Wholly Guacamole - Breakfast & Lunch

I love Wholly Guacamole.  Love it.  I eat it on just about anything, especially the spicy version.  Probably my favorite thing to put it on is eggs.  Haven't tried it?  I think you should.  My favorite is a homemade English muffin topped with Spicy Wholly Guac, basil, tomatoes and a perfectly poached egg!  Heaven on a plate!

I happened to share this heaven with the great folks at Wholly Guacamole and guess what!  II got a note from a "Guac Squad Squawker" letting me know that they wanted to feature me in their newsletter where they feature a fan of their Facebook page.  I will be the first!  How exciting is that?!

Want to see the newsletter when it comes out?  Sign up HERE!  Once you sign up you will receive their newsletter and some great coupons for Wholly Guacamole products so you too can guac up your meals!

Here is the winning picture!  This is my favorite breakfast!

 

In addition to making me famous in their newsletter they sent me something really amazing, an entire cooler full of Wholly Guac products!

I'll admit, pretty much the only Wholly Guacamole products we eat are the Spicy Wholly Guac and the regular Wholly Guac when we can't get the spicy.  I love the 100 Calorie packs because they are just enough for the two of us.  I love it on eggs as I already mentioned.  We put it on fish tacos, burgers, and have you tried guacamole on a BLT?  Check out my "Build a Better BLT" post from a while ago.  Delicious!

Build a Better BLT with Wholly Guac and a Bacon Matt

Since I had so many products to try, I decided I'd do Wholly Guacamole Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Dessert!  This post is breakfast and lunch.  Stay tuned for dinner and dessert!

You've already seen my favorite Wholly Guacamole breakfast.  Put it on eggs!  Dave likes his scrambled, I like mine poached, it doesn't matter, Wholly Guac works!  Dave's favorite is a scrambled mess of peppers, sausage, cheese and eggs topped with spicy Wholly Guac.

Yesterday I made a Wholly Guac lunch.  There's a place in Hudson, WI called San Pedro Cafe.  They have the most amazing lettuce wrap appetizer.  I decided I would make my version of this great dish.  

I used butter lettuce, chicken, shrimp, peppers, cheddar cheese and a Wholly Guacamole product we'd never tried before, Guacamole and Spicy Pico.  I will admit trepidation with this product.  There was lots of little green stuff in the pico and cilantro was in the ingredient list.  I don't like cilantro.  No, that's not quite correct, I hate cilantro.  It tastes like soap and I can pick out the smallest quantities of it in most foods.  I was nervous this would be so "cilantro-y" I wouldn't like it, but I had to at least try it, right?

I coated some chicken breast, shrimp and peppers with a chipotle olive oil from my favorite Olive Oil supplier, The Olive Grove Olive Oil Company in Mendota Heights and tossed them on a nice hot grill.

 

While they were grilling I shredded some sharp cheddar cheese from our favorite dairy, Eichten's, and washed up some butter lettuce.

The assembly was quick and easy.  To a nice piece of butter lettuce I added a few slices of the grilled peppers, a couple slices of grilled chicken and a couple shrimp.  I topped this with the Guacamole & Spicy Pico.  Well, that's not completely correct.  I had Dave taste it first.  Was there too much cilantro?  Would I not like it?  Should I just put my old stand by spicy guac on my lunch?

 

Dave said he couldn't taste much cilantro.  But he always says that.  His next reaction was "it's HOT."  This is not a bad thing.  Though we live in Minnesota, we're not true Minnesotans, we like spice!  So I tried it.  Hey Mikey I like it!  It was HOT but it was delicious.  Not just heat but good pepper flavor and mixed with the guacamole in the bottom of the container it was a perfect mix!

Back to the assembly now I could put the Guacamole and Spicy Pico on my wraps too!  A dollop of sour cream and some shredded cheese we were ready for lunch!

Not only do these look delicious, they tasted delicious.  The heat from the pico was cooled by the sour cream and guacamole.  There was good crunch from the peppers and lettuce and who doesn't love grilled chicken and shrimp, especially when it's been grilled with chipotle olive oil?  We now have another Wholly Guacamole product that will be stocked in our refrigerator!  THANK YOU WHOLLY GUACAMOLE!

Next Dinner and Dessert!

Famous Dave's Cornbread Muffins

I heard on the radio that Famous Dave had a new cookbook, "Famous Dave's Barbecue Party Cookbook".  I heard it had some amazing recipes in it.  Did I really need a new cookbook?  Need is such a strong word.  Did I truly need the cookbook?  No.  Did I want it?  Yes.  The only other BBQ cookbooks I have are "How to Grill" by Steven Raichlen, which really isn't a BBQ book and "Grilling and Barbecue" by Cook's Illustrated which is more a guidebook than cookbook.  So, maybe I did need that cookbook after all?

If you've never heard of Famous Dave, I encourage you to read his history.  I find it heartwarming and fascinating.  Though I've never met him, I've seen him in many interviews and he seems like a simple, down-to-earth guy who loves his family and loves his food.  I've seen him on several FoodNetwork shows and always pull for him!  If he's in a restaurant and there's a child there with a birthday, he'll even draw the Famous Dave's Pig for them!

Meet Dave

Lucky me I am an Amazon Prime subscriber and my cookbook arrived in just one day!  What to try first?!

Well, this week the good folks at Wholly Guacamole sent me a cooler full of great stuff!  I decided tonight's menu would be pork enchiladas and what goes better with enchiladas than cornbread?  And as luck would have it there was a recipe for cornbread muffins in the book.

Those of you who frequent this blog know that just about a week ago I made cornbread.  It was really good and I swore off of boxed mixes as a result.  Let me tell you this, no offense to Marjorie Johnson or Danny Klecko, but Famous Dave's recipe won hand's down.  OH MY GOD these were good!

Let's start with the ingredients.  Unlike the cornbread I made last week, I did not have all the ingredients for these in my house.  For these muffins you need, self-rising flour, Jiffy Yellow Cake Mix, yellow cornmeal, stone-ground yellow cornmeal, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, buttermilk, oil an egg and Hellman's Mayonnaise.  None of the ingredients were odd or out of the ordinary, I just don't stock Jiffy Yellow Cake Mix (I didn't even know they made it!).  And I was out of buttermilk so I had to pick that up too.

We had been to Farmer's Market that morning and got some beautiful and very fragrant jalapenos so I added one of those to the mix as well.

The dry ingredients are mixed together.

Then the wet are mixed and added to the dry, just until all the ingredients are wet.  You can immediately see the batter start to bubble as the baking powder meets the buttermilk.  I knew these were going to be good!

Dave says to put them in 12 muffin cups.  I filled mine about 3/4 full and still got 18 muffins out of the batch.

They are beautiful!

But I think Famous Dave lied when he said the recipe "Delightfully serves a party of 12."  There is no way this serves 12.  I had 2 and a half of them and wanted more!  I had to bag them up and put them away so I wouldn't eat all of them!  I think his comment that these muffins are "deliciously addicting" is more accurate.

They have a nice crunch top and a soft interior that melts in your mouth.  That must be the cake mix?  The diced jalapeno gave them just the right bite but didn't overwhelm the sweet corn flavor.  I cannot get over how good these are.  I'm writing this the morning after making them.  They are in a bag on my kitchen counter and I'm trying to decide how I can have them for breakfast!

The recipe included a recipe for honey butter.  Next time I'm going to make that too and brushing it over the top of warm muffins.  I may eat the whole batch!

Pioneer Woman Enchiladas & Marjorie Johnson Cornbread

Do you read the Last American Baker blog?  I do.  I love it.  Danny Klecko is funny and honest and he provides a peek into the world of professional bread baking that I find interesting and often surprising.  This past week he posted a recipe for corn bread.  A friend of a friend was looking for a good cornbread recipe and the Last American Baker was right there to help them out.

Where does Danny Klecko go for cornbread recipes?  Marjorie Johnson.  If you don't know who Marjorie Johnson is, where have you been?  Never mind the thousands of Minnesota State Fair ribbons she's won, she's been on Leno and every national morning news program.  My very favorite Marjorie Johnson appearance was on Martha Stewart's show.  She schooled know-it-all Martha on how to make a pie crust.  It was very entertaining!

Marjorie wrote a cook book a few years ago.  I have a copy, a signed copy even.  I was lucky enough to meet this 4-foot-tall giant at an event at Cook's of Crocus hill.  She was delightful.  We had a nice chat and she signed my book!

It was the cornbread recipe from this book that Danny recommended.  He added his twist, suggesting substituting sour cream for half the milk.

We couldn't just have cornbread.  Well, we could, but really cornbread needs a main.  We'd both been hungry for some good Mexican food and my mind drifted to enchiladas.   We haven't had them in years, it was time.  I scoured my closet of cookbooks and found just the recipe I wanted to try in Ree Drummond's The Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook.  I had a plan.  Let's start with the corn bread.

I'll admit it.  I use boxed cornbread mix.  Well, let's make that used boxed cornbread mixes.  I don't think I will again.  I guess I thought cornbread was too putzy to make from scratch.  I don't really know why I used boxes, but I should have consulted Marjorie years ago!

Everything in this recipe is standard stock in my kitchen.  It mixes together in minutes and bakes into some of the best cornbread I've ever had.  The ingredients, flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking powder, eggs, butter and milk.  I bet you have all of these in your house!  

Danny uses a foil.  Marjorie uses a 9" square pan.  I didn't have a foil.  I did have a 9" square pan.

The dry ingredients are mixed and set aside.  The wet ingredients are mixed and carefully added to the dry, just until things are mixed.  Pour this in the prepared pan and bake.  Isn't this beautiful?  It's a beautiful crusty brown color.  It has a pure corn flavor and that crispy outside with a crumbly interior that cornbread should have.  No more boxed cornbread for me.

The enchiladas took just a touch more preparation.

Here is a LINK to the recipe including a great story by Ree and her step-by-step pictures.  You'll note she used cilantro in hers.  As you may know, cilantro tastes like soap to me.  I can't tolerate even the slightest bit of it.  I left it out.

The sauce is what I would call a "doctored up" enchilada sauce.  It' starts with a flour and oil roux to which canned enchilada sauce and chicken stock are added.  This is brought to a boil then left to simmer while you prepare the rest of the enchiladas.

There are a few steps to the enchiladas but they go together pretty quickly.  Ground beef (I use that good grass fed Highland beef from Butternut Woods Farms) is is browned with an onion and to that diced green chilies are added.

Next you fry the corn tortillas in oil.  I didn't really understand this step until I did it.  Ree says to just fry them long enough to make them soft, not brown.  I found about 10 seconds made them soft.  Corn tortillas tend to crumble when you try to roll them.  This step made rolling them a snap!  I did find that you need quite a bit of oil.  I was trying to use as little as possible and the tortillas started sticking to the bottom of my pan.  Once one stuck, others stuck to that and I had a mess!  Don't skimp on the oil!

The tortillas drain on a paper towel lined plate.

Chop a few green onions, open a can of black olives and grate some cheese and all of the ingredients are ready for assembly.  I used a deliciously sharp cheddar from Eichten's.

To assemble the enchiladas each tortilla is dipped in the sauce and placed on a cookie sheet.  I had a couple of flops here too.  The sauce was still warm so I used a tongs and, well, I had a couple of tortillas crumble.

The rest worked great.  Each tortilla is topped with a little of the beef mixture, some green onions, olives and cheese then rolled up and placed in a baking dish.  Once the dish is full more cheese is added and it's baked in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

I served them with a little sour cream and that delectable corn bread.  These were delicious!  The thickened sauce and softened tortillas gave them a creamy texture I wasn't expecting.  They almost melted in your mouth.  I love green chilies, I used fire roasted ones and that flavor came through.  Dave went up and got a third one and then ate a fourth while he was doing the dishes!  And lucky for me there was another one left over for me to take in my lunch the next day!

Dave wants to try these with a green sauce next.  I don't think he'll have to wait long!

Strawberry Shortcake!

Those of you who know me know I'm mostly a "from scratch" baker and cook.  I use very, very few mixes or prepared foods.

This week one of my favorite places to shop, The Golden Fig, on Grand Avenue in St. Paul got in some amazingly beautiful strawberries, ripe right to the stem!  I just had to have some.  When I went to pick them up, right there with them were bags of Cannon River Kitchens shortcake mix.  I haven't made shortcake in a long time.  I prefer the "biscuit" variety over angel food cake.  I'm not really an angel food cake fan, neither is my husband.  These looked like the would be "biscuity" and how much easier can you get then add butter and water and bake.  I bought a bag.

Tonight was the night.  I decided to make the shortcake and use the very last of those beautiful strawberries.

These couldn't be easier, mix with water and melted butter, place on a greased cookie sheet, bake 15 minutes, enjoy.

 

Mine took about 17 minutes.  I was expecting them to brown a bit more.  After 17 minutes I checked the bottoms and they were nicely browned so I considered them done.

I let them cool just a little while I mixed up the strawberries with some vanilla sugar.

I opted for the more traditional whipped cream with mine.  My husband wanted both ice cream and whipped cream!  They looked beautiful.

But how did they taste?  Were they as good as scratch?  Well, I would say they were very good.  They came out nice and crispy on the outside and the inside melted in my mouth the way a good biscuit should.  They were just slightly sweet, just the way I prefer them!  Were they as good as my homemade?  I don't know, I haven't made homemade in so long!  I'm going to say probably not, but darn close and for as easy as they were I'll probably pick up another bag this week to keep on hand for that last minute dessert!  

And even better, they are made right here in Minnesota, Red Wing in fact!

Pizza on the grill!

I own three of Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François' Artisan Bread books.  One of my favorite is the Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day.  It is a very rare occassion that I don't have a tub of pizza dough in the refrigerator!  On nights when I'm home late from work, have a big baking order or am just too tired to "cook" it is my go-to meal.  I can even stay on Weight Watchers with this pizza!

I've always made it in the oven, on my stone, at 500 degrees. Well, this weekend it was a bit toasty outside and I didn't really want to heat up the oven so I decided to try it on the grill.  I've attended cooking classes where Jeff has just thrown the dough on the grill and it works just great, but I still had visions of the dough falling through the grates and making one heck of a mess.  Oh well, I could always heat up the oven, right?

So I prepped some toppings, made my crusts on my peel and headed out to the grill.

Guess what?  The dough doesn't fall through the grates!  It cooks fast enough (this is on a medium-hot grill, not searing hot) that it holds together.  After maybe 5 minutes I turned the dough over so I could add my toppings!

Toppings added I closed the grill and waited "patiently" for another maybe 5 minutes (ok, I peeked a couple of times) and here's the result!

I even let Dave make one!

This pizza is delicious.  I think I like it better than in the oven because of the little bit of char on the bottom.  We'll definitely be grilling our pizza this summer rather than having the oven compete with the air conditioning!