What to do with a bunch of avocados about to turn?!?!

So you have a bunch of leftover avocados and don't know what to do with them?  Well, maybe this will give you an idea:

I had a bunch of veggies in the fridge that I needed to use up as well (cauliflower, red onion, serrano peppers, and broccoli) so I cranked the oven up to 425F and then set about washing the veggies.  I cut the onion, cauliflower and broccoli into chunks and put them in a large mixing bowl.  I tossed them in a little bit of olive oil and then put them on a large baking sheet.  

After 5 minutes I pulled out a couple of cilantro chicken sausages I found in the fridge (fresh from Whole Foods) and poked a hole in each and then tossed them into the oven on a baking tray.  I also put the serrano peppers (6 of them) onto a separate baking sheet and put them into the oven as well.

While everything was cooking, I whipped up a batch of avocado salsa:

1 avocado
2 roasted serrano peppers
1 plum tomato
1 lime
1 tsp olive oil
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch of pepper

Chop all ingredients, except the lime, (and the peppers since they are still cooking) and then squeeze 1/2 lime into the mix (whole lime if you have a really small one).  Add the oil, salt and pepper ...

At the 15 minute mark for the veggies (10 minutes for the sausage and peppers) I aggitaged the veggies and turned the peppers and sausages.  After ten more minutes I pulled out the peppers.  I took two of them and diced them (remove the seeds if you want the salsa to have less of a kick).  I put the diced peppers into the salsa and then stirred it well.  I took another avocado, cut it in half and then scooped it out, putting half on each plate.

At this point I pulled out the remaining items from the oven, the veggies went into a bowl (top with a little cheese) and the sausages were sliced and plated on top of the halved avocado.  Finally I rough chopped the remaining serrano peppers and put them in a ramekin on the table.  Easy, simple and used up two avocados ... enjoy!

More fun with food rings (Mexican style)

In my last post I talked about playing with food rings in a very simple way, but sometimes it's fun to get a little crazy with them too!

For this dinner, I filled the food ring twice, once with beans and rice and once with salsa, and then used a super thin slider that goes under the food ring to layer the second ring on top.  For the salsa I used avocado, lime juice and a touch of olive oil (and let it rest for a little while) in order to bind it together.  I then stacked the salsa on the rice to create a colorful and tasty centerpiece to serve with my flank steak.  Try it and enjoy!

Presentation School: Food Rings

Food rings are a fun way to present food that can be easily built upon.  You can try and do it with a cup, a bowl or a ramekin if you are pressed to ... but it tends to be difficult to compress food enough to hold it together, and then get it out.  The other option is to use a food ring with a press.

Shells got me one of these as a gift a while back and it got lost behind some things until we found it the other day and decided to have some fun with it.

The first thing to do is prepare whatever food it is that you want to shape, in this example I used black beans and rice.  I place the ring into the middle of the plate and spooned in rice until I had filled the ring up (caution that a metal ring can/will get hot depending on what you put in it so you might want a towel handy).

Next I placed the press on top of the food in the ring and pressed down lightly to make sure the rice was packed and would hold together.

Very gently then I slid the ring up and past the food press (be careful not to apply too much downward force while you're doing this or you'll cause the base to spread out where the ring has been moved away)/

 Once done you have a perfect ring (above) that you can plate around like the fish and veggies (below).  Give it a try and enjoy!

All buttered up and broiled ...

It is common knowledge that the most important ingredient in French cooking is butter, there is a reason for this.  For this dinner I decided to broil some bone in pork chops with plenty of butter to keep them moist.  I used my small counter top oven to prepare these ... I broiled for about 20 minutes (cooking time will depend on thickness) flipping once.  Each time a new side faced the broiler in got a pat of butter on top.  When I flipped the chops, I added a slice of red onion on top of the chop and then the butter on top of that.  Created a nice soft topper for the pork and imparted some of it's flavor while cooking.

I served the pork chops with yellow rice and beans and a brussel sprout and shiitake mushroom sautee.  Give it a try and enjoy!

Some fishy dinners ...

Shells and I continue to try and eat healthily and a key component of that is fish and greens.  Who says it has to be boring though?  He's a couple of fun presentations to spice it up.

Yellow rice and cannellini beans mixed together?  Yes, I know it sounds odd, but it makes for a great base that helps to add some substance to an otherwise light dinner.  In this case I topped it with a piece of broiled snapper and served it with sauteed kale.

I feel like the sweet potato often gets overlooked, but who doesn't love sweet potato fries?  For these guys I use a non-stick sheet pan with a light spray of Pam and then I bake them in the oven at 425F.  No oil or frying means they stay a lot healthier, and the 425F oven means the get crispy like fried ones would.  For this dinner I served the fries with some sauteed collard greens and a piece of broiled grouper.

Give one of these a try and enjoy!

Mexican Flank Steak

I know that I post dishes like this all the time, and really it's because they are both super easy and super tasty.  For this dinner I cranked out the entire thing in about 30 minutes with no prep ahead of time.  Ready to see how to do it?

Start:
00:00 - Start grill, or grill pan, over medium high heat
00:01 - Put 14.5oz can of black beans and package of yellow rice into pot, add about 1.5 cups of water and put, covered, on medium low heat.
00:03 - Wash peppers and tomatoes that you will put into the salsa, collect red onion, avocado and lime ... put all of the afore mentioned by a cutting board
00:04 - Put steak into a large ziplock baggie, sprinkle steak with salt, garlic pepper and some Magi sauce.  Toss the bag to mix well.
00:05 - Put steak on the grill
00:06 - Chop the salsa ingredients and put into a large mixing bowl ... squeeze the juice of the lime and add some salt and pepper ... stir well to combine all ingredients
00:10 - Stir the rice, give a 1/4 turn of the steak
00:11 - Have a sip of wine, time is looking good ...
00:12 - You're still hanging out at this point, so enjoy some more wine, set the table, don't forget to stir the rice every couple of minutes
00:15 - Flip the steak
00:20 - How's that rice looking?  At this point the water should be pretty much gone, kill the heat to the burner and leave the rice covered.
00:25 - Transfer the steak to a cutting board to allow it to rest for a couple of minutes (note that it will let some juices out, so you may want a board with an edge
00:28 - Slice the steak, remembering to cut against the grain with flank steak
00:29 - Plate the rice, then the steak and then top with the salsa ... enjoy!

Who's up for Mexican!?!?

I was wondering around Whole Foods in search of direction when it occurred to me ... that we hadn't done Mexican night in a while!  I pinged Shells and asked if she was up for making tortillas, she was and so off we went!

I can't take any credit for the actual tortilla making (except for the final cooking step), it's all Shells.  She starts by mixing masa (corn flour) and water into the consistency where she can shape it into dough balls and it won't break.

Once the dough is firmed up, she rolls it into small balls and then uses a tortilla press to flatten them out to the right thickness.

At this point it's my turn to take over, onto a cast iron skillet they go so that they can cook ... I like to get a nice brown char on both sides, but not too crispy.

Once the tortillas are cooked, they go into a cloth inside of a tortilla warmer.  This keeps them warm while cooking additional batches, and the little bit of steam that gets created inside keeps them malleable so that they won't break why you start using them.

For this dinner, we ate the tortillas with one of my a bunch of fun dishes.  I made a bubbling molcajete (beef, green sauce, onion ... topped with cheese at the end) and a batch of homemade chicken chorizo.  I served the dishes with guacamole, cotija cheese, fresh limes and an awesome pico that I made after first roasting all of the ingredients.  Hope you give some of this a try, enjoy!

It's cold outside ... time for comfort food

There are many derivatives on comfort food but everyone needs at least one go-to for those cold and rainy days when you just want to stay in, wrap up in a blanket and cook something that makes you feel all warm inside.  Today was one of those days so I headed to Whole Foods, ready to be inspired.  I wandered over to the meat counter and one of the first things I saw was ground Icelandic Lamb ... yep, Shepherd's Pie it was going to be.

Like more comfort food, Shepherd's Pie has a minimal number of ingredients, and doesn't require a lot of work to make an awesome, stick-to-your-ribs, dinner.

I started a pot of potatoes boiling to make the mashed potato topping.  I used yukon golds because they mash well and make nice smooth potatoes.  Once they soften up I'll be mashing them and adding 1 cup of shredded Dubliner cheese, 1/4 cup of milk and 1/2 stick of butter ... but more to come on that later.

In parallel, I started another pan with an onion and a carrot ... I peeled and diced both and then into the hot saute pan they went.  I then added the lamb to the pan (~2 lbs of ground lamb) and cooked the lot down for about 10 minutes.  I drained off the excess liquid with some paper towels and then added about a tablespoon of flour to absorb the rest.  I added a tablespoon of chopped rosemary, a cup of peas, a cup of beef stock and 1 tablespoon of tomato paste.  I continued to stir the pan until the liquid had tightened up and then into the pyrex baking tray it went.

By this time, the potatoes were cooked, so I drained the water and tossed the potatoes into a bowl.  I mashed them and then mixed in the butter and milk, using a spatula to continue to smooth them out.  Once the potatoes were pretty smooth, I added the cheese and continued to stir until it was completely melted and the potatoes were totally smooth.  I then used the spatula to spoon the potato mixture over the base and smooth it out to make a potato topper.

Once it was smoothed out, I used a fork to cross hatch the potato topping and then into the 350F oven it went.  I cooked the entire thing for 30 minutes (but you can pull yours out earlier if the potato topping hits that nice golden baked color that means it's going to be tasty.

Once out of the oven, I let the pie sit for about 5 minutes to tighten up a little bit and then used a nice flat spoon to scoop out a generous serving for each of us.

I served the pie with some roasted brussels sprouts and a roll ... but you can serve it with whatever you want and then enjoy!!