Black Bean Salsa

I've been making this "salsa" forever and it's so yummy! I usually make it when we are having a get together at our house or to bring over to a friend's house. If I make it to bring to a friend's house I usually double the recipe and leave half at our house for us to snack on. If I could get away with it, I would seriously just eat chips and dip for dinner every night. We usually just eat this w/ tortilla chips, but it would also be really good on top of grilled chicken, shrimp, or fish. It's so fresh and light and yet so filling b/c of the black beans.

I brought this over to our neighbor's pool party and it disappeared pretty quickly. I LOVE easy dishes like this that everyone enjoys!

Gather it:
1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup of frozen corn (I don't measure, but it's probably about this much and it's ok to leave it frozen)
grape tomatoes, quartered (I used almost a whole pint)
scallions, sliced (about a large handful and then some if you like scallions)
2 avocados, diced (I usually prefer to use 2 and diced, but 1 of my avocados was too mushy so I mashed up just the 1 good avocado I had to make it go further)
1 lime
salt
pepper

Make it:
1. Juice half of the lime into a large bowl. Place avocados in bowl and toss in juice to help prevent it from turning brown. If you prefer to mash it then mash it now.

2. Add tomatoes, corn, scallions, and beans. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add more lime juice if needed.

3. Serve with tortilla chips...and a margarita!

FYI: I've had this with cilantro too and it's really yummy with it, but the cilantro wasn't looking too good at Publix. And it's really good with diced fresh jalapenos too, but I've omitted it since kids have come into the picture. I suppose I could make 2 separate batches...yep...I'll do that next time!

Potato Salad

We are going to our next door neighbor's house this afternoon for a Memorial Day cookout. We decided to bring Kevin's yummy baked beans (an this comes from a girl who is not a fan of baked beans), black bean salsa and chips, and this super easy and delicious potato salad. The baked beans and salsa recipe will follow later.

Gather it:
3 lbs of red potatoes, quartered or smaller depending how big your potatoes are
Scallions, sliced
10-15 strips of bacon
About 3/4 cup of mayo
Mustard (amount depends on how much you like - I use prob about 2-3 Tbsp)
Salt
Black pepper

Make it:
1. Place potatoes in large pot and cover with cold water. Boil until tender.

2. Optional step: lay bacon horizontally on cutting board and cut it vertically to make small strips. I prefer to do this b/c I can cook a lot more at once than only be able to cook 5-6 strips at a time. Plus I don't have to crumble it later.

3. Cook bacon over medium high heat until fully cooked and allow it to cool and drain on a paper towel. I actually use a paper plate, which soaks up all the grease.

4. Meanwhile, combine mayo, mustard, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Stir together and refrigerate.

5. Drain cooked potatoes and transfer back in pot and put it over the hot burner so that any left over water stuck on the potatoes steam off. Allow potatoes to cool. I usually place my potatoes on a baking sheet so that it cools faster.

6. In the pot you cooked potatoes in, put a few spoonfuls of the mayo mixture at the bottom, then some of the bacon and about 1/3 of the potatoes and mix together. I usually taste and see if I need more salt or pepper at this point. If I do then I add it to the mayo mixture. Its easier than having to toss a bunch of potatoes later. Repeat layering of all ingredients and mix together. I usually do this in 3 layers to make sure all the potatoes get covered.

7. Transfer potatoes into a serving dish - I suppose you could have done all the mixing in the dish, but it gets pretty messy and it's all about presentation so make sure to wipe the sides.

Wedge Salad

I don't know about you, but I've never been a huge fan of iceberg lettuce...that is until I had a wedge salad. I've had wedge salads before, but for some reason my taste bud changed the weekend of my 5th wedding anniversary. All the restaurants we went to had a wedge salad and for some reason each one just drew my eye!

Yesterday afternoon I asked Kevin to go to Publix after work to get some ingredients to make a wedge salad. I JUST HAD TO HAVE A WEDGE SALAD FOR DINNER!!! Thankfully he indulged my craving and had it all pretty much prepared by the time I got home from work. Have I said before that I have the most amazing husband??? My stomach was growling during the drive home and my mouth was literally watering at the thought of that first bite. Crazy? Yeah probably!

The kids had already eaten, but my kids like to eat off my plate, especially Avery. She kept asking for "more sah-wee". I would only give her small pieces of lettuce with a little dressing. One time I snuck a little piece of bacon and her eyes lit up as if I had just given her chocolate! lol Parker will occasionally eat salad too, but he didn't want a bite of mine. Is it bad that I was a little relieved since I already had to share my plate with Avery? lol Anyway here's the deliciously mouth watering wedge salad recipe:

Gather it:
1 head of iceberg lettuce, quartered (you can cut it in smaller wedges, but this was dinner so we had bigger portions)
tomatoes, diced and seeded
red onion, diced
bacon, cooked and crumbled
blue cheese crumbles
hard boiled eggs
blue cheese dressing
freshly ground pepper

Make it:
1) Hard boil eggs and fry bacon. Allow both to cool. You can place eggs in an icewater bath to cool faster. Meanwhile cut and dice everything else.

2) Place lettuce wedge on plate and top with everything else.

The Friday before our anniversary we went to Mitchell's Fish Market for drinks and then the wedge salad literally called out my name...I think the dressing was homemade and I was tempted to ask if I could buy a bottle of it!

This was our actual anniversary dinner at Island Way. I was only going to get sushi, but again the wedge salad just kept saying: "pick me! pick me!". It was good, but I think they decided to add the bacon drippings too and def slathered on the dressing, which wasn't homemade and not as good as Mitchell's. Regardless, it was still delicious.

Typing this all up makes me want another wedge salad...at 8:15 am...lol



Pineapple Salsa

When I was trying to figure out what to have for dinner this week, I saw that we had a bunch of tilapia filets in the freezer. Kevin wanted to have fish tacos, but I need a taco break so I suggested grilled tilapia with mango salsa. We used to make this all the time when we were dating, but haven't had it in a really long time. I went to Publix and saw that they only had a handful of super ripe mangoes. When making mango salsa, I don't like super ripe mangoes b/c it tends to be too sweet for me and soft/mushy. I wandered around the produce section and decided to just go to another Publix on a different day. Then, I saw the fresh pineapple and figured I'd give it a try.

My family's reaction: Kevin said he liked the pineapple better than the mango and in Parker's words: "Mommy, I wub (love) it!". Avery just said "Ummm!" and remained pretty quiet as she ate. I didn't follow a recipe. I just kind of made my own years ago based on what Kevin and I like. Back in the day, I used to add a jalapeño or red pepper flakes to give it a kick, but I can't do that with the kids eating it too. I opted not to add any on my portion, but feel free to add some if you want a little kick to yours. Here's my recipe:

Gather it:
1 whole fresh pineapple, cut in small chunks (I cut mine small b/c of the kiddos)
2 small handfuls of grape tomatoes, quartered
3 stalks of scallions, diced
a small bunch of fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
black pepper to taste
sea salt to taste (I added this to my own portion)

Make it:
1. Mix all ingredients in a medium sized bowl.

That's it! lol It tastes better if you cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for about 1 hour to allow all the flavors to blend together. It's not required - def still good if you don't do this, but to me it's just better when you let it sit in the fridge for a bit. I made the salsa right after I put the kids down for a nap so it had a few hours to chill in the fridge and get yummy.

Egg Drop Soup

I was craving "Asian" food over the weekend so I decided to "research"...aka browse Pinterest. How easy it is to make plays a big factor on whether I will make it or not. I decided to make Korean Beef (it's really turkey though), but wanted something to go with it. Salad just didn't seem "Asian" enough and then I remembered I had pinned an egg drop soup recipe recently. In my research, I saw other recipes adding corn starch to the eggs. I'm not sure what exactly it does, but I surprisingly had some in my pantry. I'm not sure where it came from...maybe from my mom. It wasn't expired so I used it. lol If I didn't have any I would have just omitted it. I've seen lots of recipes with and without the corn starch so I figured it would work without it too.

Oh and funny story: when I was running my dinner ideas by Kevin I asked him if he liked egg drop soup. He said yes so I added it to the menu. Then tonight when I finished adding the egg to the broth (the step I was most nervous about), I commented: "Well it looks like egg drop soup, right?". Kevin looked at the pot then looked at me blankly and says: "I don't know, I've never had it." What?!? lol Here's my version of this yummy and super easy soup!

Gather it:
3 cans of chicken stock (14.5 oz each)
2 eggs, beaten
1 small piece of ginger (optional, I used 2 left over "nubs" I had from grating the ginger from the Korean Beef)
1 tsp of corn starch (optional)
scallions, diced (optional, for topping)
salt
pepper

Make it:
1. Boil chicken stock and ginger over medium high heat then lower heat to a simmer.

2. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Remove ginger. Note: I forgot to remove the ginger and it's pretty hard to find it once you stir the eggs in. Not a big deal if the kids aren't eating it and they don't know that they aren't supposed to eat it. I mean they can, but it can be a little "spicy".

4. n a small bowl, beat eggs and corn starch together. Slowly pour mixture into simmering stock while vigorously mixing the pot to form long threads of eggs.

5. Turn heat off and allow eggs to cook for another minute or so.

Serve while hot and top off with scallions. Parker is going through a soup phase just like I am and he loves eggs so this was the perfect soup for him. He LOVED it!

lickin' his lips. lol my mother in law got me a set of these Asian soup spoons for Christmas a couple years ago after she saw me admiring them at a cooking store in NC and Parker loves to use them any time we are having soup.

he got to the bottom of his bowl and the thick soup spoon couldn't get any more soup. Manners be darned...I let him drink from his bowl. 

baby girl getting some help from Daddy with her soup

Avery is going through an independent phase where she wants to feed herself with a spoon, but she's still trying to figure out how to scoop food out and bring it all the way to her mouth without it falling off. She does pretty well with more solid things like yogurt and mashed potatoes, but rice and soup just falls right off! So she says "heh" (help), but then when I put my hand over her hand to show her to scoop the food, she gets mad and says "NO!". 

Here's the recipe that I based my recipe on.

Herb Stuffing with Cranberries

Confession: I've never made stuffing before...ever! I decided to make the following recipe b/c I had all the ingredients already (I had planned on making stuffing for Thanksgiving so I had a few boxes, but then my brother in law wanted to put the stuffing in the turkey so I chose another side to bring). Anyway, it's from Simply Made with Love: Pampered Chef's Savory Herbed Stuffing. She has lots of delicious recipes that I want to try. So far I have made her Crockpot Creamy Chicken & Wild Rice Soup and it was yummy - although mine was more of a casserole. I did make a few changes to the stuffing recipe. Here's my version:

Ingredients:

1 (6 oz) box of herbed stuffing mix

4 large stalks of celery, diced

2 small onions, diced

1 cup dried cranberries (I used pomegranate flavored b/c I had a couple bags for the kids' s snack and used a lot more cranberries than what the original recipe called for b/c the kids LOVE it)

1 (14.5 oz) can of chicken broth

~ 3 Tbsp of butter

~ 1 Tbsp of dried parsley

2 pinches of Italian seasoning

1 pinch of dried Oregano

black pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Meanwhile melt butter in pan over medium heat. Saute onions and celery until it is crisp-tender. About 4-5 minutes.

2. Pour stuffing mix, cranberries, and herbs in a large bowl.

3. Add veggie mix and broth to stuffing mixture until well incorporated and stuffing is moistened. As you can see in the pic below, I added a little more cranberries (total ~ 1 cup)!

4. Pour into baking dish. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. *** Mine differed a bit b/c hubby apparently used up the last of the foil. Fortunately the dish I used had a cover so I used that. ***

5. Remove foil and bake uncovered for another 15-20 minutes until stuffing is golden brown. *** I did not do this step right away. I did steps 1-4 while the kids ate lunch. I popped the stuffing back in the oven after I baked the chicken (see recipe for baked chicken leg quarters. FYI: I lowered the heat down to 350 when I put the stuffing in). The stuffing heated through and browned while the chicken rested and cooled a bit. ***

I ate an early dinner since I had to work. Avery of course came running to me, demanding: "bite" and opening her mouth. She gobbled up everything! I offered the stuffing to Parker and he said "no thank you" until I told him it had cranberries. He had quite a few bites of everything too. Apparently it was a huge hit at dinner. Kevin's reaction when I asked him how dinner went: "I tore it up. Avery tore it up. Parker kept getting up and down from his chair, but ate everything too!". Kevin said he really liked the stuffing. It's pretty moist, has a tiny bit of crunch from the celery, and the sweetness from the cranberries. The stuffing will def be added as one of our favorite side dishes!