Italian Antipasto Salad

I love antipasto salads. They are light but full of flavor thanks to the dressing, meats, and pepperchinis. I also love black olives and garbanzo beans! With this salad, I didn't indicate quantities for the ingredients because you can adjust for your liking. If you like more meats, then add more meats; if you like more garbanzo beans and olives, then add more of those. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Reduced fat salami, sliced
Reduced fat pepperoni, sliced
Part-skim mozarella cheese, shredded
Reduced sodium garbanzo beans
Romaine lettuce, diced
Pepperoncinis, sliced
Reduced sodium black olives, sliced

Dressing:

1 large garlic clove, minced
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried basil, crumbled
1 teaspoon dried orégano, crumbled
1/4 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes, or to taste
1/4 cup olive oil

In a small bowl whisk together the garlic, the vinegars, the rosemary, the basil, the oregano, the red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper to taste, add the oil in a stream, whisking, and whisk the marinade until it is emulsified.

In a salad bowl, toss the romaine lettuce, meats, cheese, garbanzo beans, black olives, and pepperoncinis. Top with dressing.

Reference
Mixed Antipasto 

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Artichoke Pasta Salad with Roasted Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

I love love love this recipe. I pretty much used Alton Brown's Artichoke Pasta Salad recipe with a few small changes to quantities and a couple ingredients. The herb oil is fantastic! I have been making this dish over and over again over the past couple of weeks because I can't get enough of it. So good!

Ingredients

2 cups cooked whole wheat penne pasta, cooled
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons herb oil, recipe follows
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, julienned 
2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh basil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
1/4 cup roughly chopped roasted chicken
1/4 cup roughly chopped marinated artichokes
1/4 cup sliced black olives
2 tbsp shredded parmesan cheese
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

In a large bowl toss all of the ingredients. Serve or store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Herb Oil:

1/2 bunch parsley
1/2 cup packed fresh basil
1/2 bunch fresh thyme
1/2 cup packed fresh oregano
1/2 orange, zested
1 whole dried arbol chile
1 teaspoon whole black pepper corns
2 cups canola oil
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil

In a 1-quart mason jar or glass container, place all of the herbs, zest, chile, and peppercorns. Pour both oils into a saucepan and heat to 200 degrees F. Pour the hot oils into the jar and cover with a kitchen towel. Let stand overnight.

Place cheesecloth or strainer over the top of the jar and replace the outer rim of the lid. Invert and strain oil into desired container.

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Burrito: Refried Beans, Chorizo, Avocado, and Queso Fresco in a Whole Wheat Tortilla

This recipe is inspired by Serious Eats' Crusty Torta With Black Beans And Chorizo. I love chorizo and avocado so I wanted to try this, give it a lighter spin, make a burrito instead of a torta.

Ingredients

4 ounces fresh Mexican chorizo, casings removed
1 fifteen-ounce can fat-free refried black beans
3 ounces part-skim queso fresco
1 avocado, peeled and sliced
Sliced black olives
Romaine lettuce, diced
Hot sauce (I used sriracha)
Salt

Toss the chorizo into a large skillet over medium heat. Cook for about 8 minutes or until the fat has rendered, breaking up the meat until it is crumbly.

Dump in the whole can of refried beans into the skillet. Stir until combined and cook for 10 minutes at a simmer. Add a little water if it becomes too dry. Season with salt to taste.

Warm a tortilla on a stove burner. After tortilla is warmed up, you are ready to assemble your burrito.

Smooth the chorizo-bean mixture onto the center of the tortilla. Place diced lettuce, crumbed queso freso, sliced black olives, and slices of avocado on top. Lightly salt the avocado to bring out the taste. Wrap up the tortilla into a burrito.

If you want more spiciness to your burrito, add some hot sauce. I added Sriracha to mine and it was fantastic!

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Iceberg Wedge Salad With Bacon And Lite Blue Cheese Dressing

I absolutely LOVE this recipe. Adapted from Serious Eats' Iceberg Wedge With Warm Bacon And Blue Cheese Dressing, I made a lighter version of the blue cheese dressing and used reduced sodium bacon. Thanks Serious Eats! You are the best!

Ingredients

1 ½ cups lite mayonnaise
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, from one lemons
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon hot sauce
2 tablespoons reduced fat buttermilk
1 cup crumbled reduced fat blue cheese
½ pound reduced sodium thick-cut bacon
1 head iceberg lettuce, cut into six wedges, each with some core attached
½ red onion, thinly sliced

For dressing: Mix mayonnaise, lemon juice, black pepper, hot sauce, and buttermilk to medium-sized bowl. Whisk to combine. Stir in crumbled blue cheese. Set aside.

Take 2-3 stripes of bacon and cook. I used the easy microwave method but you can cook it in a skillet per the directions on the packaging too. After cooking, break up bacon into smaller pieces.

Place one wedge of iceberg lettuce on plate. Spoon two tablespoons or so of dressing on top. Sprinkle some bacon and red onion on top. Repeat with five remaining wedges.

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Spiderweb Cupcakes

Gotta love Martha Stewart. I love reading her website for ideas and I saw her post a No-Bake Spiderweb Cheesecake. I thought the spiderweb design on top of the cake was great. I used her method to recreate the design on cupcakes.

Ingredients

Baked cupcakes (I used Pillbury's Devil Food Cake)
White Betty Crocker cookie icing
Betty Crocker Decorating Gel in black

After baking the cupcakes, I waited for them to cool down to start decorating.

Apply a thin layer of  the white Betty Crocker cookie icing onto the cupcakes. After covering the surface of the cupcake, wait for the icing to set, about 5 minutes. Now you can start making the web.

Starting in the center of the cupcake, pipe a spiral.

Pull the tip of a paring knife in a gently curved line from the center of the spiral to outer edge. Do not push the knife into the dried white icing. Move across the surface of the icing lightly, only moving the black gel icing down. Wipe knife clean, and repeat to form a web.

The above picture is your finished result. Enjoy! Happy Halloween!

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Jack Skellington Cupcakes

Besides carving a Nightmare Before Christmas pumpkin, I also decided to make some cupcakes, decorated to look like Jack Skellington's face. I got the inspiration for this on the Disney Family website and really loved the idea. The execution was pretty simple too.

Ingredients

Baked cupcakes (I used Pillbury's Devil Food cake mix)
White Betty Crocker cookie icing
Wilton Black Decorating Icing 
Wilton No. 3 round decorating tip
Wilton Coupler Ring (to attach the round decorating tip to the icing tube)

After baking the cupcakes, I waited for them to cool down to start decorating.

I used white Betty Crocker cookie icing for the face and Wilton Black Decorating Icing with the No. 3 decorating tip attached to make the face. I really liked using the Betty Crocker icing. Not a whole lot of prep was needed before opening the package and starting to put icing on the cupcakes. Apply a thin layer of this onto the cupcakes.

After covering the surface of the cupcake, wait for the icing to set. With this icing, it took 5 minutes. Now you can start decorating.

Use the black icing to draw the outline of the eyes. The Disney Family site recommends using toothpicks to draw the outline of the eyes before piping the black frosting. I didn't find this necessary, but it's a good suggestion.

Pipe on two short lines for a nose.

Pipe a long line across the bottom of the cupcake for the mouth.

Randomly top the mouth with a bunch of short icing barbs.

Pipe icing into the eyes to fill in the circles.

And you're done! Enjoy and have a happy Halloween!

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My Halloween Pumpkins

Besides dressing up every year, my favorite thing to do during the Halloween season is pumpkin carving. This year I carved three pumpkins.

This Nightmare Before Christmas themed pumpkin was the first one I carved this year. I absolutely love this movie and every year I do something themed with this film. I used two templates to come up with the end result.

My second pumpkin was a Dia de los muertos skull. It took me two days to do this. I got the pattern for it at Jammin' Pumpkins. I carved this pumpkin and the Jack and Sally pumpkin using a Pumpkin Masters carving kit.

My third pumpkin was Don Draper from Mad Men. I love this show, and I missed it this whole year. (Come back on the TV, Mad Men!) I had to make a pumpkin in honor of the sexiest man on TV.

For this one, I found a black and white stencil of Draper, transferred it over using the traditional poking method onto the pumpkin, and then I carved the skin off using a Speedball linoleum cutter. For this method, it's important to make the wall of the pumpkin thin on the inside so that the light shines through the pumpkin.

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