Harissa Air Fried Chick Peas

This uses a fiery hot spice from North Africa. If you want something tamer, you could use just paprika. Big thanks to my life-long buddy Chip Gorman whose comment on my earlier air-fried chick pea snack led to the discovery of Harissa, which has become the basis of so many great meals. I get mine on Amazon. Simple recipe. I drain, rinse and clean (remove the skins) two cans of chick peas. I roll them out on a kitchen towel to dry and remove the rest of the skins. I throw these into a bowl with a little olive or avocado oil and coat them with the Harissa Seasoning. These go into the air fryer for 20 minutes, then I rotate the trays and do a few more minutes, or until they are crunchy all the way through. No mushy-ness. Place these in a bowl, add some more...

Pasta Salad

On a HOT Summer day there is only one perfect cool meal…Pasta Salad! In a perfect world I would use my grill’s side burner to boil the water for the pasta…but it was too hot outside to do even that. The area was knocking on 100°· So I cooked it indoors. Key here is to cook the pasta WAY before dinner so it can get cool. I boiled mine before dog-park time, iced it down, washed it with cool water, applied some olive oil, tossed it and put it into the fridge. At this time, put EVERYTHING into the fridge, including canned items like black olives and fresh items like onions and bell peppers. I used Farfalle (bow tie pasta) but normally I use tri-color Rotini. I just wanted to do something new. Ingredients: 1 diced red bell pepper1 diced red onion1...

Surf N’ Turf Smash-burger

A first for us. This just came out of the desire to have a Smashburger, but to do something different. We had some leftover cooked shrimp and Guac from Peggy’s Pier, and leftover rolls from our Harissa Chicken, so we came up with this. And it was delightful! We started with a classic Oklahoma Smash-burger, pressing the 80/20 grass-fed beef into thin sliced onions, seasoned with only salt and pepper. On the right side of the griddle we sauteed a whole onion and orange bell pepper. Once done we tossed a pile of shredded potatoes on top. With the burgers half cooked, we tossed 8 cooked shrimp, marinaded in lemon juice, olive oil and Italian seasoning. At the same time we toasted two sliced rustic buns, using avocado oil. Construction was simple, bun bottom,...

Harissa seasoned shrimp on guacamole and cucumber bites

Our offering for Peggy’s Pier this evening. Harissa seasoned shrimp on guacamole and cucumber bites. A slice of English cucumber topped with a spoonful of chunky guacamole and then a piece of cooked shrimp marinaded in olive oil, lemon juice and Italian seasoning. This was seasoned with Harissa Seasoning and kept cool in a new multi-tray...

Blackened Harissa Fish Sandwich

This is, without a doubt, the best fish sandwich we’ve made. Based off a note of a friend (Chip Gorman) about air fried chick peas, we bought some Harissa seasoning. But when it came it…it was SO good, it needed to be part of a chicken or fish sandwich. So tonight we created this wonder. We used a generous amount of the harissa seasoning with olive oil and put it onto the Blackstone griddle. We used the juices of this to season the bread, a hearty small rustic bread. The construction was a toasted bun, with a slather of my usual mix of Duke’s mayo and Cholula hot sauce, the fish, a pile of garden fresh romaine lettuce, pickle slices and t topping of bread with the same sauce. Served with thin sliced air-fried sweet potatoes. Finished with a...