What We Ate 8/17/15 – 8/22/15

Hey everyone! Just sharing our delicious eats we had for dinner last week. I have to start to figure out what we want to make next week as well. If you have any suggestions comment below!

BBQ chicken Asian salad

Monday: Chopped Asian BBQ Chicken Salad from Half Baked Harvest. We absolutely love this salad! We’ve made it a couple of times before and I always forget how simple and quick it all comes together. Those tortilla chips are sooo good.

Cauliflower rice and sweet potatoes

Tuesday: Spicy Cauliflower Rice, Cinnamon-Paprika Sweet Potatoes & Avocado Mash from Blissful Basil. We recently got into making cauliflower rice and have been trying out different recipes that involve it. This one was simple oh so delicious. The sweet potatoes were probably my favorite part!

Peach pizza

Peach pizza and salad

Wednesday: Peach Pizza with a side salad. This is our go to pizza recipe in the summer – it is refreshing and light. I can’t get enough peaches! Yum!

Thursday: Leftover Cauliflower Rice with Cinnamon-Paprika Sweet Potatoes. Still good leftover!

Friday: Leftover Peach Pizza. It’s Friday so we had to have some pizza to ring in the weekend!

Saturday: Takeout – we were out and about running errands so we grabbed some quick food to go.

Cilantro Lime Popcorn

Cilantro lime popcorn

Well well well Popcorn and Chocolate are back again making what else but popcorn. This recipe is absolutely perfect for Cinco de Mayo, especially if you pair it with our mango margarita recipe. Disclaimer: this combination is beyond delicious and we do not recommend it unless you are prepared to want more.

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Cilantro. Lime. Popcorn. Nope, do not try this because it is disgusting and you will not go out and buy more popcorn kernels and cilantro and limes to recreate it the next day and the day after that and the day after that… We definitely didn’t do that.. nope, doesn’t sound like us at all.

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This popcorn though, it is like happy hour meets movie theater meets my mouth in a delicious explosion of salty cilantro-y goodness.

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This is coming from the kid who absolutely positively despised cilantro and would avoid it at all costs. If it had cilantro in it, nope, just no; I was done. I used to hate Boloco because their rice has cilantro cooked into it, and who could hate Boloco?! I was crazy and thankfully I have come to my senses and now actually love cilantro and make Rose buy it at the grocery store all too often. Rose loves cilantro so she is overly excited by my new found relationship with the herb.

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If you told me a few years ago I would be making and loving cilantro lime popcorn I wouldn’t have believed you. I was with all the cilantro tastes like soap people, but now I have converted, and my friends, you will too with this scrumptious popcorn.

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Simple, salty, zesty popcorn. Keep it coming because I could eat many of batches of this lovely delightful snack.

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Cilantro Lime Popcorn:

  • 1/4 cup popcorn kernels – this makes a big two person sharing bowl sized amount
  • 2 and 1/2 tablespoons sunflower oil (olive oil or coconut oil would work as well, but sunflower oil creates the most authentic popcorn taste so we highly recommend it)
  • 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
  • 1 tablespoon lime zest
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • Optional – extra dash of cilantro and zest to top it all off for an extra punch of flavor

1. Pop the kernels either on the stove or using an air popper

2.  Mix the oil with most, but not all of the cilantro, zest, and salt in a small bowl until combined

3. Pour mixture over popped popcorn and shake to thoroughly cover, then toss in the remaining cilantro, zest, and salt

4. Enjoy!

5. Optional- invite me over to help you enjoy.

I love popcorn!There you have it, a simple yet flavorful popcorn snack that would be perfect for your next Friday night movie night or even for a fun snack on Cinco de Mayo. I’ll warn you again, pairing this with those mango margaritas is definitely not a delicious idea…. nope…

IMG_6307Ps. I’m literally dying over how cute this llama placemat is. We got it at Crate & Barrel in the fall and unfortunately they don’t sell it anymore.. I need more!

What We Ate 4/19/15 – 4/25/15

Hi everyone! Can you believe April is already coming to an end? I can’t… This year is already going by so fast. Last Monday was Marathon Monday in Boston and Haley and I stood outside in the cold, drizzly weather and cheered on the runners. I always have a great time, but with everything going on after the bombings, I found it particularly emotional being there this year. So we stood outside with chai tea drinks keeping us warm and cheered until we got hoarse and then went home and watched the rest on TV while eating soup. But anyways, what did we eat this week?

Orange cauliflower

Sunday & Monday: Orange Cauliflower based on this recipe. We’ve followed this recipe before and modified it quite a bit. What we did was made the “sauce” part of this recipe (we doubled it) and chopped up half a head of cauliflower and a few carrots. We also added a can of baby corn, a can of sliced water chestnuts, and a can of chickpeas (all rinsed and drained). We dumped these in a large glass baking pan and poured the sauce over and baked it at 425 F for about 25-30 minutes, tossing halfway through.

veggie burger

Tuesday: Veggie burgers with big ol’ side salad. Ok, you all know at this point what happens when we come home from work and we’re both too tired and too uninspired to cook any of the recipes we’ve planned for the week. So we tossed this meal together in about 5 minutes.

red pepper pasta

Wednesday: Roasted Red Pepper Pasta. I love this recipe. Love love love it. We’ve now made it twice. So long as you have the time to roast the red peppers, then this recipe is so easy. What I did to speed things up a little is quarter the red peppers and dry roast them at around 450 F for only about 20-25 minutes. I could eat this pasta forever. Extra nutritional yeast? Yes please!

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Thursday: Roasted sweet potato and zucchini fries with sautéed brussel sprouts, kidney beans, and some chips on the side. This may sound random, but we actually bought a bunch of veggies with the goal of throwing something together. I have this awesome cheesy popcorn seasoning from a spice shop in Portland, Oregon and we tossed the sweet potato and zucchini in it. Yum Yum.

red pepper pasta and brussel sprouts

Friday: Leftover pasta with a side of sautéed brussels sprouts.

BBQ chicken salad

Saturday: Trader Joe’s BBQ pulled chicken salad with avocado, corn, peppers, and tomatoes. Trader Joe’s, oh how you save the day. You have to try this BBQ chicken. It is so so good. Also, this Cowboy Salsa was all sorts of spicy and sweet goodness.

Homemade Easter Peanut Butter Bunnies

Bunnies in basket

Hippity hop, you know what’s coming soon? Easter! And you know what that means? Easter candy! You know what else is coming soon? Summer! And you know what the means? Bikinis and hellooo you have a figure under all those frumpy sweaters?

Peanut butter bunnies in basket

Now I am alllllll for celebrating every holiday in the book. Even if I am 23 years old and might be a bit too old to partake in certain aspects of holidays, it doesn’t mean I can’t still enjoy the holiday in general. I would love to still go trick or treating or do an Easter egg hunt but it might be a little unfair to all the kids so instead I have to find other ways to enjoy these holidays. For Halloween we threw an awesome party that allowed us to guiltlessly buy a ton of Halloween candy and decorations. For Easter we have decided to make our own yummy treats because as I previously mentioned, summer is soon and I can’t hide underneath my baggy sweaters/sweatpants throughout all of the season least I want to be a sweaty mess.

Bunny with eggs

These treats mimic the best candy ever: Reese’s! However, they do not have the added processed ingredients and sugars. Our homemade Reese’s are simple and pure and slightly too delicious to eat just one, or two, or three.. but at least you know exactly what is in them so go ahead, treat yo’ self. Treat yo’ 8 year old Easter candy loving self.

Peanut butter bunnies on crunch plate

For whatever reason the Easter egg shaped Reese’s always taste better than the normal Reese’s. Maybe because they’re bigger… When we saw this chocolate bunny mold we thought it would be perfect to get that big Easter egg Reese’s taste, plus look how cute it is! Who could resist that? Of course you don’t have to use a bunny mold for these, you can just use mini muffin papers to make little peanut butter cups or any mold you may have. Although, you will be warned they won’t taste quite as delectable.

Peanut butter bunnies

Okay, onto why you probably clicked this link to begin with, the recipe. All you need are some baking chips and some peanut/almond/nut butter of choice. If you’re doing white chocolate, we find that a white chocolate bar like Godiva or Ghirardelli works best since it melts down better. As for milk and dark chocolate, we’ve been into the Enjoy Life brand** Place about 1/2 cup of baking chips (more or less depending on how many Reese’s you want to make and how chocolatey you want each one to be) in a microwave safe bowl. Pop them in the microwave for about 20 seconds at a time, stirring so the chocolate doesn’t burn, until all chips are melted. Next, layer the chocolate into your tray or wrappers. We typically just use a spoon to do this and we try to keep the bottom layer pretty thin. Stick in the freezer for about 10-20 minutes just to harden a little bit. While that is in the freezer choose what peanut butter you want to put on your Reese’s. We like almond butter so we chose that but also put some of this banana chip peanut butter in some because yum. Take the tray/wrappers out of the freezer then put a layer of peanut butter in each. Top them all off with some more melted chocolate and pop back into the freezer for at least an hour. Rose likes to mash her almond/peanut butter with some oats and agave for a different flavor.

Peanut butter bunny and egg basket

Peanut butter bunny stacked

There you have it a super simple and very delicious and slightly, maybe, a tiny bit healthier than actual Reese’s recipe. We loveee these and keep making new batches using different kinds of chocolate (dark, milk, white) and different nut butters (maple almond, honey almond, cashew butter!). As you can tell we have gotten pretty good at the whole homemade Reese game. Let us know in the comments below what kind of chocolate and nut butter combo you would do. We’ve also contemplated putting a banana slice in them as well, such fun! Also, our next Reese’s adventure will be using chocolate nut butter on the inside and peanut butter chips on the outside because yum and why not?

Bunnies and hen towel

Happy Spring and happy soon to be Easter! Check back for some other fun Easter/Spring ideas soon!

Peanut butter bunnies crunch

What we ate 3/1/15 – 3/7/15

Hello all! This past week we had some super yummy meals that we are dying to share with you. We are constantly trying out new recipes and look forward to eating them each week. The meals we chose this week certainly did not disappoint! Read on to find out what we made. IMG_0335 Monday: Cauliflower, Potato, Onion, and Lentil Curry with Naan. We had an Indian Korma simmer sauce we bought at Whole Foods so we threw all of these ingredients in a large pot and let it cook for about 30-40 minutes then served with some naan. It was pretty good but could have had some more flavor. IMG_0340 Tuesday: Naturally Ella’s Curry Grilled Vegetables with Chickpeas and Creamy Polenta. This was the first time we have had polenta and it was pretty good. We were a little confused by it so we will continue to experiment with other recipes that use polenta. The veggies came out great! Just for the record though, if you follow this recipe, Naturally Ella calls for 1 cup of “polenta” but she means yellow cornmeal. You are making polenta, not adding polenta to water.IMG_0343 IMG_0352 Wednesday: Half Baked Harvest’s Chopped Asian BBQ Chicken Salad with Honey-Sesame Crackers. This salad was sooo good! And the crackers, oh yum. I could just eat those crackers all day long. We marinated the chicken overnight and then tossed it all with a big salad with carrots, lettuce, snap peas and some roasted broccoli. IMG_0361 Thursday: The Almond Eater’s White Bean Breakfast Hash. Yum! Another delicious dish this week. We didn’t have white kidney beans so we just used red kidney beans and it turned out great. We served ours over some spinach and had some leftover sweet potato and made plantain chips to go with it. For the plantain chips, we just sliced up the plantain and sauteed it in coconut oil, flipping halfway through and watching so the plantains don’t get too too dried out.IMG_0373 Friday: Salad and random leftovers. It wouldn’t be a normal dinner week for us if we didn’t have a random leftovers night. We each made salads with scraps of leftovers that you accumulated through the week. We also made some snack plates full of fruits, veggies, and some pretzels.

Saturday: Leftover white bean and breakfast mash. Still good the second time around!