John’s burritos will make you feel like a cheater – Recipe Test Drive
It’s embarrassing, it really is. I call myself a cook, yet I made this ridiculously easy meal for dinner tonight and we all fell over ourselves loving it. It feels a little wrong, like I cheated on cooking a dinner. There’s something not quite right about a meal with essentially four ingredients, but somehow it worked for us tonight.
John’s burritos consisted of the tortilla, ground meat (we used grass fed beef), a can of re-fried beans and cheese. I know, I could hardly believe it either, but nothing in it sounded gross, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.
Cook and freeze for whole food dinners all winter long – Fresh Foodie
Perhaps it’s because I’m a busy mom and winter, with its lack of grill meals, is quickly creeping up, but I’m becoming intrigued with the idea of freezer meals.I love making pesto and freezing it all summer long so I can enjoy it even when the snow is piled high, but that’s all about enjoyment. It really only saves me about 5 minutes and washing the food processor; I still have to cook the rest of the meal.
Since I’ve got to live up to my Fresh Foodie reputation, I certainly can’t buy convenience or frozen meals, but I’m craving a simpler evening these days. So why not try cooking whole meals when I’ve got all of this fresh, whole food at my disposal, and save them until winter? It will be such a treat to have a meal everyone loves ready to go and to have a night off of cooking.
Chocolate coconut milk ice cream – pardon my drool
As I sit down to my laptop, I am unconvinced as to whether I will even be able to write this post. As soon as I start describing the homemade ice cream we made tonight, I’m sure I’ll be running to the freezer — multiple times — to snitch from the double-batch I made. Yeah, this post will never get done unless I exercise extreme self control.
You really, really cannot imagine how good this chocolate coconut milk ice cream is. Sure, you’re probably out there crying me a river because Owen and I can’t eat a lot of dairy without getting sick, sick, sick. I surely don’t feel bad for us — we’re in frozen dessert heaven.
French fries, oven-roasted and crunchy as all get out
I’m sure you’ve fallen into the same trap with your kids. No matter how healthy you try to be, as soon as they’re old enough to start ordering their own food at restaurants, they discover the kids’ meals… and the French fries. I really have a bone to pick with pretty much every restaurant in the northern hemisphere, because if they didn’t celebrate the French fry as a vegetable, then perhaps children across America would be eating more broccoli.
Nevertheless, the four-year-old loves French fries, so we give him French fries, often and in great, heaping quantities. But stop! Before you report me to the Department of Social Services, we make him oven-roasted potatoes cut in the shape of French fries, and he doesn’t know the difference. And yes, mine are as crunchy — sometimes crunchier — than the deep-fried versions at your local watering hole… uh, I mean restaurant where you’d appropriately take your kid. Yep, that’s what I mean.
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Chard with onion and tamari – Do More with Less
Gourmet cooking doesn’t have to entail hours of cooking with a list of ingredients longer than your normal grocery list. Create meals bursting with complex flavors that will please every food snob in your life, easily.
All my years of getting multitudes of chard from the CSA farm, I’ve experimented with at least 70,000 ways to cook it. Time after time, I always come back to this easy, versatile saute. Three little ingredients and somehow the flavors magically blend together… perfection.
You can serve it as a side dish, with your protein on a bed of it (think grilled chicken or fish, even tempeh) or add sliced sausages to your saute and create an easy, healthy main dish.
This breakfast may kill you
A few weeks ago, I was at Borders perusing the clearance section. I found this really janky set of cookbooks that I adore, but are only useful in the loosest sense. The ingredients don’t actually combine to make anything; they’re more of a guide to an idea of a dish than anything else. I’ve made several recipes and I’ve changed them all so much that they’re barely recognizable. One of the first meals that I tried was basically a heart attack on a plate: Eggs in potato shells. You guys, this thing has four ingredients: eggs, potatoes, butter and cream. I am not messing around, here.
Not only does it look completely deadly, but I was doubtful that it would even taste good. I thought it would be gross and runny and just make me feel kind of sick. However, it was so freaking good. This is basically twice-baked potatoes with eggs and is a perfect breakfast dish when you have some leftover baked potatoes from the night before.
Easy white bean dip with garlic and fresh herbs
There’s something magical about a good bean dip. Sometimes it’s the perfect hummus, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with paprika. Other times it’s a spicy black bean dip threatening to ooze over the side of your organic blue corn chip if you don’t scoop it into your mouth in time.
But today, I’m thinking about white bean dip. In the wintertime, white bean dip is perfect with sun-dried tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and crusty bruschetta. Summertime brings a lighter, lemony bean dip served with veggies and crispy brown rice crackers. Making a delicious white bean dip is criminally simple, and the one I made this weekend should land me life in prison. Yeah, that was totally hokey, but the bean dip really was good!
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