Football Season! (Tailgating Snacks)

It doesn’t go unnoticed to those close to us that James and I are huge Virginia Tech Hokie fans. We’re both Hokies ourselves, though we didn’t know each other while we were in school there (even though we spent two years on the campus at the same time and are almost certain we brushed into each other at least once). We consider ourselves diehard Hokies representing all that is VT no matter what time of year it is, but during the fall it’s as if nothing else really matters quite as much as Hokie football (regardless of how great or heartbreaking of a season we may be having). We also of course love to cook, so we get REALLY excited to combine those two things when we have the chance. We made these tasty tailgating snacks shown above for the season opening game that we watched at our friends/neighbors’ house (also Hokies). All of the recipes for these came out of the “Taste of Virginia Tech” cookbook – an excellent/nostalgic/much-used gift given to us that contains recipes from various on and off campus food establishments and some VT tailgaters’ favorites. And then there’s the bourbon because well, we love ourselves some bourbon, especially at this time of year.

So anyways….. what we made! We made some garlic breaded chicken bites (with panko bread crumbs and fresh chopped garlic, baked in the oven), some Parmesan spinach artichoke dip that we baked as well, and then some pigs wrapped in cheesy jalepeno blankets. These little piggies may have been my favorite with the fresh diced jalepeno and shredded cheddar combo (and rolling them in halved crescent rolls makes them SO much easier). I also made a homemade tangy mustard sauce for dipping at the last minute which proved to be quite the perfect companion to both the pigs & chicken.

Our friends made some other delicious tailgating dishes (they have the same cookbook!) like a very festive macaroni salad incorporating pickle juice (YUM) and pulled pork shoulder that they smoked all day before kickoff (who said adult tailgating isn’t as fun and DELICIOUS). Look out for the next post to see what we made with some of the leftover pork we went home with (hint: it’s a morning meal). And you’re also sure to find more of our game day recipe favorites as this fall (Hokie) season rolls on, so stay tuned! And of course, GO HOKIES!

Broccoli & Shrimp over Orzo

Disclaimer: I was clearly off my game the day I posted this… that’s BOW TIE PASTA that those shrimpies & broccoli florets are over! Goodness gracious… please forgive. In any sense, I do stand by what I wrote about the versatility and wonderfulness of orzo, so I’ve decided not to change the original post below. Just know that this particular dish was served with bow tie (just as easy and delicious). Cheers!

Orzo is one of those wonderful items that can pretty much go with anything (SOMETHING) that you’ve got on hand. For that reason we always have a box of it on our shelf. It cooks quick, and serves as a great base for veggies, beans, meats, seafood, sauces, spices, you get it. This particular go-round we had some broccoli and yellow cherry tomatoes that we needed to use before they went bad, so we threw them over the cooked orzo with some shrimp and grated Parmesan. Easy, quick, delicious, and a great way to get those vitamins in too. Orzo is also a great thing to use for flavor experimentation. It’s inexpensive and a little goes a long ways, so you can cook small portions and play with the ingredient and spice combinations you add to it.

Mexican Street Corn

I had my first experience with Mexican street corn at a food festival here in town a couple years back, and every now and then I have flashbacks of its flavor explosion and dripping chipotle sauce as I ate it with one hand. Well, finally I decided it was time to attempt to make it myself and while it was a lot less saucy, it still packed a big bang of flavor. I made a sauce of mayo (weird yes, but such a great sauce/spread base), hot sauce and some spices, spread that on the corn, then barely heated them on the stove. Sprinkle the warm cobs with a little cheese and cilantro, serve with your favorite Mexican dish (one of ours being turkey tacos – with a little homemade salsa verde) and you’ve got yourself a Mexican fiesta of flavor!

Toasted Chickpeas

I saw this recipe a while ago and stored it in the back of my mind for when I needed something easy and different to snack on. This recipe really is super easy…. just toss some chickpeas (I used dry that were soaked overnight) with a little olive oil and any spices that you like then bake them on a cookie sheet for about 40 minutes, giving them a nice shake a couple times throughout. That’s it! And they came out quite tasty too. I made two different kinds here… one with an Asian flare (toasted sesame oil, a little ground oriental mustard, and sesame seeds) and one with a Mexican flare (cayenne, chili powder, cumin, and cilantro). Easy (chick)peazy snack that’s packed with protein and kickin with flavor.

Tomato Pie

This is hands down one of our favorite summer dishes. We look forward to it and lust after it all winter and spring long. It’s so delicious that it’s like our reward for making it through the doldrums of winter. Yes, we could certainly gather these ingredients and making it any time we wanted, but it would be cheating ourselves. There is just nothing else that compares to the sweet ripe taste of a fresh tomato (especially if it’s grown by you or someone you know) in the summertime. We are fortunate enough to get fresh off the vine tomatoes from my grandfather’s garden throughout the summer, so we take full advantage of all of the wonderful summer dishes and recipes they lend themselves to. Tomato pie being one of the best.

It sounds a bit strange… do you eat it hot? Is it saucy? Is it time consuming like those crazy apple pies with the lattice top can be? Well folks, luckily this is one of the easiest dishes in the book (on the blog). I will admit that we cut a corner and buy an already prepared, frozen pie crust – but if you made a homemade one I bet it would blow our version out of the water. So we baked the crust for about 10 minutes after pricking it just to let it turn golden. Then it’s just a matter of layering. We start with a layer of spinach (helps soak up some of the juice, minimizing soggyness), then a thin layer of sliced red onion, fresh garlic and basil, and then layers upon layers (until you reach the top of the crust) of sliced tomatoes. We’ve learned over time that the trick is to let the sliced tomatoes sit in a colander with a little salt sprinkled on them for about 10 minutes to release some of their moisture. Then pat them dry with a paper towel. Of course the pie was still delicious before this trick dawned on us, just a bit more messy.

The best part of the pie (after the tomatoes) is the topping. It’s a mixture of shredded parmesan, cheddar, and mozzarella with enough mayo to make it spreadable. Then you just smear that over the top – and if you REALLY want to go nuts, add a little crumbled bacon (wow), plus a little oregano and basil. Bake it for about 20-30 minutes or until the cheese is golden and bubbly, and then get ready to eat one of the best summer meals of your life.

Egg Salad, Veggie Dip, & Fresh Lemonade

This meal spawned from a conversation we had in the car together after a week of vacation including 2 weddings in 2 different cities, lots of eating out, and lots of caution being thrown to the wind when choosing the best-sounding option while eating out. We were both craving something fresh, simple, and homemade, and each had something very particular in mind. We welcomed ourselves home with a trip to the grocery store to stock up on all the regulars, as well as some other items to make this particular meal happen. We grabbed a bag of lemons – which James juiced and mixed with a simple syrup he made to concoct some extremely refreshing homemade lemonade. We grabbed just about every vegetable you can imagine eating raw, as well as the fixins for some homemade dill veggie dip that I was seriously craving. Lastly, James made a really light, herby egg salad that we topped with a little spinach and sliced tomato. This definitely satisfied our desires and was a great welcome home, you can feel good about your food choices again, meal after a wonderful vacation away.

Lemonade Popsicles with Fresh Fruit Inside

I think the title says it all for this one. We made homemade lemonade, using fresh lemons, our juicer, and a simple syrup James whipped up out of some sugar and water. Then we had the brilliant idea to use our fun popsicle sticks to make homemade lemonade popsicles. Then we took it another step further and thought “Why not throw in some blueberries and fresh cut strawberries too?!” So there you have it… the evolution of our (wonderfully fresh, delicious, sweet, summery) popsicles. We both agreed the one with strawberries was best.

Fresh from the Market: Summer Staples

 

Summer calls for a lot of things… grilling, late nights outside, hats and sunglasses, beer in a coozie on the water, and of course really great fresh veggies and fruits. Almost everything we love is in season in the summer, making it easy for us to create something delicious any day. And then some days we don’t really feel like being creative in the kitchen, so we’ll default to something easy. Luckily easy doesn’t have to mean un-tasty or unhealthy, especially in the summer. A lot of times we’ll just throw a bunch of whatever veggies we have at the time in a skillet with a little olive oil and spices, then have a couple slices of a baguette with it and call it a day. Fortunately we have some really great bakeries here that sell their fresh baked bread within walking distance from our home.

We wrapped up a great weekend visiting James’ family in NC by stopping by the (awesomely huge) farmer’s market in their town to pick up some good eats to bring home. We made all sorts of good stuff with the above, so look out for things like mexican street corn, a kickin’ salsa verde, watermelon popsicles, and pickles in the upcoming posts.

We also just ate a ton of this stuff as-is. The peaches were amazing… they tasted like biting into a ray of summer sunshine if you can imagine what that’s like. The cantaloupe and watermelon were just as juicy and summery. We roasted the okra with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and it was great. And finally, the tomatoes. There’s something so unique and fulfilling about the smell and taste of a tomato, especially when it’s picked right off the vine. They remind me of our gardens growing up and eating them right there while we picked them. Luckily my grandfather still has a garden at his house so we still get those fresh-as-can-be tomatoes from him each summer – what would we do without him!

So for this meal, we sliced up a couple tomatoes, a ball of mozzarella, and topped with some fresh picked basil from our plant at home. We roasted the elephant garlic (a much milder flavor than regular) in a pan with a little salt, pepper, and olive oil for about 40 minutes… this makes it easy to spread. We also ate the baguette we purchased from the NC market with a little olive oil and the roasted garlic. The only thing we did actually cook for this meal was the tiny bowl of squash and zucchini – it was leftover in our fridge so we sauteed it up and threw it on the side… a perfect addition to this easy summer meal!

Lemony Garlicy Fava Bean Salad

 

So I had seen recipes involving fava beans around for a while, but for some reason had never really bothered to try any of them…… until now. The gigantic beans caught our eye one afternoon at our local market that sells all sorts of beans and grains by bulk, so we decided to fill a container with some and give them a shot. After soaking them for a few hours, we boiled them until they became tender, then mixed them in a bean-salad fashion with artichoke hearts, onion, chickpeas, garlic, parsley, lemon juice, and a little salt and pepper.

The salad turned out pretty tasty and made a great side with just about anything we ate for the next few days (including this local chicken that we baked with some garlic, onion, and savory spices) – as well as worked as a main dish on its own for lunches. We’d probably make this dish again, likely in the summer, but I’d like to try it with other mix-ins and spices to find what flavor works best with these big beans.

Harissa

James and I discovered the amazingness that is harissa while in NYC a couple months ago. We were walking down this super cute, surprisingly quaint street in SoHo when we drawn into this little bakery with delicious looking hot buns in the window. (Side note: look out for us attempting to make those at some point for sure!) Anyways, the guy at the counter had a couple samples of different types of harissa that we tried – and LOVED. Turns out it’s super easy to make, and probably one of the most flavorful, versatile spreads that exists.

There’s many ways you can make harissa using different ingredients to evoke different tastes. For the one we made, we used dried Thai chili peppers, roasted red bell peppers, and a couple other random peppers we picked up and dried over a week or two (you can really use just about any type of hot pepper – dried), cumin, coriander, garlic, dried mint, cilantro, and olive oil. You just grind all of those up together in a food processor and that’s literally it. Store it in a jar in the fridge making sure it’s always got a good layer of olive oil on top so it doesn’t go rancid, then use it on really anything at all that you want. We ate it on crackers, on sandwiches, on scrambled eggs, and in this particular meal – on  some chicken that James sautéed in a skillet. It was amazing. So amazing that we added even more on top when we ate it. This will definitely be a staple in our fridge from now on. And we look forward to trying different variations of it in the future!