Savory Cornbread

Here's another cornbread recipe!  The other cornbread recipe on my blog is just as good, but the sweet type.  This one has no sugar at all and is a little smoky if you use bacon grease rather than butter.  Unlike a lot of cornbread, this is not dry at all.  It pairs very well with chili or as a topping for any casserole that calls for cornbread batter poured on top since it isn't sweet.  I'll bet it would be very good dried and used for cornbread stuffing as well.
  
This recipe comes from Southern Plate.  My main change is to cut back on the buttermilk by 1/2 a cup, it just turns out too wet when I make it with the 2 C buttermilk described in the original. I also bake it at 350 instead of 450 and use a glass baking dish.  The glass baking dish is because I don't have a cast iron pan, and the lowered temperature is because it bakes much more evenly at the lower temp.
  
I suppose I should add that if you want to get really picky, you should use white cornmeal instead of yellow.  Apparently yellow cornmeal is a no no in southern cooking because livestock typically eat yellow corn.  I, however, like the color of yellow cornmeal better and the brand I like only comes in yellow, so yellow it is.
 
Enjoy!
  
Savory Cornbread
 
1 1/2 C fine cornmeal
3 Tbsp flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 C buttermilk
1 egg
2 Tbsp bacon grease or butter, melted
 
Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 7 by 11 baking dish.  Set aside.
 
Stir together dry ingredients.  Pour in buttermilk and egg, stir to combine, then stir in bacon grease until mixture is smooth.  Pour into prepared baking dish.
 
Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
  
Yield: 6 large servings

Speedy Greek Salad

This is one of my favorite lunches and something I have pretty often!  It's super quick to toss together and is definitely one of those "more than the sum of its parts" concoctions.  The crunchy, mild cucumbers, sweet, acidic tomatoes, super salty and slightly bitter olives, tangy, salty, creamy feta, and pucker of vinegar are just perfect together.  You don't even need any oil, though a splash of olive oil wouldn't hurt anything.  I'm not sure it actually qualifies as a recipe, but who cares?  The amounts for all these ingredients are completely up to you.
  
Speedy Greek Salad
 
cucumber, cut into small bite sized pieces
halved cherry tomatoes (or big tomatoes cut into bite sized pieces)
pitted kalamata olives
feta cheese
salt to taste
small sprinkle of oregano (sometimes I add it, sometimes I don't)
a splash or two of raw apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar
 
Consider how many people you'll be serving and whether this will be the main dish or a side.  Put however much cucumber and tomatoes you want into an appropriately sized bowl and sprinkle with salt, toss.  Add however many olives and how much feta you want.  Sprinkle with the optional oregano then drizzle on a little vinegar.  Toss to combine.  Taste and add more of anything.
 
Enjoy!

Instant Pot Lime (or Not) Quinoa

And here is the quinoa recipe to go with the Cheesy Baked Lentils!  In the Instant Pot is actually the only way I've made quinoa, but why mess with perfection?
  
We've been eating a lot of quinoa cooked this way lately.  It basically goes well with anything that you'd serve with rice, and I think it both tastes better and more interesting than rice.  
 
You can leave out the lime juice and lime zest if you aren't going for a limey effect, but do toast the quinoa first to enhance the flavor, and use the salt and butter.  I haven't actually made it with the lime to go with the lentils, usually I add that if it's more of a stand alone side dish because citrus is awesome.
 
Instant Pot Lime (or Not) Quinoa
 
2 C quinoa

2 Tbsp butter

2 C water

3 Tbsp lime juice (optional)

3/4 tsp salt

zest of one lime (optional)

 

Place quinoa in pot of Instant Pot and set to saute.  Stir frequently until quinoa is lightly toasted, about 5 minutes.  Add butter and stir until melted.  Add water, lime juice, and salt.  Stir.  Turn off Instant Pot, then set to Manual for 1 minute.  Seal.  Do a 15 minute natural pressure release, then unseal, fluff, and serve.

 

Yield: 8 servings

BBQ Mac & Cheese

I've mentioned this before, but I was a very picky child.  My mom is a good cook, but ungrateful little me had very particular taste buds.  My palate expanded hugely when I was a foreign exchange student my freshman year of high school, and I returned to the US as an adventurous eater, but my parents separated while I was out of the country and my mom didn't cook much after that.  That's pretty much when I started learning to cook!

Because all of my years of being fortunate enough to have my mom cook dinner every night coincided with me being a picky eater, there aren't actually very many recipes in my "lifetime favorites from Mom" recipe category.  I've always loved her white chicken chili, 57 Meatballs, a mushroom chicken casserole recipe I haven't had since I was about 13 years old, an herbed chicken and potatoes recipe I haven't made yet, pumpkin spice cookies, and... this recipe.  (Side note: why haven't I shared any of these favorite on this blog in the 5 years I've been posting?)
  
It's not really the kind of recipe my mom would usually make and I'm not sure why she chose to make it since the ingredients are a bit odd, but make it she did.  As a mac and cheese lover from the start, even the rather strong flavors appealed to me and this was one of my favorite things my mom made when I was a kid.  The original recipe was apparently called Macaroni for Morons (mean!), but young me named it BBQ Mac & Cheese and that's how it has been known ever since.  There isn't any BBQ sauce in it, but it has a slightly similar flavor and apparently 6 year old me thought it tasted like BBQ sauce.  My mom's version actually has more butter, more cheese, and no mustard, but my husband and I like it this way :)
 
BBQ Mac & Cheese
  
1 lb macaroni
4 Tbsp butter
1/2 C chili sauce (Heinz chili sauce, not the spicy asian kind)
1/4 C Worcestershire sauce
1/2 Tbsp dijon mustard
2 C grated sharp cheddar cheese
black pepper and seasoned salt to taste
  
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil and add macaroni.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until macaroni is tender.  Drain and return to pot.  Add butter, place pot back on burner over low, and cook until butter melts.  Add chili sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and mustard, and stir to combine.  Add cheese and stir until melted and hot.  Stir in pepper and seasoned salt to taste.
  
Yield:  About 8 side dish servings.

Cheesy Bacon Ranch Breakfast Biscuits

On at least one weekend day every week, I make my husband and I a nice breakfast.  More often than not that means pancakes, but I also like making beggagels, waffles, french toast, muffins, omelets, or occasionally a breakfast casserole or something like this.  I found this recipe on a website called Spoon University earlier this week and thought it sounded perfect for a weekend treat.  They're really good and turned out pretty much how I expected them to: Soft, warm, nice smoky crunch from the bacon, cheesy, and just all around yummy.  We had them with fresh plums, and it was a very yummy breakfast that I'll make again.  Conveniently, I only had to buy the biscuit dough because I pretty much always have the other ingredients in my refrigerator already.

 

It occurred to me while we were eating these that there's no reason why they couldn't be served as a side to go with chicken or something at dinner.  I think I just saw bacon and thought of breakfast.  They'll probably stay mostly a breakfast thing for us because they're a bit more caloric and involved than I prefer side dishes to be, but that's just me.  I'll probably make them to go with dinner at some point.  The leftovers will be going with my husband to work for lunch and I'm going to try freezing a couple of them.

 

Pardon the lack of photo.  My camera went to heaven and I don't have a cell phone, so no easy way to take pictures when I made this recipe!

 

Quick Note:  You really have to use the flaky layer biscuits for this, not the plain kind, because the layers make it so you can separate them into halves cleanly.  Make sure the tube of biscuits says "flaky layers" on it.  Also, I just added a sprinkle of dried chives instead of fresh green onions because my green onions were looking floppy and unappealing.

 

Cheesy Bacon Ranch Breakfast Biscuits

 

tube of 8 refrigerated jumbo sized flaky layer biscuits (they must be the flaky layer variety!)

ranch dressing

8 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled

about 1 C grated cheddar cheese

about 3 Tbsp sliced green onions or 1 1/2 Tbsp sliced fresh chives

 

Preheat oven to 350 (or temperature indicated on package of biscuits) and cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Place biscuits an inch or so apart on baking sheet.  Bake until the biscuits just begin to turn golden on top, about 8 minutes.

 

Remove baking sheet from oven and gently pull the top half off each one.  Spread a little ranch dressing on each bottom half, sprinkle with 1/8th of the bacon, a generous sprinkle of shredded cheese, and some green onions or chives.  Replace tops, and sprinkle with a little more cheese.  

 

Bake until nicely golden brown on top, about 5 minutes more.  Remove baking sheet from oven and let biscuits cool for a couple of minutes before serving.

 

Yield: 8 biscuits

Jellied Pineapple Rings

I have an odd fondness for Jell-o, considering that I didn't grow up in a household where Jell-o was made frequently (the one time I remember making it with my dad as a kid, it didn't set up!), and I've never really cared for the texture of plain Jell-o without anything added to it, but the fondness is there nonetheless.  It's no surprise, then, that I decided to make these pineapple rings right after I came across the recipe on Joy of Jell-o.

  

This is seriously one of the quickest, easiest recipes a person could ever make and is about 1/2 a step up from just making a plain box of Jell-o.  It's been around for quite a while, as evidenced by the cute 1960s style ads describing how to make it.  My one change was to use the drained pineapple juice in the Jell-o instead of just dumping it and using water.  I've included that in the directions below, because the added pineapple juice really punched up the flavor.  My husband and I both really enjoyed them, much more than I expected.  

  

As adorably tacky as these pineapple rings are, I'll probably make a can with lime Jell-o and a can with cherry Jell-o for Christmas.  How cute would they be arranged in alternating colors in a spiral on a platter?

  

Quick Note:  I suggest using name brand pineapple vs store brand.  We tried it both ways and liked the name brand better.  We also tried both strawberry and lime Jell-o and preferred the lime.

  

 

Jellied Pineapple Rings

 

20 oz can pineapple slices

3 oz box Jell-o powder (I used lime)

 

Drain pineapple juice from can into a measuring cup.  Add enough water to it so that you have 1 cup total liquid.  Bring liquid to a boil in a small sauce pan, remove from heat, and stir in the Jell-o powder until completely dissolved.  Pour Jell-o mixture over the pineapple rings.  You will have some Jell-o mixture left over, just pour that into an extra bowl to enjoy as a snack.  Place the can of pineapple rings and bowl of extra Jell-o in the refrigerator to solidify.  This will take several hours.

 

When you're ready to eat the pineapple, dip the can into a bowl of hot water for about 10 seconds.  Flip it upside down over a plate and open it from the bottom with a can opener.  If the can is the traditional style that you had to open with a can opener, you can just gently push/shake the pineapple out of the top of the can.  If the can is the newer style with the pull tab, flip it right side up again and gently push/shake the pineapple slices out the bottom of the can onto the plate.  You want the pineapple to come out the bottom of the can because they will get mangled if they come out the top, since pineapple cans have the pull tabs and are slightly narrower at the top.

  

Gently slice the rings apart with a knife, and serve.

Monster Mac

This recipe is a Cheese with Noodles creation.  I added components of several different recipes, along with some different things I wanted to try, then a couple more changes born of necessity.  My husband and I call it Monster Mac because it features muenster cheese and we've always called it monster cheese.  I tried thinking up a fancier, more descriptive name, but Monster Mac (like Monster Mash!) stuck. 
  

As implied by the name of my blog, I LOVE mac and cheese.  I'm basically always open to trying a new recipe, but am also really particular.  This time around, I was looking for a mac and cheese that was very saucy, velvety, and smooth, and made entirely on the stove.  It's unfortunate or me that by far my favorite cheese for mac and cheese (and pretty much everything else) is sharp cheddar, because it gets kind of grainy when melted.  I also hate Velveeta and American cheese with the burning fury of 1,000 suns, so adding that to help make a silky smooth sauce wasn't an option.  To combat the graininess, I decided to use cornstarch instead of flour (cornstarch makes for a smoother sauce), and used Muenster cheese for part of the cheese since it melts really nicely.  I also made sure to remove the pot from the stove before adding the cheddar because excess heat + chedder = grainy city.
  

The mac and cheese turned out quite well.  Lots of flavor, mellow and buttery from the Muenster but still with adequate bite from the cheddar, and definitely lots of creamy sauce.  The spiral pasta held all the sauce wonderfully and was definitely a good choice.  The sauce wasn't as perfectly silky smooth as I hoped, but definitely smoother than many cheddar based sauces.  I think it's just not possible to make a completely smooth cheddar based sauce.  Luckily, this one comes decently close!
  

Quick Note:  I actually think this would make a great cheesy pasta side dish (or maybe add diced ham to make a main dish?) if you only add 1/2 C milk near the end and completely leave out the cheddar.  The muenster also makes the pasta hilariously stringy as it melts- like, over the top, looks like you're making cotton candy.  As it melts and add the extra milk and sour cream, the stringiness from the muenster goes completely away, but if that appeals to you, there's no reason why you couldn't pull it off the heat and serve it before that happens.
  

  
Monster Mac

  

1/2 lb spiral pasta

1 3/4 C milk, divided

1/2 Tbsp cornstarch

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp hot sauce (I used Frank's Red Hot)

2 tsp mustard

pinch cayenne

4 oz muenster cheese (mine was in slices already, I just tore it into pieces)

1/2 C sour cream

1/2 lb freshly grated sharp cheddar cheese

salt to taste (I used 1/2 tsp)
  

Cook macaroni in salted water.  While it cooks, whisk together 3/4 C of the milk, cornstarch, egg, hot sauce, mustard, and cayenne.
  

Drain pasta, add egg mixture, and return to low heat.  Stir constantly until sauce thickens.  Add muenster cheese and cook until melted.  Add sour cream and remaining 1 C milk and cook, stirring frequently, until hot.  Remove pot from heat and stir in cheddar until melted.  Add salt to taste, then serve immediately.

 

Yield: 4 main dish servings, 6-8 side dish servings

Sour Cream & Onion Biscuits

Ooh, these biscuits are good!  I had some sour cream that needed to be used up and I'm not sure WHY I googled "sour cream biscuits", but I did, and here we are.  The base recipe is from Taste of Home, but I added chives and onion powder because sour cream and onion sure go well together.  The biscuits are wonderful.  They're VERY tender and delightful.  You could easily leave out the chives and onion powder if you want them plain.  The dough is also really easy to make, so a good choice if you're a little intimidated by the idea of making biscuits from scratch!

 

This recipe makes 6 nicely sized biscuits.  You could definitely double it if you need more, I'd suggest making 2 circles of dough on your pan instead of just 1.

 

 

Sour Cream & Onion Biscuits

 

1 C flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

4 tsp dried chives

1/2 tsp onion powder

3/4 C sour cream

2 tsp canola oil

 

Preheat oven to 425 and place a square of parchment paper in a round cake pan.  Set aside.

 

Whisk together dry ingredients.  Stir together sour cream and oil, then add to dry ingredients.  Stir just until evenly combined, no longer than that because the biscuits could turn out tough.  You may need to get in there with your hands to mix the dough.  Dough will be very sticky.

 

Transfer dough to the prepared cake pan and use your hand to evenly press the dough into a 3/4 inch thick circle, it will help if you get your hand wet.  Use a knife to cut the dough into 6 triangles, but don't pull them apart.

 

Bake until golden on top, about 15 minutes.  To serve, just pull the biscuits apart.  These are great with butter!

 

Yield: 6 biscuits

Stir Fried Lemony Green Beans

This is a slight twist on The Pioneer Woman's Lemony Green Beans.  This is a very easy, quick recipe that tastes really good!  The browned butter and the lightly browned beans are delicious.  My husband isn't the biggest green bean fan, but likes these.  Definitely a good, easy side dish veggie recipe to have around.

  

  

Stir Fried Lemony Green Beans

 

2 Tbsp salted butter

12 oz frozen french cut green beans

lemon juice to taste

salt and pepper to taste

 

Melt butter in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and stir constantly until it just begins to turn brown.  If your skillet is dark, you can tilt it on edge a bit and see the color as it pools at the sode of the skillet.  Add frozen green beans and cook, stirring frequently, until the green beans thaw.  Gently press green beans into a single layer in the skillet and leave them alone for about 45 seconds, then stir and repeat with pressing them into the skillet. Do this a few times.  The goal is to get the beans a little browned.  

 

When the green beans are cooked to your desired doneness, remove them from the heat and stir in lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste.  

 

Yield: 3 servings

Grandmother's Corn Pudding

Here's another family recipe, and definitely among my most treasured.  I have no explanation for why it's taken so long for me to share it.  This is from my paternal grandmother, a remarkable woman who was born in Kentucky in the 1920s and lived there her entire life.  She was a fantastic cook, and my personal favorite thing that she would make was corn pudding.  My parents got divorced (amicably, thankfully) when I was a teenager, and my mom likes to joke that the three most treasured things she got from her marriage were her two children and my grandmother's recipe for corn pudding.  My parents aren't married anymore and the four members of our nuclear family are spread in 3 states thousands of miles apart, but we all make corn pudding for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas.  You can see from all the cream that it is very far from being a healthy veggie dish, but some things are just special and worth it and this is one of them! 

Quick Note:  You can very easily halve this recipe, just use an 8 by 8 baking dish and reduce the baking time some.  For Christmas I made a full recipe, but baked part in a 7 by 11 dish and part in a loaf pan, which is what you see in the photo.
 

Grandmother's Corn Pudding

4 C corn (frozen or freshly cut from cobs)
8 eggs
4 C cream
2/3 C sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp flour
1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9 by 13 baking dish.  Evenly spread corn in bottom of dish.  In a large bowl, whisk eggs until smooth.  Whisk in remaining ingredients until evenly mixed.  Pour carefully into the baking dish with the corn.  Bake until golden on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour.

Yield:  About 12 servings

Secret Recipe Club: Cheesy Mashed Potatoes

For this month's Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned Susan's blog, The Wimpy Vegetarian.  Susan is the leader of the subgroup I'm in, so I must admit I was rather nervous!  Thankfully, Susan is very nice.  She's also very creative in the kitchen and has all kinds of fantastic looking recipes on her blog!  She has formal culinary school training, which I think is pretty awesome.  She also gets to live in nice, warm California, says the lady trapped in the dead of an Alaskan winter.  Can I come visit you, Susan?

 

Anyway, like I said, Susan has lots of great recipes.  I was particularly drawn to Figgy Cardamom Snickerdoodles (how amazing do those look?), Lemony Three Bean Salad, and Warm Brussels Sprouts Salad with Caramelized Onions.  As tasty as those looked, I ended up choosing Cheesy Mashed Potatoes because I'd only ever used russet potatoes for mashed potatoes and haven't really ever added cheese to them.

 

The mashed potatoes turned out really well and seemed rather fancy, especially considering how easy they were to make.  I couldn't find the the Frieda's Butter Babies potatoes that the recipe called for, but thought they looked rather like Yukon Gold, so went with those.  The mashed potatoes were so soft and tender, and had a rather sweet quality to them because of the Yukon Golds.  We liked them for sure and I will make them again, but think I'll use either good ol' russets, or try baby red potatoes instead because we prefer the sweetness of Yukon Gold potatoes on their own.  I served the potatoes with baked salmon and roasted green beans, it was a great meal.

 

Thank you, Susan!
  

 

Cheesy Mashed Potatoes

 

2 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes

2 1/2 Tbsp butter

1/3 C half and half

1 tsp salt, or to taste

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp dried parsley or 2 Tbsp fresh minced parsley

1 C smoothly melting cheese (I used cheddar)

 

Wash potatoes, then cook until soft using whatever method you like.  I used my pressure cooker.  Place potatoes in a large bowl and mash with a potato masher.  Melt butter in the microwave, then add milk and heat 30 more seconds, until warm.  Add to potatoes along with seasonings, and continue to mash.  Stir in cheese.  Cover with foil if you aren't going to serve within a minute or two.

 

Yield:  About 6 servings

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Slow Cooker Honey Carrots

I made these carrots for both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner in 2015.  They couldn't be any easier and are quite tasty!  Usually we eat steamed carrots either completely plain (not even salt added), with a little butter and dill, or we have Rosemary Roasted Carrots.  Adding sugar and lots of butter to carrots isn't something I'd do usually, but I figure the holidays are the time to do it!  There are lots of different versions of these carrots to be found on the internet, and I made up my own proportions anyway, so I'm not going to link to a source recipe.

  

 
Slow Cooker Honey Carrots

2 lbs baby carrots

1/2 stick salted butter

1/4 C brown sugar

2 Tbsp honey

Place all ingredients in small brown crock pot, cook on high 2 hours, stir, cook on high 2 hours more, or until as tender as you'd like.
 
Yield: 6-8 servings

Summer Vegetable Tian

This is a recipe I found on the Budget Bytes blog.  It's called Summer Vegetable Tian and was just too pretty to resist!  My husband surprised me with an amazing food processor as an early anniversary gift a few days after I first spied the recipe, and we rushed out and got the ingredients for it, then made it that day.  You really only want to make this recipe if you have either a food processor or very good knife skills, but the food processor cut prep time down to maybe 15 minutes.  The tian turned out beautifully and was amazing served with a simple chicken dish.  I can't wait to make this recipe again!

Summer Vegetable Tian

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium zucchini
1 medium yellow summer squash
1 large potato
1 large tomato
1 C shredded Italian cheese

Preheat oven to 400 and grease an 8 by 8 baking dish.

Heat olive oil in a small skillet over medium-high, then add onion and garlic and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.  Spread evenly in the bottom of the prepared baking dish.

Slice the zucchini, summer squash, potato, and tomato into very thin slices and place each type of vegetable in its own bowl.

Fill the baking dish with rows of the vegetable slices placed on end, like in the picture.  You don't need to do them in a specific order, but I kept each row with the same type of vegetable.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

Bake tian 30 minutes, then sprinkle with the cheese and bake 10-15 minutes more, or until the potatoes are tender and the cheese is golden.  You can cover the baking dish with foil if the cheese gets browned before the potatoes are done.

Yield: 4-6 servings

Brown Rice, Tomato, & Basil Salad

This is my somewhat loose interpretation of an Ina Garten recipe.  I used tomatoes from my own garden and just used as many as were currently ripe, and I used less of a different type of vinegar.  Regardless, the salad was really good!  My husband loved it and ate most of it.  Definitely a repeat around here!

Brown Rice, Tomato, & Basil Salad

1 C brown rice, cooked and lightly salted and then partly cooled
tomatoes, chopped into large chunks, however many you want (I used 2 large ones)
about 1/2 C roughly chopped basil
3 Tbsp seasoned rice vinegar (you can use less or more, according to your tastes)
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a medium bowl, stir together all the ingredients.  Serve slightly warm, room temperature, or cold. 

Cheesy Ranch Potatoes

I stumbled upon this recipe on Natasha's Kitchen recently and have made it twice in the past month.  It's so simple and very, very tasty!  The first time, I used red potatoes with the skin on, bottled ranch dressing, and green onions, and this time I used peeled russet potatoes, homemade ranch dressing (actually homemade ranch dressing mix plus mayo and milk), and bacon.  Both were great!

This is very much a "do what you want" recipe.  You can make just a small amount of potatoes, or a whole lot, and pretty much any kind of potato will do.  You also don't have to measure anything, just use your own judgment!

Cheesy Ranch Potatoes

potatoes
ranch dressing
garlic salt
grated cheddar cheese
cooked, crumbled bacon (optional)
thinly sliced green onion or chives (optional)

Wash and peel the potatoes if desired, then cut them into 1 1/2 inch chunks.  Boil in salted water until they can be pierced with a fork, then drain thoroughly.  Carefully fold in desired amount of ranch dressing, you want them to be coated but not swimming in it.  Spoon evenly into a greased baking dish, season to taste with garlic salt, then bake at 400 until the potatoes start to turn golden in places on top, about 20-25 minutes.  Remove from oven and sprinkle with desired amount of grated cheese, plus the bacon if you're using it.  Return to oven for 5 minutes.  Remove and sprinkle with the green onions or chives if you're using them, then let the potatoes sit for a few minutes before serving.  Leftovers reheat really well!

Grilled Corn & Tomato Salad

I have made this salad 4 times in the past month or so.  We love grilled corn on the cob, and so far every time I have grilled this summer, I've grilled corn for us to eat immediately as well as corn to use the next day in this salad.  It's nothing fancy, but very good!

 

Grilled Corn & Tomato Salad

 
2 cobs fresh corn

olive oil

salt and pepper

10 oz (by weight) cherry tomatoes, halved

3 Tbsp sliced green onions

2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar, plus more to taste

1 tsp dried basil

1/8 tsp garlic powder

salt to taste

Remove the corn husks and corn silk from cobs.  Rinse corn and pat dry.  Brush all over with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Grill on an outdoor grill over medium heat, rotating every couple of minutes and with grill cover shut in between, until there are grill marks all over the corn and it's cooked through, about 15 minutes.  Remove corn from grill and let it sit until cool enough to handle, or wrap it in foil and refrigerate over night.

When you're ready to make the salad, cut the corn off the cobs with a serrated knife.  Place in a medium mixing bowl with the halved tomatoes and green onions, then add the rest of the ingredients.  Toss until everything's well mixed, taste, and add a little more vinegar, salt, garlic powder, or basil if you think it's needed.

I always serve half of the salad immediately, then cover the rest and serve it the next day.  It's good both ways!

Secret Recipe Club: Peanut Slaw

For this month's Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned the amazing blog, Cupcake Muffin!  I knew I'd find a lot to like here because I'm sort of cupcake and muffin crazy.  Sara's blog did not disappoint!  She has all kinds of super yummy looking recipes on her blog, and let me tell ya, it was hard to pick.  When I first pulled up her blog, Giant Cheddar-Cornmeal Biscuit was the most recent recipe she'd posted, and it's an instant winner in my book.  I didn't end up actually making it, but plan to soon.  Other wonderful looking choices include Enchilada Pasta, Snow Day Marble Cake, Korean Chicken Lettuce Wraps, and Frenchie Mac.  I will for sure try the Enchilada Pasta and Snow Day Marble Cake!

When push came to shove, I ended up choosing Sara's Peanut Slaw.  My husband and I were having an impromptu dinner of turkey sandwiches (with good bread and deli turkey, yum!) and fruit salad, and I thought coleslaw would go with it really well.  I was right!  Usually I prefer mayo based coleslaw dressings, but the peanut version is really good.  I think it would go really well with a main dish that has an Asian flair, I guess peanuts in savory dishes make me think of Thai food.  Seems like a perfect side dish with all the grilling I hope to do this summer.
 
My only changes were to toast the chopped nuts, I left out the onion (don't like raw onion), and used a package of pre-shredded cabbage and carrots because shredding cabbage myself makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out.

 
Peanut Slaw
 
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp peanut butter
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
2-3 Tbsp boiling water
1 lb bag pre-shredded cabbage and carrots that's packaged for coleslaw
1/2 C chopped peanuts

In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar, peanut butter, garlic, vinegar, and salt until smooth.  Whisk in boiling water, using enough to make a salad dressing consistency (I used the full 3 Tbsp).  Place shredded cabbage and carrots in a large bowl and pour dressing over top, toss gently to combine.  Cover the bowl and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Place chopped peanuts in a small skillet and toast over medium-low heat until they turn golden, about 3-5 minutes.  Stir constantly so they don't burn and then immediately pour the toasted nuts into a bowl so they don't burn in the skillet while it cools down.

When you're ready to serve the coleslaw, toss it again and stir in the toasted peanuts.

Yield:  About 6 servings

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Greek Pasta Salad

I planned to make this recipe for 6 months before I finally made it!  Our puppy requires a lot of attention and this is the first dinner I cooked that was more complicated than hot dogs and a can of pork and beans.  I made it while she was milling around my feet, and she didn't pee on the floor or anything :D

That success apart, this is a really good pasta salad.  I halved the recipe, but it still made a lot.  You know it's good if you still are looking forward to eating it 4 or 5 days later!  We liked it so much that I plan to make it again once the weather warms up a bit.
 
The recipe is from the blog Rocky Mountain Woman.  My only changes (other than halving the recipe) were to use roasted bell peppers instead of sundried tomatoes (I couldn't find any at the store), and I cut way back on the dried oregano.

As a side note, the dip pictured with the raw veggies in this photo is Dilly Dip.

Greek Pasta Salad

1 lb assorted dry pasta
15 oz can small whole olives, drained and rinsed
12 oz jar roasted bell peppers, diced
1/2 of a 12 oz jar sliced peperoncinis, drained
7 oz container crumbled feta cheese
 
for dressing:
3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/3 C olive oil
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tsp dijon mustard

Cook pasta in salted water, drain, and rinse with cold water until pasta is chilled.  Drain thoroughly.  Stir in olives, roasted peppers, peperoncinis, and feta.

In a medium bowl, whisk together dressing ingredients until everything is incorporated.  Pour over pasta salad, stir, and refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving.

Yield:  Depends on whether you do this as a main dish or side, but about 8-16.

Secret Recipe Club: Thai Peanut Noodles

For this month's Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned Jess's blog, Inquiring Chef!  I was really excited to get her blog because I'd already poked around on it a bit.  Her blog is just chock full of amazing looking recipes.  I couldn't sleep the day we got our SRC assignments and actually read her entire blog that night, all the way back to when she started it in late 2010!
 

Jess's blog is really interesting, and not just because of the recipes she posts.  She's lived in Thailand with her husband for the past several years.  I absolutely love travel and am fascinated with different cultures, so her blog is a good read!  Jess and her husband also have a pair of pretty much the cutest identical twin baby girls, Molly and Clara.  I even love their names!
 

Anyway, to the recipes.  I marked a good 20 of them as possibilities to make for this blog post.  A couple of weeks ago, I actually made her Parmesan Rosemary Oven Fries, but realized after I made them that she originally adapted the recipe for an SRC post a couple years ago, so I had to pick a different recipe for my post.  No problem, like I said, she has lots of yummy looking recipes.  The ones I considered the most were Chicken and Orzo with Lemon and Olives, Chicken Stew with Rosemary Parmesan Dumplings (any recipe with rosemary catches my eye!), Crispy Scallion Pancakes, Baked Crab Rangoon, Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps, Chocolate Pots de Creme, Light and Fluffy Whole Wheat Pancakes, Apple Rubies in Coconut Milk, and her very simple looking 5 Minute Baked Ziti.  I fully intend on making the ziti, whole wheat pancakes, chicken with orzo, and apple rubies very soon!
 

In the end, I chose Thai Peanut Noodles.  I've made recipes for peanut noodles a few times in the past, and they've ranged from okay to pretty good.  None of them were good enough for me to make again or post on my blog, though.  I'm happy to say that Jess's recipe makes the cut to qualify for its own blog post, even if I didn't have to post about it!

My only changes were to sprinkle the crushed peanuts on top as a garnish instead of mixing them in, and I used canned Chaokoh coconut milk instead of the lighter kind you drink because I didn't catch that I was supposed to use the drinking kind until after I'd purchased a can.  No regrets, though, because the noodles turned out amazing!  Very creamy and delicious with great peanut, coconut, and curry flavor.  Absolutely no complaints, and I intend to make the recipe with the canned coconut milk in the future.  Next time I'll use another half teaspoon of red curry paste (I used Thai Kitchen brand, turns out it's pretty mild) and spaghetti noodles instead of bucatini, but that's it for alterations.

Just want to note, I served these noodles with Salt & Pepper Tofu Triangles and thinly sliced cucumber tossed with seasoned rice vinegar.  Very satisfying dinner!  I can also confirm that leftover noodles are delicious both cold and reheated.
 

Thai Peanut Noodles
 

8 oz spaghetti noodles

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp red curry paste (or more if you want more spice)

1/4 C peanut butter (the typical kind like Jif or Skippy that has a bit of sugar in it)

1/4 C water

1/2 C coconut milk

1 tsp salt
 

for garnish:
finely chopped peanuts

sliced green onion

Cook pasta in lightly salted water and drain.

While pasta cooks, heat oil over medium in a large nonstick skillet.  Add curry paste and peanut butter, and cook until both are melted and mixed together.  Don't cook at too high a temperature or the peanut butter can separate (I had to throw away my first go at it)!

Stir in water, coconut milk, and salt, and cook until sauce is very smooth and slightly thickened, about 2-3 minutes.  Add cooked, drained pasta and toss to coat.  Divide among plates to serve and garnish with chopped peanuts and green onion.

Yield: About 3-4 servings
 

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Secret Recipe Club: Green Beans Amandine

My blog assignment for this month's Secret Recipe Club was The Tasty Gardener!  This blog is absolutely stuffed with really good looking recipes, and it was hard to choose one.  I ended up going with Green Beans Amandine.  It's a recipe I've wanted to try for years and years, so this was a great opportunity!  The recipe turned out wonderfully.  It's very simple, with just 5 ingredients (plus salt and pepper), but all the flavors really come together and are so good.  The almonds get fried in the butter and olive oil, and I think that's what really makes the flavor incredible.  My husband and I ate the whole pound of green beans in one sitting, they're that good.  Most definitely a repeat recipe.  Thanks, Heather!

I tweaked a couple of little things.  First, I used black pepper instead of white because I absolutely cannot stand white pepper.  I also changed the directions so you cook the almonds a little before adding the garlic, because I found the garlic cooked a lot faster than the almonds.

Update:  I've since made these again with frozen french cut green beans.  They were good, but not as good as with fresh beans.  They also didn't reheat is nicely as some veggies.  Not bad, but I think I'll stick to making this with fresh beans and when we plan to eat the entire batch in one sitting.

Green Beans Amandine

1 lb green beans, rinsed and ends trimmed
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
1/4 C sliced almonds
2 cloves minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook beans until crisp-tender, about 5-7 minutes (length of time depends on how soft you want them).  Drain beans and keep the lid on the pot so they stay hot while you cook the almonds and garlic.

In a large skillet, melt olive oil and butter over medium heat.  Add almonds and cook just until they begin to barely change color, then add the garlic.  The almonds and garlic cook quickly, so don't walk away!  When the almonds and garlic are golden, add green beans to skillet and toss to coat.  Remove from heat and add salt and pepper to taste.   Place the beans in a serving bowl so the almonds and garlic don't burn on the bottom of the still hot skillet.

Yield: About 4 servings

An InLinkz Link-up