Paying it Forward

Remember when I said someone owes me an apology over the whole basil/cilantro pesto ordeal? I made some again  this weekend (if you're a psycho stalker, these dates don't match because I've been slacking on my blog and went back to fill in some spots) and made everyone I came in contact with taste it...I think...and this time, I even documented it with photos. I'm surprised I remembered, my brain was on autopilot from seeing Incubus and the Deftones the night before, and then getting up early b/c my aunt woke me up to tell me she'd come by in 3 hours...

I measured nothing...and it was fabulous!

 

 

I shared it with: my cousin Heather, her 2 oldest daughters, Justine, Eden, Lindz, Devo, Shelby, Manny, Elisa, Mina, Pasi, & Mike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okie Caviar

This is one of my favorite, FAVORITE things to throw together! Great to take to a party, use it as a condiment for Tex-Mex dishes, or just keep it in the fridge when your vegetarian friend comes to visit...it keeps people quiet when they're whining about being hungry and bitching because you're taking too long to get ready to go out for dinner (partly because they treat your house like a vacation resort and you are exhausted from the combination of preparing for them, entertaining them, feeding them, and then getting up early on their schedule to feed them again). 

You can make all sorts of variations of it, call it whatever kind of caviar you want, and do whatever the hell you want with it. I've never made it the same way twice, and it's always fabulous!

This time, I used:

2 cans black-eyed peas, 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained.
2 green bell peppers, 1 orange bell pepper, diced.
1/2 red onion, diced.
3 diced tomatoes or 2 C. halved grape tomatoes
1 can of corn, drained. I wanted to fire-roast some, but actually had to use cream-style corn b/c that's what I had!
1/2 bunch of washed, dried, cilantro leaves
Italian dressing. I made my own w/ EVOO & spices on hand.
S&P, minced garlic, jalapeño seasoning

Mix gently, cover & refrigerate :)

If I were making this for a home crowd, I'd put fresh avocados in it, but this was for an outdoor thing...in August...in Texas...nuff said?

Grillin' Season Hacks

I grill all year long, but some people only do it in summer months. These people are either mutants or Northerners, and sometimes, completely interchangeable.

According to the rules of an outdated society, only people with penises are allowed around the grill, as it's considered macho or manly to cook food over a direct flame, but far too emasculating for a man to cook on or anywhere near a stove. ***ROLLS EYES***

I revoked the man of the house's imaginary license to grill because he continually overcooked my steak. I like mine nearly blue...which means, brought up to temperature, with just a little sear on it--it's rarer than rare, basically, still mooing, as many people call it.  He had no idea what he was doing, but really, when does that stop people from doing anything??? I learned to cook on the grill strictly by trial & error, mostly error, but common sense will get you quite far and usually, I'd had so many beers & bloody Mary's by the time dinner was ready, I wasn't hungry anyway. 

Over the years, this is what I've learned:

Insecure males get all butthurt when you give them the slightest bit of advice on how to step up their grilling game (or any advice, for that matter).

Creating a 2-zone cooking environment while pre-heating the grill ensures greater grilling success.
1--high to medium high heat--this allows you to bring & keep the grill to temp without overcooking your food
2--low to zero heat--this is where your food will actually be cooked.  You may want to sear or mark your food, like a steak, for instance, on zone 1, then move it to 2, or cook your chicken on 2, then move it to 1 to crisp the skin. 

I actually prefer 3 zones, especially if I'm just cooking for two because I have to share a communal grill at my apartment complex, and I'm a highly social person, so I jibber-jabber a lot, leaving my food (sometimes too long) on the grill & the zero flame zone allows me to pull it over & examine it, rather than risk pulling it off prematurely & getting blood on my clean take away plates, which brings me to why I started this whole post inthefirstdamnplace!--cross-contamination & being earth friendly...

Having to tote all my utensils and plates down 3 flights of stairs, cook, and then safely get all of my grilled goodies back upstairs is made easier by using those little Styrofoam trays that grocery stores put your meat/vegetables/nuts in.  I don't wash or store the meat ones for risk of cooties, but when I open & season the meat, I slap it right back on it & cover, then toss it once the food goes on the grill. I do keep the ones that come with the nuts and vegetables washed, dried, and stacked in the pantry & use them for the cooked meat to bring home. They're also good to use for plates if you stay in the communal area and eat while playing Cards Against Humanity with your neighbors.

Rather a long-winded way to say, 'get more use out of your styro trays and help save the earth' but I don't see you sharing practical information for free.  You might, but I don't see it.

HATCH PEPPERS!!!

It's that time of year!!! Oh, and all the dishes you can make with them! The Central Market (H-E-B) flyer just arrived and it's loaded with all things hatch! Of course...the most delicious looking item I see...hatch and cheese corn rolls with melted gourmet butter with hatch chiles...DROOL!  Hatch: sausages, hummus, crab cakes, cheddar, rotisserie chicken, sourdough, marinated beef sirloin...and then...hatch pepper tortillas! I feel faint. And what about...catfish with hatch chile hush puppies?!?!?!

I have no idea what I'm going to make with them, as I haven't even gotten my hands on them yet...however...pretty sure I'm going to make good use of that cilantro infused cucumber vodka that's been staring back at me in the fridge lately. We made bloody Mary's with it, and as tasty as it was, it was akin to drinking salsa...It might be a concoction that, stuffed with edible items on a skewer like shrimp and avocado, serves dual purposes as a drink and an appetizer, but I'm just not feelin' it!

Stay tuned...

Omelet, Julia Child-style

I went to the library the other day and picked out a couple books, one being As Always, Julia; The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto. I didn't get very far before my A.D.D. got the best of me and something in the book prompted me to look up the episode of The French Chef about omelets on the Google Machine. Maybe it was the first episode mentioned in the book? Not sure. Something spurred it. The episode I found was Elegant Eggs, and she did make some beautiful eggs, a few of them being omelets, but the black and white film didn't do them any justice. Monochromatic food, meh. I'm old enough to remember seeing Julia on TV as a kid, but she was older then, and in color. Her voice was comical and strange when I was younger, now I find it somewhat charming, almost comforting.

I had always wondered how omelets were done enough on the inside to be edible without being crunchy on the outside. Never quite curious enough to investigate, or try it out myself, just 'wrinkle my forehead' curious.  In the past, if I wanted a medley of goodies on my eggs, I just scrambled or fried them and piled the additions on top.  But now, since eggs are a huge staple in my breakfast diet, I wanted to mix it up, spread my egg wings, if you will. No offense, chickens. Show me something cool, old school, Jules!

She did! I had envisioned the process all wrong.  I didn't realize you sort of scrambled it twice and just non-precisely folded it over. I thought you poured it out, magically flipped the entire thing, filled it, and folded it in half. Not so. I'd post a link, but if you don't have the attention span to go and look it up by yourself, you don't wave the attention span to watch the entire episode, it's about 20-something minutes long.

Mine was simple:
2 eggs, whisked
S&P
grape tomatoes, halved
fresh basil
sun-dried tomato and basil cheddar
(Julia suggested Swiss, but the cheddar was already shredded)

I did as she suggested, and wah-la, my very first omelet!

Peanut Butter Banana & Brothsicle Popsicles (for the Pibble)

A couple weeks ago, I made a Broth & Water popsicle for my pup's 4th Birthday celebration. It was odd shaped because I didn't use a mold, just clear plastic wrap, broth, water, and a popsicle stick, er, chopsticks from takeout, held up in a slender glass while it froze. It was a HUGE hit, he LOVED it and it was hilarious watching him partake of the frosty flavored goodness!

Today, I thought he should have some peanut butter banana popsicles! This would be ideal if you had some bananas nearing the end of their life, and rather than toss them, mix up a batch for the pooch now and have the audacity to wonder why he's a spoiled rotten brat later.

Mash your banana, mix peanut butter, slather it on a stick, wrap, & freeze.
I made them pretty small, maybe 1 & 1/2 T. of batter per stick to keep it manageable. Until he can develop opposable thumbs and hold his own popsicle, that's all he's getting!

They turned out pretty good, but not near as fun to watch him lap up his birthday brothsicle! 

Fakin' It...Potato Salad in a Pinch!

I had a nice brisket in the crockpot, about to be sauced & tossed on the grill, beans were baking, & I realized I had no potatoes for making potato salad!!!  I can't eat BAR-B-Q without potato salad!  That's some sort of crime against 'MERRICA!  So, in any situation like this, necessity is the mother of invention. Improvise! Stiff instant mashed potatoes, made by adding a little more potatoes than the directions called for, then add mustard, mayo, dill, deviled eggs, dash of celery salt, paprika and pickle relish...don't forget S & P, more pepper than salt...plus whatever you weirdoes (is that how you spell weirdo in the plural form? spell check says so...) put in your potato salad...and it's not half bad! The Big Guy rather fancied it! Success!

***That recipe was plucked from my previous blog & dated 4/18/14...a time when potato products were still legal in my household. They still make their way in occasionally, but when they do, I shame them with silent judgment and woeful disdain!

Nowadays, I use cauliflower for mashed potatoes, potato salad, I even replace rice for Chinese dishes with it! The Big Guy doesn't like cauliflower, but, I'm not a fan of diabetes, so... he has the choice of suffering through it, not eating it, or making the above. Today happens to be one of the days that I don't care if he ever eats again, which is a marked improvement from yesterday when I wanted to stab him repeatedly while prepping dinner. I think men can be the silliest of creatures at times, then one of them has to go and prove my theory by taunting a woman with a knife in her hand, dicing onions no less! I should probably make a note that all my Wushtof knives are dull...order a sharpening & honing steel. After all, getting stabbed with a dull knife is much more painful, and I don't want to hear any whining.

If you'd like to try it--cauliflower potato salad, that is, NOT stabbing your true love--just boil some salted water, dump in chopped cauli, cook 'til fork tender, drain well, very well...like EXTRA very well, and according to your taste, mash, whip, or beat into your preferred texture, as it tends to be a little grainy, then add your ingredients to taste. It would be awesome if I measured things for you, but I don't even do it for me, so...good luck!