Summer Corn Dish

Ingredients

  • 2 (10 oz.) packages of frozen super sweet corn
  • ¾ cup chopped red onion
  • ¼ cup finely chopped cilantro
  • 4 teaspoons lime juice
  • Kosher salt to taste

Directions

  1. Cook the corn based off the microwave directions on the packages. In a large mixing bowl, add the cooked corn, red onion, cilantro and lime juice, stirring to mix everything together. Take a bite and salt to taste.
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We’re calling it the summer corn dish because it’s quick and easy, which are two major bonuses for cooking during these Georgia summers ! The flavors all work together and don’t overpower each other.

This was a recipe we thought up ourselves.

Take care everybody !

No-Frills Guacamole

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ Tbsp. finely chopped white onion
  • 1 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
  • 1 tsp. finely chopped seeded jalapeño
  • ½ tsp. kosher salt
  • 2 ripe avocados, coarsely chopped
  • 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

  1. Take a medium-sized mixing bowl out and mix the onion, lime juice, jalapeño and salt together in it. Let it sit for 10 minutes. Now add in the avocados, mashing to your own preferred consistency. Stir in the cilantro* and serve.

*We initially forgot to add in the cilantro but even when we did remember to, we didn’t think the cilantro improved or hurt the flavor of the guacamole.

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Even though we were skeptical of this recipe at first we decided to try it because I don’t care for the texture of tomato pieces and this was one of the few guacamole recipes that didn’t list tomatoes as an ingredient. All that being said, it didn’t seem like there was enough of the other ingredients besides the avocado to bring flavor to the guacamole. Boy were we wrong ! This ended up being one of the best guacamoles that we’ve ever had ! We didn’t pick up any heat from the jalapeños at all. For something so simple, it packs a lot of flavor !

Recipe source unknown.

Take care everybody !

Fiery Hot Wings

Ingredients

  • 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
  • 1 cup hot sauce (we used Frank’s RedHot Original)
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar, divided (we used light brown sugar)
  • 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon sweet paprika (we used smoked paprika)
  • 2 teaspoons chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • Salt and pepper (we used table salt and freshly ground black pepper)
  • 4 pounds whole chicken wings, wingtips discarded and wings split
  • Vegetable oil spray

Directions

  1. Take a small saucepan out and add the butter to it, setting the saucepan over low heat. Once the butter’s melted, whisk in the hot sauce, vinegar and 4 teaspoons of the brown sugar. Take 1/2 cup of the sauce and pour it into a slow cooker (we used a 6-qt. slow cooker), spreading it out across the bottom.
  2. Take a small bowl and mix the following ingredients together in it: paprika, chili powder, remaining 2 teaspoons of brown sugar, cayenne, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon black pepper. Rub that spice mixture all over the chicken wings, placing the chicken in the slow cooker afterwards. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on LOW for 4 hours.
  3. Move your oven rack so that it’s 10 inches away from the broiler element, preheating the broiler afterwards. Take a baking sheet and line it with aluminum foil, placing a wire rack over it afterwards. Spray the wire rack with the vegetable oil spray, placing the chicken wings on it afterwards. Throw away any liquid that’s in the slow cooker.
  4. Take 1/2 of the remaining sauce in the saucepan and brush it over the top of the chicken. Broil the chicken for 10 to 15 minutes or until the skin looks lightly charred and crispy (the skin wasn’t as crispy as we’d like but we decided to move on after 15 minutes). Pull the sheet out, flip the chicken over and brush on the remaining sauce, sticking it back in the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes or until the chicken looks lightly charred and crispy on the new side facing up. We cooked the chicken for 5 minutes and saw it wasn’t crispy so we moved the rack that the baking sheet was on up one shelf and cooked it for another 5 minutes before calling it good. Serve immediately.

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We think this would be a wonderful recipe to fix for the Super Bowl. You can get this going in the morning and it doesn’t take a lot of work to finish it after it’s done in the slow cooker ! The wings were so tender that when we ate them, the bones just slid straight out with no meat attached ! If you like your wings crispy then you’ll probably want a different recipe. The skin on this isn’t crispy, but it’s not flabby either, it was just so tender that it practically melted into the meat. When you’re chewing, you can’t tell the difference between the skin and the chicken. They call this “fiery” but it wasn’t terribly spicy to us. You definitely get a tingle on your lips but it never builds up to the point of needing something to drink.  We hope you enjoy these delicious tender chicken wings as much as we did !

We got this recipe from America’s Test Kitchen.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Frank’s RedHot or America’s Test Kitchen.

Take care everybody !

Chipotle-Lime Cauliflower Tacos

Ingredients

  • ¼ cup lime juice (from about 2 limes) (took more than 2 limes for us to get ¼ cup)
  • 1-2 tablespoons chopped chipotles in adobo sauce (we used 3 tablespoons)
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • ½ teaspoon salt (we used table salt)
  • 1 small head cauliflower, cut into bite-size pieces
  • 1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced
  • 1 (15-ounce) can refried black beans, warmed (we forgot to use this)
  • 8 corn tortillas, warmed
  • ½ cup crumbled queso fresco or feta cheese (we used queso fresco)
  • Sliced red cabbage, fresh cilantro, guacamole, jalapeño slices, and/or lime wedges for serving

Directions

  1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Take a large rimmed baking sheet and line it with aluminum foil.
  2. Add to a blender (we used a small food processor) the lime juice, chipotles, honey, garlic and salt. Process until the mixture looks mostly smooth. Take the cauliflower pieces and place them in a large mixing bowl. Pour the chipotle sauce over the cauliflower pieces, stirring so all the pieces are coated in the sauce. Spread the cauliflower out in a single layer on the lined baking sheet. Sprinkle the onion slices on afterwards.
  3. Stick the sheet in the oven for 18 to 20 minutes or until the cauliflower is tender and browned in spots, stirring halfway through (we went with 20 minutes).
  4. Add the beans and cauliflower into the tortillas, topping with the cheese followed by adding on the cabbage, cilantro, guacamole, jalapeño slices and/or lime wedges.

Supposed to serve 4 (2 tacos per serving).

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We thought this turned out to be a really tasty taco ! The cauliflower and onion slices really absorb the flavors from the chipotle mixture while cooking. The spiciness from the chipotles gets cut down by the toppings/garnishes. We chose to use queso fresco, cilantro and red cabbage as our initial toppings and thought everything worked together to produce a tasty taco. We tried adding guacamole later on and while it certainly didn’t make it worse flavor-wise, we don’t think it made it taste better either.

We got this recipe from EatingWell.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote EatingWell.

Take care everybody !

Strawberry Oat Bars

Ingredients

  • 6 cups chopped fresh strawberries
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • ¼ cup cornstarch
  • 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • 2 cups old-fashioned oats
  • 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
  • ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon orange zest
  • ½ cup chopped pecans

Directions

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Take a 13 x 9-inch baking pan out and spray the inside of it using baking spray with flour.
  2. Take a large skillet out and add the strawberries and sugar to it, setting the heat to medium-high. Once boiling, cook for 15 minutes, stirring now and then.
  3. Take a small bowl out and stir the cornstarch and lime juice together until fully combined. Stir the cornstarch mixture into the skillet with the strawberry mixture. Stir constantly for 2 minutes or until thickened. Take the skillet off the heat and let the strawberry mixture cool completely.
  4. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the following ingredients: oats, flour, brown sugar, butter, salt, baking powder, and zest. Take 2/3 of the oat mixture and firmly press it into the greased baking pan.
  5. Stick the pan in the oven to cook for 15 minutes or until the oat mixture is golden brown. Take it out of the oven and spread the strawberry mixture over the crust. Now sprinkle the pecans and what’s left of the oat mixture over the strawberry mixture and put the pan back in the oven for another 20 minutes or until the crust looks golden brown and  the filling is bubbly*. Make sure you let this cool completely before cutting it into bars.

Makes 10 to 12 servings.

* Our crust got golden brown but we never saw the strawberry mixture get bubbly. We decided to pull it out once the crust turned golden brown ‘cause we wanted to avoid it getting burnt.

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The texture of the sweet strawberry filling is a nice contrast against the texture of the crust. Such a nice treat for spring/summer.

We got this recipe from Taste of the South.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Taste of the  South.

Take care everybody !