blackeyed peas :-)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 can blackeyed peas, drained and rinsed several times
1 large onion, diced
2 cans petite diced tomatoes
2-3 cups water or vegetable broth
1 block frozen chopped spinach
1 tablespoon sugar salt + pepper
pinch of basil
garlic cloves
pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
Instructions 1. in large nonstick soup pot, heat oil over high and saute onions + sugar until brown
2. add blackeye peas, diced tomatoes, and water. reduce heat to low and cook, seasoning as you go.
3. add spinach, stir over medium/low heat until spinach is thawed and dispersed throughout.
4. serve with cornbread and enjoy!

sweet chicken salad

1 cup chicken breast

1/3 cup red onion

1/3 cup green apple

tbsp raisins

tbsp candied walnuts

green onion

salt & pepper

tbsp mayo with olive oil

Ricotta Cheese Hotcakes

Thai Basil Chicken, done my way

Ingredients

1 lb chicken tenders

snow peas (couple handfuls)

1 large sweet onion, sliced thin

thai chili peppers (to taste, i use big handful)

sri racha (red chili sauce)

2 tbsp chopped thai basil leaves

soy sauce and/or teriyaki (the sweet soy sauce kind, not the thick stuff)

1-2 tpsb oil (peanut or vegetable)

1-2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp fish sauce

chopped garlic cloves (to taste)

bean sprouts for topping

limes, quartered

Mmmm this is my favorite thing to eat. I had tried a thousand ways to make this but none came close to tasting authentic until central market started selling jars of thai basil leaves (check out the asian isle) and thai chili peppers in produce. I'd made it with regular fresh sweet basil, Jalapeno and lots of sri racha, and it was good, but it wasn't thai. Now it is. You can totally substitute peppers (or omit them altogether) and use normal basil, but its worth the extra effort to get the real stuff if you consider yourself a connoisseur of thai food. Like I do.

Everything else in this dish is pretty much "to taste". Changing the amount of garlic or peppers is not going to mess with the cooking process.

My method for getting this so good is to marinade it for hours and cook it all in one of those "oven bags". It's just a plastic bag you bake in, Reynold's makes it but HEB's generic is cheaper. These things are so worth it-- the meat is super tender and you don't have to clean out the baking dish. After its baked, the chicken easily cuts into pieces and then I stirfry it all together.

Here's the steps, enjoy:

1. throw into an oven bag the chicken tenders, snow peas, and thai peppers with the stems pulled off. Unless you love pain a LOT, you're going to want to leave these whole as to easily avoid them when you're eating. They hurt. They are very, very hot. They're just there for flavor so be careful!

2. add chopped garlic, fish sauce, sri racha and then pour a few cups of soy sauce on top until all the chicken and veggies are submerged in liquid. let this sit for a few hours.

3. while cooking rice (I do brown rice in the oven) chop the sweet onions and sautee them with a splash of peanut oil and the brown sugar. I cook them til they're browned but still snappy.

4. place the oven bag in a baking dish at bake at 375f for 30-35 minutes.

5 cut a hole in the corner of the oven bag and let the liquid drain out

6. put the chicken on a cutting board and cut it into pieces. snow peas too if you want them in smaller chunks.

7. throw chicken and veggies in with the onions with the flame on high. sautee for a few minutes and serve over rice, with lime juice and bean sprouts :-)

Oven-Baked Sweet Potato Wedges

Sweet potatoes are soooo delicious. They are very different than their fellows in the potato family, both in flavor and methods of cooking. Oven-roasted potatoes are a nearly foolproof dish-- chop the potatoes, toss them in a bit of oil and spices, and bake at a high temperature, flipping once. Sweet potatoes aren't as simple; if you followed this easy method with them, they would cook in their own juices and be soggy, as opposed to crisp and delicious.
Though a step longer, the recipe for roasting sweet potato wedges is still pretty darn easy. First you need to dry them out, placing them (on a rack) in the oven at a low temperature. Then, toss them in oil and increase the temperature- bake on more time directly on the sheet, flipping once.




Ingredients

2 large sweet potatoes
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon brown sugar*
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

*note: sugar seems a bit redundant in a recipe for "sweet potatoes", but I find they don't brown as nicely and evenly without. With salt and pepper added, it shouldn't taste extra sweet.





1. Preheat oven to 325F. Line a cookie sheet with foil (or grease). Place a wire rack on the baking sheet.

2. Peel potatoes and cut them in half. Slice each half into 4-8 wedges, depending on the size of your potatoes and the thickness you prefer.

3. Arrange the wedges on top of the wire rack, not touching the cookie sheet directly. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until slightly shriveled and dry looking.

4. Place wedges in a bowl. Remove the wire rack from the cookie sheet, but put the cookie sheet back in the oven to stay hot. Preheat the oven to 475F.

5. Gently toss wedges with oil, salt, sugar, and pepper until all are evenly coated. When the oven is ready, arrange the wedges directly on the cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, flipping halfway through.

6. Enjoy!

homemade nutella omfg

This was bound to happen eventually.

Anybody who has spent five minutes talking to me knows how much I love Nutella. Seriously. The Ferrero company should compensate me for being a one-woman PR campaign for them-- & such compensation should of course be in the form of multiple jars of Nutella.
Ferrero definitely needs my help. First I think they should rename their delectable chocolate-hazelnut spread. Only the 'nut' part of Nutella is relevant in any way-- I think they could pick a way more descriptive name to push more product. Like, call it what it is-- Spreadable Heaven? Sex in a Jar? (Tagline should read, "better than Midol!") I mean seriously. This stuff is way too good to be legal.

I first discovered this European "spread" a few years ago. It instantly became my favorite thing to spread on toast (sorry, peanut butter). I quickly went from a simple slather-on-toast to putting Nutella into any and every dessert recipe I could think of (see recipes for my hand-made pop-tarts and a Nutella swirled bunt cake). Last summer on my 23rd birthday, I adamantly demanded that NOBODY make me a birthday cake, that I HAD to make it myself, because it HAS to have Nutella in it. Yeah, it's like that with me. Nothing comes between me and my Nutella.

Lately I've been in a bit of a 'food rut', just making my same old trusty stand-bys, haven't really had time to tackle anything new. I was perusing FoodGawker.com when my friend Dago posted a link on my Facebook wall that read, "DEEP FRIED NUTELLA". It was all downhill from there. I'm not a huge fan of fried things, but reading the recipe did get my mouth watering for some Nutella. I checked my pantry-- my jar of Nutella had been totally scraped clean. I was out. I started to get sweaty and panic.

And then I got a brilliant idea- instead of buying a new jar, I could fulfill my craving for Nutella and my desire to make something new in the kitchen-- I would make my own Nutella. Yes. Its like my two favorite worlds colliding. Why hadn't I thought of this sooner?? After all, the American version of Nutella is made differently than it's more respectable European counterpart. Instead of sugar, its high fructose corn syrup. It's loaded with palm oil to keep the texture smooth, and enough preservatives that it needs no refrigeration. (Also, a handful of hazelnuts is pricier than a huge jar of Nutella, which makes you sort of wonder how they get it so cheap...) I hate to knock my favorite thing in the world, but these are hard facts to ignore. So I set out to make a (slightly) healthier, homemade version of Nutella. I found a dozen recipes, no two were alike in any way. It's one of those really flexible recipes, and can be tweaked to your taste.

The biggest "complaint" I found on the food blogosphere about homemade Nutella (yeah some idiots actually had complaints....) was that the smooth texture was difficult to replicate. Well, this is a total non-issue to me. I have strange tastes-- I like my toast burnt, my cereal dry... and apparently, I loooove Nutella with a little bit of grit. This was so good, I'm not sure that I'll ever go back to the packaged stuff.

***Side note: I learned something today. Evaporated milk is just regular milk with a lot of the water taken out, and it's about 60% the amount of the milk it was made from. So if you ever don't have milk, like me, a can of evaporated milk with an equal part of water can substitute just fine.
******Side side note: I learned also that something exists called "powdered milk". Weeeirrrdd... At first I couldn't find it at H-E-B, then I noticed it on the bottom-most shelf of the baking isle. The entire can was printed in spanish, but COINCIDENTALLY (or not...?) the powdered milk was manufactured by Ferrero!



Ingredients

1.5 c whole milk
2/3 c powdered milk
1.5 c raw hazelnuts
1 c dark chocolate chips
1 c milk chocolate chips
1 tbsp honey/agave nectar


This is a surprisingly quick and easy recipe to make. You need a good food processor-- if yours is a small one, cut the recipe in half.

1. Place hazelnuts on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Toast them suckers for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees, until they are brown and fragrant.

2. This step is optional (Skip it if you like grit). Place the toasted hazelnuts in a tea cloth and rub them around until their dark brown skins come off. This is easier the longer they are toasted.

3. Throw the hazelnuts in the food processor and grind until it makes a peanut butter-like consistency. At first it will just be chopped hazelnuts, then grains of hazelnut... but keep on processing until it is thick and wet looking and all sticking together.

4. Place the milk and powdered milk in a saucepan on the stove and heat until hot (but don't boil it). Gradually toss in the chocolate chips and whisk constantly until smooth.

5. Add the chocolate-milk mixture to the food processor and mix that shit up. It will be a lot runnier than actual Nutella but keep in mind that is because it is VERY hot. It will become spreadable once it cools off.

6. Pour your heaven into a jar and refrigerate. Enjoy!!

The best. pasta. dish. ever.

Yeah, its creamy and green. Yeah it looks a bit funky. But this is THE tastiest pasta dish I have ever tried. And I made it myself! With just a handful of simple ingredients and a food processor. The entire recipe takes about 20 minutes to whip up. There is no cream in this pasta at all. What makes it so creamy and good then? AVOCADO (omg yummy).

This is definitely the good twin to alfredo's evil twin. When made with whole wheat pasta this is so healthy. Avocado is loaded with monounsaturated fatty acids (that's the "good" kind of fat) and has more potassium than bananas! (Also note: avocado is a berry. Who knew?)


Ingredients
1 medium avocado, peeled & pitted
1/2 lemon
Fresh Basil
2 big garlic cloves
Lemon Zest
Salt & Pepper
6 oz. whole wheat pasta







Throw the avocado in the food processor with fresh basil and garlic. Squeeze juice from lemon half into the mixture. Blend until creamy and add salt and pepper to taste. Lemon zest is optional, but it adds a really nice texture. Boil the pasta and strain it. Immediately throw the avocado sauce in and mix well. Serve immediately!