Limes are in abundance at our house this summer. We buy them by the bag and they've shown up in Blueberry Lime Muffincakes, marinades, a cocktail or two...ya know, the usual. I just love the flavor, I even prefer a slice of lime or two with my ginger ale. This marinade was so easy and made for a delicious, lower calorie meal. We opted to stay away from hot dogs and hamburgers this past Memorial Day/4th of July/any grilling adventure and made our own marinade with garlic, lime and various spices.
Ingredients:
2-3 Lime juice, a couple
Fresh Cilantro, chopped
Garlic Powder - I use powder when I make a marinade because it's more likely to equally distribute amongst the chicken, peppers than crushed garlic.
S/P
Crushed Red Pepper
1/4 cu of vegetable or olive oil
1.5 lbs of chicken
[3] Bell Peppers
[1] Lg. Onion
Directions:
1. Soak skewers in water for about 25-30 minutes
2. Mix first [5] ingredients then whisk in oil
3. Chop peppers and onions into large pieces; use kitchen shears to cut chicken breasts/tenders into medium size pieces.
4. Submerge vegetables and chicken in marinade, toss and let sit in fridge anywhere from 30 minutes to overnight.
5. Skewer chicken & peppers in any way you like. Leave room at the top and bottom of the skewer to handle while on the grill and eating.
6. Grill skewers 3-4 minutes per side - grilling time depends on how large you cut your chicken. With chicken, you want to make sure the juices run clear and is no longer pink in the center.
7. Squeeze fresh lime juice over the skewers when they come off the girl and either eat them on a long roll, over salad or by themselves, it's all good!
8. Enjoy!
Another Yum! We're on a Rachel Ray kick this past week and here's another good one. Vegetable Ravioli "Lasagna" - super yummy and a plus that it has asparagus, a good spring/summer veggie. This is from Rachel Ray, 30-Minute Meals 2 in the Family-Style Suppers. I don't always find that the portion sizes always match the recipe and this is another case, it says 4-6 servings...more like 8.
Recipe Notes:
*This recipe is also in Rachel Rays, 2,4,6,8 Great Meals for Couples or Crowds - one difference, no asparagus.
- 4-6 cloves of garlic
finely chopped crushed
- 2 cans [15 oz each] quartered artichokes in water, drained well & finely chopped, really break up the pieces and chop them throughly.
- 2 cups vegetable
or chicken stock
- 1 large package [24 - 28 oz]
fresh well, yes fresh would be lovely too, but you can certainly use frozen ravioli if it's more convenient for you...with your favorite filling.
- 1 lb thins asparagus spears, trimmed of rough ends, cut on an angle into
2 inch very small pieces. It's inconvenient to have large pieces of asparagus amongst the other medium sized pieces in the "lasagna."
- 4 or 2 cups shredded sharp provolone cheese - sharp provolone is a great flavor, look for it!
- See note below regarding final cooking instructions
Here's the first layer of ravioli, I like the circular pieces, despite my usual preference for square. Notice the large pile of provolone in the corner...yum!
Here's the second layer of spinach, artichokes and asparagus. You can see I followed the recipe this time and kept the asparagus 2"...this is why I have the above note, smaller pieces would be best here. The sauce didn't thicken as much as I'm used to when using a flour & butter base, but it's perfect the way it is since you're finishing the casserole in the oven.
Here's the final layer with the sauce covering the entire dish, ready and waiting for the cheese! I used a larger casserole dish but I recommend using a deeper, oval dish, I'll do the same the next time I make this.
Ready for the oven! The recipe calls to broil the dish, but it's better to: Brown in broiler Bake @ 350deg. about 15 minutes, until cheese is golden and "lasagna" is heated through.
This lasted for days! It was so yummy too. It looks the best on the first day but tastes the better the second day - as it works with most casseroles. What's great about that is you can prepare the day ahead, cool completely, store in an airtight container until ready to serve. About an hour before serving, let stand at room temperature so you don't place a cold dish in a hot oven and warm in the oven until heated through - about a 250 - 300 deg. oven until gently bubbling. Enjoy!
Just a quick little note about lobster...it's summer, we've got soft shells and sweet, juicy meat! A nice piece of corn on the cob, hefty bowl of lemon-butter and a large napkin. I'm all set!
Here's a quick dessert - or breakfast treat - depending on your mood. Simply puff pastry filled with nutella [or any jelly/jam you desire] rolled and baked until golden brown and puffy! Sprinkle with sugar right out of the oven and you've got a lovely, little treat.
Sometimes I find that I just don't want to slave over a meal in the middle of the summer, it's just too darn hot & toasty. I admit that this usually happens on a Sunday afternoon which is the perfect time for a fridge/cabinet raid!
Let's see, what do we have here:
Homemade Guacamole - Crackers - Mini Italian Loaf, sliced - Sharp Provolone - Mozzarella - Sliced Tomato with Balsamic Syrup - Heluva Good Dip.
We had a cocktail in the kitchen as I put it all together and followed by a leisurely supper outside. We were plenty full and I was happy to use up these items in the fridge. Consider having hors d'oeuvres for dinner, snack lightly, sneak in a few vegetables and you'll have less clean-up and post dinner regrets! Enjoy!
Yum! I might be over-doing it with lemon recipes in this house, but so far no complaints. We were in the mood for some lite pasta and I had just bought some shrimp, just happened to have some lemons hanging around and everything else is always in my cabinets. This recipe is fast, flavorful and really simple.
Ingredients:
12-14 medium size shrimp, peeled, deveined, tails on
1-2 cups of all purpose flour
Garlic Salt - you can also use powdered garlic & sea salt
2 Tbsp. of Olive Oil
1 Tbsp. of Butter - unsalted
.5 lb. of Angel Hair pasta - really you can use whatever you prefer but the angel hair really has a nice texture with the shrimp
1/4 cup of white wine
Juice of 1-2 lemons - depends on how much lemon you want!
2 Tbsp. of Butter
Chopped fresh Parsley, to taste
Grated Parmesan Cheese
Prep:
Juice lemons
Chop parsley
Measure out ingredients and place on counter/workspace
1. Boil salted water and cook your pasta according to package directions
2. Mix together flour & garlic salt; dredge all of the shrimp in the flour mixture. I advise that you do this all at once and leave shrimp in the flour mixture, you can easily pick the shrimp out to batch fry - shrimp cooks so quickly you don't want to be distracted.
3. Heat Olive oil & butter over medium heat in a large skillet.
4. Cook the shrimp over medium heat, 2-3 minutes per side, until shrimp is no longer translucent and heated through.
5. Transfer shrimp to a plate
6. Remove any overly dark pieces from the pan, pour in the white wine, lemon juice and butter to lift drippings. Heat to a slow boil, reduce heat to simmer until mixture has thickened and reduced. Remove from heat and toss the shrimp in the sauce.
7. Drain pasta, toss with olive oil, fresh, chopped parsley. Serve a portion on a plate.
8. Divide the shrimp among the portions and pour the sauce over each serving. Top with parmesan cheese if desired
9. Enjoy!
Yum! These were so good and easy! This is also from Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meal cookbook, 2,4,6,8 Great Meals for Couples & Crowds.
We perused the meals before our last grocery trip and liked the looks of this recipe a lot, except kalamata olives, I switched them with black olives. Also, we found Portuguese rolls at the bakery and they were the perfect size and shape. You'll likely find fontina near the gouda, in your grocer's cheese section.
Slice the bread an set aside. Drain the olives, use sharp scissors to finely dice the parsley and slice up the roasted red pepper to manageable pieces.
Once you have a manageable pile, chop the ingredients together until it's evenly distributed in the mixture. Slice the fontina cheese - or shred, must be cool right from the fridge for this - and brush a little olive oil on your flat-top surface. If you don't have a flat-top, simply heat one panini at a time in a frying pan. If you have a panini press, good for you! use that.
These paninis were so yummy! I used our cast iron pan to weigh down the sandwiches, I moved the top slices slightly so things were a bit off...but it didn't hurt the flavor. We made them again for lunch the next day and I paid a little closer attention to the weight distribution and it made for a slightly neater sandwich. Enjoy!
We like salad year 'round, but it can get a little monotonous, even when you make your own dressing. Rachel Ray has a recipe for Sliced Grilled Portobello Mushroom Sorta-Caesar Salad in her 30-Minute Meal cookbook, 2,4,6,8 Great Meals for Couples & Crowds and we really liked it! It is an easy, lite, fresh summer recipe. You can add some protein if need be, I recommend grilling some chicken and squeezing fresh lemon juice over the fully cooked pieces. Slice up and serve overtop the salad.
This time, I bought baby bella caps instead of the larger size, I find they cook up a little faster. I removed the stems and sliced a small section of the mushroom off to allow it to lay nice and flat in the pan.
Follow the recipe for the cook time on the mushrooms and shortly thereafter, sprinkle some grill seasoning on each side of the mushrooms and saute for a few minutes longer. We used Meat Magic which gave it a nice, savory flavor.
I had planned to use semonlina rolls for the chunks of bread in the salad but I forgot them! So quick, plan B included some tortillas instead.
I sliced up some tortillas, melted some butter and tossed them in the pan until golden. Toss with a little s/p and parmesan cheese and you're good to go!
Toss with the dressed and then add the rest of the ingredients.
So good! RR suggested using anchovy paste and I wouldn't go without it. You can use canned anchovies and finely chop and stir into the dressing. You should be able to find the paste in the same aisle as tuna. Enjoy!
We had a lovely weekend! The weather has been beautiful, the food was great and Monday was a vacation day!
Saturday we spent the day in Boston for Harborfest, we walked all over the city, enjoyed an amazing lunch in the North End at Damianos and dessert & cappuccino at Cafe Vittoria. Right before we headed back home we watched a skirmish between the militia and red coats...want me to tell you how it ended ;) Enjoy some photos of the day!
On Monday we tried to have a lovely picnic at our favorite park but lightning sent us home pretty quickly! Instead we grilled back home and enjoyed some delicious Garlic Lime Chicken Kabobs. Recipe to follow soon! I hope you all enjoyed your weekend. Enjoy!
Okay! So after I made the Blueberry Lime Muffincakes I wanted more! I gave so many away and the SH and I were eating them each morning for breakfast - someone else was enjoying one or two while I was at rehearsal... - and now they're gone! How do I get past this? Search the fridge, find a new recipe and go! There came about Strawberry Lemonade Muffincakes. I used the same recipe but substituted strawberries for blueberries and lemons for limes.
There's the recipe! Follow it but slice enough strawberries for a heaping cup. Try not to sample too many...another good reason to make this recipe [if you need one] you'll have the superfine sugar already, no need for another grocery trip!
Look at those delicious colors! I thought blueberries said summer, but lemon & strawberries say Summer with a capital 'S!' This is what your batter should look like once you've added the strawberries.
Because this is a slightly thicker batter than you might be used to, here's what it should look like. Use an ice cream scoop to get the batter into paper baking cups and smooth over with the back of a spoon. For this recipe, it's okay to fill the muffincups nearly full.
This way, they'll come out looking like this:
Cool them in the pan for about 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack. Line aluminum foil under the wire rack so you can drizzle the lemon glaze over the top.
Either place in a cake dome, tupperware or individual bags. Make sure they are completely cooled!
These made their way to [4] people deserving of a treat break! You could be next! Enjoy!
Well, one thing to discuss first is the word, "Muffincakes" I'm pretty sure I'm not the first to come up with this word, but I was pretty proud of it either way. Basically, a cupcake and a muffin got together and made nice. Real nice. The batter is all cupcake style, but because there isn't any frosting I was compelled to call it something else. There.
So these Blueberry Lime Muffincakes came from my 500 Cupcakes Cookbook. So simple! It called for self-rising flour and if you don't have that at home you can easily add 1 tsp. of baking powder and salt for 1 cup of flour. My ratio might be a little off there, but I tell you what, there wasn't anything "off" about these muffincakes.
I had all my ingredients out on the counter, ready to mix in the dough. When working with superfine sugar, you want to be sure you don't let the mixture separate. It will look a little different than most batters but once you add the flour SLOWLY you'll begin to recognize the consistency. I found that is it important to beat the sugar and butter 1st, then add eggs & milk and of course, always add the dry ingredients to the wet slowly. Once you have you base batter, fold in the blueberries. Gently, you want the heat from the oven to burst the berries, not your mixing.
