I heart Clarksville

during the Spring and Summer because they have an over abundance of Avocados and they are cheap cheap! (Last year they also had mangoes for super cheap and they go together so beautifully!)

Do you love avocado as much as I do?? If you are unfamiliar with these lovely green creamy bits of deliciousness, stick around!

There are all kinds of nifty little tools in all shapes and sizes to help you deal with an avocado, but I like to just stick with a knife and spoon.

OK, here's how to pick an avocado. Squeeze it, if you're going to use it right away, you want it to give just a little bit when you squeeze. Not enough to leave an indent, just enough that you felt it move. If you're going to sit it around for a day or so you can get the hard ones and leave them on the counter and they will ripen. Another great way to tell is if the tiny stem at the top is still there! If it's not there but it's still green where it's supposed to be, you're good if not, leave it!!

Rachel has taught me some great things about avocados, including how to store and freeze them and the ever delicious Eggvocado (I happen to love it with a teeny bit of coarse sea salt and Greek seasoning)

So, let's get you slicing and dicing the avocado.

See the little tan stem, you want that!

You need a rather large knife. My avocado is pretty small, but they get larger. You want a large knife so that you can go all the way around the avocado without losing your knife in there. Push the knife in, you will hit the large seed, slice around it. Slice the long way, all the way around in one smooth motion so that you have two whole pieces.

With a half in each hand, gently twist in opposite directions, and then pull apart.

You now have two halves, one has a large brown seed and the other has a seed shaped hole!

Sort of stab the seed with your knife. It should go right in. Twist and remove the seed.

Depending on what you're using the avocado for will determine how you'll slice it. I'm using it on a sandwich, so I'm just going to slice it. You can take the whole thing out, or dice it! If you're slicing and dicing you're going to take your knife and cut into the flesh but not through the outer skin.

Now with your spoon, just scoop it out!

Use it how you see fit!

The next post will show you my favorite sandwich!

 

How YOU doin?!

Hey guys!
I am super sorry about being totally absent. I've been feeling a bit down and have not been in the kitchen at all. But I'm feeling a bit better now and being in the kitchen makes me feel better so I'm just feeding (tehehe) off of it all today.
Anywho, I've been trying to exercise and eat better lately so I have a few recipes that are low cal and maybe you can also replace your snacks with something more filling but with less calories.

I've already confessed my love for all things pinterest and this one is all over the place there.

Here's what you'll need for some kale chips:

bunch of kale

evoo

s&p

whatever flavoring you like* I used cheese, you can use any kind really. Or maybe you're feeling a bit sea worthy you could do old bay or maybe some italian or really anything. Your imagination's the limit.

Preheat to 350

I happen to love kale. It's so robust and filling. It has a great flavor and takes to alot of things. I love it in soup it does a great job of adding some substance to it

*Let me explain this picture. I was by myself but I wanted to be able to show you how to rip the kale off. It didn't work out too well for me.*

Despite the terrible picture, you hold the stalk. Start at the bottom of the leaves and pull upwards. The kale just pulls away from the stalk super easily, it's quick work. I then tore the pieces into bite sized/finger food sized pieces.

On a greased baking sheet drizzle the kale with a bit of EVOO. Just enough to lightly coat. Add your topping of choice. I had some outrageously delicious Jalepeno and Habanero Cheese. It is so great but it's insanely hot (obviously) so I can only eat about a rice sized piece at a time. I thought that maybe doing this could infuse that great flavor but ease off on the heat. Add your s&p. I choose coarse sea salt and I'm glad I did. You don't need a ton of it but it imparts great flavor.

Bake for 12-14 minutes.

The kale will be super crispy and light.

These are so good. You just pick at it like popcorn. The flavor is so fresh! I'm so glad that I picked that 8th dimension of hell cheese because it added just enough of everything to make it over the top. At 43 calories for a cup, you can eat this stuff all day long for about 97 calories. It satifies my salty craving!

I'm stealing this!

So, I totally stole this from Rachel. So I must give her the credit. It looked so delicious that I had to make it and show you! Rachel has a printable recipe on her page, so you can hop over there and print this out. *I'm still working on having a "Printable Recipe" page.

We're making Ginger Pork Potstickers a la Guy Fieri! I love his Diners, Drive-ins and Dives but this is my first Guy recipe.

Here's what you need:

1 lb ground pork

1/4 cup onion, finely diced

2 tbsp minced ginger

1 tbsp minced garlic (I use about 2 cloves)

1 tsp soy sauce

1/4 tsp sesame oil

wonton wrappers

Do all your chop choppin! I love to chop, I could chop all day. Alot of folks love those little gadgets that make the chopping faster and some even make it possible to chop something without ever touching it. I'm not a gadget girl, I personally love eau de gahhhlic :)

Brown everything to a lovely brown color :)

You could very easily sub ground turkey or beef or chicken here. The hubs is not a fan of pork so next time I'll probably go with turkey.

Remove from heat and add in your soy sauce, sesame oil and S&P. Sit aside to cool.

OK, get some water to boiling for later. I used a deep sauce pan. But you could use one of those lovely oval pasta pans too.

Now the hubs was starving so I was in a hurry *plus he offered to help* didn't wait as long as I probably should have for the filling to cool BUT I didn't have any problems at all.

You need a small bowl of water and a pastry brush. If you don't have a pastry brush just use your fingers.

You are going to brush the outside 1/2 inch of two perpendicular sides of your wrapper.

Fill your wrapper! I used a tsp and just messed around with how much I could use. Don't overfill!

Fold over and roughly line up the edges. It doesn't have to be perfect.

*The hubs did an excellent job of photo documenting this. You could flip through them and see me moving...lol. As a result you're getting a very thorough wonton wrapper tutorial*

 

Make sure you squeeze the edges together REALLY good. It's pretty easy for these little boogers to come apart in the boiling water. It really doesn't take long to do this. It seems more in depth than it really is. I set the cutting board up with four at a time and did them like that. *This next part is alot easier with two people. It runs smoother like that. I did the wonton's and the hubs did the boiling. (Yvette, I bet BJ would be an excellent wonton wrapper guy!)

Heat up a small pan with a little of that sesame oil you have. If not, EVOO or canola is fine.

Drop them (a few at a time) into boiling water. You want them to be able to move around so don't over fill your pot. But don't worry because they only stay in the water for one minute then you fish them out. So the process doesn't take long at all. *Remember how the hubs was starving and I was in a hurry? Well I skipped the next step.* You are supposed to let them sit on a cooling rack for a while to dry off a bit. I just let them drain a few seconds and them put them in the pan (I missed the photo!).

Drop them into the hot pan with the sesame oil and let them get a delicious browned color.

Serve with some soy sauce for dipping and you're in business!

I happen to think that if it involves ginger and soy sauce it could be a shoe and I'd love it. BUT, this was really great. The hubs would have liked it better if it wasn't pork but I'm a pork fan. This is pretty versatile too so you could add in some carrots or something and sneak it past the kids. PLUS, who doesn't like to eat with chopsticks?!?! And if you don't have chopsticks, who doesn't like to eat with their fingers?!?!

They are also good even if they aren't steaming hot so it would be a great recipe to take to a party. They warm up better than you would thing, but you could also just save (or freeze) the filling to use for later. This makes a ton of wonton's so ask a friend to come over too.

It was about time

for me to get a cold, so I have one...uggg.

This whole week has been a bit of a blur of congested ugginess. I've been so slack and I apologize!

This past weekend I did some serious cooking. It had been a while and I needed it. Maybe I'll feel more like it this weekend too.

I heart Pinterest. I hope you are on it because it's fantastic. If you are, find me!! I'm asb0521.

So I found this recipe on Pinterest and it's definately added to the plus pile. We're making Vegetable Tian!

Here's what you need:

1 yellow onion, sliced or chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 potatoes of your choice

1-2 zuchinni

1 yellow squash

3 tomatoes

1/2 cup grated cheese of choice

2 tbsp EVOO

Thyme

S&P to taste

Preheat to 375

Saute your onions with your EVOO until they are translucent then toss in your garlic and cook together for about 2 minutes.

So in your casserole dish put a layer of your onions. I choose a smaller dish and I should have put a bit less onions.

Slice all your veggies so that they are all about the same size.

Layer them all pretty like around the dish. I love love love the way this looks!

I did about 3 sprigs of Thyme, It's up to you really!

Drizzle about a tbsp or so of EVOO then top with your thyme and S&P to taste, then cover and cook for 35 minutes.

I added a few bread crumbs, optional little crunch. Sprinkle on the cheese, I picked Mozz.

Leave uncovered and put back in the oven for about 25 minutes.

It looks so great that the hubs couldn't keep his fingers off it!

I served Pot Stickers with it from over at The Traveling Spoon.

It was fantastic! All the flavors melted all together so great. The potatoes were my favorite!

The hubs loved this and it warms up really great. The thing I like most about this recipe is that you can really taste all the deliciousness that the veggies have to offer. Just going with a light seasoning makes all the flavors just do their thing.

This is so easy that it's silly but it tastes so great!

Ultimate Leftover Recipe

So the main reason that I make meatballs is so that I can make the Meatball Sub Casserole that comes the next day. I don't usually make the meatballs for this recipe, here's my logic:
I am NOT a fan of leftovers or warming anything up. SO whatever I can do to make the leftovers more fun I am all for it. Since I love this casserole I save that for the leftovers so that I know I'll eat them.
Takes a long way to get there, but it works in my brain!

Here's what you need:

Your leftover meatballs from here

1/3 cup chopped scallions (optional)

1 loaf Italian bread , cut into 1 inch slices

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup mayo

1 teaspoon italian seasoning

1/4 tsp pepper

1 cup shredded cheese (of your choice

1 (28 ounce) jar spaghetti sauce

*if you are feeling extra saucy (tehehe) then you can make your own*

Preheat to 350

Start with a GOOD loaf of bread. You'll be glad you did. I am a fan of the French Loaf that is in the Bakery at Wal-Mart. It's a tasty, tasty magical thing full of yeasty goodness.

Cube up your delicious bread and line a casserole dish. If you were being super on top of things then you could make two smaller ones and one goes straight to the freezer!

In a bowl goes your mayo, cream cheese and spices. Mix well!

Make sure that your cream cheese is softened. If not the next step will be miserable for you!

Spread the cream cheese mixture over your bread cubes. It should go on rather easily. Sprinkle some of your cheese. I happened to have some Romano, tasty!

Add your meatballs and then

Pour your sauce over the meatballs and add your shredded cheese. I went a little nuts with the cheese but I do love cheese. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes. If the meatballs are hot, 30 is fine. If they are leftover meatballs then you might want to go more like 45 minutes.

Serve with Roasted Parmesan Green Beans for a fantastic dinner!

You'll be so happy about this recipe after one taste. You could make it ahead and bake at the last minute and it freezes great!

I guess it's the mayo, cream cheese concoction that makes it so great! It's such a great cold weather comfort food. It's one of my tired and true recipes to make the hubby say, "Wife, you are a GREAT cook!"

Why don't we try this?

The hubs likes to find recipes on Saturday mornings before we go out to meander and run errands. Then I think about this new recipe all day!

This weekend was no exception so I bring to you our little version of Bucatini All'Amatriciana with Spicy Smoked Mozzarella Meatballs. I love love love Giada but I very rarely try her recipes, I'm not sure why that is.

Here's what you'll need for our version:

Sauce:

2 tbsp evoo

1 small onion, minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

crushed red pepper flakes (depending on your tongue, less than an 1/8 tsp)

2 cans diced tomatoes

1/2 grated Romano

1/4 cup parsley

cup mushrooms, chopped

s&p to taste

Meatballs:

1 shallot, grated

1/2 cup parsley, chopped

2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/3  cup bread crumbs

1 tbsp dried basil

1 egg

2 tbsp ketchup

3 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

2 lbs ground meat, whatever you choose

2 ounces of cubed smoked gouda

Preheat to 400

Let's do the meatballs first.

Grate your shallot and you can go ahead and do the garlic too. The only reason that I didn't is that I forgot!

Chop and add the parsley

Here we have the garlic, egg, spices, ketchup, cheese and bread. Mix it all up into a delicious concoction!

Now, roll them out however you see fit. I rolled them all out. then washed the hands (of course)

and cubed up the gouda.

*Side note, Smoked Gouda is one of my favorite cheeses. It has substance so it can hold up to alot of recipes and it has that delightful smoked flavor. This was the hubs first encounter with smoked gouda and he liked it IN the recipe, but for just a cheese to eat he says that he's not that much of a fan.*

Then made an indent (like above) in each meatball and add the cube of cheese. Base your cube size on how big your meatball is. It's a preference. Then you just sort of re-shape the meatball around the cheese, like so:

We wanted to put these on the grill but it didn't really work out for us, so into the oven they went

For about 15 minutes or so. I might have done 17 on this batch because they were a little bigger than I usually roll out.

NOW, for the sauce:

Get your garlic and

onions chopped and going in the pan with some evoo.

*Side note, see that Dark Chocolate bar in the background? There is always, always one sitting right there by the cutting board. It's the hubs super secret powers. He picks at it as his after work snack.*

Get some lovely and tasty carmelization going on here.

Add in all your lovelies, the tomatoes, mushrooms, parsley and simmer for a bit. Then in the last 15ish minutes add in the Romano cheese. This will thicken it up quite a bit.

You can add in the meatballs and let them simmer for a while. I didn't do that because I had BIG BIG leftover plans for them. Serve over the pasta of your choice!

This was really great. It was spicy enough to be interesting but not so much that I had to stop eating it. The meatballs were rather delicious and the smoked gouda added something special. The Romano in the sauce was just right. I think next time I might work some basil into the sauce somehow. I just think that having tomato without basil is silly.
There are plenty of meatballs here to freeze them or use them in a leftover, or both.

This, I believe will be added to my pile of fall backs.