It’s not too late to make a holiday gift for the Tex-Mex fans in your life. My mom has a great recipe for homemade salsa that is easy, fresh-tasting and delicious. Some very special people on our Christmas list love this salsa, and I don’t make it for them often enough. (Yes, you read that right — this is one of the very few recipes that I make all on my own!) I made a couple of batches for our friends this year. Continue reading “Homemade Salsa”
Category: Vegetable
Shrimp Salad (with store-bought shrimp)
With the holidays fast approaching and adding more activities to the usual busy week, these days we are all about easy meals. It doesn’t get much easier than incorporating a leftover protein into a salad, which can become a satisfying meal all on its own. This recipe is one of our favorite weeknight salads. We usually make it with leftover shrimp, but Dan’s spicy garlic shrimp that he made earlier in the week was so good that we didn’t have any leftovers. So, we improvised and bought some pre-cooked shrimp from Whole Foods. Not nearly as good as Dan’s, but still made a pretty delicious (and really easy) salad.
Celery Salad
We recently tried a new side dish from Ina Garten’s latest cookbook “How Easy is That?” We have to say, it was pretty darn easy. And delicious. So good, in fact, that we are going to serve it at Thanksgiving this year. Celery salad is not something we ever would have thought to make, but as Ina recognizes, celery can serve as a starring role and should not always be relegated to tuna salad support. This is definitely a side dish we will keep in the rotation. Continue reading “Celery Salad”
Sauteed Okra
Although summer is the peak season for okra, it is still available in grocery stores here in Texas, so we thought we’d share a really, really quick, easy and delicious recipe for sauteed okra. Until we found this recipe, okra was a vegetable that never made it into our rotation (I’m not a big fan of vegetables, so our rotation typically consists of veggies that Dan cooks in such a way that they don’t taste like vegetables). This recipe earned okra a spot among our usual broccolini, green beans, zucchini, and asparagus side dish favorites. Continue reading “Sauteed Okra”
Grilled Eggplant Parmesan
This is a new-to-us recipe that we found on Epicurious, in our (my) continuous search for delicious vegetarian dishes. We made a few changes to the original recipe – based on reviews from people who tried the Epicurious recipe. The result was good, but we think it could use some improvement. We liked that it was quick and easy for a weeknight, but missed the crispy breading aspect of regular eggplant parmesan. We’ll try it again sometime. Continue reading “Grilled Eggplant Parmesan”
Grilled Stuffed Jalapenos
Always looking for cool new cooking utensils and gadgets, Dan picked up an interesting grilling tool at the State Fair — a Chile Grill. Basically, it’s a tray to hold stuffed jalapenos on the grill. We decided to try it out one evening when we were having grilled shrimp and a rice side dish. The jalapenos were pretty good, but very hot (we should have grilled them a little longer). We need a little more practice/experimentation with our ingredients, but the tray worked like a champ. Continue reading “Grilled Stuffed Jalapenos”
Butternut Squash with Gorgonzola
A few years ago we hosted Thanksgiving here in Dallas with some of my family, and we were looking for a new side dish. We happened upon a recipe for roasted butternut squash with gorgonzola cheese. It was amazing and we’re now hooked on this dish, which is full of autumn flavors and pairs perfectly with turkey. This is one of our favorite Thanksgiving dinner side dishes. Try it, you will not be disappointed!
Continue reading “Butternut Squash with Gorgonzola”
Rustic Grilled Pizza
A few weeks ago we posted Grilled Veggie Pizza, and I caught some grief for using a pre-made pizza crust – even being accused of “cheating.” So we decided to give homemade pizza dough a try, and we were thrilled at how delicious it was. The end result was not necessarily very photogenic, but by calling this pizza “rustic,” it makes it appear that we intended it to be so mis-shaped. And it tasted amazing, which matters most. Continue reading “Rustic Grilled Pizza”
Crushed Potatoes
We recently came across a side dish called “Crash-Hot Potatoes,” and we were intrigued enough by the name to try them. This recipe is so simple — small red potatoes boiled until fork-tender, then “crashed” and coated in a bit of olive oil for roasting in a hot oven until crispy and delicious. We love the flavors of garlic and basil with olive oil, so we switched up this recipe by using a garlic-infused olive oil and dried basil (instead of thyme or rosemary) which added a very subtle Italian flair that was fantastic. These may be the current number one potato dish in our rotation. Try them — we promise that you will not be disappointed!
Update: We followed friend and commenter Carrie’s tip to crush the potatoes using the bottom of a dry measuring cup wrapped in plastic, and it worked like a charm. We also boiled the potatoes a little longer before crushing them.
Cucumber Tomato Salad
We’re always looking for new side dishes to mix things up, and this is a great one. We found the recipe on epicurious.com, which is one of our favorite sources of online recipes. This side is called Dave’s Tomato and Cucumber Salad. We’re not sure who Dave is, but he came up with a really good salad! Continue reading “Cucumber Tomato Salad”