Roasted Asparagus Salad

I made this salad for Easter and it was too good not to share. I did forget the avocado, but it still tasted amazing. This recipe comes from tomatoes on the vine.

Ingredients:

1-1/2 lbs. fresh asparagus

1/2 cup olive oil, divided

1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt, divided

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1 garlic clove, minced

1 cup halved cherry tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper

1/4 cup finely chopped red onion

1 head Bibb lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces

1 avocado, sliced

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Snap off and discard tough ends of asparagus; remove scales with a vegetable peeler, if desired.

2.  Stir together 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1-1/2 teaspoons chopped basil, 1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a large bowl.

3.  Add asparagus to olive oil mixture, and toss gently to coat.  Place asparagus on a lightly greased baking sheet.

4.  Bake asparagus at 425 degrees F. for 13 to 15 minutes or to desired degree of tender ness.  Cool 10 minutes.

5.   Whisk together balsamic vinegar, garlic, and remaining 7 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon basil, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.

6.  Toss together tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, and 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar mixture.

7.  Arrange lettuce on individual serving plates or arrange pretty.  Top with tomato mixture and asparagus.  Add avocado just before serving.  Drizzle with remaining balsamic vinegar mixture.

Chinese Chicken Salad

We were Christmas crafting this weekend so I can't show you any photos. We also had David's work Christmas party where we didn't take photos so I will share something else with you today. I made this salad for a work baby shower on Friday. This recipe comes from pinterest via the Amazing Meals blog. I doubled the recipe to have extra, but there is really no need. It makes a TON.

Chinese Chicken Salad

1 large or 2 medium chicken breasts

1/2 cup teriyaki sauce

2 cups water

1 head cabbage, finely chopped

4 green onions, finely chopped

1 package chicken flavored ramen noodles, broken up (save the flavoring packet)

1/2 medium-sized green pepper, finely chopped

2 Tablespoons sesame seeds

1/2 cup sliced almonds

To cook your chicken, she had this great technique. Mix soy sauce, sugar and water in a small sauce pan; bring to a boil. Add chicken breasts and cook over low heat for about an hour, until chicken is shreddable. Sorry if raw chicken grosses you out. I just wanted to show you what it looks like, I did have to flip it half way through to get the other side cooked.

Shred chicken and set aside. This can be done the day before if you want.This chicken really had great flavor.

Combine all of the vegetables, the ramen and the chicken in a large bowl. Add the sesame seeds and almonds. Toss with the dressing and chill one hour before serving.

Dressing

2 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons rice vinegar

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup vegetable oil

ramen flavoring packet

Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Pour over salad.

Memorial Weekend BBQ Potlucks- Memphis Style Coleslaw & Baked Beans

This weekend officially kicks off the barbecue season with memorial day. Although its been nice and toasty here, we've been bbq'ing since April. I had another recipe to add to this, but blogger decided to delete the photos when I pressed the undo button for something and now they are gone. That recipe will have to wait. I made these recipes for David's 30th Birthday.

Memphis-Style Coleslaw from Our Best Bites. This recipe is easy and delicious.

Ingredients-

1 c. mayonnaise 

2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 heaping tsp. Kosher salt

1 Tbsp. onion powder

2-2 1/2 tsp. celery seed (don't leave this out)
1 16-oz. bag shredded cabbage with carrots

1/2 minced green bell pepper

1 carrot, peeled and grated

Combine mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, sugar, salt, onion, and celery seed.

In a large bowl, combine shredded cabbage, carrots and green pepper.

Toss with dressing and refrigerate for at least 2-3 hours. This stays good for a couple days if you want to make it ahead of time. 

The next bbq favorite is Southern Style Baked Beans from The Pioneer Woman. I am not a huge baked beans fan, but these are sweet tasting and amazing!
Ingredients-
8 slices bacon, halved (I used turkey bacon and didn't have a lot of the bacon grease that is needed, you can add a little olive oil if you want to make up for it)
1 medium onion, cut into small dice
1/2 medium green pepper, cut into small dice
3 large cans (28 ounces each) pork and beans
3/4 cup barbecue sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup distilled or cider vinegar
 2 tablespoons Dijon Mustard

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Fry bacon in large, deep sauté pan skillet until bacon has partially cooked and released about 1/4 cup drippings. Remove bacon from pan and drain on paper towels. This is where I just added some extra olive oil since my turkey bacon didn't produce drippings.

Add onions and peppers to drippings in pan and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes.

Add beans and remaining ingredients bring to a simmer.

Pour flavored beans into a greased 13-by 9-inch (or similar size) ovenproof pan. Top with bacon, then bake until beans are bubbly and sauce is the consistency of pancake syrup, about 2 hours. Let stand to thicken slightly and serve. I don't have an after picture, but trust me when I say they taste amazing!

Hope everyone has a great memorial day weekend and thank you to all our troops!

Easter Recipes

 We had a great Easter dinner complete with a honey baked ham and turkey at Gina's house Sunday. Here are some yummy recipes that I made and would make again for an Easter celebration. First up is a Carrot Pound Cake from Apples to Zucchini.

Ingredients-
3 c. flour
1/2 c. softened butter
1/2 c. canola oil
2 1/2 c. sugar
3/4 c. undrained crushed pineapple
4 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c. shredded carrots

1. Mix together sugar, butter, oil and pineapple in mixer
2. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly into the batter between each addition
3. Add flour, baking powder, salt vanilla and carrots until well blended
4. Pour into a greased bundt or tube pan. I used a lamb mold that is a tradition in Davids family. More on this later.
5. bake at 325 for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until brown and a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean
turn over onto a plate after allowing to cool slightly

For our lamb mold, you are suppose to fill the face side and put the back end side on so it can expand. Little did we know how difficult it would be to bake him. We put it on for that first hour and 15 mins and stuck a tooth pick into the tiny hole at the head. It looked done and I opened it up only to find the middle wasn't cooked AT ALL. In case I ask for next year, here is what needs to be done. Either you cook it for 3 hours (yes I cooked this for about 3 hours) on 350 or cook both halves separately and frost them together (would have been smarter).

 Lamby finally came out and was a little malformed so I left the walnuts chunky instead of chopping them to cover some of the imperfections. As you can see, the walnuts fell and we call this the P90X lamb since its shedding all that weight. Still cute and it tasted really god.
Glaze-
1 c. powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
3 tbsp milk
-Mix together and Pour over warm cake.

Fruity Pebble Treat Eggs from In Katrina's Kitchen-

Ingredients:
¼ c butter
10 oz bag of marshmallows (I used mini ones)
5 c Fruity Pebble (kroger brand) cereal
6-12 plastic eggs for molding

 Directions:
1. In a large pan melt butter using medium heat.
2. Add marshmallows and stir until melted.

3. Pour in the cereal and mix to incorporate.

4. Spray plastic eggs with cooking spray. I found it was easiest to break open the egg so its not attached.

5. Spoon the cereal mixture into each half of the egg then close egg to form shape. We used a mix between bigger eggs and small ones. We rotated between 6 or so big and small eggs. They don't take long to take shape but we kept them in there for about 30 seconds- a few minutes each. You have to go kind of fast so that the cereal mixture stays warm.

 They came out great and the kids (and adults) loved them!

If you are wondering, I did make a real food item that wasn't dessert. I made a spinach salad, recipe from Pioneer Woman that I altered.
Ingredients
    - 8 slices Turkey Bacon (real bacon would work much better, but more fatty)
    -  ½ Red Onion, chopped
    - 8 ounces, Baby Spinach, Washed Dried And Stems Removed
    - 3 Tablespoons Reserved Bacon Grease or Olive Oil if you used turkey bacon
    - 3 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
    - 2 teaspoons Sugar
    - ½ teaspoons Dijon Mustard
    - 1 dash Salt
Directions-
1. Fry bacon in a pan until crispy/chewy. Remove to a paper towel.
2. Remove 3 tablespoons grease and set aside. I didn't have much grease, so skip that step.
3. Add your diced red onions to your pan you cooked the bacon in, Cook slowly until onions are carmelized. Add a little olive oil if needed.
4. Chop bacon.
5. Add spinach to a large bowl. Arrange onions and bacon on top. 
6. Make hot bacon dressing: Add 3 tablespoons bacon grease (I used olive oil), vinegar, sugar, and Dijon to your skillet on medium-low heat. Whisk mixture together and heat thoroughly.
7. Pour hot dressing over the top; toss to combine.
This would be great warm, but I had a few hours before we ate so I refrigerated and it still tasted really good. You can add mushrooms, eggs or anything else you'd like to it, I'm just not a huge fan of those.

Tasty Lettuce Wraps!

These lettuce wraps were awesome! We love eating PF Chang's chicken lettuce wraps so I decided to try these ones from the Pioneer Woman. We used ground beef, but it had so much flavor you couldn't even tell distinctively what meat it was, in a good way.
Ingredients:

• 1 pound Ground Beef Or Turkey
• 2 Tablespoons Peanut Oil, Or Other Light Cooking Oil
• 1 whole Onion (small)
• 1 clove Garlic, Large
• 1 piece Fresh Ginger (1 Inch Long) I couldn't find this at the grocery store so I left out
• 1 whole Red Pepper
• ½ cups Diced Water Chestnuts
• 3 Tablespoons Chinese Cooking Wine
• 4 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Peanut Chili, Or Satay, Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Hoisin Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Sesame Oil
• 1 head Iceberg Lettuce

Prep the veggies: Dice the onion and red pepper. Drain and rinse the water chestnuts. Mince the garlic and the ginger. Cut out the core of the iceberg lettuce and give it a rinse. Allow the lettuce to drain, and carefully loosen the leaves.
Prep the sauce: Mix together the soy sauce, oyster sauce, peanut chili sauce, hoisin sauce and the sesame oil.

Heat a wok or large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the peanut oil to the pan, allow it to heat up for a minute, then add the diced onion. Cook the onion for a few minutes. When it starts to become translucent (after 4 or 5 minutes), add the garlic and ginger. Stir fry for 30 seconds, then add the ground meat. Brown the meat, then add the red pepper and water chestnuts, stirring constantly.

This is my head of lettuce all spread out!

After another 3 or 4 minutes, add in the Chinese cooking wine. Allow this to sizzle and cook for about a minute, then add in the sauce. Stirring frequently, let this cook for 2 or three minutes. The sauce should thicken a bit. If it doesn’t, you can add a teaspoon or two of cornstarch.

Serve with the iceberg lettuce: take one leaf and add a few heaping spoonfuls of the meat mixture, fold up, and enjoy!