My latest food creation, up at The Fresh Fridge. If you’re going to be grilling out this weekend, but don’t know what to grill, give these a try!

Megan just launched her new site, The Fresh Fridge! She’ll be posting things like recipes, cooking tips, and food and drink reviews. Check it out!

Janelle and I actually love the red beans and rice out of the box. Being the curious cook that I am, I wondered if I could create something like that from scratch. My first attempt… well, we don’t talk about my first attempt. But my second attempt was a resounding success! Here’s the recipe:

• One cup rice
• Two cans black beans, undrained
• Three or four cloves of garlic, chopped finely
• Two jalapeños, seeds and veins removed, chopped finely
• Three or four green onions, chopped
• One to one and a half pounds lean ham, cubed (optional)
• Some olive oil, for sauteeing (vegetable or canola oils will work, but olive is a bit healthier)
• One small can tomato paste
• One teaspoon cumin
• One tablespoon chili powder
• One bay leaf

Despite having two jalapeños, this is not a spicy dish. The seeds and veins contain most of the heat of the jalapeños, so leave some of that in if you want a spicy dish.

Prepare the rice according to the instructions. (For white rice, it’s usually two parts water, one part rice, on medium low for 30 minutes, but check on this.) While that’s cooking, put some oil in a large skillet (just enough to cover the bottom) and throw the garlic in there. Sautee for a few minutes, until it just starts to brown. Then, throw everything else but the beans and tomato paste in and sautee for five to ten minutes. Then, add the tomato paste, black beans with liquid, and an additional cup of water. It will look pretty soupy, but the rice will soak most of that up. Mix well and sautee for another few minutes, then mix in the rice and serve.

I’ve had some requests for what I do with kale, so here it goes…

What you’ll need:

• One or two bunches of kale
• 100% extra virgin olive oil
• A sea salt grinder (we actually got a sea salt/dried garlic grinder)

That’s it. Since there are so few ingredients, each one really stands out, which means the quality of the ingredients is very noticeable. So use sea salt instead of regular salt and make sure the olive oil says 100% pure (otherwise it’s probably a blend).

You’ll need to separate the leaves from the stem running up the middle. The stem is edible, but it’s very, very tough—too tough for this method of cooking to soften. Put the leaves in a large bowl and toss lightly with some olive oil. Not a ton—just enough to lightly coat each piece. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees. If the baking sheet is large enough for all the pieces to lay flat without touching, bake for six minutes, flip all pieces, and bake for another six minutes. If the pieces are all jammed together, just bake for thirteen to fifteen minutes. They won’t be cooked as evenly, but it works. Salt them when you take them out.

This actually went really well with a vegan dish I found online. Here’s the recipe for that:

What you’ll need:

• Two medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• One red bell pepper, diced
• One medium yellow or white onion, diced
• One can dark red kidney beans, drained
• One can small red beans, drained
• Three or four cloves of garlic, minced or diced finely
• Rosemary (1 teaspoon dried)
• Thyme (1 teaspoon dried)
• Paprika (1 teaspoon)
• One tablespoon butter
• Some olive oil

Put the butter and a touch of olive oil in a large skillet. (Use enough oil to coat however much of the pan that the butter doesn’t.) Sautee the garlic for a minute or two, but don’t brown it. Drop in all ingredients but the beans and sautee over medium heat until cooked (maybe ten minutes). Once cooked, drop in the beans and cook until warm.

This breaks the vegan rule, but a fried egg on top is really good.

If you don’t know, king cake is a Mardi Grad tradition. It’s a dough wrapped around a filling of fruit, sweetened cream cheese, and some cinnamon. Janelle and I tried making our own using a recipe that we found online. Apparently, it’s not as easy as it looks.

We loaded all the ingredients up and realized that we had forgotten to sweeten the cream cheese. That’s when we realized that this is probably something we should document, so we took some pictures then:

Key lime
Raspberry

We rolled them the best we could and baked them as directed to. Baking certainly didn’t help.

Key lime
Raspberry

I didn’t mention that this was for a party tonight. Luckily, HyVee saved the day. We might bring our abominations to the party anyway, but we needed to give guests the option of a decent king cake.

The moral of the story: making king cake is harder than it looks.

Inspired by Megan’s latest post, here’s a recipe I found for brain sandwiches:

1 set of calves brains
1 qt. water
1 tbsp. vinegar
1 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 egg yolks
1 tbsp. melted butter
1 tsp. lemon rind
1/2 c. milk
2 stiffly beaten egg whites
Lard for deep frying

Soak in cold acidulated water (1 quart water and 1 tablespoon vinegar) for about 3 hours. Skin them and soak in lukewarm water to free them from all traces of blood.

Then as they are rather mushy in texture, firm them by again blanching in acidulated water to cover for about 20 minutes. (Do not boil.)

Dry them and pull into small pieces.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt. Beat egg yolks and blend dry ingredients into them. Beat in 1 tablespoon melted butter and 1 teaspoon lemon rind (optional) and 1/2 cup milk. Beat until stiff but not dry, 2 egg whites. Fold them into the batter. Add the brains. Drop into hot fat (lard) and fry until golden on both sides. Drain on paper towel.

Serve on bun with pickle and onion and mustard.

All we have of it is a cell phone shot, so it’s hard to make out. Here it is!

So, for our most recent pitch party, we’re cooking up a ton of food. (Pitch is a card game for four or five players, if you don’t know. We’re going to have four tables.) Here’s the menu:

• Bruschetta chips with mozzarella slices
• Puff pastry shells filled with key lime pie filling and pumpkin pie filling
• Cranberry Brie phillo cups
• Chocolate peanut butter cookies
• Corn salsa
• Cheesy bean dip
• Beer bread
• Barbecue meatballs (wouldn’t be a Kansas City party without barbecue something)

Just some real quick notes on the above…

Corn Salsa

Get a package of frozen corn. (If you’re feeling extra-motivated, you can get fresh corn and grill it.) Dice a red onion, a green bell pepper, and a green jalapeño pepper (optional, dice it really finely if you use it). Drain and add one can of black beans. Drizzle with some olive oil and slowly mix in a tablespoon or two of cumin.

Cheesy Bean Dip

Equal parts refried beans and Velveeta, cubed. Melt, and keep warm.

Cranberry Brie Phillo Cups

Buy two or three packages of frozen phillo shells. (Make sure they’re shells and not just dough!) Also get some Brie cheese and canned cranberry sauce with whole berries. Put a small chunk of Brie cheese in each shell and top with a dollop of cranberry sauce. Bake according to directions on phillo cups.

That’s all I’ve got.

Now that we’re moving back into warm weather, it’s prime time for parties. Here are some awesomer party ideas to get you started…

(Note: These are just food ideas. It’s up to you to plan a party around them.)

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