Tag Archives: Houston food blogger

TOMATO, CUCUMBER, AND ONION SALAD

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This month Tag Sale Tastes is 12 years old.  12 years is also how many years ago my mother died.  I was sitting in a Leisure Learning class called “Blogging for Dollars” (don’t need to tell you how that turned out, do I?), and had turned off my phone.  When the class ended I saw I had 5 or 6 messages from my sister — she’d been trying to call to tell me our mother was in the hospital.  She stayed there about a week with an undetermined stomach ailment, until she died after her colon perforated in the hospital and she became septic.  Two weeks later I lost my job at the law firm I did not like, where I’d stuck it out for almost a dozen years.  Good people.  With time on my hands, I was able to get Tag Sale Tastes up and running.  The blog still serves the same two purposes I originally intended it to serve — (1) it motivates me to cook, and (2) it provides a creative outlet, in contrast to the more formal legal writing I do at my day job.  I do not earn any money from the blog, which is partly why you will never see the words “jump to recipe” or “Comment “RECIPE” for the recipe” on my blog (admit it — you hate those too).

I appreciate all of my readers — those that subscribe to the blog via email, those that leave a kind comment, those that tell me they made a recipe from the blog, those that follow me on Facebook, and those that are quiet lurkers.

To celebrate 12 years of Tag Sale Tastes, I am challenging myself to post a salad recipe every day in July.  My summer cooking goal is to get in and out of the kitchen as quickly as possible, using as few heat-generating appliances as possible, and salads are often the key to achieving that goal.  I hope you’ll be inspired to try one or two.  UPDATE:  Salad month came to an abrupt halt on July 8 due to circumstances beyond my control including:  (1) Hurricane Beryl on July 8, (2) taking in my mother-in-law with advanced dementia and her caretakers after she lost power for 7 days after the hurricane, (3) my dad died on July 12, (4) travel to and from Florida for his funeral July 14-15, (5) loss of internet, and (6) Covid.  In short, July kicked our butts.

I’m starting off with an easy recipe, one we tend to make at least once a week in the summer.  No cooking required, just cool, fresh produce and a simple oil and vinegar dressing.  This colorful and flavorful side salad takes just a few minutes to prepare, making it a summer salad superstar in my book, perfect for those living under a heat dome and the “hottest summer on record.”

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TOMATO, CUCUMBER, AND ONION SALAD
Author: 
 
Ingredients
  • NOTE: All vegetable amounts are approximate (you do you)
  • ½ pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise (mixed colors are especially nice)
  • ½ English cucumber, sliced lengthwise and then cut crosswise into ¼" slices
  • ½ of a small sweet onion, thinly sliced (Vidalia, Persian Sweets, 1014, etc.)
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
  1. Place tomatoes, cucumber, and onion in a medium bowl, and toss to combine. Pour olive oil and vinegars over oil, stirring to distribute dressing. Season with salt and pepper, and serve.

 

Eat the rainbow

SIMPLE GRILLED CHEESE

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2023 was a rough year for us.  It began on my birthday at the end of April (worst birthday ever).  A few days before my birthday, I noticed a large lump in my groin.  I had an appointment with my PCP on my birthday, and pointed it out to her.  Ultrasound showed “a lump.”  Very helpful information.  CT scan, however, showed an abcess that apparently developed after a particularly bad bout of diverticulitis about a month earlier. My doctor sent me to the ER, where I spent 14 hours in what could have passed for a bus station except not as nice.  I spent 4 days in the hospital, had the abcess drained by interventional radiology, consulted with a colorectal surgeon, and discussed surgery sometime in the future. 10 days after I was discharged the abcess recurred, and I spent another two nights in the hospital having it drained again, and the surgery I’d dreaded for years — which I could no longer put off — was scheduled for the beginning of June on the day we were supposed to leave for vacation.  Oh, and our beloved Jasper, our 11-year-old duck tolling retriever, quit eating on my birthday (that’s for another post).

As it turned out, I had three fistulas secondary to the diverticulitis that needed repair.  When I met my surgeon for the first time in the hospital, he declared me a “disaster.”  Apparently his mother didn’t teach him that if you can’t say something nice about someone you shouldn’t say anything at all.  Over the course of the next 4 months my vocabulary expanded with words and phrases that I hope never to have to use again, including colon resection, loop ileostomy, nerve conduction velocity, GGE (10 out of 10 do not recommend), stricture, diversion colitis, flexible sigmoidoscopy (10 out of 10 do not recommend), and takedown surgery.  Each surgery and complication presented its own challenges.  Thankfully, by the holidays I had recovered from everything (except the PTSD), and the gut problems I had struggled with for so long disappeared.   I had one more surgery this year — completing a trifecta of abdominal surgeries — right before my birthday (of course, why not ruin as many birthdays as possible?) to repair a HUGE (my surgeon’s description) hernia that developed at the site of the last two surgeries (as my surgeon declared to his fellow in my presence, “if anyone’s going to have a complication it’s going to be her”).  I am reminded often that it could have been so much worse.

Although I have no complaints with the excellent care I received throughout, it was inevitable that there would be indignities along the way, and indeed there were.  I dealt with these mostly by treating them as out-of-body experiences. Friends and colleagues had a general understanding of what I was going through, but for the most part, it made people uncomfortable to talk about.  I certainly wasn’t ready to blog about it back then.  But as you’ll soon see, the experience has provided inspiration for several recipes, and this post provides context.

Seeing as this is, after all, a food blog, I have a little recipe.  Before and after my surgeries I was on a low-residue diet, which is basically low-fiber foods, and is apparently difficult for the general population to understand.  Whole-grain products, nuts, and most fresh fruits and vegetables were out.  One of the foods I could eat, however, which I had shunned for decades, was white bread.  Who knew a slice of buttered white toast could be so tasty? (10 out of 10 recommend.)  It also makes a perfect, easily digestible, grilled cheese sandwich (and only American cheese will do!).  Don’t get me wrong — I know how to make much more elevated grilled cheese sandwiiches — our favorite is made with jarlsberg and prosciutto on artisan bread with pesto (told ya).  But every once in a while, when my world seems off-kilter, I treat myself to one of these most basic comfort foods.

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SIMPLE GRILLED CHEESE
Author: 
 
Ingredients
  • 2 slices white bread
  • 2 slices American cheese
  • Salted butter, softened
Instructions
  1. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Butter one side of a slice of bread and place it buttered side down in pan. Top bread with the 2 slices of American cheese. Butter one side of remaining slice of bread and place on top of cheese, buttered side up. Cook until bottom is golden brown, flip using a spatula and cook other side until golden brown. Remove to plate, slice on the diagonal, and serve immediately.

Lightly buttered with salted butter — unsalted won’t taste nearly as good

Golden brown — Goldilocks would say this is “just right”

Sandwiches taste better cut on the diagonal