This Corn Salad with Chile and Lime from the Smitten Kitchen blog is Deb’s version of esquites, which are basically deconstructed elotes. Delicious no matter the format, if you ask me. I wanted to try these as a side dish for taco or quesadilla night.
The only change I made from Deb’s version was that I microwaved the corn instead of grilling or broiling it, so we didn’t get the charred element.
We don’t keep Tiajin around, so I used chile powder and salt, and I definitely should have added a bit more lime. I actually think that using greek yogurt instead of sour cream would add an additional element of tang that would do well here, so I’ll try that if I make these again. Overall it was delicious, but it felt very cheesy and didn’t quite hit the mark for me as a veggie side, especially up against a meaty quesadilla.
I had made this Zucchini Butter Spaghetti from the Smitten Kitchen blog last year, and I remember having mixed feelings about it. But I thought I’d try it again and see what I thought on a second round.
This is very easy to make; you just grate a couple of zucchini and then saute that in butter until it’s spreadable (or approaching spreadable). Most of the work is in tossing the pasta with the sauce so it is at least somewhat mixed together. You do need to keep an eye on the zucchini as it cooks though, and adjust your heat as needed to make sure it isn’t burning or picking up too much color.
If you’re a little unsure about the amount of butter, you could substitute some of it for olive oil, but I suspect the dish would lose something. You might be better off making it as written and treating it as a side dish rather than your main.
The flavor here is mild but very delicious, this dish really plays up the sweetness of summer squash. I neglected to plan a protein so this was all we had for dinner, and we got two servings out of it. I think if I’d made some shrimp or something on the side we probably would have gotten two dinner servings and enough for a smallish lunch.
We don’t normally make pancakes or anything like that on weekend mornings, but we had some buttermilk to use up and my hubby immediately suggested pancakes. I decided it was a good opportunity to try the Tall, Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes from the Smitten Kitchen blog.
I was able to throw together the batter while barely awake, which is exactly what I’m looking for first thing in the morning. I made a full batch because I knew if we didn’t eat them all (we did) I’d eat them as a snack later in the day.
My hubby actually cooked these off. He used our larger cast iron pan, over the 5th burner on our stove, which is a long oval one. Our cast iron isn’t particularly well seasoned, but he threw some butter in the pan and didn’t seem to have any trouble.
We did not put them in the oven as they came off the pan, instead they went straight onto a serving platter. We ate them with fresh strawberries and maple syrup, and they were delicious. Fluffy as promised, with a light texture.
The (last two) Tall, Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes from the Smitten Kitchen blog. Including the only one that was slightly overdone.
I think the Sizzling Chicken Fajitas (from the Smitten Kitchen blog) is one of those recipes that ended up on my list because Deb shared it on social. Or maybe because a friend mentioned making fajitas for dinner one night. Either way, I’m glad they were on the list.
At a glance, this is one of those recipes that seems really involved. And it certainly could be! There are a lot of accompaniments you could make yourself. I did these on easy mode, and only made the pico and the fajitas themselves. Everything else was store bought, except the pickled red onions which we always have in the fridge.
I prepped the pico and the chicken the day before so they could sit overnight in the fridge, which made this a very weeknight-friendly meal. I did follow Deb’s instruction at the top to set everything out before you start cooking, which means I didn’t have to scramble to do that as the cooking was wrapping up.
I made the slacker pico that Deb includes in the recipe. Basically I diced tomatoes until I had the volume I wanted, and then eyeballed minced onion, jalapeno, and cilantro. Some salt and juice of half a lime and that was done. The amount of marinade the recipe makes for the amount of chicken is pretty small, so if you have more chicken you might want to bump it up a bit, or at least add a little more of the spices. It didn’t look like it was going to make chicken that was particularly flavorful, but I trusted the process and in the end it was just right.
I used three small/medium bell peppers from the farmer’s market (yellow, orange, and purple), and most of one large white onion (minus what went in the pico). That made for a fairly veggie-forward fajita mix, which is what I wanted.
In addition to the pico, I served this with black beans, shredded taco mix cheese, cotija, guac, pickled jalapenos, and pickled red onions. (The only thing on that list that I had to buy was the guac, the rest was all stuff we already had on hand. ) We thought the black beans were extraneous, though if you’re trying to feed four you do probably want them. You can definitely simplify here, and just do two or three of your favorite fajita toppings, buy the pre-made pico (the one from our local organic market is pretty good), or whatever else makes it easy to get on the table.
I did not bring my cast iron pan to the table for the full fajita experience because our taco night table tends to be pretty crowded and I didn’t want one of us to get burned.
Sometimes I pull out a sectioned serving dish for the accompaniments, but I knew it wouldn’t fit everything.
The only slight bump in the road that I ran into was that after a few minutes in the pan, my chicken had thrown off a lot of liquid. Normally I’d just let it cook down, but I was hungry and decided to (very, very carefully) spoon some off. As a result my chicken didn’t really brown, but it did pick up some fond from the peppers and onions and a lot of nice color.
We really enjoyed these. Usually when I make tacos I’m making a shredded or crumbly filling, like chicken tinga or something with chorizo. Or we’re using leftover roasted chicken. This was a nice change of pace, and I really liked the peppers and onions. The two types of cheese were definitely overkill but we had them both so I figured why not put them out.
The Sizzling Chicken Fajitas from the Smitten Kitchen blog, somewhat obscured by pico de gallo and pickled red onions.
This recipe for Peach Blueberry Cobbler came up as I was casting about looking for ways to use up buttermilk. It doesn’t use much buttermilk but that didn’t seem like a good enough reason to skip it!
I halved the recipe, mostly because I only had a half-pint of blueberries. This also meant it would fit into my ramekins, which is a great way for the two of us to portion out baked desserts like this.
This is very simple to pull together, and if you’re making it in a baking pan, you only dirty one bowl. The only change I made was to use lime juice instead of lemon, since I didn’t have a lemon. To fill the ramekins, I counted the peach slices but just let the blueberries go wherever they wanted. And I tried to get a roughly even amount of batter on top of each.
These were pretty perfect in 25 minutes in my oven (on top of a quarter sheet pan for ease moving them around). The fruit turned out the slightest bit too sweet, so if I make these again I might try dialing back the sugar a bit.
I made them in the afternoon, so the first night we ate them room temperature, and the second night we warmed them up in the microwave. Delicious either way!
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