Vacation Cooking – Improvised!

By Katie Barreira

All this week, Special Fork bloggers will be sharing recipes for vacation cooking. And to celebrate summer vacations, Special Fork is giving away a beautiful, English-style picnic basket fitted with service for four by Picnic Time. It’s easy to enter the sweepstakes.

Ever booked a hotel room that claimed to have a kitchenette or some such access to cooking equipment only to find yourself in a bedroom with a mini-fridge and a microwave? No need to give-up and go out for every meal. You can still save big and have a few meals in, even with barest-boned kitchen.

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Wish you were Here…

By Sandy Hu

All this week, Special Fork bloggers are thinking vacation and sharing their best vacation cooking ideas, as we head towards Memorial Day and summertime.

In anticipation of summer outings and leisurely picnics, Special Fork will be holding a sweepstakes for a Newbury Picnic Basket by Picnic Time. It’s the kind of English-style basket I imagine getting tucked into the “boot” of a roadster by the butler and the contents (prepared by the cook, of course) getting laid out on a blanket in the countryside. This basket, fitted with service for four, has an estimated retail value: $144.95. To see a picture of the basket and to enter our contest, click here. Contest begins today and runs through May 27.

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Salmon en Papillote

By Zoe McLoughlin

This is my go-to recipe at least once a week. The term "en papillote" is French for cooked in parchment paper. It's simple, yet elegant, and this dish is packed with flavor. All the ingredients cook together in the same amount of time and the parchment paper locks in the flavor. It’s super-fast, super-easy and leaves you with virtually no clean up.

I have made this dish countless times, changing the ingredients, depending on what I have on hand. This version is Mediterranean in its inspiration, but I often make it with Asian flavors using shiitake mushrooms, scallions, ginger and soy sauce. I used salmon fillets for this recipe but any type of fish such as halibut, sea bass, sole or snapper are great alternatives.

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Melon and Prosciutto Salad

By Marilyn Hunter

I love this time of year when young spring days become warmer and longer than their older winter siblings. Now is the time to bring the outdoors inside with great seasonal fruits and veggies on the kitchen table. Melons of all varieties peak in the hot summer months, but they’re catching their stride now with respectable sweet, juicy flesh.

Cantaloupe and honeydew melons are surprisingly compatible with the sweet acidity of balsamic vinegar and cured prosciutto ham, which makes this salad perfect for any occasion, fancy or casual. It’s also great to make with kids because they love scooping melon balls, and you can set them to their task without worrying about cut fingers. They love making them and eating them so much that I now buy twice what I need to account for ravenous appetites.

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Kitchen Yoga

By Lori Powell

Cooking for one is highly underrated and might seem to some a tad lonely. My day job is to create recipes to serve at least four or more people and sometimes involves working in the company of others. So I embrace MY time alone in the kitchen where the only sounds I hear are from my knife chopping and slicing or something sizzling and speaking to me from the pot on the stove.

Being alone in the kitchen is when I can truly lose myself in the ingredients and smells of conjuring up a nourishing meal. Everything else that happened that day gets drowned out by the current task at hand. It’s not unlike a runner who gets in the zone on the track and their single focus is to move forward.

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