Southwestern-Style Steak Taco Salad

I found this recipe from Cooking Light magazine and I must say, it had a lot of flavor. I did; however, substitute the shrimp in the recipe for steak, as we are not seafood fans. It was a nice summer salad that isn't too difficult to make. I suggest you try this recipe. I added a little taco seasoning to the avocado sour cream to give it even more flavor. I think my adaptations, just made this recipe unhealthy and no longer considered a "Cooking Light" recipe. :) It was delicious either way, I just went with what we had on hand. 

Southwestern-Style Shrimp Taco Salad
1/4 cup lime juice
2 T olive oil
1 t ground cumin
2 t minced garlic
2 t maple syrup
2 t chipotle hot sauce
3/4 lb medium shrimp, peeled and devined (we used a steak instead)
2 ear of shucked corn (we used frozen corn, but put it on the grill)
1 cup chopped romaine lettuce
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 (15oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained
3 plum tomatoes chopped (we used grape tomatoes)
2 oz. baked blue corn tortilla chips (we used regular corn tortilla chips)
1/3 cup light sour cream
1/4 cup diced peeled avocado
lime wedges (optional)

Preparation

1. Prepare grill to medium-high heat.
2. Combine lime juice, olive oil, cumin, garlic, syrup, and hot sauce in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Place the shrimp (we used steak) in a shallow bowl. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of the lime juice mixture over shrimp, tossing gently to coat. Reserve the remaining lime juice mixture; set aside. Thread shrimp onto metal skewers. Lightly coat corn with cooking spray. Place shrimp kebabs and corn on a grill rack coated with cooking spray. Grill 8 minutes, turning kebabs once and turning corn frequently until browned. Remove from grill; cool slightly.
3. Remove shrimp from skewers, and place in a large bowl. Cut kernels from ears of corn. Add corn, chopped lettuce, green onions, cilantro, black beans, and plum tomatoes to shrimp. Drizzle reserved lime juice mixture over the shrimp mixture, and toss gently to combine.
4. Divide tortilla chips evenly among 6 shallow bowls; top each serving with 1 cup shrimp mixture. Combine sour cream and diced avocado in a small bowl; mash with a fork until well blended. Top each serving with about 1 tablespoon sour cream mixture. Serve with a lime wedge, if desired.

Greek Stuffed Chicken

My brother came over for a BBQ last weekend and gave us a great recipe for stuffed chicken. It was delicious and I highly recommend it! I am normally a little weird about eating chicken, but this made it better since you pound it thin and add flavorful stuffing to make it taste delicious. It is grilling season, so try this one out, it seems to be healthy too!

Greek Stuffed Chicken

Recipe compliments of my brother Tom

6 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts

1/2 cup of sundried tomato (drained)

1 pkg. spinach

1 c. feta cheese

4 green onions

1/4 cup greek olives chopped (I used kalamata olives)

1 garlic clove

Salt and pepper to taste

Greek seasoning

1. Pound the chicken breasts with a meat mallet to about 1/8 inch thickness.

2. Combine all of the other ingredients in a bowl. I chose to put the ingredients in my food processor to fully chop and blend all the ingredients together. 

3. Cover the flattened chicken breasts with the greek ingredients and roll the chicken breasts to make a pinwheel and place toothpicks in to keep the chicken in place.

4. Wrap each chicken breast in tinfoil and grill until the chicken is cooked through. If you'd prefer to not grill the chicken, you can place them on a cookie sheet and bake them for 40 minutes. No need to use tinfoil if you are putting them in the oven.

Strawberry, Mascarpone, and Bacon?

Well believe it or not, I found this recipe in the Kirkland Costco cookbook. They give out a yearly cookbook for free after the holidays and I usually flip through and forget all about it, but this year I pulled out all of the recipes that I wanted to try. This recipe looked delicious and like a fun appetizer that wasn't too difficult, but looked like it was a lot of work to make. I'll be honest, I am not sure how I feel about mascarpone cheese yet, I wanted it to have more of a cheese flavor and less of a cool whip flavor. This recipe was good if you like mascarpone cheese, I think next time I'd make it with ricotta or some other more flavorful cheese. It is an acquired taste, but will impress your friends because they look fancy. Give them a try and see what you think, they have a light taste, try adding more pepper to the mascarpone cheese and it will have more of a kick.

Strawberry, Mascarpone, and Bacon
1/2 pound bacon
8 oz. mascarpone cheese
2 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper
15 Strawberries
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon chopped fresh basil
1 teaspoon chopped flat-leaf parsley

Cut bacon across the shorter width into strips about 1/4 inch wide. Saute over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until deep brown. Drain well. Transfer to absorbent paper to remove excess fat and let cool.

Place mascarpone and pepper in a bowl and gently mix with a spatula or beater to incorporate the pepper evenly. Transfer the mixture into a ziploc bag and snip off a lower corner of the bag to pipe the cheese out.

To serve, gently toss strawberries with vinegar, basil, and parsley. Arrange cut side up on a tray. Pipe a small amount of cheese onto each berry. Garnish with bacon. Makes 30 appetizers.

BBQ Season! Watermelon Salad and Sun Dried Tomato Dip

 I love BBQ season, it means summer is just that much closer and that you can finally get outside after a LONG winter! We barbecued twice this weekend with friends, it was so great to catch up with everyone and be outside in the sun. I decided to try two new recipes for our Saturday night BBQ, a watermelon salad, as well as a sun dried tomato dip. Pat suggested the idea of combining watermelon, feta, and basil for a salad and I just guessed on the rest to see what would taste good. It turned out to be a delicious summer salad that was easy to make. I also wanted to make some sort of dip, but didn't want to go to the grocery store, so I looked in the fridge and came up with the combination for the sun dried tomato dip, it was also delicious and easy to make.

Watermelon, Feta, and Basil Salad

Watermelon-cut up (I used seedless to make it easier)

feta cheese

basil-chopped

red wine vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Serve chilled.

Sundried Tomato Dip

1- 4oz. jar of sun dried tomatoes

2- 8oz. blocks of cream cheese (room temperature)

Garlic salt and pepper to taste

minced garlic

Kalamata olives-chopped

Combine all ingredients in a food processor, chop and pulse until all ingredients are well blended and broken down. Chill for about an hour to let it set, then serve it at room temperature so it is easy to spread on crackers.

Grilled Dakotas.....or Fajitas!

So I text my friend to tell her that when her and her family came for a BBQ at our house that we would have grilled fajitas; however, my phone has the T9 feature and decide to take a guess at what I was trying to say and changed it to grilled "dakotas." She knows that I like to try new recipes, so she wasn't sure if this was some sort of food she hadn't heard of, but turns out my phone outsmarted me! I guess I rely on the auto correct feature a little too much and forget to read over my text before sending them out. Oops! At any rate, the grilled dakotas or fajitas, whichever you prefer, turned out to be pretty tasty. When we were in Australia, my sister-in-law made us some grilled fajitas with a lime marinade, so I tried my own mix to make a lime marinade. I don't have exact portions, as I just added a dash here and there of each ingredient, but just taste it as you go and see what you think!

Grilled Chicken Fajita Marinade Ingredients
1 lb. chicken breast cut into strips
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
The juice of 4 limes (roughly)
Ground Cumin
Cayenne Pepper
1/4 cup of beer
Olive oil (since I added beer, I didn't use a ton of olive oil)
Salt and pepper
minced garlic

Other Ingredients:
1 red pepper cut into strips
1 green pepper cut into strips
1 onion cut into strips
2 zucchinis cut into strips
tortilla shells (we grilled ours to warm them)
Whatever toppings you desire (sour cream, avocado, cheese, salsa, etc.)

Whisk the ingredients together and add the chicken, let it marinade for about a half hour-an hour before grilling. Grill the marinaded chicken and the peppers and onions together. Put them in your tortillas, add toppings, and enjoy!