Egglotes

I'm months late getting this recipe written down, but better late than never, or whatever aphorism you'd like to use to help me feel better. As you may know, I regularly compete in my friend's annual Deviled Egg Pageant (previously, I've made Honey Nut Goat Cheese Deviled Eggs, Taco Deviled Eggs, Roasted Garlic Deviled Eggs, and Dill & Stone Ground Mustard Deviled Eggs). For 2017's competition, I made egglotes (elotes in egg form!) and ended up winning Audience Choice! I think that this recipe was the best of my homemade deviled egg recipes so far, and I'm not sure how I'll top it next year. This recipe makes 24 deviled eggs.

Black Bean and Cheese Enchiladas

Enchiladas are great for entertaining a few folks or for making on a Sunday and wrapping up a few for your lunch over the week. The best thing about this recipe is that you can toss in any extra vegetables or proteins that you have lying around. This recipe makes at least 12 enchiladas.

Red Potato and Roasted Summer Corn Chowder

I love when the weather gets a little crisp and I can huddle around a bowl of soup. I've been dying to make some soup this week, but kept forgetting to buy ingredients, so I went with what I had in my pantry: summer corn and red potatoes. This recipe makes about four servings (about 1 1/2 cups each) and is adapted from Damn Delicious' recipe. So, fire up your slow cooker and get to it!

Corn Salsa

This is a copycat recipe of Chipotle's corn salsa (one of my favorite toppings to get at Chipotle!). Make a bunch of this and keep it on hand for tacos, salads, or even to snack on by itself with some tortilla chips. This recipe makes a small bowl, but feel free to change what you need to make a batch to fit your needs.

Sweet Summer Corn Un-Pudding

For the Fourth this year, I decided to make corn pudding (what's more American than corn, I ask you?). Of course, after I had already cooked it all the way, I realized that I forgot to add milk. So, it came out as more of a sweet corn quiche or something (I'm calling it 'un-pudding'). After tasting it, I decided to still bring it to the party I was headed to, and it was actually a hit. This one was adapted from a recipe over at NPR Food. This recipe makes one 8x8 pan.

Avocado Summer Salad

This is a delicious, protein-rich meal that is easy to pack up for lunch at work, a party side dish, or a snack in the middle of the day. Serve by itself, with tortilla chips, or roll up into a flour tortilla as a taco or burrito.  Feel free to add cayenne pepper, or homemade taco spice into the mixture as well to make it a bit spicier. This recipe is my own, but it does remind me of Sweet Potato & Spice's Cowboy Caviar. (Also, a quick disclaimer: the light in my kitchen went out so the lighting makes the photos look different than what I normally shoot.)

Guest Post: Corn & Potato Chowder

MV Banks made us an amazing Kale, Mushroom & Sage Risotto a couple months ago and now she's back with delicious Corn & Potato Chowder!
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The Ravens won, and life is grand.  However, I'm not sure I could eat one more bite of anything spiced with Old Bay, one more seven-layer-dip, or guacamole.  I love avocados more than life itself, but after a prolonged football season, I need a break.  With the cold weather that's swung back in town, what you need is a good, hearty soup that'll stick to your ribs and take extra miles on the treadmill to burn off.  Enjoy the warmth of standing over a toasty stove while there's more snow forecast for the week.

Sometimes my recipe inspiration comes from Tastespotting, a dangerous but wonderful food porn site.  Other days, I turn to Google and just type in what's going bad soon in my kitchen, allowing the handy "recipe" search to find my dinner for me.  Today, it brought me here, and I edited it ever-so-slightly.  I love soup, because it really can so easily become a haven for all things looking questionable.

 

Vegetarian Chili

Tonight was one of those nights where I have a lot of food in the house, but nothing to really make. So, I took a bunch of leftovers and things in my pantry and decided to make a chili. This is really easy (especially because I used a slow cooker), and because I used a meat substitute, your carnivorous friends will enjoy it as well. I made a small volume of chili, but you can multiply the recipe as much as you want! This recipe makes three to four servings.

Guest Post: Veggie Quesadilla with Baja Sauce

Here's another guest post, this time from the wonderful Ben! There is more information about Ben at the end of this post. Thanks so much for sending this recipe in, Ben. I hope you all enjoy!
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Quesadillas are my comfort food. I love that there are so many possibilities and you can cater to a wide variety of cravings. Having the quesadilla in my corner is very comforting since I can often use extra ingredients from previous recipes. Using as much of the vegetables in the refrigerator's crisper before it spoils for as many meals as possible is both exciting and frugal. So once a week, I can usually clean out my crisper and have a delicious meal in the process.

For this week, I had several bell peppers, an onion, a handful of mushrooms, and some cheese, all of it leftover from a pizza I made. I also had some leftover corn and rice from a meal the other day so I reheated that for a side. The ingredients below made two large quesadillas. 

Feta-Topped Corn on the Cob

This is the easiest thing I've made in a long time, with a lot of flavor payout. I hear that there is a restaurant in Baltimore (Ryleigh's Oyster Bar) that offers feta-topped corn on the cob and, while I haven't tried it there, they did give me the idea. This can definitely be done on a grill, but while I am living sans grill, the oven worked amazingly, and keeping the husks on provides very tender and juicy corn.

Prep Time: 2-3 minutes
Cook Time: 25-30 minutes

Pair with: a light Rosé wine, or a wheat beer (like Boulevard Wheat)

Ingredients
One (1) medium ear of corn
One (1) tablespoon of feta cheese
Butter for topping
Directions
Preheat oven to 350F.
While keeping the husks on, place corn on a baking pan.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, depending on your oven.
Remove from stove and, while being careful (it'll be hot!), remove husks and silk. It should peel away really easily.
Top with butter and let melt.
While butter is melting, sprinkle feta on top of corn. It will lightly melt.
Eat as soon as it's cool enough!

Santa Fe Salad Sandwich

To those in the DC region, you know what I mean when I say that Chop't is probably the #1 thing I miss about living in the District. And if you've never tried Chop't before (or are a displaced Chop't lover like me), this recipe is for you.  The best part of that restaurant is that they take all of your salad ingredients, toss them together and then literally chop them up with a mezzaluna chopper until it is shredded. While I don't have a mezzaluna knife (yet!), I do always ensure that my homemade salad sandwiches are pretty finely chopped.

My favorite thing on the Chop't menu is the Santa Fe salad sandwich with the Tex-Mex ranch. The salad is not difficult to replicate, but I kept running into an issue with the dressing because it's not sold in the stores. I found a vague recipe online, tweaked it and now make the dressing myself. I think you'll enjoy it!

Prep Time: 20-30 minutes
Cook Time: none

Ingredients
for salad sandwich
Two (2) cups of Romaine lettuce
1/2 cup of tomato, chopped -- I have had the most luck with cherry tomatoes
One (1) avocado, sliced into small cubes
1/4 cup of sweet corn kernels
1/4 cup of black beans
1/4 cup of crispy onions
1/4 cup of pepper jack cheese, cubed
Two fajita tortillas
for Tex-Mex ranch dressing
Two (2) tablespoons of ranch dressing
One (1) teaspoon of lime juice
Two (2) teaspoons of paprika
Two (2) teaspoons of cumin
Directions

Once you've prepped everything (pretty much just chopping all of the salad ingredients up), mix them gently.
Warm tortillas on stovetop.
While you are warming the tortillas, mix all of the ingredients for the dressing together in a separate bowl. Taste as you go, so you can get the flavor to exactly how you'd like it.
Lightly toss dressing into the salad mix.
Spoon salad into tortilla and wrap like a burrito.
Enjoy!