Monthly Archives: July 2012

Jalapeño Garlic Chicken Quesadillas

Posted in Recipes by

Wait!  Before you read this, please comment on my Tomato Salad post to win a FREE digital kitchen scale!  Contest ends tomorrow (8/1) at 11:59PM.

We had originally planned to make standard chicken tacos for dinner tonight but decided to mix (or melt?) things up with these cheesy jalapeño garlic chicken quesadillas instead.  Matt found the marinade recipe on About.com and I think that it gave the chicken a great amount of flavor without overwhelming the other ingredients in the quesadilla.

Our garden-fresh peppers were featured three ways in this meal.  We used two jalapeño peppers in the marinade, sliced up two small red peppers to saute with the onions and applied a few drops of our super-hot roasted fresh chile salsa (recipe coming soon!) over top of the cheese in the final quesadilla.  Delicious!

Jalapeño Garlic Chicken Quesadillas

You will need…
2 Jalapeño Peppers, stems removed
2-3 cloves Garlic, peeled
3/4 cup Water
1/2 cup Red Wine Vinegar
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Oregano
1/2 teaspoon Cumin
1/2 teaspoon Ancho Chile Powder
1/4 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
1 Chicken Breast (2 halves)
Peanut Oil
1/2 Red Onion, thinly sliced
1 Red Bell Pepper, sliced into thin strips
6-8 Corn Tortillas
1 cup Shredded Cheese (we used Sargento Authentic Mexican Blend – a mix of Queso Quesadilla, Asadero, Queso Gallego, Manchego and Anejo Enchilado Cheese… whew!)
Hot Sauce or Roasted Fresh Chile Salsa to taste

Directions:
Place the jalapeño peppers and garlic in a blender and blend until finely chopped.  Add the next seven ingredients (water thru black pepper) and blend thoroughly.  Pour the mixture into a large zipper-top bag and add the chicken.  Allow to marinade for at least 30 minutes.

Add a tablespoon of Peanut Oil to a large skillet and saute the onion over medium heat.  When the onion is tender and starting to brown, add the red bell pepper and continuing sauteing until the peppers have softened slightly, approximately 5 minutes.  Remove the onions and peppers from the skillet and set aside.

Grill the marinaded chicken over direct medium-high heat until cooked through, approximately 7-8 minutes per side.  Remove the chicken from the grill and allow it to rest for 3-5 minutes before cutting it into thin slices.

Add a small amount of peanut oil to a large skillet and heat over medium heat.  Place one corn tortilla in the skillet and top with a small handful of shredded cheese.  Layer a few slices of chicken onto the cheese and spoon some of the onion-pepper mixture over the chicken.  Top with another scant handful of cheese and a few drops of your favorite hot sauce or spicy salsa.  Layer a second corn tortilla onto your creation.  Allow the bottom of the quesadilla to turn golden brown then carefully flip the quesadilla over and cook the other side until golden.  Remove the quesadilla from the skillet, and repeat the layering process with the remaining 2-3 quesadillas.  Slice the quesadillas into quarters and serve with salsa, guacamole, or sour cream… or just eat them as is!  🙂

The Fair That Never Was

Posted in Bailey, Trips by

Or, why I drove down the NJ Turnpike last night with my high beams and hazard lights on!

On Friday I eagerly reported that Bailey and I would be returning to the Monmouth County Fair for a weekend of DockDogs fun. Well, mother nature had a different plan. The fair was plagued by severe thunderstorms that resulted in a 4 hour “rain delay” opening on Saturday and the complete cancellation of all festivities on Sunday (today). It’s a good thing we got some jumps in on Wednesday when the weather was still nice!

Bailey rockin’ the dock on Wednesday evening.

As I was driving to the event on Saturday a friend called to let me know that the fair had closed at 12:45PM due to storms and at that point they didn’t know if/when the event would reopen. I was already 1 1/2 hrs. into my drive so Bailey and I hung out in the car at a rest stop for 3 hours (!) before receiving word that the fair was reopening at 5.

Bailey patiently waits out the storm at the Woodrow Wilson Rest Stop on the NJ Turnpike.

After a relaxing afternoon in the car Bailey and I headed up to the deserted, water-saturated fairgrounds. The DockDogs event staff were able to fit in the Extreme Vertical competition and two Big Air waves before the Fair closed again at 9:30 due to advancing storms. It wasn’t all bad, though… Bailey won Extreme Vertical! That’s our first EV win at a National Event and although there weren’t many competitors and her jump wasn’t actually that high for her (only 5’10”) I’m still thrilled to have brought home a blue ribbon!

(That’s the muddy bottom of Bailey’s crate in the background… all of our DockDogs gear is currently spread out on the driveway to dry!)

My trip home Saturday night was one of the worst driving experiences of my life. As soon as I got on the Turnpike I could see the cars ahead of me start to brake. This usually means one of two things — either a state trooper with a radar gun is sitting on the shoulder OR (much worse!) the highway has just been overtaken by an onslaught of torrential wind-driven rain. Sadly it was the latter so I spent 40+ miles of my trip home in the right lane with my high beams and hazard lights on. I know, I know, I was that car last night but hey, I’d rather slow down traffic than bring it to a dead halt by triggering a multi-car accident.

I somehow managed to hit all of those intense storm cells on my drive home. They were moving east and coming across the turnpike in waves.

While on the topic of slowing down traffic, have you ever wondering how the heck those drivers who fly by you at 50 mph in a downpour can actually see the road?? I was crawling along at maybe 20 mph (I quite frankly couldn’t take my eyes off the road to check) and I couldn’t even see the lines on the highway. Maybe I just have bad eyesight but I believe that my speed was much safer for the road conditions last night.

The severe pockets of rain didn’t end until I was about 15 miles into Pennsylvania and by that time I was violently shivering and my teeth were chattering uncontrollably – a combination of the scary driving and also the fact that I had apparently been blasting the A/C throughout the whole storm! (I didn’t realize this until the rain stopped.) What a drive!

Storm aftermath: this huge, well-staked, professionally installed tent at the fair was no match for mother nature. (Photo from Monmouth County Fair)

I woke up this morning to a message from the Fair saying that they will not be reopening today due to damage caused by those storms. That means I don’t have to make that drive again, thank goodness!!! I don’t know how DockDogs will handle the event placement but if they just use the existing scores this would mean that Bailey wins Big Air with her 22’6″ jump from Wednesday and she also wins the “Iron Dog” competition with her combined scores from Big Air and Extreme Vertical. (The third leg of Iron Dog, “Speed Retrieve,” was supposed to occur today.) We’ll see how things play out but for now I’m just glad that I don’t have to face the NJ Turnpike again anytime soon.

Another one of Bailey’s crowd-pleasing jumps from Wednesday. They loved it when she caught her toy!

Our First Garlic Harvest!

Posted in Adventures at Home by

After 9 months of waiting our garlic is finally ready to harvest! I’m pleased to announce the successful unearthing of eight beautiful, nicely formed garlic bulbs.

I patiently waited for the bottom of the garlic plants to start turning brown before harvesting them. Since these plants are a “hard neck” garlic variety I was able to pull them out of the ground with my hands fairly easily. One of the bulbs was slightly damaged (a clove had over-ripened out of its papery skin) so I peeled the whole bulb and used it to make a large batch of pesto. I froze the pesto in an ice cube tray so we’ll be able to enjoy our garden’s garlic and basil several months from now.

Based on Mike McGrath’s advice, I am now “curing” our garlic in a single file row on our dining room table. The spot is air conditioned and out of direct sunlight so hopefully the garlic should be ready to store in a week or so. We use garlic pretty quickly in our household so those remaining seven bulbs should be long gone by October!

This garlic was amazingly simple to grow (just plant the cloves in October, cut the scapes in June, and unearth the bulbs in July) and we are excited to finally be enjoying our own garlic!!

Please remember to leave a comment in my Tomato Salad post to be eligible to win a digital kitchen scale!

Headed to the Fair!

Posted in Bailey by

Bailey and I will be competing at the Monmouth County Fair in East Freehold, New Jersey this weekend.  We drove up for the Fair’s opening night Wednesday and Bailey jumped 22’6″… not a bad way to kick things off!  I’ll post the event recap next week.

This photo of a lab named Blazer from the 2010 Big Butler Fair in Butler, PA gives you an idea of what a Dockdogs event at a fair looks like.  Pretty cool, right?

Please remember to comment on my Tomato Salad post.  One commenter will win a digital kitchen scale next week!

Bucatini with Sausage, Asparagus and Tomato in a White Wine Sauce

Posted in Recipes by

Last week we paid a visit to our local farmer’s market and we were pleasantly surprised to discover a man selling fresh sausage!  He seemed unfazed by the 95° temps and was happily browning up pieces of sausage on a tiny griddle and offering samples to potential customers.  We are not ones to pass up free sausage so we eagerly tasted some and it was amazing!  We promptly purchased a package of chicken provolone sausage and started brainstorming for potential summer meal ideas to highlight the local fare.

The recipe that Matt came up with definitely did the sausage justice.  The white wine sauce was flavorful without being overpowering (it actually smelled like “real” Italian cooking!) and the firm asparagus and super-tasty tomatoes (from our garden, of course!) complemented the sausage nicely.  This recipe made enough food for the two of us to eat dinner and then enjoy hearty portions for lunch the next day.

Oh, and before I get to the recipe, please remember to comment on my Tomato Salad post to win a free kitchen scale!

Bucatini with Sausage, Asparagus and Tomato in a White Wine Sauce

You will need…
1 bunch Asparagus, chopped into 2 inch pieces
Olive Oil
12 oz. Sausage (we used Maiale’s Chicken Sausage with Spinach and Sharp Provolone*)
4 cloves Garlic, minced
1 Shallot, minced
1 cup Dry White Wine
1/2 cup Low-Sodium Chicken Broth
2 tablespoons minced Chives
2 tablespoons Butter or Olive Oil Spread
Bucatini Pasta
Salt and Pepper, to taste
1 cup Cherry Tomatoes

Directions:
Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the chopped asparagus.  Blanch the asparagus for 2 minutes (or more if using thicker spears) and then use a slotted spoon to transfer the asparagus to an ice bath.  Allow asparagus to cool completely before straining and setting aside in a bowl.

The sauteing garlic and shallots smell wonderful!

Heat a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat and add 2 tablespoons olive oil.  Remove the sausage from its casing and brown it in the oil, breaking it up as it cooks.  Remove the browned sausage from the wok and set aside.  Lower the heat to medium, add another tablespoon of olive oil and the minced garlic and shallots.  Saute until shallots are translucent.  Add the white wine and chicken broth, stir, and allow to simmer over low heat until mixture is reduced to approximately 1/3 the original volume.  As the sauce reduces cook the pasta according to package instructions.

Toss all of the ingredients together in the wok.

Add the sausage to the reduced white wine mixture, stir to combine, and bring the heat back up to medium.  Stir in the blanched asparagus, chives, and butter and add salt and pepper to taste.  Finally, add in the cooked and drained pasta and the cherry tomatoes and toss well.  Serve with a garnish of finely chopped chives.

*If you’re local to the southeastern PA / DE region, the delicious sausage was made by Maiale (“may.all.ay”) in Wilmington, Delaware.  We’ll definitely be going back to the farmer’s market next week to get more sausage!!  🙂

Pink Zinnia!

Posted in Adventures at Home by

We grew this lovely pink zinnia from seed and it now resides outside our front door amidst a volunteer squash patch.  Isn’t it pretty?

Also… don’t forget to leave a comment in my Slimkicker Giveaway post to be eligible to win a digital kitchen scale!  🙂

Tomato Salad with Guajillo Chile Dressing AND a Giveaway Contest Sponsored by Slimkicker!!

Posted in Challenges, Recipes by

I’m excited to announce that the team over at Slimkicker.com has asked me to host a Giveaway on my blog!  Slimkicker is an online “game” that helps you reach health goals by setting a series personalized challenges and rewards for yourself… but more on that in a moment.  First, I want to share a recipe for a healthy meal that Matt and I enjoyed last week.

Oh… and I have to brag a little here – those perfect little rosy red tomatoes are from our garden!  They were delicious.  🙂

Tomato Salad with Guajillo Chile Dressing (from Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless)

You will need…
3/4 cup Olive Oil (can also be a mixture of Olive Oil and Veggie/Canola Oil)
2 Dried Guajillo Chiles or New Mexico Chiles, stemmed and seeded
2 Garlic Cloves, peeled and quartered
1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar (also try Sherry Vinegar or White Wine Vinegar)
Salt, to taste
6 Green Onions, wilted leaves and white root tips removed
1 1/2 cups Cherry Tomatoes, halved
Handful of Watercress Leaves
2 oz. crumbled Queso Fresco Cheese

Directions:
To make the Guajillo Chile Dressing, pour the oil into a large skillet and place over medium heat.  Add the chiles and garlic and saute, stirring constantly, for approximately 30 seconds until the chiles become fragrant.  Remove from heat and carefully transfer the chiles (leaving the garlic and oil) into a blender.  Add the vinegar and salt and blend for 30 seconds.  Once the oil and garlic have cooled, add them to the blender and blend until smooth.

Return the unwashed skillet to medium heat.  Brush the green onions with oil and place them in the skillet, turning occasionally, until wilted and browned.  Remove from skillet and slice into 1/4 inch pieces.  Reserve a few of the smaller onions as a garnish if desired.

To assemble your Tomato Salad, arrange a layer of watercress on a small plate.  Next, add a handful of the tomatoes (sprinkle some coarse salt on the tomatoes if desired) and add the green onions.  Add the crumbled queso fresco and drizzle on a few teaspoons of your Guajillo Chile Dressing.  Enjoy as a healthy main course or as a satisfying appetizer.

And now on to the Slimkicker Giveaway!  One of my readers will win this digital kitchen scale simply by commenting on this post!  Cool, right?

Slimkicker is an online “game” that helps you track your calorie intake and exercise.  Why is it a game, you ask?  Well, with Slimkicker you set a series of fun challenges (things like quitting soda for a week or cooking your dinner five days in a row rather than getting takeout) and you earn “points” if you complete your challenges.  After you earn a certain number of points you are eligible for Slimkicker giveaways and the program encourages you to reward yourself with a self-selected “perk” like indulging in something really tasty, taking a day off from your workout routine, or (if you earn a lot of points!) buying yourself a new iPod.

Since creating and sticking with fun challenges is an important part of the Slimkicker program, the folks at Slimkicker would like to read YOUR ideas for a Healthy Challenge!  To enter the contest and be eligible to win the digital scale, simply leave me a comment below with your own idea for a Healthy Challenge.  Slimkicker will select one person who leaves a comment in this post (pretty good odds, right?) as the winner of the digital scale.

My personal healthy challenge is to sit with good posture at work for one hour every day for a week.  Other challenges that have piqued my interest are to drink a glass of water before every meal (helps with feeling fuller sooner) and to replace juice with unsweetened iced tea for a week.  What are YOUR ideas for a healthy challenge?  Please share!

Contest ends at 11:59PM EDT on Wednesday, August 1st.  Comment before then for your chance to win!

Disclosure: The Ozeri Professional Digital Scale and all information about the program have been supplied by Slimkicker.  I downloaded the Slimkicker App but haven’t used it yet… I’ve been too busy sitting with good posture!

Recipes, Consolidated!

Posted in Recipes by

Woohoo!  My recipes are now organized into a single user-friendly index.
View my consolidated recipes here!

After nearly six months of blogging, this site now features more than 35 recipes ranging from homemade meatballs to pork tinga tacos.  But guess what?  Up until now these recipes have been hard to find unless you knew the exact keyword or date that the recipe was published.  If you wanted to browse my recipe offerings your only option was to keep scrolling down on the home page forever until you reached a recipe that sounded good, but who has the patience to do that?

Frustrated by my inability to easily view all of my recipes in one place at one time, I set about creating a complete recipe index.  I had a vision of this index having two columns so that you could see twice as many recipes at a time (I’m not a fan of continuously scrolling down, can you tell?) but I soon realized that simply “making two columns” involves creating an HTML table which is no small feat for an HTML-illiterate blogger such as myself.

Determined to realize my dream of a beautiful columned recipe index, I started learning the (very basic) basics of table-making in HTML.  Ultimately I was able to create a no-frills spreadsheet table in Excel, save it as a web page, open it in Firefox, view the page source code, copy out the specific section of code dealing with my table, paste the table into WordPress’s “text” editor, and re-size the columns so that they fit within my page’s formatted size and look good on a mobile device.  Whew!  All of that learning was totally worth it though because now I have a wonderful recipe index!  Go check it out!  🙂

Voila! My vision of a two-columned recipe index has been fulfilled!

Summer T.B.M. Pizza with Corn Relish

Posted in Recipes by

Last weekend as I was paging through this month’s volume of Martha Stewart Living I came across a delicious-sounding recipe for Grilled Pizza with Cheesy Corn, Fresh Tomatoes, and Basil.  I was already planning on making pizza for dinner on Sunday and happened to have some extra frozen corn, garlic, and Parmesan, so I decided to mix up my standard Tomato-Basil-Mozzarella pizza and make this recipe instead.

Since I made this on short notice I had to improvise a bit.  I didn’t have any fresh corn so I used frozen corn which I rinsed and drained before blending into the relish.  Although I’m sure corn freshly sliced off the cob would have been even better, I thought that the corn was pretty tasty.  I also cheated by baking the pizza in the oven rather than grilling it because it was waaaay to hot out to stand over a grill (we’ve been having a major heat wave here on the east coast) !  All in all I thought the pizzas were quite yummy.  Thanks, Martha Stewart!

Summer Tomato-Basil-Mozzarella Pizza with Corn Relish (from Martha Stewart Living)

You will need…
15 oz. store-bought Pizza Dough (I used Trader Joe’s dough, of course!)
1 1/3 cups Corn Kernels (from two ears of corn or just measured out if using frozen)
1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese
1-2 medium Garlic Cloves
4 tablespoons Olive Oil, divided
Salt, to taste
2 Tomatoes, thinly sliced (I used small plum-sized “on the vine” tomatoes)
4-6 oz. Mozzarella, thinly sliced (this worked out to 12 of TJ’s small marinated mozzarella balls)
1/2  cup Basil Leaves

Directions:
Make the corn relish by combining the corn, Parmesan, garlic, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a blender and blend well.  Stretch the pizza dough into two pizzas and place them on a greased baking pan.  (For best taste let the dough sit at room temperature for 1 hour beforehand.)  Season the dough with a few pinches of coarse salt, then bake in a 425° preheated oven for 6 minutes.  Remove from oven, flip the dough, then top with the corn relish (spread it on with a spoon), tomatoes, and mozzarella.  Bake the pizzas for another 6 minutes until the mozzarella has melted.  Top with the basil leaves and enjoy!

Mexican Tortas with Chorizo and Black Beans

Posted in Recipes by

This recipe for tasty tortas comes from our Mexican Everyday cookbook by Rick Bayless.  A torta is a Mexican-sandwich that features a smear of mashed beans and a wide variety of toppings including cheese, lettuce, sour cream, or salsa.  For these tortas we garnished our sandwiches with Queso Fresco, avocado, and Cholula hot sauce.  The resulting tortas contained the perfect combination of warm beans, spicy chorizo, and savory cheese and avocado, all nestled between golden-brown pieces of crusty bread.

Tortas de Chorizo y Frijoles Negros (from Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless)

You will need…
8 oz. Chorizo Sausage, removed from casing
Olive Oil
2 – 15 oz. cans Black Beans, undrained
Salt, to taste
2-3 Crusty Rolls, approx. 6 inches long (we used a French Baguette and cut it into three 6″ sections)
6 oz. Queso Fresco cheese, cut into 1/4 inch slices
1 ripe Avocado, cut into 1/2 inch slices
Cholula Hot Sauce, or other bottled sauce or hot salsa

Directions:
Brown the chorizo and break it up in a large skillet over medium heat.  After the chorizo is completely cooked through, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the black beans.  Bring the beans to a simmer and mash them with the back of a large spoon.  (You can also use a bean masher or potato masher if you have one but the spoon worked fine for us.)  Continue to cook the bean mixture, stirring almost constantly, for about 10 minutes.  Taste the mixture and add salt if needed.  Cover the beans and leave on the stove over low heat.

Meanwhile, slice each roll in half lengthwise.  Use your fingers to pull out some of the soft bread in the center to make room for the bean mixture.  Use a spoon or brush to spread approximately 2 tablespoons of olive oil onto the inside faces of each roll.  Place the rolls face-down on a preheated heavy-bottomed skillet and toast the bread until it turns golden brown.  We had to do this in batches since only one roll could fit in our skillet.  Press the rolls down as they cook so that they toast evenly.

To assemble your torta, spread a liberal amount of the chorizo-bean mixture along the bottom half of each roll.  Top with the sliced queso fresco and avocados, then add a few drops (or many drops… your choice!) of hot sauce.  Cut the torta in half and enjoy!