"romaine" news and stories

• An ode to romaine: It's not just for Caesar anymore.
• They may sound one step away from a Hot Pocket, but Japanese hot pots couldn't be further away -- and they're really, really hot.
• Speaking of Hot Pockets, you weren't considering going on a cleanse, were you?
• This reviewer has a fever for the flavor of former "Top Chef" winner Ilan Hall's quirky downtown L.A. restaurant, the Gorbals.

Although many consider any type of egg-centric dish to be breakfast fare, these Romaine- and Egg-Stuffed Tomatoes with Bacon, from A Mingling of Tastes, strike me as a dinner dish, as well as a brunch one. The dish consists of eggs baked until only slightly runny in hollowed out tomato cups. Underneath the egg, there is a generous spoonful of a romaine lettuce-based pesto sauce, and before serving the entire thing is sprinkled with crisp, crumbled bacon. The presentation, needless to say, is fantastic and makes a relatively simple egg dish suitable for serving to guests. If you're going to try the recipe and take the breakfast route, try serving it with fruit and toast. For dinner, a side salad or even a simple pasta dish would work out nicely.

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Spinach salads are out for the moment, unless you feel like taking chances that even restaurants aren't willing to. Supermarkets are reporting a big drop in salad sales, but there is no reason to cut all greens out of your diet along with spinach. Now is the perfect time to experiment with some non-spinach salad greens. Some alternatives include:

• Mâche - delicate, sweet and slightly nutty. It resembles a cross between young spinach and a tender lettuce.
• Arugula - peppery and sharp. This green makes a great background for salads with sweet fruits or mild nuts in them
• Chard - tender and sweet when cooked. Chard is a great alternative for spinach in cooked dishes (unless you opt for frozen spinach, which the USDA says is still safe to eat at the moment).
• Dandelion Greens - sharper and more bitter than arugula. These are best when mixed with other greens, but choose smaller, more delicate leaves for salads

Romaine and iceberg lettuces can always stand in for other greens in salads, too, and can be a nice base for a salad when experimenting with other greens, particularly bitter greens.

When we think about food porn, the things that come to mind are decadent chocolate cakes, perfectly topped pizzas and sweet sorbets. But can salad be food porn? Of course it can, because food porn is about making the food look good and an array of fresh, colorful veggies almost always does. We saw a beautiful wedge salad once before, for example, but this Caesar Salad from Celia at English Patis deserves special attention. Not only is it simple and satisfying, but the homemade dressing topping it off is easy to make. It does not start off with eggs and oil, but uses mayonnaise as a base, so busy home chefs, as well as inexperienced ones, will always be able to whip up some caesar dressing before dinner.

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