The Kitchen Whisperer

The other day I bought a bag of the most gorgeous colored peppers (red-orange-yellow) on purpose.  Now wait, quit raising your eye at me with the “on purpose” comment.  See growing up I think I would have rather eaten dirt with a worm in it than put a pepper in my mouth.  I was SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH a picky eater.  I mean really, REALLY bad.  However as I got older and my tastes became more refined I forced myself to incorporate those ‘cucka’ foods I hated as a child into my diet.  I gave them a chance essentially.  Like you know how your parents always said “If you’ve never tried it, how do you know you don’t like it???”  or my favorite “There are starving kids in X part of the world” to which I would respond with “Well then let’s package it up and ship it to them!” Yeah, that sass was never quite appreciated.  Well once I started giving those foods a chance I realized that they didn’t suck, I wasn’t going to die from yuckiness and that I actually liked them. Now sure there are some foods that I still refuse to eat (mayo/beets/liver and so forth) but the list has gone down extensively.  But with that I’ve become a HUGE food snob.  The peppers now have to be of good quality, no mush, no softness.  They must be firm and sweet.

So as I was saying I bought this bag of peppers.  Now traditionally I’d stuff them with rice and ground beef/turkey/tomato sauce mixture but I just didn’t want that.  I wanted something not so heavy but rather creamy if you will.  As I was standing there I spied the head of broccoli I just purchased.  Glorious and bright green begging to be eaten.  Since I had some quinoa already made up I decided to give it a whirl and stuff these peppers with a quinoa broccoli mixture.  Man I am so happy that I did!

They were so cheesy and packed with broccoli.  And that luscious quinoa pushed it over the edge!

These were AWESOME!  A total vegetarian’s delight!  But even those meat lovers will LOVE these!

Keep looking and drooling!  I made extra; I’ll share!

 

So the other day I was in the grocery store and it wasn’t my normal grocery store I hit up like 3 times a week.  This was one of those bigger fancy schmancy grocery stores.  I mean I felt like I walked into Beverly Hills by how laid out this one was.  Now don’t get me wrong. I love my local market but this one had EVERYTHING!!! I mean it was bright and ginormous and more varieties of things.  I honestly think I could have spent the entire day in there just roaming the aisles!

Well in the produce section I came across some of the most gorgeous cucumbers and tomatoes. I KNEW I had to make something with them.  I mean HAD to! So I filled up my buggy (yes, that’s Pittsburghese for ‘grocery cart’) and home I went. When I got home I got to chopping and mincing, sauteing and whisking. This salad took under 10 minutes to put together and pop in the fridge.  Now I tasted it prior to putting it in the oven and I was loving it!

I had every intention on having this for lunch. However… because there is always a however with me, this house had other ideas for me.  I cut the grass and then Mr. Fantabulous proceeded to come out side with a scowl on his face. He was mad; like fuming mad.  I thought for a split second “Crap!  What did I do now???” and that since I was on the tractor I could make a break for it riding off into the sunset… going at a top speed of 8 mph!  LOL So as I got up to him you could see the utter look of disgust and po’d-ness on his face.  I asked what was wrong and he told me that all that work we did back in October to strip the paint off of our pool (it’s in-ground) and the repainting was for nothing.  We had to re-do it AGAIN!  Now for those of you that have ever done this – working with muriatic acids, some tri sodium phos something or other, this chemical and that chemical and good old fashioned elbow grease, it SUCKS!  It took us almost a week just to do that!  Then we had to let it dry for a few days THEN we had to paint it.  Thing the paint fumes were horrific (did I mention I had asthma???) and it’s ridiculously expensive!  Like $100 a gallon expensive!  All that work… for nothing!  Ugh!  We did contact a bajillion companies to come in and do it professionally but no one would and those that would, wouldn’t give a warranty and wanted way over $10k!  Um no, no thank you! I’d rather make it a skate park at that point.

So he started to drain the pool however we both forgot that the pump was on a timer.  Yeah, you know where this is going, don’t you?  Yeah the pump shut off when there was about 200 gallons of water left in it.  Yeah… great!  NOT!  We had to use 5 gallon buckets and fill them out and dump them ourselves.  He would fill them up, walk out from the deep end, put them up on the ledge and then I would carry them out to dump.  I think we did about 40-45 trips.  Did I mention that 5 gallons of water weighs over 40 pounds???  Yeah, yours truly lugged them puppies up from the ledge and up and over a wall.  Thank GOD my butt has been working out is all I have to say.

Now back to this salad that was just begging to be eaten.  By the time we were all said and done it was maybe 10ish.  While I was starving I was so sore, like to the point I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it to the shower sore, the last thing I wanted was food.  So the salad sat in the fridge over night – unloved.

I mean she’s so pretty!  So light and bright!

I’m happy to inform you that this unloved no more!  THIS was part of my breakfast!

And it was DELICIOUS!  For me I added just a trace more sea salt (maybe because I was craving salt) but it will brought out the flavors in this!

And I love the fact that it wasn’t runny – ever  make a cucumber salad only to have it all watery on the bottom? You need to draw out the water first so it’s super important you follow steps 1-3 otherwise you’ll end up with a pool of liquid at the bottom of your bowl!

You know you want this!  This is PERFECT for any summer BBQ and cook out!

 

Now ever since the evolution of Smoked Chili Candied Bacon (aka Man Candy I) a craze happened in TKW land.  I felt compelled to take it to the next level.  Thus Sriracha Spiced Bacon – Man Candy II.  From those 2 posts, bacon lovers united and a bacon bond was formed.  However this bond didn’t discriminate (well maybe a little if you didn’t like bacon in any fashion but hey I don’t judge). See these Man Candies knew no limits albeit regular pork bacon to turkey/chicken bacon.  It transcended the I don’t care, gimme bacon line and ventured into I eat healthy but I want this so let’s do healthy bacon-town. YEAH!  I bridged the gap… with bacon er um   LOL

Well as those 2 recipes went global I got requests for a dessert-y bacon. Now everyone and their mother makes chocolate dipped bacon (with peanut butter/caramel/nuts/etc) but I wanted something different.  Why?  I like to be different and push the envelope.  Hmmm… wonder exactly what that means.  I mean where is this proverbial ‘envelope’ they speak of anyway?  *shrugs*  this is how my mind works… scary, I know!

I’m not really sure how this came about as literally I was in the kitchen putzing around (yes, that’s a technical kitchen term for standing there staring into space pretending to be working but not really getting anything done) and I was moving the container of cocoa powder.  For some reason I went to put it in the fridge (which again, I don’t normally do but like I said I was putzing around and not really paying attention) when I saw the package of bacon there.  Inspiration hit me!  Cocoa and Bacon!  However have you ever dipped your finger in cocoa powder, expected it to taste just like chocolate only to realize that it soooooooooooo doesn’t taste like powdered chocolate but something butt nasty?!  Yeah… so cruel!  I knew I had to add sweetness to it. From that point on I was a machine.  I love it when stuff just falls into place.

Yeah, I’m thinking it fell into place quite nicely!   Now I’m not going to fool you.  This isn’t pretty and it looks burnt BUT it’s not. That ‘burnt’/char look is PURE CHOCOLATE people!  I mean seriously.. this stuff is crusted with cocoa and chocolate and so much love I can’t stand it!

This took that envelope and not only pushed it but it done sealed it shut, put a stamp on it and mailed it to Timbuktu!

THAT’S how incredible this Man Candy III is!

Go on, stare it some more.  Trust me it was pure torture waiting for these to cool down as the smell of warm chocolate was incredible!

 

Now I know you’re going to give me grief over my last post about how Egg Salad should remain classic with no fluff or extra stuff. Well since it’s my site, I’m making an exception for me.  Why?  I HATE mayo but love egg salad.  Yes I’ve tried it with just the mustard and it’s nasty.  And yes I even tried it with mayo and while I did make the hurling face the entire time it was good but I couldn’t get past the mayo.  Plus I wanted to ‘healthyfy’ it.  Yes I know they make fat free mayo but um no… that’s just gross.  Even Mr. Fantabulous will turn his nose up at that.  It tastes fake.

So the other day when I was making him his Classic Egg Salad (while making the gagging face from the mayo) I wanted some for me but I needed a way to make it creamy and  yummy.  As I made him I was eying up my counters and landed on a gorgeous avocado.  I mean I love avocados and I use them in tons of stuff so why not egg salad, right?

As ‘His’ salad was chilling in the fridge I got to making mine.  I mushed, smashed and creamed, added the rest of the stuff as the classic egg salad but it was missing something.  It was good but it was a bit ‘thick’.  I didn’t want to add water or god forbid, mayo but it needed something.  By just adding a little bit of fat free sour cream this made the dish truly Classic Egg Salad-like.  I absolutely LOVED it!  I made it 2 ways – with bacon and without.  Truthfully the bacon is totally not necessary (WHA???  HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT????  BACON IS ALWAYS NECESSARY!!!) but it’s really good twist on it.

Now what was funny is that I made his sandwiches  with HIS egg salad and then sat down with this and a few crackers.  The look of “WTH is that??” was priceless.  I explained what it was to which he did something I’ve never, EVER seen him do…

He stopped mid-bite, unhinged his jaw from his sandwich and put his food down on the plate and just gave me such a puzzled look. I actually think I confused him with this dish.

I pretty much just let him stare as I slathered some on the cracker and stuffed it in my mouth.

*I* absolutely LOVED this! He, however, refused to try it because I messed with a classic. So yes, I broke one of the golden rules (and one of mine) but no way in hell is this child going to eat mayo on purpose!  LOL

This paired nicely on a piece of Crusty Artisan No Knead Bread and a Summery Berry Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette!

 

 

 

I have a slight addiction to cheese sticks/mozzarella sticks/those ooey-gooey luscious sticks of cheese that are crispy on the outside and all melty inside. No people you don’t understand.  I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE them.  Like obsessed love.

However…cause there is always a however with me, my thighs love them even more. *hangs head in sorrow*.  See traditional cheese sticks are breaded and deep fried to a golden brown with just a teensy hint of cheese starting to show.

But… deep fried is something I avoid at all costs.  Sure there are ‘healthier’ oils but the vast majorities of restaurants out there don’t use the healthier oils to fry in.  It’s not cost effective for them.

Now I’ve made them baked a bajillion times and they are truly awesome but I wanted to mix it up.  Mostly because I wanted pepperoni with them. See when my family owned a pizza shop we used to get these things called ‘Pizza Sticks’ in that were cheese sticks but had chunks of pepperoni and stuff in them.  They were as sinful as sinful could get.  I wanted THOSE!  Now with baking them with a traditional breadcrumb breading it’s pretty difficult to get it to work. I have done it but honestly it’s time consuming and a veritable P.I.T.A. So as I was rummaging in the fridge I found a package of egg roll wrappers.  And since you all know how much I LOVE those little things based on the number of ‘egg roll’ recipes I have on here I decided to give it a shot.

Honestly, these went together really easy and were baked in no time.  So let’s get to the good stuff… TASTE!

Seriously there were really, REALLY good!  Like I preferred the super crispy ‘shell’ of the egg roll over traditional bread crumbs.  Plus it allowed me to incorporate pepperoni in it (BONUS!).  The cheese was all ooey gooey inside, the pepperoni hot and the shell was super crunchy!  I literally made these 4 days in a row! Plus the best part, they are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY less fattening than traditional ones.  You can leave out the pepperoni or use a turkey lower fat one if you wish.  All I know is right now my stomach is growling and I’m off to make me a few of these puppies!