Further Adventures with Kiki

In my house, I don't limit my adventures to just culinary escapades. I also like to include the occasional curious libation. This weekend's adventure:
While searching for my summer roll wrappers (which I did find something that seems to be working, but no I haven't gotten those pictures yet)

HP: It was like Cream Soda & Peanut Butter in the blender. I was fascinated by its frothiness
The Girl: It's thick
The Girl's new beau: Uhh, it is ok
The Boy: I didn't agree to this. I'm not going to try it. You guys go ahead.
Kiki: It's not bad. Kind of like a peanut butter ripple milkshake, but not quite. Come on Boy, don't you want to try just a taste?
The Boy: NO! I'm going outside.

And there you have it. Your first on the street soft drink review, for the next time you find yourself in an odd little Jamaican-Hispanic-Oriental-Fresh Fish-We've Got Plants Market and you are in the mood for something thick and Peanut Buttery.

My wrap rut is continuing. I thought it was just a phase, but I believe that I have turned the corner into rut. If it's edible, wrap it:

I made a few summer rolls, but I never had a chance to take a picture. I thought I got a picture of the wrapper, but my camera card occasionally decides that it doesn't want to be read, so as far as I know I don't have a photo. Yet. The package has about 30 (I think) of these little wedge shaped wrap things, so I still have time. I'm not sure about the pictures though, they need a lot of attention.

I had to trim back the grape vines. Again. They were into the neighbor's yard and over the hedge so my clippers and I had a date. But, the grape leaves are still fairly young and thusly fairly tender, so I blanched a few of those bad boys and filled them up and grilled them.
The filling is Goat Cheese (like that surprises anyone) sun-dried tomatoes, random fresh herbs from the garden, a little chopped garlic and some chopped toasted walnuts. Form that into a log, wrap it up, oil her up, chill for a short time and roll them onto the grill. The recipe says that you unwrap the grape leaves and smear the cheese on little toast points or something like that. The kids prefer to pop them in their mouth as is, in one bite. If your leaves are blanched to the point of being very tender, (go past the pretty bright green stage into the canned green bean color and your fine) and you coat them in olive oil there is an earthy, yummy-grapey taste to them.

The final "wrap of the week" was the Father's Day fish tacos. HP & the kids spent about a year trying to convince me that fish tacos were good. (They just didn't sound right) Now they have regular appearances on our table. Sometimes we use grilled fish and sometimes we do beer-batter fried fish. Beer Batter is simple and crunchy and really very simple. How simple?

• 1 12-oz can of beer. use a decent one, we use Lager
• 1 1/2 cups of AP flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix. Have some beer for yourself. Dip your fish in and fry it up. We used tilapia cut into small fish tenders. Sunday's fillings were:

• Mango-black bean salsa
• Guacamole
• Fresh greens, with little flowers in it from the farmer's market
• Chipotle-Ancho "Aioli" (ok, it's just a sauce I make with mayo & sour cream, but the girl hates mayo, so we don't tell her that is a major ingredient. She loves this)
• cheese. just the regular Mexi-mix. no goat cheese, I swear. We usually use Queso Fresco or Queso blanco, but the ethnic Price-Rite closed right before I got there and the Giant didn't have any. (rrrrrr)

It is a fill & wrap your own deal, so all I need to do is prep. HP does the salsa & guac. He does them both really well, so why should I mess with it.

I think on Friday night, I'm going to make this. Just because it isn't a wrap. And it tastes really good!

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Wrap You Up in My Love

Ok, so I'm not Madonna. You can't even hear me singing, so I don't see why you need to be snarky about it.

Oh well. I've been on a bit of a wrap kick. I'd almost say I've been on a roll, but like I said they are wraps, so the roll thing doesn't quite compute.

Saturday night was left-over night. Sort of. I had to go out to buy tomatillos so I could make Roasted Tomatillo Salsa, but it was to go onto left over chicken. But, I cooked a big chicken, so I would have left overs for other things.
So, I roasted the tomatillos on the grill, I think about 1 - 1 1/2 lbs, along with a head of garlic & 3 serrano chili's. While that was roasting I chopped about 1/2 cup of cilantro, about the same amount of red onion (ok, maybe a little heavier on the onion) and squoze a lime. (yes, I said "squoze" & I don't care what spell check thinks!) I mixed those in a bowl, added the roasted tomatillos, some of the roasted garlic (3 or 4 heads, who can remember these things) and the serrano after peeling & chopping and ridding them of some of their seeds. (if ya want a little heat, leave more in; less seeds, less heat). I then mushed it all together with my handy stick blender, and poof, I had salsa.

I took some of the aforementioned chicken, warmed it up in the skillet with a little oil. Then mixed the chicken with a little sour cream, and some cheese (ok, just regular kraft "Mexican Shredded" cheese) added some of the salsa. I grabbed a flour tortilla, warmed it slightly on the skillet then filled it with the chick-mix and wrapped it all snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug, and put it in the hot skillet with a little oil and "fried" it closed. I put the done one in a warm oven & made a couple more. Next I put it on a plate, put a little more salsa on top, crumbled some cojita on top threw a salad next to it and poof called it dinner.

Monday's wrap was all together different. I made some of the-best-dip-ever to take over to a neighbor's to watch the Memorial Day parade. (Luckily this year, I didn't sneeze or blink when it passed by, so I was able to see the whole thing). Our parade watching is more about sitting on the porch, talking to neighbors and eating. My dip is goat cheese & cream cheese, whipped together with some herbs then baked and topped with caramelized onions. Yesterday's version also had the bonus of some of Trader Joe's Artichoke Antipasti thrown in for the chunks of artichoke. Quick, easy & way tasty! So for dinner I grilled some eggplant, then I smeared my wrap with leftover dip, added the eggplant and some greens and such. There may have been other things in there, but I did this after having a couple glasses of wine (a slightly fizzed pinot grigio picked up at Trader Joe's also for $4 0r $5, yum) so I'm not sure what else went into the wrap, but it was pretty easy & light and nice for an early summer dinner.

And finally, today's late-mid-day-ish wrap that was thrown together so HP would have something to eat before he went to class, was another flavory bundle of food that included some grilled shrimp, black beans, cheese (yeah, more of that Kraft stuff), some green onions and it was all held together with a yumtastick avocado dressing. The dressing was made with an avocado, about 1/4 cup each mayo, light sour cream & olive oil, a little lemon juice, a splash of tabasco, some of the roasted garlic from the other day, a sprinkling of cumin and a dash of salt. A quite tasty smear if I do say so myself.

So I'll wrap this up & let you off to your own wrapped up yummies.

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