Grilled Peaches with Honey Balsamic Sauce

A month ago I was at a BBQ and we had grilled nectarines outside after a BBQ. They were brushed with this sauce and served as below. So here are some grilled peached, made indoors on a grill pan:

Serves 2

1 peach - preferably a large ripe one

approximately 1 ounce (a shot glass worth or so) of honey. eyeball it.

2 teaspoons of balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon of vanilla

vanilla ice cream

Belgian butter waffle cookies (available at trader joe's)

heat a grill pan on medium high.

in a little bowl, mix the honey, balsamic vinegar, and vanilla together. stir with a fork until fully incorporated. Cut the peach in half down the middle length wise, and gently remove the pit with your fingers. take a brush and brush on the honey balsamic mixture on the cut side of the fruit. drop the heat to medium. Place the fruit, cut side down on the grill pan - they should sizzle - and do not disturb them for a minute. brush the backs with the sauce mixture. Take a spatula or tongs and flip them. brush the cut side up fruit with the sauce again.

Place two cookies on a plate. Top with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream. Place the grilled peach next to the ice cream. drizzle the ice cream fruit plate with some leftover sauce.

WiLd Rice Summer Salad

sorry for the low res photo guys, just trying new phone options.

This salad was a Trader Joe’s inspiration and perfect to prepare in the summer when the kitchen gets too hot because no cooking or heating required. And very minimal chopping (ahem Shan and Vic =) I was shopping and stocking up on stuff for comic con weekend when I came across this demo. I did one small change to this salad, but otherwise, this is a solid recipe of the demo lady’s creation. It packed nicely in my purse in a little to go container, and served as a great lunch while waiting for Sons of Anarchy and the Always Sunny panels at Comic Con. I served my own bowl with chopped tomatoes, but my friend can’t stand tomatoes so I left them out of the main pot bowl. Tastes great both ways, IMHO.

1 pack of precooked wild rice
1 can of whole kernel corn, drained
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
½ red onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
½ - ¾ of a bottle of fresh cilantro dressing
1 lemon – will use zest and juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Tomatoes – optional. The whole mini ones would work well Or dice up a few and add in.

The rice pack comes air tight, and is precooked. Just open the bag and push into a large bowl. Fluff with a fork. Open up the cans of corn and black bean. Drain the corn and place in the bowl, then dump the black beans into a strainer rinse and allow to drain, the place them in the bowl. Mince the garlic and chop the red onion. Toss all of it together. Then zest the lemon – I recommend a microplane which totally rocks. Then juice the lemon over the salad. Toss. Add in the tomatoes if you want. Dress the salad with the cilantro dressing and mix thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Pasta Salad into Caprese Pasta Salad

Pasta Salad

into

Caprese Pasta Salad

I went to a show last night at the Hollywood Bowl - a picnic friendly venue - with my friend SueAnn and her friend Shane. They made a caprese pasta salad, and thought it was just an awesome summer dinner. Here is my variation on it. I decided to create a new take on the last dressing I made. Rather than use raw garlic to infuse olive oil for days, I decided to cook the garlic into the olive oil, let it cool, then use it as a dressing.

Garlic Infused Olive Oil Vinagrette:
4 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup of olive oil
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar with a splash of red wine vinegar

Pasta Salad:
12 ounce pack organic multi colored rotini pasta
1/2 red onion
1 and 1/2 cups fresh basil. it was about half a big pack
1/2 log (or use a full log) of fresh mozarella
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar

Caprese Pasta Salad:
add tomatos
spinach

Boil a stockpot of water. While the water is coming to a boil, heat a pan and mince the garlic. add the olive oil and allow to heat for about less than a minute on low heat. Add the garlic, and cook for less than a minute stirring through the pan and cook evenly. Then remove from heat and allow to cool.

Dice the onion and set aside. Wash and dry the basil. Remove the stems and chop the basil.

Boil the pasta and drain as directed. Put the pasta in a very large bowl. While the pasta is still warm, toss the onion in and stir so the heat from the pasta cooks the onion a bit. Add in two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, and season with salt and pepper. Then add the basil. Allow this to cool before adding cheese.

Now the olive oil should be cool. Pour the garlicky olive oil into a liquid measuring cup. Add vinegar to just short of an 1/8 cup then add a splash red wine vinegar. Add a teaspoon of dijon mustard. Beat thoroughly with a fork.

Dice the fresh mozzarella into bite size pieces. Pour the dressing over the pasta salad and toss.

To make the Caprese Pasta Salad. Take a 1/2 cup or so of spinach and place in the bottom of a bowl. Put a scoop of pasta salad. Top with a couple of diced tomatos.

Caprese Salad

The key to a good caprese salad it to buy everything as fresh as possible. A Caprese salad is just as good being simply dressed with a little salt, pepper, oil and vinegar. But I decided to make a balsamic vinnagrette to liven it up. It was finally warm out last night, so this salad tasted like summer.

Serves about 2-3

Salad:
6 small tomatos on the vine. I believe these were Campari
1/2 fresh mozzarella log. Or you can buy the mini pearl ones which are really awesome too.
8-12 fresh basil leaves.

Dressing:
2 cloves of garlic
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Red Wine Vinegar
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp honey
dash of italian seasoning blend
salt, pepper

Dice the tomatoes into bite size wedges and place in a bowl. Cube the fresh mozzarella into bite size pieces, then place in the bowl. Roll the basil leaves together and chop finely. Run your knife through it a couple more times until finely chopped and place in the bowl. Season with a little salt and pepper. Toss everything together and set aside.

Get out a small bowl for the dressing. Mince the garlic, add into the bowl with mustard. I don't measure so I wish I could tell you better for how much olive oil and vinegar I use. But remember to use double the oil to one part vinegar. Since this was just a salad for 2, I would just use 1/8 cup vinegar, to 1/4 cup oil, which is plenty of liquid. In the 1/8 vinegar I used mostly balsamic with just a splash of red wine vinegar. With a fork mix all the ingredients together. Then drizzle in just a little bit of honey (1 teaspoon or less) to take a little edge off the vinegar. Place in a dash of italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Mix well. Spoon over the Caprese salad. You can serve right away or you can let the dressing marinate the salad for a few minutes prior to serving.

Snickerdoodles - Hold the Cream of Tartar

The butter was softened and ready to go, and I was in the mood to bake up a storm. I had the classic 1970’s cookie baking book opened and the page pressed ready to make the snickerdoodles. I’ve made the recipe as is once, and they turned out perfect. I decided to mod the recipe another time by increasing butter and omitting the shortening, and they came out flat. I was ready to actually follow a tried and true recipe, but as I scanned the recipe I saw it required cream of tartar. I check my cupboards and surely enough I was fresh out of cream of tartar. What to do. Replacing a rising ingredient can be a precarious situation. The wrong portion and substitution can create flat splayed out mess. So I researched online and saw that MOST snickerdoodle recipes required cream of tartar. I checked my empty cream of tartar mini jar that you can make baking powder out of this stuff in combination with corn starch and baking soda. My hopes were raised, baking powder should have enough base and stabilizing ingredients found in cream of tartar that it simple swap should be enough. And low and behold, you can make a snickerdoodle without cream of tartar.

2 sticks of butter (1 cup) – Salted Sweet cream – super soft at room temperature.
1 ½ cups of granulated sugar
2 eggs

2 ¾ cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp white sugar

Makes about 3 dozen, 3 inch diameter cookies.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. With an electric mixer – flat beater on kitchen aid if you got one – beat the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy. This will take about 3-5 minutes of beating and will look like the consistency of whipped butter. Then add the eggs and continue beating. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. Add the flour mixture a little at a time, about 1/4 – 1/2 cup and continue beating and allow to fully incorporate while mixing. Be sure with a rubber/silicone spatula to scrape the bottom of the bowl and sides every once in awhile for a perfectly smooth consistency. On a separate small plate, add the cinnamon and sugar – and mix. Take a generous rounded tablespoon of the dough gently roll in the cinnamon sugar mix. Then shape into a rounded ball with your hands. Place on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. Bake for 10 minutes. When you pull the cookies out of the oven they should be slightly puffed, and they will deflate a little when the cool on the sheet for a minute. Remove and cool completely on a wire rack.

Shortercut Chile Quilles with Cheesy Eggs

I learned how to make Chile Quilles from my friend Tom during our Big Bear ski trip. He made the sauce from scratch, and it tastes way better than this shortcut version. Using prepared enchilada sauce does in a pinch and has a smokier flavor. This is a cross between chile quilles and huevos rancheros. Except the huevos aren't coated in enchilada sauce, the tortillas are.

Serves 3-4

extra virgin olive oil
6-7 flour tortillas - the smaller size - cut into strips, then into squares to make bite size pieces
1 onion, small and diced
3 cloves of garlic
3 small tomatos, chopped
sprinkle of red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (go lighter if you don't want that much heat)
Bottled Enchilada Sauce - Trader Joe'. about 1/4 - 1/3 cup

1 tablespoon of butter
5 eggs
1/2 - 3/4 cup of shredded or cut up cheese (I used a variety on hand - havarti, cheddar, swiss, and gouda. but use whatever). Divided. 1/2 cup or so in the tortillas mix, 1/4 cup in the eggs.

in a large saute pan with raised edges, heat about 4-5 tablespoons of EVOO. On medium high heat, Saute the onion until soft, then add the tortillas. make sure you coat the tortillas well. Mince the garlic finely then sprinkle to coat. Cook the tortillas until browned. Season with red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper, and a little cayenne pepper. When the tortillas are browned, add the tomatos and drizzle on the enchilada sauce. toss to coat until heated through. Spinkle on cheese.

In another pan... preheat a pan to cook the eggs. add in the butter and allow to melt and swirl around the pan to coat. Crack all the eggs into the pan and cook them sunny side up style for a couple minutes. season with salt and pepper. spinkle on the cheese. Then take a spatula and break up the eggs and mix. Cook until just still barely wet... or well done. however you take em.

Serve on a plate with a generous scoop of chile quilles and a scoop of eggs.

Creamy Red Sauce - Hold the Cream

I can say this is one of the better red sauces I've made, and I held out on the heavy whipping cream! Requires to be blended twice, but totally worth it. Just think of the blender doing the work for you. Serve with pasta or spaghetti squash.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
1 large onion (or 1-2 small / mediums) diced
2 celery stalks
1 carrot
½ head of garlic – about 8-10 cloves
1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning
A pinch of red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
1 can of tomato sauce (or two mini cans)
1 very large can of whole peeled tomatoes. The large girthy can.
1 big handful of fresh basil leaves – about 10-14 no stems

Heat about 2 tbsp of EVOO in a very large pan on medium heat. Dice your onion in the meantime and add it to the oil. While the onion cooks, dice the celery and peel and dice the carrot. Add it to the pan. While that is cooking, start peeling the garlic then mincing. I am imagining if you are feeling very lazy and just crushing the garlic and removing the skin and placing the crushed cloves into the pan should be fine as well. Season with a dash of the red pepper flakes and about a teaspoon or so of Italian seasoning blend. Also put in some salt and pepper. Lower the heat to medium low. Pour the can(s) of tomato sauce and cover. Meanwhile, take a blender, dump the whole can of the whole peeled tomatoes into it, and blend the tomatoes until pureed and smooth. Pour the pureed tomatoes into the pan and stir. Cook until heated through. Then take the rest of the mixture and carefully spoon that back into the blender. Blend until smooth. The pureed cooked veggies really thicken the sauce and incorporate the rest of the flavors. Pour back into the pan when it’s smooth and place on medium low heat. Chop the basil leaves and wilt them into the tomato sauce. Then season with salt and pepper to taste.