Thursday, June 14, 2012

Avocado and Grapefruit Salad

Weird combination right?

Somehow the creaminess of the avocado and the sharp acidity and sweetness of the grapefruit compliment each other wonderfully :)

I sliced the avocado and set it aside.
Then sliced the ruby grapefruit with out any of the stringy white parts (the name escapes me)


I tossed all of it gently with olive oil, grapefruit juice, salt, pepper, and red chili flakes.


Simply delicious~

Till next time!




Roasted Rack of Lamb with Chimichurri and Pan Fried Potatoes

When I was young, we weren't rich but my parents always took us to eat really good food on our birthdays. We got to go to the expensive restaurants in town and order whatever we wanted. And for four nights out of the year, we ate like royalty.
We were exposed to some amazing French, Italian, Thai, Japanese, and Mexican food that introduced us to new ingredients and flavors that our palettes have now come to love.

I forgot whose birthday it was but I must have been 10-12 and my brother around 8... we went to an Italian restaurant called Star Bene that was one of the best in town. I remember my mom ordered a lamb dish. I had never had lamb and asked her if I could try a bite (that's something else we did, we all shared what we ordered :) )
I swear if I wasn't sitting diagonally from her, I would've eaten her whole plate. When she looked over and saw my face with my eyes glazed over hypnotized over that new flavor, she merely shrugged her shoulders and said "it's okay I guess".
Lamb has that distinct flavor that you really can't  forget about.

So recently I was shopping in Trader Joes and saw that they had a rack of lamb and I thought it would be a great challenged to try and prepare a perfect lamb for the first time.
Seared crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside...mmmmmm....

First I boiled the potatoes in a pan to cook them through.
I heated up another large pan with olive oil and waited until the oil was HOT. Preheated the oven to 400 degrees, seasoned the lamb with salt and pepper then used tongs to sear all the sides. I placed the lamb in a roasting pan with a rack and baked it for 20 minutes.

While the lamb was cooking I put 1 cup of olive oil, half a bunch of parsley, handful of mint, handful of basil, salt, pepper, and 4 cloves of fresh garlic into a blender (if I had a food processor I would have used that) and pulsed it until it was well mixed.

By then the potatoes had boiled off the water and then I added a dash of olive oil to brown them


...now that I think of it, I used a lot of olive oil.




Anyways, it was yummy and Austin liked it too :)

Till next time!

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Elote con Queso Fresco

Summer means corn and lots of it! We had a BBQ at the house and a few people brought over corn, and at the end of the night we had 2 bags of corn. Couldn't let it go to waste so we threw them in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes and then scraped all the delicious kernels into a bowl.

I added:

2 limes (juiced)
salt to taste
1/2 block of queso fresco
handful of chopped cilantro
1/2 white onion finely diced

Then ya mix it...that's all there is to it!



This is tasty on tacos or as a side salad.

Enjoy!



Roasted Chickpeas

OKAY.OKAY...So it's been almost a year since I've posted, and I got a camera which I was excited to use so I can quickly post pictures of food that I've made. BUT, of course it's never that easy. Turns out I lost the piece that goes to the camera so you can plug it directly into the computer, so now I have to have a card reader and blah blah blah...

So yea, I'm back now with a vengeance! I'll be posting some of the stuff I've done recently.

I've missed you.

-K
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I had two cans of garbanzo beans in my cabinet just in case I wanted to make hummus...which I never did, so I decided to roast them instead. They were super easy to make and tasted delicious!
Would I make them all the time? No :)

These little roasted beans are great with beer on a hot summer's day, or to accompany a meat and cheese board.

You really can use any spices you like, even make them a sweet snack if you like.
Or you can do what I did and just threw the whole spice cabinet on it. Not literally, but pretty close to that.

Roasted Chickpeas with the spice cabinet:

2 cans of chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Salt
Smoked Paprika
Ginger
Cumin
Cayenne
Cinnamon
Probably even Herb de Provence

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Throw the rinsed chickpeas on a papertowel and pat dry. Then lay them out on a baking sheet and drizzle the chickpeas with olive oil. Roll them around so that they are well coated then add the spices and roll them around again.




Bake for 40 min. or until they are crispy. Let cool and enjoy!