easy recipe – Page 4

The Best Guacamole

January 29, 2015 by Asharae 3 Comments

Confession time. I’ve been holding onto this recipe for a long time. As in I-took-these-photos-last-February long time. And I offer you my deepest apologies. This guacamole is seriously delicious, and it should have been in your life a long time ago. I usually don’t write my recipes down for things like salsa, tzatziki, and guacamole – but last year I finally wrote this one down to share with all of you. And then I promptly – ahem – misplaced the recipe card. (Okay, maybe I lost it, never to be found again.)

Since we’re nearing the end of football season, and in anticipation of the big game (can I call it the Super Bowl here? Is that allowed?) I figured it was the perfect time to recreate this recipe for you to enjoy!

If you like a little texture to your guacamole, feel free to add diced onions and perhaps don’t mash your avocados all the way. If you’d rather have smooth guacamole, you can mash it to your heart’s content. The jalapeños are also optional in this recipe – if you remove the seeds, they don’t add too much heat, but you’re welcome to leave them out if you’re sensitive to spicy food. I prefer this recipe with lots of white onion for crunch (even though I photographed it with red onion) and a jalapeño or two for added heat. The lime and cilantro help to balance out the jalapeño and onion and add an extra level of deliciousness. Mmmm. So good.

The Best Guacamole

Asharae Kroll

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Servings 6 -8

Ingredients

4 ripe avocados see note below about choosing avocados
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp cayenne
Juice of 1-2 limes
Handful of cilantro leaves chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional about 1/4 c red or white onion, minced
Optional 1 jalapeño, seeds removed, diced

Instructions

Remove avocado from the peel. The best way to do it - carefully using a sharp knife, cut all the way around the avocado, end to end. You'll gently cut around the pit in the middle. An easy way to remove the pit is to carefully, but firmly press a sharp knife into the pit (please be careful - don't want you to lose any fingers in the name of guacamole!) Once the knife blade is pressed into the pit, take the avocado half in your hand and gently twist the avocado one way and the knife the other direction. The pit should release from the avocado. Save one of your avocado pits to use in a minute. Once you've halved all your avocados and removed the pits, use a butter knife to cut the avocado into pieces, being careful not to cut through the skin. Use a spoon to scoop the avocado pieces out.
Combine avocado with the rest of ingredients and mash together until guacamole reaches the consistency you prefer. Enjoy with chips, on tacos, with a quesadilla, or eat straight with a spoon - I won't judge.
Place the avocado pit you saved in with the finished guacamole - this helps keep it from turning brown so quickly. Store in an airtight container and enjoy within 3 days.

Notes

When choosing an avocado at the grocery store, look for ones with firm, smooth skin (no weird hollow spots, squishy spots, or bruises). You can check to see if an avocado is past its prime by removing the small stem - if it's still green underneath, your avocado is still okay. If it has turned brown under the stem, the avocado is past being ripe - don't purchase these. Let the avocados ripen on your counter for a few days if they're particularly firm.

Snowball Cookies

December 23, 2014 by Asharae 2 Comments

Merry Christmas y’all! I thought this week called for sharing a classic Christmas recipe (and story). These cookies were an essential part of Christmas when we were growing up. Every year my parents re-tell the story of little me – probably four years old – stuffing one of these cookies into my face and then trying to talk. Instead of any actual words coming out, I got the giggles because, as everyone knows, you can’t talk with a snowball cookie in your mouth. Giggles devolved into four-year-old me drooling powdered sugar dust down my chin and onto my red Christmas dress. It’s one of those classic family get-together stories that gets retold around this time each year.

These cookies are perfect for making with kids – you can have them roll the cookie dough into balls and even roll them in the confectioner’s sugar once they’ve cooled. I always loved getting my hands dirty in the kitchen and helping my mom roll these cuties in powdered sugar – it always meant we got to “taste-test” a few extras while we made them.

This recipe is for a very large batch of cookies – perfect for taking to a cookie exchange, church gathering, or school event. If you’re looking to just share with your family, the recipe can easily be halved. Cookies do not rise at all, so whatever shape you roll them into is the same shape they’ll be when they come out of the oven. I like snowballs that aren’t completely perfect. Be sure to watch them carefully especially at the end of their baking time. Cookies will just barely turn light brown when they’re finished – I always check the bottoms of the cookies to make sure they’re not burning. Roll in powdered sugar twice and they’re ready to enjoy!

Snowball Cookies

Adapted from Betty Crocker

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Ingredients

2 c of Butter softened (4 Sticks)
1 c Confectioner's sugar
2 tsp Vanilla
4.5 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 c roughly chopped pecans or walnuts optional

Instructions

Sift flour and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
In a separate large bowl, using an electric hand mixer, thoroughly mix together butter, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla until smooth.
Stir in flour and salt mixture until dough forms. Add in nuts if desired.
Chill dough in the fridge for at least an hour.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Roll into 1 inch balls. Bake on an ungreased baking sheet for 10-12 minutes. Watch cookies carefully as they're quick to burn. Cookies are done when they're just slightly turning light brown - you'll think they need more time. Don't be fooled. Check the bottoms before you leave them in longer to be sure you're not burning them.
Remove from the oven, let cool until you can handle them comfortably, then roll in confectioner's sugar.
Let cool completely, then roll in sugar one more time.

Simple Vegetable Soup

November 11, 2014 by Asharae 1 Comment

In an effort to save space, I titled this post “Simple Vegetable Soup.” What I actually scribbled down on the scrap of paper as I made the soup was – “Use-What-You-Have-In-Your-Pantry-Veggie-Soup.” I personally like that name a lot better. It’s a much better description of the story of this recipe.

Tim and I have been traveling a lot lately – between our three week road trip to three different weddings, several other short weekend trips away for weddings here in NC, and a roommate reunion with my college friends, we’ve put a lot of miles on the road lately. This means that our eating has been less than stellar. And the state of our fridge is abysmal at times. For being a go-with-the-flow kinda gal, I really love to have my meals planned out. I like shopping the menu to save money and save space in our fridge too. I’m the kind of person that wakes up thinking about dinner, and I love being able to look forward to something I know will be delicious. I think the last time we had that sort of routine was back in the summer. Or maybe late spring. It’s been a busy one.

All that being said, the other night Tim and I were wrapping up our editing for the day and looking towards dinner. It was one of those stare-at-the-fridge-hoping-something-will-appear nights. I scrounged around a bit and found we had enough ingredients in the fridge and few staples in the pantry to whip up a batch of soup. (Sidenote – I highly recommend keeping cans of beans and veggies, and a couple cartons of vegetable or chicken broth in your pantry for just such an occasion.)

Nights are getting chillier here in NC and the sun is setting unreasonably early, so a bowl of warm soup is the perfect antidote to the dark and cold outside. And I rejoiced at how this seemingly thrown-together soup turned out – it’s hearty and delicious with just the right amount of spice. We served ours with grilled cheese on the side – so good.

This soup has a little kick to it – you’re more than welcome to leave out the jalapeños and can of green chilies if you don’t like spicy food. I recommend adapting this recipe to whatever you have on hand. I’m sure it would be great with a can of corn, some potatoes, perhaps some celery. Feel free to add more vegetable or chicken broth (or water) if you like your soup to have more broth than veggies, just adjust your salt and pepper accordingly.

Simple Vegetable Soup

Asharae Kroll

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Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 40 mins

Total Time 50 mins

Servings 4

Ingredients

1 Tbs butter
1 Tbs olive oil
1 yellow onion diced
4 medium carrots sliced
2 jalapeños diced and seeds removed
1/2 bell pepper diced (use a yellow one if you're looking to make this soup pretty)
3 cloves garlic minced
1 7 oz can green chilies
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes with juice
1 32 oz carton of chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 lb pasta we used elbow pasta
1/4 tsp oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: Garnish with parsley

Instructions

Cook pasta according to package directions, rinse in cold water to stop the cooking. Add 1 Tbs olive oil, stir, and set aside.
While the pasta is cooking, heat oil and butter in a large stock pot over medium heat. Add carrots and peppers, cook about 3 minutes. Add onion, green chilies, and jalapeños, and cook about 5 more minutes or until tender. Add garlic, cook for one minute.
Add broth and tomatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20-30 minutes. Add oregano, and salt and pepper to taste.
Place noodles in bowls, ladle soup over the top, and serve. Garnish with parsley if you wish (or if you have leftovers in your fridge like me!)
I store leftover soup and noodles separately so the noodles don't get too soggy in the fridge.

Flour sack towel from The High Fiber – check out more of her gorgeous work at her Etsy shop!

Caprese Salad with Honey Balsamic Reduction and some Mid-Week Inspiration

September 10, 2014 by Asharae 1 Comment

This week I want to share a few of the things that I’ve been inspired by lately. I hope a few of these words speak to you and perhaps encourage you to read these books or visit these blogs. Enjoy!

Tsh Oxenreider and her family’s year-long round-the-world trip.

I’m completely in awe of this trip Tsh and her husband are about to set out on with their three kids. I haven’t even gotten a chance to read her book Notes From A Blue Bike which I bought back in the spring, but it’s next on the list. I love reading stories of families who are thinking outside the box – the ones who are willing to make certain sacrifices in order to pursue what’s most important to them.

The Oxenreiders are doing something which seems so radical to some, but as Tsh explains it – “Traveling is in our blood.”

I love this quote from her blog. I think it applies to so many things, particularly when it comes to taking a big “next step,” in anything from vocation to marriage to family to going on a year-long trip around the world.

“I think sometimes we feel like there needs to be this extrinsic, sign-from-God sort of reason to do something this big. But really, what if God simply delights in us following our desires? What if we’re partly fulfilling our vocation (in the literal sense of the word) by acting on our deepest passions?”

Yes. This.

These photos of the Ingalls homestead from Joy Prouty.

Go look at them. And read her words. Altogether they make me want to melt in a puddle of happiness. I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when I was a kid – and these photos reminded me of how much they ignited my imagination – perhaps my secret longing to build my own house, grow my own food, and raise chickens and goats has something to do with those books. I even remember a short-lived phase where I insisted on calling my parents Ma and Pa.

I think Little House on the Prairie is moving up on my list of books to re-read. But right now I’m trying to convince Tim we should read The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle aloud – it’s another of my childhood favorites. We started reading it on Sunday, and he was sweet enough to read a few chapters to me before I started snoring on the couch. Sunday afternoons man. They’ll getcha.

Anna Watson Carl and her blog The Yellow Table

I’m a relatively new reader of Anna’s blog, but I’ve been loving everything she writes. She’s a chef and a writer based in NYC and she’s publishing a cookbook this fall. It’s been a lot of fun to follow her journey via Instagram and her blog. She writes with refreshing honesty about combatting the doubts and discouragement and realizing her need for rest, refreshment, and new perspective.

I came across this post of hers recently and it really resonated with me. I too have trouble slowing down and truly resting. Working from home and running my own business is a blessing and a curse in that regard. I’m home all the time, so it seems it would be easy to relax and simply enjoy being home. The flip side of that is that I’m also always at work – there’s always more to be done – more emails to send, more blog posts to write, more photos to edit. And it really never ends. I’ve taken to (almost) never checking my email on the weekends because I simply need a break from it all. I’m slowly letting go of the guilt I can sometimes feel when I let an email go a couple days before I answer it. My heart and my brain simply need to rest sometimes.

This recipe is inspired partly by the plethora of tomatoes we have exploding from our garden right now and partly by our honeymoon over four years ago (no, we didn’t go to Italy, but we did eat at an amazing Italian restaurant in Georgia of all places.) We ordered caprese salad as an appetizer and it maybe changed our lives. Mine at least. The waiter explained that they had created a balsamic vinegar reduction to drizzle over the tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil. All I remember is that that dish forever changed my dislike for tomatoes. The sweet, salt and peppery, tart combination left me yearning to figure out how to recreate that dish. Until now I’d never actually tried. I came across this recipe for a honey balsamic reduction and adapted it into my usual caprese salad ensemble. The result – delicious.

Caprese Salad with Honey Balsamic Reduction

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Ingredients

For the Honey Balsamic Reduction

1/2 c balsamic vinegar
2 Tbs honey

For the salad

3 Medium tomatoes any variety - we used Black Krim, Lemon Boy, and Better Boy tomatoes
Mozzarella buying the pre-sliced rounds makes this easy - I even slice those in half since they're so thick
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh basil chopped

Instructions

For the Honey Balsamic Reduction

Combine the balsamic vinegar and honey in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until syrupy and reduced to 1/3 c, about 10-12 minutes. Let cool to room temperature. Store leftovers in a sealed container in the fridge.

Assemble the salad

Layer the salad in this order - tomato, salt and pepper, mozzarella, honey balsamic reduction, fresh basil.
Enjoy!

Notes

If you're short on time or feeling lazy, you can always skip the honey balsamic reduction and drizzle a few teaspoons of balsamic vinegar over your tomatoes instead.