Blake Makes

I’m not usually a fan of fried foods, but I love this recipe for fried shrimp. My parents have been making these shrimp since I was a kid, and I always enjoyed the airy crunchiness the batter produces. The shrimp are not greasy and heavy, but are instead wonderfully light and fluffy. This is also a super simple recipe and is great for warm spring nights. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/2-3/4 can beer
• Salt and pepper
• 1 lb shrimp for 2 people

Method:

• Mix flour and beer and allow to set 1-2 hours in fridge. (Batter and shrimp should be very cold.)
• Beat 2 egg whites and add to batter.
• Dry and season shrimp with salt and pepper and dredge through batter.
• Deep fry until golden brown.

Salmon is one of my favs- it’s filling, delicious and incredibly healthy. It’s always such a treat for me to prepare salmon because we have to drive across the city to get it (at the crack of dawn Saturday morning for the best choice, I might add), so I usually stick to tried-and-true recipes. This is a great recipe because it’s so easy– it literally takes, like, 15 minutes. Blake isn’t a huge salmon fan (he’s weird sometimes; he also doesn’t like avocados- no guacamole for us…sigh…), but he really likes this dish.

Recipe courtesy of The Gourmet Cookbook.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 T plus 1 tsp packed light brown sugar
• 4 (6 oz) center-cut pieces salmon fillet w/skin
• Salt and black pepper
• 2 tsp vegetable oil

Directions:

• Stir together vinegar, water, lemon juice, and brown sugar in a small bowl.
• Pat salmon dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Increase heat to high, add salmon skin side up, and sear until well browned, about 4 minutes. Turn fish over and sear until just cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes more.
• Transfer salmon to plates and carefully add vinegar mixture to skillet (liquid will bubble vigorously and steam). Simmer, stirring, until thickened and reduced to about 1/3 cup, about 2 minutes. Spoon glaze over salmon.

During the busy work week, I want meals that are delicious but incredibly easy to make. There’s nothing worse than having a long, stressful day and knowing you have to come home and start cooking (and then the dreaded clean-up afterward).

This salad is so simple and is a good way to use up any barbecued or grilled chicken you might have leftover from the weekend. I usually just buy a barbeque rotisserie chicken to make this meal even easier. You can also vary the salad ingredients to use up any veggie leftovers you might have on hand because what makes this salad great is the poblano dressing– it’s creamy and smooth with just enough spice.

Recipe courtesy of Susan Spicer’s Crescent City Cooking.

Ingredients (Salad):

• 1 1/2 to 2 cups diced bbq chicken meat, from leftovers or a store-bought roasted chicken
• 1 ripe avocado, diced
• 1/2 cup frozen corn kernels,, thawed, or 2 ears corn, grilled in the husk then shucked and cut from the cob
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced celery or celery hearts
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced
• 1 head Bibb lettuce, broken into leaves, washed and dried
• Creamy Poblano Dressing

Directions (Salad):

Toss all ingredients except dressing in a salad bowl, then toss in the dressing or serve it on the side.

Ingredients (Dressing):

• 1 poblano, roasted and peeled
• 2 T fresh lime juice
• 2 T chopped scallion greens
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 cup Mayonnaise (I used light mayo)
• 2 T sour cream or buttermilk (I used light sour cream)

Directions (Dressing):

Place all the ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth. Adjust seasonings as necessary.

New Orleans’ Central Grocery created the muffuletta in 1906, and today lines still stretch out the door for one of these sandwiches. When I was a kid, my mom created her own version of the legendary sandwich, and I still prefer her olive salad mix to the original. Her salad mix is lighter and not as greasy as the mixes usually found on traditional N’awlins muffulettas. Sometimes, I just get a craving for muffuletta, and it’s so easy to make, that it’s hard to resist.

Ingredients (Sandwich):

• 1/4 lb Genoa salami
• 1/4 lb ham
• 1/4 lb mortadella (optional for me)
• 1/2 lb sliced provolone cheese
• olive salad
• Rolls (Kaiser, or other seeded; I also like onion rolls)

Directions (Sandwich):

• Slice rolls in half (Mine is a family of culinary sinners and we like mayo or mustard on our muffs, so if you want to sin too, feel free to add condiments here.)
• Place salami and cheese on bottom half of roll; spread small amount of olive salad onto roll using a slotted spood to drain excess liquid.
• Place ham and mortadella on top of olive salad; put top half of roll on
• Warm through until cheese is melted.

Ingredients (Olive Salad):

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 6oz can black olives, drained and chopped
• 7oz can green olives, drained and chopped
• 3 dill pickles, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 16 oz bottle Italian dressing

Directions (Salad):

• Mix together and let sit for at least 20 minutes.

I love cheese enchiladas- they are my most favorite food ever, ever. Well, actually, cheese is my most favorite food. But, when you stuff it inside corn tortillas and bake it to bubbly perfection, it doesn’t get much better.

I stumbled across this recipe for veggie and cheese enchiladas when I was skimming through Susan Spicer’s Crescent City Cooking, and the photograph looked so mouth-watering, I had to try to make them myself.

I will warn you that the enchiladas do take a while to make, but you can make the sauce a day ahead and save yourself some time later. Having made these before, you would think that I would do that, but, alas, I am a procrastinator. (Blake, don’t you and my mom always say the Johnson motto is “Why do today what you can do tomorrow?”; Guess it’s in my blood.)

The time it takes to make these, however, is totally worth it. They are so yummy and satisfy all my Tex-Mex cravings. Plus, the veggies actually add nutrition to my favorite meal! Yay!

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I’ve been making meatloaf for years. It was always my favorite growing up, but until now I’ve always made my meatloaf in the oven. Never again. Before I tell you how I made it, I’ll share with you my inspiration. Back in March, I tried Herbsaint for the first time. I’ve been back twice (with Bridget), and both times we ordered the meatloaf (partly because it’s delicious, but to also figure out what was in it and how to make it ourselves). We got close.

Herbsaint Meatloaf is different from my traditional meatloaf in that it’s cooked on the grill (at least I’m assuming that’s how they do it), and to do it right, you need to burn it. Go for the char! Here’s my recipe:

• 1/2 lb. Ground chuck
• 1/2 lb. Ground pork
• 1/2 lb. Ground veal
• 2 slices (about 1/4 inch thick) Pancetta diced
• 2 cups Chopped onions
• 2 Carrots (chopped)
• 1 cup Bread crumbs
• 2 tbsp. Tomato paste
• 1 Egg
• 3 tbsp. Worcestershire
• Salt, pepper, Tony’s

I throw all of this in a large bowl, and mix it with my hands until well combined. The pancetta adds a baconiness that brings me back to my childhood, and the carrots sweeten the entire dish.

I needed to cook this on the grill, so I form it into a loaf and placed it in my vegetable grill tray. Next, I lit the grill and tossed some smoke chips on top of the coals. The loaf went in and the lid went on for about 2 hours.

The secret to my meatloaf has always been its glaze. To make it, mix:

• 2 cups Ketchup
• 2 tsp. Mustard
• 2 tsp. Worcestershire
• 1 tbsp. Brown sugar
• 2 tsp. Red pepper flakes
• Tony’s

Heat the sauce on top of the stove until it darkens and looks like BBQ sauce. Pour it over the meatloaf and put it back on the grill or under the broiler until the glaze looks set.

I serve it with roasted garlic and chives mashed potatoes. Make more than you need because this meatloaf is great the next day eaten cold or on a sandwich.

Tonight I was going to have leftover Pork Carnita Tacos, but as I started foraging through our fridge, I noticed some delicious turkey bacon and immediately I thought, BLT.

A few days ago, I bought a fresh loaf of Dakota Wheat. I also have some fragrantly plump tomatoes bathing in the evening sun on my window sill, and some baby arugula in the crisper that would star as the “L” in my BLT tonight.

In our family, we almost always cook eggs in the greasy deliciousness left by recently fried bacon. Fried eggs made Bridget think of a recipe we saw in The Improvisational Cook by Sally Schneider, the  latest edition to our cookbook library. On page 135, there’s a recipe for Elemental Carbonara (Pasta with a Fried Egg and Parmigiano).

Bridget cooked some whole-wheat spaghetti, and once it was just about done (al dente), she tossed it with 2 slices of crumbled bacon, torn basil leaves (about 3), fresh grated Parmesan, S&P and topped it with 2 fried eggs. The yellows of the eggs were still runny, so when she broke them over the pasta they combined with the cheese to make a soft, delicious sauce. This is a great dish.

You could call it Pasta with a fried egg on it, but fancy it up, serve it to company and call it Deconstructed Carbonara. Thanks, B!

Tonight we’ve discovered an amazing new concoction to add to our arsenal, the lemony-basil dressing from Giada’s Basil Chicken. When I got home from work, I marinated a whole, cut-up chicken in:

• 1/3 cup | Extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup | Freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 1/2 tsp. | Fennel seeds (slightly crushed)
• Salt & Pepper to taste

I placed everything in a large ziploc bag and tossed it in the fridge. I lit the grill as Bridget made the basil dressing. First, she harvested some basil from the garden. Then she added it (amount), 1/4 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice, 2 tsp. lemon zest , (amount) extra virgin olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. After these ingredients had been added to the blender, she blitzed it. A few seconds later, and amazing emerald potion was created.

After about 30 minutes, I removed the marinated chicken from the fridge and threw it on the grill. After it was done, I set it aside to rest under a tent of foil. While the chicken rested, I diced some zuccini and tossed it with some olive oil, and salt and pepper. I grilled it under tender crisp, about 6 to 8 minutes. I also reheated some left over corn salad from Sunday night.

The plate was served as grilled chicken with the basil dressing drizzled over top, with tender-crisp zucchini and corn salad.