Summer means shells. No, not those ones.

So the month of May was a blogging wash. Thank you health problems, but I've been out of the kitchen and off of the blogosphere for the past few weeks. However, I do have a few old sets of photos that I can post from my couch while I'm recovering from surgery and getting back up to my former cooking prowess (or lack there of, depends how good of a cook the judge is).

With some HOT weather over the past few days, I decided to bring you a tasty and quick summer meal, shrimp tacos.

I'll start with toppings. We happened to have a lot of taco fixings in the fridge so it was an easy meal to put together. I whipped up a quick guacamole (avocado, lemon juice, cumin, salt and pepper) to add to some tomato, black beans and sour cream.

Of course, no taco is complete without cheese! I put some shredded cheese on the shells and put them in the oven to get all warm and melty.

I'm a huge seafood girl, specifically shell fish, and we all know how I feel about Mexican, so this was a no-brainer for me. I started with some pretty basic seasonings on the shrimp, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper.

Standard pantry items

I melted some butter in a frying pan with a little lemon juice and tossed in the shrimp. Shrimp cooks pretty fast, so I probably only cooked these guys for about 6 or 7 minutes until they were this nice pink color.

Now here's where I admit to some serious stupidity. When you buy fresh shrimp at the supermarket, it frequently is not shelled which means you need to take the shells off before you cook. I did not do this. It was a BIG mistake.

......oops

Once I took the shells off the shrimp lost a LOT of flavor. I added some more of the spices, but adding after the fact doesn't get into the food the way it does when it's cooked so these definitely could've been a way better base to the taco. But, alas, c'est la vie, or perhaps more fitting for this meal, está la vida.

As always, top with fresh cilantro

Brinner South of the Border

First, I need to apologize for the long hiatus. I've been working crazy hours the past few weeks and have not had time to blog about all the tasty things I've been cooking. Needless to say, I've got a good one for you.

Back to food: 'brinner' is definitely one of my favorite things. If you don't know what brinner is, first, slap yourself in the face, then read this: BR(eakfast for d)INNER. Got it?

Brinner can take on any type of breakfast food, but I decided on this occasion to go with Mexican because, well, I love Mexican food.

First, for my side I wanted to make a sweet potato home fries recipe  from Cate's World Kitchen that I found via Pinterest. Unlike my usual MO, I actually stuck pretty closely to the recipe, besides one key difference. Here's the ingredients Kate recommends:

3 tbsp olive oil3 medium sweet potatoes (I guess they’re actually yams? The ones that are orange inside…), diced3 cups cooked black beans (or 2 cans), rinsed and drainedjuice of 2 limeszest of 1 lime1 tsp salt, dividedpinch or two cayenne1/4 cup chopped cilantro

I may or may not have accidentally bought yams. In my defense, they were right next to the sweet potatoes, they look really similar, and the labeling was confusing. That's right, I blame you, Acme Markets! Regardless they still had a really sweet flavor that worked well with the other flavors.

Not orange.

I diced them up and tossed them with some olive oil, salt and pepper and tossed them in the oven on a cookie sheet. I had to use two because my roommates and I really like potatoes. Also our cookie trays are baby-sized. Definitely need to do some kitchen supply shopping this summer.

I cooked them for probably about 30 to 40 minutes because I like my home fries crispy. Take them out every 10 to 15 minutes and shift them around though so they won't burn.

Plus one of them doesn't have edges. It's very strange.

While those are cooking up I zested the lime (I think I made that word up), squeezed the juice, and mixed it all together in a bowl with salt and cayenne pepper. I also added a little cumin cause I just love cumin.

Zesty!

 Once the potatoes are cooked, toss them in the juice mixture, add a can of black beans and through in some cilantro!

I want to eat this again!

The main course was also a Pinterest idea, this time from Food Beast: avocado eggs. It's actually one of the simplest things you could cook. Just cut the avocado in half, put an egg in the hole form each pit, and bake 'em!

 Just buy small eggs. Please, please buy small eggs. We only had large eggs and there were way too much whites to fit inside the avocado so they overflowed. It was way messier than I expected. But still delicious.

 Lastly I topped them with some salt, pepper, paprika and bacon bits.

 Get at me.

Sandwiches can be cool too

I'm a notorious homemade sandwich hater because I just find your typical ham and cheese painfully boring. But this week I decided to make a sandwich worth posting about. Like my mini roast beef sandwiches, this took only a tiny bit longer than a more plain sandwich but it was beyond worth it.

First off, browse your fridge for everything interesting you have. I usually try to pick up a few ingredients I love when I'm at the supermarket even if I don't have a specific recipe in mind so that I can do things like this. Avocados were on sale: now I've got some for a sandwich. Win!

I also recommend investing in some GOOD grainy mustard. French's yellow is okay but those extra few bucks make a difference.

Make it healthy: get some FRESH veggie toppings that you LOVE.

What's not to love about toppings that taste like they were picked this morning AND keep you healthy? 

Now for the obvious: put it all together.

I toasted my bread first for a little extra crunch and it was beyond worth the 30 second wait.

Yum, yum, yum. I already had dinner but I almost want to eat this too.

And the best part? I packed this little baby into a tuperware with a few cookies and ate outside to enjoy this beautiful weather. YOLO my friends.

Tex-mex Breakfast

I almost titled this post 'Mexican Breakfast,' but then I thought about it, and I don't want to insult the deliciousness that is real Mexican food by equating it with some salsa.

BUT that doesn't mean that I don't have a very fond place in my heart for tex-mex. Particularly when I'm craving some spicy flavors but don't want to make anything fancy, salsa hits the spot.

Which is exactly how I felt last weekend when I decided to make a breakfast sandwich and then get fancy and toss on some salsa (I do things like this all the time and my roommates act really shocked and impressed like I've actually made something gourmet. I think they're just being nice.)

I like my eggs poached so I heated up some water on medium in a frying pan.

Oooo, bubbles AND steam!

Try to crack the egg and lower it into the pan gently so the yoke doesn't break and you don't get splashed with hot water.

Meanwhile I toasted up some bread. The only sliced cheese we had in the fridge was muenster which is typically slower to melt (although delicious when it does) so I toasted the bread with the cheese on it.

Your eggs will be finished when all the whites are solidified and no longer clear.

Almost done! Take out the bread and put the eggs on, topping it with some salsa.

This is just what I happened to be craving at the moment, but definitely get creative with your food staples. It's like adding fun accessories to a simple, classic outfit, there's nothing wrong with the original, but that little something extra is what makes you remember it.

Your Mom's Chili

The title of this post is inspired by my roommate S who said that my chicken taco chili tasted like "home." Now that the weather's warming up I can't imagine everyone is as interested in comfort food as usual, but Mexican food is summery so dig in!

Crock pot meals are great cause you just need time. It's also great for me all my roomies have to eat a lot later when I'm cooking between work and my time-consuming, perfectionist cooking.

I found this recipe on Pinterest

and only edited it a little bit:

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, chopped 
• 1 16-oz can black beans 
• 1 16-oz can kidney beans: Instead of kidney beans I used garbanzo (aka chick peas) cause kidney beans are yucky. 
• 1 8-oz can tomato sauce 
• 10 oz package frozen corn kernels 
• 2 14.5-oz cans diced tomatoes w/chilies: I couldn't find this so I used plain canned tomatoes and added 3 jalapenos 
• 1 packet taco seasoning: Also couldn't find this. Trader Joe's is weird. But I added a bunch of extra cumin and chili powder to make up for it as well as some garlic powder and red pepper flakes 
• 1 tbsp cumin 
• 1 tbsp chili powder 
• 24 oz (3-4) boneless skinless chicken breasts: I used thighs. DO THIS. Especially for a dish like this where everything's mixed up dark meat has much more flavor. AND it's cheaper! Yay! 
• chili peppers, chopped (optional) 
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

 

 

 

 

Really, you just dump it all (except the cilantro) into the crock pot and pat yourself on the back for being such a no-nonsense chef. Put the chicken pieces on top so you'll be able to find them later to shred them up.

 

After that it's a waiting game! Cook it on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours. Neither of those times worked for my time schedule so I cooked it for about 8 hours on low and then turned it up to high for about an hour once I got home from work. When I switched the time I also took all the chicken out, shredded it, and mixed it back in.

Once it's all done, mix in or top it with some fresh cilantro.

Lastly: just add cheese! Perfection.

This makes a TON of food so be prepared for tasty lunch leftovers!

Classy meets Kiddy

Lets play a game, what word immediately comes to mind when you read these words:

1. Decadence

2. Childhood

If you're anything like me, your two answers were truffles and oreos. If you're not anything like me, you need to sort out your priorities.

So what is the result of our little game? Oreo truffles, courtesy of Centsational Girl. 

This is a deceptively delicious, spectacularly simple recipe that will blow you away. All you need:

1 package of oreos (or knockoff ones if you're a cheap-o and want to save a few cents)

1 package of cream cheese

Chocolate chips

Toppings: I used shredded coconut and heath bar pieces

First chop up all the oreos in a food processor, cream, cookie and all.

Powdered chocolate. Joy.

Next you add the package of cream cheese. If you have a good food processor you can do this in there. If you have a crappy baby minichopper just do it by hand.

Roll into balls somewhere around the size of a ping pong ball or a little smaller and place on a cookie sheet. I put tin foil over mine because I'm lazy and occasionally wasteful and that gives me one less thing to clean.

Plus tin foil looks pretty baller in photos.

Next up melt the chocolate chips in the microwave (or a double-boiler if you're fancy). About 3 minutes should be sufficient, but make sure you take them out every 30 seconds to stir or else the chocolate will start to burn.

Although what doesn't kill you is known to make you stronger (one of my house's mottos), I still recommend using a microwave safe bowl.

I just use a spoon to plop and spread the chocolate over the truffle balls. It's not the end of the world if they aren't totally encased in chocolate, they'll be pretty great regardless.

Just a little truffle peaking through

Lastly just top it all off with your favorite chocolate pairings. The heath bar pieces have been a pretty big hit with my roommates and friends.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm thinking about it

That's a joke.

While I have nothing but the utmost respect for people who have the self control to deny themselves something as spectacular as a really good steak, I have no real desire to join them.

HOWEVER meals like this one make me think about it: black bean burgers.

You can find a million and a half recipes online, but I tend to adjust to accommodate: 

1. what I happen to have in the fridge and 

2. which ingredients I most/least like.

This recipe was my jumping off point. (It also happens to be the first recipe on the page when you Google "black bean burgers," but hey, I'm a busy girl), and I also drew a few ideas from this one.

I don't like mayonaisse (in fact, I despise it), so I didn't want to follow the second recipe, but I love to use spices rather than premade seasonings so the chili sauce in the first didn't appeal to me either.

Here's what I used:

16 oz of canned black beans

2 slices of wheat bread, chopped

1 green bell pepper

1 onion

1 packet of fresh cilantro (whatever size your supermarket sells it in, I always use the whole thing)

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 eggs

Zest and juice of 1 lime and 1 lemon

SPICES: pick your favorites. I used cumin, red pepper flakes, basil, salt and pepper 

TOPPINGS: go crazy

The name of the game is mash it all up:

Essentially every ingredient is being mashed up by hand or run through a food processor. Since these are ultimately supposed to be burgers, you're trying to make a vegetable mush that as closely resembles the texture of ground beef as possible.

Mama G says for breading, store bought bread crumbs are fine, but for more substantial things like meatloaf or burgers you should make your own.

Cumin, pre-slicing up

I don't have a really fine zester (is that a word?) so I use a cheese grater which makes these relatively large  gashes.

I didn't take pictures of chopped bell pepper, garlic or onion because I feel like both of those things have appeared on this blog before, and I didn't take a picture of the mashed up black beans because my hands were both covered in bean and none on my roommates were handy to wield the camera for me. 

Once the beans, onion, pepper, bread crumbs, cilantro, lime, lemon and garlic were all chopped, mashed and mixed together, set that aside and crack your two eggs into a bowl. Once they cook the eggs help hold the whole thing together so they're really important. Put the spices you're using into the bowl with the eggs and mix it all together.

The basil was a last minute addition. It's not the most scientific of reasoning, but I felt like it needed a little green.

Dump the egg mixture in with everything else and mix it by hand, forming patties and putting them on a greased cookie sheet. Originally I had imagined myself grilling these but they were just not solid enough to stay together on a grill. I baked them for about 25 minutes at 350 F.

They look a little like really lumpy cookies, no?

While they're cooking get together your preferred toppings. I sliced up some tomato and had arugula and salsa to put on the burgers, as well as regular hamburger buns. I also cut the lemon and lime I had used earlier into wedges to put in our waters, like I did when I had mussels.

Looks like a good spread to me

Lastly, pair with some homemade fries and call it a day!

I did use a top bun too, but for artistic reasons chose not to include it in this photo.

We had a few left over patties too so I ate them with tortilla chips the next day, and I have to say this recipe doubles as a pretty good black bean dip as well.

Oven fries

What blue-blooded American doesn't love a good French fry? (If you say 'Freedom Fry' leave now and never come back). However, unless you have a large and well-appliance-stocked kitchen or work at McDonald's, you probably are like me and don't have a deep fryer readily at your disposal.

So what's a girl to do when she's got that crispy, potato-y craving? Oven fries my friend!

You can find a million different recipes online but the general idea is the same:

Potatoes + oven = french fries.

So grab yourself a couple potatoes. I have 5 people in my house so I think 4 potatoes is sufficient. Even in the oven, these aren't horribly healthy so you can't go too crazy. Plus how many people will really (should really) eat a whole potato with dinner? That's a lot of potato in your diet.

I prefer to peal my potatoes but there are some great skin-on fries out there so pick your poison. Just be sure to clean them very thoroughly if you're going to keep the skins. Yes, oven temperatures will kill germs but who wants to eat dirt flavored fries?

Of course, there's only so much to do with oblong, rounded vegetables, but try to cut them up as evenly as possible. If you're fancy, you can buy a fry cutter that will get you even more exact, but I feel like that's a waste of money. Here's your options though:

This looks like fun to use, no lie.

A little simpler, a lot cheaper.

Next up I drizzled a little olive oil over the potato slices in a bowl and added some spices. This is where you can really get creative and where oven fry recipes can get interesting. I was going pretty simple, so I put salt, pepper and rosemary on mine, but I've seen buffalo fries, parmesan fries, chili fries, etc. Get crazy. I was also making black bean burgers so I wasn't trying to get so fancy.

Note: if you're going to make a lot of fries, make sure you have a large enough pan. I had to use two.

Because they're potatoes prepare to wait a while. In an oven heated to 350 F these babies cooked for probably an hour. Just make sure to take them out and shift them around to keep the bottoms from burning. 

And voila! Oven fries!