Friday, October 13, 2017

Fancying-Up Your Meat and Potatoes

Missy Tippens

I admit my food is not beautiful. I love to watch cooking shows and read cookbooks, and I admire the plating and beautiful dishes. Then when I make something, I pretty much just slap it on the plate. :)

When I share blog recipes with y'all, I often show the ingredients and steps of cooking but not the finished plate. Granted, sometimes it's because I forget to take the photos (like when I'm starving!). But not all the time. I have a lot of plated food photos in my camera that just aren't appealing to post.

Today, as I was looking back through my photos, I was struck by how many beautiful food photos I've taken at restaurants (although sometimes the lighting isn't great).



This is a wonderful salmon dish I had at Marlow's Tavern. It came with pea risotto underneath. But the really special part was the fennel, radish and orange on top in a wonderful dressing. Here's their description:

Grilled Atlantic Salmon. Sweet pea, mint barley risotto. Fennel, orange and radish slaw with citrus vinaigrette.

Sounds divine, doesn't it? Here is another dish I had recently at Carrabba's Italian Grill. This was the Parmesan-Crusted Chicken Arugula with a side of butternut squash ravioli.


The fresh arugula salad is tossed in Mediterranean lemon vinaigrette, then topped with parmesan.

So, taking a regular protein like breaded and sautéed chicken or grilled salmon and then topping it with something bright and citrusy is a great way to elevate the dish--as well as make it look beautiful!

This is something I want to try to do! I bought a cool kitchen device at a Pampered Chef party a few weeks ago. I bought their salad dressing shaker that comes with recipes right on the container. It's called the Measure, Mix & Pour. I'd like to try making more of my own homemade dressings, then tossing with fresh greens or crisp veggies or fruit to dress up some of my stand-by recipes.

Have any of you tried this? I'd love suggestions!


13 comments:

  1. Since I'm usually cooking for myself, I tend towards plain and simple and don't really care about how the plated meal looks. My artist daughter on the other hand -- well, she can make a plain old bowl of oatmeal look like a masterpiece. And she's always making her own sauces and dressings. I never do. Thank goodness for Kraft! :-)

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    1. Kav, it sounds like we're very similar. And my daughter is like yours. I think their mindset is that they have to make it good enough to share on Instagram! hahaha

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  2. Missy, I try to make things look good, but it doesn't always happen. If nothing else, I at least make sure to add some color so I don't have a monochromatic plate. Love the idea of the quick dressing and geeens, though.

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    1. Mindy, you'll have to let me know if you find a good recipe for the dressing.

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  3. Back when we had children at home, I tried to make food appealing by varying colors, etc. But, you know, when you're feeding a crowd, you let them plate their own meals. Who has time to "plate" food for hungry teenage boys???

    I'll let the restaurant do the fancy plating. Right now, with a deadline looming, my poor husband is happy to get food, no matter what it looks like. Not many wives have the competition I do, though. My dear husband has a chef at work who is brilliant!

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    1. LOL, Jan! Yeah, with kids at home they were lucky to get it on a real plate instead of a paper plate. :)

      But now that it's just me and hubby, I'm experimenting more. Still, there aren't too many ways to pretty up spaghetti (which is what I make more than anything else)! :)

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    2. Ditto here. And I've come to love paper plates.

      Jan, a chef at work? At the hospital???

      OH MY STARS.

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    3. Paper plates are all we've used since moving into our camphouse. No dishwasher, so I try to keep things as easy as possible.

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  4. I like trying to make different things. One of my cookbooks called What Can I Bring (the title screams my name) it has an apricot salad in it that uses apricot preserves. With a little tweaks it was AMAZING! One day I used the same idea instead of apricot I used a rhubarb jam and put over a slaw mix. It was good. Sometimes I try to plate fancy and if I am lucky it turns out and I will snap a photo. I remember Jacob laughing at me one day because I reminded him of his mother at that moment. Taking that as a compliment I still photograph my food!

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    1. Katie, the day I got my first iPhone I took a ton of photos of my food at a restaurant. My kids were so embarrassed! But they eventually got used to it. :)

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    2. This is so funny... there's a joke that's going around about a waiter... uncomfortably wondering if there's something wrong with the customer's food and when the customer says it's fine, the waiter replies "Well. You didn't take a picture of it!"

      Missy, what a great idea for fancying things up. I confess I never do this. I'm so tired at night, that it doesn't even cross my mind to do this.

      SHAME ON ME.

      I am now inspired!!!

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    3. Ruthy, I think making it look nice can be fun. But one of the main reasons is because it tastes so good! That plain chicken was so much better with the arugula on top. Plus, it adds fresh vegetables! :)

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