Search Results for: giving thanks

Southwestern Taco Salad

November 18, 2015 by thiscookindad Leave a Comment

Thanks to READ Salads for making this post possible. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I love, love, love food from the Southwestern United States. The spices and textures just speak to me. Developing those deep flavors from scratch, though, can take some time and with holiday baking season coming up, I just don’t have it! I’m thankful for the Southwestern Bean Salad from READ Salads for giving me a tasty shortcut to those flavors that I adore so much.

Sometimes simpler is better and my Soutwestern Taco Salad is about as simple as you can get. I start by laying down a bed of 10-15 blue corn tortilla chips. It doesn’t seem like much , but blue corn tortilla chips have such an intense corn flavor that you don’t really need any more. I top that with a about 1/2 cup chopped romaine lettuce.

Now comes the fun part! I top my lettuce with about 1/4 cup of Southwestern Bean Salad. I love this shortcut. I can add black beans, corn, hominy, and kidney beans to my taco salad and it’s all flavored with a tomato, pepper, chili, and lime. To make it myself could take hours. Better still, it can be served at room temperature. Warm it up if you want, but I can put a yummy, southwestern dinner on the table in 5-10 minutes!

I finish it off with sour cream and salsa and top with queso fresco. For a little extra protein boost, I can add some leftover roast chicken or roast turkey. What a great lunch or dinner for the day after Thanksgiving!

READ Salads are available in the canned goods aisle at your local grocery story. Make sure that you check out their website for more great simple serving suggestions!

What are your shortcuts to big flavor? Leave a comment and share your favorite READ Salads serving suggestion!

Fried Mushroom Memories

September 15, 2015 by thiscookindad 2 Comments

Food has a funny way of bringing back memories. Fried mushrooms are nothing new and, for many, are not anything particularly special. For me, though, they will always remind of the trips to my wife’s parents’ house when we were in college. Of course, now that I’m doing most of the cooking, I’m definitely going to change things up a little…always for the better!

My wife and I met at VA Tech. GO HOKIES!! This was before I joined the Army…I was struggling in school, my parents were in Israel, and I was, generally, having a hard time of it. I’ve never exactly been certain of what Beth saw in me, but I’m sure glad she saw it! About a month after we met, she invited me to her home for Thanksgiving and to meet her parents. She drove, since I didn’t have a car at the time, and I was excited, but I definitely had my misgivings. A normal guy would meet his girlfriend’s parents for the first time in the couple of minutes picking her up for a date or over dinner one evening.

This guy here signed up for a week long visit with no escape route! There’s a fine line between brave and dumb and I was straddling it!

So we met them at this little pizza place, George’s, right outside of Fredericksburg, VA. They ordered pizza, Greek salad, and fried mushrooms. Who was I to argue? One thing was for sure. You had to fight to get one of those mushrooms!

Well, all of my fears were relieved as I was welcomed in like family and I instantly fell in love with all of them. As I began to visit more frequently, I learned one of the reasons that those fried mushrooms were such a hit. The standing tradition is that you always get an extra order of mushrooms. That extra order is for the pickup crew and they get to split it on the way home. Since Beth’s “Welcome Home” dinner was usually pizza from George’s, I quickly began anticipating that stop on the way home. It was a long drive, but that crispy breading and the impossibly hot meatiness of that mushroom made the drive worth it!

Even now, if fried mushrooms are on the menu, Beth and I will probably order them. Every now and then, though, I break out the fryer and surprise her with a fresh, hot batch right at home. I tend towards a thinner, tempura style batter that cuts down on the breading and makes the mushroom shine through a little more. They are a little different than George’s, but they are just as tasty and they still keep that memory alive.

How are you keeping your food memories alive? Leave a comment and share your stories.

Tempura-Style Fried Mushrooms

Author: Brian

Ingredients

1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp onion powder
½ tsp garlic powder
2-21/2 cups club soda
4 cups whole white button and baby bella mushrooms
oil, for frying

Instructions

Pour oil to fill line in a fryer or fill a large, heavy pot halfway with oil. Heat to 350.
In a large mixing bowl, combine first 6 ingredients.
Pour in 2 cups club soda, whisking until all of the dry ingredients are moistened, adding more club soda as needed to create a thin batter.
In 3-4 batches, coat the mushrooms completely in batter and place into the hot oil. Cook for 3-5 minutes, or until the batter is a light golden brown.
Remove from the oil, sprinkle with kosher salt, and serve right away with a side of ranch dressing.

Lemon Poblano Mac and Cheese to Help End Hunger

June 11, 2015 by thiscookindad 9 Comments

Many thanks to Dreamfields Pasta for making this post possible. All thoughts and opinions are my own. #Pastapalooza

Each month this year, I have had a theme for my posts. For the month of June, I am talking about grilling. As much as I love to talk about grilling, though, today I’m going to take a break from it to talk about something pretty important…hunger and how, with a little help from my readers and Dreamfields Pasta, my simple bowl of Lemon Poblano Mac and Cheese can make a huge difference in fighting hunger in my community.

I live in a small county in Virginia and regularly walk into my kids’ schools in the mornings to drop them off or to volunteer for the day. It always amazes me just how many students in our schools are eating breakfast from the cafeteria, not because they didn’t have time to eat, but because their parents couldn’t afford it. Some parts of our state see over 70% of the students approved for free or reduced lunch.

It’s tough to see our kids’ friends have to deal with this. I can’t tell you the number of snacks that Beth and I have sent in because the kids just don’t have those snacks to bring. We know how hard it can be for a child to concentrate on schoolwork when they are worried about food.

That makes summertime pretty tough for those kids. Free and reduced lunch doesn’t apply when school’s not in session and the family’s income level doesn’t suddenly shoot up during the summer. This is one of the major reasons that local food banks struggle to keep up with the demand during the summer months.

What can we do to help?

As a person whose life is based largely around food, I feel some responsibility to get involved. It’s actually easier than you think. You can donate foods and essential toiletries to your local food bank. You can also contact them to find out how to donate your time or money. Check out the links below for more information on that.

We always try to do what we can to help out, but we never feel like it’s enough. Thankfully, Dreamfields is giving me (and you) a chance to help out a little more. Throughout the summer, Dreamfields is challenging bloggers to create original pasta dishes using the ingredients in a Market Basket Challenge. Wouldn’t you know it? I was selected to be a part of this!!

That means that you get to go vote for your favorite recipe (mine, of course!) and the winner from each category will receive a $1,000 donation to their local food bank/pantry. The rest of the contestants receive a $200 donation. My donation will go to Feeding Greene, the food pantry that serves my county and part of the Feeding America Network. The best part? By voting, you yourself get a chance to win a Dreamfields family pack and a $1,000 donation in your name to the food bank/pantry of your choice! That’s 30 donations for over $10,000 to local communities to help those that are not quite as secure with their food situation! My round starts on June 11 at 12:01 am and ends on June 17 at 11:59 pm, so I need your help now!!

###Update: WE WON!! Thanks to those who voted, my little county in Virginia will receive a $1000 donation to help fight hunger in our community. Thanks so much to everyone who helped out in this effort!###

If you aren’t sure which food bank or pantry serves your area, you can check out the following sites to locate your local organization.

So what was my Market Basket Challenge?

By now, I’m sure that you are all wondering just what my Market Basket Challenge is and what I made with it. My basket included beer, smoked/grilled meats, hot peppers, lemons, and my vegetable of choice. In addition, I could pick two other ingredients. Dreamfields pasta, water, oil, salt, and pepper were all “freebies”. After attempts at a couple of recipes, I finally settled on a Lemon Poblano Mac & Cheese.

I used Dreamfields Elbows, applewood smoked bacon, a lemon shandy, poblano peppers, onions, and, of course, lemons. All-purpose flour and cheese were my two extra ingredients. Now, I’m sure you’re asking where the milk is. It can’t be mac & cheese without milk, right? No milk in this one, folks! Just trust me.

I start by dicing and frying up the bacon. I use the bacon grease to cook the diced onions and peppers.

Once they are sauteed nicely, I add in a squeeze of lemon and some flour and let it cook for a couple of minutes…

…before adding the lemon shandy, basically a beer mixed with carbonated lemonade. I bring that to a boil then quickly back it down to a simmer to make a sort of bechamel. Let’s call it a “beerchamel”. Effectively, we are talking about a thick gravy. After this has cooked for a couple of minutes to smooth it out, I add in the shredded cheese to make a cheese sauce.

I pour the cheese sauce over the cooked elbows, stir in some bacon, top with more bacon and some lemon zest, and serve with a tall glass of lemon shandy.

The first bite of this will completely challenge everything that you think you know about mac & cheese. It’s lemony, a little spicy, and it’s really difficult to turn away a second helping. I hope you enjoy!

Make sure you head over to the voting page to vote for my recipe and give my food bank (and yours) a chance at $1,000! What is your local food bank? How do you help them out? Leave a comment and share your story!

Lemon Poblano Mac and Cheese

Author: Brian

Recipe type: Entree

Ingredients

1-13.25 oz. box Dreamfields Elbows
6 slices thick-cut applewood smoked bacon, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1-2 poblano peppers, diced
½ tsp salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
juice from ½ lemon
12 oz. lemon shandy beer
4 oz. water
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
zest from 1 lemon

Instructions

Prepare Dreamfields pasta according to package directions. Drain, rinse, and set aside.
Meanwhile, cook bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until crispy. Remove from pan to a paper towel-lined plate and set aside.
Add onion, poblano, salt, and pepper to the hot bacon grease. Cook on medium-high for 3-5 minutes or until onions are just beginning to brown.
Add flour and cook for 2-3 minutes. Slowly add beer and water, stirring to fully combine with flour and vegetables. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until smooth, 3-5 minutes.
Add cheese ½ cup at a time, stirring to fully incorporate each addition.
Fold cheese sauce in with the cooked Dreamfields Elbows and add about ¾ of the reserved bacon. Stir to combine.
Serve sprinkled with lemon zest and remaining bacon. Enjoy!

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