We’ve been having an unusually sunny and warm May, which means it’s time for BBQ food. No BBQ is complete without creamy potato salad. This recipe was inspired by one from Cook’s Country Magazine where they incorporate an egg yolk into the dressing. I’m not usually a fan of hard-boiled eggs mingling with my potato salad, but this time it turned out surprisingly well.
I know everyone has a “method” to cooking perfect hard-boiled eggs. My method is to cover the eggs with cold water and pour in a couple of teaspoons of baking soda. Cover and bring to a boil. Uncover and boil for 11 minutes. Then immediately drain and cover with icy cold water. Not only are the yolks perfectly cooked, but the eggs peel easily too.
Creamy Potato Salad
Serves 4
3 medium yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 hard-boiled eggs, one yolk reserved
2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
2 tsp. agave nectar or honey
1/2 a celery rib, minced
2 green onions, minced
2 pickles, diced
1/4 cup greek yogurt
2 Tbs. mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Toss your diced potatoes into a large pot and cover with water. Add a couple of pinches of salt, cover and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer till potatoes are just tender — about 8 minutes.
Meanwhile, whisk together the vinegar, agave nectar, and the yolk from one egg. Drain the potatoes and transfer to a bowl. Pour over half the dressing and gently toss to coat. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Add the remaining eggs to the remaining dressing and thoroughly mash till the egg whites are small chunks. Add the celery, green onions, pickles, yogurt and mayo. Once the potatoes are cooled, add the remaining dressing. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you prefer your salad even creamier, add a little more mayo.
If you’re looking for a healthier potato salad, why not try this tasty recipe I made with red potatoes? Click on the photo for the recipe:
I love me some junk food and nachos are near the top of the list. They are quick, cheap and can pile on the calories if you’re not careful. I like to justify mowing down on nachos by using healthier ingredients.
Here’s my no-brainer secret to making perfect nachos in the oven — bake them, don’t broil them. Broiling sometimes burns the chips before the cheese has melted. So, preheat an oven or toaster oven to 375 degrees. Arrange the chips on a foil-lined baking sheet. Top with green onions and cheddar. Dot the Neufchâtel all around the chips. Bake for about 7 minutes, or until the cheddar is gooey.
Remove from oven and top with sour cream, avocado, salsa and cilantro.
This is just a guideline, of course. You can add whatever toppings you like. Jalapeños, black beans, chicken, tofu — the world is your nacho!
If you’re in the mood for a fiesta, try some of my other recipes, such as:
Chicken Taquitos with Spinach & Wild RiceGuacamole à la Moña
We never seem to consume an entire bunch of bananas. There’s always those sorry two or three sitting in the bottom of the fruit bowl, waiting to be make into banana bread. I don’t even like banana bread all that much, but I hate to waste the darn things.
I decided to spice things up a bit and use my overripe bananas for something a little more decadent than sliced bread.
I basically just made regular banana bread but put it in cupcake liners and topped it with a sweet and salty icing.
My recipe was inspired by this one from Culinary Couture.
Banana bread:
1/2 cup softened coconut oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1.75 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. all spice
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
3 overripe bananas, mashed
Icing:
6 oz. softened cream cheese
3 Tbs. softened butter
3 Tbs. Nestle’s La Lechera (sweetened condensed milk)
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
pinch of salt
coarse sea salt for garnish
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With an electric mixer, combine the coconut oil and sugar. Add the eggs and mix well. In a small bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and nutmeg. Add the flour mixture and mashed bananas in intervals to the wet ingredients.
Pour batter into a muffin tin filled with liners or greased well. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely.
For the icing:
with an electric mixer, combine the cream cheese, butter, La Lechera, vanilla and salt. Beat until smooth and aerated. Frost the cupcakes with a knife or with a pastry bag. Sprinkle coarse sea salt on top of each cupcake.
Around my birthday last month I went to the garage to find something in the chest freezer only to see it full of Omaha Steak Company boxes. Turns out my mother-in-law sent us five meaty meals to cook up with very little prep. One hunk of meat was corned beef brisket. Mmm…corned beef with mustard and cabbage.
I prefer red cabbage not only for its vibrant color, but it’s packed with tons more vitamin A than green. I once had Thanksgiving with a Hungarian guest. She brought a red cabbage dish that was tangy and sweet. She said it was a traditional recipe in her country.
I never got the recipe, but I decided to use Bon Appétit’s as a guideline. The dish was tender, tangy and sweet, just as I anticipated. The julienned granny smith apple rounds out the flavors. This braised red cabbage went perfectly with our corned beef and mashed potatoes.
Braised Red Cabbage
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:
2 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 head red cabbage, cored and sliced
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 tsp. allspice
2 tsp. sugar
2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
1 granny smith apple, cut into matchsticks
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Heat olive oil over medium-high flame in a large pan. Add the onion and garlic and cook till onions are soft and starting to brown, about 8 minutes. Add the cabbage, salt, pepper, allspice, and sugar and toss to evenly coat with oil. Cook till cabbage is wilted, about 5 minutes. Add the stock, cover and turn down the heat. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add the apples and vinegar, recover and simmer another 15 minutes.
One of my son’s favorite winter treats is hot cocoa. He learned the words when he was about 18 months old. I prefer hot cocoa made with milk but there’s so much sugar and other junk in store bought cocoa, plus usually you are supposed to use water.
So I made my own. And it’s super good! I also never have whipping cream so to make it extra special I use my Nescafe milk frother to top off the cocoa with a thick layer of foam. It makes me feel like I’m in a fancy cafe.
Ingredients:
1 cup milk
1 tsp. honey or agave nectar
2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
Directions:
In a small saucepan whisk together the milk, honey and cocoa. Heat to desired temperature. Top with whipped cream or milk foam.
I’m home sick today. During my two-hour pity party in bed this morning, I lamented over the fact that no one can bring me soup and my cabinets were bereft of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle.
It is a scientific fact that chicken soup is good for colds; but I’m not well enough to drive to the store and buy some, so I rolled my sick self out of bed, I took what I had on hand and made some delicious vegetable bean soup with a chicken broth base. Way better than store bought. And guess what? I’m feeling slightly better. Up from 61% to 68%. Not bad!
Cast of Characters:
1 Tbs. olive oil
3 Tbs. finely chopped onion
1 carrot, chopped
1/2 celery stalk, chopped
3 crimini mushrooms (or one giant baby portobello mushroom) sliced
1 sprig fresh thyme
4 cups chicken stock
1 can white beans, drained
salt and pepper to taste
Serves 2
Directions:
Heat olive oil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, mushroom, salt and pepper and sauté until most of the liquid evaporates, about five minutes. Add the thyme and stock and bring to a boil. Turn heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes, until carrots are tender. Add the beans and bring back to a simmer. Simmer another five minutes or so until beans are heated through.
The fresh veggies add more depth to the chicken stock so it doesn’t taste bland. The mushrooms create a wonderful richness and depth to the broth.
I love easy recipes, especially if I can use leftovers. Shepherd’s pie is no exception. If you have ground meat and leftover mashed potatoes, you are just a few steps away from a delicious, filling dinner the whole family will love.
Ingredients:
1 lb. combo of ground beef, pork, veal or lamb
4 cups or so of leftover mashed potatoes (or make some fresh)
1 egg yolk
1 tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1 cup frozen peas
3 Tbs. fresh herbs such as parsley, thyme and rosemary, chopped
Salt and pepper
1 Tbs. tomato paste
1 cup chicken stock
Worcestershire sauce or red wine (optional)
Shepherd’s pie is versatile. Throw in whatever veggies you love. Use whatever meat you prefer.
Directions:
Season your mashed potatoes to your liking with milk, butter, salt and pepper. Heat up in the microwave if cold. Stir in the egg yolk. This makes the pie have a nice crust. Preheat oven to 375. In a sauté pan, heat some oil and add the meat, onion and carrot. Season with salt and pepper. Cook till meat is browned, about 10 minutes. Drain fat and add stock, tomato paste, herbs and a swig of red wine or Worcestershire sauce. Heck, I bet soy sauce would even make it pretty good. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in the peas.
Grease a casserole dish and add the meat filling. Top with dollops of mashed potatoes. Spread the potatoes across the top, trying to create a seal around the edges. I recommend putting a cookie sheet under the dish when you bake it in case anything bubbles over.
Bake for 30 minutes and let cool for a few minutes before serving.
We recently spent two and a half weeks in Mexico where I spent a good deal of time watching the housekeeper cook. She used to run a restaurant from her home and one of her specialties is a dish called chilaquiles. It’s fried corn tortilla strips steeped in a red chile sauce. I thought the sauce would transfer well to an enchilada dish. I made a few twists and it turned out almost as well as Moña’s in Mexico. I wasn’t able to find the exact same dried chiles she used, but I used the kind from the Hispanic food section of the grocery store and it worked just great. Add in a little bit of slow-cooked beef, some rice, black beans and cheese and you’ve got yourself some amazing enchiladas.
Oh, and if you’re totally lazy, you could buy the sauce and just follow the enchilada recipe below. That’s what I did to obtain this pathetic photo. Trust me, it’s waaaaay tastier than it looks.
Homemade Red Enchilada Sauce with Slow-Cooked Shredded Beef
Ingredients:
3 plum tomatoes
4 medium-sized dried red chiles
3 cups water
2 cloves garlic
2 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped fine
3 Tbs. flour
2 cups chicken stock
1 Tbs. chile powder
salt to taste
1 Tbs. chiles in adobo sauce, chopped finely
Directions:
Break the tops off the dried chiles and toss as many of the seeds as you can. Bring the water, tomatoes and chiles to a boil in a saucepan. Boil for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, cover and let sit for 20 minutes.
Place one clove of garlic in a blender. With a slotted spoon, add the tomatoes and chiles, cover the blender and start blending. Slowly add the water from the saucepan and blend on high for a minute or so.
Mince the remaining clove of garlic. Heat olive oil in a large saute pan. Add the onion and garlic and cook till onions are tender, about 5 minutes. Add the flour and mix into a paste. Cook over medium heat for a couple of minutes.
Turn down the heat and add the blended mixture, chicken stock, chile powder, chiles in adobo sauce and salt. Bring to a simmer, turn to low and let bubble for 10 minutes or so. The sauce will be thinner than gravy.
If you prefer it thick, make a slurry with 1/2 cup chicken stock and 1-2 Tbs. flour and pour it in. Stir and let simmer for five minutes or so till it thickens.
Store in a jar in the fridge for up to a week.
Recipe for beef enchiladas
Ingredients:
1 thin, cheap cut of beef; about 1/2 lb.
olive oil
salt & pepper
dried oregano
smoked paprika
1/2 onion, roughly chopped
1 can black beans, partially drained
2 chiles in adobo sauce, seeded and chopped fine
leftover brown rice (optional)
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, grated (for the top, optional)
tortillas (flour or corn)
Directions:
Coat the beef in olive oil and sprinkle both sides with salt, pepper, paprika and oregano. Place in a slow cooker and add the onions. Cook on low for 5 hours or so. It’ll be so tasty you might have a hard time getting it into the enchiladas. Shred the beef and set aside.
When it’s near dinner time, preheat the oven to 375′. Add the beans to a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Mash with a potato masher and add the chopped chiles and some salt. Cook for five minutes or so. Heat up your leftover rice, if using. Coat the bottom of a square or rectangular baking pan with enchilada sauce.
Pour about a cup of sauce in a pie pan. Set up a little assembly line with the tortillas, sauce, work surface, beans, beef, rice, cheese and baking pan. Soak a tortilla in the sauce and place it on your work surface. Add small amounts of all your ingredients, roll up the tortilla and place it seam-side down in the pan. Repeat till the pan is full. Pour a cup or so of the sauce all over the enchiladas. I never put enough and they end up drying out on the edges, so really saturate the baking dish. The tortillas suck up a lot. Top with remaining cheeses. Place, uncovered, in the oven for 30 minutes, or until it’s all bubbly.
Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes before serving, or, if starving, risk lava-hot amazingness.
Have you ever envisioned a meal and had it turn out better than you expected? This was one of those dishes. I had some leftover ground pork and a can of black beans in the cupboard, so I did a Google search for those two ingredients and found this recipe for mexican pot pie. I had everything the recipe called for, but I didn’t need to feed an army, so I halved it for just me and my husband and tweaked a couple of ingredients.
This casserole had deep flavors and just the right amount of spice and cheese. The cornbread topping was crusty on top and creamy underneath. A dollop of sour cream and this became an instant dinnertime favorite in our household.
Since the full recipe called for one egg, I just beat an egg and eyeballed half of it.
Feeds 4-6
Ingredients:
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/3 cup diced bell pepper, color of your choice
2 Tbs. jarred jalapeños, chopped
3/4 lb. ground pork (or beef)
olive oil
1, 8-oz. can of tomato sauce
1 Tbs. tomato paste
5 oz. frozen corn, thawed
1/2 can of black beans
1.5 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. allspice
1 Tbs. chili powder
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. Tabasco sauce
2 tsp. yellow cornmeal
salt and pepper to taste
Cornbread crust:
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1.5 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. melted butter
3/8 cup milk
1/2 egg
1/2 cup grated cheddar
1/2 can green chili peppers (4 oz. can)
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Grease a small baking dish (mine was 1.5 quarts). In a large skillet, heat up a couple of tablespoons of oil. Add the onion, garlic, bell pepper and jalapeño and cook for about five minutes.
Add the pork and cook till the pork is no longer pink, chopping with a wooden spoon as you go.
Stir in the tomato sauce, paste, corn, beans, cumin, allspice, chili powder, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, cornmeal, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally.
For the cornbread batter, combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Add the butter, milk and egg. Stir until just combined. Add the cheese and chili peppers.
Place the filling in the baking dish and dollop the cornbread on top of the filling, spreading it out as you go. If you can’t cover the whole top of the pie, then fill in the holes with grated cheese.
Bake for 35 minutes or until the crust is baked and the filling is bubbling.
Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a cold beer.
My husband is back on his South Beach Diet kick, which is always fun for me because I get to try to cook yummy carb-free food. Months ago I found a recipe for chicken roll-ups with roasted red peppers, feta and pistachios with some sort of a lemon yogurt sauce. I was originally going to make this recipe, but I had to wing it when the lemon zest made the yogurt curdle. The sauce went down the drain and what I came up with instead was deeeelightful. My husband is always positive about my cooking, but tonight he said the veggies were the best he’d ever tasted.
Ingredients
Two boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2-4 roasted red peppers (jarred or make them yourself)
1/2 cup shelled pistachios, coarsely ground
1 tsp. smoked paprika
salt and pepper
1/2 cup crumbled feta
2 Tbs. olive oil
For the veggie side:
1 zucchini
1 golden zucchini (or whatever that yellow kind is that’s always next to the zucchini)
6 mushrooms
3 mini yellow and orange bell peppers
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp. fresh thyme
1 tsp. lemon zest
1/4 cup chicken stock
smoked paprika
salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix together the pistachio crumbs, feta, olive oil, paprika, salt and pepper till you have a tasty paste. Pat dry the red peppers. Rinse and pat dry the chicken breasts. Cut a deep slit in each breast as though you were going to butterfly them, but don’t cut all the way through. Stuff each breast with red pepper and the feta mixture. Close the slit with two toothpicks. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan over medium high heat and brown the chicken on each side. Place into a baking pan and bake for 30 minutes. Remove toothpicks and let sit five minutes before serving.
Meanwhile, chop the zucchini into 1-inch pieces. Slice the mushrooms and mini peppers. In the same pan you browned the chicken, add the veggies, thyme and lemon zest. Cook the veggies for a few minutes then add the stock. Add the paprika, salt and pepper to taste and cook till the stock disappears and the veggies are soft. Top with crumbled feta.
Alaska Knit Nat 