Here are recommendations from Chef Charlie Baggs, of Charlie Baggs Culinary Innovations in Chicago, to which we’ve added some of our own suggestions.

The original article was written for Flavor & The Menu, a magazine and website for chefs that made these suggestions for their menu during the six weeks of Lent when seafood sales soar.

Chef Baggs offers different techniques for cooking seafood in both traditional and more modern preparations. You can try a different one every day!

Make a hearty bouillabaisse. Photo courtesy MackenzieLtd.com.

 
We’re sure we’ve left out other favorites. Don’t hesitate to let us know.
 
Read the full article about Lenten dishes on Flavor & The Menu.

Perhaps eight years ago, we saw an article in a trade magazine about a pilot pizza chain in California. All the pizza varieties were served in cones made of pizza dough. The founder’s concept was to make it easy to walk down the street eating from a cone instead of a drippy slice.

We loved the idea, but to our knowledge, the business never went anywhere.*

Recently, we discovered a pizza cone kit from Pizzacraft that enables you to turn out pizza cones at home. The kit is less than $19, is easy to use and includes everything you need to make two pizza cones at a time (you supply the food items).

You can eat most any food in a cone, and as an alternative to pizza dough, can make waffle cones on a round waffle maker or a pizzelle maker. (Leave the sugar out of the recipe unless you’re using them for dessert.)

Then, fill with any of your favorite fixings, including:

Pizza in a cone. Photo courtesy Pizzacraft.

 
Can’t wait? Neither can we!
 
*UPDATE

Right after we published this, we read today’s newsletter from Nation’s Restaurant News and learned, by pure coincidence, about Kono Pizza. The franchise chain has breakfast, lunch/dinner and dessert cones. The concept was created in Italy and is “popular around the world,” with 140 locations. The first franchise just opened in Edison, NJ, with Orlando and Iowa scheduled next.
  

Diced or minced ham is mixed with diced bell pepper, celery and onion or other favorite raw vegetables; perhaps with some hard-boiled eggs, boiled potatoes, pickle relish or green peas; and bound with mayonnaise (we use a mayo-Dijon blend).

It’s one of those traditional Anglo-American sandwich salads, along with chicken salad, egg salad and tuna salad.

It’s also served sans bread on a bed of green salad ingredients, perhaps with a scoop of another protein salad or a starch-based salad such as potato salad, macaroni salad or chopped vegetable salad.

But there’s another, more sophisticated way to serve ham salad: as a first course with prosciutto or Serrano ham.

Prosciutto, or Parma ham, is classically served as a first course with melon in Italian cuisine.

At Olio e Piú in New York’s Greenwich Village, the chef takes a different direction, adding a salad of vinaigrette-dressed bitter greens (we like baby arugula, watercress or a mix) atop the prosciutto and topping it with some fresh-shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

WHAT ARE BITTER GREENS

Bitter greens are part of the larger family of leafy greens, which include the lettuces, known as “sweet greens.” The bitterness can be mild or strong. Greens harvested earlier in the season tend to be less bitter than more mature plants harvested later.

Many bitter greens are dark green in color, although some are pale (endive, frisée) and some are red or have red accents (amaranth, chard, radicchio). If you like your veggies, you’ve likely had more than a few of these:

Both prosciutto and Serrano hams are dry-cured: salted and hung in sheds to cure in the air. Both are served in very thin slices. Country ham, preferred in the U.S., is smoked, and a very different stye from dry-cured hams.

While prosciutto and Serrano hams can be used interchangeably, they are different.

 
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