Peanut Butter Split Smoothie

My Aunt Nan recently passed on this awesome smoothie recipe. I couldn't believe how creamy, smooth, and delicious the addition of the peanut butter made the smoothie. My Aunt Nan recommends stirring in some Hershey's syrup and I concur.

Ingredients
-1 banana (frozen is best, but not necessary)
-1/2 cup low fat almond/soy/regular milk
-1/2 cup plain non fat yogurt
-1 1/2 TBSP creamy peanut butter


-1 TBSP Hershey's syrup (optional)

Steps
1. Blend the above until smooth.

Mary Lou's Cinnamon Peach Cobbler

I got this super simple recipe for peach "cobbler" from my aunt, Mary Lou. As I've mentioned before, I'm not big into baking, so for me to bake something it has to be super simple. This totally fits the bill.

Ingredients
-Two 28oz cans of peach slices, reserve liquid from one can

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-1 teaspoon cinnamon

-1 box yellow cake mix

-3/4 Cup butter, melted

-vanilla ice cream (optional...but so worth it :)

Steps

1. Put peaches and about half of the packing liquid from one can in the bottom of cobbler pan (13 X 9).  Add vanilla, cinnamon, and stir.

2. Sprinkle cake mix evenly on top - do not stir! Also, try not to let the peaches peek through the cake mix.

3. Drizzle melted butter all over top.

4. Bake at 375 for about an hour, until golden on top.

5. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Vegetarian Taco Pasta

Last night was one of those nights where we didn't have much in the house, but I REALLY didn't want to stop at the store on the way home. So I took a mental stock of some things we had: pasta, cheese, salsa, corn, green onion, veggie crumbles, and realized we had almost everything we needed for Taco Pasta, which I first learned about from my friend, Noemi's blog. All I was missing were the beans, and thankfully my friend, Melissa, and fellow food blogger, was able to lend me a can of Navy beans. Originally I wanted black beans, but I actually think the Navy worked out better for this because they're a bit blander and more porous than black beans, and thus able to soak up more of the seasonings. Anyhow, for just kind of scraping something together this ended up being super easy and really tasty. Thanks Melissa and Noemi for making it happen!

Ingredients
-1 can Navy beans (or black if you prefer)
~8 oz pasta (bowtie, shells, macaroni, penne...whatever)
~1 C frozen corn (or one can of corn)
-1/2 bag of Morning Star Farm veggie crumbles
-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
-1/2 packet taco seaoning
-1 jar salsa
-1 C Mexican shredded cheese
-1 bunch green onions, chopped
-couple TBSPs of sour cream

Steps
1. Cook pasta and drain.
2. While pasta is cooking, saute veggie crumbles, beans, corn, garlic, and taco seasoning with a little EVOO.

3. After a few minutes, add the jar of salsa and about 1/3 C of water. Mix and let simmer on low-medium for as long as it takes the pasta to cook.

4. Once pasta is done and drained, you could: a) mix it in to your skillet with the bean/corn mixture, top with green onions and cheese and serve, or b) plop pasta and bean/corn mixture into a greased casserole dish and mix. If you use the casserole dish, layer 1/2 your chopped green onions and then add cheese on top.
5. Bake for about 5 minutes at 350, or until cheese is melted. Top with remaining green onions. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Fettuccine with spinach and cheesy herb sauce

This is a slightly modified recipe from Cooking Light. It was super easy and I really liked all the dill in the pasta.

Ingredients
-8 oz fettuccine
-1/2 C whole-milk ricotta cheese
-3 C baby spinach leaves
-1/4 C chopped fresh chives
-1/4 C chopped fresh dill
-Grated Romano or Asiago cheese
-2 TBSP olive oil
-1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
-1/4 tsp salt

Steps
1. Cook pasta according to package. Drain over a colander and reserve 1 cup of the cooking liquid.
2. Combine 1/3 C cup cooking liquid and 1/2 C ricotta in a blender and process until blended. (Add more cooking liquid if needed, depending on how you like the consistency.)
3. Combine hot pasta, cheese sauce, spinach, herbs, salt, pepper, grated cheese, and EVOO in a large bowl. Toss gently.

Simple protein smoothie

Ingredients
-1 Handful of frozen blueberries
-1 banana, quartered
-1/3 C Greek yogurt
-2 T honey
-splash of O.J.
-splash of soy or almond milk

Steps
1. Blend above and enjoy!

Note: I subbed apple for banana one day and that was good. Another day I mixed yogurt, banana, and heath bar chips and that was nice for dessert.

Sausage, potato, and red pepper turnovers

I got the original recipe from Cooking Light, but I modified it a bit. Well, in all honesty I actually forgot to put in one of the key ingredients (spinach), but these still tasted awesome, and I ended up just making a little side salad with the spinach I forgot to add :). This recipe looks a little complicated (at least to me), but it was really pretty easy.

I'm sure you could easily make these vegetarian by using the fake meat crumbles instead of sausage, if you prefer.

Note: This recipe makes 8 turnovers..and you'll probably end up with a little extra stuffing--we plan to serve it over noodles with some marinara or add it to some beans and broth and make a soup.
Ingredients
-4 red potatoes, diced into smaller than bite size pieces
-1 red bell pepper, diced into smaller than bite size pieces
-1 yellow onion, diced into smaller than bite size pieces
-5 links hot Italian chicken sausage, casings removed
-3 T fresh basil or oregano, chopped
-1 package refrigerated pie dough (such as Pillsbury)
-1 egg, lightly beaten
-3 T Parm or Asiago
-salt, pepper, crushed red pepper

Preheat oven to 400.
Steps
1. Heat a large skillet to medium-hot. Add sausages (with casings removed) and brown on both sides. Then, using a spatula, break the sausages up into small pieces.
2. Once you've broken up the sausage, add in the diced onion, potato, and red pepper. Saute for 3 minutes, then cover for about 3 minutes. Stir and cover everything again for about 3 minutes or until potato is soft.
3. Stir in basil/oregano, salt/pepper/crushed red pepper to taste, remove from heat. (This is where you were supposed to add the spinach, if you were so inclined.)

4. Flour a large working surface and a rolling pin (or if you're like me and don't own a rolling pin, flour a cylindrical object like a coffee thermos).
5. Cut your two rolls of pie dough into four equal pieces each. Ball each up and then press them out into a circle with your hands. Then roll them out into large circles, about 6 inches wide.

6. Spoon about 1/2 C sausage mixture on half of each circle, leaving a 1/2-inch border.

7. Fold dough over potato mixture and then bring bottom edge of dough over top edge; press with your fingers or crimp with a fork.  
Tip 1: the warm sausage mixture is going to make your dough gooey and start to tear easily, so don't overfill your turnovers. Also, try to work quickly. I ended up just pressing the edges together with my fingers because crimping with a fork was making the dough tear. If your dough does tear, don't worry unless it's a big tear, as a small tear will allow ventilation. If it's a big tear, borrow some dough from another turnover to patch with.
Tip 2: make your turnovers on the greased baking pan. I made the first one on my work surface and then it started to fall apart when I transferred it to the baking pan. So, I recommend making all your turnovers on the baking pan you're going to cook them on.
8. Brush your whisked egg over the top of each turnover.
9. Bake for about 15-18 minutes (on the TOP rack) or until turnovers are golden brown.
Tip 3: All ovens vary, but my turnovers started to burn on the bottom rack, so I transferred them to the top two racks. Then, I rotated the turnovers (switch the top and second to the top) half-way through so they got equally browned.
10. Grate some cheese on top of each turnover once you pull them out of the oven.

11. Enjoy, but be careful because they'll be very hot inside!

Super Easy Homemade Pickles

I always thought to pickle something you had to let it sit for days, if not weeks; however, these pickles are ready to eat in a few hours. They do pick up more flavor after several days, but they really are good to go after only a short time. These make for an awesome snack or appetizer.

Note: It's going to seem like you don't have enough liquid for your pickles; however, if you just shake them and rotate the jar every now and again all the cucumbers should soak up enough liquid. Plus, more liquid will be made during the fermentation process.

I made them "Japanese" style by cutting them into thin rounds instead of spears. However, if you prefer spears you can cut them any way you want.

Ingredients
-4 small cucumbers (I recommend getting the pickling kind of cucumbers, sometimes called "hot house")
-1/2 C cider vinegar or distilled vinegar
-1/4 C water
-3 T sugar (I used light brown, but that's the only kind I ever use...)
-several sprigs of dill
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/4 red onion, cut into thin slices
-2 cloves of garlic, sliced

Steps
1. Cut cucumbers into thin, round slices.  Put cucumber and onion slices in a large mason jar or some other kind of air tight container.
2. In a small saucepan, combing vinegar, water, sugar, dill, garlic. Bring to a boil.
3. Pour vinegar mixture over pickles and seal container.
4. Shake/agitate the container very well.
5. Chill for at least two hours (might be good to give the pickles a shake every 30 minutes - 1 hour for first two hours, and then once a day after that).