Chile Lime Crab Salad with Tomato and Avocado

The cover recipe from Food and Wine? Not too shabby…especially considering the recipe comes from one of the “Best New Chefs.” Well, truthfully, we slightly adapted the recipe to accommodate for my mom and I, neither of us wanting to indulge in multiple ladles of olive oil. Still, we attempted to turn our plates into works of art.

And who can resist a plate of crab and avocado, two of the most luxurious ingredients (at least of the ingredients that show up in my house) that I can think of? So fresh and yet so rich. I think our satisfaction definitely justified the grocery bill, as lump crap meat is by no means easy on the pocketbook.

Chile Lime Crab Salad with Tomato and Avocado
From: Food and Wine Magazine, July 2008
Note: Instead of using sliced tomatoes as the base for the avocado and crab, we chopped the tomato and mixed it with the avocado.

5 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2-½ tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2-½ tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon very finely chopped jalapeno
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro, plus cilantro leaves for garnish
½ tablespoon honey
½ teaspoon minced garlic
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ pound lump crabmeat, picked over
1-½ Hass avocados, diced (1/2 inch)
1/3 cup minced red onion
1 large heirloom tomato, cut into four 1/2-inch-thick slices
Tortilla chips, for serving

1. In a small bowl, combine the lime juice with the olive oil, jalapeno, chopped cilantro, honey and garlic. Season the dressing with salt and pepper.
2. In a small bowl, toss the crab with 3 tablespoons of the dressing and season with salt and pepper. In a medium bowl, gently toss the avocado with the red onion and 2 tablespoons of the dressing; season with salt and pepper.
3. Place a tomato slice on each plate and season with salt. Top with the avocado and the crab and garnish with the cilantro. Drizzle the remaining dressing on top and serve with tortilla chips.

Blondies

My blog is unbalanced. Originally, I envisioned a better balance between savory and sweet…but I think sweet is slightly ahead. I do have a few delicious meals to blog about, but I am more excited about these blondies!

Mary Kathryn had quite the day yesterday—the kind that clearly needs to end with something buttery and warm. She’s been talking about these “amazing” blondies that she had a few weeks back, so I figured I would take a stab at them.

As it turns out, the only plain blondies recipe I could find was in the Williams-Sonoma Cookie Cookbook. Luckily, the recipe was super easy, and jazzed it up a bit with a little chocolate drizzle. The blondies turned out rather well, and I might even make them again for our BBQ today!

Blondies

From: Williams-Sonoma Cookies

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup unsalted butter

1-1/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar

1 large egg plus 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan, line the bottom with parchment (baking) paper, and grease the parchment.
2. Sift the flour and salt together onto a sheet of waxed paper, and set aside.
3. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the butter and brown sugar. Heat, stirring often, until the sugar has dissolved. Continue to cook about 1 minute longer; the mixture will bubble but not boil. Set aside to cool, about 10 minutes.
4. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla to the cooled sugar mixture and stir with a wooden spoon to combine. Sprinkle the sifted flour and salt over the sugar mixture and stir until just blended.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly with a spatula and smoothing the top. Bake until the center is springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 25-30 minutes. Do not overbake. Transfer the pan to a wire rack until cool enough to handle.
6. Run a small knife around the inside of the pan to loosen the cookie. Invert onto the rack, lift off the pan, and then carefully peel off the parchment paper. Let cool completely on the rack before cutting into 2-inch squares.