Food Friday: Peach Pie

I've never been a big fan of pie.  Making it, eating it, not my favorite.  I'll eat it, if it's there, but I hate making pie crust.  And to be honest, I don't love the taste of it either.  Are you still reading?  I'm not pleading my case very well, ha!

Adam, being the ever loving husband that he is, bought me 25 pounds of peaches.

He knows I love fruit and cooking.  I made peach jam, froze peaches for smoothies, peach syrup, peaches and cream (or almond milk in my case) and we ate peaches with our lunch for a week!  Also, I made a peach pie.  I don't know what got into my head, but I just wanted to.

It was so good.

Do you know how I know?  My husband asked me later if there was any more.  And he told my brother how good it was.  And he asked me to make it again.  Adam isn't picky, and I appreciate that.  But he also isn't very enthusiastic about food so getting him to rave about my food is a huge accomplishment.

The first thing I did was find a pie crust recipe that I would like and that would be easy.  I decided I wanted my pie crust to be more like a sugar cookie, because the lack of crust sweetness is what bothers me the most about it.  I found this recipe here and decided to use 1 c of whole wheat flour and 1/2 c all purpose.  Oh, and I upped the sugar to a rounded 1/4 c.  I mixed everything in a bowl but then dumped it right into my pie dish and mashed it down.  None of this rolling it out crap.  I hate that.  I made some fork pricks and blind baked it for about 15 minutes at 400 (The recipe says 20 minutes but I figured it would get baked with the pie filling too)

Ever classy with my pictures, you can enjoy the flour that spilled out of the bowl, my glass of water and the fruit from our dinner.

Here is the pie filling recipe I used.  It was so simple and so yummy! 

I don't usually post recipes unless I personally created them, but I wanted to post this one because I liked the combination of the whole wheat sugar cookie crust with this peach pie filling. The original can be found here.

Peach Pie Filling
3 Tbsp. Flour
⅓ C. Sugar
½ tsp. cinnamon
3-4 c. sliced peaches
½ tsp. almond extract

Combine the dry ingredients, then stir in peaches and almond extract. Bake at 375 until crust turns golden brown (about 35-40 minutes). (Unless your crust is already baked like mine!  I think I baked it for 30 or 35 minutes)

Here is my final pie.  Have I mentioned that the lighting in my kitchen is horrible?

Food Friday: Quinoa and Fruit Lettuce Wraps

So you might remember that this is vegetarian month at our house.  So far so good!  I feel great, I'm not just eating junk (like so many vegetarians are accused of I think) and no weight loss, but I blame breastfeeding!  :)  A lot of my the pins on my healthy food pinterest board are vegetarian, but not all of them.  This recipe was inspired by this pin:

Original Pin

I thought about just leaving the chicken out, but then it would be nothing but grapes and apples!  Not very filling for a dinner.  I decided to replace the chicken with quinoa and thus this recipe was born.  Also I changed the dressing.  You can try the almond butter and honey, but I already cut the chicken so I figured going forward with a traditional mayo dressing was still pretty healthy.  Here's mine:

It takes like ten of these to fill me up, but YUM!

Ingredients:
1 c quinoa, rinsed
2 c vegetable or chicken broth
1/2 c of grapes, halved
1 apple, chopped
1/4 c chopped walnuts
1/3 c mayo
salt, to taste
curry powder, to taste
pepper, to taste
romaine lettuce (or your favorite lettuce)

Directions: 
1. Cook quinoa in the broth just like you would cook rice.  Cool.
2. Mix quinoa, fruit, nuts and dressing ingredients.
3. Chill for like an hour or more until dinner time.
4. Serve in lettuce cups, or roll up. (my lettuce was too crisp to roll, it would have just cracked)

I was pleased how much this reminded me of the classic chicken salad so often served at baby showers.  Feel free to add more mayo if that suits you (I would have but we were running low)  You could also eat it wrapped in a tortilla if you wanted something a little more filling.  This was a great summer dinner.

Food Friday: Eggplant Parmesan

We get a basket of produce from Bountiful Baskets once every couple weeks.  Last Saturday we had an eggplant in our basket and on Sunday I changed dinner plans and decided to make eggplant Parmesan.  I was missing a couple ingredients so I made some substitutions and it still turned out great!  I forgot to take a picture, so you'll have to enjoy this little graphic that I made instead :)

Ingredients:
1 eggplant
Salt
1 egg
1 c breadcrumbs (I didn't have any so I put a few slices of stale bread in my food processor)
1 T Italian seasoning (I didn't have any so I used basil and oregano instead)
1/4 c grated parmesan cheese
1 jar of your favorite marinara sauce
1 c parmesan OR mozzarella (the recipe called for mozz and I only had parm, so I went with it)

Directions:
1. Begin by peeling and slicing your eggplant into 1/4" slices.  Salt generously and let sweat for 30 minutes.  Rinse well and pat dry.
2. Wisk egg.  Mix bread crumbs, seasoning and 1/4c parm cheese.  Dip eggplant slices into egg, then bread crumb mixture. 
3.  Bake eggplant slices for 5 minutes at 350 F.
4. Remove eggplant from oven and layer in a 9x9 baking dish: eggplant, marinara, cheese, repeat.
5. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 F.

This fed two adults, one toddler and a lunch for Adam the next day. . . so I would say serves 4 normal people, especially if you have sides.  I served this with fruit salad.  Green salad and french bread would also be good.  Enjoy!

Food Friday: A light summer stew

I bought a lot of frozen tilapia for a recipe that didn't use much and I have so much leftover.  I don't usually care for the taste of tilapia, so I was a little nervous to try this recipe, but YUM!  It turned out so good.  A perfect stew for spring and summer, since its full of veggies and lighter ingredients.  Its not a hearty, stick to your bones kind of stew, its a get ready for swim suit season stew.  My recipe is heavily adapted from this recipe. 

1 can petite diced tomatoes
1 c corn
1/4 c cider vinegar
2 cloves garlic
2 T olive oil
1/2 large zucchini, small dice
1 red bell pepper, small dice
10 kalamata olives, small dice
salt, to taste
salt free seasoning (I used my fajita seasoning, it has no salt)
2 filets tilapia

1. Pulse half can of tomatoes, corn and vinegar in a blender.  It should still be chunky, you don't want a puree.
2. Heat oil on medium high heat in a deep frying pan and cook garlic until fragrant.  Add tomato/corn mixture and remaining tomatoes. 
3. Add zucchini, bell pepper and olives. Season with salt and seasonings.  Stir and cover for five minutes.
4. Add fish and cook 15-20 minutes until fish is flaky and cooked through.

I tried to leave the fish as whole as possible, but it fell apart so easily.  I wanted to add some parmesan cheese as well, but we were so hungry we ate it before I could remember to add it! We also ate it before I could take a picture! 

Friday Food: A simple summer sandwich

I was never a sandwich person growing up.  The first time I remember liking a sandwich was when we had Subway for a picnic lunch when I was a kid (no idea how old)  I think my biggest problem was store bought bread and dry bread.

So basically, I love them now.  I don't make them as often because I like the works.  I want lettuce and tomato, sure.  But I also want olives, banana peppers, bell peppers, spinach, cucumbers and pickles.  That is a lot of chopping for one sandwich!  So I usually stick to Subway for my sandwich needs (which used to be once or twice a week when I was teaching!  Oh the good life. . .)

A few weeks ago I was reading Shay's food blog (she is the sister of Sean the Bachelor!  Check her out!) and she had this simple yummy sandwich.  I was inspired.  So when planning dinner I decided we would have sandwiches one night, but keep it simple.

First, I made this bread.  So easy.  Just try it, it is the best.  The only change I made was using half whole wheat flour.  I put half of the dough in an 8x8 pan and then after it baked, I cut it in half and split it open.  (So my sandwich was 8x4)

I had some leftover pesto and extra cream cheese so I mixed the two together and spread it on the bread.  Then topped it with turkey slices, pepper jack cheese, cucumbers and avocados.  So good, so simple.

Not super photogenic though. . .

This is just the worst picture.  Yes I have dishes in the sink, a cheese wrapper and knife in the background as well! 

Food Friday: Buffalo Chicken Pizza

It was a crazy day last week (psh, everyday is crazy with Olivia living here) and I did not feel like cooking.  I had planned to make pizza for dinner and then I thought maybe it was too much for me on a day like that.  But you know what?  It wasn't. 

Adam had won some buffalo wing sauce from Buffalo Wild Wings (How??? I don't know, I was out of town!) so I decided to go with that.  It was a little spicy so I did 1/3 of the pizza with BBQ sauce for Olivia and the other 2/3 in buffalo sauce.

This picture is not very appetizing, but I promise it was good!  We also like to add a little baby lotion too. . . just kidding, I don't know why there is baby lotion in this picture.

The pizza dough I made is so simple!  But you can always buy dough if you want to make it even easier.  You can find the original recipe here, but this is what I used.

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
3/4 c white flour
1 t salt
1 c warm water
1 T honey
1 packet yeast (.25 oz)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix flours and salt.  
3. Mix water, honey and yeast and let it sit until foamy.  
4. Mix water and flour mixtures.  
5. Let rise for 10 minutes. 
6. Roll out and prick with a fork.
7. Cook for 10 minutes or until desired crispiness is reached.
8. Cover in sauce, cheese and toppings.  
9. Heat in oven until cheese is bubbly.  

My toppings were just mozzarella cheese, chicken and red onions.  Celery would also be fun, but I didn't have any on hand.

Oh yeah, dip it in a little ranch or blue cheese for the full effect :)

Food Friday: Pleasing Pita

I love this recipe.  Its yummy and super healthy.  I look at the list of ingredients as guidelines, you can add what ever you like!  Its called "Pleasing Pita" but I usually eat it like a salad, not in a pita pocket.

Pleasing Pita
3 cans of beans, drained and rinsed (I use small red, white beans and some times black beans, but you can also use kidney, butter beans or any other kind you like)
1 14oz can artichoke hearts, drained
1/4 c prepared quinoa
1/4 c barley pearls
1/4 c cooked wheat berries
1/4 c cooked lentils
1 red bell pepper chopped (or what ever colors you like!)
1/2 c Anaheim pepper, chopped
1 medium red onion, chopped
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

Dressing
3/4 c sweet chili sauce
1/2 c olive oil
2 T granulated white sugar
1 lemon, juiced

Garnishes
Avocado slices
Tomato slices
Sprouts


Mix all salad ingredients and toss with dressing.  Does it get any easier than that!?!?!

When I made it I didn't have barley, wheat berries, or Anaheim peppers so I left them out.  And I had a small amount of quinoa left so I just cooked it all and it was a little more than 1/4 c.  Just add what you like, as much as you like and leave out what you don't. 

This recipe can be found in my favorite diet book, The Wow Diet.

Dr Pepper Cupcakes

So right after I wrote this post about losing weight, I promptly went into the kitchen and made cupcakes.  Okay maybe not that quickly.  I never make desserts because we don't need a full pan of brownies for two people (we WANT, but we don't need) but mainly because I don't like baking.  But when my mom talked about buying a cake for the baby shower she was throwing for my sister-in-law and me, suddenly I had this urge to make cupcakes.  With a box mix, of course.

My mom wanted Nutella frosting and I wanted Dr Pepper frosting.  So we did both.  I made a batch of chocolate cupcakes and a batch of vanilla cupcakes and we did half in each frosting.  (because I wanted the Nutella frosting on chocolate and my mom wanted it on white cake) To make the cupcakes more decadent, I used buttermilk instead of water and an extra egg.  That's how I do homemade.

I looked every where for a Dr Pepper frosting recipe that REALLY tasted like DP.  Dang those people for keeping their 23 flavors such a secret.   When I read a recipe that had you make a DP reduction I thought, "Wouldn't it be great if I could get some syrup from a soda fountain before it was mixed with the fizzy water????"  And then!  Inspiration!  I remembered that Target sold those ridiculous soda machines (you know, the ones that allow you to make your own fresh soda) but more importantly, they sold syrups for the different flavors!  So I grabbed some Dr. Pete syrup and soon I was on my way to Dr Pepper bliss. 

I garnished my cupcakes with maraschino cherries

Dr Pepper Frosting

1 c Butter
1/2 bag powder sugar
1/4 c heavy whipping cream
2-3 cap fulls of DP syrup (found here)
3-4 splashes of maraschino cherry juice
red food coloring, if you want

Mix and taste and add more syrup or cherry juice if needed.

The Nutella recipe my mom used is here.

My mom garnished her cupcakes with a hazelnut cookie

 And there you have it.  Cupcakes.  Just another item to check off my "real blogger" list.

A pet peeve and a recipe

I've been using Pinterest since the early days.  Back then it was pretty pictures of interiors and art work and clothes.  Slowly people started pinning recipes and workout ideas and quotes and memes (I have NO idea how to pronounce that) and those are fun, but my feed just isn't as pretty as it used to be.  But the thing that really bugs me is clicking on a pin and it taking me to a site totally unrelated to the picture.

So listen up everyone!  PSA: Before you go repinning, check to make sure it is what its supposed to be!!! 

If I click on a pin and it leads me somewhere else, I do a quick google search and I can almost always find the original site and pin it from there.

Oh also, don't write the whole recipe as the pin description, just the title.  That way the blogger who wrote the recipe or tutorial can get more page views from the pin.  It's the right thing to do.

That being said. . . I pinned a really yummy recipe and didn't check it first.  It takes me to some weird site that has nothing to do with food!  But I did a google search (since you're looking at a picture, doing a google images search is probably the quickest way to find the original site) and found the real recipe. 

We had it for dinner last night and it was very simple but SO good.  So I had to share.  It's your reward for putting up with my silly rant. 

Source: marthastewart.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

Boil penne 6 minutes less than al dente; add broccoli florets, and cook until penne is al dente. Drain; return to the pot, and toss with a couple of crushed garlic cloves, some olive oil, the zest and juice of a lemon, salt and pepper, and plenty of Parmesan.

February's Goal II

So for my last two homemade meals of the month:

On February 20th I made: 

Spaghetti Squash Primavera

(I didn't make a side dish, but maybe a green salad and some bread would go nicely)

On February 26th I made:

Mushroom Stroganoff 

and

Peas

I'll probably cook dinner one more time before February is over, but hey!  I accomplished my goal for the month!  Yay!

February's Goal I

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When I planned my goals for the year I failed to realize that my mom would be here to cook me dinner for the first week of February, so I'll fulfill my goal by cooking four meals this month. (When I put it that way, it doesn't sound like much!)

I'm lucky that dinner got made, taking pictures of it would have been possible but I wasn't concerned about making it look pretty so. . .  I didn't bother!  :) 

On Valentine's Day I made:

London Broil

Fresh Green Beans

Mashed Potatoes

Stuffed Mushrooms

and

Brown Sugar Blondies with V-Day M&Ms

On February 19 I made:

Salmon and Pasta Dijonnaise (I used this marinade on two small pieces of salmon, baked the salmon in the marinade at 400 for 15 minutes and then shredded the salmon and used the cooked marinade as sauce on whole wheat pasta)

and

Fresh Broccoli 

I'll do another update when I've cooked my last two meals!  

Five Favorites on Friday: Thanksgiving Recipes

Here are five recipes I LOVE that you can use for Thanksgiving dinner.  I'm not usually allowed to bring the most important parts of the dinner so I haven't tried recipes for turkey, stuffing, rolls, that sort of thing, so they aren't your usual stars, but these are recipes I have made and love and wanted to share.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts 
I brought these to Thanksgiving dinner last year and they were a HIT!  I thought I hated brussels sprouts until I had them roasted and it changed my mind, so maybe give these another go if you're feeling adventurous.

Recipe Here

Savory Sweet Potatoes
If your family is down with trying something new, give these a shot.  But just to be safe, don't replace your traditional sweet potatoes with this recipe!!  Make both, duh.

4-5 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2-3 T butter
salt, pepper, nutmeg, garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne (if you're feeling frisky!) to taste

Boil sweet potatoes until soft and drain.  Add butter and mash them however you like (hand mixer, stand mixer, old fashioned potato mixer, what ever floats your boat!)  Add seasoning to taste.  (sorry if you're like my mom and want exact measurements, but I'm doing this from memory and I've never measured before.  Plus sweet potatoes can come in such a variety of sizes it would be hard to know exactly the volume we're working with here.)

Sweet Potato Casserole
This is a little more traditional take on the sweet potato.  If you're used to the marshmallow kind, try this just once PLEASE.  You will be converted.

Recipe Here

Cranberry Sauce
I remember one year my dad and brother were in charge of cranberry sauce for some reason.  Where was my mom?  I don't know.  The point?  They didn't follow tradition and made cranberry sauce from scratch.  Why not?  The recipe was on the package.  Hot dang!  It was good and seriously easy.  It never hurts to try new things (disclaimer: not always a true statement)

Recipe Here

Hot Turkey Sandwiches
This recipe is for the day after.  My husband had never heard of such a thing and so maybe you haven't either.  This works best with homemade bread, whole wheat or whole grain if possible.  You just don't want to be dealing with a wimpy little piece of store bought bread, it will never hold up.

1 slice of bread per person (or more if you're a second helping type)
Leftover gravy
Leftover turkey, shreded

Mix turkey and gravy together and heat over medium low until hot.  Pour over your bread and enjoy!

What are you in charge of bringing to Thanksgiving dinner?  This year I'm in charge of the sweet potato casserole.  Mmmmm, so hungry just thinking about it!

Rainbow Chili + Our Halloween Costumes

One Halloween tradition I carried from my family was to have chili on Halloween night.  I know that's not super original, but it is a really easy dinner and very filling for cold nights hitting the pavement.  I knew I had most of the stuff for chili on hand, but I did grab a can of black beans while I was getting supplies for apple cider (and hot dang!  Cinnamon sticks and whole cloves are expensive!  I came up with a poor girl's apple cider recipe and I'll share that soon).

Chili is great because its one of those things you don't really need a recipe for.  I did want a little guidance on spices so I looked up a recipe on allrecipes and this is the one I referenced.  It also inspired me to add celery, something I never thought of before.  Adam and I participate in a food co-op every couple of week and so I had a ton of vegetables needing to be used up and I just started throwing stuff in.

And it looked like all the colors of the rainbow, hence the name

All mixed together and cooking

1/2 red onion, diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 yellow squash, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 green pepper, diced (I don't know what kind I used.  It was from the co-op last summer when I cut and froze them.  I do know it was spicy but not a jalapeno.  You could use a jalapeno though, if you like that amount of heat)
1/2 cup frozen corn
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cans beans, drained and rinsed (I used one can small red and one can black)
2 cans tomatoes (I used one can of crushed and one can of diced.  I knew the other vegetables would give plenty of chunkiness so I wanted to reduce that a little by using some crushed)
2-3 T chili powder
1 t cumin
2 t oregano
salt and pepper to taste

I cooked all the veg in a little bit of olive oil and salt until they were soft.  Then I added my beans, tomatoes and seasoning.  I stirred it all together and let it simmer on low for an hour.  Right before we went trick-or-treating (we ate after because Olivia is so small we wanted her to get out before the big kids) I turned it off but left it on the hot burner (electric stove, which I hate, but was good in this situation) for kind of a slow cooker effect.  It was still really hot when we got home an hour later. 

(No pic of the finished chili.  I think you have all seen chili before. . . )

And here we are after trick-or-treating.

Blogger Barbie, Lady Bug and Billy Idol

Olivia got really into it and so we didn't stop at three houses, we did probably 15 or so.  She learned to say trick-or-treat when she knocked on the door but of course refused to do it any of the times I tried to video her. 

I was Blogger Barbie.  You can tell by my colored denim, fall boots, cardigan, red lips and top knot.  Of course I'm Barbie so I had to go with blue eyeliner and purple shadow.  No one asked if I was dressed up (probably because they are my real clothes and my real hair) and so I guess they just assume I wear blue eyeliner during the week.

Adam was Billy Idol, a blast from our past four years ago.

Hope you guys had a great Halloween as well!!

Pumpkin Butter

Have you heard of this stuff?  If you have, and you haven't told me. . .  I don't know if we can be friends anymore.  Basically pumpkin butter is like pumpkin pie jam, and contrary to the name it doesn't actually have butter in it.  One minute I was playing on Pinterest, having never heard of pumpkin butter and an hour later I was whipping up a batch on my stove top.  So easy and I had all the ingredients (except apple juice, which my MIL had.  The benefits of living with parents).

So far I've used it to make pumpkin french toast and as an apple dip.  (I've eaten two apples dipped in pumpkin butter just while writing this post) On cinnamon swirl bread toast?  I would probably die of happiness.  Topped on pancakes or muffins?  The possibilities are endless.

Ingredients:  (I followed this recipe exactly except I didn't have any mace, so left that out)
1 (28-oz.) can pumpkin puree
3/4 cup apple juice
2 teaspoons ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmege
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar

Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan.
2. The recipe said to bring it to a boil, but all it really did for me was blow up bubbles and splatter my kitchen with yummy smelling orange goop.  So I kept the lid on the pot, cracked with a wooden spoon to let the steam out.  I stirred it every minute or so for about 45 minutes.  It was only supposed to take 30 minutes, but maybe I had it turned down too low or maybe keeping the lid on made it take longer.  Still the yummiest thing I've ever eaten.

I put some in small jars to give away with this tag and the recipe for pumpkin french toast.  I used the pumpkin clip art from this site. When I printed it out I just folded it accordion style into thirds with the pumpkin on the top and put a small hole in the upper left corner to tie it on.

This is pretty much the best thing I've discovered this year. 

How to survive a month with out sugar

So even though I wasn't perfect during No Sugar September, I still did pretty good.  No chocolate chips were consumed straight out of the bag, so not too shabby.  It should be obvious that the main thing I miss during No Sugar September is chocolate and so I was forced to invent the sugar free version of one of my favorite snacks.  

All Natural Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana 
(You cannot take a pretty picture of this, I tried several times and suffered through eating several chocolate peanut butter bananas but in the end I have given up and you'll just have to imagine)

This article is pretty funny

Ingredients:
1 spoonful natural peanut butter (we use Adam's, with no sugar added*)
1/2 spoonful honey (if you use regular peanut butter maybe you can leave this out, maybe you can't.  You'll have to try it both ways, darn it!)
Some cocoa powder

Directions:
Melt peanut butter and honey (or just peanut butter) in small bowl (like the size you use to feed your six month old baby) for like 10-15 second.  Stir in however much cocoa powder you want.  Taste it and add more cocoa powder (probably).  Dip your banana in this and eat it.  Lick the bowl.

*I recommend never getting the peanut butter with no salt added.  Never ever get it.

(The regular version of this is peanut butter with some chocolate chips melted in, in case you wanted to know) 

Chickpeas Five Ways

Last summer I had a significant amount of baby weight to lose and my husband had an ARC (advanced reader copy) of a diet book from the publisher he worked for.  I read it, fell in love and knew that this was one of the best diets.  The WOW Diet focuses on fresh, seasonal ingredients and unprocessed foods.  I lost a good amount and was feeling really healthy.  Then life happened, and I haven't been as good at following the diet as I was.  BUT one thing I learned from the book was to incorporate more beans into my diet.  They are filling, full of good things for your body, and if you make them right, they are so yummy!  Here are my five favorite recipes for chickpeas, which is the least glamorous of the legumes after the lima beans, but it sure cleans up nice!

Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Source: chocolatecoveredkatie.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

Three Bean Salad

Source: simplyrecipes.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

Humus
 (try to find an attractive picture of humus, I dare you)

Ingredients:

1 can of garbanzo beans, rinsed

juice of 1 lemon

1 clove garlic

salt and pepper to taste

olive oil

Directions:

1. Blend all ingredients in a food processor, adding olive oil a little at a time until humus blends smoothly.  

2. Eat with chips or pita bread.

Roasted Chickpeas

Source: thekitchn.com via becca on Pinterest

One thing I do not mentioned in the roasted chickpea recipe is to turn the oven to 200 after they have reached the color you like and let them dry out a little more for an hour or two.  This give more consistent crunch to your snack.  

Avocado Chickpea Salad

Source: twopeasandtheirpod.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

To find the recipes click on the small links under the pictures.  Meanwhile, I'm off to the kitchen to make them all!

I cook! And talk too much

My friend Tiffanie recently started a food blog and thank goodness!!  One of my favorite recipes is one she recommended almost three years ago.  Every Friday she has a guest post by one of her followers and I got to be her third guest post!

Writing this post was hard for me.  I used to teach foods to high school students and I watch Food Network like a crazy person and so I can narrate every step of my cooking process and I can give you a lot of details about the food and so, in theory, it could take you as long to read the post as it did for me to cook the meal.  Yeah, that's too much.  So I tried to keep it simple, but I didn't quite attain that goal.

But enough talking.  Why don't you go check it out for yourself?  And hang around with Tiff a bit.  She's got great taste in food!

Strawberry Lemonade Slush

Thank you for visiting my blog!  Find this recipe at my new blog Olive The Things by clicking here.  Thanks!!!

I just made the best black beans I've had since Cafe Rio!

Seriously, I just did.  Like I haven't even eaten them yet, because I just finished them.  But Olivia has and I tasted some of hers and I'm excited for my dinner now!  But I don't follow recipes.  And too often my awesome food adventures get forgotten because I don't remember what I did.  So before I forget even one little thing, I typing this up, and I might as well share!! 

If I took a picture of what mine looked like, you would never believe how good they taste. 

Black Refried Beans (loosely based on this recipe)

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 onion, diced
1 vegetable broth bullion cube (or 1/2 of a Knorr brand cube, which is what I used)
about 1 cup water, divided
1/8 tsp garlic powder (I think.  Who knows for sure. . . )
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook onion with a about 1/4 c of water in a small saucepan.  While the onion cooks, add the bullion cube.  Stir occasionally, adding more of the water as necessary.  Add the black beans and mash them with a potato masher.  Add the remaining water, or as much as of the remaining water as you want (kinda depends on how thick you want your beans) Add garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste. 

Easy peasy lemon squeesy!

What's For Dinner

Sometimes I get stuck in a dinner rut and keep turning to the same four meals over and over.  I'll change the side dish and hope that Adam thinks its something new, but seriously, who am I kidding?  Add to that the fact that I haven't had a kitchen in four months, and I wasn't even in a rut!  I was totally out of the game!  Since we got our kitchen up and running about a week ago, I sat down on Monday and really hammered out five dinner ideas.  I'll share if you share. . . deal? (Now, if I was a real blogger, I would have taken pictures of my own dinners.  Sorry, you'll have to live with the pics from the internets)

Ceasar Spaghetti 

Do you love Ceasar salad?  I totally do!!  I got this recipe from Rachael Ray on Dr. Oz, and made it over the summer and it was "eh".  But it had so many ingredients that I love, I decided to give it another try and YUM!  I think the key was not to skimp on any of the ingredients, especially the anchovies.  When the recipe said 6 anchovies, I added 8.  It really gave the sauce more flavor (but don't worry, it wasn't a fishy flavor!!  It really tasted like ceasar!)

Chicken Picatta and Lemon Quinoa

This is seriously my favorite dinner EVER.  I try not to make it every week, but I probably do make it once a month.  My husband hasn't complained so that is a good sign.  For the quinoa I just make it like normal, but use chicken or veg broth instead of water and add in the juice of half a lemon.  And what ever herbs I feel like. 

Spaghetti Squash and Herbs

Ever since Adam discovered spaghetti squash in his Biggest Loser cookbook (he's not large, just loves the show!) he's been buying me one almost every week!  This was good, but not as good as when Adam made me spaghetti squash and avocado pesto.  I really should have made some grilled chicken or something more substaintial as a side dish, but I didn't want to go over board with the chicken this week!

Roast Chicken and Vegetables

I linked the recipe that I used, but I didn't like it.  The recipe doesn't call for veg, but I put in potatoes, carrots and onions, and they just tasted like they had been boiled in wine.  BORING.  So next time I'm going with more of a dry roast, probably with the old onion soup mix standard.

Vegan Shepherds Pie

This was good, but I'll probably put more spices or some fresh herbs when I make this again.  The sweet potato on top was a MUST.  I chopped, boiled and mashed one sweet potato and spread it on top of our filling.  This is one of the most health meals EVER.  Seriously ever. 
So spill it, what is your favorite (healthy?) dinner idea?