The Kitchen Whisperer

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!

 

So while I was making my CrockPot Carnitas I knew I needed some type of ‘slaw’ in the tortilla shells. It needed a ‘cool’ taste and a creamy texture to counterbalance the crispy edged pork that had some heat and sweet to it.  For me cilantro is a staple when it comes to Mexican foods. It could be the fact that for me it tends to lessen the heat intensity by it’s bright and light flavor or could be the fact that I just love how well it marries with it. *shrugs*  And now limes… seriously, do I need to ‘splain why limes in Mexican food?  Okay fine.. simple answer. It’s FANTASTIC!  It’s that perfect tartness that’s needed.  Again, also the fact that it marries very well with the heat.

I mixed up the slaw and tasted it (prior to it chillaxin’ in the fridge) and while it was good it was missing something.  I couldn’t figure it out.  It wasn’t a spice or more of this or that; it just needed another item.  So I stuck it in the fridge as I figured it would dawn on me later (or not) and went on to making dessert. Dessert that day was one of our favorites and it’s not one I bake, broil, cook or anything.  I literally just chop and stick it in a bowl. God and nature does all the real work for me.  What am I talking about?  Fresh fruit salad.  Seriously, it’s the PERFECT cool dessert.  It’s healthy and so easily adaptable to everyone’s food palate.  And unless you hate every single fruit out there (which is that even possible???) you’re gonna love this.

Well as I was chopping up the berries and got to cutting up the pineapple I just had to sneak a taste.  I mean I didn’t want it to be poisonous for Mr. Fantabulous, right??? This pineapple was so incredibly sweet that literally I stood there eating 4 pieces before I realized what I was doing.  THEN it hit me (like I had a YES YES YES moment).  PINEAPPLE!  That’s what I needed to add to the slaw.  THAT’s what was missing!  I quickly took the slaw out of the fridge, tossed in some fresh cubed pineapple, mixed it up and tasted it.  Good lord it was good and it hadn’t even really had a chance to marinate!

I let this chillax for an hour and when it was time to finally assemble it literally was a spoon for the tortilla, a spoon for me and so forth…

The pineapple literally was the perfect addition to this recipe.  It balanced the heat and sweet by adding another level of flavor.

Completely unexpected but totally welcome!

 

This MADE the carnita over the top amazing!

 

Now if my dear sweet Mother and Father were still with us and you told them that *I*, there VERY PICKY YOUNGEST PRINCESS (okay spoiled brat), LOVED Brussels Sprouts you would get your mouth washed out with soap for telling a lie.  Even though, it’s actually the truth.  Growing up there were not enough batons (I wanted to be a professional majorette even though I was chubby as can be and had the grace of a hippo), chocolate milk and barbie dolls you could bribe me with to eat these funky little green things.  Brussels Sprouts is where my Squinched-Up-7-Year-Old-Girl-Yucky-Face evolved from.

We only ever had them twice a year – Thanksgiving and Christmas; never fresh, just frozen from the box and boiled in salted water.  Once done they then swam in a vat of melted butter.  Yeah, yum huh?  Um, not!  Well it wasn’t until about a year or so ago I decided to give them one final shot. I bought fresh ones and decided to saute them with some onions and bacon. I mean if it’s with bacon it has to be good, right? After tasting these, honestly it was love at first bite.  Now mind you I still think the bacon had a lot to do with it so the next time I made them I left the bacon out and they were equally as fabulous!

This dish is so simple and you can either split them in half or leave ‘em whole.  The cooking time is pretty much the same and you end up with such an amazing flavor!

Well the other day when I was at Costco they had a 2lb bag for a few buck and they were HUGE!  I had to get these.  Last night as I made Mr. Fantabulous his dinner (pasta of course) I popped these babies in the oven with some olive oil, salt and pepper.  Roasted them for about 40 minutes and when they were done drizzled on some butter that I had infused with garlic. That first bite….PURE BLISS!  As I went to eat the 2nd one I decided to add some shaved parmesan on it.  THAT pushed these over the edge from scrumptious to AWESOMETASTIC! Yes… new TKW word.  LOL

If you were like me and turned your nose up at the thought of Brussels Sprouts and actually eating them on purpose and not as a form of punishment, I implore you to try them this way.  These seriously are the best vegetable I’ve EVER had.  And this, coming from the girl that created that Squinched-Up-7-Year-Old-Girl-Yucky-Face is a big deal!

 

I. AM. IN. LOVE!

Seriously, this is probably one of the BEST hummusseseses..eses (how do you pluralize hummus?  hummi?  Hummuses?).  I don’t care how you pluralize it just as long as I can eat it.  Oh dear sweet baby Jesus on a pogo stick was this AMAZING!

Like see that HUGE bowl there?  Yeah um.. let’s just say I made a MASSIVE dent in it after I made it.  Like um massive enough that I *may or may not* have had to make a 2nd batch.

*bats her baby blues*

This is perfect with veggies, as a sammich spread (it’s AMAZING on ciabatta with roast beef.. just sayin!) or dipped with Grilled Flatbreads (the bread in the pic).