BBQ Baked Beans – Electric Pressure Cooker

All right all you Instant Pot and Electric Pressure Cooker people. This one is for you. A summer BBQ staple, a picnic must, sure you can buy them in a can for $3-4 each, reheat and go. They are okay, in fact, they are pretty good. You can and should make them yourself though, an entirely different experience, they are amazing. I’m talking of course about BBQ Baked Beans! With the pressure cooker, it’s honestly just silly to buy them, check out how simple this is.

Mexican Street Corn Deviled Eggs

I LOVE deviled eggs. The highlight of any potluck, picnic, holiday appetizer spread are the deviled eggs. My wife and I went to an upscale local restaurant a while back called Cellar Cat and they had a fancy deviled egg appetizer option (which we ordered and was amazing). All that said, I have probably 25 recipes for them all saved up…and I never make them. I have no idea why, they aren’t difficult, it isn’t expensive, I just don’t know.

I decided to get off my culinary rear end for Easter and made these eggs, inspired by Mexican street corn (Elotes). All the flavors and textures work so well as a deviled egg, I had to share. I hope you try it and enjoy!

Gruyere, Mushroom & Caramelized Onion Puff Pastry Tart

This year for Thanksgiving, I delegated more than usual. Typically I love to do most of the cooking but that said, we had two households of grandparents joining us and they all like to contribute too.

I smoked a turkey breast outside, blue cheese mashed potatoes and pretty much that was going to be it. Feeling restless that that was all I was going to do, I needed to find an appetizer, something interesting that I hadn’t done before but also, something that wasn’t going to take a ton of time or space in the oven.

Through searching around, I found something very similar to this puff pastry tart. It was super easy, the prep being able to be done the day before (important in holiday cooking land) and only take a total of about 25 minutes the next day.

Hope you enjoy my version. I can see this being adapted a thousand different ways so this might just be my master recipe that I’ll alter just about every time I make them from now on.

Jeff’s Curry Bacon Wrapped Shrimp

Okay…I know…You don’t care about the recipe, you just want to eat about 40 of these right now don’t you!  When our friend Jeff had us over for a BBQ and this was the smell from the grill, I know that’s what I was thinking.  Of course, about 5 minutes later, I knew that I NEEDED this recipe.  They are really pretty easy (a little time consuming but not difficult) and couldn’t be tastier.  Can’t imagine why it’s taken me so long to post this one.  Enjoy!

Homemade Shrimp Scampi

Here’s one of those things that we typically only order when we’re out to eat but there’s no reason not to make it at home, it’s really quite easy!

Golden Fried Artichokes

This one requires some explanation.  When I was a child growing up in California, my grandmother lived at the beach near Aptos (down the road from Santa Cruz if you’re not familiar with the area).  This is prime agricultural area, Watsonville for strawberries and beans, berries, etc.  Well down the road a few miles is a town called Castroville.  Castroville is known for basically one thing, they are the world capital for growing artichokes.

As a special treat, we’d go to Castroville with grandma once per year in the peak of the harvest and visit the reastaurant “The Giant Artichoke”.  It has the distinction of having a giant 25 ft. concrete artichoke outside the building and was a magnet for kids like me.  The restaurant is still there today, still serving those beautiful little veggies in any number of ways.  I came across this fried artichoke recipe today and had to share as my grandmother died this year at the age of 91.  It is and will be one of my fondest memories of her to make this trip with my children this summer.

Enjoy the recipe.

Cocktail Meatballs

I have a weakness for yummy ground beef meatballs.  This is a fairly easy recipe and uses commonly held ingredients so I hope you’ll try and enjoy it as well.

Dang Cold Asian Noodle Salad – Updated

I know, goofy title but this is an old recipe from a Guy Fieri TV show that is long gone and I’ve adjusted some things to my taste. It’s a great, easy salad to put together and it goes with any number of other dishes. We have a group that is having a sushi party tonight and it aught to be a great match. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Funny, I just noticed that I originally posted this recipe exactly 5 years ago today (1/31/15 as of update), that’s some weird voodoo stuff right there!

Creamy Seven Onion Soup

I’ve sworn for over a year that I wasn’t going to post this recipe as it’s my secret weapon!  Everyone loves this soup, even my kids who will swear to you that all things onion are EVIL.  It’s really quite easy but elegant.  The silky texture and sweetness from the variety of onions will virtually ensure no leftovers.  I have doubled the recipe in the past with the same great results.

Baked Dungeness Crab Dip

Ever think to yourself…What on earth am I going to bring to the party tomorrow?  Even I struggle with that decision from time to time.  It will vary based on the audience, season, what’s fresh in the store, etc.  That being said, this is a no-lose option, it’s been a hit.