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June, 2012

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Asparagus & Strawberry Salad with Goat Cheese (& Toasted Almonds) Recipe

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

This is a recipe that was inspired by the Main Street & Garden Cafe in Soquel, CA.

They change their menu all the time to suit their freshly grown goodies from their garden out back and this is one that we got to try.

You actually serve this asparagus salad cold after blanch the asparagus for about 1 minute.

To see how the Main Street & Garden Cafe’s salad looked, check out this link.

Shaved Asparagus & Strawberry Salad with Goat Cheese Recipe

  • 1 bunch Asparagus, sliced at an angle (See photo above)
  • 1 basket pint Strawberries, sliced
  • 1/4-1/2 cup Goat Cheese
  • 1/4-1/2 cup Toasted sliced Almonds

Sherry Vinaigrette:

  • 1 -2 garlic cloves, chopped/minced
  • salt & pepper
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons sherry wine vinager
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Blanch Sliced Asparagus First:

  1. Bring water to rolling boil. Prepare a bowl of ice water, with ice cubes (I leave this in the sink).
  2. Drop Asparagus in and cook for about 1 minute.
  3. Remove asparagus from boiling water using tongs and drop them into the ice water bath.
  4. Leave the asparagus in the water until it is cool.

Make dressing. Then combine Asparagus, strawberries, goat cheese, and toasted almonds. Put dressing on salad right before serving.

How to Toast Sliced Almonds
Preheat oven to 170F degrees. Put Almonds on a cookie sheet and bake for 15minutes.

Baked Fish Tacos & Mexican Inspired Dinner Party Recipes

Monday, June 25th, 2012

I now have a ton of posts to update for you but have been traveling for business and pleasure as of lately and I have been too darn busy! I actually feel guilty about the lack of posts I have kept up with. We have been writing ‘Blame it on the Food Blog’ for almost three years now! It has been a highlight in my life.

Well, we had this Mexican Dinner at our house within the last month with our Gourmet Group. If I haven’t explained this before, we have a Gourmet Group (some call it Dinner Club) with 5-6 couples and we rotate hosts each month. When the dinner is at your house, you choose the menu and email out the recipes to your friends to make. We have covered a decent amount of creative menus in one year.

For this dinner, we were inspired by a recent trip to visit friends in Arizona who made us delicious fish tacos with red cabbage slaw and served store-bought Refried Black Beans along side. They purchased these amazing Refried Black Beans at a gourmet market in Flagstaff that are from a Restaurant in Sedona called Elote Cafe.  The beans were so amazing that we bought the Elote Cookbook from the restaurant Elote online immediately (as I searched google over to find the recipe and couldn’t).  We read in the ingredients that Rice Oil was used to make the beans and that theses are actually vegetarian refried beans. I looked at Whole Foods for Rice Oil but couldn’t find and it and John finally found some at Staff of Life in Santa Cruz, or you can order Rice Oil online.

Here are the recipes below to have your own Fish Taco Feast not really a Fiesta, more of an Americana Feast with Cilantro, Peppers, & Spices in some interesting recipes below:

  • Appetizer: Jalapenos Wrapped in Bacon & Grilled (Ok, fine, they were actually ‘Atomic Buffalo Turds‘, embarrassingly good)
  • Baked Fish Tacos with Red Cabbage Slaw
  • Refried Black Beans from Elote Cafe
  • Potato Salad with Caramelized Onions & Roasted Chile Vinaigrette
  • Cinnamon Churros with Mexican Chocolate Dipping Sauce (they turned out great)

For Recipes ->

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