Breakfast? Fried Bread with Egg Skillet

 For years when I had to cook just for myself (before and after the house full of kids), I just made scrambled eggs and toast.  It wasn't that I didn't know how to cook, but rather that eggs were fast, cheap, filling, and used one pan and one plate.  Ok, you could even eat them out of the pan.   I had spent so much time cooking for other people that when there was just me, I wanted to spend my time in other ways, i.e. breathing. 

This is one of the first sorts of things I cooked just for myself.  A fish salad.  Walleye Salad if you're in Minnesota.  Make a nice salad while a piece of fish cooks in a pan.  Gee.  Real rough?  But it was a watershed moment.  You know how often you hear someone say, "Too hard to cook for just me."  I changed that for myself.  I set the table, lit the candles, turned on the music, and lived.

Would You Make Breakfast? Egg & Egg White Omelet Filled with Cottage Cheese on Whole Wheat Toast

 Tired of the same old, same old breakfast?  This little omelet (I cut it so you could see the filling...) sitting on a piece of whole wheat toast is so fast and so luscious.  Not only is it quick and nutritious (made with one egg and one egg white), it'll hold you until early afternoon.  No elevenses (tea and cookies in the UK) needed.   Serve it up with a few slices of great August tomatoes for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!   Try this: