Texas Treats: Cowboy Crunch

Happy July 1st friends!

July tends to be one of my favorite summer months. Why? Because July means travel, juicy watermelon, and days spent by the pool! This Thursday, July 4th, we will get to celebrate the freedoms we've been afforded from America's battle for independence, and our ongoing battle to keep these freedoms. Because of this, I'd like to say a special thanks to all of our military, government leaders, teachers, public service workers and fellow countrymen for their services to our great nation.

This Independence Day, I'll be traveling to Waco, TX to celebrate the good old US of A with my college buddies and Delta Sigma Pi fraternity brothers. The following week, I will be taking a few days off from my fabulous internship at RankHammer to visit my family in Western Pennsylvania.



 



With all this travelling, it's hard to avoid gas stations and airport fast-food lines; which is a total bummer because that stuff is unhealthy and not to mention EXPENSIVE! When I was a kid, my mom always tried to bring food from home to avoid all the junk; delicious homemade things like chex mix, tuna salad, fruit salad etc. So I'm excited to share one of our family favorites with you: Cowboy Crunch.

Cowboy Crunch is a yummy, healthy and easy-to-make alternative to high-fat, overpriced convenience store picks. It's great for travelling, school lunches, or just anytime that you're craving something with a little tang and crunch! Plus, you probably have most of the ingredients in your pantry!

Plus Plus, my grandma invented it, so you know it's packed with love and wisdom and all the other great things grandmas give us.

Cowboy Crunch

Ingredients:

1 bag of oyster crackers (or other small, plain cracker)
1 bag of pretzels (sticks or twists, doesn't matter)
1 packet of dry ranch dressing seasoning
1 tsp lemon pepper seasoning
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp dried dill
1/2 cup olive oil
NOTE: do not add salt. There is plenty in your ranch seasoning mix!

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 275 degrees. Combine all the dry ingredients in a small bowl and mix until well incorporated. In a separate large bowl, dump in your pretzels and crackers. Next add your combined seasonings and the oil (if you think it looks too dry, add more oil...but trust me, a little goes a loooong way). Now its time to get your hands dirty. Mix everything together with your hands until all of the pretzels and crackers are well coated with oil and seasoning. Now dump everything into a big pan (I used a 13x9 in glass pan).

Bake in the oven for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Let cool, then store in a gallon size Ziploc bag for up to 3 weeks.

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That's all folks. One of the easiest and tastiest trail mixes you'll ever make, and your family will love it! For questions, comments, and concerns, email me at keencuisine@gmail.com, or leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

 

 

Bon Appetit,

 

KK

Friday Feast: Oven Roasted Corn on the Cob

TGIF Friends!

I don't know about y'all, but the Texas weather seems to be a little more bipolar than usual lately. I never know if it's gonna be 95 degrees and swampy, or pouring rain and in the 60s with the tornado sirens blaring; it seems like lately we've been experiencing both extremes in the same day. This weather is giving me whiplash; and it certainly makes it difficult to plan what I'm having for dinner.

To grill, or not to grill? That is the question, y'all. 

My family absolutely loves to grill out: chicken, fish, pork, steak, veggies, fruits, breads. You name it, we've probably put it on the grill and served it up hot and sizzling; but constant shifts in weather make it difficult to plan ahead for this kind of cooking. You can't very well cook out when it's hailing and raining so hard that your whole patio is flooded; on the flip side, it get's so hot and dry in Texas that the city mandates "burn bans" and it is downright illegal to light up a grill for fear of setting your whole yard on fire. 

So what do you do if you're craving that nice grill flavor but don't want any fuss? Fire up your oven, folks. I came up with this ridiculously simple, but super scrumptious corn on the cob recipe during a burn ban last year; and I've been sharing it with people ever since. Now I can't wait to share it with you!

Oven Roasted Corn on the Cob

Ingredients:

8 medium ears of corn

1 tablespoon of melted butter

1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

1-2 tablespoons of your favorite dried herbs (optional)

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Carefully pull down the shucks of your corn but DO NOT REMOVE THEM. Remove the silk from the corn. Combine the EVOO and the melted butter. Baste your corn with your butter/oil mixture. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. If you wish, you may also sprinkle on your favorite seasoning (I usually use whatever seasoning I put on my meat). My favorite herbs to add are dried parsley and basil, cayenne pepper or Cajun seasoning, Montreal steak/chicken seasoning, or granulated garlic. (YUM!!!!)

Carefully replace the shucks so that they are covering most of the corn (as shown in the picture). Roast in the oven on a baking sheet or a piece of foil for about 25 minutes. (Less if you like your corn a little al dente like me, or more if you like your corn really soft and juicy). The shucks will darken in color and that's A-OK. 

Serves 6-8 people. 

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I hope y'all love this dish as much as I do! If you have any questions, comments, praises, critiques, concerns, or you just wanna say howdy, leave a comment below or shoot me an email at keencuisine@gmail.com.

Bon Appetit,

KK

Decadent Desserts: Meyer Lemon Tart

Good Evening Friends!!!

WHEW! Time flies when you're having fun. In the last couple of weeks, I finished my finals (I got two more As than expected! OH YEAH!), and started a new job as an SEO marketing intern at a Dallas online marketing firm called RankHammer. I have been busily copywriting, editing and blogging away for them; and unfortunately I have been ignoring my first loves: cooking and you lovely people! For that I am truly sorry. Let's not fight anymore. I love ya and I promise to keep the recipes comin'.

Anyways, now that we're friends again, I am SO excited to share my favorite favorite FAVORITE recipe I have ever made. I wanted to tell you all about it ages ago...but I lost it. Because I am unorganized that way. Now back to the point: PIE!

I developed this recipe while abroad in Paris, where I stayed with the lovliest little family in all the land. The mother, painter Anne Ramaré, and her husband, retired economics teacher Jean-Charles Guillien, were always making the most delectable of dishes: homemade butter cookies, roasted rabbit with potatoes and leeks, and of course all the crepes and quiche I could eat. These two are such creative, free-spirits and they encouraged me to express myself through the arts of food and music. They are truly remarkable people and I will always love them like family.

It was while I was staying in their home that I came up with this most sinfully delicious dessert: Meyer Lemon Tart. This little pie embodies just about everything you could want out of a dessert. It is sweet, yet tart; creamy, but with a crunchy crust; buttery and crumbly. It is just downright HEAVENLY (Thank ya, Jesus. Amen.). And it would be just cruel not to share it with you.

Meyer Lemon Tart

 

Ingredients:

20 tea biscuits/butter cookies (I used Leibniz Butter Biscuits)

5 tablespoons melted butter

2 cold eggs

2 cold egg yolks

3/4 cup of sugar

1/2 cup fresh meyer lemon juice (a meyer lemon is a lemon and orange hybrid)

1/2 tablespoon of meyer lemon zest

6 tbsp cold butter, cut into pieces

Instructions:

Crust: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. While your oven is warming up, put your cookies into a large bowl and crush them until fine but still crumbly (I used a meat cleaver). Next add 4 and 1/2 tablespoons of melted butter to your crushed cookies. Mix until all cookie crumbs are evenly coated. Use the remaining 1/2 tbsp of melted butter to grease a 10 inch round glass baking dish. Dump the butter/cookie crumb mixture into the dish and begin to pat it out, forming an even layer across the bottom and around the sides. Once the dish is completely and evenly covered, place in the oven to bake for 8-10 minutes. Allow to cool while cooking the filling.

Filling: Whisk the eggs, yolks and sugar together in a small, metal, heat-safe bowl for 1 or 2 minutes, or until creamy. Fill a quart-size pot with 2 inches of water. Heat pot of water over high heat until boiling. Once boiling, place the bowl containing the egg mixture on top of the pan, creating a double boiler. Reduce heat slightly. Continue to whisk the egg mixture for 2 minutes (mixture will become frothy). Whisk in the meyer lemon juice in 3 parts. Continue whisking until mixture is thickened and a light yellow in color (8-10 minutes). Turn off the heat and whisk in the butter, one piece at a time. Pour the filling into the cooled crust and sprinkle the zest over the top. Place under the broiler for 30 seconds to 1 minute (just long enough for the top to get a little golden).

Serves 6-8. Best served cold or at room temperature.

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Voila. Magnifique. WOOHOO. Your taste buds are gonna be singing and your friends are gonna beg you for another slice. I made this pie for Memorial Day and, I kid you not, it was gone in about 5 minutes. Delish.

 

For comments, questions, ideas, critiques and concerns, give me a shout in the comments section below or at keencuisine@gmail.com

 

Bon Appetit,

 

KK



Decadent Desserts: Hot Fudge Cake

Happy Monday Friends!

I hope that you are all having a pleasant start to your week and that you are enjoying this fabulous weather!

I just love the start of Summer. Summer means no more classes, days spent on the lake, family trips to visit our relatives in Pennsylvania, and a new internship! I'd just like to take a moment to brag on myself; as a marketing student at Baylor University, I am very blessed to be working as an SEO Web Marketing Intern at a start-up company in Dallas called RankHammer.  If you don't know what SEO (search engine optimization) is, it's basically a fancy term meaning we help your company get more recognition on the internet. So if my posts start to get sparse this summer, I apologize!

But back to the goods. So as I mentioned before, my family takes a trip every summer to visit our relatives in Pennsylvania. In July we have a family reunion for which we all bring our favorite dishes to share. One of our favorite recipes to bring has become famous among our family: Hot Fudge Cake. It is made with super simple ingredients but tastes like a million bucks as it is super creamy, rich, and luscious. And because I love y'all, I'd like to share it with you! Yay!

Hot Fudge Cake

 

Ingredients:

2 small boxes vanilla instant pudding

3 cups of milk

1 tub of whipped topping

1 box of chocolate graham crackers

1 tub of chocolate frosting

 

Instructions:

This tastes best when made 24 hours ahead of time.

 

Mix the pudding and the milk until thickened (I used a hand mixer to speed up the process). Mix in the whipped topping. In a 13x9 inch pan layer the graham crackers with the pudding mixture, starting and ending with the graham cracker layers. Spread the frosting over the top layer of graham crackers. cover with foil and chill in the fridge over night. Serve cold.

 

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So thats all she wrote! I hope you guys love this as much as my family does. As always let me know if you liked it, hated it, or just have a general question/statement in the comments section below, or at keencuisine@gmail.com

 

Bon Appetit,

 

KK



Summer Staples: Six Minute Salsa

During the Summer time, there is nothing I love more than a bowl of fresh salsa, crispy tortilla chips, and a tangy frozen margarita. Unfortunately, these things come at a cost: waiting through traffic, paying too much at the restaurant; not to mention the guilt and regret associated with indulging in too much salt and sugar.

But have no fear; six-minute salsa is here! One of the sweet ladies at church shared this recipe with me a few years ago and now I am a converted soul. Not only is this salsa totally delicious, its also so fast and easy to make it's almost stupid. But that's not all, folks! It is super versatile; use it as a salad dressing or chicken marinade, spoon it over grilled corn or seafood(a personal favorite!), or just eat it as chips and dip. No matter which way you eat it, you're sure to enjoy it and your friends are sure to beg you for the recipe.

So now without further ado, I present to you Six Minute Salsa!

Six Minute Salsa

Ingredients:

28 oz can whole tomatoes in juice
1 small lime, juiced
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
1 large jalapeno, seeds and membranes removed, chopped
2 tbsp garlic salt

Instructions:

Dump everything in a blender and pulse until desired consistency. Store up to two weeks in a 32-oz Mason Jar.

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Thats all she wrote folks! Seriously, its the simplest, tastiest and freshest salsa around. You'll feel like you're at a restaurant when you eat this stuff! Hooray! As always share your comments, critiques, contributions and concerns in the comments section below, or to keencuisine@gmail.com

 

Bon Appetit Y'all,

 

KK