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!

 

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!

 

 

 

So egg salad is one of those foods that never, ever go out of style.  It’s retro and modern, classic and comforting.  When I think of egg salad I think of every summer and the only real family vacation we could take ( a couple hour drive to Sea World in Ohio).  Since we couldn’t afford to eat out my mother would pack the biggest cooler I had ever (even to this day) seen in my life.  It in were bottles of Pepsi (the glass kind mind you!), tons of fresh fruits and veggies (from our gardens), pb&j sandwiches on her amazing white bread, bologna sandwiches and about 500 egg salad sandwiches.

Even as a child I had issues with mayonnaise or even Miracle Whip. It’s a texture/sound issue for me. I get the BIGGEST heebie jeebies when I hear it being stirred in something.  OMG I will DIE when I hear macaroni salad being mixed.  Just the very thought of it right now has me gagging.

I’m weird like that, I know.  But you love me anyway….. right??? *as she gives you big doe eyes and bats her baby blues*  <blink blink blink>  LOL

However times were tough so you ate what you had or you didn’t eat although my siblings right are having a BF (reference the movie White Chicks here) because I was UBER spoiled.  Having my siblings range from 9 years to 17 years older than me I was a rather pleasant surprise. That being said I often got a different meal if I didn’t like what we were having – meatloaf, spaghetti, egg salad cause they had chunks of onions and stuff in it or mayo. Yeah no to the Mayo.

Thing is everyone loved my Mom’s egg salad and it was often requested she take that to parties.  It was simple, classic and clean.  Sure you can Google egg salad recipe and find 98765467898876657567478876 egg salad recipes but they all have ‘extra’ stuff to it.  Egg salad should be about the egg, not the spices, the onions, the celery, the fluff.  Egg salad should be clean and pure .

Egg salad should be this…

 

Simple

Pure

Unpretentious

Nothing frilly, nothing foofoo

So if you want the garlic salt, chopped onions, celery and other stuff… save it for something else. Leave this one as-is; the way it should be done. It’s classic for a reason and should remain as such.

Kapeesh?

Now it’s funny as I make this rather frequently for Mr. Fantabulous.  He absolutely LOVES this stuff although I should tell you that if you pack this for a car trip that is more than 2 hours long um… er…. not sure how to say this delicately but get my point across but um… I recommend packing some spray for the car as this stuff can be lethal *wink*  LOL  God he’s going to KILL me for posting this.  Puffy ♥ you baby!  LOL

 

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!

 

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).