Chili-Lime Melon Salad. (Wait... Chili?) Yes. Chili.

This week was National Night Out - as many of you probably already know. Our neighborhood goes pretty all out for it. The past few years we've gathered around a few grills and some potluck-covered tables while the kids enjoyed a bounce house (and the parents of those kids got progressively more and more nervous as the kids got more and more adventurous).

This year, there was a fiesta theme, complete with face painting and piñata, so I decided to make a summer salad that has some south-of-the-border flavors: chili powder, lime, and Cotija cheese.

It's a recipe that I've made once before when we had some friends over for brunch, and people really seemed to like it, so I thought I'd go for it again. (Plus, it's quick, easy, and fairly cheap - things I definitely enjoy when making food for a crowd.)

Allow me to explain:

I have NO idea what I was doing during what became the freezeframe image for this video. But... HOORAY!

So, yeah... This is, once again, a recipe from The Smitten Kitchen. You can find it on her website, here. (Because it's a pretty simple recipe, I'm not going to type it all out, here.)

Here are the basics that you need:

• 4 cups of assorted melon (I went for watermelon and cantaloupe)
• Some lime juice
• 1 tablespoon of cilantro
• 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of chili powder
• Some Cotija cheese
• Some course salt
• Toasted/salted pepitas (which are what's "inside" a pumpkin seed)

The hardest part of this whole process is getting the melon into bite-size pieces. Well, that and - depending where you live - finding the Cotija cheese and the pepitas. But, around here in Minneapolis you can get Cotija cheese either as a chunk or as crumbles. (As you probably saw in the first video, I went for the crumbles.)

The pepitas can be ordered online, if you need to go that way, but I got mine from the bulk section of my local grocery store. The last time I made this salad, I used raw ones and toasted them myself. This time, I picked some up right across the produce section from the melons and the cilantro.

So, here we have photos of balling melons, which is really the main piece of work:

Here's how exciting it looks to use a cookie scoop as a melon baller.

Yeah... not much activity in this recipe when you come right down to it.

Recommendation: If you have a cutting board that is grooved for meat, it's also good for cutting juicy fruit. (Not the gum.)

Bonus to using a melon baller: I really kind of love the designs you get in the melon rinds. 

Feel free to ooohh and ahhh, at any point.

And, since this is a really easy recipe, this all goes directly into the bowl you'll be serving it in.

Then you add in all of the other stuff. Which, honestly, is just a whole lot of dumping things together. 

So, instead of just showing you the final photo, here's the wrap-up video, first: 

Now, with not quite a month of summer left - and watermelon at its freshest of the year - why not try a new way of eating it? (The Smitten Kitchen and I would never steer you wrong!)

Oh - And if you're wondering what to do with all that juice that builds up in the watermelon rind while you're making melon balls, here's one recommendation:

After all, it's basically a giant bowl/cup, right? 

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How've you been? Any cooking questions come up while I've been gone? Let me know if there's anything I can try to answer!

"Bok Choy" Salad - and week 2 of giveaways!

I realize that, considering how much time I spend baking, it would seem like this is the perfect time of year for me to be going to town with recipes for baked goods.

So, of course, I'm going for a salad this week.

Don't forget! As with last week, anyone who shares this post via social media - and tags me in it somehow so I know the share has happened - will be entered into a drawing to receive a plate of cookies in the mail!

Also, in the spirit of giving - and giving thanks - this month, I'm featuring funding pages for people I am somehow connected to. This week, it's a fundraising site for a college friend and his son who is fighting cancer:

The link to the giving site is here.

(If you think your friends would prefer to see the Brownie Bites post, you could also share that this week - sharing either one will get you into this week's drawing!)

Now, back to the food...

I had every intention of this being a good photo-by-photo salad-making event. And I started out that way. See?

The washed out stuff on the left of the photo is three packs of sliced almonds.

But, umm... I kind of got my timing wrong, and thought that it was an hour earlier than it actually was. Which meant that we had to hustle to get to where we were going - the event for which we were making the salad.

Now, here's a photo of the recipe:

You may have noticed - if you compare the recipe to the top photo - that I doubled the ingredients. That's because I was making this for a crowd at a Friendsgiving event.

You may also have noticed that it says that this is supposed to be a Bok Choy salad. But the first few times I made it I kept buying the wrong thing. And then I got used to having the Chinese Cabbage version.

And I liked it.

So that's what I use.

Here's a photo of that cabbage with the green onions:

Of course, the things that make this recipe are the toppings. On top of the greens, you get this (possibly warm) crunchy, nutty topping with a sweet/tangy/salty dressing.

A prep note worth making note of: It is much easier to crush up the Ramen noodles while they are still in their bags than once they're out in the wild. This keeps everything contained - no shrapnel under the fridge or in your eye.

All of the "to be cooked" ingredients go into a big sauté pan (oh - remember - I doubled the recipe), and while that is coming to temp and getting all warm and cozy smelling, you can put together the dressing.

You know I'm all about honesty, here, and I would normally have shown you all of the pouring of ingredients, but the time was beginning to tick away and so Christopher was pouring while I was running around and getting things ready to pack up and leave. (This includes making sure that the Brownie Bites we featured last week were plated and secure.)

Interestingly, we found that if you run out of rice wine vinegar in mid-recipe you can use white wine vinegar for the balance.

We also used soy sauce packets from delivery to supplement our bottle of soy sauce which was about 1/4 cup short.

All of that goes into a bottle of some kind so that you can shake it up when it's time to use it.

We usually use a pint-sized jar, but a pint-sized jar is too small for a double recipe, so this went into a freebie water bottle from work - which happened to be tinted gray, so this looks a bit ominous.

(Is that showing up centered on your screen? On mine, the photo is on the left and the caption is on the right. Weird.)

Back on the stove, things were doing great. I mean... doesn't it toast up and look beautiful?

Okay. Yes. This photo is from when it was already off the stove - the towel would not have survived on the burner.

Unfortunately, when I went to stir it, I found that I had left it on the heat a little too long and parts of this had gotten a tad dark brown. So, before packaging it up for transport, I did a quick "sorting" to get rid of the darker bits.

This is when I should be showing you the glorious plated photo. And I thought I had taken one when we delivered the salad to Friendsgiving. But when I opened my photos to upload it, all I found was this:

Yes, that's the salad in the upper-left corner of the photo. You get the idea, though, right? It's a base of greens with crunchy topping and then a sweet/salty dressing.

Let me summarize...

Though Thanksgiving is next week, I'll be back with Week 3 of the giveaway - as well as another fundraising page.

Thanks for all you're doing to help share these stories!

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*Disclaimer: I'll be trying to draw a winner each week before the next post goes up. Everyone who shares the post in a way that I can track it (or who lets me know that it's being shared) will be entered into the drawing for the plate of cookies (shipping within the US, only). One entry per share, so feel free to share multiple times. No extra entries for making a donation to the fundraising pages, but don't let that stop you. 

**Week one's winner was Jennifer S. from out in Maryland! So as soon as I make my next batch of cookies (which, this time of year, could be at any moment), a plate of them will be on their way to her!

Faux Tofu Egg Salad

It's come to my attention that I tend to be a bit... well... snarky when it comes to what I call the "non-food foods." You know what I mean, right? The veggie burger that "tastes just like hamburger" or the tofu wrap that is "just like eating chicken."

This can get a bit dicey, especially when you have friends (and relatives) who are vegetarian, or cook vegan, or just - for who knows what reason - prefer to eat non-food from time to time.

One of those people in my life happens to be Betty over at Sweet Betty's Blog, and she recently made (and posted about) a Tofu "Egg" Salad (the recipe is there, so I'm not copying it here). I read through the recipe and decided to try it. After all, it seemed to be fairly easy and not too dangerous. And, based on her post, it was pretty, too:

Nice, right? All colorful and healthy looking - and still looking like egg salad.

I was reading the instructions, and I was kind of excited to see the garlic powder and hot sauce. Typically, I put hot pickle relish in my egg salad, so I was glad to see that there were going to be some other spices.

I got to the end and thought. "Okay. I can do that!" 

I'm going to cut to the chase: it was tasty. And mine also looked really good when I was done mixing it all:

Okay. So what was my process?

Well, I started with the ingredients. I realized, though, that I don't have any vegan mayonnaise, so I decided to opt for regular - since I was going into this more for the experience than for the exact recipe.

I put that into the bowl and also measured out my yellow mustard (which I don't usually do), as well as all of the other ingredients.

Can you see all of the lumps that kinda look like egg? That's where the "faux" in my "faux tofu" comes in:

I figured that, since it's okay for people to use tofu to substitute for hard boiled eggs, it was okay to go the other way, too, right?

And, well, if I'm being honest, here's my entire ingredient pile:

I tend to keep a couple of hard-boiled eggs in the fridge. So that I don't accidentally try to crack one into a bowl of batter, I mark them (in this case, with Xs). I'm not really sure what people would think if they saw them in the fridge...

Yes. I know that some readers might say that this completely negated my attempt at cooking with tofu. And, yes, you may have a point. But - on the other hand - it was the first time I've used garlic powder, lemon juice, and hot sauce in my egg salad. So... points for trying something new. Right?

In the interest of full disclosure, I also didn't have pretty, bright veggies to eat with this. I did have some Tostitos Scoops, though:

I also, sadly, don't have a brightly light work station at which to enjoy my lunch. When I moved it down to my desk to eat, it looked more like this:

Which, honestly, looks depressing enough that it kind of makes me wish I'd started with the tofu and veggies.

But only kind of.

Sorry, Betty. I tried.


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Have a recipe you'd like to see made, but don't want to be your own guinea pig? Let me know and I'll see what I can do!