Spaghetti with Ricotta Meatballs
I was trying to plan dinner for the other night & wanted to do something with the ricotta I had in the fridge (it was on great sale a week or so ago & with coupon had to buy two containers)! I also knew that …
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Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce
This week was the start of fall – but I think that someone forgot to tell the temperatures & atmosphere and all of those things that! Since fall is here, winter squash is starting to go on sale & I just couldn’t resist. I have …
Enchiladas & Appetizers
Tonight was a mexican night! I have been craving enchiladas for the past few days since I saw this post from Simply Recipes and realized I haven’t had them in a while and I had a can of green enchilada sauce in the cabinet (I know, I’ll try to make one of my own these days!) Enchiladas were also the very first meal that I cooked for Rich & I have not made them for him since then. I had also kept seeing ads and recipes for stuffed hot peppers (baked – not fried) and Rich had also been bugging me for some of those too – so the menu was set!
When I went to the market yesterday, there were only 5 good looking jalapeno peppers left (and something got to the ones in our garden and none of them grew nicely). I picked them up anyway and was set to go!
- Jalapeno Peppers (sliced in 1/2 and seeded) – I used 6
Stuffed Jalapenos - about 3 oz cream cheese (softened)
- 1/2 cup, combination of: mozzarella & cheddar
- 1/2 t: salt/garlic/pepper
All that I needed to do to make these was slice peppers in half, place in greased dish, fill with cheese mixture & bake for about 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven until browned. These were delicious & will be made again (be careful when seeding the peppers goes without saying – but I wasn’t super careful and now my fingers I used to do that are burning!)
After a quick little snack – it was time to get down to making dinner (chicken was boiling from the time I got home and was ready to shred: to boil it just put in some salt, garlic, & a few seeds from those hot peppers). Here is my version of Enchiladas (at least the version that I made today)….
- 2 chicken breast (shredded)
- 1 can beans (black or pinto or whatever)
- spices (garlic, chipotle sauce, lime juice, etc – whatever you like)
- 1 can enchilada sauce
Chicken & Bean Enchiladas - 5 – 6 tortilla shells
- shredded cheese (5 oz?)
- cilantro
Then you want to mix the beans with the shredded chicken & seasonings that would be something you would be happy to eat on its own! Pour some sauce in the bottom of your dish, then place shell (warmed up so they are easy to roll) with a nice sized scoop of protein, put some cheese & cilantro and roll it up. When you place it in the dish, put it in seam side down. Repeat…. pour the rest of sauce over rolled shells – top with the rest of the cheese. Bake for about 20 minutes in 350 and then 3 minutes on broil & top with some more fresh cilantro!
This is not the quickest meal (but doesn’t take that long either) but it is well worth it! Its pretty healthy and inexpensive as well. Just as a side note: I was having my students write goals today & I wrote one of my goals that I was going to blog at least twice a week…. just an FYI! Happy Eating
Crab Cakes
No, I have not stopped cooking – I have just not made “beautiful” dishes too often since school has started (and we have yet to be home a weekend – maybe the “relaxing fall weekends” will start in October and then go away once ski …
Pizza, and I didn’t even have to make it!
As I was searching other blogs I came across this one & it had to make me laugh. I keep telling Rich he should start a blog of all the good stuff I cook for him (and his photos would just be of empty plates …
Dip or Spread – that is the question
I love dips! I love dips that are healthy even more! Last week we were invited to a Turkish (Muslim) retreat for Ramadan (the retreat is in the area & as part of Ramadan they are to open their hearts & homes to neighbors – it was a very interesting, educational, & tasty evening. Check out this news report about the evening (see me getting my food there too).
Before heading over to the dinner my parents came over to hang out & help us try to take a good photo with the dogs (coming soon). I decided to do some appetizer and wanted to make a really healthy spinach dip. After some searching I decided to invent the following “dip”
To make the dip:
- 1 package frozen/defrosted spinach
- 1 can great northern (or chick pea or whatever) beans
- 1/4 cup (no idea, I didn’t measure) sour cream
- 2 – 3 cloves garlic (depending on your taste)
- fresh basil, sat/pepper to taste
- few drizzles olive oil
I just dumped all ingredients in the blender & blended until smooth.
We served this in a bread bowl (Rich makes a pretty good bread – and this was the other half of the dough from his amazing home-made pizza the night before, more on that another time!) with some fresh veggies for dipping. I served about 1/2 of it that night and the rest I had with lunch and some cut veggies at school and it didn’t last long! This makes a super healthy dip for veggies of spread on a sandwich. I also cannot wait to try this with fresh spinach & also as it gets cooler to try mixing some cheese in & broiling it to serve with bagel chips.
Healthy, Tasty, Hearty – good food combo!