Nectar of the gods or, Avocado Salsa

This recipe is awesome. AWESOME. I put the salsa over tilapia but it would also be great on hamburgers, with chicken, or as a side.

2 avocados, peeled, pitted, and chopped

1 large tomato, chopped

1/3 cup chopped onions

3 tbsp rice vinegar

2 tbsp lime juice

2 large-ish cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

Mix it all up. Cover it all up. Chill for 1 - 2 hours. Re-mix. And prepare to be blown away.

Summery Pasta Salad

Salad:

6 oz. tortellini, cooked and cooled

1 cup broccoli cooked and cooled*

1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed*

3/4 cherry tomatoes, halved

1/4 cup onion, chopped

1/4 cup parmesan cheese (you may want to have extra to sprinkle over the top when serving)

1/2 cup Italian dressing

Dressing:

2/3 cup mayo

2 tsp spicy brown mustard

1/2 tsp dill weed

salt and pepper to taste

Mix all salad ingredients together. *I find the easiest way to cook the peas and the brocoli is to throw them in for the last 2-3 minutes with the tortellini. Chill for 15 - 30 minutes. Mix together the ingredients for the dressing and gently stir in to salad. Chill for at least two more hours.

White Fish with Olives

Yes, I'm posting yet another recipe that my sister won't eat. I'm considered the picky eater in the family, oddly enough! Niki won't eat potatoes, sushi maki rolls (even the vegetarian ones), or fish. I refuse to eat certain flavor combinations and a lot of vegetables. And baby animals. And really spicy stuff. Okay, so maybe I'm pickier. Whatever!

I adapted this recipe from one that I found in a Real Simple magazine a few years ago. The original recipe was a bit too spicy (ahem), so I needed to tweak it a bit. Now for the part where I admit the way in which I screwed this recipe up the first time I made it: I used olives with pits still in them. Whoops! Kind of annoying, but not disastrous. So-- make sure you buy the pitted olives (the ones sold in the refrigerated section next to the fancy cheeses).

A few more notes: There's no need to use a lemon zester.... I didn't know we owned one, so I used a cheese grater, and I liked the zest that came from the grater better than the zest I got from the lemon zester when I made it the second time. This recipe serves 4 people, but make sure you have a substantial side dish and veggies to go with it. Go ahead and buy a dry white wine that you like because you will use barely any of it in this recipe.

Ingredients:

2 pounds white fish filets
3/4 cup dry white wine (like Sauvignon Blanc)
1/2 cup mixed olives (or kalamata olives)
Zest from one lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place fish in small roasting pan (or a casserole dish). Add enough wine to reach halfway up the sides of the fish. Scatter the olives around the fish and the lemon zest on top of the fish. Drizzle with the olive oil and season with the peppers and salt.

Roast until fish is cooked through and flakes easily with a fork (about 20 minutes). Remove dish from oven and sprinkle with the parsley.

***

When I made this recipe recently, our side dish was some insanely awesome foccacia bread I found in the bakery at Super Target. I highly recommend picking some up! Mmmmmm....

A Most Excellent Marinade

I got this recipe from my Mom. She used it for steak and, MMMMM BABY, was it delicious. I think it would also be good on chicken, pork, etc.

In a small mixing bowl whisk together the following...

2 TBS extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 C dry red wine

3 cloves garlic minced

3 TBS fresh minced parsely

1 TBS chopped fresh oregano

1 Bay leaf

1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

Place meat in bowl or bag and make sure you move it around in marinade. Do this over night. Grill meat without marinade.

A Link and A Question

Hi Ladies,
Sorry it's been so long without a recipe. However, rather than bore you with the littany of reasons why I haven't posted (the most honest of which being that I have been a lazy ass in the kitchen), I thought I would distract you with a link and a question.

First, the link. If you haven't already, check out Weelicious. There are a lot of great recipes for all ages, and they're EASY.

Now the question - how do you all store your recipes? Online? In paper? Mine are currently scattered around the house, and I end up forgetting what I have and reprinting a lot, which seems silly.

Hope you're all well!

German Potato Soup

I'm sitting here typing this as the fantastic smell of German Potato Soup is wafting down the stairs and making me wish is was dinner time right NOW! I am not posting a picture of it because it's not very attractive (most soups aren't). But believe me, it's AWESOME. If you leave out the bacon and use vegetable broth rather than beef broth, it is Kosher-friendly and vegetarian. The caraway seeds, nutmeg, and sour cream are the key ingredients. Mmmmmm....

Even though this recipe seems idiot-proof, I still managed to mess it up the first time I made it. It wasn't 100% my fault, though! I found the original recipe in "Best-Loved Slow Cooker Recipes", and my first attempt at cooking this soup uncovered a glaring typo in the book-- it called for 2 teaspoons of black pepper. Being the dutiful and very inexperienced non-chef that I am, I followed that recipe to a T, and we ended up with a soup that made my lips and tongue burn for hours afterward. Looking at the typical proportions of pepper to salt in other soup recipes, I figured out that the author most likely meant to type "1/2" rather than "2". The other goof I did was that I didn't know you're supposed to use the white part of the leek-- not the green part. We actually googled leeks and made sure that it wouldn't kill us to eat the green part. Luckily, the pepper problem WAY overshadowed the leek problem, and the soup still tasted good enough for us to want to make it again.

There seems to be a lot of chopping involved when you first read the recipe, but it goes really quickly (it takes maybe 20 minutes). I do all of the chopping while I cook the bacon; even though you don't add the bacon until right before you serve the soup, I like to get all of the cooking done at the same time.

So, here is the recipe that I adapted from the original printed recipe:

1 pound potatoes, diced (I leave the skins on)
4 cups beef broth
1 small onion, chopped
1 leek (the white part!!), trimmed and diced
2 carrots, diced
1 1/2 cups chopped cabbage
1/4 cup chopped parsley (or 2 tsp dried parsley)
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
a little less than 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup sour cream
1 pound bacon, cooked until very crispy and diced

Optional ingredient: celery (I think everything is better with celery.)

Combine all ingredients except the sour cream and bacon in crock pot. Cover and cook on Low for 8 to 10 hours or High for 4 to 5 hours. Remove and discard bay leaf. Stir in bacon pieces and sour cream. Serve and prepare to LOVE IT. Makes 4 servings (and any leftovers are fabulous for days afterwards).

Mud Balls

I was recently over at a friends house for a playdate and she was going to do a mini-cooking session with the kids for snack time. Was she crazy?! How inspirational! These Mud Balls looked delicious.....but I told her that I had given up sweets for Lent so I couldn't try them. Well, she declared that these were SNACKS not dessert. So, I ate one.....and I haven't stopped eating them. I have made them more times than I can count in the last couple of months! They were my Lent Cheat. They got me through. And once Lent was over, I was able to admit that they WERE indeed cookie-like-dessert. ;) But they have OATS and FLAX SEEDS in them, so they MUST be health food!!!! Right?! I think I will start adding flax seeds to random things, just so I can call it health food. Stay tuned for more recipes including flax seeds......

At any rate, Lent is over and I am still eating them. I love them. And the kids enjoy making Mud Balls too--messy and fun! And health food?! Woah. Can you handle it?

Here's what they call for:
1/4 cup of each of these things: ground flax seeds, sunflower seeds, chocolate chips, honey, and peanut butter
1/2 cup of oats

Put peanut butter and honey in microwave-safe bowl for one minute, stir. Add everything else to the bowl, mix it up, and then roll it into bite-size balls. Or have your kids do this part! Or just stick some of the Mud Ball mud in a bowl and eat it.....sometimes I do this.
Once rolled into balls, just put them on a cookie sheet and place it in the refrigerator. These won't last long so I don't even cover them.

Notes: I use chunky peanut butter, but you can use either. Flax seeds can be ground in a coffee bean grinder. Also, I always double this recipe when I'm making it. One batch is just not enough in my house!

Enjoy this "health food"! :)