Roasted Cabbage.

I saw this idea on Pinterest, of course, and thought it seemed super simple and from the reviews it sounded like a yummy dish especially to get out of the norms with cabbage. Ya know... coleslaw, Asian salads, and with corned beef. This mixes it up, while not having to use anything too un-healthy. I like how easy it is, and that you can make it in the oven or on a grill. I made mine in the oven because I wanted to sit on the couch while they cooked ha. I only used half of my cabbage, which was about 3 servings. It also reheated in the microwave very well. So there aren't any measurements  because I  just sprinkled. If you want more specific measurements look at the original recipe.

Here ya go:

adapted from GreenLiteBites

cabbage

lemon or lime juice

Worcestershire sauce

kosher salt

bacon, fried crisp and chopped thin

Preheat oven to 425*. Cut your cabbage in half, and then cut each half into thirds. Cut the heartiest part of the core out (only about an inch or two off). Place each piece in a foil sheet. Sprinkle on some citrus juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and nice tiny pieces of bacon.  Roll up. Bake for 20-30 minutes. 20 minutes for a little more crisp cabbage and 30+ for more well-done cabbage. 

To grill heat up to medium heat. Cook for about 10 minutes, flip and cook for 10 or so minutes more.

Burrito Bowls

So this one is super simple, and WAY delicious. Honestly it's more of an idea than an actual recipe so go forth and burrito bowl. I LOVE Chipotle, but it's a solid 20 minutes from my house and sometimes I don't just have $9 I'd like to spend. If it lasted me a few meals it would be worth it, but I usually end up eating the whole stinkin' thing. At Chipotle I eat my bowl with their delicious chips, I wasn't feeling very chippy-dippy today so I just ate it as it... but I'd recommend pulling out some tortilla chips if you try it.

4 ears of corn
1/2 red onion, minced
2 limes, juiced
bunch of cilantro
kosher salt
tortilla chips
rice, cooked to your liking
chicken, I used a rotisserie I got on sale ($3.45 and I got 6 cups of meat!)
sour cream
guacamole
    **Ok now, some people like guacamole like the dip you put your chips in, other people consider it smashed avocado, I personally usually just mix some smashed avocado with some pico de gallo or other salsa. My sister prefers just to cube up some avocado and toss it in.. that's awesome too!



So here's what I did. I cut the corn off the cob and diced the onion. I tossed it with the lime, some minced cilantro and some kosher salt. I let that start to meld together. Then I started cooking some brown minute rice, you can make whatever rice you'd like and cook it will a little cilantro and lime if you want it a bit more authentic but brown minute rice was plenty delicious for me! Layer rice, then chicken. Place plenty of corn salsa, a dollop of sour cream and a dollop of guac. Now you either dip your chips or dig in with a fork. (:

SOS Mix.

So, I was in a club at Utah State where we were trying to raise awareness about Celiac/gluten-intolerance. One of the ladies at Utah State came in and spoke to us and shared her SOS mix with us. Essentially it's a thickener, but it also is a GREAT substitute for cream of "anything" soup. SOS stands for Soup and Sauce mix! I'll hit you with the recipe here. And I'll link you up to the booklet you can print it out which has the recipe for the mix as well as like a million recipes to use it in, and they're not all casseroles! Check out the ingredients... it's also very inexpensive. You'll probably only have to buy dry milk... unless everyone on earth but me keeps that in the pantry, because I sure don't. ha. It's gluten and fat free. And way healthier than canned cream of chicken soup (which I do LOVE by the way ha, I just can't eat it and am trying to be more healthy.)

2 c. powdered non-fat dry milk 

3/4 c. cornstarch

1/4 c. chicken bouillon

2 tbls. onion flakes

2 tsp. Italian seasoning

Mix. Keep in a sealed container or plastic bag. You do NOT need to refrigerate this. It makes about 9 cans worth of soup. 

To make cream of "somthing" soup: Mix 1/3 c. dry mix with 1 1/4 c. water. Microwave or cook on the stove until thickened. Use as you would soup. 

Here's the link to the booklet, I would highly recommend taking a look at it!

Potato Bugs.

The idea for this came from Pinterest, like a lot of my ideas do. I've been wanting to make them for awhile. They were really yummy! Nothing too spectacular taste-wise, although it is kind of a mash up of a baked potato and home-made french fries. They are super pretty and I think they would make a great presentation to any company you're having over. I also thought of an awesome tip about 1/2 way through cutting them all, but was like ehh.. I'm already most of the way done I'll do it next time. The issue I had was that I'm not very good at being patient with food, crafts, etc. (People I've got all the time in the world, stuff NO!) So I kept accidentally cutting all the way through instead of leaving a nice little connection on the bottom. They still were yummy and cute. BUT if you're going to do this, find 2 things with similar heights (I would use 2 cutting boards) and place the potato between them and slice... the boards will keep you from going to the bottom, genius eh? I also love that you could do any flavor/toppings you want. And they look like potato bugs! And they're potatoes, so cute, yeah?

Here's what ya need:
adapted from SeaSaltWithFood

Potatoes, 1 per person

Olive oil (or butter if that's your thing)

kosher salt

any seasonings you want!

Preheat your oven to 425*. Wash your potatoes. Slice them up real thin, leaving the bottom 1/2 inch or so intact. Layer them on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt, and seasonings. Bake for 40 minutes. We liked ours topped with cheese, bacon, sour cream, ranch, and/or katsup, respectively. Fancy, huh?

Creamy Enchilada Bake.

My family is not very adventurous when it comes to food. So growing up I thought enchiladas were sour cream based with big, soft flour tortillas, not chili(of choice)-based with corn tortillas. I love me some spicy enchiladas, anything spicy really... but I have always preferred flour tortillas with anything. I've been craving those gooey, creamy, smooth "creamy enchiladas." The problem is that I can't have flour tortillas :( and I was a bit lazy and not going to participate in the whole rolling up and making them look all pretty. So I layered them all in a pretty baking dish and called it good!

Here's the small recipe (like a 6"x6" round dish):

6-8 white corn tortillas

1 c. water with 2 tbls. hot sauce

1 chicken breast, diced

oil, as needed

salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper to taste

1 can cream of chicken chicken soup

3/4 c. sour cream

1 small can green chilies, don't worry about draining them

1 1/2 or so cups of shredded cheese

Preheat oven to 425*. Heat up a sauce pan with a drizzle of oil.  Cut up your chicken into little pieces (I like mine a bit smaller than "bite-sized" since I want more than just chicken in each bite!). Season it with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper if you like spice. While it's cooking mix together your soup, sour cream, and chilies. Then mix your water and hot sauce in a bowl, this is the key to yummy corn tortillas and not ones that absorb all your sauce and turn to glue. Place some of your sauce in the bottom of the pan. Then 2 or 3 tortillas (like a stack, so if you're using a big pan you'll need a bunch of tortillas), dunk them in the water/hot sauce and layer them. Chicken, cheese, sauce,  tortillas, chicken, cheese, tortilla, sauce, cheese! Lots of cheese. I also sprinkled on some more crushed red pepper, and a little cilantro. Then bake for about 20 minutes, until nice and bubbly. 

This is yummy and super gooey. I did 2 tortillas thick and think I'll do 3 or 4 next time for a bit more substance. I didn't even miss the flour tortillas! We had this with potato bugs, since I've been having rice like every meal lately ha. It wasn't very pretty though :/ that's why I didn't even try to take a picture of the  sliced up bake, because it was a nice little puddle of goo. In a good way! I think you could just double up this recipe with plenty of tortillas and do a 9"x13" dish that was thinner, or lots of layers!

Cashew Chicken

I was pleasantly surprised with this recipe. It seemed like it would be nothing special, ya know? Normal ingredients, no secret-super-special techniques or anything but it was definitely yummy, filled an Asian food craving and in a pretty darn healthy way and was SUPER quick. It only took me maybe 20 minutes, including prep, and everything. I scaled this down to two servings since it was just me (I do this a lot, I make 2 servings and eat one and put one the fridge for later). 

Here it is for 2 servings folks:

adapted from Six Sisters' Stuff

1 chicken breast

salt, pepper, & olive oil, as needed

1/4 c. soy sauce  

2 tbls. rice vinegar

2 tbls. katsup

1 tbls. brown sugar

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 tsp. ginger powder

1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper

1/2 c. mixed nuts

1 green onion, chopped (optional)

Chop up chicken into bite-sized pieces. Dust with salt & pepper. Heat up a swirl of oil in a saucepan. Toss in your chicken and fry until mostly cooked. Mix up all your sauce ingredients (other than nuts) in a bowl. Once chicken is mostly done add in the sauce. Once chicken is cooked coarsely shred chicken. Toss in nuts, and green onions if desired. Serve over rice.

 

The original recipe called for flour before browning the chicken also but I eat gluten-free so I left it out and shredded up the chicken. I used the original amount of sauce which was for 2 lbs of chicken, I don't think there would be at all enough sauce. I think the amount was perfect so the chicken was nice and moist, and there was a bit left for rice. The original recipe also cooked it for 4 hours on low in a crockpot... to me there was zero need for that and I don't think there would be enough sauce at all for it not to burn up. Completely cooking the chicken took 2 or 3 minutes more than just browning it, and I was hungry! I also would definitely use just cashews next time, but I had a mix of cashews, almonds, and peanuts on hand so that's what I used. I think an awesome mix-up would also be to use chili sauce or Sriracha in place of the katsup. 

Here's a recipe using roughly 1 lb. of chicken / 8 servings-ish (hey, I know some of ya don't like math):

4 chicken breasts

salt, pepper, and oil as needed

1 c. soy sauce

1/2 c. rice vinegar

1/2 c. katsup

1/4 c. brown sugar

3-4 cloves garlic

1 tsp. ginger powder

1 tsp. crushed red pepper

1 1/2 c. cashews

3 green onions, chopped (optional)

Cut up chicken. Season with salt and pepper.  Heat up a nice swirl of oil. Fry chicken until mostly cooked. Stir together sauce except for nuts. Now if I'm shredding a lot of chicken I like use a kitchenaid mixer because it shreds it in like uhh .2 seconds. But if you're old school you can for sure just use 2 forks and go at it. If i was going to shred it in the kitchenaid I would cook it all the way shred it, while the sauce is heating up and then toss the shredded chicken back into the sauce. Then you toss in the nuts and green onion if desired. Serve over rice.

 

 

Holi in a Bowl!

So, I don't know if it's just a Utah thing but every spring at the Hindu Temple in Spanish Fork has a "Colors Festival" which is more commonly known as Holi. Essentially you all gather at the gorgeous temple and throw colored cornstarch at each other and all over while some awesome music/chants are played live. You also get to go through the temple. It's very fun!

Awesome, yeah?! So I saw something on Pinterest where they did the whole baking soda and vinegar thing out of plastic bottle but they put food coloring in, which seemed a million times more fun to me! One day me, 2 of my step brothers, and my sister were doing all sorts of weird things with vinegar and I had an AHA moment. We filled up big glass mixing bowls with baking soda (like a layer across the bottom) and then had small bowls with vinegar and different food colors in each one. We went ghetto style and just used straws to get vinegar on the end and drip it into the baking soda. Let me just say the 4 of us had fun for a solid 45 minutes.

It was really interesting how differently it looked when you poured a little in, or a bit more (by holding the top of the straw while its in the vinegar). The blue bowl on the bottom left was after we we're done playing we dumped all the colors into the bowl and then stirred parts and just played some more. The best part... it was really NOT messy. If you have a light colored table I would recommend investing in a dollar store table cloth for crafts and throw that down ( we are using food dye). We didn't have any trouble just wiping it off with what we usually clean the table with as soon as we were done. It was just small drips from moving the straw from the vinegar to the big bowl. 

 

If you are going to do this and maybe plan a bit in advance I would use some sort of little squirt bottles. Catchup style ones would be cool, but so would the little hair water bottles (ya know the ones that squirt like cleaner bottles from the travel section at Walmart or the dollar store?) Maybe do one or two of each?! 

 

If you try it, come back and tell me if you (or your kids ha) liked it, what you changed, etc.