Chop Chop Salad from Paul - a great quick, 'throw together' salad to serve

This  is a guest post of sorts.  A dear, dear friend and reader sometimes sends me yummy recipes he has made.  He sent me this one right in the middle of our last relocation across the country, when I was in the process of selling our house, living 1000 miles away from my husband and our youngest daughter (who had already relocated), getting our oldest 2 kids enrolled and moved to college, house hunting in the new state and still working full time at the office.   Needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed at the time, but it looked so fresh, easy and delicious that I tucked it away in my files.

Well, it's time to bring it out!  What a great 'throw together' salad for these hot summer evenings!  Thanks Paul!

Chop Chop Salad from Paul

1 cup, Broccoli crowns, pared way down to bite size.

1 cup, Red Bell pepper

1 cup, Green bell pepper

1 package from grocery store snap-peas. (about a cup)

1 cup Edemame (Yum!)

1 can corn kernels, not cooked*

1 can beets, rinsed, rinsed, rinsed*

1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed well*

1 cup celery

1 cup white onion (red onion is more colorful and more flavorful) finely diced

1 cup fresh carrot, shredded

1 cup cucumber (I leave the skin on)

1 cup yellow squash (scoop out seeds cuz they get mushy)

Some minced garlic

4 boiled egg whites

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (watch it!)

Kosher Salt and pepper to taste.

2 parts Mayo and 1 part lite sour cream for binding. Go carefully here, so as not to overwhelm all the other flavors. Don’t need much of either.

* “Fresh” outta the can

I always do most of the cutting and dicing the day before, because a lot of water seeps out of the veggies. Hold in the refrigerator o/nite. About 2 to 3 hours before delivery I drain out all the juice/water and add last minute dicing of bell peppers, celery, eggs, carrots, and cucumbers. Finally, the binding, then let it cool in the refrigerator. I like to serve it in a 9 x 13 ceramic dish that we have. It’s more appealing than a deep plastic bowl. And leave the beets out if you don’t want it to turn pink on you.







You might be interested in these serving options - from a disposable plastic to an ice/bowl version;
     

Layered Taco Dip

Here is a dish that is ever-so-popular at almost any get together... and there is a good reason for that. It tastes good. People like it.

I have made this numerous times and of course - use what you have on hand and improvise if you know your family or friends don't like something. Believe it or not, about 8 years ago I read on a recipe message board, an entry on a mexican layer dip where the poster (in all seriousness) said the recipe sounded great until she got to the end and saw it had black olives in it. She couldn't believe that someone would ruin a perfectly good recipe with black olives and then continued to rant and rave about how 'gross' they were and she insisted because it had black olives on it she REFUSED to make it and was so angry because it sounded so good up until that part.

I can only wonder - did the poor girl not even think to simply leave off the black olives?

For goodness sake... leave out anything you don't like. (I'm sure I didn't have to tell you that though!).

Layered Taco Dip

1 can refried beans
1 can black beans
1 16 oz container of sour cream
1 c chopped lettuce
1/3 c chopped onions - your choice
1/2 to 1 jar of salsa
1 package of three cheese blend
chopped tomato
black and green olives

Spread the beans on a serving platter or covered pizza round and top with rinsed and drained black beans. You can bake at 325 degrees for about 10-15 minutes now - and top with the rest as a cold topping OR finish layering the ingredients (sour cream, onions, lettuce, salsa, cheese, tomato and olives) and heat it all.  Personally I like it cold myself!  Serve with sturdy tortilla chips.

Creamy Mashed Cauliflower (not potatoes!)

Mashed cauliflower

This is a recipe I originally posted back in...  2008.  Wow!  Has it been that long!?  I have been making cauliflower this way since 2002.  It's a nice alternative to starchy potatoes and if you are low carbing, this is a great mashed potato imitation.  I tend to make this when we have a bbq pork loin as I think the bbq sauce and the mashed cauliflower pair well together.

Creamy Mashed Cauliflower

1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon granulated sugar or substitute (option)
salt and pepper to taste

1/8 t garlic powder
1/8 t onion powder

Divide a head of cauliflower into florets and steam or boil until tender - about 25 minutes. Drain the cauliflower. Put the cauliflower in a food processor along with about 1/2 cup of cream so it purees smoothly, add a bit more if you need to. Puree the cauliflower on high speed until smooth, but with some very small pieces of cauliflower remaining in the mix for just a bit of texture.

Pour all of the pureed cauliflower into a medium sauce pan. Add the rest of the cream (as needed to get the consistency of mashed potatoes - don't use all of it if you don't need to), salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder and stir. Cook over medium-low, stirring often, for 5 to 10 minutes, or until thick.
 

Homemade peanut butter from peanut flour (sugar free option)

Homemade peanut butter from peanut flour

 

There are five of us in our family and I'm the only one who isn't a fan of peanut butter.  I like it in or on a few items, my favorite being a smear of peanut butter on a hot, crunchy English Muffin, but in general you won't find me eating a peanut butter sandwich nor snacking on a peanut butter cookie.   So I surprised myself by noticing the top 3 recipes I've wanted to make in the past 2 days all called for peanut butter!   Unfortunately, I hadn't bought peanut butter in the last 2 or 3 grocery trips so we were down to about 1/4 cup of natural peanut butter - which isn't enough to do much with.

That's when two things popped into mind; 

• I have a peanut butter powder in our emergency storage
• I have a pound of peanut butter flour in the pantry

Since the peanut flour was handy I pulled it out.  I originally bought it to bake and cook with when we are following a strict low carb way-of-eating, except I don't like the taste of peanuts in most of our food so I use it very sparingly.  I happened to purchase the Protein Plus brand peanut flour online a few months ago, so that is brand product I used for this 'test'.  I'll link to it below this post, but since I've never tried any other brands, I'm not sure how it compares.

I read the package, which had no instructions for making peanut butter.  No worries, it shouldn't be hard to 'play with my food'.  Originally I figured I'd just add some water but knowing 'real' peanut butter is peanuts, oil, salt and sugar, I re-thought that process.  I didn't want to use oil (no need to add extra fat and calories for no reason) so I opted for milk instead - thinking it would give it a 'creamy' texture.   We don't purchase regular cow's milk, we only use unsweetened, original almond milk so that is what you see in the photo.  I added a bit of sweetener (I chose Stevia in the raw simply because it was handy in little packet forms in the cupboard but could have used Xylitol, Splenda, Erythritol, Swerve, Just Like Sugar, or even real, regular sugar) as well as a little salt.  It was still missing 'something' and it dawned on me;  honey!  And I had sugar free honey in the pantry as well so I used that, but readers could use regular honey of course if they wish!

The end result was near enough to peanut butter that I was happy with it, but needed another opinion.  Just then my 17 year old daughter came into the kitchen.  I asked her to taste "this" with little explanation other than warning her it was sugar free, so it wouldn't be as sweet as sugar-laden comparisons.  She tasted it, looked at me with a 'am I missing something?' look on her face, and said....   "It's peanut butter."    Good!  That's what it is supposed to look, spread and taste like!

Here is what I did;

Homemade Peanut Butter from Peanut Flour

1/2 c peanut flour
1/4 c milk
1-2 t sugar or sugar substitute (taste test to your preference)
1/2 t salt (again, taste test and add more if you wish)
1 1/2 t honey (more or less to taste)

Mix well with a rubber scraper and use as you would peanut butter.   I stored ours in with the 1/4 cup of Natural Peanut Butter we had in the pantry so it is already in a jar labeled 'peanut butter' - which worked perfectly!

Traditional Red Velvet Cake made into a Sugar Free Version!

Sugar Free version of Red Velvet Cake

I had mentioned in my last post I was craving Red Velvet Cake.  Although I wanted the full sugar, full fat version (ha ha) it's rather difficult to eat sugar when you know how bad it really is for you.  At the time I wasn't sure if I would make either the traditional version or the lower carb, sugar free version but in the end I compromised.  I made it sugar free, but I did use flour.  It was a happy medium!

When I had the 2 layers and a batch of sugar free frosting sitting in front of me, I wasn't sure how I was going to frost it, so I just opened the cupboard, chose a pastry bag with a basket weave tip and got what I got.  In the end I did a white basket weave cake with an improvised swirl rope top and smoothed the center to add some bright, colorful raspberries. 

Red Velvet Cake

1/2 c butter
1½ c sugar (I made it sugar free with Just Like Sugar)
2 eggs
2 oz. red food coloring
3 T cocoa
2¼ c all-purpose flour
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
1 t vanilla
1 c buttermilk
1 T vinegar

Grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans. Preheat oven to 350.
In a bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar (sweetener of choice) in a bowl.  Add the eggs. 
Make a paste with the cocoa and food color.
Add the food color paste and vinegar to the butter/sugar mixture.  Stir the vanilla into the buttermilk.  Add the buttermilk alternately with the flour into the sugar/butter.  Mix well.  Divide batter between the two prepared pans. Bake 30 minutes or until done. Remove from oven. Cool on wire rack 10 minutes, then remove cake layers from pan and cool completely.




Frosting

3 T flour
1 c milk
1 c sugar
1 c butter
1 t vanilla

Stir the flour and milk in a saucepan over medium high heat until it thickens and becomes a paste.  Let this cool to room temperature.  Cream sugar, butter and vanilla in a bowl with a mixer.  Add the milk/flour and beat 5-7 minutes until completely smooth.  Use to frost Red Velvet Cake as you wish.

I decided to do a simple basket weave design

Kind of made up a swirl rope design on top and smoothed the center

Topped with raspberries this time - usually I use strawberries - both are pretty~!

You might be interested in items I used to make this recipe: