Lori and I have been making this Cobb salad from a Sara Foster book and it kills every single time.

Often times we just get a prepared rotisserie chicken and cut it up (which is a trick everyone should do for any quick salad meal), but when motivated we make another recipe from Sara's book for herb roasted grilled chicken breasts which start with a simple marinade:

The marinade is simply coating the chicken breats in white wine, olive oil, shallots, garlic, some fresh herbs (we had thyme on hand), and lemon slices on top. Lori did this during the morning, so when i got home we're ready to start. It steeps in this for 4-6 hours.

Then I grilled over a medium fire for about 15 minutes turning and arranging for thickness / heat adjustments. This is what they look like after coming off the grill:

Yum. Lori had prepared some hard boiled eggs earlier in the day, and picked up cucumber, tomato, avocado, and bacon. I cooked up the bacon, and chopped everything up:

So then we take a base of arugala and rommaine and mix it with a dressing of red wine vinegar, dijon, olive oil, scallion (recipe calls for chives, but I love scallions in here), and salt/pepper to taste. Then I plate the dressed greens and lay down strips of all the toppings:

We also sprinkle over the final arrangement with blue cheese for me (rogue creamery's crater lake, OMG), and feta for Lori. 

This is such a fabulous meal. Go get Sara's Fresh Every Day cookbook for details, or just make it up with the info above. There is nothing super critical in measurements here... All kinda common sense volumes.

One final note, we pulled this dinner off on a Thursday night and it totally takes teamwork. There is nothing that complicated, but marinating the chicken, cooking the eggs, making the dressing, and getting all the fresh groceries during the day makes a huge difference. Then at dinner time you just grill the chicken, cut everything up, and plate. Go team!

I've been grilling these marinated strip steaks with a horseradish sauce from a Sara Foster cookbook for a few years now, and every time I make them I'm consistantly impressed. They are super, super flavorful and relatively easy.

You start with a simple marinade of balsamic, worchesteshireirechesterchire sauce (really, why such a complicated name for such a standby condiment?), olive oil, cracked black pepper and chopped rosemary:

I think everyone should always chop up rosemary. It's odd that it's taken me 15 years of cooking to realize this, but who wants to bite into an inch long hard herb?

I usually grill these, but it was 15 degrees outside and I was only with a charcoal grill... so that wasn't happening. Instead I pan fried them for about 12 minutes in a cast iron skillet (I LOVE cast iron). So after marinating for about six hours, you get that skillet hot over medium to high heat, and pan fry for about 6-7 minutes a side. 

I served these with a simple spinach and pear salad and dijon vinegrette, and then re-invented some mashed sweet potatoes that were in the freezer left over from thanksgiving... I added some chili powder to the potatoes, and got them a little crispy pan fried on the stove. Here's the plate:

Might have had one too many glasses of wine while cooking... These are some blurry shots!

But the horseradish sauce is really a great addition to it. Buttermilk, horseradish, and dijon are the base. Here's a shot of it on my medium rare steak:

I rarely cook a steak exactly how I like it, so this was a real treat. Though enormous. Honestly too much food for one person. Even me. Though I ate it all, and loved every bite.