What a girl wants...

When you have a craving...especially as a cook...it takes everything in you not to just whip out your garlic, onion, olive oil, saute pan and start cheffing it up. 

I started back to work and the field across from where I teach is covered in cacti, and attached to the top of these cacti were these GORGEOUS fuschia colored prickly pears. Eventually, I had to stop staring at them every morning and afternoon, and actually pick some. Well this feat seemed a bit more challenging than my taste buds were ready for. I walk over to these massive cacti and start picking the luscious fruits off the tops. I hear yelling and look over to some construction workers waving their hands as if in warning. A kind man finally walks over to me and says, be careful those have a lot of tiny needles in them. As the words were coming out of his mouth, I look at my needle covered fingers. After pulling out the ones that bothered me the most, this kind man gave me a trash bag, and some gloves to finish picking my lot. {I think I continued pulling the tiniest of needles out of my hands for about a month, until they were all gone.}

Once home, I started to look up recipes for what to do with these amazing fruits. I remember various Mexican restaurants offering prickly pear margaritas or martinis on their menu, and figured that's were I would start. I immediately called my friend and we decided to have dinner that night and reap the rewards of my sore hands. 

But again, more challenges arose. These prickly pears are not easy fruit. They are a ratio of 90% seeds to 10% fruit in each and every pear. For most people, this just would not work. But I already picked dozens of these fruits and wanted a reward. So I cut around the seeds and peeled until I had about a cup of gorgeous pink colored flesh. 

Prickly Pear Margarita

1 cup prickly pear flesh

2 parts margarita mix

1 part tequila

lime

salt

We blended these up and man were they delicious. All my sore, stained fingers relaxed as I sipped on my fabulous margarita. 

To pair with that we decided to have an appetizer. As most of you know, I am a big fan of working with what I've got. So I looked in my pantry, prior to my arrival at my friend's house, and found beans, cotija cheese, and chips. So I decided to whip up a bean dip to go with our Mexican themed dinner. 

Spicy Cotija Bean Dip

1 can of refried beans

1 can diced tomatoes

1/4 cup creamy dressing

1/4 onion, chopped finely

1 garlic clove, minced

1/3 cup cotija cheese 

I sauteed the onion until translucent, added the garlic and then added the tomatoes. Once this developed a wonderful perfume, I added in my refried beans (mine had jalapenos in them, choose the spiciness you prefer). This did not need to be on the heat for long, just enough to warm up the beans. To counter the spiciness, I added some creamy, feta cheese dressing (just happened to have it on hand), add whichever creamy dressing you prefer. This element would cool down the spicy beans, just a bit. Then I folded in half of the cotija cheese and topped the bean dip with the rest. I happened to have some muli-grain chips, which is what I served with the dip. 

Pizza a la carte
2 cornmeal crusts
sausage
mozzarella cheese
pesto
edamame
tomato slices
onion
asparagus

These pizzas are a blank canvas. They can really be anything you want them to be. The crusts are nice because they are crispier and have that crunchy bite to them that the cornmeal gives. For our main course, my friend had some delicious cornmeal crust pizzas. So we decided to use those and whip up some pizza a la carte. Meaning we added whatever we had on hand, on top. We made some pesto pizzas with mozzarella and we made some with sausage and veggies. Add whatever you like! Bake it at 350 for about 20 minutes or so.

Lamb Kebab Mediterranean Salad

lamb kebabs
romaine lettuce
kidney beans
garbanzo beans
tomatoes
beets
olives
creamy dressing


To round our our meal, we decided to also have a salad. First, we seared the lamb with olive oil, salt and pepper. Once the pieces had a crispy crust and enough time to be medium-rare, we took them off the stove and let them rest. Meanwhile, we cleaned our lettuce then in a large salad bowl combined all our ingredients. We mixed this with our creamy feta dressing and topped with the lamb kebabs and a bit of cotija cheese. What an amazing salad, full of flavor.

This menu is sure to please women and men alike. Make for a simple gathering or a fancy night in.

Enjoy!

xo Lo

Kickin' Lake-Style Fare

My husband and I are huge fans of the lake, we try to go as often as we can. Our family has a lake house off Lake Buchanan that we like to call our home away from home. Every time we go, I love to come up with recipes that I can share with our family. This weekend I wanted to make margaritas, deviled eggs, noodle salad and a banana bread. The night before we left I started assembling my dishes that way I didn't have to spend all my time inside at the lake.


Banana-Walnut Date Bread

I usually make banana bread but this time I had chopped walnuts and dried dates in my pantry so I decided to incorporate those.

6 ripe bananas- mashed up
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup butter
4 eggs
3 cups flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup chopped dried dates

Heat oven to 350. Cream butter and sugar til creamy in mixer, add eggs and mix well. Slowly add flour, baking soda, salt. Blend together. Lastly add bananas, nuts and dates- finish mixing. Pour mixture into two greased, floured loaf pans and top with a few dates and walnuts. Bake for one hour- you'll know when the bread is done because if you stick a butter knife down inside and it comes out clean, they are done.

Noodle Salad

1 cup of tri-color rotini pasta
1 cup of tri-color bowtie pasta
3 cups of chicken stock
5 stalks of celery finely chopped
1 yellow onion finely chopped
1 package of frozen peas
5 hard-boiled eggs
3 roma tomatoes
3/4 cup mayo
1/8 cup olive oil
salt
pepper

Bring chicken stock to boil, add in pasta. While that is cooking put another saute pan on the stove to boil a dozen eggs (for your deviled eggs) and an additional five for your noodle salad. Once the eggs are in the boiling water, turn off the heat and set your timer for 12 minutes. Next, start chopping up the celery, onion and tomato. After a few minutes check the pasta you want it to be slightly past al dente (which means it is soft but not mushy), once your pasta has reached that point you want to drain in a colander. Keep the extra liquid, you can use it in the future for soups, stews, making rice or more pasta. Next add in the frozen peas that way they can thaw out, add the chopped onion, celery, tomatoes, salt, pepper, olive oil and mayo.  Once the hard-boiled eggs are done chop them up and add to noodle salad, mix up the salad and taste. You may need to add more salt, pepper or mayo. What you don't want to do is add too much mayo because then it throws off the entire dish. This noodle salad will impress any friends or family, especially on the lake!


Bacon-Tomato Deviled Eggs

1 dozen hard-boiled eggs
8 cherry tomatoes
6 strips of Hickory smoked bacon
1/4 cup mayo
salt
pepper
paprika

Once the eggs are boiled, let them cool and slice in half, scoop out the yolk into a bowl. Chop up cherry tomatoes, fry up bacon. Add cherry tomatoes and crumbled bacon into bowl (save a few bits of each for the garnish). Add mayo, salt, pepper, paprika to bowl. Mix up the yolk mixture til nice and creamy (yet a bit chunky) you want all the yolks to be creamy not chunky, the only chunks should be from the tomatoes and the bacon. Spoon the mixture into the egg white halves, place some of the crumbled bacon and chopped tomatoes on the top plus a sprinkle of paprika. This delicious appetizer will gone in a matter of minutes!


Agave Margaritas

2 Tbs of agave nectar
4 limes
1 orange
1 Tbs kosher salt
Margaritaville Silver Tequila

The first thing you want to do is chill your glasses in the freezer. In your shaker add ice, 1 Tbs of agave nectar, lime juice, fresh orange juice and tequila. Shake it up. Take out your margarita glasses dip the rim in the remaining agave nectar, dip in the kosher salt, fill your glasses and bottoms up!

This lake-style fare will surely impress any company you have or you may be visiting. Please feel free to ask any questions or leave any commentary.

xo Lo