Burnin’ Down The House

Ingredients:

6 ounces cooked crabmeat, cut into bite-size pieces or 1 can lump crabmeat
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup finely crushed potato chips (bread or cornflake crumbs can also be used)
2 tablespoons shredded coconut, toasted
2 tablespoons finely chopped green onions
2 tablespoons mayonnaise or salad dressing
1 tablespoon snipped parsley
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander ( you can also use Old Bay Seasoning)
2 tablespoons cooking oil

Preparation:

1.Combine egg, 1/4 cup of the crushed potato chips, coconut, green onion, mayonnaise or salad dressing, parsley, and coriander in mixing bowl.
2.Stir in crabmeat; mix well.
3.Shape into 12 patties 1/2 inch.
4.Coat patties with remaining crushed potato chips.
5.Heat oil in large skillet.
6.Add crab patties.
7.Cook 2 to 3 minutes on each side until golden.
8.Serve with Honey Mustard Sauce. ( Also good with Ranch Dressing)
9.Devour
Honey Mustard Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup Miracle Whip or mayo
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons cayenne pepper

Preparation:

Mix together and chill for an hour or so.

Ingredients:

salmon fillets (1/2 pound, a pound, as much as you can stuff down)
plain fine bread crumbs (Wonder brand works well)
fresh cracked black pepper
salt
garlic powder
dried parsley
1 tablespoon softened butter

Preparation:

Preheat your oven to about 350 F. Lay that beautiful fish in a lightly greased baking dish skin down. Liberally salt and pepper the flesh. Mix all of the dry ingredients in a bowl, including the salt and barrel of pepper (maybe that’s just me). Drop in and mash the butter with the mixed dry ingredients until the mixture is slightly crumbly. I like a lot of breading myself, but if you’re not a carb-freak, I’d suggest maybe 1/3 cup bread crumbs, by the way. All other seasonings are to taste. After the topping is all mixed, pile it on the fish and spread evenly. Pop that baby in the over for about 25 minutes per pound (in my oven, yours may actually be clean so the cooking time will vary). This is so good.

Ingredients:
1 avocado
1 lime
salt
pepper
red onion

Preparation:

Scoop out and roughly smash the avocado. Add the finely chopped red onion to taste (I tend to use a lot as long as there won’t be any making out). Add a ton of freshly cracked black pepper and a few dashes of salt. Add the juice of one lime (or a little less depending on size).Stir that ish up nice and well. No tomatoes, no sour cream. Add this to some Baked Lay’s and you’re in business.

Ingredients:
1 small red (or green or yellow, it doesn’t really matter) pepper*
25g Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
Your favourite pasta
Black pepper to taste
A few leaves of fresh basil, torn into little pieces (or 1/2 tsp dried)

*That’s a “bell pepper”, for the Americans.

Preparation:
1. Cut the pepper into quarters (and remove the seeds, etc), and place under a hot grill (Note to Americans: I think you call this a ‘broiler’. It has a heating element at the top and you place the food to be cooked underneath it on a metal tray). Cook until the top is starting to go black and turn over to do the same to the other side.
2. When the pepper is nice and cooked but not too burnt (don’t worry if it does burn, it still tastes good), remove from the grill and slice into diamond shapes roughly an inch long.
3. Cook your favourite pasta (I like stuffed pasta (tortellini), but this would also work well with penne) according to the instructions and drain.
4. Add the olive oil, black pepper, basil, cooked pepper, and grated parmesan to the pasta, and stir over a very low heat until the cheese has melted and everything is heated through.
5. Serve!

Ingredients:

6 cups bing cherries, halved and pitted (or apples or peaches cut into chunks)
1 1/2 cups white flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
5 tablespoons butter
water

(it should be noted that the amounts really depend on what size baking dish you’re using; mine was about 9 in. x 9 in.)

Preparation:

Wash, pit and halve the cherries. It could be really great if you have one of those cherry-pitters. I don’t, so I cut, twisted and then popped out the pits with my fingers. The cherry juice dyed my fingertips to hell, but it was a relaxing time-waster. If you use apples (this would be the best, in my opinion) then wash, peel, deseed and cut into chunks. Do the same for the peaches. After the fruit is cut, combine the flour, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and stir well. Cut up the butter into small pieces and mix it into the dry ingredients with a fork. Mash and stir away into crumbles start to form. After you’ve crumbled all you can crumble, add a bit of water and continue on your crumbling mission. A tablespoon or two should really do it; you don’t want a dough, just more little pieces. Now take your bowl of fruit and add a few spoonfuls of plain flour to it, stiring just enough to lightly coat all of the pieces (this will help make a bit more syrup as the fruit cooks). Now, take a pat of butter and lightly grease up your baking dish. Follow by lightly flouring it. Pour the fruit into the dish evenly, then top with the crumb mixture. Now, I baked this at 350 degrees F for 1 hour 15 minutes, but it should be noted that my oven is 25 years old and the temps may be a bit off. A good rule is to cook it until the fruit is bubbling along the side and a fork inserted in the very middle for a few seconds is seriously hot upon removal.

I made this last night and it was really good. It would have been even better on some vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients:

Dressing-

honey
mustard (yellow or dijon)
salt
pepper
olive oil (optional)

Salad-

lettuce (I like romaine and arugula)
spinach
carrots (thinly sliced)
cherry tomatoes (halved)
cucumbers (thinly sliced)
bell peppers (thinly sliced)
strawberries (wait for it… thinly sliced)
whatever other veggies you fancy

Preparation:

There are no specific amounts here because you could just as easily make this for ten people as you could just for yourself; you know how much salad and dressing you like. I mix the dressing ahead of time. I like a three-to-one ratio of mustard to honey myself. Wisk the honey, mustard, pinch of salt and pinch of pepper together. Now, you don’t have to add any olive oil at all, but I prefer a tiny (!) drizzle of it myself because it binds the dressing to the salad ingredients a bit better. I like to toss the salad with the dressing and let the whole shebang sit in the fridge for about an hour before I eat it to really get the flavors going. I think thin slices of apples added to this would be really good, too, but I’ve yet to try that.

Most salad dressings from the store are rediculously loaded with fat, so I prefer to just make my own. This dressing is fat free if you refrain from adding oil, and even if you do add the oil, it’s just a couple of grams if you use just a touch. Also, strawberries are perfect in this and not weird at all even though most people keep fruit away from their garden salad.

Ingredients:

2 fresh limes
fresh mint (small handful of smallish-sized leaves)
sparkling water (I like San Pellegrino)
ice cub tray

Preparation:
This is a variation on the (very delicious) Mojito either for when one doesn’t want alcohol or simply wants a light (notice the water being used instead of club soda), refreshing summer beverage.

Slice at least one of the limes into small wedges. Carefully rinse off the fresh mint leaves. Fill all of the holes of a standard ice cube tray halfway with water. Place a single mint leave in half of the holes and fill up with water. Now, for the lime slices, do the same, but squeeze lightly into each section to infuse the cube with more of a lime flavor, press the lime slices in there, fill up the rest of the way with water and freeze.

When the ice cubes are done just drop one of two of each flavor in a glass, fill with the sparkling water and garnish with another lime slice or two and/or more mint leaves.

Ingredients:
Eggs
Salsa
Salt & pepper
Optional extras:
Toast

Preparation:
1. Make scrambled eggs however you normally make them. Add a couple of large dollops of your favourite salsa and stir. Serve (on toast, should you so desire) with a sprinkling of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Simple, but well nice.

I made this out of the random ingredients I had left in my cupboard, and surprisingly (to me, anyway), it turned out really nice.

Makes 2 large servings
Ingredients:
150g risotto rice
20g butter
Olive oil
75g cheddar cheese, grated
420g tin of “mixed beans in spicy sauce”*
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 litre of chicken stock (= 4.2 cups / 34 fluid ounces)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp dried parsley
pinch of chilli powder (or more depending on how spicy you want it)
black pepper to taste

(* This is basically a tin of black eye, borlotti, great northern, pinto & flageolet beans, chickpeas and chopped red peppers in a spicy tomato sauce, so anything similar to this would work. You could even just add the beans seperately with some tomato puree and spices. For any British readers, I got the tin of Mixed Beans In Spicy Pepper Sauce from Sainsburys.)

Preparation:
1. Melt the butter in a large pan with a drizzle of olive oil and gently fry the onion, cumin and coriander until the onion is soft. Add the risotto rice and cook for another couple of minutes, stirring to coat the rice with melted butter and olive oil.
2. Gradually add the stock to the risotto stirring well after each addition, adding more after the previous addition has been absorbed. After about 20 minutes all the stock will be absorbed and the rice should be cooked (if not, continue to cook and add plain boiling water).
3. Add the mixed beans, chilli powder, black pepper and parsley, stir well, and heat until the beans are heated through. Add the grated cheese and stir it in.
4. Serve.

Ingredients:

2 packages Jell-O (pineapple, orange and cranberry are all awesome)
1 1/4 cup boiling water
3 medium/smallish-sized oranges

OR

2 packages Jell-O
1 cup boiling water
1 cup cold vodka or grain alcohol
3 medium/smallish-sized oranges

Preperation:

These recipes are devestatingly easy to do, but the end result is really charming (and great for summer parties and cookouts). It should be noted that I didn’t come up with this idea, but I’ll be damned if I remember where I did. Also, I’m really not a Jell-O fan traditionally, but for some reason the end result tastes more like gummi bears than gelatin. Plus, the novelty of eating something that looks like a fruit slice but isn’t is neat.

First, cut each orange is half width-wise through the center of the sections (otherwise you may end up with a hole that would leak the not-yet-formed Jell-O out where the stem used to be) and then scoop out all of the pulp, being careful not to break any of the skin. Use the disgarded fruit for a salad or whatever you usually do with oranges. Now boil the water. If you’re not making the alcoholic version, I suggest using the Jell-O “Jiggler” recipe which eliminates the cold water, thus making the Jell-O firmer, and as a result when you slice the orange halves later, the cut will be much cleaner and presentable. If that’s the case, boil 1 1/4 cups of water per 2 packages of Jell-O. Mix the water and gelatin for a few minutes until the crystals are completely dissolved. Now I suggest setting the orange halves up in something steady like a muffin tin so as to cut down on spillage. Ladle the mixture into each halve up to the very, very top. Place the tin in the fridge and wait three hours. Upon firming, slice the halves as you would any ordinary orange. Arrange on a swell platter and enjoy. They’re cute.

Oh, and if you’re making the alcoholic version, try out some flavored vodka if you’d like. Absolut Citron with cranberry Jell-O would probebly be very nice.

BONUS:

I was thinking that it would be really fun to make one giant Jell-O shot by halving a pineapple, scooping out the fruit and pouring in pineapple gelatin made with Rum– perhaps even Malibu for that great coconut flavor. A halved watermelon filled with watermelon Jell-O and vodka or even grain alcohol would probablty be ace, too.