Recipe #96 - Chicken Artichoke Dip

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In a mixing bowl stir together the sour cream, milk, mayonnaise or salad dressing, lime juice, dried oregano, and salt.

Stir in the finely chopped chicken, avocado, tomato, onion, and jalapeno (optional). Stir until ingredients are thoroughly combined. Cover and chill until serving time.

If desired, garnish the dip with avocado slices. Serve with tortilla chips.

This was really tasty and easy to make if you needed to quickly whip some thing up for a party. The longest part is chopping up all the veggies (but the food processor is pretty handy with recipes like this).

Rating: 7
Time: 35 minutes
Serves: 10 (as an appetizer dip)
Ingredients:
1 rotisserie chicken, finely chopped (about 3 cups)
3 medium ripe avocados, seeded, peeled and chopped
3 small tomatos, seeded and chopped
3/4 cup onion, chopped
6 tablespoons pickled jalapeno peppers, rinsed and chopped (optional)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cup dairy sour cream
3/4 cup milk
6 tablespoons mayonnaise or salad dressing
6 teaspoons lime juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
avocado slices (optional)
tortilla chips

Recipe #77 - Flank Steak Salad with Jalapeno Poppers

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Recipe idea courtesy of Chuck Hughes from the cooking show Chuck's Day Off.

For the steak salad:
Rub the flank steak on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat the vegetable oil in a heavy skillet on medium-high heat and cook the steak on one side for 6 minutes. Flip and cook on the other side for 6 more minutes.

Meanwhile combine the red onion, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocados, cilantro, mint and lime juice in a bowl and mix well. (Side note: this step called for 2 tablespoons olive oil, but I left it out and it tasted just fine with just the lime juice.)

Season the salad with salt and pepper, to taste and set aside.

For the jalapeno poppers:
Heat oil in a deep fryer or a heavy-bottomed skillet to 350 degrees F. Carefully slice down the side of the peppers and remove the seeds. Set aside. In a bowl combine all the grated cheeses, season with pepper, to taste and stuff the peppers.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, egg, and beer to form a batter. Dip the stuffed peppers in the batter.

Fry in the deep fryer or in a heavy skillet for about 5 minutes or until golden brown and crispy.

Slice the flank steak into thin pieces.

Pile the salad on a plate with slices of flank steak, and top with 1 popper, sliced in half.

This recipe turned out really well. The colors where bright. It had a very fresh, summer taste to it. I've never tasted mint and cilantro together, but it was a memorable surprise pairing perfectly with the lime juice. It has been raining all day, so it's was a nice, uplifting, healthy lunch that brought some sunshine back into the dull house today.

Rating: 9
Time: 1 hour (there's a lot of cutting involved)
Serves: 6
Ingredients:
For the Steak Salad
2 pounds flank steak
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 red onion, sliced
2 cucumbers, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tomatoes, diced
2 avocados, halved, pitted, peeled and diced
1 cup torn fresh cilantro leaves
1 cup torn fresh mint leaves
Juice of 2 limes
2 tablespoons olive oil, optional

For the Jalapeno Poppers
6 jalapeno peppers or milder peppers (which I recommend)
1/3 cup grated Cheddar cheese
1/3 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese
1 cup flour
1 egg
3/4 cup beer
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Vegetable oil, for frying

Recipe #49 - Spicy Seattle Tuna Rolls

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Puree chiles, ginger, sesame seeds, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a mini-processor until paste forms. Transfer to a medium bowl. Stir in both oils and vinegar. Season dressing with salt.

If you couldn't find tuna sashimi, you can just buy the yellowfin tuna. Add a little sesame oil in a skillet and sear all edges, about 20-30 seconds per side.

Gently add tuna to the first mixture, toss to coat.

Place nori sheets on a work surface with short side facing you. Spread about 2 rounded tablespoons rice evenly on bottom third of each sheet.

Divide tuna among rolls, spooning over rice. Top with fillings. Roll into cones or log shape, using a few grains of cooked rice to "glue" to seal.

Now my mother didn't like the nori sheets very much at all. She dosen't like the texture. So I put together a little tuna salad over rice. She loved it. And I did too. It made me want to rewrite this whole recipe around this tuna salad. A-mazing.

Rating: 7
Time: 40 minutes
Servings: 8
Ingredients:
4 green Thai chiles (or serrano peppers if you can't find the latter), stemmed, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon grated, peeled, fresh ginger
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoons kosher salt plus more for seasoning
1/4 cup sunflower or vegetable oil
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
1 pound sashimi-grade yellowfin tuna fillets, cut into 1/8" cubes
4 toasted dried nori sheets, halved lengthwise
1 1/2 cups (about) cooked short-grain rice, cooled
Assorted fillings, such as sliced scallions, English hothouse or Persian cucumber, avocado, cilantro leaves, and/or chive blossoms.

Recipe #8 - Jalapeno Popper Sliders

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We had a lot of ground beef in the frig for some reason, so I needed to make a recipe using ground beef. I was in the mood for hamburgers, but didn't want to do the typical mayo, mustard, pickle, cheese thing. I've never made sliders before and began researching recipes. I found this:

"If you're in the mood for the flavors of the southwest, you'll love this pork and beef burger covered with roasted peppers and an avocado, sour cream, cilantro, Fresno chili and line juice dressing."

That was the tag line that hooked me for this recipe. Avocado! Sour cream! On a burger? Yes, please!

Everything but the Worcestershire sauce. Plus my recipe holder aka iPad.

There were a few things I threw out of the original recipe and a few that I added from others. For example, I didn't use pork, replaced it with more ground beef. It called for Pablano peppers (way too spicy for me), but used red peppers. I used Guinness Extra Stout beer instead of Negra Modelo.

I started out pre-heating the oven to broil. I cut up the the peppers into long thin strips and placed them on a cooking sheet. I then placed the pan into the oven (with the oven door ajar to allow steam to escape) to char them all over. Once charred, I quickly removed the peppers from the pan so that they didn't stick. I threw them into a small bowl to cool. Once cooled, using a food processor, I pureed them. Or as I like to say, "mush them up real good like". That's a technical term... Ha.

While the peppers are cooling before you puree them, cut the red onion into then rings and place in a bowl. Add half of the lime juice, salt, pepper, and drizzle with EVOO to coat. 

In another bowl, mash together the avocado, sour cream, cilantro, fresno chili and the remaining lime juice; season, to taste, with salt. This makes a thick sauce to top the slider with when finished. 

In a large bowl, combine the beef, pork, pureed peppers, cumin, coriander, paprika, cinnamon, salt and lots of pepper. Mix in the beer and Worcestershire sauce. 

Form the mixture into eight 3-inch patties (a little thinner in the center and thicker at the edges). Drizzle a little EVOO in a large skillet or nonstick griddle over medium-high heat. Add the burgers and cook, turning once, for about 7 minutes for medium-rare. Top with the pepper jack cheese slice (it's ok if it's much larger, it will melt around the edges of the slider).

Place the burgers on the wheat roll bottoms. Top with the onions and sauce and set the roll tops in place. Wala! You now have fabulous looking and tasting Jalapeno Popper Sliders!

I was impressed by the depth of the flavor. I could pin point the beer and the Worcestershire sauce as well as the broiled peppers. I felt like each item could have been it's own recipe, good enough to be eaten separately. The onions marinated in the spices and EVOO. The avocado, jalapeno and sour cream. Even the cinnamon added to the beef was just superb.

Almost to pretty to eat... almost.

  

Time: ~1 hour

Rating: I'm going to give this a 10. I would def make it again. In fact, I want to make it again right now just writing about them. 
Serves: 4
Ingredients:

2 large red peppers

1 small red onion, thinly sliced into rings

Juice of 2 limes, divided

Salt and pepper

Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), for drizzling

1 small ripe avocado

1/2 cup sour cream

A handful of cilantro, finely chopped

1 Fresno or jalapeño chili, seeded and finely chopped

1.5 pounds ground beef sirloin

1/2 palmful each ground cumin, ground coriander and smoked sweet paprika (about 1 1/2 teaspoons each)

A pinch of ground cinnamon

1/3 cup beer, such as Guinness Extra Stout

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Sliced pepper Jack

8 white, potato or whole wheat slider rolls, split