shrimp ceviche

Shrimp Ceviche Recipe

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shrimp ceviche

A few summers back when my husband and I spent a couple of days in Miami we ordered a shrimp ceviche and the waiter politely told us that was fine but a shrimp ceviche isn’t a real ceviche because you have to cook the shrimp with heat, as opposed to traditional ceviche where the acidity in the juice cooks the fish, before you put into the vegetables. I’m not sure why it needs to be cooked first but it’s not a big deal because it actually speeds up the time from making to eating which is always a good thing.

Ingredients:

  • 10 or more medium-sized shrimp, peeled, tail removed and deveined (or be smarter than me and buy some that are already like that) cut into bite size pieces
  • 1/2 cup of fresh squeezed lime juice
  • 1/2 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/2 red onion, finely diced
  • 1-2 chopped fresh seeded vine tomatoes
  • 1 chopped bell pepper, no color preference
  • 1/2 jalapeño pepper, chopped and 1/4 of the seeds, add more seeds if you want it a little hotter.
  • Salt to taste
  • Cilantro to taste, stem removed and chopped

Directions:

1. In a glass bowl with lid, like a Pyrex, combine equal parts tomatoes, onion, and bell pepper. Next add the jalapeño. Mix well with a spoon.

2.  Add cilantro and mix. Then add the salt to taste and a little bit of lime juice. The salt is to take some of the sweetness away from the lemon and lime juice.

shrimp ceviche

3. In a small saucepan on medium heat, bring the lime and lemon juice to a soft boil.

4. Add the shrimp and cook until it goes from clear to white.

shrimp ceviche

raw shrimp

 

shrimp ceviche

cooked

5. Add the shrimp and a little bit of the juice to the veggies and mix.

6. Enjoy! With tortilla chips, crackers, pita bread and/or guacamole.

shrimp ceviche

 


ceviche

Ceviche Recipe

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ceviche

I love ceviche! It’s one of those fish dishes that got me on the road to liking fish and seafood. This is one of those recipes however where you don’t have leftovers because the acidity in the juices will continue to cook the fish turning it into mush. Whatever isn’t eaten should be thrown away which is why you serve it with other things like guacamole.

Prep time: How fast can you chop?

Cook time: ~ 40 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 tilapia fillet, chopped into small cubes
  • 1/2 cup of fresh squeezed lime juice
  • 1/2 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/2 red onion, finely diced
  • 1-2 chopped fresh seeded vine tomatoes
  • 1 chopped bell pepper, no color preference
  • 1/2 jalapeño pepper, chopped and 1/4 of the seeds (to taste, want heat? add more seeds! don’t like things hot? add only a couple of seeds)
  • Salt to taste
  • Cilantro to taste, stem removed and chopped

Will be served with:

Directions:

1. In a glass bowl with lid, like a Pyrex, combine equal parts tomatoes, onion, and bell pepper. Next add the jalapeño. Mix well with a spoon.

ceviche

2.  Add cilantro and mix. Then add the salt to taste. The salt is to take some of the sweetness away from the lemon and lime juice.

3. Add the tilapia and mix well.

4. Add the lime and lemon juices making sure to throughly coat the fish. The acidity in the juice is what cooks the fish. Stir and cover with lid.

ceviche

5. Place the bowl in the fridge for about 40 minutes, stirring halfway between. The fish should go from clearish to white.

6. Enjoy! I like to eat my ceviche by scooping onto tortilla chips with guacamole on the side.

ceviche


7 Layer Dip Recipe

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A party favorite of mine is 7 Layer Dip. Granted mine has eight layers, sometimes nine but 7 layer dip sounds better than nine layer dip to me.

Here is what is needed, but amount depends upon how big of a plate you’re putting it on.

  1. Refried Beans
  2. Guacamole 
  3. Sour Cream
  4. Salsa, I like to use mild
  5. Tomatoes, chopped
  6. Green Onions chopped
  7. Ground beef with taco seasoning (sometimes I omit this)
  8. Shredded Cheese, I prefer cheddar and more specifically a blend of mild and sharp cheddar
  9. Cilantro, chopped

On a plate spread and layer each ingredient in order as it is listed above. Serve with a bag of tortilla chips.

Enjoy!


fried chicken

How to Make Fried Chicken Bites

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I love fried foods. As I’ve said before, I don’t own a frier because that would be so bad for me. But sometimes I just need some fried chicken. Is that just me? I made fried chicken bites for dinner and I thought I’d share.

I think my version is pretty easy. It can be a bit messy though. This time I used breadcrumbs I made from a loaf of bread from Panera, but I have used Panko and Progresso breadcrumbs as well as crushed Ritz crackers. I think I actually prefer the Ritz with some seasoning mixed into them and mixed into the flour/cornstarch bowl.

I could have left the chicken in bigger pieces or in stripes for chicken fingers but I like to chop it into smaller pieces because it cooks faster. Also, since it is the same thickness I don’t have to worry as much about some parts of the chicken being cooked and other parts still being raw.

For this recipe, the amount of everything depends upon how much you want to make. I was frying two chicken tender strips.

Ingredients:

  • boneless, skinless, chicken chopped up into bite sized pieces
  • corn starch
  • all-purpose flour
  • milk
  • egg
  • breadcrumbs
  • oil

1. In a small sauce pan, pour oil, I used canola, enough to make it about an inch or more deep. Again this depends upon your amount of chicken you’re frying.

2. Chop the chicken into bite sized pieces

3. In a bowl, mix 3 parts flour to 1 part cornstarch.  The cornstarch helps everything stick to the chicken better as opposed to just flour.

4. In another bowl, with a fork, whisk 1 egg with 1/4 cup milk

5. In yet another bowl have a lot of breadcrumbs.

fried chicken

The order is going right to left because my saucepan is to the left of the breadcrumbs and yes my counter is that tiny!

6. Now, coat in the flour, dunk in the egg wash, and cover with breadcrumbs the pieces of chicken.

7. Carefully drop the chicken in the oil to fry or else the oil could splash up.

fried chicken

cooking in oil

Now my chicken wasn’t completely submerged in the oil, so I let it cook to a golden brown on the bottom, about 4 minutes and flipped them over with my tongs so the other side could fry an get a golden brown color as well.

7. With a slotted spoon, remove the fried chicken bites.

fried chicken

Yum!

Now it’s time to enjoy the fried deliciousness. I prefer to dip mine in a ketchup ranch combo. Am I the only one who does that?

I know the coat, dunk, and coat mixtures work pretty well for fried pickles too. I wonder if they work for cheese balls. I need to try it because I am missing some Culver’s cheese curds.


How to Make Sweet Potato Fries

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This really isn’t a recipe for sweet potato fries. Just a “How To” because the only ingredients I used were sweet potatoes and extra virgin olive oil. Sometimes you just really want to have something fried but don’t want to feel guilty about eating it afterwards. Maybe that’s just me; but here is an alternative to regular fries and using a fry daddy. It would be dangerous to my health, and I don’t have the counter space, to have a fryer because I love french fries and fried pickles! I’ll stick to the stove.

Sweet Potato Fries on the stove!

1. Scrub your potatoes! Veggies are pretty dirty in general, because they come from dirt and also you have no idea how many people have touched your food before you took it home. Ok rant over back to cooking.

2. I am not a big fan of skin so I peel it off. Sometimes I’ll leave a little skin on for a bit of a flavor change.

3. Chop it into fries! sweet potato fries

4. Put a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet. Heat it up on medium heat. sweet potato fries

5. Put in the heated skillet. Cook it for about 10 minutes moving the fries around on a pretty constant bases until desired crispiness.

Enjoy your sweet potato fries! I like to dip mine in ranch. sweet potato fries


grilled cheese

Grilled Cheese BLT Recipe

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Made a delicious grilled cheese this weekend. It’s my version of a kind of grilled cheese fancy BLT combo. I’m glad it was good too because I have a battle wound from it! But that’s not out of the ordinary for me. I’m a bit of a klutz. I burned my arm on the pan in my closet sized kitchen. Guess I needed more space to stand and watch the cheese melt on my sandwich. 🙂

awkward picture of the burn on my arm

awkward picture of the burn on my arm

Ingredients:

  • bread
  • butter
  • prosciutto
  • muenster cheese
  • tomato slices
  • arugula micro-greens
  1. I like to sear the prosciutto a bit first so it’s cooked. I treat it likes it’s bacon.
  2. Butter two slices of bread on one side.
  3. On medium heat, place a piece of bread, butter side on the pan.
  4. Next, place prosciutto, tomato slices, sprinkle the arugula over it and finally the cheese slice or slices, followed by the other piece of bread butter side up.
  5. Cook until butter on bottom of bread is a nice brown color, a few minutes
  6. Carefully, flip the sandwich and cook until that piece of bread is a nice brown color and the cheese has melted
  7. Enjoy!
grilled cheese

yum

The great thing about this is, it is so versatile. Many ingredients can be swapped for another. Grilled cheese is probably my favorite sandwich!


guacamole recipe

My Guacamole Recipe

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guacamole recipeOne thing I love is chips and dip, especially tortilla chips and guacamole! But I find it difficult to find good guacamole at grocery stores. One time I accidentally bought guacamole flavored dip! So it wasn’t real! It was full of randomness and things I couldn’t pronounce that didn’t need to eat. I made it a mission to make my own. Here is the guacamole recipe that I came up with, with the help of my husband. 🙂

Ingredients:

  • avocados
  • tomato, chopped and without seeds
  • onion, chopped
  • cilantro, chopped
  • juice of half of a lime
  • olive oil
  • salt
  • pepper

Directions:

  1. Peel, remove seeds, and mash avocados in a small to medium bowl
  2. add tomato, onion, cilantro, olive oil and lime juice to avocado and mix
  3. season with salt and pepper and stir into dip

I usually do 2 large ripe avocados, if they’re still hard, it’s difficult to make dip, so go for the ones that are a bit mushy. I also use one roma tomato, half of a small red onion and a handful of cilantro before it’s chopped. But the amount of all of the ingredients completely depends on your own taste and the amount you want to make.

 


Blackberry Muffin Recipe with Greek Yogurt and Steel Cut Oats

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So it’s going to be a food week! Today I’ll start with breakfast, a muffin recipe! Blackberry muffins with greek yogurt and steel cut oats.

When buying fruit out of season, it’s always a guessing game as to when it’s going to go bad. I had boughten some blackberries a few days ago and decided I needed to do something with them before they went bad. I decided on blackberry muffins! I looked through a lot of recipes and ended up pulling different things from a few them and created my own to make them somewhat of a complete breakfast? Or really so I can say they have all of these things in them, they must be healthy 🙂 I tend to make the batter the night before to bake the next day because they can be time consuming.

Here is my muffin recipe:

  • 1 cup precooked steel cut oats I usually do 1/2 cup oats to 1 cup boiling water
  • 1 cup greek vanilla yogurt
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup oil I used canola but vegetable oil should be good too
  • 3/4 cup light brown sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ~ 1 cup blackberries carefully cut into smaller pieces, I quartered mine

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°
  2. in a medium bowl, mix the oats, yogurt and honey

    wet ingredients 1

    cooked steel cut oats, greek yogurt, honey

  3. in a small bowl, mix oil egg, and sugar until well combined

    sugar mixture

    brown sugar, egg, oil

  4. combine sugar mixture with oat mixture
  5. sift the flour, salt, baking soda and powder today and add to wet ingredients

    dry ingredients

    I dont have a fancy sifter so I use my mesh strainer

  6. gently fold in blackberries, they can lightly coated in flour to prevent them from sinking in the batter

    fruit

    blackberries cut into fourths

  7. bake, in a greased or lined muffin tin, for ~ 15-20 minutes, until golden brown and toothpick comes out clean

    yum!

  8. Enjoy!

I would say that this recipe makes around 12 muffins, but I don’t really know because I use the muffin tin and my George Foreman, don’t judge me :), and those muffins are tiny compared to my muffin tin for my oven. Also, you don’t have to use blackberries. Blueberries work great with this recipe too!

I hope you love these muffins!