Muscadines aren’t just for wine, y’all!  Ground those grapes up and they make a delicious base for a super moist cake.  And yeah, I’m using a box mix, don’t judge!  The secret to the moistness is the box of vanilla pudding (no need to actually MAKE the pudding, you just pour in the powder) AND the glaze is key.  Make sure you poke a ton of holes into the cake so the glaze seeps in– sticky, yummy delish!

Muscadine seeds are a bit high maintenance– I cut the grapes in half, took out the seeds and THEN put them in my juicer.  It’s worth the extra step!

The crew on The Weather Channel’s AMHQ show loved it— and you will too.  Here’s the live shot with Sam Champion!

I love cooking with my foodie friends– especially when they can teach ME something that I never knew….Meet Chadwick Boyd, Food and Lifestyle Expert, and King of all things Lovely and Delicious.  In fact, that’s what his company is called.  And he lives up to the name with these incredible recipes he taught me in the Atlanta Plugged In Kitchen!

Chadwick says, “Whole vegetable cooking is an outgrowth of the sustainable food movement. Cooks are now embracing using all parts of vegetables – roots, stalks, leaves and all. This recipe is inspired by Tara Duggan’s recipe in her excellent book, Root to Stalk Cooking. It’s also inspired by my grandfather Frank who used to sit at the kitchen table and peel broccoli stems as a pre-dinner snack.”

Shaved Broccoli Stalk Salad with Golden Raisins and Lemon

• 2 bunches broccoli with leaves, washed
• 2 Tablespoons golden olive oil
• Zest from 1 fresh lemon + juice from half
• 1 cup golden raisins
• ½ cup French feta (or regular crumbled feta)
• Crunchy salt (Kosher)
• Black pepper
• Directions

1. Trim all the leaves off the stems of the broccoli. Cut off the florets. Reserve both in a bowl. Cut the stalks in half. Remove the tough outer skin using a sharp vegetable peeler. Discard. Run the peeler along the cut side of the stalks and thinly shave. Gently pat with a paper towel to remove any excess moisture.

2. Place the shavings, florets and leaves in a large mixing bowl. Add the olive oil, lemon zest, juice, raisins and feta. Toss gently. Season with the crunchy salt and pepper. Transfer to a platter or large serving bowl.

3. Serve immediately or chill in refrigerator (you can make this a few hours ahead).

 Rainbow Chard and Parmesan Tart

• 1 puff pastry, thawed
• 4 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 small shallot, finely chopped
• 6-8 stalks and leaves of Josie’s Organics rainbow chard, washed and dried, stems evened up
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 Tablespoons grated parmesan
• Kosher salt and fresh black pepper to taste
• Preheat oven to 400°.Unfold pastry dough onto a lightly oiled baking sheet.Heat 3 Tablespoons of olive oil in a large 12-inch skillet on medium-high heat. Add shallots. Let soften, about 5 minutes.Lay chard gently into skillet. Add chicken broth. Cover and cook for 5 minutes until stalks are tender with a fork. Remove from heat.

  Brush pastry dough evenly with remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Carefully arrange chard lengthwise on pastry dough, alternating different colored stalks. Top with any remaining broth and shallots in the pan. Evenly dust with parmesan. Season with salt and pepper.

  Bake for 25 minutes until golden and bubbly, turning the baking sheet once halfway through.

  Let rest 5 minutes on a cutting board before cutting to serve.

  DRESS IT UP! – To kick this recipe up another notch, add small dollops of fresh whole milk ricotta before sprinkling with parmesan. The fresh cheese settles nicely into the pastry dough and gives a nice, creamy touch to the chard.

I had an absolute blast teaching Sam Champion how to grill watermelon this morning!  You’ll love the smoky flavor that the grill adds to sweet watermelon.  Try a yellow one out too– it has a honey flavor and is yellow because it doesn’t have the antioxidant “Lycopene” that lends that pretty ruby color to red watermelons.

Grilled Watermelon with Prosciutto, Gorgonzola and Balsamic Glaze

Ingredients:

½ watermelon, seeded and cut into chunks with rind

8 thin slices of prosciutto de Parma ham

¾ cup crumbled Gorgonzola

2 cups Balsamic Vinegar

½ cup Brown sugar

Directions for Watermelon: Spray cooking spray on a clean grill and wait until grill is very hot.  Grill over high heat until nicely charred, about 1 minute per side.  Top the watermelon with prosciutto, crumbled gorgonzola and drizzle with balsamic glaze.  You can keep the rind on or cut off before serving.

Directions for Balsamic Glaze: Mix balsamic vinegar with brown sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until sugar has dissolved.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer until glaze is reduced by half, about 20 minutes.  Glaze should coat the back of a spoon.  Let cool and pour into a jar with a lid; store in refrigerator.

Watermelon Margarita

Ingredients:

2 shots Tequila

1 1/2 cups fresh watermelon

Juice from 1 lime

1/2 cup seltzer water

1-2 cups ice

Directions: Put ingredients in blender and blend till frothy!

You can rim your margarita glass with salt, sugar or a combo of both.

Alternate balls of watermelon, fresh mozzarella and basil

Fresh Mozzarella, Basil and Watermelon Skewers

Ingredients:

Watermelon cut into small squares or balls

Fresh Basil

Fresh mozzarella balls

Directions: Alternate watermelon on the skewer with balls of fresh mozzarella and fresh basil.

photo credit: stalkerville.net

Watermelon “No Bake” Cake with Whipped Coconut Cream

1 large seedless watermelon

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 can full fat coconut milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 Tb honey

1 cup sliced almonds or shredded coconut

Seasonal fruit for topping

Directions:

To make the whipped cream:

Put the can of coconut milk in the fridge overnight so the cream separates from the milk.  The cream will be at the top of the can.  Scrape out the cream and add vanilla and honey to mixture.  Whip the cream with a hand mixer on medium speed until cream is fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.

Beat the heavy cream until peaks form, about 2-3 minutes.  Fold heavy cream into coconut cream until combined.

To Assemble:

Remove the top and bottom from the watermelon and remove the rind from the middle section.  You’ll be left with a cake shaped piece of watermelon.  Cut the watermelon “cake” into the number of slices you want.

Pat the edges of the watermelon with dry paper towel.  Spread the outside edges of the “cake” with the whipped coconut cream.  Top with more whipped cream and your favorite fruit.  Spread coconut or nuts on sides of cake.  Keep cool until ready to serve.

If you happened across my holiday themed “Low-Carb Mistletoe Margarita” recipe, you know that I have a love/hate relationship with Tequila taking me back years, to a dive bar in Mexico when I fought for my life against a Cobra and a salty bartender who served me snake juice.  You can read all about that story here.  But I digress.  It’s National Tequila Day, y’all!  Time to celebrate with my new fave Tequila….Casa Noble.

Before we get into the delish factor, let’s get real scientific about the hooch.  By their nature, blanco tequilas, also called silver tequila, is considered the purest.  These are clear, essentially unaged tequilas, unlike reposados, which spend 2 to 12 months in oak barrels, and añejos, which are generally aged 1 to 4 years in oak.

According to gizmodo.com “Virtually all tequila distilleries take the ordinario (first run) and distill it a second time. Casa Noble is one of the few that distills it a third time. Either way, what comes out is tequila blanco aka “silver” or “white,” though Casa Noble calls theirs “crystal,” for whatever reason. It tastes, essentially, like what you’re going to end up drinking if you buy a bottle of tequila blanco, except it’s stronger. It comes out of the still at 57-percent alcohol by volume. Enough water is then added to bring it down to 40-percent ABV for bottling.”

That translates to MUCHO BUENO.

I used Casa Noble in 2 Tequila based recipes in honor of National Tequila Day– Tequila Lime Grilled Catfish with Chunky Pico de Gallo and a refreshing Watermelon Margarita.  I did NOT slam shots.  But if you do, you’ll be pleased that there is a smooth finish with a kick in the ass at the end that screams, “MAS TEQUILA!!!”

*Disclaimer:  All of the opinions and recipes in this post are mine.  Casa Noble supplied the product for this review but did not influence the content.

My Dad’s mother, whom we called “Grandmom,” was smart, thrifty and always imaginative… It’s still the stuff of Parker family legend that once she made a party dress out of a trash bag and then wowed the crowd at the yacht club dance with her ingenious creation!  She was the only person who would stay up late and watch horror movies with me– Stephen King’s Carrie was our favorite.

As a little girl, I loved riding on the back of her bike and going to Bay Village on Long Beach Island to a bakery for Elephant Ears.  It was a treat I relished— and one-on-one time with Grandmom was priceless.  She never enjoyed cooking the way my other grandmother did— but she had one dish that was an absolute show stopper: Blueberry Crisp.  This is modified from her recipe to use peaches, but combining some blueberries in there would be divine!  This just TASTES like summer. There’s nothing like a bite of warm, melt-in-your-mouth peaches with a crispy, sweet crust.  Grandmom would be proud.

A couple weeks back, I was on AMHQ with Sam Champion and the gang, talking about peaches!  It’s a new segment I’ll be doing called, “What’s in Season?”  Scroll down for the delish bourbon peach parfait recipe…

Notice those gorgeous wooden serving trays?  They’re hand made by my talented friend, Michael Courts. They are $260 for a set of three. Check out www.mcmeubel.com for his incredible work.

Here’s the segment if y’all missed it!

Your resident Bacon Babe here….with a Bacon Beef Burger topped with, what else….BACON!!

All you need is a food processor to chop up 5-6 pieces of thick cut bacon and fold it into your favorite ground beef mixture.  Put it on the grill and BAM.  Bacon delish inside your burger and ON your burger.

Your 4th of July BBQ will be all bacon-y delish!

Hungover in a New York city cab on the way to the airport?  Wha-what??  No bagels needed….Just sop it up with some eggs and bacon, y’all!  No need to sabotage your low carb livin’!