New Potato Salad with Lemon, Dill, and Chives (No Mayo)

New Potato Salad with Lemon, Dill, and Chives

I finally get to show off my new Ninja food processor I got for Mother’s Day! For whatever reason, we hadn’t cooked anything that needed something chopped small until now. Well not exactly true. We made a chef’s salad the other day and I had fun chopping up the carrots and such for it, but it was not a blog-worthy meal. Just a typical throw-in-anything-you-have-in-your-fridge salad on a busy weeknight. However, the other night I set out to make a “lighter” version of potato salad that didn’t use mayonnaise. From all my research it appeared Greek yogurt was the best substitute, along with some oil and citrus and herbs.  This would make a great potluck salad since it doesn’t have mayo or eggs in it!

Ninja with Chopped Celery and Radishes

New Potato Salad with Lemon, Dill, and Chives

1 1/2 pounds small red new potatoes, quartered
1 celery stalk
2 radishes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon fresh minced chives
1 tablespoon fresh minced baby dill
Ground pepper, to taste

Boil quartered potatoes for about 10 minutes. Remove the potatoes from heat, drain, and rinse in cold water. Add to a bowl, cover, and refrigerate until ready to make the salad. Meanwhile, finely dice the celery and radishes. I really enjoyed using my the Ninja for the chopping. It only took about 4 pulses on the button to make me smile. It’s small and only handles two cups max of anything, but it does the job quickly and was a snap to clean up. I love it! (No I was not paid by Ninja for this endorsement.)

In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, yogurt, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, minced chives, minced dill, andand ground black pepper, to taste. Take a taste to see if it needs more of any one flavor.  Stir into the bowl of potatoes, then cover and refrigerate to let flavors meld until ready to serve.

Potato Salad Ready to Mix

I thought this was a fabulous light side dish to go with the babyback ribs my husband cooked for dinner. The only complaint I had from the family was that I made my potato chunks too big. Some of the new potatoes were not exactly small, so use your judgment on what size to chop them. I have learned my family likes smaller. Oh, and the hubs inquired why it had no bacon, either.

P.S. I will not have a weekend post, as we are off to our river property for five days over the Memorial Day Weekend. God Bless all our troops and the family members who have lost their loved ones for our country.

Potato Salad and Ribs

Simple Tuna and Egg Salad Stack

Simple Tuna and Egg Salad Stack

Sometimes I just like simple. And comforting. And quick. That is exactly what I made myself for lunch the other day. A simple tuna and egg salad stacked atop a simple toasted English muffin. Nothing fancy going on here, but I sure enjoyed it! Oh, and so did my husband, who happened to make it home just as I was about to pack away the leftovers, so he got himself a Simple Tuna and Egg Salad Stack too! I hope you enjoy.

Simple Tuna and Egg Salad Stack

2 boiled eggs, peeled and roughly chopped
1 5-ounce can albacore tuna , drained and flaked
Ground pepper, to taste
Celery salt, to taste
Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb seasoning, to taste
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
Small squirt of Dijon mustard
1 green onion, white and light green parts, chopped
1 English muffin, halved and toasted with a light spread of butter

Mix all the ingredients except the English muffin in a small bowl. Mix it up and taste and see if it needs anymore of anything. Plop a few spoonfuls onto your toasted and buttered English muffin and well, eat! You can serve with chips and a dill pickle if you want to round it out a bit more, or eat all of it yourself. I was nice and shared.

Tuna and Egg Salad on English Muffin

Oh! And I added a new Lunch category for my recipes. I don’t know why I never did that as I have plenty of lunch recipes from the past that I just dumped into the Main Dishes category instead, but a lot of them I actually made for lunch.

Quick and Easy Stacked Ground Beef Enchilada Casserole

Quick and Easy Stacked Ground Beef Enchilada Casserole

Talk about a super-easy mid-week meal to make when life is busy and you’re craving Tex-Mex! I was hankering some spicy, per usual, and amazingly I had every single ingredient on hand for this meal. I guess that’s not entirely amazing, since I always keep a good stock of Tex-Mex spices and herbs on hand. I was really wanting to use my new Ninja food processor I got for Mother’s Day from my fabulous family to mix up some awesome homemade Ancho chile paste for this, as I also had dried Ancho chiles sitting around. However, time got the best of me so I used store-bought ground Ancho chile powder instead. (Actually, the label on the package says Pasilla chile powder, but Ancho chile powder is dried Pasillas peppers.) Either way, these easy casserole-style enchiladas were a hit, and we barely had enough leftover for two the next day. Double or triple accordingly!

Ground Beef Ready to Mix with Sauce and Spices

Quick and Easy Stacked Ground Beef Enchilada Casserole

1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup chopped sweet or yellow onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Ground black pepper, to taste
8-ounce can sliced black olives, divided
1 tablespoon Ancho chile powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 4-ounce can chopped green chiles
1 8-0unce can no-salt tomato sauce
3 medium-size flour tortillas, torn into chunks
1 1/2 cups shredded blend of cheddar and Monterrey Jack cheese, divided
1/2 cup water
Cilantro, chopped green onion, sliced black olives, and sour cream for garnish

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a medium skillet (ooh look, my new red ceramic-lined skillet!), cook the ground beef, onion, garlic, and pepper until the burger is browned. Drain any grease. Add about 3/4 of the sliced black olives and mix well. Now add the Ancho chile powder (you can sub with New Mexico Red, or regular chile powder in a pinch), the green chiles, and tomato sauce. Stir to combine and simmer for a few minutes. Spray a 2-quart casserole dish with oil, then line the bottom with half the torn tortilla chunks and very lightly spray the tops of the tortillas. Spread half the meat mixture over top, then half the cheese. Repeat with another layer of tortillas and a light spray of oil on them, meat, and cheese. Drizzle the half cup of water around the edges of the casserole. Cover tightly, and cook for a half hour. Uncover and broil for a few minutes. Take out and let rest for five minutes. Garnish with cilantro, green onion, sliced black olives, and sour cream (any or all optional). I had this meal prepped, cooked, and on the table in one hour flat. Can’t go wrong with that! And plates were licked clean.

Enchilada Sauce Ready for Casserole

Cilantro Lime Rice and Roasted Corn (with Plank-Grilled Salmon)

Cilantro Lime Rice, Roasted Corn, and Grilled Salmon

Here’s a quick dinner idea that is not only a snap to prepare, but is full of flavor and good for you too! We planked-grilled half of the last salmon fillet we had left in our freezer last night, and the hubs plans on making smoked salmon with the other half today. That will be an awesome Mother’s Day appetizer later on today!

The entire dinner came together in a half hour, not including the soaking time for the wood plank. You can find the recipe for the salmon here: Plank-Grilled Salmon. If you don’t have a plank of wood or grill, you can cook the salmon in the oven instead.

These recipes feed two, but feel free to double or triple as needed.

Cilantro Lime Rice

1 cup homemade or low sodium chicken broth
Juice of 1 lime wedge
Dash of garlic powder
1/2 cup rice
Handful of chopped cilantro
Juice of 2 lime wedges

Cook the rice in the chicken broth, the squeeze of lime wedge and garlic powder. When done, stir in the chopped cilantro and the other lime juice. That’s it! This packs a lot of flavor and wish I made more.

Prepping the Cilantro for Rice

Roasted Corn

1 cup frozen or fresh corn niblets
Spray olive oil
Black pepper, to taste
Butter, to taste

Spray a baking sheet with oil, spread the corn in one layer, spray the corn lightly with oil, grind a bunch of black pepper over it, and broil in oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and add a small amount of butter, to taste. I can’t wait until it’s fresh corn season! I had to use frozen but it still came out yummy.

Last, a great big shout out to all the mothers out there for Mother’s Day, whether you are a mother of children, fur-kids, or nature.  XO

Roasted Corn, Cilantro Lime Rice, and Grilled Salmon

Grilled Turkey Sausage, Broccoli, and Cauliflower Foil Packets

Foil Packets Ready to Close and Grill

I just love the start of grilling season! That, and the versatility of grilled foil packets. There are so many variations of meats and vegetables you can add to the packets, and a tried and true simple marinade goes with just about anything. Rather than make “individual” packets, I just divide the food between two large packets then dump everything onto a platter when ready to eat. (Unlike this variation I made last summer the size of a watermelon! Link here for the variation, using red peppers and mushrooms: Grilled Sausage and Vegetables in Foil Packet)

I had my husband put these on the grill, and didn’t realize he had the two middle burners set on low instead of medium, so we didn’t get the yummy crispy-crunchy browned bits all over everything, but the potatoes and vegetables were tender and we were ready to eat, so I let it slide this time. Next time I’ll remind him of the heat setting.  This recipe easily feeds five or six people, and we enjoyed the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Marinating Broccoli Cauliflower Potatoes Onions and Tomatoes

Grilled Turkey Sausage, Broccoli and Cauliflower Foil Packets

1 tablespoon olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb, to taste
Black pepper, to taste
3 medium potatoes, washed and chopped into chunks
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup cauliflower florets
1/2 large sweet onion, chopped
1 large Roma or Plum tomato
1 large green onion, chopped
1 Smoked Turkey Sausage link (I used Jennie-O), cut into 1/2 to 1-inch chunks
1 tablespoon butter or substitute, cut into tiny chunks

In a large bowl, whisk the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, Mrs. Dash (or salt), and black pepper until well combined. Add all the veggies and let them marinate while you preheat a grill to medium heat. Prepare two large pieces of aluminum foil — heavy duty if you have it or double up if you don’t — to fit everything in them.

When ready to cook, add the sausage chunks to the bowl of vegetables and lightly toss around to distribute. Evenly spread the food over the center of the foil pieces, leaving enough room to close and seal the packets. Distribute the tiny chunks of butter over the top, then seal the foil packets.  Place the packets on the grill and close the lid and cook for about 40 minutes, or one hour if the hubs decides to mess with the heat settings, turning halfway through. Carefully open packets and dump contents onto a serving platter. Pass it around and help yourselves! You will be surprised how quick plates are emptied.

Grilled Turkey Sausage and Vegetables Ready to Eat

Cinco de Mayo Charro, or “Borracho” Beans

Charro, or Borracho Beans

I spent a good amount of time the other night cooking almost five pounds of burger and over a pound of ground turkey to make the taco filling for my employer’s Cinco de Mayo Taco Bar Potluck. For some insane reason, I also signed up to make some Charro beans for the potluck portion. The team I’m on pitches in all the taco makings (such as the taco meats I cooked), and since I’m on the organizing team I really didn’t have to do that. But I did. So there I was, all in a sweat after work, with four to five pots and pans cooking a variety of ingredients at the same time.  I posted this recipe over a year ago embedded within my Grilled Tri-Tip Steak recipe, so thought I’d dredge it back up for you so you can take a gander at it and see if this is something you would like to make for your own Cinco de Mayo fest! I tried to clarify my directions from a year ago, so I hope that helps.

This is a tried and true Tex-Mex recipe. These beans are served all over the Austin area, but I’ve found nary a restaurant serving this in my dinky Pacific Northwest town. In a nutshell, they are dried pinto beans cooked for a long time with a spicy tomato-chile mixture, along with bacon or some kind of pork. My version reduces the cooking time greatly by using a pressure cooker. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, increase the cooking time by several hours, adding water as needed. The difference between Charro beans and Borracho beans is that you add a bottle of Mexican beer to the the Charro beans. Borracho means “drunk” in Mexican, lol. Enjoy!

Cinco de Mayo Charro, or “Borracho” Beans

2 cups dried pinto beans, soaked overnight and rinsed
2 cups homemade or low salt chicken broth (or sub all water)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 slices cooked bacon, chopped (or 2 tablespoons bacon bits)
1 can Ro*Tel tomatoes (or diced tomatoes and green chiles)
Black pepper to taste
1 bottle or can of beer (preferably Mexican)
Large handful of cilantro, chopped, and more for garnish

Dried Pinto Beans (Soaked and Rinsed)

After soaking and rinsing the beans overnight, add them to a pressure cooker with the chicken broth and enough water to cover the beans by an inch or so. Cover the pot with its lid tightly with the pressure regulator on top, and heat over medium high heat until the regulator begins to rock. Turn the heat down until regulator is rocking gently, then cook for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, add the oil, garlic, and bacon to a heated skillet and saute until the onion starts to get translucent. Add the can of Ro*Tel tomatoes and grind a bunch of  black pepper over it, cook for about five minutes longer, then set aside.

After the beans have cooked 25 minutes, take the pot off the heat and let the pressure reduce on its own. Do  not cool it by running under water, as you will have to let the pressure come down naturally or you will have a foaming mess on your hands. This will take about 15 or 20 minutes. When you can open the lid easily, stir in the tomato mixture, and beer (if using). Take a potato masher or the back of a spoon and smoosh some of the beans to help thicken up the broth. Cook  for another half hour or so.

Garnish with additional cilantro,  if you prefer. This makes a mess of beans, but they are so yummy you’ll find they will disappear quickly. Eat them in a taco or burrito, or sop them up with tortilla chips. These taste even better the next day, too.  Olé!

Spinach, Artichoke, Chicken, and Mushroom Alfredo Pasta

Chicken, Spinach, Artichoke, and Mushroom Alfredo Pasta

This is the third variation I’ve made of this dish over the past couple of months, but the options are endless and it only takes a half hour to make from start to finish. That makes it my go-to recipe when I’m pinched for time. I’ve served this with just the spinach and noodles as a side dish, then I also made it a meatless main by adding artichokes. I think I’ve maxed out the ingredients this time around by also adding chicken and mushrooms to that growing list!

Getting this ready in a half-hour with chicken means you need precooked chicken. I used the leftover grilled chicken from the night before, but you can also use a rotisserie chicken from the deli.  I made way too much, as adding the chicken and mushrooms just put it over the top in quantity category for the three of us, especially since I over-eyeballed the pasta amount. Somebody PLEASE tell me how much dry pasta to boil for three?!  But it made great leftovers the next night.  All I had to do was add a little milk to the saucepan while reheating it to loosen it up, and it came out great. Since we didn’t have as much leftovers to eat as the night before, a side salad was served for round two.

Adding the Chicken and Spinach to Alfredo and Artichokes

Spinach, Artichoke, Chicken, and Mushroom Alfredo

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1 to 2 cups cooked chicken, shredded or cubed

Plus, follow the recipe from this blog entry Creamy Spinach and Artichoke Angel Hair Pasta,   except add the mushrooms when sauteing the garlic, then add the cooked chicken when adding the artichokes. That’s it! Dinner on the table in a half hour, really! So sorry for the shortcut recipe, but I’m short on time these days. 

Lemon, Tarragon, Chive, and Cilantro Grilled Chicken

Lemon, Tarragon, Chive, and Cilantro Grilled Chicken

The tarragon and chive plants that mysteriously revived themselves from winter are going gangbusters, so decided to come up with a marinade for some chicken I planned on grilling. This super-simple marinade imparted a wonderful, fresh taste to the chicken. I threw in a small handful of cilantro at the last minute, but you can certainly omit it if you want.

Lemon and Herbs for Marinade

Lemon, Tarragon, Chive, and Cilantro Grilled Chicken

Juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons fresh tarragon, minced
2 tablespoons fresh chives, minced
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/8 cup white wine
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Ground black pepper, to taste
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 pounds bone-in skin-on chicken

Whisk all the ingredients well in a small glass bowl. Add the chicken to a large Ziploc bag, then pour marinade over chicken and squish around to cover the chicken well. Marinade in the refrigerator for a few hours, up to overnight. One hour before grilling, take the chicken out of the fridge (keeping it in bag) and let rest on countertop for about an hour before grilling. Preheat grill with two outer burners on high and the two middle burners on low. Add the chicken to the top rack on the grill bone-side down, reserving marinade. Cook covered for 15 minutes, then flip chicken over and cook covered another 15 minutes. Turn chicken back over, baste with marinade, and cook five minutes more or until meat thermometer registers 165. Remove from grill and tent with foil for 10 minutes. We served this with rice cooked in chicken broth and fresh steamed broccoli. A perfect spring weekend meal!

Crispy Baked Chicken Parmesan

Crispy Baked Chicken Parmesan

This was a quick and easy meal I threw together last week that my family inhaled. I was going to do the traditional method by frying the chicken in oil, but at the last minute decided to healthy it up a bit and bake it. I can tell you we did not miss the extra oil, and they came out so crispy and very tender! I was excited at first to have some leftovers to take to work the next day, but then my dear daughter decided she wanted a second helping and the entire meal was finished off. Next time I will double the batch. This recipe feeds three if you have a really hungry person in the household, or four if not. I thought a quarter pound of chicken on top of a mound of spaghetti with a meat sauce would be plenty for each person, but apparently not.  :/

My basil plants are but wee seedlings at the moment, and I totally spaced that I had some dried sweet basil in the spice cabinet when I took the photos. By the time I remembered that fact, the dinner was pretty much a done deal. I did remember it for my leftover portion, as shown later down below in my lunch container all ready for work, but my lunch went by the wayside, alas. But I’m happy my daughter is healthy and active and growing and I can provide enough nourishment!

Baked Chicken Ready to Flip

Crispy Baked Chicken Parmesan (or Parmigiana if you want to sound Italian)

1 pound chicken breast meat
1 egg
Splash of milk
1/2 cup crushed cornflakes
1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Ground black pepper, to taste
Mrs. Dash Table Blend, or salt, to taste
About a 3/4-inch round of dried spaghetti
3 or 4 cups of prepared spaghetti sauce, any kind, heated
Shredded Mozzarella cheese (I used low-fat variety)
Fresh or dried basil, for garnish

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, get your water on to boil in a pot for the spaghetti, and heat up your spaghetti sauce, either stovetop or microwave.  I only had rather large bone-in chicken breasts, so deboned one and got two filets plus the chicken tenderloin out of it. If you have small chicken breasts, just pound them with a mallet until about 1/4-inch thin. If large, then butterfly in half, and pound a little, if needed. The tenderloin did not need it, of course.

In a small bowl, whisk the egg and a splash of milk. On a plate, mix the crushed cornflakes, Panko bread crumbs, grated Parmesan cheese, and seasonings. Dip the chicken in the egg wash, then dredge it on both sides through the cornflake/breadcrumb mixture. Place on a baking pan lined with crumpled aluminum foil sprayed with oil. If you have a baking rack, that would work too, but I don’t. Spray the top of the chicken with oil.

Add the pasta to your pot now as your water should be boiling. Now pop the chicken in the oven, and bake for 10 minutes, then flip over, spray with more oil, then bake 10 minutes more. Remove and drain your pasta at some point in those 20 minutes when it’s done and mix it in with about three-quarters of the heated spaghetti sauce, and divide into bowls or on plates. Now carefully spread a large spoonful of the spaghetti sauce to each piece of chicken, then top with some shredded Mozzarella cheese, turn the oven to broil, and bake until the cheese is gooey and starting to bubble, just a few minutes.

Chicken Parmesan Leftovers – NOT

I wanted to get some nice browned bubbly spots on the cheese, but the fam was starving and had to please. Place each chicken filet atop each mound of spaghetti (or cut pieces off if they are large) then garnish with fresh or dried basil. We ate this with a small green salad. We skipped doing the garlic bread thing with this, as there are enough carbs with everything else. Enjoy!

Incredible Carne Guisada!

Incredible Carne Guisada

This dish is SERIOUSLY amazing!!! Using a subjective adjective in my blog title along with an exclamation point already breaks a couple of my self-imposed posting rules. And there I just broke two more with capital letters and a triple exclamation point in the first sentence. But I can’t help it. This Carne Guisada is Just. That. Good. We are talking lick your bowl good. We are talking Get Outta Here that good. I cannot stress enough how much I loved this!

So now that I got all that off my chest, it’s time to start talking about the dish itself. I wanted Mexican food the other day, but wanted something different — something I’d never made before. So I went to my near and dear cookbook The Homesick Texan Cookbook by Lisa Fain, who always draws me into her recipes with her stories and photos that make everything in there look so gosh-darned good. This particular recipe caught my eye, and is the basis for what I ended up with. It’s a stew-like dish, served with soft tortillas, or you can dip into it with tortilla chips like an appetizer. I mixed it up quite a bit from hers but she provided me the foundation from which to build on. That sounded very scholarly. The recipe and food is not, I guarantee! I really wish I had doubled this batch, because there was not near enough leftover for my liking. I wanted more, more, more the next day for my lunch.

Carne Guisada
Adapted from Lisa Fain The Homesick Texan

1 1/2 pounds cut of beef roast or steak, any kind, cut into 1-inch cubes
Mrs. Dash Table Blend, or salt, to taste
Flour to dust over beef, about a tablespoon or so
Ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped (I used half a yellow and half a red)
1/2 large jalapeno, seeded and diced small
1/2 serrano pepper, seeded and diced small
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
3 Roma tomatoes, chopped
2 small potatoes, any kind, chopped
1 bay leaf
Handful of chopped cilantro
1/2 cup homemade or low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup dark beer, or sub with more chicken broth
Flour tortillas, warmed before serving
More cilantro, for serving

Hot and Mild Peppers and Onions

I had a rather large, lonely New York Sirloin steak in the freezer, which I deboned to get a pound of meat, and a meager 1/2 pound of boneless beef ribs in the freezer, so used those too. The recipe called for beef chuck or bottom round, but it’s all beef and you cook the heck out of it so the cut is unimportant. Season the beef cubes with Mrs. Dash (or salt) and pepper, then lightly dust all around with flour. Heat the oil in a cast iron or heavy-bottomed skillet to medium-high heat, then add the beef, in batches. You don’t want to crowd it or it won’t brown properly. Cook until it’s browned on all sides. Transfer each batch to a crock pot and set on high heat. Reduce the skillet heat to medium and add the chopped onions, peppers, garlic and spices. Cook until the garlic becomes fragrant, just a few minutes or so, as you don’t want to burn it. Add a skosh more oil, if needed.

Carne Guisada Ready for Liquids

Now add the mixture to the beef in the crock pot, then the tomatoes, potatoes (adding some potato was pretty outlandish, but hey, it worked!), bay leaf, and chopped cilantro. Pour in the chicken broth and beer, if using. The darkest beer I had in the house at the time was an amber ale, but you can sub with chicken broth if you don’t have any. (Yes, I did drink the rest of the beer bottle. Waste not, want not!) Cover and cook on high for three or four hours, then reduce to low for a couple of more hours, or until ready to eat. If you started this prep earlier in the day, then you can cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. The longer the better. When it’s time to eat, warm up those tortillas in a hot skillet, add a mess of the Carne Guisada to a bowl, then start digging in, slathering and slopping up all the yummy juices with the tortillas. You won’t be disappointed. And of course go back for seconds and thirds. I did.

Carne Guisada