Cowboy Caviar by Finny

I was lucky to attend a birthday party for a 1 year old. The birthday boy's mom, Irish, did a great job as hostess and chef! One of the apps she had out was a corn and black bean "caviar". I could not get the chips loaded with this salsa in my mouth fast enough. I am sure people were watching in horror as I stuffed my face. It turns out she got the recipe from Finny, another friend. Finny went on to tell me it was a Weight Watchers recipe so I figured I could finish off the bowl of the "caviar"!

There are many different variations of this "caviar". You can really add what you like and leave out what you don't like. I would recommend getting the GOYA brand of black beans. I bought the Stop & Shop brand figuring it wouldn't make a difference. It does. The S&S brand beans are a bit "muddy" and color the "caviar". Don't forget to rinse your beans before you add them to the mix. I happen to like a higher ratio of corn to black beans.

INGREDIENTS

2- 16 oz cans black beans rinsed & drained

1- 16 oz can of corn

1- 11 oz can of corn

about 1 cup of red onion

1 bunch of chopped cilantro (or to taste)

1/2-3/4 cup of ranch dressing

juice of 1 lime

Mix everything together, taste for seasoning and chill. Serve with chips.

Sangria

A friend was having people over and this seemed to be the perfect summer time drink. I did some research and found you can tweak your recipe to your liking. It may not be traditional, but it will be good. My neighbor introduced me to a brand of inexpensive red wine that I love, Opici Homemade Barberone Red. You don't want to use wine you wouldn't want to drink straight, so don't just go for cheap.




INGREDIENTS
5 cups red wine
16 oz of Sprite
1/4 cup cointreua
1/4 cup rum
all of the following sliced thin: 1 orange, 1 apple, and 2 peaches

Mix everything together except for the Sprite and let it sit at least over night. When you are ready to serve add the Sprite and pour over ice. This is quite a strong drink and you will benefit from sipping it, rather than gulping.

Beat by a pizza

Since I was young my dad has been the one to cook for our family. I always felt as though I was a bit different from my friends beacuse it was my dad that did the cooking, not my mom. I was so spolied I still to this day remember being taken to 500 Blake Street for my birthday. Everyone was raving about how amazing their brunch was. I can say with totally honestly that I was not impressed. My dad still thinks I am crazy because of that. I was formed into a food snob, and I revel in it! It is from my dad I have grown such a love for cooking and baking. This is not to say that I am great at it, but I love to feed people, it makes me happy.

Friday night here at the casa is pizza night. My dad will either make his own dough from scratch or he will buy the ready made dough and roll it out for the crust. This particular night my dad began by making his own dough. He carmalized onions, sliced meatballs, everything for this pizza. He was doing a bit of an experiment with the shape of the pizza. Tonight it would be rectangluar. The use of an airbake pan was employed given the shape of the pan. A choice Icarus himself would have decided against.

My dad figured out to make a homemade pizza more like that of your favorite pizza joint; you need to get the crust nice and crispy. To do this he cooks the pizza almost until it is done. About 10 minutes before it is ready he removes the pizza from the pan and bakes it the rest of the way directly on the rack in the oven. When he tried this time to remove the pizza from the pan he realized the pizza wasn't done on the bottom. He gave the pizza another few mintues and tried again. Still not done on the bottom. What could be wrong? This is the same method he has always used, sans the shape and pan.

Finally he had had enough and figured come hell or high water he was going to get this pie off the pan and onto the racks. He gathered his weapons of choice and began moving the pizza off the pan. My mom and I had the best seats in the house to witness this event. The moment he removed the spatulas and laid it on the rack it began to drip through the oven racks. For my mom and I think was a wonderful moment, given the comedic value. For my dad, he was mad to say the least. It turns out our chef had chosen the wrong pan. An air bake pan helps you to ensure you don't burn your cookies. The pan is two layers with air inbetween the layers again, so you get even baking on your cookies. This was the wrong choice for a man that wanted to delveop a crust on his pizza. The poor guy was really looking forward to this pizza! He had spent so much time on his mise-en-place. With a choice curse word and snap of his fingers he was off with my mom to cry into a black and tan at Fridays, damn that air bake pan, dammit to pizza hell!

Gazpacho

This is my favorite summertime soup! A friend's husband made it for dinner one night and reminded me of how much I love it!!! He put corn and sea food in his which was yummy too. I did steal his idea of garnishing with avocado, YUM!

I grated the cucumber into the soup. It worked out better than I thought it would. I also used my hand blender to zip it up a bit.

INGREDIENTS

28 or 32 oz can of peeled San Marzano tomatoes, chopped with juice

2 cups chicken stock

3/4 cup diced celery, english cucumber, & onion

2 cloves of garlic, I grate it in with a microplane

4 tablespoons of red wine vinegar

2 teaspoons of worscestershire

salt, pepper, and tobasco to taste

The longer this soup chills the better. ENJOY!

A Perfect Margarita

Here at the casa we enjoy margaritas, A LOT! One summer we made it our job to find the perfect margarita. This one is made with Jose Cuervo , Cointreau, fresh lemon and lime juice and zest, served with a salted rim.

We tried many different brands of tequila, gold, silver, blanco, lots of them. Since this margarita isn't frozen the tequlia needs to be good. After much experimentation we landed on Jose Cuervo 1800. Of course you can use what you have on hand but we prefered the 1800. The Cointreau is just as important. The few ingredients in this drink need to stand on their own, Cointreau is much smoother a flavor compared to triple sec.

I juiced 1 cup each lemon and lime juice. Then I added the zest from 4 lemons and limes to the juice along with some sugar. The longer this mixture sits the better it is, over night is great if you have the time. Once you are ready to use the mixture strain out the zest.

INGREDIENTS

2 oz lemon lime juice

2 oz Cointreau

2 oz 1800 tequila

Shake with ice and pour into a salt rimmed margarita glass. Enjoy!

San Marzano Tomatoes, a Test

I am on the San Marzano tomato bandwagon! Honestly these tomatoes are what make peoples food taste that much better. Sauces, salsa whatever it is these tomatoes make it wonderful. I did a bit of a comparison yesterday while making salsa. I had two cans of San Marzano tomatoes, one brand was Cento, the other was Liuzzi. The Cento brand was much better than the Liuzzi brand. Cento had nice whole tomatoes, firm and not falling apart. The Liuzzi tomatoes where not whole, they were not firm and basically were falling apart.

I did take a picture, of the two side by side in my strainer. It is hard to tell the difference because the tomatoes are chopped up. The tomatoes on the left are the Liuzzi, the tomatoes to the right are the Cento brand. I should have taken the picture when the tomatoes were still whole, but I didn't realize how much better the Cento tomatoes were until I opened that can.

Dirty Sue

I had heard quite a bit of online buzz about Dirty Sue. I did some research and found out there is more than one brand of bottled olive brine. Dirty Sue just seems to be one of the most talked about. I finally got around to ordering some and it really is great! It brings a dirty martini to a whole new level. I am tempted to bring some to my neighborhood package store so he can try it and I can convice him he should stock it. I ordered my Dirty Sue from Amazon. I was going to get it from the Dirty Sue site but the shipping was going to be too much. Instead I went with Amazon, I ordered the Dirty Sue, a book and I qualified for free shipping. So if you are a dirty martini fan you must try Dirty Sue, it really is that good!