caramel mix

Yummy note:
So this recipe is one of those snack mixes that can be thrown together quick and easy, as it doesn't have a lot of prep time. The real investment in it is the baking time. Every fall, I really see this snack mix in and around a lot of places. I think just about every pumpkin or apple orchard farm, I've been to, has this mix for sale for a little too much money than I'd like to spend. Really it doesn't cost that much to make a whole batch of these sweet and salty treats! Plus, you can then add whatever type of additional add-ins you'd like to the puffed corn for an additional treat ;)
















Ingredients:

1 (8 oz.) bag "Old Dutch Puff Corn Curls" or Cheetos makes a buttered puffs version too
1/2 pound butter (can use margarine, but doesn't taste as good :)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon baking soda

Additional add-ins: may also add in regular popcorn, cereal, pretzels, or other nuts to this mix. Note, if you do add in a great amount of add-ins, you might want to make more caramel mixture to cover your treats well.


Directions:

Place butter sugar and corn syrup in a 2-quart saucepan and cook together for about 2 minutes.















Bring to a slight bubble/boil. Next, add 1 teaspoon baking soda to mixture. This will cause mixture to foam, so using that bigger saucepan is helpful.















Place corn curls/puffs in large roaster pan. Pour caramel mixture over corn curls and stir until mixed.















Place in 250 degree oven for 45 minutes. Stir at least every 15 minutes. Remove from oven and pour on wax paper and break apart. Enjoy!!

mojo de ajo (aka delicious garlic olive oil)

Yummy note:
I was watching Mexico-One Plate at a Time show by Rick Bayless the other day and he was making this golden-colored garlic infused olive oil and it looked so easy to make and versatile, I had to try and make it. Surprisingly it was very simple to make, I just needed some time to bake it. It definitely made my kitchen smell garlicky and delicious. This garlic olive oil, Bayless called Mojo de Ajo, was worth the time to make ahead of time, as it has helped me save some time in a few other dishes later on when I've used the mojo de ajo. It has helped me get a meal thrown together very quickly, such as using it in place of anywhere it suggests using olive oil or a marinade. I've added it to pasta, chicken, breadsticks, and I'm sure you could use it in a few more of your favorite dishes too. It really gives you an added nice roasted garlic flavor without spending the time in the meal you are trying to get thrown together quickly.

Mojo de Ajo

Ingredients:

4 heads garlic (about 1 3/4 cups), peeled
2 cups extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup fresh lime juice

Directions:
Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare and peel garlic (can be done by smashing the garlic against side of a knife to release the clove from the skin lightly). Stir together the garlic, olive oil, and salt in an 8x8-inch baking pan. Place into oven and bake for about 45 minutes, or until the garlic is soft and light brown. Next, add the lime juice and stir. Put back into the oven and bake for an additional 20 minutes to continue baking. Next, remove mixture from oven, and mash the garlic into pieces, until broken apart. Pour the mixture into a covered storage container and refrigerate it until ready to use. The mojo will last for up to three months when refrigerated. This makes about 2-3 cups of mojo de ajo. Note, original recipe here: http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/view?recipeID=244

Quick Muffins

Yummy note: Lately, I have been loving breakfast breads. Anything in a loaf or a muffin is good in my eyes. So I found a quick easy homemade muffin recipe that really didn't take that long at all to throw together. I think I found it on cooks.com website, and then tweaked it a little. Honestly, I am a little harsh on myself and I think I need to add a bit more flavoring to the batter at the end, but all in all it was a nice simple and easy recipe to execute.

Quick Muffins

Ingredients:
2 c. self-rising flour, sifted
(Note: If you don't have the self-rising flour, you need to substitute it with these ingredients instead: 1 c. all purpose flour, 1 1/2 tsp. of baking powder, plus 1/4 tsp. of salt)
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
1/2 c. sugar
3/4 c. milk
1/4 c. orange juice
1 beaten egg
2 - 2 1/2 c. berries (I used a frozen berry mix, but you could add fresh ones if available.)

Directions:
Combine egg, oil, milk, orange juice, and sugar. Add the sifted flour and stir until smooth. Next, stir in fruit and mix well. If using the frozen fruit, let the berries thaw a bit before adding them into the batter. At this point, I wish I would have added some more maybe like lemon or orange zest into the batter to make the flavor pop a little more, so I would suggest that in yours.

Next, pour muffin batter into paper liners in a muffin/cupcake pan and fill about 2/3 full.

Bake for 25 minutes at 400 degrees. Makes roughly 18 or so muffins, depending on the size of your muffins.

s'more fudge

Yummy note:
Summer evenings and warm weather makes you think of what other than s'mores. So going with that theme, I wanted to make s'mores, but inside where it was nice and cool :) Speaking of staying nice and cool, I really didn't want to do anything crazy or turn on my oven again, so I needed a recipe to either on the stove or in the microwave. Next dilemma I had was I had no big marshmallows or any chocolate bars! what?! I know, insane. So what I did have was graham crackers, mini marshmallows, and chocolate chips. So the start of s'mores fudge begins.

Ingredients:
18-oz semisweet chocolate chips (or about 3 cups)
14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup mini marshmallows
1 cup chopped graham crackers

Directions:
Line an 8-inch square pan with aluminum foil and then spray with a cooking spray or grease foil with little bit of butter. Melt the the chocolate chips and the condensed milk together in a heavy saucepan (or in a double boiler) over low heat, stirring constantly, until melted and smooth.



Remove from heat; let cool 1-2 minutes, then stir in vanilla. Cool for about another minute and then add in the cups of the marshmallows and graham cracker pieces.



Stir until incorporated together and spread into your prepared pan. Refrigerate about 3 hours or until firm. To cut pieces of fudge easily, invert pan and peel off foil from fudge, and cut in 1-inch pieces.

Chicken BLT salad with Avocado Dressing

Yummy note:

Since the weather the last month or so has been just so sweltering hot, I hate turning on the oven some nights to prepare a meal, so we've been going with a few more salad options. We grill out quite a bit, so we had some nice meat and then add it to a salad for a refreshing cool crispy meal. I had picked up some nice looking tomatoes and some hearty bacon the other day at the store with the intentions of making BLTs. But instead, I had some leftover grilled chicken from the night before, and decided to toss it all together as a nice salad instead. It worked awesome. So here's my newest creation, a Chicken BLT salad with Avocado Dressing!

Chicken BLT salad with Avocado Dressing

Chicken BLT Salad

about 3 cups lettuce

2-3 medium tomatoes, cut into small wedges

1/2 pound bacon (about a half a package), cooked and crumbled

1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup croutons

2-3 chicken breasts, sliced

Prepare bacon and cook until done. Reserve some of the bacon drippings for the dressing if you'd like. Crumble bacon a bit and set aside. Continue making the avocado dressing as noted below.

If you don't have chicken already prepared or leftover, grill off a few chicken breasts for the salad, while your dressing is resting.

In a large bowl, toss lettuce, tomatoes, and bacon together. At this point, to your preference, add the avocado dressing now, or wait to add it at the end, all depending how you'd like to incorporate it. Finish the salad and top with your chicken, croutons, and cheese.

Avocado Dressing

1 avocado

1 tsp onion flakes

1/4 cup milk (may need to add more depending on how thick/thin you like the dressing)

4 Tbsp sour cream

1/2 lime (juiced)

1/2 cup cilantro leaves

s salt and pepper to taste

* Optional: For more flavor, add a tsp or so of your bacon drippings (or bits) from the pan.

Prepare avocado and chop into pieces. Cream the avocado, either by hand or in a blender/food processor. Add in the rest of the ingredients, and mix until smooth. Chill for atleast 1/2 hour before serving. Note: Can keep leftover dressing in the refrigerator for about a day or two.

Tropical Beach Ceviche

Yummy note:

This week the recipe I'm featuring is not one of my own, but one of my favorite chefs, Rick Bayless. If any of you are on Twitter and are following Rick Bayless (@Rick_Bayless), you might know that he has a Fiesta at Rick's Twitter content going on now and running until the next few weeks I believe. http://www.rickbayless.com/news/view?articleID=152 Basically he will post a 140-character recipe from his newest book. This week the featured recipe was Tropical Beach Ceviche. This is what you had to work with: "8oz slicd raw scallops+1c grapefrt j:45 min.Drain;blend 2/3c juice,1-2 chipotles,4 rstd grlc,2T br sgr.Mix w scal, red on,trop fruit,jicama" -- Below is my rendition of the Original recipe that I did and submitted for the contest this week. Obviously I was a bit off the visual mark as I think I needed to add more of the chipotle sauce to my dish, as that is what most of the winners are shown with more sauce http://www.rickbayless.com/blog/?p=97#more-97. Oh well! It was still a fun experiment.

On a side note, my girlfriend Mandi (under Jeff F.) placed 2nd in the Rick Bayless contest a few weeks ago! Great job! http://www.rickbayless.com/blog/?p=22 My same friend, also braved the long lines the other night at the bookstore to meet Rick and score me a fabulous, signed copy of his latest book. Thanks again, Mandi, for snagging me a copy!

Tropical Beach Ceviche

Ingredients:

8 ounces raw shrimp (substituted fresh raw shrimp instead of the sea scallops)

1 cup fresh grapefruit juice

about a can of chipotle chiles en adobo sauce

several tablespoons of prepared chopped/minced roasted garlic

2 tablespoons brown sugar

dash of salt

2 cups diced tropical fruit (Instead of buying the mango, pineapple, papaya separately, I just bought a prepackaged jar of like a Dole tropical fruit fresh mixture located in the refrigerator section at the store. This was a nice time saver and saves some money, too.)

1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced

1 small jicama (about a cup peeled and diced)

special food note:

I didn't do a "true" ceviche on this, as I'm a bit crazy with the raw fish unless it is a sashimi or sushi grade, so I slightly precooked the raw shrimp. While in a true ceviche, the acidic juice marinade "cooks" the proteins, it doesn't really kill the potential bacteria. Because this is a shellfish, I decided to be a bit more safe than sorry.

Directions:
What I did first, I slightly cooked the shrimp in boiling water for about 2 minutes, just until the shrimp started to get a little pink. Next, I drained the shrimp and ran cool water over them. Next, chop the shrimp into about more bite-sized pieces, and add shrimp into a small glass or stainless steel bowl. Marinate the shrimp in the grapefruit juice and cover in refrigerator for about 30-45 minutes.

Next, I opened the canned chipotle chiles and diced/chopped well and placed them in a separate bowl with the prepared garlic and brown sugar. Mix all ingredients well with a fork, or if you'd like, place them in a blender to make smooth. Next, drain the shrimp and place about 2/3 cup of the juice into the chipotle mixture. Next finish off with a dash of salt, chopped fruit, diced onion, jicama, and shrimp and toss all ingredients together. Refrigerate your ceviche until ready to eat or enjoy as it is right away.

Easy homemade croutons

Yummy note: Wondering what to do with that leftover bread? Don't want to throw it away or take a lot of time making another dish with it in there, then this is your recipe! I love these homemade croutons, as they are nice and crispy, yet tender to the fork when you try and pick them up in your salad. What's worse then trying to get that crouton on your fork and all it does it break into a bunch of tiny pieces or worse yet, like me, if you have a slight clumsy notion, you'll send it shooting across the table. :) This recipe is perfect for avoiding those issues, plus it's quick and easy to make these homemade croutons to add to your meal.

Ingredients:
about 3 cups of bread cubes (maybe a half loaf of bread or 6 slices or so) (can use any type of bread, just as long as it is slightly dried out, or if it is a fresher bread still, throw it in the oven at 300-350 degrees for a few minutes to toast up a little before using)
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder or crushed garlic
2-3 tsp assorted flavored herbs - such as oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, or parsley
1/8 to a 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (if desired for a cheesy crouton)
salt and pepper to taste





Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut the bread into cubes, about 1/2 inch to 1 inch sizes. (Again, if bread still seems a bit more soft, toss it in the oven for a few minutes before to start drying it out.) In a baking pan, like a 9x13 cake pan, add melted butter, olive oil, and seasonings. Stir together. Next, in the baking pan, toss bread cubes into butter/oil mixture and lightly coat. Add any other additional seasonings (like salt and pepper) if you wish. Once cubes are evenly and lightly coated, put croutons back into the oven and bake for about 20 minutes until bread is golden and crunchy. Toss cubes several times during baking to ensure even baking of croutons. In the last 5 minutes or so, add the Parmesan cheese, if desired. Try not to add it too early on, or else it might burn on a bit. Let croutons cool and store in a plastic container or a plastic bag. They last up to about a week unrefrigerated or you can store in the refrigerator to last about 2 weeks.