Shrimp & Avocado & Grapefruit Summer Salad

Ah this spanish salad was so refreshing and wonderful given today it has been 38 degrees outside. This is the original recipe, but I added a few twists here and there to make it a whole meal, basically I added noodles, chow mein I already had ready to go. (On that note: don't you think Chow Mein are the best noodles ever?? I do.) 

This proportions are for 2 people only.

INGREDIENTS: 
-15 decent shrimp.
-2 grapefruit (one for juice only)

-1 or 2 avocado.

-some lettuce.

-some green onions or red onions diced up in cubes.

-some pasta or Chow Mein noodles for carbohydrates.

For dressing:

-The juice of half of a grapefruit.

-2 tablespoons of apple vinegar.

-2 tablespoons of olive oil.

-salt and pepper. 

STEPS:

1. The preparation is crazy simple. Peel up the cooked shrimp. 

2. Slice up the avocado.

3. Peel up the grapefruit and get all skin off from each segment.

4. Now prepare the vinagratte in a bowl. Mix: grapefruit juice, olive oil, apple vinegar and salt and pepper and give it a good mix. 

5. Now place the shrimp in the vinagrette and let it soak there for 5 minutes. They have to be well coated.

6. Add the diced red onions to the mix.

7. Now prepare the bed of salad and noodles.

8. Place on top, the avocado, the grapefruit, and now pour all the shrimp with the dressing.

That's it. SOOOOO good and most importantly: so refreshing. 

 

Italian Basil&Tomatoes Salad

 Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand back to the frying pan, aka: summer in Madrid. 38 degrees for the next 2 months. And what to eat in this weather?? Always the question, isn't it? but in this weather cold food is a must.

 A wonderful salad for the summer, inspired by a recipe of Jami Oliver from his book "The ministry of cooking". I only added pasta to make it a full meal.

INGREDIENTS:
-500 grams of many types of tomatoes, big, small, yellow, greenish etc.
-250 grams of tuna.
-1 can of black olives.
-100 grams of white beans.
-a very good bunch of fresh basil leaves.
-400 grams of cooked pasta.
-2 tablespoons of red vinegar or apple vinegar.
-olive oil, salt and pepper.

STEPS: 
1. Cut the tomatoes in small bits, as Americans say: in bite-size.

2.Add the olives, the tuna that you have drained and toss together.
3.Now cook the pasta and cool it off by running cold water and add to the pot.
4. Now add the basil leaves, cut them in half so that they are smaller, and now season with salt and pepper a little, not too much because the tuna and the olives already have salt.
5. Now you can add the red vinegar to season the salad and stir. This step you can also do it in step 1, only to the tomatoes.

 

This salad is great, the star of the show is the fresh basil, it makes it SUPERB. 

If you take it out it will be another boring summer salad but with the basil and the vinegar, it is pretty spectacular....it makes the basil taste sweet even. Kenton loved it.

Watermelon Smoothie or Slush

      This recipe I have been after for years! and for the whole summer, so again, had to get it in the blog before summer disappears. Super easy, not even need of water or sugar (I cannot understand how anyone would add sugar to this recipe because watermelon is so sweet). Here is my take!

INGREDIENTS:

-1 small watermelon.

-1 lemon.

-2 limes.

-a good bunch of mint.

STEPS:

1. Extract all the watermelon and place in bowl (or pot!). The easiest way for me is to cut it in slices and then just carve out the flesh with a knife.

2.  Now add the mint in pieces and the lime and lemon.

3. Now puree with a hand blender! that's it.

So Kenton loved it. I loved to be honest the water juice but not so much the pulp, but hey it is a great way to reduce a watermelon to little and drink up this amazing fruit. You can also freeze the watermelon dices and then make true slush. 

             

Tomato and Cheese Pasta Salad

 This salad from Budget Bytes is pretty good and not hard, perfect for a picnic. It comes with a pretty interesting vinagrette salad. As you can see, it is a bit of a race to fit summer recipes! only 1 month left of summer.....(I consider summer till mid October).

INGREDIENTS:
-400 grams of pasta.
-200 grams of cherry tomatoes.
-200 grams of feta cheese.
-100 grams of mozzarella cheese.

-100 grams of baby spinach.

-100 grams of rocket or other salad greens.

For the vinagrette:

-1/2 cup of olive oil.

-3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar.

-2 tablespoons of mayonnaise. 

-2 tablespoons of parmesan cheese (optional).

-1/2 tsp of dijon mustard.

-1 clove garlic minced.

-1/2 tsp of dried basil.

-salt and pepper.

STEPS:

1. Well, what can i say, there are no steps in this recipe other than, boil the pasta and cool it off with lots of cold water, cut the cherry tomatoes in two and wash the salad and place all of the ingredients in a big bowl. 

2. Make the vinagrette stirring really really well. I cut a little the oil of the original recipe, it was a bit too oily for my taste. Also I did not add the parmesan cheese and it was totally totally fine. Be generous with the pepper.

The star ingredient of this recipe are the nice cheeses and the vinagrette....I added a little chicken to make it a complete meal. Pretty good you all, pretty good. 

 

Southern Sweet Tea (+fun twist)

September! which means only 1 month to cram all these summer recipes I had meant to do. The good thing of September in Spain is that there is still one more month of summer! So before I forget it I wanted to write down this sweet tea I made the other day. 

I love the concept of sweet tea from the USA...my Virginian boyfriend used to make it, and he made it sound like it a big deal when it's just cold tea and sugar....bam!   Definitely there is more charm in the concept of southern sweet tea than in the tea itself! But with a twist this normal tea+sugar or tea+sugar+lemon combination can taste pretty interesting. So here is my take: 

INGREDIENTS:

-2 litres of water. 
-1 lemon.

-2 bags of English tea like PG Tips

-1 good bunch of fresh mint.

-2 and 1/2 tablespoons of sugar.

-1 grapefruit (the juice).

-1 mango or 1 peach to make "ice cubes" 

STEPS:

1. Bring to a boil the water with tea bags and the lemon (without the peel obviously).

2. As soon as it boils, take out of fire and add the mint and the sugar so that it all dissolves. 

3. Now let it cool off for a few hours and when it is cold add the juice of the grapefruit.

4. Slice up a peach or mango and freeze, and when you pour your tea add a slice as an ice cube. 

5. Finally add a bunch of mint to the glass when you serve it. 

That's it. Kenton at first did not want it but soon realized it was not the disgusting sweet tea that make your teeth fall out of so much sugar.

 

Broccoli Summer Salad

 Okay so that broccoli could taste so good has been a big surprise today when I made this salad. But yes it can! this salad was so good. I made it ONLY because I wanted to make something crazy healthy cause I have been eating sooooooooo bad lately, so much crap. Anyway, wow, it was so good. Sweet, sour, with a kick, crunchy....marvelous salad and not hard, the only hard part would be toasting the almonds in the grill for 5 minutes.

INGREDIENTS:
-2 heads of broccoli.
-100 grams of toasted almonds.
-125 grams of cranberries.
-1 small red onion.

For the dressing:

-1/2 cup of buttermilk,

-1/3 cup of mayonnaise.

-2 tablespoon of cider vinager.

-1 tablespoon of sugar.

-3 tablespoon of shallots.

-1 pinch of salt.

-some pepper.

STEPS:

1. Slice up the broccoli in small bits, really watch the video of Deb because it is a great explanation. Add the chopped broccoli to a bowl.

2. Now chop the onion in small bits and add half to the bowl.

3. Toast the almonds for 5 minutes in the grill, they are so good if you do this, really.

4. Now chop up the cranberries, so much better if you chop them.

5. Now add all the ingredients for the dressing and add the rest of that red onion and the finely chopped shallot and stir well.

So so good. I had no idea you could get so much pleasure out of eating broccoli you all.

"Grilled" Kebabs

Kebabs are such a wonderful thing to eat in summer. They are tasty, soft...and not hard to make. I found this recipe in Kitchn and wow, I was impressed. So friends the key is yoghurt. Yep, this is the ingredient that will soften your chicken and give it that juicy kebaby tender taste. And guess what, you do NOT need a grill. Nope, just a normal frying pan.

INGREDIENTS:
-600 grams of chicken or turkey (I prefer thighs)

-3 peppers of different colors.

-200 grams of mushrooms.

-1 big white onion.

-wooden kebab sticks.

For the marinate sauce:

-2 cloves of garlic crushed.

-1 medium lemon.

-1/4 cup parsley.

-1 cup of yoghurt.

-2 tsp of salt.

-1 tsp paprika.

-1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes.

-a splash of oil.

STEPS:

1. Prepare the youghurt marinate, basically dump everything together and whisk well.

2. Now cut up your chicken in kebab pices and add the chicken to the bag and leave it in the fridge for a day or at least 1 hour.

3. Now cut up the vegetable in bits and now start creating the kebabs! this is the hard part really because you need to assemble them.

4. Once you finish just fry them! turn them slowly in medium fire. Char them a little without burning them.

These are really good. This recipe is great fantastic basic recipe. I will come to this again and again. 

Yoghurt Popsicles

Summer!  Like the 38 degrees type! wohooo!

These popsicles are so good and easy, perfect for summer. Every week I try a different combination but so far these are the best. Some recipes call for cream but I think with greek yoghurt it is more than enough creaminess. This recipe makes 6 decent popsicles.

INGREDIENTS:

For the berries type:
-1 and 1/2 cup of greek yoghurt.
-1 and 1/2 cup of frozen berries.
-5-6 tablespoons of honey.

For the banana type:

-2 bananas mashed

-1 banana cut up in small bits.

-1 and 1/2 cup of greel yoghurt.

-2 tablespoons of honey.

-2 tsp vanilla.

STEPS:
1. Mix yoghurt and honey in a bowl.
2. Now add the berries and stir.
3. Place in the popsicle molds and freeze for  24h.

That's it. More pictures coming cause this one is pretty bad. But the ones from Boston Commons pretty great.

Amish Pea Salad

 This recipe's charm is more the name than the flavour let's be honest,,, a dream recipe. The key to this recipe is to have ingredients that actually taste like something, so get a nice strong cheese, a nice ham and peas that taste like peas! This is real key. Oh and bacon, let's be honest, everything is better with bacon in life. It is an easy salad, perfect for summer.

INGREDIENTS:
-500 grams of peas.
-125 grams of strong cheese in cubes.
-4 slices of bacon.
-1/4 cup of mayonnaise.
-1/2 cup of ranch dressing
-1 tablespoon of chives.
-1/4 tsp of black pepper.

-250 grams of turkey in cubes.

There are no steps to this salad other than cube everything up, fry the bacon add dressing and toss around, and decorate with pretty parsley. The peas can be even added frozen. 

         

Southern Oven Fried Chicken

 

One of my cooking goals this year was to make oven fried chicken. I mean a woman is not a full woman if she does not know how to cook this dish in my view. 

Soooooo, I have achieved full womanhood status this week! and this recipe was soooo good from the first bite we took. I think it is going to be a classic in our lives. It does take some work, but I think once you master it you can really make it much faster.

INGREDIENTS:

-1 whole chicken cut up in pieces.

For the marinate:
-1 cup of buttermilk.
-1 tablespoon of cajun spices.

-some salt and pepper.

-3 garlic cloves crushed.

For the crispy coating:

-2 cup of japanese/tempura crumbs.

-1 cup of cornstarch.

-2 tsp baking powder. 

-1 tsp of salt.

-1 tablespoon of paprika.

-1 tablespoon of garlic powder.

-1 tablespoon of onion powder.

-1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

-1 teaspoon of dried herbs.

-1 teaspoon of white pepper.

STEPS:

1. Dry your chicken with paper towells and now add the cajun spices, salt and pepper and garlic cloves. Coat it well with your hands. 

2. Now put all the chicken in ziploc and add the buttermilk and let it all coat in the fridge overnight or for a few hours. 

3. Now prepare the mix. Add everything in a bowl and mix together well. 

4. Coat the chicken well and place in oven at 200 degrees for 1 hour.

Delicious! so so good. This recipe  is a keeper. Pictures of final product  coming up soon. 

Classic Russian Potato Salad

 This is a good salad for summer that will make your basal temperature drop like crazy. I had to put on a sweater after it, I was so cold! I found this recipe in this website, hoping the lady is Russian! It was pretty good and I think pretty Russian too.

The key magic ingredient of this salad that takes it to another level is fresh dill or eneldo. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is the ingredient that will make this dish like something else and not like the billions of russian potato salad that taste like nothing, or a bunch of white cardboard at best. Finally this salad take about 2 hours to make, because you need to chop, let veggies cool and let it sit in fridge.

INGREDIENTS:
-4 chicken thighs.
-1 and 1/2 cup of peas.

-3 carrots.

-100 grams of  turnip (nabo in Spanish).

-3 big potatoes.

-4-5 big sweet pickles.

-1 cup of mayonnaise approx.

-Fresh dill, lots.

-salt and pepper.

-1/2 beetroot for decoration.

STEPS:

1. In a big pot of water boil the chicken, the potatoes, and the carrots and the turnip until it is all soft for 30 minutes. Get the meat out before once it is cooked. Let is all cool off for 1 hour.

2. Now chop everything into small pieces with a knife: the chicken, potatoes, carrots, turnip, and pickles etc. The reason why you chop it now and not before it's because if you do it before boiling the veggies and everything lose its shape. 

3. Now add everything together in a bowl and add the peas. 

4. Now beging to add the mayonnaise spoon by spoon, and add a lot of dill that you have chopped up. This ingredient is a MUST: fresh dill. Add also salt and pepper and mix well.

5. Now place in some type of oven tray or plate and place a layer of mayonnaise on top and decorate with beetroot. Beetroot is another protagonist of Russian cooking.

6. Stick in fridge for at least 30 minutes and it will solidify and flavors come together.

I tell you this salad will make you cold! Perfect for summer.