Watermelon Smoothie

I had a lot of watermelon chunks in the leftover from my parents at our beach house so I quickly froze them before they went bad. So glad I did! When I came back with my in-laws I made delicious & refreshing watermelon smoothies to go with dinner the night I served sweet potato pizza & cheeseburger soup.


Ingredients:
3 cups watermelon cubes, frozen
1 cup fat free plain yogurt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
(may need to add additional yogurt or ice as needed)


Directions:
Place all ingredients in a blender and mix until smooth. 


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Cheeseburger Soup

So sad I didn't get better pictures of this! Ask my in-laws for verification. It was delicious!
Served this with the sweet potato pizza.

Ingredients:

4 tbsp butter

1/2 pound ground beef
3/4 cup onion, chopped
2 tsp parsley flakes
salt & pepper to taste
4 tbsp butter
3 potatoes, peeled & cubed
3 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1.5 cups 2% milk
1/4 cup sour cream
cubes of bread, homemade croutons, or crackers to top


Directions:
In a large pot, melt 1 of the tablespoons of butter over medium heat and mix in beef and onion.
Mix in salt, pepper, & parsley.
Add broth & potatoes.
Bring to a boil. 
Then lower temperature and simmer for 10 to 12 minutes. You'll want the potatoes to be soft.
Melt the remaining butter in a medium microwave-safe bowl. 
Stir in the flour with the melted butter. Make sure it's mixed in completely.
Add the milk to the butter/flour mixture. 
Then add that mixture to the soup a little at a time. You want to be stirring constantly during this whole process.
Bring to a boil. 
Then lower temperature and add cheese. 
Keep at low temperature.
After cheese is melted, add the sour cream until melted through.
Serve with bread or homemade croutons. 


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Sweet Potato Pizza

This is an addicting dish. You've been warned! Perfect as an appetizer or an entire meal. I apologize for the sloppy pictures. I was on vacation!

Ingredients:
1 can of pillsbury pizza dough (or other pizza dough will do)
4 sweet potatoes, peeled & sliced into coins
2 tomatoes, cut into slices
1 15 oz. container of fat free ricotta cheese
garlic salt
olive oil or misto spray
3 cups of fresh spinach, arugula, or other type of lettuce (I used a big of spring mix)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (optional)


Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Spread out pizza dough on pan.
Cover with ricotta cheese. You probably won't need to use the whole container, just enough to cover the whole area with a thin layer.
If you have a misto, skip the next step....
Toss 1 tbsp of olive oil with the sweet potato slices.
Cover ricotta layer with sweet potato and tomato in any combination you want. You can have them overlap or spread them out. See picture.
Spray with misto.
Sprinkle garlic salt over pizza.
Place in oven for 12 to 15 minutes. Rotate the pizza halfway through.
With one minute left, sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
Top with lettuce after you remove from oven. Cut & serve.


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Thai Peanut Sauce

I made Vietnamese spring rolls and here are some of the dipping sauces that I served with them. Below are the three sauces: Chunky Peanut Sauce, Thai Peanut Sauce, & Fish Sauce blend. Lots of unusual ingredients were used. It was fun experimenting with all the different flavors. 

For Chunky Peanut Sauce:
3 oz. salted peanuts< 2 tbsp canola oil

1 tbsp sesame oil

3 tbsp garlic chili sauce

2 tbsp soy sauce

4 tsp fresh lime juice

1 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degres.

Pour the peanuts onto a dry baking sheet in a single layer.

Bake for 7 to 10 minutes but make sure they don't burn or blacken too much.

Remove peanuts from the oven and let cool.

Place in food processor and pulse a few times so that they finely chop. 

Add the rest of the ingredients and process until it's smoother.

The sauce won't be smooth, it should have some texture of the chopped peanuts. 

For Thai Peanut Sauce:
2 cups creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup coconut milk
3 tbsp water
3 tbsp fresh lime juice
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp hot sauce
1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
3 cloves garlic, minced
Mix all ingredients in a bowl.

Teriyaki Sauce:

2/3 cup mirin 

1 cup soy sauce

4.5 tsp rice vinegar

1 tsp sesame oil

1/3 cup sugar

7 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp fresh grated ginger

1 dash red pepper flakes

Bring mirin to a boil in a saucepan over high heat.

Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes.

Pour in soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar.

Season with garlic, ginger, and pepper flakes.

Simmer an additional 5 minutes. 

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Pi Day Cake Pops

I feel incredibly guilty that I'm waiting until now to post about these awesome cake pops I made back in March! Every good math teacher should know what March 14th is. Pi Day! Get it? 3.14? When I ask my students what pi is they automatically answer 3.14. That's not actually the truth. Pi is the ratio of circumference to diameter of all circles. 3.14 isn't what pi is, it's an approximation of what pi is. It's an irrational number that goes on forever and blah blah blah. (It's summer, I don't want to talk about school anymore). To make pi day fun us math teachers do are part. Here are the awesome pi-inspired cake pops that I made. YUMMY!!!

My co-worker, Nicole, who helped me make all the cake pops also made these awesome pi  shaped cookies. I have a nice pi cookie cutter. So fun! Our students loved all the treats!

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

I hosted Cooking Club back in April and the theme was Asian-Inspired food. I decided to make Vietnamese Spring Rolls. They were really fun to make (pretty easy too) and they came out healthy & delicious.


I experimented with different types and different sauces/seasonings. Not all of the ingredients could be found out my locker grocery store, Darrenkamp's. But Stauffer's has an AMAZING international section. I found a ton of my ingredients there. 

You can switch up all types of ingredients. I used shrimp, but chicken would be great too or you can just do straight veggie. You can add different spices to the rice. You can also use as many different types of veggies as you like. Endless possibilities. 

  

Ingredients:

rice wrappers

shrimp, cooked & peeled
2 - 4 oz. vermicelli rice
fresh spinach leaves
alfalfa sprouts
shredded carrots
diced cucumbers

Directions:

Cook vermicelli rice according to package instructions. (Boil for about 3 to 5 minutes until al dente)

Drain & set aside. 

Next, prepare the rice wrappers. (this is the fun part!)

Fill a large bowl, pan, or dish with some warm mater. (It must be big enough for the wrappers).

Dip the wrappers in the water one at a time just for a few seconds so that it softens. It's really cool how the consistency changes and becomes pliable.

 

Then lay wrapper flat on a dish. 

In the center place a few spinach leaves.

Then top with a handful of rice and a couple shrimp. 

Place vegetables on top. 

Fold sides over and tightly roll up the wrapper.

Repeat with remaining ingredients. 

Serve with sauces. 

Here are pictures from the night to go with the theme. So fun!

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Chili Polenta Slices

I love learning about a new ingredient that i've never cooked with before. 

Introducing...Polenta! It comes in a tube, it's yellow, and it's boiled corn meal. It looks a lot like cheese, so I think it throws people off. I would pass it on a weekly basis when I was grocery shopping at Darrenkamp's. But didn't know what it was until recently. 


I had seen a recipe for barbecue chicken on top of polenta. I wanted to try a variation on it while on vacation. Well, I went to Walmart & Food Lion and neither of them had it. So I waited to come home to try it.  I went to Giant & Weis and couldn't find it there either. So I did what I should've done all along and went to Darrenkamp's to pick it up. It's located in the Pasta isle near the the tomato sauce and parmesan.



If you cut out the oil (maybe bake or using cooking spray instead) then this meal in incredibly low in fat & calories. It's even pretty healthy with the olive oil. There is about 35 calories and no fat in each slice of polenta. I used 98% fat free turkey chili and just a little bit of shredded cheese to keep the count down. 


Ingredients:
1 tube package of polenta
2 tbsp olive oil
1 can hormel turkey chili
1/2 block of jack cheese, shredded (I used Heluva Good Monterey Jack with Jalapeno)


Directions:
Open package of polenta (some water might leak out).
Dry off and cut into 1 cm slices.
Pour 1 tbsp of oil into a pan on low heat.

Place 4 to 6 slices in pan and cook for 5 to 6 minutes on each side or until they turn a crispy brown color. (do not burn). Lower heat if necessary.

Meanwhile, cook can of chili over medium-low heat for 5 to 10 minutes or until beans and chili are all heated through. 

After polenta is cooked put spoonfuls of chili on each fried slice.

Top with jack cheese.

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)