Spiked Watermelon Salad

From Epicurious

Use red or yellow watermelon (or both) for this summery dessert, and pair it with the best store-bought brownies you can find.

ingredients

1 8-pound watermelon, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces (about 16 cups)
1 cup fresh lemon juice
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup vodka
6 tablespoons crème de cassis
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
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preparation

Place watermelon in large bowl. Whisk fresh lemon juice and sugar in medium bowl until sugar dissolves. Whisk in vodka and crème de cassis. Season mixture to taste with salt. Pour mixture over watermelon. Cover and chill at least 1 hour and up to 2 hours. Sprinkle with chopped fresh mint and serve.

Mini Polenta Pizzas (Gluten and Dairy Free)

These little mini pizzas are the result of some creative thinking to feed my two boys who don't eat gluten or dairy food (let that sink in for a second, no ice cream, cheese or regular bread). Anyway, we've learned some good meals that are not only pretty good for them, they taste good and aren't even that hard to make.

Tonight's dinner was Mini Polenta Pizzas.
Ingredients:
1 Polenta "chub" sliced into as thin discs as possible without the polenta crumbling
Marinara sauce
salami cut into eighths or sliced hot dogs pan fried to look like mini pepperoni
cooked white rice
dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste

I baked the polenta slices on a lightly greased half sheet in the over at 350 degrees for close a half hour. The package says 20 minutes but that wasn't working for me. Use your judgement though, if the slices are thin they'll cook faster and scorch faster too.
Heat up the marinara (I used the Tomato & Basil Marinara from Trader Joe's) and added the oregano after rubbing it into your hand and using a mortar and pestle to break it up. The rice can be room temp or warmer, cold doesn't work.
Assembly is pretty straight forward.
Polenta slice, top with marinara, a layer of rice (playing the part of the cheese here), top with salami or hot dog pepperoni pieces.
A little salt and serve.
My finicky son wolfed down two and then two more and my not so finicky son ate a total of five and a half mini pizzas.

Avocado Madness!

Almost shamelessly lifted from the Santa Cruz Patch...

1. Mango Smoothie with Avocado:

It's like a mango lassi...kind of. Blend one cup of cold milk, one ripe mango (peeled), honey (as much as you want), and one half to one whole avocado, depending on how much avocado you can handle. Good served on a hot day.

2. Creamy Avocado Milk Shake

The avocado milk shake is insanely delicious for the first sips but it is extremely rich. In Indonesia, it's commonly made with a shot of espresso. Check out an interesting read on the secret dessert life of avocados in Indonesia, found on "The Traveler's Lunch Box" blog. 

• 1 ripe Haas (dark-skinned) avocado, peeled and pitted
• 4 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk (you can find organic sweetened condensed milk at Trader Joe's)
• 1 cup cold milk, more or less depending on thickness desired
• a few drops orange extract, or some vanilla, rum or coffee (optional)
• Crushed ice and additional sweetened condensed milk for serving

Blend all of the ingredients, minus the ice. You can throw a few ice cubes into the blender if you want a more frothy consistency. Pour over the ice cubes for a creamy dessert.

3. Coconut Avocado Ice Cream

The two Lazy Gourmets are in on the avocado dessert possibilities too. Here is a recipe for coconut avocado ice cream, adapted from Sunset Magazine. You need an ice cream maker for this one. Click HERE to read more about it.

• 2 ripe, medium avocados, chilled
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 (14-ounce) can coconut milk

In a blender or food processor, blend avocado flesh, sugar, condensed milk and coconut milk until smooth. Process in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.

4. Avocado Pie

There are a million recipes out there for avocado pies, some calling for cream cheese, some just sweet and condensed milk. Here is one that calls for cream cheese and looks pretty appetizing for a green dessert.

5. Avocado Chocolate Mousse

This recipe is courtesy of avocado.org, and was contributed by Adrian Halmagean.

• 1 ripe, Fresh California Avocado, halved, peeled and seeded
• ½ cup cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• ½ cup agave syrup
• ¼ cup coconut milk
• ¼ cupsliced strawberries

1. Chop the avocado into a few medium-sized pieces and put it in a food processor
2. Add the cocoa powder, vanilla, agave syrup and coconut milk to the food processor and blend on high for about thirty seconds, or until mousse reaches desired consistency
3. Serve it chilled with fresh sliced strawberries.

Stupid Easy Tostadas

One of the difficulties of having a kid who doesn't do well with food that had gluten in it or food that has dairy products in them is keeping some kind of variety. One of the best and easiest meals we had last week was worth sharing here.

Stupid Easy Tostadas
Ingredients:
tostadas or corn tortillas cooked to stiffness in oil
canned black or pinto beans
rice, white or spanish
cooked ground beef or chopped sausage or pepperoni or other meat
salsa, if wanted

Heat up a can of black beans or pintos or whatever kind of beans you like, we use the organic beans from Trader Joe's. Add some spices to give it some personality. Mash them up.

Spread a dollop of mashed beans onto a tostada, trying not to crack it. Once spread, add warmed up white or spanish rice. Top with browned ground beef, chopped sausages or whatever other meaty protein you like. If you like you can put a spoonful of salsa and a splash of hot sauce too but my kids aren't into salsa or hot sauce.

And if you can swing cheese then this is just begging for a layer of cheese and then a melting before adding the rice, beef and salsa on top. Other things you could swap in, corn, avocado, guacamole, tomato, grilled/sauteed onions, fried rice. Whatever you think might taste good just might taste good.

Its pretty easy to whip out six or eight of these in a quick period of time though you'll need a second can of beans. They are fast, pretty healthy, pretty easy and surprisingly awesome tasting. And you can enlist the help of your kids to assemble these too!

Bananas Foster

I don't know if this how Bananas Foster is supposed to be made but this is how I learned it from my step-dad who used to run a bed and breakfast and is a kickass cook (so's my mom for that matter).

Anyway, let's get to the good stuff.

Ingredients:
Bananas, the more the merrier
Brown sugar
Butter
Rum, optional
Vanilla ice cream

You may have noticed that I don't have measurements for the ingredients, you don't really need them. Add more or less brown sugar, more or less butter as you like. The rum you should probably go light on until you've got the other parts of the recipe down.
Start by melting butter in a skillet on medium heat, you do not want the butter to brown at all, just melt. Add brown sugar to the butter and heat until it gets all bubbly and gooey and awesome. Add sliced bananas until the skillet is mostly covered with a single to a layer and a half of bananas, they will cook down a little bit. Stir and heat until the bananas are thoroughly coated and just starting to soften. Add a dash of rum, you can opt to flambe this but do so at your own risk. Stir and serve immediately, preferably over some vanilla ice cream.

Make sure you make extra because I can promise you that people will want more.

Yep, this is a pretty easy one but wowee does it make for an amazing and memorable dessert!

Kickass Chicken Tortilla Soup

This is a very loose recipe that can be tailored to your tastes and outfitted with all manner of accessory food but we'll get to those in a bit. All credit goes to my wife for developing it.

Ingredients, more or less:
medium white onion
tomatoes, canned, chopped
fire roasted green chilis
roasted garlic salsa
better than bouillon soup base
chicken breast, pan seared and then shredded
Chalula hot sauce
cheese, grated
avocado, cubed
tortilla strips, recipe below

Pan sear the chicken with the onions and some of the fire roasted green chilis. Once the chicken is cooked, put it aside and continue cooking the onions and green chilis and add the tomatoes. Let it all come up to heat and then add the bouillon and water. Simmer for a while, add as much roasted garlic salsa as you like and continue to simmer. Add the hot sauce to taste, we like the Chalula brand.
The longer it simmers, the better the flavor will be and your house should smell insanely good by now. The cheese, avo, chicken and tortillas should be put in bowls buffet style

Ladle up a bowl and add any or all of the cheese, avocado, chicken and tortilla strips. I usually add a couple more dashes of Chalula here too. You can add whatever else you like that might appeal to you, we go with these because they work for us. Try whatever you like and let me know how it goes.

The truly best way to do this recipe is to make your own tortilla strips. Its surprisingly easy and the results make for awesome snacking material even outside use in the soup.

Tortilla Strips
6-8 inch white corn tortillas, the more the better, trust me
vegetable oil
salt
seasonings

Stack the corn tortillas five or eight deep and cut them into strips, don't worry about the curve on the edges. Heat up an inch or more of vegetable oil in a sauce pan and use a wok scoop to deposit and remove the rapidly cooking strips. Lay them on paper towels to cool and drain a little extra oil. Make sure to hit them with some salt (or whatever seasonings you fancy) while they are still hot. Once they cool, they are awesome in the soup and easily worth the little bit of extra time to make them. Oh and make alot more than you think you'll need because people will scarf them like mad.

The beauty of this recipe is that you can use whatever cheese you like, we usually use a medium cheddar but I will use Cabot Extra Sharp every so often for a different kick. The Better Than Bouillon is also swappable with whatever broth you prefer. The tomatoes could be fire roasted as well. Really, anything in the recipe can be changed around and tweaked to your particular liking though the garlic salsa seems to be a really key ingredient in making the whole thing come together so well. We use the Roasted Garlic Salsa from La Mexicana from Nob Hill (Raley's) specifically.

The soup also improves with age, as in, it gets even better if you make extra and eat it the next day or the day after. Just don't add any toppings until you've reheated and you'll be amazed at how complex and just downright awesome the soup is. I wish I had some pictures to share, maybe when I reheat a bowl tomorrow I'll add one.

Hot carrot and pickled jalapeno peppers

From here

We love those canned pickled jalapeno peppers that you buy in the Mexican grocery stores here in California. Actually, we like best the hot carrots that they add to the cans for garnish. They put in about ten peppers for each slice of carrot. I devised this recipe because we were tired of buying a whole can of peppers just to get a few slices of hot pickled carrot!

This recipe is sized so that it will fit in a 1 1/2 pint Tupperware container

2 Large Carrots.
5 Medium Jalapeno Peppers.
About 1/4 of a medium onion.

Get a small pot of water boiling on the stove.

Scrub two large carrots, and wash five medium fresh jalapeno peppers. I try to choose nice firm green and shiny peppers.

Slice the peppers into 1/4" thick slices. Add the peppers to the boiling water and boil for three minutes.

Slice the carrots and onion into 1/4" slices. [After the peppers have boiled three minutes.] Add to the boiling water and set the timer for another five minutes.

While this cooks, mix together...

4 ounces of water
7 ounces of white distilled vinager
1 ounce of red Balsamaic vinager
1/4 teaspoon of olive oil
1 Tablespoon of salt
2 Tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano
2 dried bay leaves
a tiny piece of crushed garlic
a very small pinch of monosodium glutamate

Quickly drain the cooked carrots & peppers [they should still be a bit crisp] and add to the water/vinager/spice mixture. Cool and refrigerate at least 24 hours before eating. I don't know how long this will keep as I always eat it up within a few days!

Please let me know what you think of this recipe. By sending me email:

My collection of other pickled pepper recipies collected on the net.