Did I mention I love entertaining? I do! I like all of it. The planning, the set up, the preping, then hanging out with people you love. T’is the season for entertaining, for potluck luncheons and parties galore, so I thought I’d share some of my favorites. These are easy recipes, most of them simply jazz up store-bought items, some are completely homemade but still easy.
This spread was for a ladies’ late brunch. I asked a few friends to clean out their closets and bring some office attire for donation to Dress for Success, in exchange for some food and girl time. Needless to say, we had a great time, eating, sharing, dishing and drinking! Take a look at the pictures and follow the links for the recipes.
I hosted this at my little place, see the before and after?
BEFORE
and… AFTER
What was on the menu, you ask?
Avocado Bleu Cheese Dip
Beef Empanadas
Plantain Chips with Guava Chimichurri
Mini Mexican Cornbread
Don’t be shy. Pull up your address book and start sending your evites!
I had NO leftovers of this one. It was awesome! I served it with crackers, but it would go well with just about anything you can spread it on.
Avocado Bleu Cheese Dip
2 Hass avocados, cubed
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3 tbsp crema fresca (creme fraiche)
4 bacon strips, crumbled
Dash cayenne pepper
1/3 cp bleu or gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
Mix all the ingredients except for 1/3 of the bacon. You want the dip to be chunky. If you don’t have crema fresca, you can use heavy cream instead. Put it into your serving container and top with the rest of the bacon. Enjoy!
This one is so easy and so delicious, it feels like cheating. But I won’t tell anyone. I use Jiffy mix for this, but you can use your favorite prepackaged cornbread mix or family recipe. And, if you’d rather not mess with cupcakes, you can bake it in regular pan. I’m easy.
Mexican Cornbread
2 pkgs Jiffy Cornbread mix
1 cp breakfast sausage
1 serrano chile, diced
3/4 cp cheddar cheese, grated
Preheat oven to 375°. Cook the sausage in a frying pan, making sure to break it apart to avoid big chunks. When it begins to brown, add the chopped serrano (you can use jalapeño if you can’t find serranos). Cook the sausage completely. In the meantime, prepare the cornbread according to the directions.
To get the muffin pan ready, you can either use the little baking cups, which is what I did OR you can grease and flour it OR use Pam. Your call.
To the cornbread batter add the sausage and 1/2 cp of the cheese. Mix just until incorporated, then fill the muffins with batter to about 3/4 of the way. Bake it for about 12 minutes, just until the batter has risen. Pull it out and quickly add the cheese and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center.
Serve!
Have you had these? They’re very popular in Houston, found in most Tex-Mex restaurant menus or at parties. I’ve had them over the years, but I’ve never been able to eat them with careless abandon. For one thing, there’s the heat. Often times they’re simply too hot for me, whether they don’t get all the seeds and veins out or if because it is an especially hot pepper. I just can’t handle too many of them. The other thing is sometimes it tastes like I’m eating a raw green pepper, which isn’t one of my favorite flavors. I managed to correct both these factors.
Nonetheless, I was speaking with a friend about a new popper recipe someone shared with her and about our upcoming holiday luncheon and how anxious we were about enjoying another very popular appetizer, shrimp brochette. Usually for the shrimp brochette they take shrimp and slit it, add a slice of jalapeño, Monterrey Jack, then its wrapped in bacon and grilled. This is when the muse hit me. Inside out. Stuff the peppers with shrimp and cheese, wrap in bacon. Yeah! And that, my friends, is what I did!
Shrimp Jalapeño Poppers
12 medium jalapeños
1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
4 ozs cream cheese, softened
1/4 cp grated cheese, such as Gouda or Bleu
1/4 tsp Herbs d’Provence
1/4 cp cooked bacon, crumbled
Black pepper, to taste
6 slices thick bacon, halved
Preparing the jalapeños: Let me start by telling you that you should be respectful when handling any type of hot pepper. I don’t think gloves are necessary for jalapeños, but try to avoid touching your face or skin until you’ve washed the oil off your hands. In this case I slit the jalapeños lengthwise, keeping the stems in place. They look cuter that way. Once you’ve slit them, use a small pairing knife to cut out the seed pod and to scrape out the veins. Rinse them in cool water to wash away any seeds that may be left behind.
Now, here’s something I did to counteract the heat and rawness of the peppers. I blanched them.
Notice the change in color after blanching
Take a medium pot and fill it with water, add a bit of salt and bring it to a boil. Add the cleaned peppers and turn off the heat. Leave the peppers in the water for about 3 minutes, drain and submerge in cold water to stop the cooking process. Drain and set them over a towel to soak any water that may be left behind. Set aside.
For the filling: I used medium-sized shrimp, (14-16 count) this size will be large enough to keep it from overcooking, but you could use smaller ones and not chop them. Chop the shrimp coarsely (I think I ended up with about 4 pieces from each shrimp). Add the cheeses, bacon, pepper, Herbs d’Provence and mix until well incorporated.
Assembly: Preheat oven to 400°. Take the halved bacon slices and stretch them out a bit to make them uniform in thickness. Stuff the bottom of each pepper with about 1 tbsp of the filling, close the top on in, wrap with bacon. Secure the bacon with toothpicks. Place the poppers on a baking sheet lined with parchment or wax paper. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the bacon is golden brown.
You’re done!
Do you like beans? How often do you eat them? Panamanians LOVE beans. We eat lots of them and on a daily basis. There are always beans next to your rice; it’s just the perfect marriage. I’m going to show you how I cook beans, sometimes in a traditional Panamanian style, sometimes with a Mexican flair and sometimes in the American way.
This post is for Lentils, possibly my favorite of all legumes. Lentils are creamy and mild, easy and quick to cook. They’re also quite versatile; you’ll find recipes to use them in soups, combined with rice, sometimes served slightly dry. They’re just delicious. If you haven’t, you should definitely give them a try. They cook quickly without an inordinate amount of soaking.
Lentejas (Lentils)
2 cps dry lentils
2 cloves garlic, unpeeled
2 slices bacon or 1/4 cp salt pork
Inspect your lentils, you’ll want to get rid of any damaged or broken beans, and also check for stones or leftover husks. Once cleaned, put them in a bowl and rinse them, changing the water a couple of times. If you want, you can allow them to soak in hot tap water for about 30 minutes, but this isn’t necessary.
After soaking, drain the water and put the lentils, garlic and bacon in a medium pan. Add cool water to the pot, covering the lentils about twice over. You don’t want to add any salt before the lentils are cooked, otherwise the bean won’t break open. Bring it to a boil over high heat, then reduce the temperature to medium and cook for about one hour or until the lentils are tender. The water will cook into the beans and will evaporate considerably. Turn off the heat and set aside.
While the lentils cook, chop:
3 slices bacon or 1/2 cp salt pork
1 medium onion
1 garlic clove
1/2 cp cilantro
Cook the bacon to render some of the fat, it doesn’t need to be browned, then add the onions and garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent before adding the cilantro. Stir it in until the cilantro wilts then add this to the lentils and turn the heat to medium high. At this point season the lentils with salt or chicken bouillion and black pepper. Once this comes to a boil, lower the temperature to medium low and simmer for another 20-30 minutes.
You’re done! Serve with rice.
That’s what these are. Tajada translates to slice, and these are, inded, sweet slices. Slices of ripened plantains. The standard dinner plate in Panama consists of rice, some sort of meat, kidney beans or lentils and these: Tajadas.
The plantain range
This continues my love affair with plantains. Your plantains need to be quite ripe, but not too ripe. You’re looking for a deep yellow tone and a few black spots. When you squeeze them, they should be soft without being mushy.
One average-sized plantain will yield about 12-15 slices or tajadas. It is difficult for me to say how many that feeds, as I can and have eaten an entire plantain fried this way on.my.own. But, I guess you can serve 3 or 4 generously. If you must.
Unlike green plantains, the ripe ones are easy to peel. Simply cut both ends off, cut 2 slits along the length of the plantain and peel. See the pictures below for the step-by-step moves.
First trim both ends.
Second, slit the plantain lengthwise
- Third, peel it
Now that you’ve peeled the plantains, you will slice them. Cut the plantain in half, then slice each half at an angle. You want to cut slices that are about 1/4-inch wide. See the pictures below.
Next you will need a frying pan with vegetable oil that is about 1-inch deep–this generally means about 2 cps in a 9″ skillet. Heat it over medium high fire. Once hot, add the plantain slices to fill the bottom, but still in a single layer. Fry until golden brown, then turn and brown the other side.
They’re ready to serve. For more plantain yummies, follow these links:
Pastelon
Patacones
Plantain Chips
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The finale is over and my heart is broken. My boy Kevin had an off cooking day and didn’t win as he should’ve. Don’t get me wrong, I think the brothers are awesome chefs, they just didn’t impress or inspire me as much as Kevin did. He has a natural gift to take a single, simple ingredient and make it a superstar. That’s the kind of chef I want to be when I grow up. Hats off to you, Kev and keep pork ruling!
Sometimes the sides are more important than the entrée. Sometimes the sides are the star. Sometimes the sides shouldn’t be pushed off to the side. Sometimes you should just eat the sides.
IMHO, this is one of those sides. It should take center stage and be bowed to. It’s delicious, it’s different, and most importantly, it is easy to make. The first time my mom made it, she told me it was Greek Fried Rice. Lindsay wants to know why, but I don’t know why she calls it that. I don’t know if it’s her original recipe. I just know I make it as she taught me and I enjoy it just as much every time.
Greek Fried Rice
Ingredients
2 cps white rice, cooked
1 cp fettuccine or linguine, cooked & broken into 2-in pieces
2 eggs, boiled and chopped
1/2 medium onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cp Italian parsley, finely chopped
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
How to: Preheat a medium-sized saucepan over medium high heat and melt butter with olive oil. Add garlic and onions, cook them until translucent, then the parsley.
Add the rice and stir until it is all mixed in. If you happened to use leftover rice, keep stirring until heated through. Now mix in the pasta. The eggs are stirred in last. Turn off the heat and serve immediately. I mean, why would you want to wait?
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris
Hi. Cooking show addict again. I watched Chef Academy yesterday thanks to the magic of DVR. Who knew bread could be THAT easy? and the Choux pastry!! I’m in love with that Novelli and I had never even heard of him before.
I’m all ready for tonight’s Top Chef Finale. Kevin’s still my #1 pick, but I have this nagging feeling that Bryan will be the dark horse.
I wish I knew Morse code, then I could send you messages while I’m watching. I love you guys, but I’m not multi-tasking during TC!
Laters!
What’s your favorite one? My mom did a.lot.of.cooking. And baking. And entertaining. She made us fun stuff, like PBJs, pancakes and doughnuts! She also made us eat the serious stuff like pumpkin, spinach and carrots. She wasn’t able to get okra passed me, though. I hope she’s not too hard on herself for that. To this day I can’t deal with that slimy veg. I best stop thinking about it before I make myself sick.
Yumness on a plate!
This is one of my fun foods. I remember pleading for this, then covering it with ketchup. I don’t do the ketchup part anymore, I honestly can’t tell you what possessed me to do that in the first place. I’m guessing I had a red infatuation, who knows. I’ve taken my mom’s standard and jazzed up a bit. It’s really yum!
Mom’s Spaghetti Omelette
If you have some leftover pasta, that’s perfect or you can cook some up for this (I do it all the time).
2 cps spaghetti or other noodle pasta, cooked
2 eggs
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp coarse black pepper
1/2 tsp Herbs d’Provence
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
In a medium size bowl, whisk the eggs, salt, pepper and HdProvence. Add the pasta and mix it in.
Preheat a 12-inch frying pan over medium high heat, add the oil and butter until it melts. Dump the pasta in and spread it out evenly to cover the bottom. Allow it to brown, it will take about 5 minutes per side. Flip the omelette and brown the opposite side.
Slice it in quarters and top with parmesan cheese, if desired. Can you stand it?
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