If you’re looking for a recipe that will make everyone love Green Beans, look no further. This dish is crisp, it is vibrant and most of all full of flavor. It’s got all of my favorite ingredients, including one secret ingredient that really takes this vegetable to the next level. With out it, I wouldn’t even bother making this recipe, it makes that big of a difference. What’s the secret ingredient? Lemon!
Fresh Green Beans
Don’t try to make this recipe using a bag of frozen or canned Green Beans, please, I implore you. If that’s all you have, don’t use this recipe because it won’t even come close to how good it would be using fresh ingredients. Grow them, buy them, I don’t care how you get them, just be sure to use them straight off the vine. You can also add other fresh veggies like red onion and tomatoes.
In this recipe, I blanch the green beans with out an ice water bath. I do this for two reasons. A cold water shock just prevents the beans from cooking any further but, in this recipe, you don’t want to do that. This is not a dish that is served cold. Once the bacon is cooked I continue to saute the beans in the bacon grease, anyway. So the cold shock is not necessary.
Green Beans with Garlic Parmesan and Bacon Ingredients:
Blanching 2 qt Boiling Water 2 tbsp Salt
1 lbs Green Beans, fresh 2 Bacon Strips, chopped 2 Garlic Cloves, chopped 1 tbsp Parmesan Cheese, grated 1 tbsp Lemon Juice Salt and Pepper to taste
I can honestly say that this Fire Roasted Salsa is amazing and it is, quite possibly, the best salsa I’ve ever tried. It starts with fresh Hot House Tomatoes, Yellow Onions, Green Bell, Anaheim and Jalapeno Peppers, cilantro, lime and a few other key ingredients. Although you can find recipes, similar to this one, all over the web, I seriously considered keeping this one all to my self. But I get too excited when I discover the secrets to authentic recipes. It makes me want to share it with everyone. So that’s what I’m going to do today.
Fire Roasted Salsa Preperation
To get the best results, and be sure that your Fire Roasted Salsa tastes amazing, there’s only one thing you need to do before you take the vegetables to the grill. Cut your onions in half. It isn’t going to matter if you peel them before or after they roast but it is important that those onion layers get exposed to the grill. Salsa gets a lot of great flavor from onions and they have memory, so adding that smoked flavor to the rings will insure that your salsa tastes amazing when you blend them, together, with the other ingredients.
Fire Roasted Salsa Grilling Technique
Whether you choose to grill, broil or roast your vegetables over an open pit, to make this Fire Roasted Salsa, the timing and flipping is simple. I average 25 to 30 minutes of roasting time, over medium heat(350 Fahrenheit), and I rotate and flip everything about every 5 minutes. Look for some good color on the under side and flip. It’s that easy. I tend to check the peppers first because they burn quicker than the tomatoes and onions. The onions I worry about the least. The tomatoes just need to be pulled off the grill before they pop and loose their juice to the grill. You should pay attention to where the hot spots are and rotate everything accordingly. Then remove them from the heat and let them rest for a half an hour or so, until they are cool enough to touch and handle with your hands. Remove the stems, peel the onions and add the other ingredients.
Fire Roasted Salsa Formula
I have a basic formula that you might find useful when you’re making Fire Roasted Salsa. For every large Tomato, I add 1 medium sized Onion, 1 Bell Pepper, 1 Anaheim Pepper, 1 Jalapeno and a few cloves of Garlic. It’s pointless making salsa on that small of a scale and that’s why I double that amount in the ingredients below. If you want it spicier, add more peppers, different kinds or use less tomato. It’s really not that difficult to trick up. But that should give you a better understanding of how to approach your own homemade salsa in the future.
How to Spice Up Fire Roasted Salsa
If the Peppers aren’t providing enough heat and flavor for your tastes, there are a few other ingredients you can add to your Fire Roasted Salsa and I’ve included them in this recipe. Cumin, Smoked Paprika and Mexican Oregano are definitely among my favorites. You can even add some Cayenne if you’re feeling froggy. Just be sure that you stay true to your tastes and be considerate of the pallets and less tolerant individuals, like children you may be serving, if they can’t handle spice.
Fire Roasted Salsa Ingredients:
2 Hot House Tomatoes, large
2 Onions,
1 Bell Pepper
1 Anaheim Pepper
1 Jalapeno
5 Garlic Cloves
1 lime, squeezed
1 bunch Cilantro
1 tbsp Oregano
1 tbsp Cumin
1 tbsp Smoked Paprika
1 tbsp Chicken Bouilion, Caldo con Sabor de Pollo(Knorr)
Salt and Pepper to taste
If you’ve ever purchased a Margarita Mixer from the store, you know that they are both pricey and usually crap. So, why do we buy them? Because we LOVE Margarita’s! Right? Damn straight! But if you’re like me, you wouldn’t mind a cheaper alternative and maybe even a better tasting cocktail and that’s what I aim for when I’m mixing a beverage with spirits. But there are a few things you need to consider before you attempt this recipe because there aren’t just several different ways to make this. You have to consider variable ingredients as well as apposing temperatures, as well.
Margarita Mixer Variance’s
All Margarita Mixer recipes are different and I don’t just mean swapping out fruits like Strawberries, Mango’s or Watermelon to make a Margarita. Store bought bottles literally contain 0% juice. And, if you try one brand to the next, both Lime Flavored for example, they’ll taste completely different from one another. But they also have all of that shelf life crap they have to endure, with all of the ingredients, created to preserve the product, all the while trying to maintain flavor. But the only 3 ingredients you need to worry about today are Water, Sugar and Lime Juice.
I make my Margaritas with Triple Sec in them. Which, if you don’t know, is a sweet orange liqueur. But, if you’re not adding that, you might want to consider squeezing in an Orange with all of the freshly squeezed Limes. This, along with the sugar, will help balance the citrus and citric acid.
Sweetening and Heating the Margarita Mixer
This Margarita Mixer can be tweaked in several other ways and it’s important that you consider these options and understand you might like your Mixer better if it’s heated or unheated, Sweetened with Corn Syrup or Simple Syrup and made with granulated Sugar or Honey.
If you choose to make Simple Syrup, which I recommend, there’s no avoiding heat to fuse and bond the sugar or honey to the water. Simple Syrup is, of course, 1 part water and 1 part Sugar but you can substitute honey, if you like, but consider cooling it down first before mixing the other ingredients at room temperature. The flavor will be different than how it would taste after the ingredients are heated on the stove. To prove my point, think about fresh salsa vs. cooked salsa.
Using the Limeade to make a Margarita Mixer is a quick fix but, once again, you may want to consider mixing the ingredients at room temperature.
