Caprese on crackers.

P.I.C. and I love a good cocktail hour. Well, we love cocktails. We also love appetizers, which simply MUST accompany our cocktails. Today, it had to be simple (we were hungry), and it had to be more than cheese and crackers (our standby). the result? Caprese crackers. Simple, light, and full of summery flavor, they were the perfect bites for us to chat about life, love, and our future. Just kidding, we were watching the end of Season Five of How I Met Your Mother. Heh.

Ingredients:
-Crackers. (I like Triscuits.)
-Sliced tomatoes
-Fresh mozzarella
-Basil (I didn't have fresh, so I just subbed in dry. It worked, but fresh basil would be SO good.)
-Olive oil
-Balsamic vinaigrette


How to:
-Top crackers with pieces of mozzarella and slices of tomatoes. 
-Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. 
-Top with fresh cracked pepper and salt. I sprinkled with dry basil also. (If I had fresh, I'd have put it between the cheese and tomato.

The continual onlooker...Oxford.

Pasta Salad...Italian-style.

The VERY best thing about training for a half-marathon is the license to eat carbs like it's your job. Seriously. (The worst? Getting up every Saturday morning at 5 a.m. and running, rather than enjoying delicious sleep.) Of course, I've blogged my recipe for the Southwestern Pasta Salad. You should have known that I have other versions. OF COURSE I DO. Momma needs her carbs. She gets them this way. Oh yeah, and with beer too. Duh.

Ingredients:
-1 box of bow-tie pasta
-One red pepper
-One yellow pepper
-One orange pepper
-One cucumber
-Half a pint of grape tomatoes
-Four ounces of feta cheese (I used a tomato basil flavor)
-Eight ounces of chicken breast meat, cooked, cut into bite-sized pieces.
-Italian dressing

How to:
-Cook pasta according to package directions. Rinse with cool water.
-Chop all veggies into bite-sized pieces.
-Toss all veggies, cheese, pasta, and chicken.
-Drizzle with Italian dressing to taste.
-Eat.

The finished product!

I'm currently obsessed with Aldi's light salad dressings. Oxford just likes to supervise.

Tuna salad, guacamole-style.

Lunches...the bane of our existence. Well, figuring out how to keep it interesting, delicious, yet not waste-expanding. That's tough. Tonight, I whipped up something a little different. Tuna salad. Boorrrrring. We've all had that. Perhaps you've heard of using avocado instead of all of the mayonnaise to make it healthier. I decided to do that. 

But that's not exciting enough. I put a quarter of a jalapeno in there. I added some lime juice. Salt and pepper. Then I threw some corn in there to add a little bit of texture. I wish I had cilantro. Really, this is more guacamole with a tuna bonus, but I'm gonna go ahead and call it a sandwich filling. A damn good one, right?

Ingredients:

-Two cans of tuna (I prefer the white albacore)

-One ripe avocado

-One lime

-Quarter of jalapeno, if desired

-1.5 tablespoons mayo (I like the olive oil kind)

-Half cup of corn (I used frozen, but I bet fresh would be amazing)

How do:

-Drain tuna.

-Mash avocado into tuna. Add lime juice and other ingredients.

-Salt liberally (or to taste).

-Spoon into pita with some romaine lettuce and some sliced tomatoes.

Avocado pie.

My coworker and I have this new thing called "Recipe Wednesdays." He gets the Food section of the New York Times brings it to my office, and we go over the various recipes and concepts and decide what I should try. Recently, it was an article in using avocado for sweet treats. I was intrigued. I have become quite an avocado fan for not having avocado until I was in my twenties. So, avocado pie was my first choice. Three ingredients blended together into a creamy consistency and poured into a crispy graham cracker crust. A few hours of refrigeration and perhaps a liberal application of whipped cream, and you have a delightful summer dessert that tastes pleasantly of key lime and kiwi. Two thumbs up!

The recipe is courtesy of avocado.org.

Ingredients:

-One ripe avocado

-Can of sweetened condensed milk

-Half cup of lemon juice

-Graham cracker crust

How to:

-Scoop out the avocado and put in food processor. 

-Add lemon juice and milk. 

-Process until the mixture is smooth and creamy. 

-Pour into graham cracker crust, and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

-Top with whipped cream, if desired, and serve. 

Avocado pie. Sweet and lovely.

I like mine with a little whipped cream. Okay. A lot of whipped cream.

Happy Summer!!!

Breakfast potatoes.

One of the best things about having long runs on the weekend is my ability to gorge on carbs post-running. Some days it's french toast, but mostly, it's tortillas (breakfast tacos, guys!) or potatoes (I am half-Irish after all). Lately, I've been making them from scratch. It is SUPER easy and cheap. I highly recommend it. Therefore, I shall give you my recipe (that's not really a recipe) to make delightful carby goodness to accompany your eggs.

BREAKFAST POTATOES

(Serves two)

Ingredients:

-5-6 yukon gold potatoes (I base the number of potatoes on their size)

-quarter of a large yellow onion, diced

-2 tbsp olive oil

-Salt and pepper to taste.

Optional: Chopped mushrooms, chopped green pepper...really, anything you might want to add. These are just two I've tried in the past.

How to:

-Cut the potatoes into smallish chunks. You want them to cook relatively fast, so small bits are good.

-Put them in a large skillet and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook until potatoes are semi-soft. You don't want them mushy. 8 to 10 minutes should do the trick.

-Drain the water from the pan.

-Add onions and olive oil to the pan.

-Cook for another 10-15 minutes until a nice brown crust starts forming on the potatoes, stirring occasionally. If you don't want them as crisp, cook for less time.

The lovely brown crust...the best part!

Plated, for your viewing pleasure.

I like to top them with perfectly runny eggs.

A bloody mary goes AWESOMELY with these potatoes.

Enjoy! P.I.C. has assured me he will guest blog his awesome bloody mary mix, so stay tuned for that!

Breakfast burritos.

My brother and his wife just had a baby. She is the most precious baby in all of the land. Trust me. I have since learned from the plethora of friends having babies that the best thing to bring is FOOD. Busy new parents don't have time to cook, so if you do it for them, or make it as easy as just turning on (and the turning off) the oven, they will actually have a chance to put some real food in their bellies.

Of course, armed with this knowledge, I took to the internet. I found several recipes promising to be perfect for freezer. One in particular intrigued me: Breakfast Burrito. I am a HUGE fan of all things breakfast and burrito. Odds are very good that if there is a breakfast burrito on the menu, I am ordering it. It's just my style. Even McDonald's breakfast burritos are pretty tasty to me (and only $1!!!)

In any event, I found this fantastic recipe for breakfast burritos.

I whipped them up one night (among some other items that may or may not be blog-worthy) and having left behind a few to sample (OBVIOUSLY), declare them ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS.

Here are some helpful hints:
-1/2 cup might be too much to fill. I was doing less to get a good tight roll.
-It took me a few tries to get the hang of rolling, but once I did, I was on a roll. Ha. See what I did there?
-I used low fat sausage and 2% cheese to cut back on the calories. I'm healthy like that.
-I used the 8 inch flour tortillas. They were perfect and yielded 22 burritos. Not too shabby.
-I didn't let them COMPLETELY freeze before individually wrapping. I left them in the freezer for an hour and a half or so. I think it worked fine.
-Don't forget to write reheating directions on the package if you are gifting the burritos so your pals know exactly how to make them taste best.

Enjoy!

The guts of the burrito. OHSOGOOD.

Pasta salad...Southwestern-style.

I hate figuring out what to have for lunch. The worst is when I haven't planned well and have to figure out what to eat at the exact moment I am starving. The fact that I am in a rather large metropolitan area and can have pretty much anything my heart desires makes it even more difficult. I like to ease this stress in my life by planning lunches at the beginning of the week. I can eat the same thing for a week without complaint, so really, it's just a matter of varying it up from week to week.

Lately, due to our running training schedule, P.I.C. and I have been trying to make sure we get enough carbs in our diet. My eating tends to run along the lines of low carb. I can't shake the "pasta and potatoes are bad," entirely, so I figure in moderation, I should throw them back in. Not much is better than a hot baked potato with a dab of butter and salt and pepper, right?

In any event, we've been doing pasta salad for our lunches the past couple of weeks. I try to vary it on a theme to make it more interesting. The pasta is, of course, whole wheat. I use lots of veggies. Legumes make an appearance. Of course, chicken is in the mix for some protein, as is cheese. This week? I went Southwestern.

Ingredients:
-1 13.25 ounce box of whole wheat pasta (this week was penne)
-6 ounces of cooked chicken breast (I like to use the frozen chicken tenders. They defrost fast and cook quickly.)
-1 red bell pepper
-1 orange bell pepper
-1 yellow bell pepper
-1 jalapeno pepper
-1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
-1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
-1 cup frozen corn, thawed
-1/2 cup spicy ranch dressing
-1 lime
-Salt and pepper to taste

How to:
-Cook the chicken, if necessary. This time, I just sauteed in a little olive oil, seasoning the chicken with some cumin, salt, and pepper.
-Cook the pasta according to directions. Rinse with cool water.
-Chop the peppers into small pieces.
-Mix chicken, peppers, beans, and corn together.
-Squeeze the lime into the mix.
-Mix the ranch dressing with a half cup of water. (I really dislike low fat dressings, so I just mix them with water to keep the taste, just lower the calories.)
-Mix in the dressing.

Serves about six.

Southwestern Pasta Salad.

Cheeeeeeeese.

Enjoy your lunch.