We’ve been taking our meals outside and the on the road recently, with sunny skies and weekend trips.  This supremely Crunchy Broccoli Stem Slaw with Hoisin Vinaigrette is a portable salad win. We love this slaw for its deeply satisfying crispness, starting  the brilliant use of thinly sliced broccoli stems, slivered red cabbage, bright carrots, crunchy peanuts and baked tortilla strips top off this slaw, with a punchy Asian inspired vinaigrette featuring hoisin and ginger. With a base of sturdy veggies, this slaw only improves as it sits, making it a prime work or school lunch, travel salad, or potluck dish. To cut down on prep time, you can grab a bag of pre-cut broccoli slaw mix at your local grocery.

Inspired by a fantastic lettuce wrap my sister made for a family dinner, we created these Thai Spiced Turkey Lettuce Wraps for a light weekend meal. These quick to make Thai lettuce wraps are healthy, filling, and flavorful, with the characteristic Southeast Asian flavors of garlic, ginger, crunchy water chestnuts, and vibrant fresh herbs. 

Food has the power to connect us to people and places around the world. In 2007, Rebecca and I spent three months traveling through South East Asia together. Leaving Cambodia on the back of moto-bikes, we arrived for the night, hot and dusty, in a small village in rural Vietnam. After dropping off our packs, we sat down on the rickety plastic stools of the town's only food stand, famished. Without asking what we wanted, two pungent bowls of Phở Gà, Vietnam's famous chicken noodle soup, were plunked down in front of us. We were hooked! As we made our way north over the next several weeks, we enjoyed many local variations of Phở: from the dark, rich, and beefy to bright and spicy with shrimp. Our favorite Phở, on which our recipe is based, was eaten from steaming bowls one early morning overlooking Hạ Long Bay. This version used chicken that had been marinated and grilled, rather than boiled in the soup, giving it a crispy texture and sweet charred flavor. 

Each sip of flavorful broth reminds us also of the people and culture that created it. Phở is an aromatic and visual dish, one that we like to serve in our  Vietnamese blue petal bowls made in the Kinh family workshop in the famous pottery village of Bat Trang, Vietnam. By partnering with a local non-profit and Ten Thousand Villages, women potters are able to make a living for their families, continue a rich cultural tradition, and gain access to tools, education, training, interest-free loans, and literacy classes. We buy many of our dishes and gifts from Ten Thousand Villages each year, and appreciate their commitment to ethical partnerships with local artisans around the world. 

Watermelon Feta salad is cool, sweet and salty. This is the salad we have been eating almost daily in this heat wave! Paul was initially somewhat hesitant to embrace this funky salad, but after 4 bowl in one evening, I think we would both agree, watermelon and feta are surprisingly good friends in this delicious salad.  In these dog days of summer, this crisp quick salad is only five minutes away.

Food is one of the most powerful ways that we connect with people, places, and cultures. This weekend we had a festive gathering of old and new friends: a perfect venue to debut Paul's new sandwich. Our Scratch-Made Cubano starts with mojo marinated pork, slow smoked to moist tenderness.  This citrus and smoke laced pork is then thinly sliced, and piled high on fresh baked sourdough and topped with garlicky pickle slices, Swiss cheese, mustard and our house cilantro sauce. This Scratch-Made Cubano builds on the classic Cuban sandwich, with amped up flavor and unique home-made ingredients. Try this sandwich, and you may never go back.

Food indulgence comes in many forms, but Hazelnut Tart With Fresh Strawberries is as fresh and light as it is delicious. The crust is made from a French-style hazelnut meringue, or dacquoise, normally  seen as a layer in fancy french pastries and cakes. Here the subtle chew, airy lightness, and nutty praline flavor of hazelnut meringue provides contrast and support to the sweet juicy berries. The resulting tart is exquisite. Don't be intimidated: this dessert is surprisingly foolproof. The only unique ingredient is hazelnut flour. Buy the freshest you can find (we use Bob's Red Mill) You can grind your own from fresh roasted hazelnuts...but be very careful not to make hazelnut butter in the process (this happens from over processing the nuts).

Kale and Red Leaf Salad with Apple Mint Vinaigrette is an unusual and delicious salad that we made this evening with our first spring batch of local green kale.  Kale is the quiet gawky kid in the corner who landed the starring role in the school play and never looked back. Kale has a serious following of die-hard fans who devour it in all forms; chips, smoothies, ice cream, brownies, pesto.  Kale is a cancer-fighting super-food loaded with beta-carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, calcium, and antioxidants. To learn about the many ways to use kale and its nutritional value check out Deborah Madison's new book Vegetable Literacy.  This Kale and Red Leaf Salad is a tasty example of raw kale serving as a base for this distinctive crisp apple mint vinaigrette. 

Buckwheat Tabbouleh with Goat Cheese is a light and zippy salad, flush with fiber and herbs. It is quick and easy to make, healthy, filling, and is a great alternative to traditional Bulgar wheat tabbouleh if you're gluten-free. This salad allows the nutty flavor of buckwheat to come through. If you've never tried buckwheat groats before, this is a great place to start.  A word about buckwheat grouts for those unfamiliar with this lovely little grain.  Buckwheat is in fact not related to its' namesake, wheat, and comes from the triangular seed of an herb.  Toasted buckwheat groats are called Kasha; Buckwheat grouts are the raw version.   These little kernels taste nutty and have a firm texture when cooked, they stand up well to lemon vinaigrette and meld deliciously together for a final product that is refreshing and filling. This recipe is adapted from America's Test Kitchen's How Can it be Gluten Free Cookbook. We (but mostly me) at the Hungry Hounds are always searching for an opportunity to add goat cheese to dishes, and this was a perfect opportunity. The goat cheese stepped up the flavor contrast, added richness, and  blended with the other ingredients to make for an earthy, herbaceous mouthful!