Restaurant Review: Guasaca Arepa & Salsa Grill, Raleigh, N.C.

Posted on April 25, 2013 by

Guasaca Courtyard entrance

If you live in Raleigh and want to try some fresh and wonderful food based on Venezuelan cuisine, head on over to Guasaca, which recently opened off of Lake Boone Trail, right down from Rex Hospital. Believe me; you’ll be glad you did!

According to Guasaca’s website, the restaurant was “born out of the belief that it is possible to offer food that is delicious, affordable, fresh and healthy, all at the same time.” Well guess what? Guasaca lives up to all of this, and more! Needless to say I am thrilled that this new restaurant is less than three miles from home. It is set up somewhat like a submarine sandwich store – you stand in line and once you get to the counter you choose your ingredients. The line has always moved quickly when I’ve been there and the service is some of the friendliest I’ve seen anywhere.

Guasaca order here

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Creamy Corn, Cheese and Bacon Casserole

Posted on April 21, 2013 by

Kel's Creamy Corn Cheese and Bacon Casserole

There are few foods that I dislike and cream corn is near the top of that list. Until now. I guess that’s because the only kind of cream corn I’ve tried has been that out of a can, which is totally disgusting as far as I’m concerned. As a kid I don’t remember having to eat it whenever we had it for dinner, probably because I loved almost everything else so my parents let me slide.

I was looking for a recipe for a corn and cheese casserole that did not include any type of bread and ran across one from Saveur.com that looked great, mainly because it included a pièce de résistance: bacon. Fresh corn, cheese AND bacon — I knew I had to give it a try. We are all glad that I did – everyone loved it. I changed the recipe some by doubling the bacon (no surprise there) and adding some red bell pepper and sweet onion. What a rich, creamy, sweet yet slightly smoky casserole that melts in your mouth! The only thing I would do different next time is to triple the bacon.

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Raleigh’s Five Best Grilled Pimento Cheese Sandwiches

Posted on April 16, 2013 by

Grilled pimento cheese

I love pimento cheese and chances are if you’re from the South, you do, too. There’s nothing more comforting than a warm and gooey grilled pimento cheese sandwich and a bowl of yummy soup or some homemade chips. I recently shared my recipe for Kel’s Reduced-fat Jalapeno Pimento Cheese, which is quick and easy to make and tastes great.

Kel's Grilled pimento cheese

However, sometimes I want to order a grilled pimento cheese sandwich when I’m on my lunch break, so lucky for me a number of area restaurants offer this classic on their menus. Here are my Top-5 favorite places in Raleigh to get a great pimento cheese sandwich, hot off the grill.

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Kel’s Easy Black Bean and Garbanzo Salad (Vegan)

Posted on April 6, 2013 by

Kel's Cafe Black Bean and Garbanzo salad

With warm weather finally on the horizon, I made this easy black bean and garbanzo (chickpea) salad. It takes about five minutes to assemble and once it has been refrigerated for 30 minutes or so it is ready to be enjoyed! Not only is this hearty salad full of fiber and good for you, it tastes fantastic.

This is a great dish to make for a pot-luck get-together – the guests will eat it up!

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Tip of the Month, March 2013: Covet Your Cookbook Collection

Posted on March 31, 2013 by

More cookbooks

My love of books started shortly after I was born and has been a huge factor in my career choices: librarian, writer and editor. My fascination with cookbooks started in junior high school. My parents had a small collection and my favorite was a Good Housekeeping cookbook with a bright blue cover. From that book I learned to make my own pie and pizza crusts from scratch. I still have several of my parents’ old cookbooks, like this great one by Julia Child, but do not have a clue what happened to the Good Housekeeping cookbook.

A page from Julia Child

I have finally managed to weed my cookbook collection to a mere four shelves worth – not an easy feat. However, with so many recipes on the Internet and the need for more space on my shelves, I did find new homes for many of them over the past several years.

Cookbooks

I love the convenience of finding recipes and meal ideas online as well as on some of the food apps on my cell phone (that’s a whole other post.) It comes in especially handy when I find something on sale at the store and am able to look up recipes on my phone to figure out what other ingredients I need to buy. Or, when I’m at work, I can just print a recipe from the Internet and take it shopping with me. However, browsing recipes online never will be able completely to replace leafing through an actual hard-copy cookbook, taking in the pictures and getting ideas for new dishes to make.

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Kel’s Crispy Oven-Baked Tilapia

Posted on March 29, 2013 by

Lovely piece of fish @kelscafeFor years I’ve been buying what Brad and I refer to as “oven fish” from Whole Foods or Fresh Market. “Oven fish” is simply fish filets such as tilapia, trout or flounder, encrusted in some sort of bread crumb mixture that may include Parmesan cheese and/or nuts such as pecans, pistachios or almonds. Simply bake for 20 minutes or so, and voilà, you have an easy and delicious main dish to serve for dinner. But the breaded fish usually comes at a price, as most prepared “fresh” foods do – the other day it was $10.99/lb.

So I decided to save some money and make my own encrusted fish. I found some great tilapia filets for $6.99/lb. Sliced almonds were also on sale and became my nut of choice.

Tilapia on sale!

I’m not 100% sure what the stores use to make the crust stick on the fish, but decided to give mine a bit of a kick with Dijon mustard. Excellent choice! It gave the filets a nice depth of flavor that the store-bought fish does not have. It takes a little bit longer to prepare this fish instead of buying the store-bought, but not by much and what you save makes it all worthwhile!

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Kel’s Homemade Italian Pizza with Turkey Meatballs

Posted on March 25, 2013 by

Kel's homemade Italian Pizza

I recently made some turkey meatballs (see Kel’s Tasty Turkey Meatballs for Pasta, Pizza and Pitas) and promised I would share my recipe for homemade Italian pizza. These meatballs have the right balance of seasonings and the addition of the paprika gives them a nice, smoky kick.

Turkey meatballs

The savory meatballs, sweet onions, slight bitterness of the green peppers and the mild black olives are a perfect combination on my homemade herb and garlic crust.

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