The Lighter Side

Welcome to Best Dishes with Paula Deen

Yes, yes, yes, and Bobby Deen. I'm here with my mom today. And we're fixing up some of our favorite light and simple dishes

It's just good to kind of shake things up. You know what I'm talking about? First, we're firing up the grill with marinated chicken kebabs

that are topped with grilled green onions. Doesn't that look fabulous? It does

And then it's delicious grilled tuna with an olive tapenade. And we're taking coleslaw to a whole new level

Ooh, make that today. It's a sweet but spicy coleslaw. And for dessert, y'all, sweet black cherry crisp and a tropical fruit smoothie

I hear you swallowing. I swallowing. And Mama, we're going to do something that you and I both love very much

It's near and dear to our hearts. We're going to do chicken. And today, I want to share a really simple chicken kebab recipe with you and your viewers

All right, so I will start making the marinade for Bobby's chicken tenders

Well, you and I will make it together. I'm going to start out by chopping up these three cloves of garlic, and I'm going to juice this lemon into there

We're going to end up with a little teriyaki, a little soy, and a little Worcestershire

We're going to put our chicken in, and we're going to let it sit in the fridge for about an hour before we start cooking

I'm going to pop that little plastic top off, Bobby, so I won't have to shake for an hour

Two tablespoons of Worcestershire. This is soy, but it's two tablespoons of everything

Right. And these are three of my favorite flavors. Okay. And with the garlic

I've always been a savory rather than sweet. Yeah. Two tablespoons of teriyaki

There we go. And then two tablespoons of olive oil. And I'm just kind of rough chopping this garlic

Oh, yeah. We're using it just to marinate. And I'm going to juice this one big fat lemon in there

Yes, yes, yes. And Mama, I've got a bunch of chicken tenders that I've just cut up that we're going to add to our marinade

This is about a pound of chicken, y'all. There's a lot of juice in that lemon. Might do a little pepper, but I'd kind of stay away from the salt

A little bit of pepper in there for you. Yeah. Alrighty. All right

And y'all take advantage of your old fruit jars. They can be a wonderful extra hand for you

I said in my next life, I would like to come back as an octopus

I could get eight times the work done. But you'd be an octopus

But I would be an octopus, and I probably wouldn't want to do it. Let's make some slaw

Okay. Okie doke. Here we go. Now look at that. I'm just going to take that chicken, roll that around in there really good

All right, we're going to throw this in the refrigerator. Now, how long are we going to marinate this

About an hour. You know, with chicken like that, I think that you could probably put it in there for two to four hours if you wanted to

But I think an hour would be enough. Chicken is a dense meat

So, you know, marinating it a little longer won't hurt it. Unlike like fish and oh, excuse me

And mama, let's do a coleslaw too. I'm going to show you one that's going to knock your socks off. This is not your typical coleslaw

Okay. I'm going to start out by chopping this head of red cabbage to make a really simple coleslaw

And it's going to be delicious. I'm going to add a red and a green apple to it. And I need for you to make the wet ingredients for our slaw. Okay

It's a little different. We're not just using a mayonnaise like you might be used to making a coleslaw at your house

All right. So I'm going to start with a fourth of a teaspoon of cumin. And then I'm going to add three tablespoons of an apple cider vinegar

And I'm adding two tablespoons of olive oil. Okay. Put a little pepper

A little salt. And this is one of the ingredients that I love, Bobby, that I see you've got in it

Mm-hmm. This is a jalapeno pepper jelly. Love this. I like it, too

I like all kinds of pepper jellies. Yes. We just love down here taking out a block of cream cheese and just pouring this on top and serving it with crackers

You know, it's just one of those old standbys. So we're going to have a little sweet, little heat

This looks delicious. Now, I'm going to chop you up, I think, a little cilantro

Probably just a couple of tablespoons. Boy, Heidi, it's like being slapped in the face with a flavor stick

With a Mexican restaurant. Yes, yes, exactly. I mean, the flavor and the smell just jumps up

It's beautiful. I've got a beautiful red apple, and I've got a Granny Smith that I'm going to chop up real fine

Love it. Okie doke. So, like two tablespoons of cilantro. That looks about like two tablespoons, son

All right, whisk that together and pour it over our cabbage and apples here

When you're ready, I'm just going to kind of toss this together

I try to cut these a little bit All these beautiful colors y The red and you got some green coming Right Looks yummy I love the green in there now Mm It very festive looking

All right. So there we go. Our sauce is ready. I don't know if we're going to need this whole amount

I say yes. I think we are. Mm. And I want to taste

I want to. Ooh, Bobby. A lot of good flavors in there? Taste that

Mm-hmm. Ooh, that's good. Isn't that yummy? Different than your typical coleslaw

Yes. It's just good to kind of shake things up. You know what I'm talking about

Kind of give the unexpected, and this is the unexpected. These are those fabulous pumpkin seeds

Third of a cup of pumpkin seeds. Well, that's the thing about coleslaw is you can, you know, do just about anything you want to

All right, there we go. Simple as that. Okay, pass me that white bowl, Bobby

and I will dip up your fabulous-looking coleslaw. Oh, look how gorgeous

Oh, Bobby. Isn't that nice looking? No sweat. No harm, no foul

All right. Come over here, son, and grab your fork, and let's dig in

This is exquisite. A lot of texture, a lot of flavor, and it's just something a little different

Yes. And really, really easy. Ooh, make that today. Mm-hmm. The cilantro

along with the sweet jalapeno, kind of spicy pepper jelly. It's a fabulous combination, son

Thanks, Mama. I think this is one that y'all are gonna love. Don't go away

Coming up next, we're putting our grill to work with our chicken kebabs and these delicious tuna steaks

To me, the tuna is our prize. Then for dessert, a scrumptious cherry crisp and a light and sweet tropical fruit smoothie

Life is good, y'all. Hey, y'all. Welcome back. We're moving on to the chicken bobs now

Are you ready to get in on this? These are really, really simple

If you'll remember, we had these sitting in a marinade in the refrigerator for about an hour

They're tender, so they're going to cook pretty quickly, just probably six minutes or so on the grill

And if you would help me, Mama, skewering up the rest of these. Okay. We're going to do two meats

These are two of my favorite things. We're getting all of our proteins in today. We're going to do the chicken tenders, and as well, we're going to make these beautiful tuna steaks right here

and a great olive tapenade to go with it. All right, I've got some beautiful green onions that we're going to grill with the chicken

and I'm just going to trim off the ends here. See how we got some mustaches going

The little roots. And you know, I'm not even offended with those staying on

Because I love green onions that much. I do too. These are really simple

And my plan is to just throw them on the grill like this. But we could brush these with a little olive oil and that would be nice

Okay. You want to do that? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. In fact, I may just hold them over the grill

There you go. And just leave us a little room for our tuna sticks. Okay

And I tell you what. If you grab that salt over there, son. Sure. and let's just sprinkle them

And I love this nice coarse sea salt that you got. Oh, I do too. It's one of my favorites

And I'm just going to lay those out. All right. Anybody who knows me knows that I cook tuna all the time

I'm telling you. If you come to my house to eat, you're liable to get a Caesar salad with a piece of tuna on it

So Bobby is making grilled tuna with an olive tapenade. All right, a little olive oil

Just turn these over a couple times. Okay, salt and pepper. A little salt and pepper

It's one of those fishes that you definitely don't want to overcook. You want to cook this medium rare

Right. And it doesn't have the same texture as beef if you were cooking beef medium rare

I'm going to let it sit here for just a few minutes. Okay. And move down here and make this olive tapenade

What do you think? Okay. Put me to work, son. And I see that you've got some fresh oregano

Oregano and some thyme. And some thyme. One teaspoon each. Will you put that together for me

Yes, I will put this together for you. I'll handle the olives. One of my favorite things, y'all

I know. When I was a kid, Mama would con me into going to the grocery store because I hated going

And the way that she would get me to go is she would offer to buy me some olives, which have always been my sort of food vice

And y'all, olives were such a treat because they were expensive, and I could not afford the $1.99 or $2.49

They are expensive. Because I had to use that money for protein for the center of the plate

I've got the green olive stuffed with pimentos, and I've got Kalamata olives. These are one of my favorites, but they're pitted

No seeds in them. I've got some sun-dried tomato and capers, and all four of these things are some of my favorite

So I'm going to chop these up pretty fine, about a half a cup of each, I think. Okay. I'm going to come back down here and check on this, Bobby

It's looking good. And I don't want to overcook these onions, Bobby

so I'm going to take them now and just kind of lay them up on top of our chicken

and I'm still working on our teaspoon of time. Let me give this a quick chop Bobby and I think we in Venice All right All right and you see how I chopped these up I got these olives You got them fairly fine don you Pretty fine

All right, there's our teaspoon of fresh thyme. And I'm going in with our tablespoon of capers drained

Which are one of my favorites. I love them. I just love them. All right, now I've got some sun-dried tomatoes

that have been marinated in some oil. I'm going to dig out about a tablespoon

And this topping on, y'all, it's just going to be like a tablespoon of it right on top of the tuna steak. Makes for a beautiful garnish and a nice flavor to go with that fish

What I'm putting together right now, I could just eat with a spoon. All of these ingredients, they're really strong

Right. Powerful. That's exactly right. Powerful ingredients. You know, I've just planted some olive trees

My gosh. Did you know that? Oh, I didn't. And I was told that they would actually produce a fruit

Really? Yes. That's interesting. All right, Bobby, I'm going to put our tuna on now

Okay. Because I think it's safe. And the chicken looks good. The chicken looks good

The onions look good. Have we got everything together in here? Oh, lemon juice

I haven't got that in yet. Mm-hmm. She was messing it up. Mm-hmm. I was just about to mess up your recipe

I could eyeball it and tell that you had done something wrong. and we just need a teaspoon

All right, son, I think all your ingredients are in there. Did I put the olive oil

No, I hadn't put the olive oil. I wasn't watching you closely enough. I'm not sure. Tablespoon of olive oil

Okay. Now, on your tuna, y'all... Ooh, that looks beautiful. You'll see your tuna start to change colors, y'all

and you don't want it to go halfway up it. To me, the tuna is our prize for this meal

And you don't want to overcook it. Do not want to overcook it. And it looks wonderful

If you'll grab a plate for me, son, I will take our tuna up

Look at that tuna. That looks beautiful. See the kind of pink color of that tuna

It's just perfect. Would you say, Bobby? I would. I think that looks beautiful

Right on top. You're in agreement that it come off right now

Yeah, I think it looks beautiful. Look at that great garnish. Yes

All right, and look at here. I'm just gonna lay a few green onions over there

Just beautiful. Son, that's your plate. Doesn't that look fabulous

It does. All right, I'm gonna turn off our grill. Okay. Let's come down here and taste this wonderful meal that Bobby has prepared

You know, it's all about lightening it up today. Oh my gosh, Bobby

Your olive tapenade, I'm probably gonna have to sedate him after he eats it

Oh my gosh, that chicken is so good. Good. Oh, Bobby. Mmm

Mmm. Mmm. Oh, and the tapenade is good too. And this looks wonderful, son

So when we come back, we're gonna make cherry crisps. So y'all stick around. Coming up next

It's time to reward ourselves. With a black cherry crisp and a tropical fruit smoothie

Welcome back, y'all. This is the balance part of today's meal. We've made lots of good fresh chicken, and we used tuna

It's reward time, son. It's time to reward ourselves. So we're going to make a beautiful cherry crisp, and it's a really simple cherry crisp

So let's get started. I am sort of putting together the base of this dessert

So I'm going to ask for you to put together these dry ingredients for me, if you will. We're going to use some quick-cook oats, which is really important that you use quick-cook

so that this doesn't turn out mushy. You want this to come out nice and crisp

And it's going to be one cup of the quick oats, a half cup of the brown sugar, and a quarter cup of the flour for me, and then we're going to cut in some butter

Okay. Half a cup of packed brown sugar, a fourth of a cup of flour

Just an all-purpose flour. And we've got some slivered almonds, y'all. And we're going to put those in last because we're going to be cutting in some butter. Right

And rather than breaking these up, we're going to add them after we do that. So I'm going to save that. I've got six cups of cherries here

Frozen, pitted black cherries. And I'm going to cut in a quarter of a cup of butter into my dry ingredients

So you can see why we're not adding the almonds right now

A half a cup of granulated sugar. Three tablespoons of all-purpose flour

Ooh, so that flour is going to get mixed up with the cherries and the juice rendered from those

and so they're going to kind of make it thick like a cobbler, aren't they? Yes

It's going to be delicious. Right. And, you know, we said we were, you know, balancing things out, and this was sort of the reward

But you not really using all that much butter so this isn really a decadent dessert you know And you know what Bobbie They have come out now with some great sugar substitutes that you can bake with So if you wanted to really slim it on down some more you could certainly use those

All right, so I'm going to spray our pan here, and I've got our base

What I've just put together here is going to be the base of this dessert. Mm-hmm

those cherries are beautiful they are okay once you get that i'm about to get this worked in bobby

you want that butter to be cut into every bit of those dry ingredients and now if you want to uh

drop in your sliced almonds quarter cup of almonds and just i'll just sort of fold those in together

Bobby, I think we could stand a few more almonds. You think so

What do you think? Yeah, maybe just a few more. All right. I won't even measure them

I'll just drop something. I love the flavor of almonds and cherries

How about that? There, that looks wonderful. That's probably going to give us about a half cup. All right, so we're just going to sprinkle this on top

Is that correct? And then into the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes. Okay

Oh, my goodness. Mm-hmm. I hear you swan. I hear Bobby swallowing hard

And this is, you see, you don't have to go to a whole lot of lengths to make this real, real pretty

Just spread it right on top. And your fruit is good for you. Your oats are good for you. Mm-hmm

You know, take out the sugar and the butter and it's really not. Well, and like I said, you can substitute

Don't want to substitute the butter. No. But the sugars can certainly be substituted

And you can trim this right on down. In the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes

30 minutes. Coming up next, we're going to be pairing our delicious black cherry crisp with a light yet sweet tropical fruit smoothie

And look how dare I say cute this is. This is a super easy fruit smoothie, like I said

So we're using 16 ounces of frozen fruit, and so we don't even need ice

This is mango, peaches, and strawberry, and you can buy them in this

Oops, it's escaping. See how easy it is? You can buy them in this particular mixture

Those three fruits. Oh, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. That's the cobbler, son, or a crisp

This is not a cobbler. It is definitely a crisp. Look at this, y'all

I love it. All right, to the frozen fruit, I'm going to add some guava nectar

I've probably got about eight ounces here. Now, where do you find that, the guava nectar

You can get this can, and you'll find it in your ethnic section in the grocery store. And we'll use whatever we need to... Okay

Here, son, if you'll lift that lid and let me just mix up

You got something stuck in there. Yeah. But we don't even have to lose all that good concentration using ice because we put the fruit in frozen

So the fruit is serving as an ice. That's right. Now we got it, y'all

That reminds me of that football game that we had when we were kids. Do you remember the electronic board that you'd plug it in and turn it on and it would just start to vibrate and all the little men would start to go everywhere

All the stuff was moving off the block. All right, look at that crisp

Yeah. And I'm just going to slice some strawberries just for garnish for our smoothie

This is, I needed that last little bit of juice that I added. It gave it a little bit more consistency, but this is almost like a sore bag

Yes. And it smells so good. Until it starts to melt. Yours is bigger than mine

Well, I'm not surprised. Okay. A little strawberry garnish. Mm-hmm. What you think

Love it. And look how dare I say cute this is. Those words sound so funny coming from my son's lips

But this might be something. How cute. You know, a lot of the things that we do together here at your house, Mama, I envision Jack doing

And this is something that I can see Jamie doing with Jack

He would be completely behind doing this little smoothie like this, and I think he would just love the way that this looks

The crisp is so delicious, and you know what really makes it so good

It's the almonds. The almonds really... All right, Bobby, I just can't help myself

I've just got to have a little ice cream. Just a little bite

Just a little bite. I might have a little bite, too. Perfect. So I had a good time with you, as always

I love cooking with you. I love being with you here at your place. and until next time America, love the best dishes from my mama's kitchen to yours

Bye y'all