Chef Cherisse’s Sumptuous Shrimp Ceviche

Posted on May 6, 2015 by kelleychisholm

Yummy shrimp ceviche

Those of you who follow my blog know that occasionally I am a cooking assistant at Whisk in Cary, one of my favorite stores ever! I always love working with Chef Cherisse Byers, and the last time I assisted, she made one of the best dishes I’ve ever tried out of the Whisk kitchen — Shrimp Ceviche. This stuff was absolutely awesome, with an explosion of fresh flavors and different textures. What an awesome recipe for summer, either as a main dish or appetizer — it’s easy to assemble and so, so refreshing!

Shrimp ceviche up close

Because of time constraints, Chef Cherisse poached the shrimp slightly, which I thought added the perfect texture to them. To make this a true ceviche, you would skip the poaching and chop the shrimp into bite-sized pieces, place it and the lime juice in a large bowl, and let stand until the shrimp are opaque. Then follow the rest of directions listed below. The only thing I added, once the ceviche was plated, was a couple dashes of hot sauce, but that is optional, depending on your taste.

Ingredients (4 large servings)

Kel's Cafe shrimp ceviche ingredients

  • 1 pound large shrimp (26-30 count), peeled and deveined
  • ½ cup fresh lime juice (5-6 limes)
  • ¼ cup fresh lemon juice (1 large lemon)
  • 6-8 “cocktail” tomatoes, diced (or 3-4 plum tomatoes)
  • ½ cup heats of palm, diced
  • ½ cup red onion, finely chopped
  • ½ cup cilantro, finely chopped
  • ½ jalapeno pepper, membrane and seeds removed, diced small
  • 1 ripe (but firm) avocado, diced
  • Kosher salt, to taste
  • Fresh ground pepper, to taste
  • Hot sauce (optional)

Preparation

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil, and poach shrimp for 1½ minutes, until they turn slightly pink.

Poach shrimp

Immediately transfer shrimp to an ice bath.

Place shrimp in icebath

Once shrimp are cool, chop into bite-sized pieces and transfer to a large bowl. Pour the lime juice over the shrimp and stir to coat.

Combine shrimp and lime juice

Fold in the rest of the ingredients and season with the salt and pepper.

Kel's Shrimp Ceviche

Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. Serve with tortilla or plantain chips, or as a side dish to fish, burgers, steak, etc.

Shrimp ceviche with cheeseburger

This goes great with margaritas or a glass of crisp white wine. Thank you, Chef Cherisse, for teaching me how to make this delicious dish!

Kel's shrimp ceviche appetizer

Bon appétit!

Eat, drink and be merry!

Follow Kel’s Café on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kelscafe

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Kel’s Café Nutty Chocolate Chip Banana Squares

Posted on April 27, 2015 by kelleychisholm

Kel's Nutty Chocolate Chip Banana Squares

Got overripe, brown bananas? Instead of making traditional banana bread (and there is nothing wrong with that!), consider these awesome Nutty Chocolate Chip Banana Squares, which are easy to whip up and taste fantastic – a bit addictive, in fact!

These are perfect for breakfast, dessert or even a midday snack. I use unsweetened applesauce to keep them moist, plus it cuts down on the calories instead of using oil. I love to bake these awesome squares in my Pampered Chef brownie pan, but if you don’t have the brownie pan, make muffins instead. In addition, I like to use my PC salad choppers to chop the walnuts – it takes no time at all to get the right consistency!

Chop nuts with PC salad choppers

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Kel’s Take on the Barefoot Contessa’s Chicken: Thank You, Ina!

Posted on March 31, 2015 by kelleychisholm

Kel and Ina's roasted chickent

I just love the Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten) and her laid-back approach to entertaining. One of my dearest friends, Rose, reminds me of Ina – somewhat in looks, but always in the easy and calm approach  each takes to prepare great food for a number of guests without breaking a sweat or batting an eyelash, making more time to spend with their friends. Just the opposite of frazzled me — I wish I had their relaxed composure (and awesome cooking skills)!

I have a variety of great roast chicken recipes, but wanted something to showcase roasted veggies as well. Enter Ina’s recipe for Perfect Roast Chicken (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/perfect-roast-chicken-recipe.html), which looked pretty perfect to me. So what did I change? Not much, except for including some mushrooms and small red potatoes (both on sale, of course), to add some complexity and depth to this dish.  You will want a large, deep casserole dish for this (13×9) to hold all of the ingredients.

Kel's chicken ready for the oven

This is a hearty and awesome meal that takes minimal effort to assemble. I think Ina (and Rose) would approve of my tweaks!

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How Are You Celebrating 3.14.15? With a Pi[e], I Hope!

Posted on March 13, 2015 by kelleychisholm

 Kel's Tequila Key Lime Pie

International Pi Day is celebrated annually on March 14. This year is particularly cool, especially if you’re a math geek, since Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol that represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159.  And this year Pi Day is on once-in-a-lifetime 3.14.15. How exciting! Whatever. All I know is that the date and the roundness of it all means “Let’s Make Pie!”

I thought long and hard about what kind of pie I wanted to make for this most worthy occasion and finally decided after all of the recent snow and ice storms in Raleigh and my yearning to be in Key West to make this Tequila Key Lime Pie. Something to celebrate spring, with a little bit of attitude with the tequila, since this will be the only time this date ever happens again.

Talk about things going right and things going wrong. The pie itself was awesome, but the homemade chocolate graham cracker crust left a lot to be desired. It tasted great, but was messy, messy, messy, and that carried on to the filling and meringue topping. Next time I’ll buy a premade crust, which I’ve done in the past with great results. So while my photos show ingredients for the crust, I’m skipping that part.

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Chef Curt Shelvey Shines in Southern Pines

Posted on March 8, 2015 by kelleychisholm

 Chef Curt Shelvey

As part of the Got to Be NC Competition Dining Series, Triangle 2015, I have had the pleasure to interview the talented chefs from the four Raleigh restaurants participating in the competition, as well as one of the finalists. It’s been great to learn more about their culinary experience, why they think they have what it takes to win, and other fun tidbits about them.

I was so happy to sit down and talk with Chef Curt Shelvey, owner of Curt’s Cucina (www.curtscucina.com) in Southern Pines, especially since I was fortunate to be a media judge in his quarter-final battle and savored three wonderful dishes from him and his team. Chef Shelvey and I have had several humorous conversations on Twitter about the competition, so it was great to meet him a person and learn more about his background.

Chef Shelvey is humble yet passionate about his profession. A self-described “good ol’ boy,” he doesn’t take himself too seriously and is mainly concerned about having fun in the kitchen and taking care of his customers.

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Kel’s Yummy Yukon Gold Potatoes au Gratin

Posted on March 1, 2015 by kelleychisholm

 

Kel's potatoes au gratin

Yukon gold potatoes — what’s not to love? Especially when they go on sale. I especially like to use them when making mashed potatoes, but decided on cheesy potatoes au gratin instead because I wanted to try my new mandolin (officially known as the Simple Slicer) from Pampered Chef®.

I have to admit I’ve shied away from mandolins throughout the years after slicing myself pretty badly the first time I used one. And while the PC Simple Slicer® touts itself as being safe since the food holder protects fingers from its blade, I was still hesitant to try it. But I’m glad I finally did, as it was so easy to slice the potatoes, which came out perfectly uniform and is what you always want in a casserole like this. What an awesome timesaver!

Pampered Chef simple slicer

This recipe is so easy to assemble, but it does take a while to cook. Totally worth it, though, especially when this cheesy delight melts in your mouth. The only thing I will do different next time is to add a bit of Asiago cheese to give it a bit of a kick, and perhaps some crumbled bacon to make it the ultimate comfort food!

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Posted in Pasta, Rice, etc., Recipes, Vegetables/Vegetarian/Vegan | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Kel’s Sweet and Simple Fried Plantains (Platanos Maduros)

Posted on February 19, 2015 by kelleychisholm

Kel's fried sweet plantains

I have been addicted to fried sweet plantains ever since I tried them at Mami Nora’s Peruvian Rotisserie and have finally created a simple but sumptuous recipe that uses only 3 to 5 ingredients (ripe plantains, oil for frying, cinnamon sugar and sea salt) that takes less than 10 minutes to make. These are easy on the pocketbook as well — a large plantain is usually about 75 cents or even less, depending on where you shop.

There are a few things you need to know about plantains. They are a member of the banana family but, unlike bananas, are starchy and low in sugar. They must be cooked (usually fried or baked) before serving. When a plantain is totally ripe, the peel is almost completely black. Ripe plantains are what I use in this recipe because their sugar content is the highest.

Ripe plantains

Always choose firm plantains, which you will find in the produce section of your grocery store. If you can’t find any black ones, then choose the green or yellow ones — it takes seven to ten days for green plantains to fully ripen. For more information on plantains, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking_plantain.

Serve these wonderful sweet fried morsels with black beans and rice for a nice meatless meal, or just enjoy them as a snack, which is what I usually do. But be careful, because as I mentioned earlier, they are definitely addictive!

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Chicken Parm, You Taste So Good

Posted on February 11, 2015 by kelleychisholm

 

Kel's chicken parm with salad

What’s not to love about chicken parmesan? Juicy chicken breast, spicy marinara sauce and cheese – lots and lots of ooey, gooey cheese! I guess you can call me a chicken parm snob because I am quite picky on how I like it. My No.1 rule is not to drown it in marinara sauce – that makes the chicken soggy and I prefer it to be nice and crispy. You can always have extra marinara on the side for dipping.

For this recipe I use a mixture of panko and Italian bread crumbs. The panko adds a nice crunch, while the Italian bread crumbs adhere to the chicken better. I also use 3 types of cheese — parmesan, provolone and mozzarella — because you can never have too much of that!

I always make enough to be able to have chicken parm subs the next day. Just spread some marinara on a toasted sub roll, add the leftover chicken parmesan and more cheese, and bake. Yum! You are gonna want to have extra napkins on hand.

Chicken parm sub

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Kel’s Rustic Roast Beef Hash

Posted on February 4, 2015 by kelleychisholm

Kel's roast beef hash with tomatoes and cheese

Hash is a wonderful way to turn leftover meat into complete comfort food. This recipe is simple and uses roast beef as the meat of choice, but you could easily use leftover corned beef instead (like I do in Kel’s Corned Beef Hash recipe.) Just add some diced potatoes, onions, red bell pepper and seasonings, and in no time you have a homey and hearty dish. Many people consider hash as a breakfast food and serve it with eggs and toast. I like to top mine with sliced tomatoes and cheddar cheese (and if I’m feeling decadent, an egg or two over easy.)

Many folks like to place the cooked roast beef through a meat grinder, but I’m good with just cutting it into a small dice. For this recipe I use equal amounts of potatoes and meat, but feel free to add more of the roast beef if that’s your preference.

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Not Your Typical Bar Food, Thanks to Executive Chef Patrick Cowden, Tobacco Road Sports Café

Posted on January 26, 2015 by kelleychisholm

 Chef Patrick Cowden

As part of the Got to Be NC Competition Dining Series, Triangle 2015, I had the pleasure to interview the talented chefs from the four Raleigh restaurants participating in the competition and learn more about their experience, why they think they have what it takes to win, and other fun tidbits about them.

I was so excited to meet Tobacco Road Sports Cafe’s executive chef Patrick Cowden, since I have enjoyed several meals at two of the restaurants where he worked (Michael Dean’s and Jean Claude’s, both which are different venues today). I have also had some great appetizers (sweet chili shrimp and the buffalo chicken egg rolls) at Tobacco Road, perfect to munch on while watching a football or basketball game on one of the numerous flat screens.

Chef Cowden is committed to North Carolina products and local producers, which shows in his fresh approach to food. Everything is made from scratch at Tobacco Road, and at least 75% is locally sourced. That, combined that with Chef’s Cowden’s firm commitment to teamwork, makes him a strong contender for that coveted red chef’s jacket!

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