I found a pretty sweet chickpea salad recipe on Pinterest that is VERY reminiscent of my Fig Balsamic Caprese Salad, but is sans mozarella cheese and balsamic. I felt like it was sort of missing something so I added one of Jenn and my most recent finds at the local Kroger.
A few good shakes of Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Pepper to taste
1/4 cup of Roasted Garlic hummus vinaigrette (enough to saturate salad)
In any event, mix all of the ingredients and serve cold. For some reason, serving it cold seems to really bring out the garlic flavor in the salad. Let me know what you think!
Pesto Torichette with Turkey Sausage and Roasted Brussel Sprouts
(Sriracha optional)
It's been a rather busy day, but we finally got home and got things together for dinner. Earlier I had precooked the sausages to save time while I was working. Sometimes, I'm really into pesto and would even go as far as to mix it in with mashed potatoes other times, not so much. In this instance, it was fantastic!
One package Italian Turkey Sausage
One package of Torichette Pasta
1/2 pound of brussel sprouts halved
two tablespoons granulated garlic
1/4 cup of pesto
Grated Parm (for garnish)
Sriracha to taste
As mentioned before I baked the sausage until crisp on the outside (at 350 for about 25/30 minutes). The brussel sprouts I simply halved and coated with a little bit of olive oil and the granulated garlic and baked until crisp at 400 degrees. Then we cooked the pasta until al dente and mixed in the pesto. I'm a big fan of topping my pasta and sauce rather than mixing in the meats and or veggies that have been cooked separately thus the reason why I topped instead of mixed in. I think garnished with a bit of grated parm, but something was still missing. In lieu of current circumstances regarding Sriracha sauce and it's possible extinction gave some healthy squirts and voila... Awesome Pasta.
Hey blog readers! This is my first post here, but I whipped up a taste-tastic breakfast this morning that was begging to be shared.
We went out and bought a ton of groceries last week and made a pledge to not buy anything further until we need to food shop for Thanksgiving. Working with what I had I eyeballed an avocado, some eggs that would be out of date in a few days, some turkey bacon, and a bit of shredded cheddar. I remembered that at one point I had seen a baked egg in an avocado on Pinterest and decided that would be my breakfast's muse.
I started by putting my small cast iron pan in the oven, which was already on 350 degrees due to Dade pre-cooking the sausages for dinner tonight. I continued by cutting the avocado in half and hollowing the middle out some. I removed the preheated pan from the oven, cracked the eggs into the avocado's hollows, added some turkey bacon and topped with some of the cheddar.
I baked my new masterpieces until my eggs were done and my cheese was slightly crispy. Some of the egg leaked out during cooking, so next time I will make a larger hollow. Other than that, they were absolutely delicious! I recommend you try it out. It's a quick, tasty, and healthy breakfast.
I've been reading some recipes on Pinterest and Jenn and I decided to make our own twist on a recipe we found. This is our take on a creamy avocado pasta. It turned out a bit more citrus tasting that initially intended but I feel that it worked out well.
2 whole avocados
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
1/2 cup of olive oil
container of grape tomatoes halved
1/2 cup of pine nuts
Put avocados, olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice in food processor and pulse until creamy. Put halved tomatoes and pine nuts on a baking sheet greasedlightly with olive oil, cook on low broil until tomatoes wither a bit.Mix al dente pasta of choice with creamy sauce, and top with tomatoes and pine nuts. Serve warm.
Fig Balsamic Caprese Salad
The caprese salad is my personal favorite ever since my days as a pantry chef at Travinia. Since then I have played around with Caprese for quite some time, and this is by far my favorite. I try my best to use my own recipes for everything, but there are some seasonings and sauces that I'm brand loyal to such as Stonewall Kitchen and Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Seasonings.
Usually I can find this at Food Lion, Kroger, or Publix as well as other stores. It's much more common in stores now, than it was back when I used it the most at the restaurant I worked at back in my teenage years.
Balsamic Fig Caprese Salad
1 container of grape tomatoes halved
1 container of small fresh mozarella in brine halved and strained
6 large fresh basil leaves julienned
1/2 cup of dressing or enough to make the salad wet
Pepper to taste
Serve Cold
Sorry it's taken so long to churn out a new post, but I'll get on that. Next blarg will be about volunteering for Jaycee's Hall of Horrors, and a bit about today's pasta dish as well as my Chickpea Basil Salad!
P.S.
I wanted to leave you guys with a video of Ingrid Michaelson
performing an old Elvis song that represents my current feels.
