Wow, I did not mean to go more than two whole months without posting any new recipes! But school's finally out for summer, and I have a few things up my sleeve to share.
It's still a little early in my neck of the woods for most of our local produce to make an appearance, but one vegetable that has a recurring role at my dinner table is zucchini. There are many, many ways to prepare this veggie, but my favorite (and one of the few ways my husband will willingly eat it), is a sort of Italian-style stew with onions and tomatoes. My mom used to make this all the time when I was a kid, and for some reason we referred to it as "fixed" zucchini. Not necessarily because other ways of cooking zucchini were "broken", of course, but I think because it was "fixed up" with herbs and such.
This family recipe is very easy and can be adjusted for any number of servings. If you serve it with some nice crusty bread, it can stand in as a light main course, perhaps for lunch. It also pairs well with grilled chicken as a side dish. I still recommend crusty bread to sop up all the juices.
If strawberries herald in the start of summer around here, nothing says midsummer to me like a bowl full of cherries.
Sweet cherries, to be precise.
Often, dessert recipes that call for cherries mean sour cherries, like what I'd use to make a delicious tart cherry pie. But sweet cherries deserve their due. They're really good for you, and don't require as much sugar as sour cherries do.
I really need to stop buying cookbooks that involve amazing dessert recipes. Really. It's becoming an addiction.
A couple months ago, I acquired a Pampered Chef recipe book that's nothing but chocolate. In fact, it's actually called Chocolate. And it has an unbelievable recipe for a flourless chocolate cake that was described by several people as "eating chocolate frosting," or just "OMG!"
For finishing you can add chopped pistachios around the outside edge and chocolate curls to the top. But I didn't. It was still awesome.
I really splurged a bit on the chocolate for this one.
This past week, the thermometer decided to test the "above 90 degrees" thing, which meant by Saturday I was in no mood to heat up the kitchen in order to provide dinner.
Thankfully, we got our grill working.
This recipe was so easy, I'm a little surprised I hadn't figured it out before this.
I discovered the awesomeness of quinoa several months ago, after hemming and hawing for a while about whether or not it was worth trying. I'm so glad I did. By itself, quinoa is rather unassuming. I think it has a bit of a nutty flavor, but it's not particularly strong. Quinoa is a type of grain that's naturally gluten-free, so this is excellent for people with gluten intolerance or who are trying to reduce their intake of gluten.
In my TurboFire recipe book, one of the recipes calls for a side of quinoa and black beans. I decided to alter the recipe for the side dish just a little, and I think it works well. It's great with fish.
It's ridiculously easy, and there are probably a dozen ways you could change even this basic recipe up to suit your individual tastes.
There are many variations of cheesy chicken and broccoli casseroles out there, and I admit to researching said recipes in developing my own. What I came up with is incredibly easy and very filling, especially on a cold, late winter day. What my husband particularly liked was that the broccoli retained some of its crunchy texture, since I used raw broccoli rather than steamed.
While I specifically cooked some chicken to use when I made this recipe, it's a great way to use up leftover chicken (or even turkey!), since you only need about two cups at most. Obviously, the more chicken and broccoli you use, the more people you can serve. This recipe was enough for two people for dinner.
This recipe started off as an experiment in making lemon pepper tilapia after discovering that *gasp* I had no lemon pepper seasoning mix in the house. So I started playing around and came up with something even better!
Aside from being meat-free and super simple, there's no salt at all in this recipe, so it's even healthier for you.
I'm really starting to think I was born in the wrong part of the country. I'm just in love with my copy of The Savannah Cookbook. Southern food, in general, just seems to make me happy.
When my husband and I went to Georgia during spring break, I ate okra for the first time. It happened to be fried and had this really tangy mustard sauce to dip it in, but I enjoyed it, much to my own surprise. Okra isn't particularly prevalent in my corner of the U.S., but this summer, one of the vendors at our local farmer's market had some for sale.
It was adorable and delightful, and I made this delicious skillet okra gumbo with it.
Now, you can buy okra at the grocery store, but it's not always a given and probably isn't nearly as good as what you'd buy at the farmer's market (or anywhere in the South, for that matter). But I would imagine that, if you're like me, you're willing to do with what you have available.
Served over steamed rice, this recipe is enough to serve as a main course for up to six people. It can also be used as a side dish without the rice, or if you need to stretch it over more than six plates.
There are two really good reasons why you should try making this chicken wing dip, if you never have before.
Reason #1 - Football
Reason #2 - Holiday Parties
Somewhere between those two occurrences, you will discover how awesome this chicken wing dip is, will be asked to make it in copious amounts for every gathering, and even those copious amounts will prove inadequate to handle its life span of 2.76 seconds.
I wish I could take credit for creating this recipe, but I can't. It's the good ol' Frank's RedHot Buffalo Chicken Wing Dip recipe. Probably the only thing I sometimes do differently is use an alternate hot sauce, based on availability at the store, and I generally have to double or triple the amount because - as I mentioned - I'm often asked to make "vats" of this stuff.
I'm not kidding on the "vats" thing.
There are two ways to make this chicken wing dip. You can bake it, or you can use a slow cooker. I'll give you directions for both.
Are you stuck for a mid-week dinner idea? I know it's hard to come home from work and prepare something healthy and delicious for your family. Here's a tasty dish that you can whip up in about a half hour.
It's the pecan-crusted chicken with sweet mustard dressing, from Pampered Chef's29 Minutes to Dinner cookbook. It's crunchy, sweet, salty, and easy.
There are times when I have leftover ingredients and need to play around in the kitchen to use them up. A while back, I had about half a bag of baby spinach and perhaps half a cup of crumbled blue cheese, and this is what I came up with.
It's very quick to throw together, and the amounts are adjustable depending on how many people you're serving. Here's how I made it for two people.
I have never been a fan of mayonnaise. It always skeeved me out, and I really can't tell you why. I never put it on sandwiches, and the only food I would eat with any mayo-like product was macaroni salad. I would buy small jars, as my husband will eat mayo, but they would sit in the fridge, half used, for months, until the next refrigerator-clean-out day. Then I would toss them.
It's really a waste.
Recently, I decided to host a little dinner party and wanted to serve tomato sandwiches as an appetizer. The recipe called for homemade mayonnaise.
I was a little skeptical. But I would be mixing crumbled crispy bacon into the mayo before spreading it on the little finger sandwiches, and everything is better with bacon. So I dove in.
And guess what?
I freaking love homemade mayonnaise!
Well, maybe love is too strong a word. But I'll eat it. And it's ridiculously easy to make just the right amount with my little food processor, probably better for you and definitely easier on the wallet (at least in terms of how much we actually go through).
There are a myriad of recipes out there for homemade mayonnaise, touting a variety of techniques. The recipe I used came from The Savannah Cookbook, which offers directions for a hand method and a food processor method. I went with the food processor method because there's less margin for error.
Up until about six months ago, I'd never heard of napa cabbage. Sometimes it's called Chinese cabbage or celery cabbage.
When I read the recipe for this Chinese chicken salad in my Turbo Fire recipe book, I was leery. I don't care for cabbage in the least. But I figured it was worth a shot. If nothing else, I could pick out the chicken and other ingredients, and leave the cabbage for my husband to eat.
But napa cabbage isn't terribly cabbage-y. It tastes a lot like celery, which is probably why it's sometimes called celery cabbage.
Isn't that a pretty salad?
I thought so too, and it's so easy to make. Here's how I made mine.
A few months ago, I was combing the internet for ratatouille recipes, and came across Smitten Kitchen's version of the baked ratatouille featured in Disney's Ratatouille. You know the one: the spirals of colorful eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red peppers that cause the cynical food critic to recall the carefree days of his childhood, when a dish of warm ratatouille, made by his mother, had the power to sooth all ills.
Thanks to the acquisition of an OXO Good Grips Hand-Held Mandoline Slicer (for free from OXO, I might add) and the opportunity to test said mandoline slicer as part of OXO's Healthy Eating product promotion, I had the perfect tool to make the thin slices required for this baked ratatouille dish.
I was pretty excited to get my OXO hand-held mandoline slicer in the mail. I love my chef's knives and am very proud over my steadily improving skill with chopping and slicing. But I'm not very good at uniformity, and had been sort of wanting a mandoline slicer for a while now. I hope my readers are excited about this product, too, because OXO actually sent me TWO slicers - one for me to test and keep, and one to giveaway to a reader in the United States (more on the giveaway in a moment).
There are a lot of great things about the OXO hand-held slicer. It has an ergonomic handle to reduce strain and fatigue in your wrist. There's a non-slip edge on the top of the slicer, so it won't go sliding around your cutting surface - plus there's a little "notch" in this edge so you can set it over a bowl and slice directly into salads, sauces, or what ever else you might be making. It has a food holder to protect your fingers. There are three settings for the cutting edge, and you can lock the slicer so the sharp blade isn't hanging out for all and sundry to accidentally cut themselves on.
Perhaps my favorite part is the fact that it's dishwasher safe. After my foray into ratatouille, and later sweet potato fries, there was a little bit of staining on the white plastic, but it came off pretty easily with just a touch of "elbow grease."
While the pros of this product are vast (easier to store than a traditional mandoline slicer, the non-slip features, the bent handle to reduce wrist fatigue), it's not a perfect product. Though, to be perfectly honest, I only had one major complaint. The food holder has plastic pegs that don't really stick very well in the food you're trying to slice, so unless you're using somewhat small pieces of vegetables or fruit, you're going to have trouble keeping the holder on the food. It would have been a better design to have stainless steel pegs that would actually puncture the flesh of the vegetables I was trying to slice. I had to hold the vegetables in my hand until they were small enough to use the food holder.
Check out this little YouTube video of mine (I apologize for the somewhat bad sound and video, my microphone and camera aren't the best quality) for a demonstration.
I'll get to the recipe for my ratatouille after the jump break, but first, let me tell you about the giveaway!
One lucky reader in the United States (sorry, international fans!) will become the owner of the second OXO Good Grips Hand-Held Mandoline Slicer in my possession! All you have to do is leave a comment on this post, telling me what you like about the mandoline slicer and what you would use it for if you won.
The winner will be chosen via a random integer generator. The giveaway will end at midnight, Eastern standard time, on Monday, May 21st. Only residents of the continental United States are eligible for this particular giveaway.
Now, keep reading for the scoop on that ratatouille!
Brussels sprouts are a strange little vegetable. They're like little miniature cabbages - and when cooked improperly, can take on a very cabbage-y taste and smell that forces many people to turn up their noses. I used to be one of those people - not out of personal experience, mind you, just from horror stories of people required to eat Brussels sprouts under duress ("No dessert unless you eat your Brussels sprouts!").
Brussels sprouts actually have quite a bit to do with with Brussels, Belgium, where they were first grown in the 16th century. They're extremely good for you, but most people don't know how to cook them the right way, so the eating of said sprouts is, for many, akin to culinary torture. In fact, I never had a Brussels sprout pass my lips until last Thanksgiving, when my brother-in-law attempted a very tasty recipe. Then I started experimenting and came up with a lovely way to prepare these cabbage-ettes that even my husband, who doesn't normally like a variety of vegetables, will eat.
I recently tried out a slow cooker recipe I snagged out of Woman's Day for chicken marbella. It was really easy and an interesting combination of flavors. I followed the recipe pretty closely, though I did make a couple minor adjustments and discovered a couple things I'd do the next time I make it.
I apologize for some of the lower quality photos. The light in my kitchen was a little off the day I made this.
I'm a big fan of stir fry for dinner as it tends to be a quick meal that can feed several people - or two people for several days. I generally use various stir fry kits, but if I don't have one on hand, I get a little experimental.
I got experimental one evening and created my own stir fry recipe. It's spicy. It's secret.
