Taste & Create XXI: Greek Salad

For this month's Taste & Create, I was paired with Liza of Knick Nosh. I was tempted by her Turkey Burgers with Portobello Mushrooms...and thought of making them with ground chicken instead. (I will definitely make them at some point!)

But smoldering away in the bunkhouse in temps that reached 100 degrees and no breeze to speak of, I quickly chose something that looked cool and refreshing: Liza's Greek Salad.

I thought of making pita bread to accompany the salad, since the grocery store doesn't carry it, but procrastinated too long in the heat. This Greek Salad was simply served on a bed of baby spinach, topped with pine nuts, and it was delicious.



Greek Salad
from Knick Nosh
Serves 4 - 6

1 English cucumber, seeded and chopped
1 pint grape tomatoes, chopped
1/2 small red onion
1 avocado, chopped
1/2 cup low fat feta cheese, crumbled
1 lemon, juiced
1 tablespoon fresh oregano, chopped (grasshoppers ate my fresh oregano, so I used a pinch or two or dried)
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and serve atop baby spinach (and a fresh pita, if you have any!) Top each serving with a sprinkling of pine nuts.

Taste & Create XXI Partner List

It's that time again! Here is the fabulous Taste & Create partner list! Please remember that your submissions are due by July 24. Sign in and submit your entries on the Taste & Create website, please do not email them to me. Feel free to contact me at cowgirlmin [at] gmail [dot] com if you have any questions at all.

Thank you to Marthe (and the rest who volunteered!) for taking on two partners this month!

The deadline for sign-ups for August's Taste & Create is August 8th, please email your sign-up information to me at cowgirlmin [at] gmail [dot] com. And encourage all your friends to sign up next month as well!

Tasty Treats & Love Big, Bake Often

Knick Nosh & The Bad Girl's Kitchen

One Hot Stove & One Little Corner of the World

Bombay Foodie & eat me, delicious

One Frugal Foodie & Dil Se..

Culinary Delights & Parita's World

Foodie plus 4 & What's For Supper

Cupcake Project & Hippo Flambe

Piccante Dolce & Mommy? I'm Hungry

No Reason Needed & Culinary Delights

Venison Roast with Blueberry-Maple Sauce

Not having this recipe here is an oversight! I was reminded of it when my friend Karen was looking for savory blueberry recipes. It's from the Venison Cookery cookbook, and I am not exaggerating when I say every single recipe of the more than one dozen we've tried from this cookbook has been a winner. (If you have venison or elk, go buy this cookbook today!)

The sauce is wonderful, and I know it would be a great, natural accompaniment on pork as well as venison. We served ours on venison steaks instead of roast. Let me know what you think!

We will be making this again, stay tuned for a picture!

Venison Roast with Blueberry-Maple Sauce
Serves 8

2-pound boneless venison loin roast
2 cloves garlic, slivered
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Coarsely ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

SAUCE:

1 1/2 cups dry red wine
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots or onion
1 cup beef or venison stock
1/2 cup dried blueberries
3 tablespoons butter, softened
2 to 3 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon rubbed sage
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Make shallow slits in roast with tip of sharp knife. Insert garlic sliver into each slit. Place roast on rack in roasting pan. Brush with oil. Sprinkle roast with pepper. Roast for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F. Roast to desired doneness, 20 to 30 minutes per pound. Sprinkle roast with salt.

Meanwhile, in 2-quart saucepan, combine wine and shallots. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, or until liquid is reduced by half. Stir in stock and blueberries. Return to a simmer. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, or until liquid is again reduced by half, stirring occasionally. (For a thicker sauce, stir in 1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 1 teaspoon water at this point).

Whisk in butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. Stir in syrup, sage, salt and pepper. Serve sauce with roast.

Key Lime Pie Cupcakes with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

This weekend we went to a resort and spa with Number One's father and stepmother-in-law, and Number One's brother and sister-in-law and our niece met up with us halfway through. Since our sister-in-law's birthday is coming up, I decided it would be a nice idea to take some cupcakes with us to celebrate.

I got this recipe from Stef of Cupcake Project, my partner from last month's Taste & Create. She got the recipe from Garrett of Vanilla Garlic. Stef changed Garrett's recipe by baking Garrett's key lime filling right into the cake, and that sounded perfect to me.

Once I got it together to make these, they're actually quite easy. I finally figured out the best way to get the soupy batter into the liners: a small gravy ladle and a spoon for scraping! This batter is tasty, and I ended up with 30 cupcakes!

Stef used lime frosting on her cupcakes. I didn't have lime extract, and I thought lime frosting on a lime cupcake sounded too, well, limey, so I changed the frosting into a coconut frosting. I also topped each cupcake with some lovely toasted natural coconut. (that means raw, unsweetened. I toasted it in my toaster oven at about 350 degrees F for just a few minutes, keeping a close eye on it)

Very beautiful and very delicious, the cupcakes were a big hit, two nights in a row. I'm so glad I stuck the extras in the refrigerator, now we'll have a few more to eat this week!

These cupcakes are sweet and tangy, and the coconut frosting + toasted coconut was the perfect topping! I will be making these again, exactly the same way.

*Robot cupcake liners, chosen by H-Bomb

Key Lime Pie Cupcakes
from Stef of Cupcake Project

Makes 24 cupcakes

• 1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup flour
• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 5 egg yolks
• 1 - 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup lime or key lime juice

1. Beat the butter for about 30 seconds until creamed.
2. Add the sugar and mix for 3 minutes until light and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time, being sure to beat for 30 seconds for each egg.
4. Use food processor or a potato masher or whatever you have on hand to grind the graham crackers into tiny crumbs and powder.
5. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda and powder, and salt.
   
6. Add about 1/4 of the mixture to the butter mixture.
7. Add some of the milk.
8. Continue to add the ingredients in a dry - wet - dry method, ending with the dry.
9. Mix until just combined.
10. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, and lime juice. (FYI - If you want to make an amazing key lime pie, just mix the ingredients in this step, dump it into a pie shell and bake at 375 for 15 minutes. It's the easiest recipe ever! The pie won't be green and it shouldn't be. Lime juice isn't green.)
11. Dump the key lime mixture into the graham batter and lightly stir. Do NOT fully integrate the key lime and graham batter. You should have clumps of batter in a key lime soup.
12. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full. Make sure each liner has a nice distribution of key lime liquid and graham clumps.
13. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes or until top bounces back when touched.

Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1 - 8oz package of cream cheese (room temperature)
• 1/4 cup butter (room temperature)
• 4 cups powdered sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon coconut extract
  

1. Mix the cream cheese and butter.
2. Add the coconut extract and powdered sugar, mix well.
3. Frost cupcakes, top with toasted coconut. I put my cooled, toasted coconut in a cereal bowl, then after frosting a cupcake, I dipped it upside down in the coconut. Worked like a charm and looked great!

Grilled Citrus Pork

Our friend came over today and brought pork chops for dinner. I decided on a citrus marinade because we had a bunch of oranges that needed to be used up. I found a recipe, but it called for reducing the juice, added some super spicy peppers, etc. I just combined a couple recipes that called for ingredients that sounded good, and went for it.

The pork was tasty, tangy and delicious, perfectly grilled by Number One. Try this marinade, you won't be sorry! Just don't overcook your pork, or you will be sorry!


Citrus Marinade

Juice of 4 oranges (just over 1 cup)
Juice of 2 limes (about 1/4 cup)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon orange zest
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
freshly ground pepper
kosher salt

Combine all ingredients in a large plastic bag. Add pork, seal and refrigerate for several hours, turning bag about every half hour.

Heat grill, remove pork from marinade and grill until pork is done, being sure not to overcook it.

Taste & Create XX: Indian Spinach Flatbread

My first partner this month for Taste & Create is Dipali from Centaur Cooks. I'm hoping she still finds time to submit her entry from my website!

Dipali's is a relatively new blog, but right off the bat her Indian Spinach Flatbread caught my eye. I'm usually a pretty good "flatbread" maker (tortillas, anyway), but I can definitely use some practice with this recipe. I added too much water from the start, resulting in a very sticky dough which required more flour than I wanted to add and made the bread difficult to roll out, which also resulted in a floury look which resulted in me feeling like I needed to use more oil, which resulted in some greasiness. I also didn't use enough salt, but salting the bread as it was frying was an easy fix.


So. The flatbread is tasty. Would be tastier if I hadn't had all the issues listed above, and possibly more attractive too. (thankfully sunlight improves the bread's appearance, just don't enlarge that picture!) But it was a nice complement to our chicken masala. I will definitely try this again, after we're moved into our brand-new kitchen!


Palak Thepla or Indian Spinach Flatbread

1 cup wheat flour

2 tbsp besan/chickpea flour (didn't have access to this, so I used flax meal)

1 cup cut palak/methi (spinach)

2 tsp cooking oil (I used olive oil)

a pinch of aseofetida (I used garlic powder)

a pinch of tumeric

1/2 tsp of red chile powder (I used 1/4 heaping teaspoon)

1/4 tsp of crushed cumin (I used ground cumin)

1 tbsp sesame seeds (optional)

2 tbsp fine jaggery (I used raw sugar) + 2 tbsp lime juice (I used juice of 1/2 lime)

salt to taste

Mix all these ingredients and add water (I used about 1/2 cup, which was a bit too much) to form a firm but malleable dough. Dab with oil and rest for 10-15 mins. Form into small balls, sprinkle with dry flour and roll out. Lay on hot pan or griddle.

Turn once and apply some oil on the surface. Turn and pat with a flat wooden spatula.

Apply oil (just spread back of an oil covered spoon) and turn and pat the other side.

Take off the griddle when spots appear.

Thai-Style Chicken with Coconut Curry

Taste & Create is such a great event. It helps me discover sooo many new recipes. This recipe isn't even from my partner(s) this month, I just saw it, had all the ingredients and thought it would make a fabulous dinner. And it did!

Go to the Taste & Create website and see what scrumptious dishes you are tempted to make!

The recipe comes from Christine of Kits Chow, who got it from Marthe of Culinary Delights, both of whom participated in T&C last month. I modified a couple of ingredients, so here's how I made it.

It was a beautiful dish, easy and delicious , we couldn't stop eating it! We ate our chicken with artisan bread to soak up the curry.


Thai-Style Chicken with Coconut Curry

1 shallot, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons curry paste (I used green)
2 cups chicken broth
1 can coconut milk
6 chicken thighs
1 lime
2 green onions, chopped

Fry shallot in oil until beginning to brown. Add garlic and curry paste, stir and cook for 2 minutes. Add chicken broth, simmer for 5 minutes. Add coconut milk, stir until combined, then add chicken. Bring mixture to a boil, cover and reduce heat. Simmer for 20 minutes or until chicken is done. Stir in juice of one lime and green onions; serve.

Cold Spaghetti Salad

This is an old recipe of my mom's, I have no idea where she got it. It is delicious and refreshing on a hot summer's day, and quite easy to put together. I decided I would make it when I saw how many radishes Wifey has in her garden today, and she offered me some.

The only catch is the McCormick's Salad Supreme, sometimes it's hard to find in stores. When I see it, I usually buy at least 3 bottles so I won't run out. Someday I will try to figure out what spices go into it and then amend the recipe here. But not today!

I realize it's called "spaghetti" salad, but I prefer linguine. You try it, and let me know which you prefer. This time, however, I didn't have linguine, so spaghetti it was!


Cold Spaghetti Salad

1 pound linguini, boiled
1 cup chopped green pepper (this time I plan to use a mix of sweet, multi-colored peppers)
1 cup chopped red onion
1 cup chopped radishes
1 8-ounce bottle Wishbone Italian Salad Dressing
1/2 bottle McCormick's Salad Supreme

Prepare pasta and chopped ingredients, then toss together in large bowl. Sprinkle with salad dressing and salad supreme, mix well. Let sit, refrigerated, for several hours to allow the flavors to develop.

Serve cold.

Taste & Create XX Partner List

Once again, the fabulous Taste & Create partner list! Please remember that your submissions are due by June 24. Sign in and submit your entries on the Taste & Create website, please do not email them to me. Feel free to contact me at cowgirlmin [at] gmail [dot] com if you have any questions at all.

The deadline for sign-ups for July's Taste & Create is July 8th, please email your sign-up information to me at cowgirlmin [at] gmail [dot] com. And encourage all your friends to sign up as well!

If you're wondering, the partner list is truly random. We had an odd number of entrants, so it falls to me, Min, to have two partners. You see The Bad Girl's Kitchen on the list 3 times because my friend and fellow Bad Girl, Shell, is participating as well~it's such a great event!

Tasty Treats & Perrys' Plate

Dish It Up & One Frugal Foodie

My Hawaiian Home & Cinnamon En Spice

The Bad Girl's Kitchen (Min) & Centaur Cooks

My Kitchen Treasures & Cupcake Project

What's For Supper & eat me, delicious

The Spiced Life & Love Big, Bake Often

The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch & Culinary Delights

Yumsilicious Bakes & No Reason Needed

Dil Se.. & Res-o-puh-leese

Bombay Foodie & The Bad Girl's Kitchen (Shell)

La Recette du Jour & Piccante Dolce

Let Them Eat Cake & The Bad Girl's Kitchen (Min)

White Bean & Tuna Salad

This recipe comes from Giada de Laurentiis' cookbook, Everyday Italian. It is a really simple salad to put together, and most of the ingredients may already be in your pantry. Once you try this salad, you'll be sure to stock the ingredients anyway.

I've served this salad several times, most recently with our Gourmet Burgers. It is fresh and tangy and delicious. Red onions really add something to this salad, but I have substituted yellow or white in a pinch. While the resulting salad lacks the color the red onions give, the taste is still quite good.

White Bean and Tuna Salad
Throw these pantry ingredients together and you've got a terrific salad. You could add other ingredients to jazz it up, like 1/2 cup capers, 1 cup cherry tomatoes and some fresh basil leaves, and you could even serve it over 2 cups fresh arugula.

4 main-course servings

2 (6-ounce) cans dark meat tuna, packed in olive oil (I just had tuna in water, so I drained it and added a couple tablespoons olive oil to the salad)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini (white kidney) beans, drained and rinsed
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
6 tablespoons red wine vinegar

In a large bowl, add the tuna with its olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Using a fork, break up the tuna into bite-size pieces, then gently toss in the beans and onions. Drizzle with the red wine vinegar and season with more salt and pepper, if needed, to taste. Transfer the salad to plates and serve.


I garnished mine with some fresh chopped flat parsley for a bit more color.