Sweet Bean Burritos

*The fastest way to cook a potato is in the microwave. Wash the potato, then put it in a plastic zip-lock bag. Then stab the potato all over with a fork, puncturing it (there should be tiny holes all over its skin). Microwave for aprox. 6 min, or until soft enough. I’ve never cooked one in the oven before. Please don’t tell my mother.

This being said, a while ago a co-worker was helping me brainstorm ideas of how to spice up my diet, once again, and she pointed me towards this recipe. If you are a fan of sweet potatoes, you’ll love it. I love it. With my super scientific way to cook potatoes mentioned above, these burritos become pretty simple, easy, and not super time consuming.


Sweet Bean Burritos

Time to prepare: 20 min

Total Cost: around $3.50

1 Tbs olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 can black beans, drained
1 medium sweet potato, cooked and mashed*
1/2 tsp. cumin
salt to taste

6 flour tortillas
cilantro, chopped
cheddar cheese, shredded
sour cream (optional)

In a skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat and cook onion and garlic until soft. Add beans, stir in the mashed sweet potatoes, add the cumin and salt, mix well. Heat until mixture is hot.
Place desired amount of mixture in a warmed tortilla with cheese and sour cream and a little cilantro if you want. Roll into a burrito shaped burrito, and eat.

Original recipe found here!

Molten Lava Cakes of Love

I wish I could take the credit for this beautiful delight, but I can’t. However I can take the credit for loving chocolate and laziness enough to share this recipe with the world! This is super easy, and yet if you’ll notice by the picture, very official and gourmet looking. Perhaps even romantic looking. Maybe you should make these this weekend for your secret crush. You’ll win him/her over for sure with these.

Total Prep Time:10 min
Total Cook Time: 10 min
Total Cost: most people have most of these ingredients can be found in yours or your neighbors pantry except maybe the chocolate chips, which you can get for $2.50. Go love your neighbor.

Molten Lava Cakes of Love

4 tablespoons of room temperature butter
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/3 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 oz bittersweet melted chocolate (I just used most of a bag of good quality semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Line a muffin tin with butter. Sprinkle sugar over the butter, coating each cup. Dump excess sugar out. The recipe usually makes about 8 cakes, so you only need to coat that many.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating each one well. Then add flour and salt until just combined. Melt chocolate (I usually do it in the microwave in 30 second intervals) and mix into the batter.

Place equal amounts of the batter into the sugar lined muffin tin and bake on a baking sheet for 8-10 minutes or just until the top of the cakes no longer jiggle when slightly shaken. (this is the crucial part, if you go to long you'll over cook them, they are supposed to be "molten" inside after all). Scoop into a bowl (don't worry about it staying intact when you take it out of the muffin tin-it won't.)

Serve with vanilla ice cream and berries (I like raspberries with a little sugar on them the best) and get ready for the best and easiest dessert of your life.

*This recipe was brought to you by Melissa. Another amazing co-worker with a good head on her shoulders and a good recipe book on her bookshelf. She is a saint, and also cute. If you would like information on how to contact her, or how to make her a Molten Lava Cake of love, just let me know!

The Under-Appreciated Item of the Week

This week's under-appreciated item is...(drum roll...)

Tapatio!

In my professional opinion, Tapatio is the best hot sauce that can be found on this side of the border. You can trust my opinion, because I’ve been around the hot sauce block a time or two. I don’t remember how I was first introduced to Tapatio, but it was true love from the very first instance of taste-bud contact. It has the perfect blend of spice and flavor, and I must warn you, it is addicting. A bottle of Tapatio only costs around $2.00. It is better for you than any other condiment, because it is just spices. So each serving has 0 calories and 0g fat. Therefore substituting it in lieu of your other favorite dressings is an easy way to cinch your belt a little bit.  

Tapatio is more than just a sauce to dip your quesadillas in. Here are some other things that it can enhance:

• add it to your veggies
• use as salad dressing
• use on your sandwiches to make a spicy mayo
• mix in to your pasta-roni
• put on scrambled eggs
• dip your french fries in it
• pour on potato chips
• naturally it goes great on traditional things like tacos, nachos, burritos, etc.
• insert your own clever idea here!

I heart tapatio.
M+T=<3

10 Minute Pasta- starring Sara W.

Today's guest chef comes to us from the exotic land of Paris, France. Ok she's really from Texas, but she has been to France. Sara is a former roommate of mine, who graciously used to cook for me all the time. Those were beautiful days. She is one of the inspirations for this blog, and therefore I thought it would be expedient for her to be a guest chef. So from Sara's kitchen to yours, I bring you 10 Minute Pasta! Super easy, and simple- I wonder why I never thought of it before! All I know is that Sara's cooking is spectacular enough to attract a genius pre-med husband, so there is certainly something to learn from Sara.

10 Minute Pasta

Total Cook/Prep Time: 10 min of course.

Total Cost: $3.01

Ingredients:

1 bag of frozen raveoli

1 piece of baked chicken

1 can of tomato sauce

1/4 c. of Mozarella cheese

This recipe is as simple as it looks.  Cook the raveoli pasta for 10 minutes, while heating up the tomato sauce on the stove. Cube the baked chicken, and then mix it with the tomato sauce.  Drain the pasta, and top it with the tomato sauce and Mozarella cheese.  

*Note on the chicken: I like to use my George Foreman Grill for times like these, when I just need a little bit of chicken fast. Another idea might be to just bake a few chicken breasts at the start of every week, so you have them ready for meals and days when you're more busy. 

Ice Cream for Breakfast? Yes please.

Were you allowed to eat whatever you wanted for breakfast as a kid? Don't feel bad if your answer is no. Most moms don’t let their kids have just anything for breakfast--especially ice cream. Traditionally breakfast is supposed to be hot, not frozen.However, traditionally, my family is not very traditional and our favorite breakfast foods involve ice cream. It has always been my favorite food for morning, noon, and night.

Usually I don’t just sit down and have a big ‘ol bowl of ice cream for breakfast. I usually disguise it in something that looks nutritious. The habit started because growing up we would have cream of wheat with ice cream on it. The ice cream stands in for the milk and sugar normal people put on it, but it is twenty million times better. Now that I’m older I just eat it on regular Quick-Oats oatmeal. If you are a fan of hot cereal, or you even like it a little bit, then I recommend trying this. There’s no better way to start the day.

Another way to eat ice cream for breakfast is to put it on your pancakes or waffles. I think this is more common, but still a tantalizing experience for your taste-buds.

This week’s challenge: Have ice cream for breakfast!!! Live a little.

S'mores Treats

I have always had a thing for anything s'mores related. This being said, my co-worker Andrea was my hero last week and brought these incredible creations to our work meeting last week. These things changed my life-love at first taste bud contact. I came home from school that day, and made my own batch. I will never admit to how many I did, or did not eat from said batch. I will admit that it only took me a total of ten minutes to make, and everyone that tried them wanted to be my best friend. I was instantly the most popular girl in school- or my apartment at least.

S’more Treats

Total Prep Time: 10 min
Total Cost: $6.59

1/4 cup butter
1 (10 oz) bag regular marshmallows
1 box of Golden Graham cereal
1-2 cups Chocolate Chips

In a large sauce pan, melt butter over medium heat.  Add marshmallows and keep stirring until the marshmallows completely melt and you get a marshmallow sauce. Make sure you don’t use a rubber spatula to stir. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made this mistake... Remove from heat.Add Golden Grahams and stir until they are all well coated, then add chocolate chips.
Grease a 9x13 pan and press S'mores mixture into it.

Cut into squares and eat! Hopefully you share with people, and don’t eat them all by yourself.

Here is where Andrea first found the recipe.

AND, here is where you can take a look at Andrea's really cool photography website. Her photo skills are very similar to her cooking skills, which have forever changed me for the better.

Friday Night Idea: Popcorn Party!

I looked out the window and what did I see? A popcorn party just for you and me.

A few weekends ago I accidentally told a lot of people the same thing- "We should do something fun tonight! I'm sure the gang will be doing something great. I'll let you know!" Unfortunately, I frankly had no idea what anyone was doing, and I honestly hadn't heard of anything going on. I just knew a bunch of people who wanted to do something...or anything really. So that meant I felt some pressure to deliver. Luckily, I have creative friends who helped me brainstorm a list of fun Friday night ideas. The list was quite eclectic- ranging from finger painting with pudding to making a fort to stalking people with lives who were on dates. We were just tired of the typical dinner and a movie night. So, after much deliberation and careful voting, we decided to have a popcorn party. In case you're unaware, a popcorn party means that you make way more popcorn than you can ever eat, in every flavor you could ever imagine.

Thanks to our good friend google we uncovered a dozen or so really interesting recipes all involving popcorn. A trip to the store and $15 dollars later we were on our merry way to buttery popcorn bliss. We only really needed to pick up a few random ingredients like unpopped popcorn kernels, jello, and marshmallow.

Gooey Caramel Popcorn
Pineapple Pleasure Popcorn This was a crowd pleaser- and the biggest surprise in a good way. I highly recommend it.
Chocolate Marshmallow Popcorn
Nuts about Peanut Butter Popcorn
Barbeque Popcorn
Mmua Italiano Popcorn
Cinnamon Sugar Delight Popcorn
Rancheritto Popcorn- This was my personal savory favorite.
Taco Mexicano Popcorno

Yes, we made all these kinds of popcorn, and yes we ate too much. But each and every calorie was a calorie filled with love. 

Price: as much or as little $ as you want. (Pretty cheap though because you probably have a lot of ingredients already.)
Fun Factor: out of this world!