Author Archives: athaidek

Jul8

Peach Avocado Corn Salsa

Posted on July 8, 2013 by athaidek

Delicious for a side salad or as a good chips ‘n’ dip! YUMMO inspired by cookie+kate’s Avocado Peach Salsa, I decided to try the sweet salsa road. I’m a total sucker for that Peach Mango salsa from the grocery store, but I’ve never tried to make a sweet and salty salsa. Having all that leftover chimichurri sauce, I needed to use it on something good. Even though the chimichurri has ginger in it, the cilantro lime cumin part of it is great for a salsa sauce.

I added 1 chopped peach, about 2 tbs of my chimichurri, half a can of drained corn, an avocado chopped up, some red onion, extra limejuice, fresh cracked sea salt (this is key), a tiny dash of sugar (the peaches were a bit tart) and yum, fresh salsa!

Jun25

Chimichurri Shrimp

Posted on June 25, 2013 by athaidek

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This is my sister’s debut as the official sous chef, FINALLY. She’s a tried and true shrimp lover, so we convinced her sewing shrimp onto skewers was calling her name. I really like that this sauce is both a marinade and leaves a bit of leftover sauce for topping on some grilled veggies or meat a few days later. It’s from the Party Like a Culinista cookbook and is also really pretty.

I’d also like to nix my comment on using the pizza stone on the grill after we sadly lost our pizza stone to the overly hot heat of the grill yesterday. Um, guess there’s a reason it’s only supposed to go in the oven…All the more reason for me to frequent Cook’s Warehouse soon! Since this chimichurri sauce is comprised of cilantro, parsley, lime, and cumin (along with a slew of other ingredients like ginger, cinnamon, garlic, EVOO, sugar), we went with the Mexican theme and paired it with some Spanish rice and delicious veggie mix. Easy peasy: Marinate shrimp for a few hours and throw on the grill on skewers for like 5-6 minutes until JUST pink!

My dad makes a really good Spanish rice with those canned diced tomatoes with jalapenos or chiles, tomato paste, onions, garlic, and chicken broth I think. Then for a quick improvised veggie dish, I sauteed some cauliflower, kale, red beans, and corn with a spice mixture of paprika, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, S&P. To thicken it up, I also added some tomato paste and chicken broth. Make this marinade this summer for any grilled food or as a pretty topping 🙂

Use your leftover ginger to make a stir-fry later on or some of that peanut sauce from my post a few months ago. It’s also great for making apple-ginger muffins that have a real kick

Marinating

She’s a skewer pro

Jun24

Buttermilk Brined Chicken with BEETS

Posted on June 24, 2013 by athaidek

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Poor performance on my attendance to this blog. Apologies. It’s been a busy June and although I’ve cooked quite a bit, I haven’t had much time to post and take pics. Also, my camera broke so I’m borrowing my sister’s cam and my mom’s iPad.

Here’s a little recap of some of the cooking extravaganza’s of late:

– We went to St. Augustine, FL and baked molten lava cakes for the first time. My mom has discovered a new age cooking technique. I call it yoga-mixing, mostly because she was beating eggs and butter and sugar together whilst holding the yoga-tree position steadily for a solid 4 minutes. Clearly we are a bit of ying and yang in the kitchen since I have zero flexibility but manage to coordinate baking lava cakes until juuuuust done.

– I tried to make cauliflower pizza crust with Arianna which was cheesy but a bit off. She’s used to my crazy attempts and puts up with my antics, so it was still some good sisterly bonding time!

– We made some homemade peach ice cream for Father’s Day which was delicious except for the fresh peaches part. My suggestion is that you stick to the pureed peaches for the flavor and if you really want chunks, add them AFTER you’ve fully prepared the ice cream according to the maker’s instructions. Otherwise they become essentially ice chunks.

– I got the Party like a Culinista cookbook!!!! Woop woop. I keep taking it in the car with me for “a little light reading.” Dont ask…but now I’m sooo excited to make some of the recipes!

Ok, back to the meat of the post. HA. My best friend’s mom is my recipe guy, okay well recipe girl. I wish I lived in a big city where I could be like, “Yea these beets are going to be great because you know I’ve got a great beet guy.” What I’m trying to say is my best friend Cessie’s mom is an amazing chef and everytime I want to get the deets on a recipe, she can tell me if it’s legit or not. She raves about Deb’s buttermilk roast chicken so since I had some leftover buttermilk, we thought we’d try it.

In the summertime, we try to use the grill as much as possible, so we improvised a bit. My dad’s a little obsessed with our pizza stone, so we tried it as a “pan” on the grill. Success! On one half of the grill, we grilled some beets wrapped in foil that we bought at a local farmer’s market. Then we let the pizza stone heat up before adding the chicken directly on top. If only it hadn’t been raining….

To prepare this chicken, basically follow the marinade on Deb’s recipe (we halved it) and let your chicken juice up for a few hours or overnight. We had some boneless skinless breasts, so the cooking time was pretty short for us, but she says you can use any cuts of chicken. When I make this again, I will definitely let it marinate overnight to increase tenderness. After reading some of the comments on her post, I found out that the buttermilk is the magic ingredient to the most tender chicken. I agree! And it’s a very easy recipe good for beginners!

Ingredients for marinade (minus the buttermilk)

Smashing the garlic helps let out some of the flavor

I call this one “the art of arranging food” because my Dad was showing me how I needed to better arrange the beets around the chicken. It was totally worth me stepping away because he really is good at food styling!! **Thanks Dad**

Voila!

Jun4

Popcorn cookies to share

Posted on June 4, 2013 by athaidek

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**This one goes out to you Coffield**

I’ve been wanting to try this recipe ever since I got the Smitten Kitchen cookbook back in December. After reading Deb’s hysterical writing on how she decided to add popcorn to a cookie recipe, I couldn’t help but feel that maybe I was in on the funny story too? Like I was actually in on the joke with her. So as I’m making this cookies, I was smiling to myself about this joke that I have with Deb Perelman but now that I’m thinking about it, I was just unnaturally happy because Deb and I weren’t laughing back and forth together….in fact, I just made the cookies by myself.

Well I certainly didn’t eat them by myself! I whipped these up for the first summer barbeque back in Atlanta for a reunion of sorts. Though I wanted to make a pie or some sort of fruit dessert to contribute to the pulled pork, buttermilk chicken, and cheese grits dinner, these were the easiest to transport. And you know, since we’re only two months or so out from the Great Cake Toppling of 2013, I’m still recovering. Recap: cookies are easy to drive over to a friend’s house. Or, when you’re sharing a car with my popular sister, they’re easy to carry in the passenger seat when you’re getting dropped off.

These cookies made my house smell so good, from the lingering buttery popcorn smell to that quintessential creamed butter and sugar marriage that brings a smile to my face. There was no wasting in this recipe either. Though my sister decided she didn’t want to join me in baking, the smell of popcorn is sure to lure her out of her room. Those extra popcorn pieces really brought us together!

I think these were recieved quite well, however I would like to add chocolate chunks to the recipe next time. I think they needed some more flavor along with the crunchiness of the popcorn. Let me know what you think if you’ve also tried this recipe! The next day, I made some cracker-jack-salty-peanut-chocolate cookies to remedy my longing for chocolate.

May26

Easy crowd pleaser – White bean garlic dill dip

Posted on May 26, 2013 by athaidek

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I’ve made this dip before for my grandparents and it was even better the second time around! It’s tricky to serve up a healthy dip when all you really want to do before the meal comes out is gorge on some buffalo chicken dip (amiright?) So, say you’re starving. You show up at as a guest at someone’s house and not wanting to be rude, you don’t ask what’s for dinner. But then, you’re like, okay what if the food is not going to be enough? Then I’m just stuck at the dinner table trying to stay engaged in the conversation whilst chewing on what would be a delicious paella if the guy next to you hadn’t taken all the chicken and sausage. So now you’re just eating some spanish rice and wishing you would have eaten more of the delicious chile con carne dip served during cocktail hour.

Um, point being, (where’s my point…) you need a dip that’s hearty but not too hearty as to overpower the meal if it is going to be alot!! Whew. We had a delicious tandoori chicken, Indian cauliflower, and curry-peanut slaw for dinner, and this dip was a light yet wonderful hors d’oeuvres for the meal. My mom is growing some dill outside, so she asked me to come up with some kind of dip that could use this up. I’ve made HowSweetEats’ version before, and it’s SO SIMPLE to add/subtract from.

My version with only one ingredient-chopping necessary: Add 2-3 cloves chopped garlic, a few squeezes of dijon mustard, one can of rinsed white northern beans, about 2-3 tsps lemon juice, a few sprigs of washed fresh dill, salt, pepper, and a little less that 1/4 cup olive oil to a food processor. Puree until it reaches the kind of chunkiness you’re looking for. Refrigerate to thicken it up for ~30 minutes or serve immediately with crackers or cucumbers