520.465.5214 • Jackie@jackiealpers.com
Mexican style shrimp cocktail is a festive yet casual affair. It’s traditionally served layered in the kind of glass used for ice cream sundaes, along with the customary long spoon, and since I make mine with Bloody Mary mix and hot sauce it’s ready in about 5 minutes.
I prefer to ditch the bread in my BLT because it really just gets in the way (which might be why it’s not called a BBLT). Instead, I make mine “protein style” served stuffed in the hollow of a big piece of romaine lettuce for more of the stuff that I really want.
If you bake a layer of Parmesan cheese in the oven it will crackle and pop after a while, turning into a crispy, brown cheese cracker that’s much tastier than any pizza crust I’ve encountered. I topped this baked cheese crisp (which is a popular dish called Frico in Italy) with pizza spices and toppings before sliding it into the oven. The results: crustless pizza!
Bring a little sunshine into your life with these bright and happy two-ingredient pizza flavored cheese crisps.
How to make vegan Chile Colorado. Colorado means “red” in Spanish, and this dish is indeed a deep, vivid red. I use baked tostada shells and lots of fresh veggies to make this a meatless, gluten-free, Sonoran style Mexican recipe that’s low in calories but big on flavor.
The beef patty taco has been standard restaurant fare around Tucson since at least the mid-70s. A hamburger patty was folded into a tortilla and fried. Topped with cheese, lettuce, and tomato.
Nuttier and less sweet than its chocolate based cousin, this version of Molé Amarillo is the personal creation of Chef Suzana Davila of Tucson’s Cafe Poca Cosa. She specializes in these complex sauces, and her recipes are longtime local favorites which is one reason why I wanted to feature the recipe in my upcoming cookbook Taste of Tucson: Sonoran Style Recipes Inspired by the Rich Culture of Southern Arizona. Serve this dish with tortillas and a pretty, salad, as Suzana would.
The Moist Maker is inspired by “The One Where Ross Loses it Over a Sandwich.” My version uses leftover dinner rolls instead of bread.
I marinated myself a flank steak using my mom’s recipe from the 80s, adding in some Mexican oregano and extra citrus to #sonoranize it a bit so now it’s an Ohio meets Tucson recipe.
This no-recipe recipe is my tribute dog to Sweathog, Vinnie Barbarino. This recipe has become very popular since I first created it for my monthly column on the FoodNetwork.com. The people of the Internet have spoken, and they have said that it’s a cross between a pizza and a hot dog, and that is not untrue.
The cheese crisp is the perfect comfort food. A cross between a Mexican pizza an an open-faced quesadilla, Southern Arizona restaurants started selling the dish more than 50 years ago and it’s become a staple of our local Sonoran style cuisine.
This easy and affordable healthy quinoa burrito bowl is packed with Sonoran Mexican flavors.
Start your day with this Sonoran style power breakfast bowl. It’s high in protein, complex carbs and healthy fats.
A cheesy chicken and broccoli casserole featuring my copycat condensed Cream of Chicken Soup recipe.
Walnuts are less expensive and easier to find than the traditional pine nuts and I think they taste even better in pesto, plus they’re loaded with healthy fats. Spinach linguini keeps everything a lovely shade of green.
For centuries, people believed that it was impossible to make a chicken pot pie in the microwave. I have proven them wrong.
This is a healthy and extremely flavorful way to dress up boneless skinless chicken breasts. Adding just a small amount of butter on top, and using grated parmesan for a garnish, keeps the fat and calories down.
This snack is best eaten very late at night, preferably after attending a party of some other festive gathering. It’s easily assembled and pleasant to look at, even when blurry.
This Spicy and crunchy Sonoran style chicken salad can be served in lettuce taco wraps, tortas and sandwiches or meal sized salads.
Make any day a celebration! Just barely sweet, these sparkly sandwiches make a fun breakfast surprise, after-school snack, or party food.
Inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem “Fairy Bread” from A Child’s Garden of Verses, fairy bread is a popular treat at children’s parties in Australia, New Zealand, and other little pockets of the world.
This recipe is from my book Sprinkles!: Recipes and Ideas for Rainbowlicious Desserts. The photograph is previously unpublished
Celebrate spring with these easy, grilled pizzas topped with lemon flavored Mascarpone cheese, fresh tomatoes, pepperoni and oregano flowers.
A simple and satisfying crustless quiche that has all of the things I love; peppers (both hot & sweet), onions, Swiss, Gruyere, eggs, and cream.
Apparently, in the olden days, every casino in Las Vegas offered a $1.79 chicken dinner. If you won a $2.00 bet, you’d have enough money to buy one, so the dealer would shout, “Winner, winner chicken dinner “. Chicken is still pretty cheap, so you, dear reader, can be a winner every time you make one of these recipes.
A classic Greek Salad of chunky vegetables and feta tossed in a light vinaigrette will prove that you can indeed win friends with salad.
To demonstrate the various ways that a recipe can be modified I came up with two versions of Johnny Marzetti based on the original recipe from the Columbus Ohio restaurant which I also posted.
The fun thing about pizza is that I can throw a bunch of seemingly unrelated items together and make something new. I’ve been experimenting and have found that almost any combination that tastes good on a salad will also be good on a pizza. For these mini pizzas I started with a classic herb and cheese crust. I used good olive oil and balsamic vinegar instead of tomato sauce. For the toppings I did a hot layer of fennel and blue cheese, and then a cold layer once it came out of the oven. of meats and fresh tomatoes.
I want to eat warm hearty meals in Autumn colors. Casseroles baked in stoneware dishes with rich sauces. Meat, cream, smoked cheeses, tomato sauce, and, I want the recipe to be fast, and easy, so that I can eat right away. Something that I can make from memory because I’ve been doing Atkins and I find I instantly become insanely hungry.
These shrimp go great with a glass of wine and a conversation. It’s a dish to be shared, because if everyone is eating it, you won’t have to worry about reeking of garlic… or you could just eat it all by yourself when no one else is around to the same effect. It’s fun either way.
Recipe for a more creamy, cheesy white clam sauce than the traditional version of Fettuccine with clams. This recipe is per person, so if you have a crowd, you’ll need a bunch of cans of clams.
I call this Arizona Caviar because I’m in Arizona and it’s similar to Texas Caviar made with black eyed peas and the lentils do resemble fish eggs.
Recipe for Lox and Cream Cheese Frittata with Fresh Tomato and Red Onion.
Here in Tucson it can be hard to get fresh green papaya, so I use packaged coleslaw mix instead in this spicy Thai cabbage salad inspired by Som Tum.
Rotini pasta mixed with a hearty dose of caviar and Parmesan cheese. You will love the way the caviar sinks in between the pasta’s nooks and crannies.
I’ve been having an unyielding urge for deviled eggs. Since I like a salty-spicy combo I’ll use caviar for a garnish when I’m feeling fancy. Otherwise I’ll just use capers. I feel that it’s important to buy organic eggs and I always try to buy eggs that come from chickens that are fed flax seed, giving their eggs a healthy dose of Omega3. They’re a great idea for vegetarians.I learned how to make hard boiled eggs from Martha Stewart (not in person… on her website). Here’s the link if you want to check out her instructions.This recipe serves one as a snack. For a crowd, multiply the recipe by the number of people expected to eat them.
It took me forever to figure out how to make a thin crust pizza at home. I practiced stretching the dough for months. First I tried to roll out the dough onto a pizza stone. That did not work. Then I purchased a non-stick 16″pizza tray with holes in it which was perfect, but it still took me awhile to get the process down. There were a lot of misshapen hole filled crusts that I would have to peel off of the pizza tray and wad up in a ball for another go around. Below is my step-by-step procedure for getting the dough almost paper thin. I also posted an IPhone video below my husband Jason made of me that illustrates the whole procedure.
Hummus and nonfat feta add protein without a lot of calories to this easy vegetarian dish so feel comfortable adding as much as you see fit.
My husband woke up, looked at me in from his side of the bed and declared this the “Week of Gazpacho”. And so, it is.
CAESAR SALAD DAYS | This is a story about choices, creativity, personal power, and a salad. Specifically, the Caesar salad from the 1967 Joy of Cooking.
A hearty vegetarian version of traditional matzo ball soup modified from an onion and mushroom soup recipe that my mother used to make when I was a kid.
How to make baked falafel. I knew I wanted a healthy falafel sandwich with the falafel baked, not fried. So after a little internet research on how to construct a baked falafel, I came up with this recipe. It makes 3 sandwiches with two falafels each.
