Palak White Cheddar Pastries

Planning on throwing a party sometime soon? If you are then I suggest making these appetizers. If you’re not then you can make them alone and contemplate why you’re not invited to more dinner parties.

Tillamook dairy was kind enough to send me some of their delicious cheese. If you’ve never had Tillamook cheese before it makes store brand cheese seem like some sort of cheap rubber substitute they used in WWII. The sharpness of the white cheddar cuts right through the spinach and Indian spices, but doesn’t overpower them. The pastry, spinach, cheese and spices seem to form a team that works extremely well together, much like the “A Team,” but for copyright reasons let’s say “An a Team.”

Yields 18 pastries

• 2 bags of packaged Spinach chopped
• 1/4 cup Water
• 1/2 Lemon juiced
• 2 Tomatoes diced
• 1 Large Onion diced
• 4 cloves Garlic diced
• 1 teaspoon Olive Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon Ginger ground
• 1/2 teaspoon Coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 2 teaspoon Garam Masala
• 1 Tablespoon Greek Yogurt
• 8 oz. Tillamook Vintage White Cheddar cubed
• 1 Egg whisked
• 1 package (9 x 9.5 in) Puff Pastry* thawed

1. Preheat the oven to 400°. Add the spinach, water, and lemon juice to a medium-sized sauce pan, cover and heat over medium heat until all the leaves have wilted down.
2. While the spinach is cooking, add the onions, garlic, and olive oil to a large skillet and cook over medium heat until the onions have slightly caramelized. Add the spices to the onions. After cooking for 3-5 minutes stir in the tomatoes and yogurt. Cook for another 5 minutes. Add the onion and tomato mixture to the spinach. Let simmer for yet another 5 minutes.
3. Use a food processor to blend until you get the consistency of chunky peanut butter.
4. Cut the pastries into 1 x 1 inch squares. place evenly on a greased cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place two cheese cubes at the center of each pastry square. Scoop 1 Teaspoon of the spinach on top of each square.
5. Pinch two opposite edges of the square together, as pictured below. Brush each folded pastry with the whisked egg. Bake at 400° until golden brown, which should be about 15 minutes.
6. Serve with rice and enjoy!

*Yes, I use store-bought puff pastry. In the words of the greatest poet of our generation, “ain’t no one got time for that.”

Coconut Lime Basmati Rice

• 1 cup Basmati Rice
• 1 can Coconut Milk
• 1 Lime zested

1. Rinse the rice 3 times. Add everything to a rice cooker. Wait about 20 minutes. Boom you’re done.

Katy Weaver once again out doing herself with some outstanding photography.

Seafood Meatballs and Spaghetti

Yeah that’s right seafood meatballs and spaghetti. Let me guess when you clicked on the link you were expecting something simple, boring and slightly disgusting looking. It’s okay, you were wrong, we all mistakes in life. You can redeem yourself by drooling over these fantastic photos that Katy took and by giving this recipe a shot at home. 

Seafood Meatballs

• 1/2 lbs cooked Salmon
• 1/4 lbs cooked Crab Meat
• 1/4 lbs cooked Clam Meat
• 1/2 cup Breadcrumbs (1/4 cup goes into the balls and 1/4 cup use to roll the meatballs in)
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Tablespoons Mayo
• Spicy Brown Mustard
• 1 Lemon zested and juiced
• 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 1 Tablespoon Olive oil

1. Odds are that you’ll be able to find cooked crab and clam meat at your local grocery store, but unable to find cooked salmon. To cook the salmon I just heated the oven to 375, cut the salmon fillet in half and coated it in olive oil, salt and lemon juice. I found these cool cedar wraps next to the seafood section of my grocery store that worked well to keep the fish moist while it cooked. Bake the salmon wrapped in the cedar for about 10 minutes or until fully cooked.
2. Add all the ingredients listed above into a large mixing bowl and mix with your hands. No you can’t use a spoon. 
3. Form the mixture into a small balls about an inch in diameter. Once the meat is balled, roll the little spheres in the remaining breadcrumbs. Place the balls in casserole pan and bake at 375 until golden brown. Should be about 20 minutes, be sure to turn the balls halfway through cooking.
4. Plate the balls of seafood on top of cooked spaghetti (use the instructions on the box, but add way more salt to water than what they recommend) and drizzle on these sauces. 

Pesto

• 1/4 cup Pine Nuts
• 7 sprigs of Fresh Basil
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 lemon zested and juiced
• 3 Cloves Garlic
• 1 teaspoon Salt

1. Throw all the ingredients into a food processor and blend until smoothish. Should be about 45 seconds or so.

Sweet Onion Tomato Sauce

• 1 large Sweet Onion
• 6 Roma Tomatoes diced
• 2 cloves Garlic minced
• 2 Tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1/4 cup Wine (I recommend a full bodied red wine, and not a sweet wine)
• 1 Lemon (you’ll never guess what you’re going to do to the lemon) zested and juiced
• 1 teaspoon Molasses
• 1 teaspoon Poppy Seeds
• 1 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
• 1 heaping teaspoon Italian Seasoning

1. Add the olive oil, onion, and garlic to a medium sized sauce pan. Cover and sweat the onions until tender while stirring occasionally. Stir in the tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients cook for another 10 minutes and stir occasionally to avoid burning. 
3. Use a hand mixer to blend all the large pieces of tomatoes and onion together. Blend until all the large chunks are pretty much gone. Let the sauce simmer until the meatballs are done. Once everything is plated, I recommend squeezing a lemon on top of the dish.

Sure I could have just made regular meatballs and spaghetti, but that would have been boring. This blog is all about having fun with food and trying new things out. In the same vein of thinking, I could have just made one sauce to go on the meatballs, but the flavor contrast between the two couldn’t be replaced with anything else. Enjoy!

I need to step up my writing and cooking skills a peg or four, because Katy Weaver keeps knocking it out of the park with all these photos.

Carne Asada Tacos

Sometimes in life you have to strip down, whether it’s going skinny dipping, refinishing hardwood furniture or simplifying a dish. Instead of doing an infusion or adding some interesting ingredient I decided simplicity would be the best route to take.

Even if it’s slightly cold and cloudy, eat this meal outside the comfort of your dining room that’s cooled with centralized air and set up the picnic table. Oh you live in an apartment? Open a window while you eat, it’s summer, enjoy the nice weather while it’s here.

Sangria

Yields almost enough to forget your troubles

• 1 bottle Red Wine opened (I went with the cheapest merlot I could find)
• 2 liters of Ginger Ale
• 1 Orange sliced
• 1 Lemon sliced
• 2 Limes sliced
• 1 Apple sliced
• 1 Peach sliced
• 1 shot Triple Sec 
• 2 shots of White whiskey

1. Cut up the fruit and add everything to whatever samovar you have laying around.
2. Quick note: I used white whiskey, because it was laying around. Bourbon works just as well.
3. Stir it up a bit and serve.

Homemade Chips & Salsa

Chips

• 6 Corn Tortillas
• Olive Oil
• Salt

Salsa

• 4 Tomatoes diced
• 3/4 medium sized Onion diced
• 2 tablespoons of minced Garlic
• 2 Jalapeños diced  
• 1 Lime juiced
• 2 small sprigs of Fresh Parsley finely chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon Caribbean Jerk Seasoning

1. Pour enough olive oil into a skillet to make a shallow pool, heat over medium. Cook the pieces of tortilla until golden brown on each side. Flip as necessary. This is a very fast process, so keep an eye on them. To drain, place the chips on a cooling rack over paper towels. 
2. Make the salsa by adding all the cut-up vegetables in a medium-sized bowl along with the spices, stir until well mixed.

Carne Asada Taco

Serves two very hungry people

• 1 lbs. Skirt Steak
• 1 teaspoon Olive Oil
• a pinch of Salt
• 2 Jalapeños
• 4 Green Onions
• 6 Corn Tortilla
• Hot sauce

1. Rev up your grill. 
2. To get the most out of your meat, pound it. Pounding your meat will make it flatter and therefor it will have more surface area, which will allow it cook faster, resulting in a more tender piece of steak. Lay some plastic wrap on the kitchen counter, enough to span the length of the steak strips. Lay another layer of wrap over top. You can use anything heavy to pound the meat, even a triple sec bottle.
3. Once the steak is flattened, but not pulverized, throw it in a mixing bowl and drizzle the olive oil over top and add the salt. Massage the oil and salt into the steak with your hands. Yes your hands, it won’t kill you, unless your allergic to beef. And if you are allergic to beef, why the hell are you making these tacos?
4. Add the steak, onions and jalapeños to the grill. Flip the onions and the peppers as needed to make sure they don’t burn. Only cook the steak a few minutes on each side, keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn.
5. Once the vegetables are grilled and the steak is done (and yes that means it’s still a little pink on the inside), let the steak sit for 10 minutes. Cut into strips and place on warm corn tortillas with the salsa and hot sauce. Serve with chips & salsa, sour cream and sangria.

Summer is all about simplicity isn’t it? It’s the season of taking some time off and spending time in the wilderness away from everything that’s complex and stressful. Food should be simple too, especially summer fare. Be sure to read next week’s post, I’m making something crazy and elaborate.

All these wonderfully colorful photos by Katy Weaver

Cactus Stir Fry and White Whiskey Margaritas

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about fresh Summer dishes? That’s right, Thai-Mexican fusion and white whiskey margaritas. Before you dismiss these soon-to-be summer classics, you should remind yourself that the blog you’re reading once made carrot pie for a post. 

Sure we could have made separate posts for both the cocktail and the meal, but they played so nicely with each other we couldn’t keep them apart. The stir fry and noodles are heavy enough to be filling, but still light enough for a summer dinner that doesn’t strike an evening stroll around the neighborhood from the agenda. Meanwhile the margarita is so refreshing it could be drank like water, but as a medical novice I would advise you not to drink it like water, unless you want to reach a Snookie level of drunk.

White Whiskey Margarita

Yields 1 drink

• 1 1/2 limes juiced
• 1/2 shot Triple Sec
• 1 shot White Whiskey
• 1 cup Ice

For the rim:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• zest of 1 lime

1. Pour the lime juice, triple sec, whiskey into a pint glass. Add the ice to the glass. If you don’t have a shaker I recommend using a red Solo cup as a lid, and not just because it’s classy. This technique works so well I’m expecting my future offsprings to pass this down for many generations to come. Shake, don’t stir.
2. Use the squeezed lime to rim the glass with the juice. On a small plate mix the zest and the sugar together with your fingers to infuse the grains of cane with the sent of lime. Dip the wet edged glass into the sugar mixture. 
3. Pour the contents of the drink into the sugar rimmed cup.
4. Drink and be surprised how refreshing this drink is on a sticky summer evening.

Cactus Stir Fry w/ Curry Rice Noodles

Yields 3 servings (4 if you’re not that hungry)

• 2 Cactus paddles julienned
• 2 large Chicken Breasts cut into strips
• 1 Green Bell Pepper julienned
• 1 Jalapeño sliced
• 1/2 Red Onion julienned
• 1 Tablespoon Garlic minced
• Bean Sprouts
• Olive Oil
• Black Sesame seeds (optional)

Chicken Marinade

• Splash of triple sec
• 1 Lime juiced and zested
• 1/2 teaspoon Garlic salt
• 1 1/2 tablespoon Soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon Garlic minced

1. Find a medium sized mixing bowl, a tupperware bowl or even an empty Cool-Whip container and add the chicken and the marinade. Make sure everything is well mixed in the container. Allow the chicken to absorb the flavors of the infused concoction while the rest of the meal is prepared.
2. Get your medium sized skillet to sauté the cactus. If you need a tutorial on cutting cactus, Pati’s Mexican Table has a fine how-to. Pour 1/2 tablespoon of the olive oil in the skillet and cook over medium heat. Do that thing with the skillet to flip them and add a pinch of salt. Cook until the gel oozing from the strips stops. Set aside and take off heat.
3. Saute the chicken and 1/4 of the onions over medium heat in a skillet until the chicken looks done, about 7 minutes or so. Take off heat. Find a saucier, put it over medium heat, add 1/2 teaspoon olive oil and all of your vegetables, except for the bean sprouts. Cook for 3 minutes then add the chicken and cactus. Stir and mix all the contents well. Drain any excess liquid and continue cooking for another 5 minutes. 

Curry Rice Noodles

• 1 can Coconut Milk opened
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Red Curry Paste
• 1/4 teaspoon Fish Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Brown Sugar
• 4 oz. Thin Rice Noodles
• 1/4 cup Water

1. Add all the ingredients above except for the noodles in a sauce pan and heat over medium high until it reaches a boil. Add the noodels as best you can and cook in the sauce until they become soft and have all the characteristics of cooked noodles.
2. To plate the dish place the noodles in the bottom of a bowl or you can even use a plate with a nice bevel to it. Then top with the stir fried chicken, cactus and vegetables. If you’re feeling fancy you can even add bean sprouts and black sesame seeds on top of the dish.

What are you waiting for? Go out to your local farmer’s market and pick up anything that catches your eye, and make a stir fry out of it. Summer is for fun and adventurous, venture out into the world and see what it has to offer besides the status quo. Enjoy!

Once again Katy Weaver has outdone herself with these stunning photos.