Tag: recipes

Mediterranean Shrimp and Garbanzo Bean Salad

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We’re raiding the pantry a lot these days (I can’t help but giggle at “pantry raid”). In that way, this pandemic has been helpful in getting us to save money by “shopping” our freezer and cupboards. The other day, I found a can of garbanzo beans and some frozen shrimp. A slightly unlikely combo, I created an absolutely delicious and totally easy main dish Mediterranean Shrimp and Garbanzo Bean Salad.

Saute or grill shrimp to make this Mediterranean Shrimp and Garbanzo Bean Salad.
I wish I had a cooking surface this big! A skillet, griddle, or grill can easily be used to cook the shrimp. Photo by Pixabay.

Chilled Shrimp and Garbanzo Bean Salad

Ingredients

Salad:

1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 lb. frozen shrimp, shells off
1 cucumber (preferably an English cucumber because it has fewer seeds, diced
1 pint cherry tomatoes or 1 large tomato, diced.

Dressing:

6 TBS olive oil
3 TBS fresh lemon juice (could sub lime juice, red wine vinegar, or rice wine vinegar)
2 TBS (approximately) fresh parsley, diced up (see trick below)
1 TBS fresh cilantro (optional), diced

Use cherry tomatoes, cut in half, or diced tomatoes for this Mediterranean Garbanzo Bean Salad.
Slice cherry or grape tomatoes in half, or dice a regular tomato for use in this salad. Photo by Pixabay.

Method

Place the garbanzo beans, tomatoes and cucumbers in a serving bowl.

Saute the shrimp in a little olive oil until they turn pink. Remove from the pan and add to the salad bowl.

Mix the dressing and pour SOME over the salad. Toss the mixture to coat. Serve the dressing on the table in case someone wants to add more. Serve with salt and pepper for people to add as they wish.

The unused dressing will keep in the fridge for a few days.

Variations:
1. Add other vegetables like diced onion, shredded carrot, diced celery, red/yellow/or orange peppers, or spinach. You can certainly add salad greens too. You can also switch out white beans for garbanzos, or even use both for extra protein.

2. Add a little Feta cheese or Goat cheese to amp up the Mediterranean flavor. If you aren’t sure your fellow diners would enjoy either one, serve it at the table for them to add. If you add either one before serving, the acid in the juice or vinegar will start to break down the cheese a little, helping it “spread” around a little, becoming part of the dressing which can be wonderful.

3. Serve without salad greens but spoon the mixture over a bed of rice, couscous, bulgar wheat, yellow lentils or any other grain or legume you like. The salad is also good served with skillet-warmed pita bread.

Tip for chopping herbs: I learned this from Martha Stewart – put the herbs in a cup, like a measuring cup or even just a drinking cup. Point your kitchen sheers in the cup and start snipping away. This way, everything gets cut but you don’t have any flying, or fleeing bits of herb to chase down as you chop.

The finished dish - Mediterranean Garbanzo Bean Salad with herb dressing.
The finished dish with an herby dressing. Sub/add your own choice of veggies or bases to make this entree salad your own. Photo by E.A.T.

Pig Skin Potatoes with Bacon Jam

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How could I NOT try something described as a: “Savory-sweet combination of bacon, brown sugar, caramelized onions, apple cider vinegar, and special seasonings that is the perfect companion for everything from tasty party apps to intimate meals” ? I mean, really! The fact that’s it’s called Bacon Jam completely sold me!

The folks at TBJ Gourmet were kind enough to send me a couple of jars of Bacon Jam to try. I’ve been adding them to all sorts of things because, as we all know, bacon makes everything better.

Pig Skin Potatoes with Bacon Jam recipe
Photo courtesy TBJ Gourmet.

Serves 12

Ingredients:

6 russet potatoes

6 oz Classic Bacon Jam

1 cup sour cream

1 bunch chives or scallions

12 oz shredded cheddar cheese

4 TBS butter

Method:

  1.  After thoroughly scrubbing the potatoes under water, toss in salt then pierce the potatoes with a fork, place on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 1 hour.
  2. Cut each potato in half lengthwise and gently scrape out the insides into a mixing bowl, taking care not to tear the shell. Leave a thin layer of potato in the skin for support. Lay the hollowed out potato shells on a baking sheet and spread ½ oz Classic Bacon Jam in each. Place back into the oven at 350 degrees for 5 minutes.
  3. Whip the potato insides with sour cream and butter, place into the shells, and top with shredded cheese. Place back into the oven at 350 degrees until the cheese is melted.
  4. Top with finely chopped scallions and serve warm.

For a few recipes you could make, along with this one, for a stellar party platter, visit our sister site, InGoodTasteDenver.com. And for even more recipes and to order TBJ Gourmet Bacon Jam, visit their website.

Please note: The E.A.T. (Everyone Around the Table) blog is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn a small amount of advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com while providing convenience for the reader.

Mama's Best Banana Bread, sliced.

Mama’s Best Banana Bread

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Whenever bananas start to get a little brown in our house, my husband always says, “Looks like we need to make banana bread.” Which means, I need to make banana bread. My Mom used to make fantastic banana bread but she always made it by hand which was kind of an ordeal – all that banana mashing and mixing. I found an easier way to make it, putting my own spin on it. My family loved it so we dubbed it Mama’s Best Banana Bread.

Mama’s Best Banana Bread slices beautifully. It’s also great toasted and spread with butter.

Mama’s Best Banana Bread

Makes two loaves (halve recipe if you only have 3 ripe bananas)

Ingredients:

6 ripe bananas (brown spotted on the peel and soft on the inside but still edible)*
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup safflower oil or coconut oil
4 eggs
Pinch of salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 3/4 cup unbleached white flour
1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional) or you can sub chocolate chips or do half walnuts and half chips

*If you don’t want to have to hop to it and make banana bread every time a few start to go brown, you can freeze them in a plastic zipper bag in sets of three (to make one loaf, cutting this recipe in half). But the trick is to freeze them when they are still rather firm. Go too far into overripeness and, when you go to thaw them, they turn to brown goo in the bag. So. Gross. There’s a fine line between perfect to freeze and too old so try to catch them at the point at which you’d still eat them.

Method:
1. Put the bananas in a Cuisineart and blend them until they are mush.

2. Add all of the other in order. You can pour all but the two flours through the feed tube, keeping the machine running.

3. Take the lid off to pour in the flours. The only reason I don’t pour them through the feed tube is that they tend to overflow the small cylinder. But if you’re more talented than I am and can make it happen, go for it!

4. Keep the motor running until everything is blended, stopping to scrape down the edges if you need to, with a spatula.

5. Also using the spatula, add the nuts and/or chocolate chips at this point just to mix them in. The Cuisineart might chop them up which you don’t want.

6. Pour the batter into two bread loaf pans that you’ve sprayed with nonstick spray.

7. Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. Then rotate the pans around and bake for another 30 minutes. Check for doneness by sticking a table knife in the center and pulling it out. If it comes out clean, you’re done! If it comes out with batter on it, cook it two minutes more and check again. It will continue baking a little more for a few minutes after taking it out.

8. Remove the baking pans from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes. Then turn them over and shake them a little. The loaves should come right out. Turn them right side up and let them cool completely before cutting into them. But when you do, use a serrated bread knife which will result in tidy slices that aren’t falling apart.

9. If you can resist the urge, the banana bread will taste even better the next day.

Be sure to let the bread cool completely before slicing into with a serrated bread knife. I’m not sure why one loaf split like that. Do you? Let me know. Of course, it didn’t effect the flavor at all. It just looks a little weird. But that’s par for the course when I’m cooking – because I’m a real person cooking real food in a real kitchen, just like you.

E.A.T. (EVERYONE AROUND THE TABLE) IS A PARTICIPANT IN THE AMAZON SERVICES LLC ASSOCIATES PROGRAM, AN AFFILIATE ADVERTISING PROGRAM DESIGNED TO PROVIDE A MEANS FOR SITES TO EARN A SMALL AMOUNT OF ADVERTISING FEES BY LINKING TO AMAZON.COM WHILE PROVIDING CONVENIENCE FOR THE READER.

Review: The Chef and the Slow Cooker

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Please note, this review originally appeared on our sister site, RealFoodTraveler.com. Cooking enthusiasts that you all are, I knew you’d want to learn about this great cookbook. — Edan Goode, editor, E.A.T. (Everyone Around the Table)

I love my crockpot, dearly. Yes, it forces me to deal with chopping, measuring and handling ingredients I don’t want to look at first thing in the morning. But it rewards me all day long, especially as mid-afternoon hangries attack and I think “What am I going to make for dinner?” “Remember, you have dinner cooking in the crockpot,” my memory reminds me. Yes! What a treat to know that my little crockpot has been slaving away for me and my family all day, or all afternoon, as the cooking time case may be. That’s why I had to have The Chef and the Slow Cooker cookbook by Hugh Acheson.

The book, "The Chef and the Slow Cooker."

I first became aware of Acheson through his work as culinary partner of the Punch Bowl Social restaurants. His take on southern cooking is all over the menu, to rave reviews. Robert Thompson, owner of Punch Bowl Social, said Acheson’s book, A New Turn in the South, is his go-to when he’s cooking at home. That said a lot to me, so I was anxious to check out Acheson’s newest book on slow cookery. To provide some context, Acheson is a James Beard award-winning chef, restaurateur and Top Chef Judge. He is the chef owner of several restaurants in Georgia including 5&10 and Empire State South. He founded Seed Life Skills, “a living, multimedia curriculum built to serve the needs of the modern Family & Consumer Sciences (founded as Home Economics) classroom, emphasizing retainable real life skills with topics including hands-on culinary instruction, conscious consumer economics, and D.I.Y. design principles,” according to his website. What an accomplished and honorable guy!

The first thing I discovered in Acheson’s cookbook, The Chef and the Slow Cooker, is snark. Snark, wit, irreverance, humor, aaaaalll over the place. The book is a pleasure to look through, what with periodic photos of Acheson spending quality time with his crockpot such as while soaking in the tub (don’t try that at home), playing the cello, or reading in a lawn chair, in the yard with his crockpot on a loooong extension chord. Silliness, sure, but it’s all part of the vibe of the book that has a slightly retro air. I appreciated that, while beautiful, the photographs and staging aren’t too perfect which can make a cookbook feel like a coffee table book and somewhat intimidating. The photos for the stock recipes show the liquid in Mason jars with “Beef,” etc. handwritten on scotch tape labels. Yes! I would totally do that!

Sections from The Chef and the Slow Cooker include:

Foundations – stocks, broths and a theory on the long cook

Porcine Dreams

Chicken, duck and other birds…plus eggs

Jams, butters, chutneys and one and a half desserts

The only bone I have to pick with this book is that a lot of the recipes take less than a whole day. So for those hoping to utilize the book to get something going before they leave for work in the morning, your selections are fewer. OR, just wait for the weekend, get everything in the crockpot mid-day, go off and have some fun, and dinner will be waiting for you. For me, a work-from-home type, the recipes were perfect, forcing me to take a mid-day break to prep things, but then allowing me to work a little later because my faithful crockpot was making me dinner like a good crockpot should!

I tried three recipes from the book and got rave reviews from my family. As you’ll see, these are real life photos from my real life cooking, not nearly as good looking as the pictures in the book. But they sure came out tasting fantastic!

Lentil Soup with Kale & Sour Cream was enhanced by shallots, carrot and celery, smoked paprika, and coriander seeds. It was brightened by lemon zest and sherry vinegar. After spending a little sauteeing time at the beginning, the meal cooked away for about three hours. I didn’t have sour cream but did dollop on some thick, plain yogurt.

 

Lentil Soup with Kale from The Chef and the Slow Cooker.

Chicken Stew with Farro, Tomatoes, Olives & Feta, which cooked for four hours, was my favorite of the three (all of which we loved). I’d never really tried making farro, thinking it was going to take too long to cook. But when thrown in with other ingredients that are slow-cooking, it’s no big deal, with everything coming ready at the same time. The addition of olives, tomatoes and the tang of feta over the other hot ingredients made the meal a pleasure to eat.

Chicken Stew with Farro, Tomatoes, Olives & Feta

Chicken Country Captain, was the most complex of the three slow cooker dishes I made. As Acheson points out, it is “a complex dish that travels the spice route of Southern history, featuring bright flavors that were introduced through the ports of Savannah and Charleston centuries ago.” Ingredients include poblano chile, ginger, curry, coconut milk and golden raisins. This was the one recipe I had to do a little shopping for. The others contained items I typically have in my pantry. They were all easy ingredients to get though, which meant I was stocked for making this dish again and again, which I have, since.

 

Chicken Country Captain from The Chef and the Slow Cooker.

 

The Chef and the Slow Cooker, by Hugh Acheson is a great book for someone who leads a busy life but wants to make their own meals (healthy ones at that), using real and interesting ingredients. The recipes are doable, family-friendly, yet sophisticated. The book is enjoyable, approachable and means a much less stressful end-of-the-day, just when we need to be able to kick back, relax and settle into a good meal and a good evening ahead. It’s available at bookstores and on Amazon, through this link.

 

 

Please note, this site is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Also, we received a copy of this cookbook to facilitiate our review. Rest assured, our opinions are our own and are true and honest reflections of our experience with this and other products. 

Roasted Chili Breakfast Tacos

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When I was a newlywed, my husband and I grew a garden in the backyard of our first house. Cherry tomatoes and anaheim peppers grew better than anything else. One hot, late summer day, we picked some peppers and tomatoes and took them in the house to try to do something with them for lunch. The tomatoes were still warm from the sun but we sliced an onion and our peppers and sauteed them both in a skillet with olive oil. We put the peppers, onions and tomatoes in a tortilla, wrapped them up and gobbled them up! It was so delicious and so easy. Best of all, we were eating food we had picked only 15 minutes before. It made us feel very good about our new gardening skills.

Now many years later, in a new house with no gardening space, it is our annual, late summer ritual to buy bags of roasted chilies from farmstands and farmers markets. Oh, that smell means “autumn” to me! We divvy up the chilies into smaller bags and freeze them so we can have that wonderful harvest flavor throughout the year, like in our Make-Ahead Pork Green Chili Burritos. But we always keep one bag out for breakfast the next day. In a slight variation on that wonderful first-garden-lunch, we often make this delicious breakfast. Just look at this monster taco-for-two we made this past weekend!
Roasted Chilies Breakfast Taco

Roasted Chili Breakfast Tacos
Serves 2

Ingredients:
4 roasted chilies with the stem and cap cut off.
3 large eggs
1/2 an onion (white, red, or yellow – your choice)
1 diced tomato or a hand ful of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
2 tortillas
salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Dice or slice the onion.
2. Dice or slice the peppers.
3. Heat some olive oil in a skillet.
4. Saute the onion until it is translucent.
5. Add the chiles to heat them through (they are already cooked).
6. Add the tomatoes to heat them through – you want to retain that freshly-picked texture.
7. Break the eggs into a small bowl or small plastic cup and whisk with a fork until they are well-blended. This will make for fluffier eggs.
8. Scramble the eggs and add salt and pepper to taste.
9. If you want, lay the tortillas over the skillet as the eggs are cooking (one at a time) to soften and warm them. Or heat them briefly in another skillet for a little char.
10. Place the tortillas on a plate and fill with the egg, tomato, onion and chili mixture.
11. Fold over and enjoy!

Or, try this – prompted by some of the ingredients falling out while we ate, we also thought that you could pour the egg OVER the cooked veggies, allowing the eggs to set, almost like a frittata. That way, you’d avoid any veggies falling out. Experiment! See how you like it best.

This is a delicious way to enjoy the bounty of chilies, whether they came from your garden or off the farm.

Bacon Tomato Tart – A Guest Blog

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Lynne Cobb - tomatoes and basil - bacon tomato tarte - meTo me, the best parts of a BLT sandwich are the bacon, tomato and bread. Sorry, lettuce, you just don’t thrill me. So when a fellow blogger, Lynne Cobb, shared her recipe for “My Super-Awesome Bacon Tart,” which combines those three perfect ingredients, I asked her if I could share the recipe with my E.A.T. readers. 

Lynne took advantage of the best of her garden’s tomatoes, basil and oregano when developing this recipe. If it’s too early in the season for a great harvest, try to find the best tomatoes and herbs you can from the market to make this recipe really shine. 

Lynne’s recipe calls for easy-to-find ingredients: 

(Preheat oven to 350 degrees.)

1 unbaked pie crust shell (homemade or purchased)

12 oz of bacon – cooked until crisp. (Reserve a few tablespoons of bacon drippings).

1/2 cup of chopped onion – saute in bacon drippings

6-8 oz of soft mozzarella, shredded or cubed

1 large tomato, sliced thin (Note, I didn’t have large, beautiful tomatoes from the garden so I used cherry tomatoes which worked fine)

A few leaves of basil, cut into thin strips

Crumble the bacon into pie shell. Layer it with the onions and mozzarella; add tomato and basil.

Mix together:

1 cup of milk, 4 eggs, salt, pepper and a few teaspoons of freshly chopped oregano. Pour over ingredients in pie shell.

Bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, then slice and enjoy. 

 

Tomato Bacon Tart - Mine - Lynne Cobb

 

 

Thank you Lynne, for sharing your recipe! My family loved it. It was the perfect meal with a nice salad on the side. The leftovers were great for breakfast too! 

 

 

Big Batch Bolognese

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My first taste of meat sauce for pasta came as a child when my Mom would use a name-brand seasoning packet which shall go nameless here. It was delicious but full of processed stuff. When I had a family of my own, I tried to recreate those flavors without all that processed stuff and came pretty darned close. Then, a while back, I was invited to dinner at a fancy restaurant in town where they made a fantastic bolognese sauce with pork, Italian sausage, beef and a touch of red wine. It was divine! So, I set about figuring out how to make THAT at home as well, feeling like I was graduating a bit from that first attempt at sauce.

I think I’ve done it and wanted to share the recipe with you. I’ve made this recipe numerous times now and it always draws raves. I love putting half the sauce in the freezer, knowing that on a busy night, I’ve got another great meal ready.

Big Batch Bolognese - finished

This makes a big batch of bolognese sauce! Our family of six can get two full meals out of it. It freezes beautifully (I think it actually benefits from some time chilling out) so depending on the size of your family, portion it off in freezer bags for easy defrosting and reheating. Also, note that this is not a saucy sauce that’s going to run over your plate. It’s thick and meant to cling to your pasta. I recommend spaghetti, fettuccine or wide papperadelle noodles or campanelle which is small but ruffly and catches bits of sauce beautifully.

Big Batch Bolognese
Serves up to 12

Ingredients:

1/2 yellow or red onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp. sugar
2 15-oz cans tomato sauce plus about 1/2 a can of water
1 6oz can tomato paste
1 pound ground beef – 80/20 or 90/10 lean/fat are fine
1lb bulk, hot Italian sausage
1 lb ground pork
Fresh or dried basil, oregano, rosemary – see below
1/4 cup red wine that you’d drink with the meal
Salt to taste
Pasta of your choice
Parmesan cheese to taste

 

Big Batch Bolognese - meat

Save time by cooking the meats, onions and garlic all together.

Instructions:

1. In a large pot, drizzle a little olive oil and heat until just before it starts to smoke.
2. Add the onion, garlic and meats, breaking them up and mixing all ingredients as they brown. Keep cooking until the fat diminishes. You want to have some left for flavor but you don’t want it to be swimming in it.
3. Carefully add the cans of tomato sauce and the tomato paste plus the 1/2 can of water. Keep the cans nearby in case you have to add a little more water as things thicken. This is a good way to also get every last bit of sauce out of the cans and prepare them for the recycling bin.
4. Stir everything together, breaking up the tomato paste.
5. At this point, add about 1/4 tsp. of each of the herbs. If you are using dried herbs, crumble them between your fingers and mix.  
6. Add the sugar and mix. This is an old trick to tang some of the acidity off of the tomato sauce and to give it a more well-rounded flavor. Add too much and you’ll ruin the sauce so be conservative. You can always add more. 
7. While the sauce is cooking over medium heat, get another big pot of salted water boiling and make the pasta. The sauce can be left waiting but the pasta can’t. 
8. Cook the sauce until it has thickened a bit, stirring frequently so that it doesn’t scorch on the bottom of the pan. 
9. A few minutes before serving, add another 1/4 tsp. of each of the herbs. I do this because I like the layering of herb flavors that have cooked with the dish and the ones that are more pronounced on their own. 
10. Sprinkle in some parmesan cheese and leave it out to serve with the finished meal.
11. Add the wine and stir. 
12. Drain your pasta and serve the sauce over it or mix the two together before serving if you’re going to eat it all. Don’t freeze pasta and sauce together – it doesn’t reheat well. 

Enjoy!