Southwestern Burgers

Yesterday I shared with you a great Homemade Chipotle Ketchup, and while it is super good just with fries, I thought I would give you something else to put it on.  Southwestern Burgers.  This is a burger I created just to go with the ketchup! It’s a beef patty with corn and black beans, seasoned with cumin and chili powder and draped in pepper jack cheese.  Top it all of with the chipotle ketchup, and it’s one sassy burger!

Southwestern Burgers

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef

½ cup corn (fresh, frozen, or canned)

½ cup black beans, drained and rinsed

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp chili powder

1 tbsp cilantro, chopped

4 slices pepper jack cheese

4 hamburger buns

Homemade chipotle ketchup

Directions:

Combine ground beef, corn, beans, salt, cumin, chili powder, and cilantro in a large bowl.  Divide mixture and shape into 4 patties.

Grill burgers over high heat until cooked through.  Top each patty with a slice of pepper jack cheese.  Place on buns and top with chipotle ketchup.

Makes 4 servings.

I am not usually a fan of pepper jack cheese, but I really liked it on this burger.  The burger itself isn’t spicy, more of a smoky chili flavor.  The spiciness of the cheese and the ketchup was just perfect with it.  

This is a great way to perk up your burger night!

Eating The Alphabet: Mango Barbecue Sauce

Today is reveal day for the Eating The Alphabet Challenge.  This month we had to chose a fruit, vegetable, grain, bean, or legume that began with the letters M, N, or O.  Three options!  Lots of choices there.

I immediately knew that I wanted to do something with mango.  My husband pointed out that mango was an excellent option because it contained all of the letter choices: M, N, and O, in order!  Always thinking, that guy!  I like mango-flavored things, but had never cooked with fresh mango before.  Time to change that!  I remembered that I had pinned something with mango earlier this summer and quickly found it on my Pinterest board.  It is a barbecue sauce made with mango from What’s Cooking, Love?.  I thought it sounded amazing and couldn’t wait to try it.  We had several rainy days where grilling wasn’t possible, but finally the clouds left us and we were able to get out there and smother this wonderful sauce all over some chicken.  Here’s the recipe.

Mango Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients:
1 large mango, chopped
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp onion powder
¼ cup ketchup
¼ tsp salt

Directions:
Combine the chopped mango, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, ketchup, and salt in a blender and blend until smooth.

Set some sauce aside (to be used for dipping later), then brush the remaining sauce all over whatever raw meat you want to grill.  Grill the meat as you normally would, then use the remaining sauce to dip at the table.

Makes enough for 4-6 servings.

This sauce is so good!  The onion powder and salt were my additions.  You may choose to add other things, or subtract some depending on the size and flavor of your mango.  My mango was super duper sweet, so that’s why I added the salt.  This sauce is definitely sweet, but it has a wonderful zesty tang to it as well.

I wrote the recipe as just the sauce, because it would be good on any kind of barbecued meat.  I didn’t want to limit it just to chicken.  It was awesome on the chicken, but it would also be great on grilled pork chops and even salmon.  Can’t wait to try that!

If you have never cut up a fresh mango, I suggest you google “how to cut up a mango” and watch a quick video.  I totally mangled mine cutting it up.  Mangos have an odd-shaped pit, so it’s best to cut it a certain way to get the majority of the meat off of it.  After watching a video, I was able to cut up the rest of them with no problem.

Be sure to check out all the other great recipes below, and come back tomorrow for another great homemade condiment recipe.

Secret Recipe Club: Grilled Ginger Lime Chicken Thighs

 It’s the first Monday of the month, and that means it’s Secret Recipe Club reveal day.   The Secret Recipe Club is a group of food bloggers who secretly make one of someone else’s dishes and post them all on the same day at the same time.  It’s really fun, choosing a recipe to make, making the recipe, then reading about everyone else’s recipes.  It’s a great way to “meet” other bloggers and check out some great blogs that you never knew about before.

Again, this month I was assigned a blog that was new to me, A Fit and Spicy Life.  It is written by Mellissa, who describes herself as being a “30 something, food loving, wine drinking, weight lifting, traveling, yogi blogger and FitFluential Ambassador living in Minneapolis. A true Mid-Western girl.”  She started her blog as a way to document a trip to Italy in 2009, then found that she loved blogging so much that she wanted to continue.  Her blog isn’t just about food though; it is filled with posts about fitness, travel, and wine as well.  

Mellissa has a great collection of recipes on her blog.  She lives a very healthy lifestyle, and her recipes reflect that.  However, they are anything but bland and boring.  I saw several dishes that caught my eye. I recently bought a panini press and am totally obsessed with paninis right now, so her Grilled Ham, Prosciutto, and Pear Sandwiches got my attention.  I also liked the looks of her Cilantro Pesto with Lemon Pepper Pasta, and her Chicken and Summer Vegetable Tostadas.  But I ended up with a recipe that included one of my favorite things to eat in the summertime: chicken thighs.  Mellissa has a great recipe for Broiled Ginger Lime Chicken Thighs that sounded amazing.  I decided to adapt it for the grill.  I love grilling chicken thighs because they don’t dry out and the skin gets crispy and delicious.  Here’s my adaptation of Mellissa’s recipe.

Grilled Ginger Lime Chicken Thighs

Ingredients:

1 lime

1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated

1 large clove garlic, grated

1 large shallot, minced

1 tsp salt

6-8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs 

Directions:

Zest lime and set zest aside for garnish later (if desired).  Juice lime and put juice in a small bowl.  Add ginger, garlic, shallot, and salt and mix well.

Divide ginger mixture evenly among chicken thighs and stuff it underneath the skin.  

Grill thighs over medium heat, 10-15 minutes per side.  Cook until internal temperature reaches 160°.  Remove from grill and garnish with lime zest, if desired.

Makes 3-4 servings.

It’s such a simple recipe, but man, it packs a flavor punch!  Mellissa used green onions instead of the shallots, but I just love the flavor of shallots and ginger together, and I don’t like how green onions get wilty-looking after being cooked.  I also threw some garlic in there for good measure. 🙂  Mellissa also put some curry powder in the mix, but I was afraid it would overpower the other flavors, so I left it out.  

I served this chicken over gingered brown rice with carrots on the side and it made the perfect summertime meal.  These thighs work really well on the grill, but I might have to use Mellissa’s broiler method when I’m craving them this winter.

Thanks for a great recipe, Mellissa!

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Strawberry Lemon Cake Bars with Lemon Glaze

Finally Friday! It’s the last day of The Garden’s Bounty recipe series hosted by Savannah of Hammock Tracks.

We are ending on a sweet note.  Today we are sharing with you desserts that use up fresh garden goods.  I chose a great summertime dessert with tangy lemons and juicy sweet strawberries.  This recipe is slightly adapted from one I found at Bakeaholic Mama.

Strawberry Lemon Cake Bars with Lemon Glaze


Ingredients:
1 cup butter, room temperature
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
Zest of 2 lemons (2-3 tbsp)
Juice of 1½ lemons (about ¼ cup +2 tbsp), divided
2¼ cups flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ cup fresh strawberries, diced
1 cup powdered sugar


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.  Coat an 8×8” glass baking dish with baking spray.


In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together.  Add egg, lemon zest, and ¼ cup lemon juice.  Stir until combined.


In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just combined.  Gently fold in strawberries.


Press dough into the bottom of the pan.  Bake for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Let cool.


For the glaze, combine the powdered sugar and remaining 2 tbsp lemon juice.  Pour over cooled bars.  Cut and serve.


Makes 9 bars.

These bars are so good!  Lemon and strawberry go so well together and they are perfect summer flavors.  The blog I got this recipe from called them “cookie bars”, but they seemed more cakey to my husband and me.  They are kind of crumbly, not chewy like a cookie.  So I named my version “cake bars” instead.  Whatever the name, you’ll call them delicious!

Check out the other great summertime desserts below.

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Avgolemono (Greek Lemon Egg Soup)

It’s Day Three of The Garden’s Bounty recipe series hosted by Savannah of Hammock Tracks.

Today we are sharing soup recipes.  Soup in the summer?  I know.  I get totally obsessed with soups in the winter, but hardly ever have them in the summer.  But guess what?  I have an awesome summer-friendly soup for you today.  It is super light and lemony and perfect for summertime.  It was March when I made this soup, but it was during that weird March heatwave, so it was like 84 degrees that day.

Have you ever heard of Avgolemono?  Click on that link to read all about it, but the gist of it is that it’s a Greek soup made up of lemon juice and eggs.  Orzo is cooked in chicken broth, then a mixture of lemon juice and eggs is added to thicken the broth.  Meat is optional; I chose some shredded chicken breast for mine.  Topping it off with fresh dill finishes it perfectly.

Avgolemono


6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
½ cup orzo, dry
Salt 
5 eggs
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
Fresh dill


Directions:
In a large saucepan, bring the broth to a boil.  Add the orzo and cook until tender but still al dente, about 7 minutes. Season with the salt and reduce heat to low; let simmer.


In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and lemon juice until smooth. Ladle about 1 cup of the hot broth into the egg-and-lemon mixture, whisking to combine.


Add the mixture back to the simmering saucepan. Stir just until the soup becomes opaque and thickens as the eggs cook, 1 to 2 minutes. Add chicken and taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper if necessary.  


Serve warm.


Makes 4 servings.

I know that the dill is technically the only garden produce here, but if you live in Florida, you could count the lemon too. 🙂  This soup is just so perfect for summertime that I had to share.

Be sure to check out all the other great soups below and come back on Friday when I will share with you a delicious summery dessert.

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Avocado Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad

It’s Day Two of The Garden’s Bounty recipe series hosted by Savannah of Hammock Tracks.

Today we are talking salads.  I’ve had this pasta salad waiting in the wings for a while now, ever since I made it for my daughter’s second birthday party in early June.  I thought this would be a great time to share it with you.  While it’s probably not what you would first think about when someone mentions salads and garden produce, it does have fresh veggies in it and it’s perfect for summertime.  It’s an adaptation of one I found at The Daily Dish Recipes.

Avocado Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad


Ingredients:
1 lb. dried tri-color spiral pasta
¾ cup mayonnaise
¾ cup ranch dressing
2 avocados, pitted and cut into 1″ pieces
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
½ cup kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
12 slices bacon, cooked and cut into 1″ pieces


Directions:
Boil the pasta as directed on the package. Drain and rinse with cold water to cool the pasta. Set aside.


In a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise and ranch dressing.  Set aside.


In another small bowl, toss the avocado in the lemon juice.


Pour the pasta into a large serving bowl. Add the tomatoes, sliced bacon, olives, and avocado. Gently stir in the dressing.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 45 minutes.


Serve cold.


Makes 12 servings.

The combination of flavors in this pasta salad is amazing.  Creamy and buttery avocado, chewy and salty bacon, juicy and tart tomatoes, tangy olives, and a cool and mildly ranch dressing to tie it all together.  So good!  It does make a lot, so it’s perfect for a crowd.  It does keep pretty well, except for the avocados.  I had some left over from my daughter’s birthday party, so I kept snacking on it for a few days.  I just ate around the avocado. 🙂

Check out the other great salads below and come back tomorrow for a soup that’s perfect for summertime.

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Improv Challenge: Golden Cheddar Corn Cakes

It’s reveal day for the Improv Challenge.  The premise of this challenge is easy: each month there are two assigned ingredients.  The participants must make a recipe using both ingredients and blog about it.

This month’s assigned ingredients were corn and butter.  Yummy!  Anything with those two ingredients has to be good.  I had made some corn cakes a couple of months ago, but hadn’t posted them yet because I felt they needed tweaking.  This challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to do so!  I added cheddar cheese to them and topped the warm cakes with butter, which immediately melted and made the best topping.  Here’s the recipe.

Golden Cheddar Corn Cakes

Ingredients:
2 cups fresh corn kernels (about 4 ears), or 1 can of canned corn
½ cup green onions, sliced
¼ cup + 1 tbsp vegetable oil, divided
4 eggs, separated
½ cup flour
½ cup yellow cornmeal
1 tsp salt
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Butter

Directions:
In a blender or food processor, pulse corn until chopped but not smooth. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in green onions, ¼ cup oil, and the egg yolks.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, salt, and cheese. Add to corn mixture and mix thoroughly but gently.

In a clean bowl, whisk or beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold into corn mixture.

In a large frying pan, heat 1 tbsp oil over medium-high heat. Working in batches of 4, drop large spoonfuls of the corn mixture into pan. Cook until edges begin to set and undersides are browned, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook until cakes are browned and cooked through. Remove from pan and immediately top with butter.  Serve warm.

Makes 4 servings, 4 (2”) cakes each.

You may think it’s kind of a cop-out to just put butter on top, but let me tell you, that is the best part!  The first time we had these corn cakes, we didn’t top them with anything and ate them dry.  They were bland and just kind of “blah”.  The addition of the cheddar cheese certainly helped a lot, but putting melty butter on them put them over the top.  We use real butter sparingly because it’s so unhealthy, but this is one instance where a splurge is warranted.

I actually split this recipe and make two different batches.  I make half of it as written above, and I make the other half without cheese or butter for my kids, since my little one is allergic to dairy.  It really isn’t that much extra work to split it in half like that.

These make a great side dish for summer grilling, and if you make them tiny, would make a great party appetizer with some kind of yummy topping.  They are really quite versatile.

Stephanie from Sustainable Cooking for One chose to make this recipe when she was assigned my blog for the Secret Recipe Club in February 2013.  Click on the button below to check out her post!

Check out all of the other great corn and butter recipes below, and come back next month to see what I create with tomatoes and peppers!

Eating the Alphabet: Kiwi Lemon Pie

 It’s time once again for the Eating the Alphabet Challenge.  This month we had to chose a fruit, vegetable, grain, bean, or legume that began with the letter K or L.

K and L are pretty easy letters to work with.  Kale, kiwi, kumquat, lettuce, lime, lemon.  Lots of choices.  I decided on a recipe that used both of the assigned letters, K and L.  I made a pie with kiwi and lemon.  I found the recipe at RecipeLand.  Here’s my adaptation.

Kiwi Lemon Pie


Ingredients:
1¼ cups milk
1¼ cups sugar
3 tbsp cornstarch
3 egg yolks, lightly beaten
½ cup fresh lemon juice
Zest of 2 lemons
1 tsp vanilla extract
9” graham cracker crust
¼ cup apricot preserves
2 kiwi fruit, peeled and sliced

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325°.


Heat milk over low heat in top of double boiler over simmering water.


Combine sugar, cornstarch, and egg yolks in a medium bowl.  Add a small amount of the warm milk, stirring constantly.  Add another small amount of milk to the sugar/egg mixture, stirring until combined.  Gradually add the sugar/egg mixture into the warm milk, stirring constantly.  Increase heat to a boil, then lower heat and cook 5 minutes, or until mixture thickens.  Whisk in lemon juice, zest, and vanilla.  Pour mixture into pie shell.


Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until center is set.  Cool pie for 10 minutes.


Melt preserves in the microwave and brush thin layer over surface of pie.  Arrange kiwis to cover top of pie.  Brush again with remaining preserves and cool in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour or longer.


Cut into wedges and serve.


Makes 8 servings.

As you can see in the picture above, my pie turned out less-than-perfect, which is a nice way of saying “kind of messed up!”  I did kind of mess it up.  But it wasn’t the recipe’s fault, it was mine.  Well, the first problem I had was that it called for the juice of 3 lemons.  Well, the lemons I had were total monsters.  They were about twice the size of a normal lemon, which you can see above.  So I had to do some research to see how much juice to use.  

The second problem I had was that I ran out of cornstarch.  I needed three tbsp and only had about two.  I tried to compensate for this by removing some of the milk.  It kind of worked.  I had to cook the pie a lot longer than stated to get it to set up.  And well, there were some other complications, but I won’t bore you with the details!  In the end, while it wasn’t the prettiest looking thing, it tasted good, so that’s all that matters!

 I took too long taking pics and the filling started to ooze out on me.  

I took pictures of the intact pie very strategically!  (Trust me, this was the “good” side!)

So yeah, I had some problems, but it ended up working out.  My husband loved it so much he said he wanted to stick his face in it.  That makes it a success in my book!

My 400th Recipe: Crispy Grilled Chicken Thighs

 Today is an exciting day!  Today I am celebrating another milestone on my little blog.  Today I am posting my 400th recipe!  Wow!  I can’t believe there are 400 recipes here!  If it wasn’t for Blogger keeping track of my post count, I wouldn’t believe it.  

I have chosen an awesome recipe to be my 400th.  Crispy breaded chicken thighs cooked on the grill.  Breaded chicken on the grill?  Yep!  I know, I was skeptical when I first saw it too, but it was a Food Network recipe and they very rarely steer me wrong, so I thought it was worth a shot. Best risk I ever took!

Crispy Grilled Chicken Thighs


Ingredients:
⅓ cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp onion powder
½ tsp salt
8 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs (about 2¼ lbs.)
Vegetable oil, for brushing
1½ cups dry breadcrumbs
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp salt


Directions:
Combine the mayonnaise, chili powder, 1 tsp onion powder, and ½ tsp salt in a large bowl. Add the chicken and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.


Preheat a grill to medium low. Brush the grill grates with vegetable oil. Combine the breadcrumbs, 1 tsp onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and 1 tsp salt in a shallow dish.  Add the chicken, turning to thoroughly coat. Grill the chicken, turning once, until golden brown and cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes per side.


Makes 4 servings.

I made a few changes, mostly adding seasoning to the breadcrumbs.  I thought they should be seasoned too. This chicken is amazing!  So crispy and crunchy on the inside, while tender and juicy on the inside.  Perfect.  

This was the meal I chose as my “grill take-over” on Father’s Day.  My husband had always done all the grilling at our house, but I was starting to notice that not everything was turning out so well.  I’m just going to come out and say it: things were being burned.  Badly.  Like, beyond recognition.  I had a hunch that the problem was that my husband was grilling everything (burgers, pork chops, bone-in chicken, you name it) on high.  As high as it goes.  Like 700 degrees.  I think it’s kind of a man thing.  Some fire is good, so more must be better, right?  Wrong!  Father’s Day was the perfect time for my grill take-over because I disguised it as giving my husband the day off from grilling.  “I will make the entire dinner, honey. You don’t have to lift a finger!”  My plan worked perfectly.  Until I noticed that every time I came back outside to check on the chicken, my husband was standing at the grill turning the heat up!  So I kept shooing him away.  I grilled that chicken on medium-low the whole time, while he sat there trying to read his book and not notice how I was doing it.  He was very impressed at how it turned out.  So I thought he had finally learned a valuable lesson that day and that he wouldn’t cook everything on high in the future.

He was grilling earlier this week, and he said to me, “You know, I think sometimes it works out better to have the grill on medium instead of high.”  *Forehead slap* Duh!  I guess sometimes you just have to learn things on your own!

Here’s to another 400 recipes!

Patriotic Poke Cake

Happy Fourth of July!! I hope you all get to enjoy the day, celebrating in your favorite way.  If you have been invited to a cook-out or get-together of some type, and haven’t yet figured out what to bring, this cake is a great choice.  I saw a patriotic poke cake over at Love Bakes Good Cakes, and I thought it was a great idea.  I love poke cakes, but it had been a while since I had a good ol’ jello one.  That recipe called for blue frosting, but I care for regular frosting on a light and fruity poke cake like this.  The only topping I ever had on a jello poke cake was Cool Whip, so I thought, “Why not do blue Cool Whip?”  It was perfect.

Patriotic Poke Cake


Ingredients:
1 box (18 oz.) white cake mix 
Eggs, oil, and water called for on cake mix box
2 cups boiling water
2 (3 oz.) boxes cherry jello
1 container Cool Whip
Blue food coloring


Directions:
Prepare and bake cake according to package directions, using a 9×13” cake pan. Let cool. Using the handle of a wooden spoon, pokes holes in the cake every ½” to 1”. 


Combine the jello and the boiling water. Stir briskly for 2 minutes or until the jello is dissolved. Pour over the cake evenly. Cover and refrigerate cake for 2-4 hours or until jello is set.


Stir blue food coloring into the Cool Whip until you get the desired shade of blue.  Spread Cool Whip on top of cake.  Cut and serve.


Store leftovers in refrigerator.


Makes 16 servings.

You could probably use raspberry or strawberry jello, but I thought cherry would be the reddest red.  I used Wilton’s Royal Blue gel food coloring for the topping.  The Cool Whip really is a great topping for this cake.  It keeps it light and airy, which makes it a perfect summertime dessert.

Happy Fourth of July!!