The Nifty Foodie

Greetings from our new kitchen! We’re still unpacking boxes around the house, but the kitchen is completely set-up! The kitchen was definitely a priority for us when it came to unpacking, because take out was definitely starting to get boring. Since we moved a little further from the city, our choices are VERY limited. So yeah, it was time to turn on that stove!

Since I was in the mood to make tex-mex (and H didn’t really mind that craving either), we made chicken enchiladas one night and then chicken taquitos with this salsa the next night. Tex-mex two nights in a week? Heck yes!

This salsa is really a big favorite in our house, and I’m really not sure why I haven’t shared this recipe with y’all until now! We’ve made it quite a few times, because it’s ridiculously easy to throw together and way tastier than anything you can buy in a jar! While this salsa makes a lot (and I mean A LOT), it’s really not difficult to go through this stuff fairly quickly. It’s addictive, for sure!

Restaurant Style Salsa
Source: Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:

• 1 28 oz. can whole tomatoes with juice
• 2 10 oz cans of Rotel
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 whole jalapeno, quartered and sliced thin (remove seeds if you don’t want as much heat)
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 cup cilantro
• 1/2 of a lime’s juice

Directions:

1. Take all ingredients and put them in a blender.
2. Pulse the blender until you reach your desired consistency.
3. Enjoy!

My husband and I really love a good bowl of queso blanco. Whenever we go to a tex-mex restaurant, we have to order the queso, and it never fails to just hit the spot. Sometimes, I even wonder why I order a dinner…it’s the queso that I’m really after!

I really wanted to know what type of cheese was in the queso, so I’d research and various folks would mention mexican cheeses that I’ve never worked with, so I was intimidated. Plus, I tend to have trouble trusting people on random forums, like Yahoo! Answers. Why waste my time. Then, I saw a post on Confessions of a Foodie Bride about making this infamous queso, but the cheese totally threw me for a loop. White American? Really…that’s it? So, I had to give this a try, because I love Shawnda’s blog, and I knew she wouldn’t steer me wrong here.

Y’all, this is restaurant queso blanco. I’m not lying. If you want queso blanco at home, make this…you won’t regret it. We definitely loved this recipe and it couldn’t be easier to make!

Restaurant Style Queso Blanco
Source: mildly adapted from Confessions of a Foodie Bride

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp cooking oil (veggie, olive, canola – whatever you have)
• 1/4 cup white onion, diced
• 1 large jalapeno or serrano, seeds and stem removed; diced
• 12 oz white American cheese, shredded
• 4 oz Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded (not pre-shredded…grate this yourself)
• 1/4-2/3 cup cream, half-and-half, or whole milk

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a pot. Add the onion and pepper and cook until until softened and reduce heat to medium-low.
2. Add the shredded cheese and 1/4 cup of the cream. Stir until well combined and mostly melted.
3. Add in additional cream a little at a time until you reach desired consistency.

A few weeks ago, Justin of Marx Foods asked for bloggers who would be interested in developing a recipe using Mangalitsa pork products. (The winner would move onto another challenge issued by Marx Foods!) I’ve never heard of this before, but I was intrigued, so of course, I sent an email. Before I knew it, I had a slab of Mangalitsa bacon in front of me, begging to be made into something.

I asked my Twitter friends what they would prefer: sweet or savory. It was close, but savory had the most requests.

So, I brainstormed. I didn’t want to do a breakfast item, since that’s what bacon is known to be used in. I wanted to do something a tad different, and I remember having a spinach salad with bacon vinaigrette at a restaurant a while back. It was absolutely delicious, so I thought this would be a good thing to try to replicate in the kitchen.

I’m not the best cook in the world when I wing it, but for some reason, this dressing came out really awesome on the first try! The bacon lends a very mild flavor, but is still prominent in the dressing. I really enjoyed it!

Warm Bacon Vinaigrette
an original

Ingredients:

• 1 slice thick cut bacon (I used mangalitsa bacon), cut into small cubes
• 1 small shallot, finely diced
• 1 clove garlic, finely diced
• 1 tsp. honey
• 1 tsp. dijon mustard
• 4 tbsp. red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Cook the bacon on medium heat until done. Set the bacon to the side and pour off all but appx. 1 tbsp. bacon fat.
2. Cook the shallot and garlic in the same pan (with the 1 tbsp. bacon fat) for about 5 minutes on medium low heat until it’s cooked down.
3. Turn heat to low. Add in red wine vinegar, honey, dijon mustard and whisk well.
4. Whisk in the olive oil, a little at a time until well blended.
5. Serve over a salad of greens or spinach and enjoy!

Sorry, couldn’t help it. Short 90′s flashback. Anyone else remember that song? I know the meaning of the song has nothing to do with food, but it mentions dip three times, and well, I had 3 different types of dip/sauces for our kabobs at the party. So, eh…ok, I guess I lose on the cool points. ::stares at RSS to see subscriber numbers plummet::

If you’re still with me, wow. You must really like me…or, hmm, maybe it’s the food that you guys like.

When it came time to plan for this party, I already had a few sauces/dips in mind. Chimichurri, which I’ve never had. Compound butter, because, well, butter makes everything better, and also the worcestershire-chive combination just sounded amazing. And then lastly, onion blue cheese sauce, because cheese and onions? Win! (Onion-blue cheese sauce is not pictured, because ravenous eyes were staring me down since the camera was the last thing holding my family back from chow-down time.)

The chimichurri was a huge winner. Everyone loved the flavor that it added to the meats, and it was probably the healthiest sauce/dip offered for the kabobs as well.

Chimichurri Sauce
Source: Bon Appetit
Can be made 2 hours ahead. Cover and let stand at room temperature.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (packed) fresh Italian parsley
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup (packed) fresh cilantro
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 3/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Puree all ingredients in processor. Transfer to bowl.

Worcestershire-Chive Compound Butter
Source: Bobby Flay

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
• 2 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons dry mustard
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped chives
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat grill or side burner. Heat oil in a medium skillet add shallots and garlic and cook until soft, let cool slightly.
2. Place butter in a small bowl and add shallot mixture, Worcestershire, mustard and chives and mix until combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Scrape mixture into the center of a piece of waxed paper and roll into a log. Refrigerate until firm.

Onion-Blue Cheese Sauce
Source: Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:

• 4 Tablespoons Butter
• 1 whole Very Large Yellow Onion, Sliced
• 1 cup Heavy Cream
• ½ cups Crumbled Blue Cheese

Directions:

1. Saute onions in 4 tablespoons butter over high heat. Cook for 5 to 7 minutes, or until dark and caramelized.
2. Reduce heat to simmer and pour in cream. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes, or until reduced by half. Stir in blue cheese until melted.

I love cheese. There, I said it. When recipes say “sprinkle” cheese, I COVER it in cheese. Cheese is just awesome. One of my favorite foods that involve cheese is fondue!  Whenever I go out for fondue, which is rare, I go crazy on the cheese fondue. It’s so fluffy, stringy and warm..oh, nom nom nom! Sadly, hubs hates fondue. He can’t stand it. So, I do not own a fondue set. It would be really useless to own a set knowing that I’m only going to eat off of it.

For the party, I wanted to bring in a dangerously cheesy dish, and what is more cheesy than fondue? I searched the Internet like crazy, and found a recipe that sounded simple and had great reviews. I wanted something that tasted like it came straight from a restaurant, so I wanted it to be authentic and have a swiss cheese base.

I also knew fondue involved wine, and I will admit, I am the furthest away from being knowledgeable about wine. I need things spelled out for me in a recipe. “Dry White Wine” as an ingredient  in a recipe didn’t help me, so I asked a few friends for help. It was a toss-up between using a sauvignon blanc and an unoaked chardonnay. My cheap self couldn’t find an unoaked chardonnay for less than $10 (at least the label didn’t say unoaked), so I settled for some Barefoot Sauvignon Blanc ($6 a bottle and it had seemingly good reviews for a frugal wine on the Internet). In the end, I couldn’t even taste the wine. I just don’t have a sensitive palate, I guess..all I tasted was cheese, cheese, cheese! This dish was a HIT!

Just to note, I ended up making this in a non-stick pot on low heat until it came together, then I threw it in a small crock-pot on low, since we don’t own a fondue set. It worked well at keeping the cheese warm.

Cheese Fondue
Source: adapted from AllRecipes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dry white wine (I used sauvignon blanc)
• 1/2 pound shredded Swiss cheese
• 1/2 pound shredded Gruyere cheese
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• french bread, cut into cubes
• broccoli florets
• baby carrots
• apple slices

Directions:

1. Simmer wine in a small pot. Add Swiss cheese, Gruyere cheese, 1/4 pound at a time. Stir after each addition of cheese until melted.  Note: It might not look like it’s coming together at this point. Just keep stirring and add the flour. That’s when my fondue came together.
2. Stir in flour. When all the cheese has melted, stir in salt. Place in a small crockpot on low heat to serve. Serve with bread cubes, broccoli, carrots and apples.