More salad!

Roasted corn, tomato, avocado, cilantro and shrimp salad. YUM!

This is so easy too. I mean, the name of the salad is the ingredients, so it's pretty easy to figure out. Just mix ever thing together!
But I'll walk you through, since that's what I like doing.

I do have to say though, if you have been following me, I hope you are starting to realize that cooking really is very easy. I mean, half the things on here (like all these salads) are really just putting things together. There's actually not a lot of "cooking" involved!
Anyways, back to this salad.
I cheated and bought a frozen bag of cooked shrimp because they were on sale, but if you want to cook your own shrimp, I highly recommend it.
I did, however, roast my own corn on my new Griddler. After it was nice and charred, I cut it off the cob.

   

  

Next, chop the tomatoes, a few shallots (you can also use red onion), avocado and cilantro.

And as you chop it all, add it to a salad bowl.

   

Then I cut the shrimp into smaller pieces, added them to the bowl, then tossed in the corn. 

   

Next, I added a couple spoonfuls of chipotle pepper 'juice". This stuff comes in a can and is super hot (well, to me anyways), so I only use a little. But you can use more if you like the taste. Either way, it adds a nice smokey, spicy flavor to the salad, so I highly recommend trying it out.

Then I added a bit of the lime vinaigrette that I made in my last post, and that was it!

Enjoy, and see you soon!



BEETS!

I don't know about you, but I LOVE BEETS! I also love salad, so I figured why not combine the two and make a beet salad!

The cast of characters: Beets (I couldn't find any golden beets, so I used all purple ones), goat cheese feta (my new favorite!), grilled chicken, and mixed field greens. I prefer arugula, but the grocery store was all out, so I got a garden mix.
I also made a vinaigrette, which involved red wine vinegar, white vinegar, vegetable oil, fresh ground salt & pepper, and fresh squeezed lime juice.
Let's begin.

First, boil the beets. You can also steam or oven roast them, I just didn't want to heat up the house or wait that long, so I boiled them. This took about an hour. You'll know they are done when you stab them with a fork and it comes out without sticking (similar to what you do when you test a boiled potato).

When the beets are done, drain them and let them cool off. Once they are cool enough to hold, you'll need to peel them. This is super easy, because the skin will peel right off just by rubbing it off with your hands. I recommend doing this under running water though, solely for the purpose of avoiding getting hot pink hands (trust me, these things will stain your skin and it could last a few days). You can also wear gloves if you like, but since I hate wearing gloves, I chose the running water option.

Then, you just need to dry them off (use paper towels to avoid staining your kitchen towels), cut them into 1/2" sized pieces, and put them in a salad bowl.



Ok, I didn't photograph the next steps, because I like to think we all know how to grill chicken, so the rest of the salad is just assembly. Beets, cubed chicken and crumbled goat cheese feta over a bed of salad greens.

Next up: the vinaigrette.

Like I said before, this recipe takes oil, red wine vinegar, white vinegar, salt, pepper and lime juice. Mix to taste. Yes, it's that simple. Personally, I like it a little more vinegar-y, so I add more, but this is a totally personal thing. There are no rules here.

   

That's it! just dress it and enjoy.
So easy, yet so delicious!

Guaca-more please!

Last weekend I went down to the Cape with a few girlfriends, just to get away and relax for a few days. And it was wonderful!
Anyways, on Saturday we got some groceries, and I decided I would make some lunch and snacks. I mean, we were staying in a huge house with a huge kitchen, so of course I had to do some cooking!!!
I decided to just make a big chicken Caesar salad, and some fresh salsa and guacamole. I wasn't going to post these, since they are really simple, but the girls told me I should, so here goes.

   

  

Oh, and thank you to the Amazing sunlight for providing the perfect lighting for my pictures!! These are waaaay better than the ones I take in my kitchen that has no natural light...

OK- Caesar salad. I can't lie, I use a brand called et tu Caesar that is totally amazing! Trust me, this is by far the best packaged Caesar salad mix you will ever have. It's great with steak tips, salmon, or shrimp too. But I kept it simple this time and just made chicken.
So- chop some lettuce, mix in all the contents of the salad kit (dressing, Parmesan, bacon bits and croutons) then add the meat. Yes, its that simple!

   

Next up: Salsa.

Plum and vine tomatoes, red onion, cilantro, lime juice, salt, pepper and garlic.

Chop, mix, flavor to taste, and you're done. Yes, this is that simple too!

   

  

     

  

   

  

And, last but not least.... guacamole.

This is Suuuuper easy, especially if you already made the salsa, because all I do is mash up some ripe avocados (make sure they are really ripe so they are easy to mash), and add a few spoonfuls of the salsa.

(sorry, I forgot to snap a photo of the mashing, but I think you can figure it out!) :)

And there you have it!

Chicken Caesar salad, and salsa & guacamole (with chips of course!).

Enjoy!

Grillin'

If you weren't already aware, I live in an apartment, and I am not allowed to have a grill. Sad, I know. So I have to get creative when I want to grill food. Most of the time I use my cast iron grill pan, but that isn't always the best option. And since my oven kind of stinks, I can't really broil either. So my options have been pretty limited.
Until now....
I finally, after a couple years of pining over it, got myself the Cuisinart Griddler. And I could not be any happier about it!

The first weekend I had this I grilled/griddled everything I ate!
Here's the first dish I made- grilled scallops with zucchini and summer squash. YUM!

And for those of you who aren't "grillers", this is a Super Easy meal! It all takes about the same time to cook, so I jut threw it all on at the same time, waited until they were done, and that was it! So easy!!!!

Stay tuned for more grilling!
:)