Recipe - Roasted Corn Salsa

By this late in the summer, most of us have probably had our fill of fresh corn on the cob, either from roadside stands, the grocery store, or our own gardens.  I had a crisper drawer full of corn purchased from a local farmer that we were not getting through quickly enough, so I decided to try something new--Roasted Corn Salsa. Made with corn, cucumber, red onion, jalapeno, and cilantro and flavored with fresh lime juice and garlic, it's a zesty change of pace from regular tomato salsa.  If you have the time and patience, it would be even better to blacken your ears of corn somewhat on the grill or in a cast-iron skillet.  Because I just used a regular frying pan, my kernals of corn were browned more than blackened, but for even better flavor and color, I would suggest cooking then charring the corn just a bit using one of these methods.  It's a great snack with tortilla chips or as a topping for any of your favorite Southwestern dishes. See my recipe for this delicious end-of-summer treat after the grocery listings, and enjoy!

Roasted Corn Salsa

4 ears fresh Corn
1 medium Red Onion
1 seeded Jalapeno
2 cloves Garlic
1 fresh Lime
1 large Cucumber
1 bunch Cilantro
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon coarse grind Pepper
1/2 teaspoon or so Kosher or Sea Salt
1/2 drained and rinsed can of Black Beans (optional)

With a sharp, serrated knife, carefully cut the corn off the cobs.

Place some oil in a skillet and brown the corn for several minutes, sprinkling with salt and pepper.  Or if possible, rub your ears of corn in oil and grill until browned before cutting off the cob.  Or if you have a cast-iron skillet, this would also work well for charring the kernals a bit once they are cut from cob. I would have done mine this way if I had one.

Dice the purple onion up small.

Add this to the corn pan and saute for a couple of minutes.  Let cool.

Seed and chop the jalapeno (use baggies or gloves to protect your hands). Also chop up the cucumber.

Remove the cilantro leaves from the stems and chop.  I like to use my scissors in a small, deep bowl for this.

Mince up the garlic.  I like to use my zester, but you can just dice it small.

Toss all the vegetables together into a bowl with a tight fitting lid.

Now make the dressing by whisking the olive oil, salt and pepper, sugar, and the juice of one lime.

Add the dressing to the rest of the ingredients.

Stir together, taste, and adjust seasonings if needed.

At this point, you may want to add some black beans that have been rinsed and drained.  I have people who won't eat beans, so I left these out.  You could also add some chopped tomato if desired.

Keeps well in the fridge for several days.

Recipe - Smashed Red Potatoes

Do you ever get tired of the same old potatoes?  My usual summertime staple for serving with grilled steaks or chicken is Dutch Oven Potatoes when we have company. But recently I've been seeing lots of recipes for something called Smashed Potatoes, a crispy roasted potato side dish which seemed right up my alley.  I found you can make them a variety of ways and using different types of potatoes, but the most common is red potatoes. Since our garden potatoes aren't quite ready, I had to buy mine, and they were a bit larger than I would have liked (although no one was complaining).  I put my own spin on them by adding bacon, cheese, and chives, and they turned out really great--and very easy too!  I served mine with a delicious pre-seasoned grilled beef tenderloin and a zesty spiralized cucumber salad with Olive Garden dressing.  See last week's post about spiralizing HERE.  Find pictures and simple instructions for my Loaded Smashed Potatoes below.  I love that these potatoes can be made ahead of time, then finished up while the meat grills. By the way, here's the salad.  It has spiralized garden cucumbers and orange cherry tomatoes, red onion, avocado, diced peperoncinis, black olives, and Parmesan, all tossed in Olive Garden Dressing (available at Sam's Club).

NOTE:  I'm sorry to say that I need to take the next two weeks off from Savings for Sisters.  I have some family obligations that will keep me from having new posts ready.  Perhaps some of you may enjoy browsing some of the older recipes (click on the various headings along the right side of this page). Then watch for Savings for Sisters #190 on Tuesday, August 30.  See you then!

Loaded Smashed Potatoes

You need one large or two small potatoes per person.  Wash well and remove any eyes or blemishes as desired.

Place in a large pot and add a couple spoonfuls of salt.

Cover with cold water and bring slowly to a simmer on medium heat until done right to the middle (check with toothpick).  Don't boil hard or they will fall apart--just simmer gently.

Drain and set aside to cool for 10 minutes or so. 

Drizzle a cookie sheet with olive (or other) oil.

Brush evenly over surface.  You need quite a bit so the potatoes won't stick.

One at a time, smash the potatoes with a potato masher (or the palm of your hand with a clean towel between your hand and the potato).

Push down hard.  If the pieces it smashes into are quite large and chunky, use a fork to break the potato up a bit more. 

Using a pancake turner, transfer the potatoes carefully onto the prepared cookie sheet. 

Melt some butter.  For these six potatoes I used about a half stick.

Drizzle butter over the potatoes.  If it doesn't seem like enough because your potatoes are big, just melt some more.  You want enough they will crisp up nicely in the oven. 

After adding the butter, salt and pepper the potatoes generously.  I like to use coarse Kosher salt and coarse grind black pepper. 

Now cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready for them. 

Get your toppings ready after the potatoes are in the fridge.  First, cook up some bacon.  I like to do this in the oven.  See my instructions for easy oven bacon HERE.  (Scroll to the bottom of the German Pancake post).

I wanted to use chives for my potatoes because I always have them in the summer . . . 

However, the potatoes would be every bit as good with sliced green onions.  Here are my chives. 

I wash and dry them, then snip them up with my scissors. 

Now they're all ready for my potatoes.  Shred up some cheese (unless you have a bag of pre-shredded), and cut the bacon into small pieces (I also like to do this with my scissors!) 

Cover and put in fridge.  It's great to be able to get things ready ahead of time so that the work is over when the party starts!

About 30 minutes before time to eat, place the potatoes in a 450 oven and bake to the desired amount of crispness.  If they've been in the fridge, it may take a bit longer.  Here's how mine looked when I pulled them out.  You can go even crispier if you like. 

Sprinkle with cheese, bacon, and chives (or green onions), in that order. 

Now return to the oven for another five minutes.

Using a big spatula, lift them carefully off the cookie sheet and on to each person's plate. 

Recipe - Zoodle Alfredo

It's zucchini season again, the time of year when I start searching for new ways to prepare this delicious, versatile garden staple.  Stuffed, sauteed, breaded, or shredded into batters for cakes and breads, there's almost nothing you can't do with zucchini.  This summer, however, my eyes have been opened to a whole new taste sensation--Zoodles (I did not make this up--that's really what they are called). Put simply, zoodles are noodles made from zucchini.  I would imagine that people on gluten-free or low carb diets are rejoicing everywhere since this idea surfaced a few years ago (I'm a little late to the party).  Lots of people have been making noodles out of not just zucchini, but a variety of other vegetables as well, from carrots to sweet potatoes to beets to cucumbers.  Served raw in salads or cooked briefly and topped with a favorite pasta sauce, it's a great way to increase your family's vegetable intake--not to mention using up a few more of those ever-prolific zucchini in the garden.

So how do you make noodles from vegetables?  That's what I wondered when I started to notice beautiful pictures, like this . . .

. . . and saw them being made into beautiful dishes like this . . .

and this . . .

What I found out is that there are special kitchen machines called "Spiralizers" for this very purpose.  They look like this:

However, before making this kind of investment, I learned that I could experiment with my julienne peeler first, to see if we even liked the noodles.  This peeler (you probably have one kicking around in your utensil drawer somewhere) looks like this:

It only costs a few dollars if you don't have one.  I tried this out first, then when I satisfied myself that veggie spirals were something we would eat quite often, I researched the many brands of spiralizers, compared prices and features, and decided which one I wanted to buy.  The Paderno spiralizer you see above cost me $29.84, including shipping, ordered from Kohl's (of course I stacked Kohl's coupons to get this deal). They are also available on Amazon and most department and kitchen stores, in many brands and styles and at a wide variety of prices.  There is even a hand-held version that's very cheap and simple (you use it kind of like a pencil sharpener).  My Paderno model has four blades that make different sizes of noodles.  I used it for the first time this week to make the Zoodle Alfredo featured in Savings for Sisters today.  This may not be your cup of tea, but I'm pretty excited about the seemingly endless possibilities and plan to make good use of my spiralizer.  You can find dozens of ideas and recipes with a quick google search.  As for my Alfredo dish, we enjoyed it very much!  You can read more about how I made it following the grocery listings below.
 

Zoodle Alfredo

First we'll talk about the Zoodles, then the sauce.  Regardless of how you are planning to make your noodles (using the julienne peeler or spiralizer) choose zucchini that are no bigger than medium sized.  For my machine, I just cut the zucchini in half and made sure each end was flat and could attach to the prongs on the machine. 

Then just turn the crank!

There is very little waste.  This is the  little piece at the end that was stuck into the prongs. 

You need to make quite a few, so keep going!  I used three medium zucchini to make about 5 or 6 main dish sized servings.  

As you probably know, zucchini has lots of water in it.  So the next thing you do is lay  your noodles out on a cookie sheet that has been lined with paper towels to absorb the liquid.  

Now sprinkle the zucchini lightly with salt to draw out the moisture.  Let it sit at least 30 minutes. 

Later, when you press down on the zucchini with more paper towels, they will be very damp, as you can see.

If you want to get most of the water out, use a second cookie sheet lined with paper towels, place it over the top of the first, then flip it so that more water can drain. Repeat this process as often as you want, but don't add any more salt.  

Now let's get to making the sauce.  Here's the recipe:

Garlic Alfredo Sauce

4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) Butter
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup flour
1 cup milk (or more)
1 cup canned milk (or more)
1/2 scant teas. Thyme
1/2 scant teas. Oregano leaves
1/4 to 1/2 teas. Black Pepper
1/2 teas. Salt
1/3 to 1/2 cup Parmesan

In a small bowl, measure out the flour and add the seasonings. Mince up the garlic.

Melt the butter in a saucepan.

Add the garlic and saute briefly.

Stir in the flour and seasonings.  Whisk together over medium heat.

Add the milk and canned milk and whisk and cook until smooth and bubbly.  It will only take a minute or two.  Add more milk if needed for desired consistency.  I would guess you'll need about another 1/2 cup.  Now stir in the Parmesan.

Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.

Now it's time to cook the Zoodles.  Pour some olive oil in a large skillet or electric fry pan and bring to a medium high heat.

Throw in the prepared noodles and season lightly with salt and pepper. 

Now this is where it comes to personal preference.  Some people suggest not cooking the zucchini noodles at all.  That doesn't sound too good to me, but I haven't tried it.  I sauteed mine for probably between 5 and 10 minutes.  Most recipes suggest less than 5 minutes.  I actually felt mine could have been cooked a little more, but we aren't big ones for half-cooked vegetables in general.  So what it boils down to is that you should cook them as much as you want, but be aware that they really only take minutes, so be sure everything else for the dinner, including the sauce, is ready and waiting when you throw them into the pan . . . . 

. . . . because you'll want to be ready to serve them as soon as they're done.  If you've done a good job extracting the moisture before cooking them, they won't be very watery--however, if they are, drain it off before serving, or your sauce will be diluted.

You can add additional parmesan to the top if desired.  Enjoy!

Note:  Maceys is selling Zoodles at their Saturday morning farmer's market from 7 until noon, already cut and bagged.  They are $5.00 for a 20 oz container.  That's pretty steep, but it might be worth it to see if your family likes them before investing in a spiralizer.  It could be that these are available all the time--it wasn't clear to me from the ad.