Fish Tacos

No recipe for this one so no links, just me telling you what I did.

I rubbed a lime on tilapia fillets and lightly salted and peppered them then filleted them.

I boiled corn on the cob.

In a bowl I cut up tomatoes, onion, peppers, avocado, chedar cheese and cilantro. 

I cut the corn off the cob and added it to the bowl and shredded the tilapia with a fork and added it to the bowl as well.

I added fresh lime juice and chili powder and mixed it all together.

Served it in soft taco shells with verde salsa.

Pretty easy and very tasty! 

(you will see tasty looking acorn squash in this pic too, that will be next post)

Acorn Squash Slices

I love yummly.com!  I type in an ingredient, or multiple ingredients I have and it gives me recipes for those things.  From my Green Bean Delivery I ordered 2 acorn squash, but I've never made acorn squash so I found this recipe on yummly- http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Acorn-Squash-Slices-Allrecipes.

I cut one squash into slices and placed in a greased baking dish.
Melted a tablespoon of butter.
Mixed the butter with 3/8 cup of maple syrup.
Poured the butter/syrup over the slices.
And sprinkled with pecans.

I would give it 4 stars.

Honey Mustard Chicken

I get Green Bean Delivery which is an awesome thing in some parts of Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky and I get fresh produce delivered to my door every other week.  This week I got a butternut squash.  I haven't had it since I was young so I was excited to try it again.  I had some chicken breasts in the fridge so got out this cookbook:

I looked through their chicken recipes and was inspired by their one for honey mustard chicken.  This recipe was for chicken thighs though and called for whole grain mustard & clear honey.  I used chicken breast and used mustard powder instead and honey I got from Brown County that has the honeycomb in it.

 

I just used 1 Tbsp. honey and mixed in 1 Tbsp. mustard powder for 1 chicken breast.

I added a little bit of salt & pepper.  I used a spoon to pour and spread the mix over the chicken and then baked it.  1/2 way through baking I scooped up the sauce that had gone to the bottom of the pan and spread it back on the chicken.

 

 

For the squash I cut it in 1/2, added some salt and pepper, put it on a baking sheet covered in aluminum foil and baked at 345 for about 45 minutes (until I could put a fork through the long end) per the directions of my mama!  Added butter and more salt & pepper to eat :)

Both the chicken and the yellow squash were great!!!  I'd be interested to try the actual recipe in the book for the mustard chicken someday...

Rice Krispie Treat Snake

My friend Heidi loves snakes and last night was her 30th birthday.  I found a snake strawberry shortcake on pinterest but it seemed too complicated and I couldn't afford to spend time on it and it maybe not turn out right so I searched for something else.

I found the idea for a rice krispie treat snake here- http://www.ricekrispies.ca/cgi-bin/rk_ca_2007/recipe.pl?id=12

I used mini marshmallows melted with butter, added vanilla and rice krispies. I sprayed olive oil on my hands and put spoonfulls on a pan one at a time and gradually molded them into a snake shape.  I used peanut butter to stick reeses pieces on it for the stripes, mini chocolate chips for the eyes, and fruit by the foot for the tongue.  .

Spicy Roasted Eggplant with Tomatoes and Cilantro

Yummly.com is a great website if you have not yet discovered it.  You can just type ingredients and it gives you recipes with those ingredients.  Have some stuff at home, but don't know what to make with it?  Just type it into Yummly and you'll have multiple options! 

That is how I found this recipe for spicy roasted eggplant with tomatoes and cilantro- http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Spicy-Roasted-Eggplant-With-Tomatoes-And-Cilantro-Epicurious

I was planning to make a Middle Eastern dish for an Iraqi family I know around Christmas time, but I ended up getting sick and not being able to.  Now I had eggplant, tomatoes, cilantro, & onions, but didn't want to make a difficult meal...so what could I do with them before they went bad?  I took them with me to my mom's house where I was going for Christmas break and put the ingredients into yummly and found this great recipe that I made when my brother and sis-in-law got there.

Full recipe is in the link- here's an overview:

Roast the eggplant.
Mash the pulp.
Saute onions.
Add 3 Tbsp ginger.
Add chopped tomatoes, cumin, paprika, coriander, & cayenne pepper.
Add eggplant & stir until thickened.
Remove from heat and stir in fresh cilantro.
Serve over rice (at least that's what I did).

If you follow the recipe, this is a spicy dish!  It would be easy to adjust your seasoning amounts to make it less spicy (or more) to your tastes though.

Smoothies

I love making smoothies.  Very tasty and a great way to get a lot of good stuff in you without even realizing it!  I don't have a regular protocol for my smoothies, it really just depends on what I have and/or what I remember to put in them.  I try to add spinach to all smoothies if I have it (very healthy and I promise you don't even notice) and flax seed.  I cut a bunch of bananas in half and have them frozen that I use sometimes (my bananas were always going brown before I used them all so I really like this!).  Sometimes I use a mixture of fruit and sometimes just one fruit.

This smoothie had 1/2 cup spinach, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 cup black raspberries, 1/2 cup milk, 1 Tbsp flax seed, 1 Tbsp almond butter, 1 Tbsp honey, and 1/2 cup ice.  This was good but for my own taste preference I prefer a little less almond butter.  This is when I was counting weight watchers points so that's why I have measurements for everything.  Usually now I don't measure.

This smoothie was simply strawberries, milk, flax seed, almond butter, honey, and ice.

Like I said, my smoothies just depend on what I have at the moment and what I remember to put in them.  These are the only ones I have pics of but I've also used mangos, blueberries, the frozen bananas, red raspberries, peaches, etc.

Parfait

Got this general idea from the Simple Foods for Busy Families book as well.  I use plain greek yogurt and from there the ingredients vary.

This one included honey, cereal flakes, almond slices, flax seed, sunflower seeds, and tangelos.

This one has vanilla extract, honey, cereal flakes, almond slices, walnuts, pecans, banana chips, and raspberries.