Recipes
This is a tasty salad, a bit time consuming, but worth it. Potlucks are some of the best places to catch a new recipe worth your time, so thanks Tee for this one. You have to blanch the Brussels sprouts first and then peal them off as leaves to put into the salad. Then you mix all the right stuff from arugula to almonds and Parmesan together for a hearty and crunchy salad. It’s a hit!
Brussels Sprouts & Arugula Salad Recipe ->
When our California friend Flo made these crunchy taco shells for us one night we were immediately intrigued about how to make these much tastier, non-taco bell hard shells (funny since our friend had never even been to a Taco Bell until she was in her twenties). We’ve found out since then that these hard taco shells are also a mysterious and delightful home-made surprise to many who have never made them before either! And, it is pretty easy to make these and they are way better than the hard taco shells you buy at the store. The shells are probably a bit less healthy too, but hey, they are really good, add a uniqueness to your meal, and have an impressive crunch too.
Perfect Fillings for Homemade Taco Shells:
Hard Taco Shells Recipe
Ingredients:
Tools:
Steps for Making Hard Taco Shells:
We did a Big Sur themed dinner and each recipe came from a different Big Sur restaurant cookbook. The Chocolate Tantric Pie was our dessert recipe and it came from Esalen. When I heard the pie name, it made me chuckle because of the infamous couples tantra workshops at Esalen. This is a very rich and tasty chocolate pie that is very easy to make. You have to really love chocolate though. My biggest advice is to not put much of the candied ginger on top because a little can go a long way.
Our Big Sur Themed Dinner Recipes:
Chocolate Tantric Pie Recipe • Esalen
1 1/2 cup organic half-and-half or whipping cream
3 cups semisweet organic chocolate chips
1 cup chopped almonds
1 cup chopped candied ginger (I would only use 1/2 cup)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
1 package (9-inch size) pie crust
Over medium heat, bring half-and half or whipping cream to a simmer in a 1-quart saucepan, stirring to prevent scorching on the bottom. Whisk as you slowly pour the chocolate chips into the cream and continue to stir until the chocolate has melted.
Stir in half the almonds and half the ginger. Stir in cayenne if using.
Pour mixture into a pre-baked 9-inch pie shell. Sprinkle with remaining almonds and ginger on top (don’t use much ginger, maybe 1/8 cup). Cool until firm, slice, and serve.
I’d forgotten about this grilling recipe (super awesome and easy) that we’d discovered summers ago while living on the coast of North Carolina. I remember thinking the ingredients were extensive at the time. When I found the same recipe again this week (at the request of my best friend who was visiting) I was startled at just how few ingredients the original recipe took. So my next step was to question the effectiveness of the simplicity to these tasty kabobs and I researched and found a recipe with a bit more swath of spices. Below I’m including the down and dirty easy kabob version from Martha Stewart’s Good Food Everyday (tastes almost as good) and the bit more extensive version. These kabobs would be tasty with an almond, currants, and cilantro rice on the side.
Super Simple Tandoori Chicken Kabobs Recipe
This recipe is so simple and it is wonderful. From what I hear, they discovered this recipe when they made a mistake in the proportions of ingredients for a cornbread recipe at Tassajara. For some reason the cornbread separates into three layers with a soft custard layer in the middle. It is sweet because of the honey but is a perfect balance to a hot and spicy dish such as chili (can add green chili’s to the recipe too). If you add the additional honey, it makes a good dessert with strawberries.
Between the cornbread recipe and the kale salads, I have completely rediscovered two amazing cookbooks after spending lots of time with ladies who know how to cook Californian down in Santa Cruz. If you are shopping for a foodie friend or cook and they don’t have these two cookbooks in their collections, get them for them as a gift. You can’t go wrong.
Three Layer Cornbread Recipe
* Use the larger amount of honey if you want this for dessert.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl combine the wet ingredients. Mix them together. The batter will be quite liquidy; this is fine.
Pour batter into a lightly oiled 9″x9″ baking dish and bake for 50 minutes or until the top is springy when gently touched.
Cool before cutting and serving.
* I’ve heard adding green chillies to it is great!
First off, I LOVE this salad! It is now my favorite way to eat greens. I’ve made it three times in two weeks.
Feed your kids greens early on … as a salad, and it just might stick … so I’ve heard! At least this is what some photographer friends in Santa Cruz told me who recommended the recipe. They were eating Carob, given to them by their parents, a generation before I was. Thinking nothing of it, they said, kids like this salad too. I started laughing, thinking to myself, not a chance I would have been excited about eating greens as a kid unless it was seamlessly slipped-into my Ohio, kid diet as a cold salad that has a bit tougher lettuce and that had no description that it was kale. I mean, we flipped out when my mom made stuffed peppers for dinner as kids. A story about a cousin who grew up in California came to mind when thinking about kids eating kale. This cousin had eaten such healthy, organic food as a kid that when his parents were forced to stop by KFC and get him some fast food one time, he threw up! Don’t worry, when I moved out to CA, I corrupted him by introducing him to loaded baked potatoes.
In terms of these two variations on the cold kale salad, I would recommend combining aspects of both. I over salted the Tassajara Kale Salad the first time but liked the fruit aspect, ginger, honey, and lemon dressing in this recipe but would add the sprouts, red onion, and nuts from the Esalen Kale Salad recipe in the future.
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Delegating these recipes to your friends or family and then setting everything up on a table with crock-pots or warming plates can help this dinner serve-itself all-night-long. I’ve found that one of the hardest parts about having a dinner party is the fact that you are running around your own house getting all of the food prepared and served and not getting to spend time with friends. Not to mention, you’re exhausted from cooking, before your friends even arrive! With this menu, you need 4-5 cooks to complete the dinner.
Cook #1 (The Host):
Cook #2:
Cook #3:
Cook #4 – (The Baker):
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This is an impressive recipe because of the combination of the lime flavor and the moist carrot cake. Either I dined with polite folks or they really liked this cake and wanted the recipe. This sparked a conversation about cooks who don’t like to share their recipes. I told them it was fine with me to share this carrot cake recipe because Jamie Oliver had shared it with me!
Jamie Oliver and Sunset Magazine are two that I trust for solid recipes that will succeed on the first try!
Carrot Cake with Lime Mascarpone Icing Recipe from Jamie Oliver