If you're unfamiliar with ceviche... it's basically a Latin American dish of raw seafood of one sort or another cured (which basically cooks it without any heat application) in citrus juice, usually like a salsa with seafood. It's different from region to region, you'll never get the same one twice! Crab, white fish, lobster, shrimp, octopus, squid, whatever!
This is a Chicago kind of post! We were watching chef Rick Bayless' show on PBS - he has several restaurants in Chicago and while I never had the opportunity to try one while I lived there, he's a name I've known well for a long time. Bayless did a green ceviche with shrimp that looked amazing and it's been a while since Justin and I made a ceviche, so one day I texted Justin at work with a list of ingredients, and a deal - if he stopped at the store on the way home, I'd make him ceviche. We ended up doing it together anyway (because he's a nice guy like that). I pretty much followed Rick Bayless' recipe, but I made a few alterations to the sauce and I quite liked it the way it came out, so I wanted to share. Definitely can't take credit for this recipe... it's really all Rick Bayless, but here's the way I made it. I'm not actually sure how we have never used a Rise Against song on our blog, because they're also from Chicago and I love them! I was actually just listening to some the other day thinking surely I used at least one, if not several, of my favourite songs on the blog. But nothin'! Disgraceful. So here is Rise Against with "Black Masks and Gasoline". -jen
CEVICHE VERDE CON CAMARONES (altered version of Rick Bayless recipe) Time: 35 minutes Difficulty: Too easy Serves: 4-6
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
6 ounces fresh tomatillos, husked, rinsed and roughly
chopped, 4-5 medium
1 cup (loosely packed) fresh cilantro plus some 1/4 cup chopped
1 medium-sized jalapeño (seeded for mild heat, include seeds for medium heat)
2 medium cloves garlic, peeled
3 medium-sized green onions, rough chopped plus 2 medium green onions diced
1.5 tsp salt
a few cranks of fresh ground black pepper
1 pound very fresh uncooked, medium shrimp,
peeled and deveined, chopped into bite size
2 medium avocados, cut into 1/2" cubes
tortilla chips
In a food processor or blender, combine lime juice, chopped tomatillos, 1 cup cilantro, jalapeño, garlic, 3 green onions, salt and pepper. Blend until slushy consistency. Combine shrimp and sauce into bowl, making sure shrimp is fully covered and refrigerate for 30 minutes. After refrigeration, stir in 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, 2 green onions diced and avocado. Give it a taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. Serve with tortilla chips.
I had a craving for bruschetta, so we grabbed the ingredients to make it today. Really... basil, garlic and tomatoes are one of my most favourite flavour combos! They're so perfect together. I didn't realize we didn't have a recipe for bruschetta posted! You don't really need a recipe for bruschetta, you can make it any way you please. But if you need a base recipe, this is a great one. It's how I make it!
Fast and easy and a great way to use up tomatoes if you're one of those lucky people with a garden! Or if you've been gifted with a bagful from a friend that's lucky enough to have a garden.
I don't think we've had any Ten Foot Pole with our recipes. You might have known them in their previous incarnation of Scared Straight. We're getting our rock on with their "Final Hours". -jen
BRUSCHETTA Time: 15 minutes Difficulty: Easy Makes: about 12
1.5 pounds of tomatoes (about 4)
1/2 cup finely diced red onion (about 1/4 onion)
1 tablespoon minced garlic (2 large cloves)
1/4 cup julienned basil
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil plus extra
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
10 cranks of fresh ground blacked pepper
dash of balsamic vinegar
fresh mozzarella sliced thinly
1 baguette loaf
Julienned basil
Cut tomatoes into quarters and using your thumb, scoop out the seeds and juice. (You can save this for a different recipe later or discard.) Small dice remaining tomato meat. In a mixing bowl, combine tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil, 1/4 cup olive oil, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar. Toss and set aside.
Turn your oven onto broil. Slice baguette on the bias to make large ovals. Brush both sides with olive oil and place on a foil-lined baking sheet. Toast one side under the broiler until golden brown, watching closely (it only takes 1-2 minutes to brown). Flip and toast the second side until browned and remove. Top toast with a slice of mozzarella and the tomato salad and serve.
I've been making this salsa over and over and over again the last few weeks. We've just been plowing through it.
Ridiculously fast to make if you need something for guests or a party or late night munchies, which is generally our case. I'm having a hard time deciding if I like this salsa more? Or pico de gallo more? I think I must like them equally for different reasons.
I'm not sure why I didn't take better pictures of any of the batches I made. All I did was take a quick pick in a plastic storage container. We fancy. Next batch (which won't be long) I'll try for some better pics.
Here's a band from my home state, Illinois - Blue Meanies with "The Infidelity Song". -jen
RESTAURANT STYLE SALSA Time: 5 minutes
Difficulty: Easy Makes: 4 cups Need: Food processor or blender
2 cans (14oz each) diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 onion, rough chopped
1 jalapeño, rough chopped*
5 medium-sized garlic cloves
1/2 cup packed cilantro
juice of 1 lime (about 1-1.5 tbsp)
1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
*For a medium spicy salsa, leave seeds in. For a mild salsa, remove seeds. For a hot salsa, add a second jalapeño.
No Cook Version: Place all ingredients in a food processor or blender and pulse until desired consistency.
Cooked Version: I prefer to actually cook the canned tomatoes in a sauce pan over a medium-high heat for about 15-20 minutes, then let them cool about 10 minutes before placing in a food processor or blender with all the other ingredients and pulsing until desired consistency. Cooking them takes away some of the "tinny" taste from the can. I've made it both ways and they're both good! This is just my preference.
I've been having a serious craving for good Chinese food and unfortunately, there's no Chinese food
restaurants in our little town that we like. We had our wedding catered in '08 by a friend who owned the best Chinese restaurant in town, but the building burned down a few years later and she never reopened it. We've been without good Chinese food in town and the solution to that - make it ourselves.
While these are mildly time consuming, they're actually fairly easy to make. If two people can get together and make them, it makes it much faster. One person can be chopping vegetables while the other is adding them to the pork with the wet ingredients. Then during assembly time, one person can be scooping the mix onto the wraps while the other pinches and seals the dumplings. Team work!
We always have a ton of vegetables in our house, so we actually had a lot of the ingredients already and it didn't cost us much at all. If you have to buy all the vegetables and end up with leftovers, just chop it all up for a salad - we eat cabbage and vegetable salads all the time. Or soup would be another good option for the leftover cabbage, pepper, onion, carrot... man, you could make a killer soup!
I went old school for tunes with this recipe and pulled out X's "Nausea". I got to see them a few times in Chicago. I always think of John Doe (bass player) in the movie "Great Balls of Fire" as Winona Ryder's dad. I love that movie. It's so terrible and cheesy and awesome. -jen
PORK POT STICKERS (CHINESE DUMPLINGS) Prep Time: about 45 minutes Rest Time: 30 minutes Cook Time: 6 minutes Difficulty: Medium Makes: about 80
1 pound ground pork
1 cup cabbage (Napa or green), finely chopped
1/2 cup carrots, shredded
We've been buying poblano peppers instead of bell peppers because
they're significantly cheaper and similar in flavour!
In a large bowl, combine all ingredients (except the wonton wrappers, oil and water) until well mixed. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (but you can refrigerate longer).
Sprinkle a baking sheet lightly with corn starch and set aside. Have a small bowl of water for your assembly. I worked with 9 at a time on a cutting board, keeping the unused ones covered with plastic wrap so they don't dry out. Place 1 teaspoon of filling into center of wrapper. Wet edge of wrapper and fold over, crimping/pinching edges together to seal. Place pot sticker on the corn starched baking sheet.
(If you don't want to cook all 80 pot stickers, you can freeze them uncooked on the baking sheet for about an hour, then put in a freezer bag and freeze for later.)
In a large skillet (that has a fitted lid), heat 2-3 tablespoons of oil over a medium high heat. Add pot stickers to pan, one at a time, in a single layer. (In our 11" skillet, we could fit 18-20 at once.) Do not over-crowd. Fry for 2 minutes until light golden-brown. Add 1/3 cup of water, cover and steam for 2 minutes. Remove lid and continue to fry for another 2 minutes. If you do a second batch, just add more oil to the pan and let it get hot before adding your second batch and repeat.
Serve hot with dipping sauce (see recipe below).
I like to put the veggies in,
then pour the wet ingredients over them
In a small bowl, add all ingredients. You can use immediately, but if you make it before you start assembling your pot stickers and stick it in the fridge to let the flavours marry, it tastes way better!
Clearly, I've been on a cheese spread kick. Not only did I do the Cheddar Cheese Spread recipe, and Justin did Ina Garten's smoked salmon spread, but I also made a cream cheese, green olive and pecan spread that I remembered my mom stuffing celery sticks with for holidays when I was a kid. After talking to my grandmother the other day, come to find out, my great-great grandmother used to make the pecan-olive spread stuffed in celery. 100 year old family recipe! Pretty cool to me! One of my older brothers and I both had the urge to make it this year (without having talked about it) - must be feeling reminiscent. I hope at least one of my nieces or nephews end up liking it too to carry on the tradition.
Anyway, this all actually started with me having the desire to do a Swiss-almond cheese spread. I just hadn't gotten to it yet. I was trying to think of something to do to it so it wasn't just Swiss-almond spread and I thought caramelized onions would be great with it... and they were. I think this might be our favourite dip/spread yet. The Swiss cheese is so mellow and mild... but the almonds give it a good crunch and the onions with it almost remind me of French-onion soup. Really delicious!
I blame the holidays for my cream cheese extravaganza. And I've definitely been in a holiday mood - I am guilty of being one of those dreaded people who loves Christmas music. Justin suggested a song from Bad Religion's Christmas Songs, but I couldn't decide on one. And Christmas only comes one a year, so I thought I'd share a link to the whole album. -jen
SWISS-ALMOND CHEESE SPREAD WITH CARAMELIZED ONIONS Time: 25-30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Makes: about 2 cups
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, 1/4" slices (on the thin side)
8oz cream cheese, softened
8oz finely shredded Swiss cheese
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon paprika
salt and fresh ground pepper
1/2-3/4 cup finely chopped almonds
In a large skillet over a low heat, melt butter and add olive oil. Add sliced onions and let cook for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Onions will be soft, dark and sweet. Set aside to cool.
Meanwhile, in a food processor (or with a fork), combine cream cheese, shredded Swiss, mayonnaise, paprika, a pinch of salt and a few cranks of fresh ground pepper; blend until creamy and smooth. Add caramelized onions and pulse (or fork) until combined. Fold in chopped almonds by hand. Taste and add more salt and pepper if desired.
