Grilled Eggplant Caprese

August’s ingredients for the Improv Cooking Challenge are Tomatoes & Herbs. Which is unfortunate for my garden, ‘cause those items  burnt  were ruined  expired at the end of June with our extreme heat! (Actually, I do have one basil plant left, so I used that with tomatoes from the market…)
First off, I made what would be kind of a pesto salt. I chopped (and chopped and chopped and chopped…)  a cup (lightly packed) of basil leaves, 5 cloves of garlic, and half a cup of kosher salt. The mixture was spread in a baking pan and spent the day  at the spa  dehydrating under the oven light. The finished salt was then bottled to await its ultimate purpose. (BTW -- that stuff is awesome on olive-oil-popped popcorn!)
The morning of “recipe day” I put together the drizzle for the salad. Into the pitcher of my Blendtec went 1 tablespoon red wine, 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons honey, a clove of garlic, 2 cups (kinda sorta packed) fresh basil leaves (weighed about 2 oz.) and a couple grinds each of Himalayan salt & black pepper (to taste). When that became all nice & relatively smooth, 1/3 cup of olive oil was trickled in to blend up a sweet basil vinaigrette. Sooooooo tasty -- mmmmmmm!
I sliced an eggplant and brushed both sides of each slice with olive oil. Then I lightly sprinkled on some of that pesto herb salt. Those pretty little rounds got grilled until they had some lovely stripes criss-crossing their surface. I put them in a covered dish to chill until the ultimate assembly before dinner.
I’ve had my share of good caprese salads at restaurants (I’ve had at least one not quite so good caprese…) But let me tell you -- the addition of those grilled eggplant slices sends this salad into a whole different stratosphere!
The subtle flavor just melds so deliciously with the tomato and fresh mozzarella slices.
…and the drizzle -- ah, that sweet basil drizzle…
It was good to the last, ummmmm, drip… (you probably can’t tell I spooned some more on, right?)

Check out what my friends created with tomatoes & herbs:

An InLinkz Link-up

Tequila Fajitas & Margarisu

When I realized the Improv Challenge for May was going to be Lemon & Lime, I decided to celebrate them “Cinco de Mayo” style. Having fresh citrus from our trees out back makes summer so much more tasty!
First project was to make some gluten-free lemon Savoiardi biscuits (or Ladyfingers). Here’s where you can find my recipe for those.
Then I made a pound of mascarpone using fresh cream with a little lemon juice following this recipe from The Alchemist. (Oh! Yum! -- so easy & soooooo delicious!) (please ignore the huge finger swipe in this picture… ummmmm… I have no idea how it got there…)
After the cheese chilled 24 hours, I blended in a half cup margarita mix to make it “spoonable” for layering in the trifle dish.
I zested & juiced six little limes to make an incredible lime curd according to this recipe I prepared over a year ago. I did it all in a single sauce pan, using my stick blender to get the sugar/butter/eggs to the proper consistency.
I thought of flavoring the whipped cream with a touch of tequila, but decided since this was to be shared with three under-aged sons I should probably tone it down… I simply whipped it with powdered sugar.

Finally I was ready to assemble our Margarita-inspired Tiramisu so that it could be ready for the following night’s dessert.
First I rimmed the trifle dish with a wedge of lime, then dipped it in orange sugar. I dipped each cookie into orange-infused tequila and placed them in the bowl.These were topped with a goodly dollop of the margarita mascarpone. Next was a beautiful layer of lime curd, followed by the whipped cream. The layers were repeated two more times, then limes were thinly sliced for the garnish.I covered it with plastic wrap & sent it to the frig to chill.
With the meal’s finale taken care of, it was time to marinate the fajita meat. You can read how I did all that here.
Needed another recipe to use lemons; so we made guac with those instead of lime juice. (Funny side note: in all my “authentic guacamole recipe” research, everyone kept insisting that true south-of-the-border recipes used limes instead of lemons. Everyone else kept insisting that you had to use lemon juice to make it taste like Grandma’s. Well! Here’s your answer: I took this pic in the produce department of our favorite Hispanic market. Mystery solved!)
Dinner was excellent -- but dessert was even better!

Would you like to see some more Lemon & Lime recipes? Check out these links from my friends:

An InLinkz Link-up

Tequila Lime Fajita Marinade

I guess I just can’t believe I’ve not marinated beef in tequila before! ¡Qué delicioso!We took the steak and sliced it thinly -- not quite all the way through.While it was still on the cutting board I rubbed the top with my dry ingredients.After we slid it into the sealable bag, we poured the liquids over top.It rested in the frig for 8 hours; but I turned it a few times to make sure everything got good & soaky!

After the meat was on the grill, I added the sliced bell peppers & white onions to the remaining marinade. I poured it all into a large pan and roasted them @ 450° until they were just tender and some were browning.Warm tortillas, fresh guacamole, sour cream, grated cheese, diced tomatoes & chopped romaine rounded out our meal.

…were supposed to be crostinis…

but I was too forgetful lazy rushed famished to take the time to toast my baguette slices!  February’s Improv Cooking Challenge theme chosen by our leader Kristen was “Bread and Butter.” Sounds like a simple task, unless bread is your most favorite food group in all the world but now you’re gluten free and you haven’t found a bread recipe you can accept as a favorable substitute for your most favorite food group in all the world…I’ve long been a fan of Bob’s Red Mill products. Most of the flours and starches I buy are from his extensive line. I even use the many gluten free recipes on the site. I decided this was the time to try his bread mix.So glad I did! The bread was quite delicious & had a very nice texture. (thought I had taken a pic of the 2 baguettes, sorry… was in too much of a hurry to taste before dark!)So… that brings us to the recipe part of this post – my Sweet Red Wine Compound Butter. You will love me, forever! It is soooooo simple, but it tastes like a million dollars. It’s so easy a cave man could do it (if he knew how to milk a cow or stomp grapes) but makes the carnivore’s dream steak taste even dreamier! Beurre composé is what the French call this “finishing butter”.Serendipitously, I found this most delicious sweet red on sale at my local Sprouts. I poured a cup of it into my saucepan. (I might or might not have had a glass while cooking to ensure the flavor appropriate…)I stirred in a tablespoon each of freshly cracked pepper and minced garlic. Then I left the saucepan on a very low simmer for about an hour. It. smelled. incredible. the. entire. time.After the reduction cooled completely, it was scraped into the mixing bowl of room temperature butter. (You may use unsalted butter, but then you’d have to add a pinch of salt.) I beat the mixture until everybody was all happy together.I divided it and made two rolls. I wrapped them with plastic cling and stuck them in the freezer.You should stop reading here if you’re hungry. Just take my recipe and go your way.
But if you wish to see how I served up my bread & butter, keep reading to the end…Bread & butter might be a meal for some, but not for my household of carnivores!
Here are my baguette slices – fresh from the oven…

We top that with a bit of sliced mushrooms & onions, sautéed with a touch of our compound butter.Do you see what I did there?Yes, that is grilled and thinly sliced New York strip!And yes, I am going to eat it right before your eyes…close-up!Playing with the camera means the steak is now too cool to melt the butter; so this platter gets a quick flash under the broiler.

We loved this butter! So far we’ve tried it out on baked potatoes and then on scrambled eggs. No disappointments so far…

If you’d like to see some more bread & butter recipes, check out these links:

fish & chips challenge

Abandoning my English heritage (alright, those ancestors came here 200, even 300 years ago…) to bow to our proximity to Baja; my guys & I would much rather eat pescado y papas fritas tortillas fritas TOSTITOS® SCOOPS!®.
They don’t really like this local jointand their palate is not “refined” enough to enjoyKristen’s choice of ingredients for the June Improv Challenge offered a little chance to think “outside the basket” for a recipe. Our favorite place to eat fish is soooooooo far away……but we often try to revisit the flavors. So today, I wanted to create a Baja-style fish & “chips” recipe. (I’d much rather wrap the fish in a fresh, warm, corn tortilla; but decided to stick with the “chip” theme and make a little less work in my hot kitchen…)So actually, we’ve got a couple recipes for the price of one today: the dry rub for the fish, the chipotlé crema for the cabbage, and the mango pico de gallo.
For the dry rub you’ll need:

• 1Tablespoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
• olive oil

Stir the dry ingredients together. Drizzle the oil over the fish. (For this meal I used about a pound and a half of halibut.) Sprinkle with the rub & work lightly into the fish. Cover until grilling time!Earlier in the day I made my shredded cabbage with chipotlé crema:

• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup mayonaise
• 1 teaspoon Chipotlé Tabasco
• juice from 1/2 lime (1-2 liquid oz.)
• 4 cups finely shredded cabbage

Blend together all but the cabbage. Then pour over cabbage & mix well. Chill until ready to serve.And, even earlier in the day I made the mango pico de gallo:

• 1 jalapeño pepper
• 2 ripe mangos
• juice from 2 limes
• 6 roma tomatoes
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 6 green onions
• 1/4 cup cilantro leaves
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

(Make sure you adjust your ingredients according to your personal salsa taste. We don’t like a lot of cilantro, but love garlic & lime…) Finely chop & stir together.After the hubs got home, the grill was lit & the fish put on after the pre-heat.I set up the little tortilla cups on my platter.Filled the bottom with grilled fish.Added the chipotlé crema/cabbage mixture.Spooned a bit of the mango pico, and then topped them with an avocado slice.mmmmmmmmmmm – so delish!My boys got tired of the taco that disappeared in one bite, so we wrapped theirs up in a flour tortilla.I tell you – I love it when dinner can be cooked outdoors!
Check out the other fish & chips interpretations in the links below: