BLAT and Chipotle-Ancho Lime Sweet Potatoes

to accompany our easy stand-by dinner, the BLAT (think BLT and add avocado), i made the most amazing sweet potatoes.  If i don't write it down, i will never forgive myself.  They are a little spicy and very tangy!

Ancho-Chipotle Lime Sweet Potatoes

1 dried chipotle pepper, stemmed and seeded
1 dried ancho chili, stemmed and seeded
2 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp kosher salt
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 limes
~1/3 cup olive oil
3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled, and diced evenly
1 medium sweet onion

pre-heat oven to 375

in a dry skillet over medium high heat, toast the chili peppers, turning once until toasty and pliable, and the cumin seeds, until fragrant and beginning to brown.  grind in coffee mill with salt.

in a small bowl, combine 1/2 pepper powder, garlic, juice of one lime, and equal amount olive oil
spread sweet potatoes and onion on lined baking sheet or large baking dish.  mix dressing and toss with potatoes/onion.  If more is needed, mix more pepper powder, lime juice, and olive oil and repeat.

bake in oven, stirring every 10 minutes until edges are chewy-sweet (40-60 minutes depending on size of chunks).

serve over a bed of arugula is desired.

Linguine with Zucchini, Caprese Salad, and Garlic Bread

I decided to try one of my cookbooks I hadn't tried before. It's called Student's Vegetarian Cookbook: Quick, Easy, Cheap, and Tasty Vegetarian Recipes. It has recipes for 1-2 servings that are easy and low budget. I selected Pasta with Zucchini and Basil because we had an extra zucchini in the fridge. I also added a few other items we had in the fridge and doubled it to serve 2. Below is the recipe with my modifications.

Linguine with Zucchini, Peppers, Red Onion, and Basil

1/3 lb uncooked linguine

2 tbsp olive oil

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 large zucchini sliced 1/2" and quartered

3 mini sweet peppers, diced into 1/2" squares

1/4 red onion, largely diced

1 1/2 tbsp basil

salt and pepper

1 lemon juiced

grated parmesan cheese

1. Bring a covered pot of water to a rapid boil. Stir in the pasta and bring back to a boil. Reduce heat to medium but maintain a simmer. Cook until pasta is al dente, start checking about 4 minutes before cook time on the box.

2. While the pasta cooks, heat oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, zucchini, peppers, onion, and basil. Quickly fry until the zucchini begins to brown, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the lemon juice and stir, remove from heat.

3. When the pasta is al dente, drain it (reserve some cooking liquid). Place the hot pasta in a warm bowl, top with zucchini veggie mixture, and grated parmesan. Add a few tbsp reserved water to pasta. Toss lightly. Salt and pepper to taste.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to add the correct amount of basil to the dish. The basil brought back from the grocery store was only half usable, and I put it all in the Caprese Salad. I remembered at the end the pasta needed basil too, so I spooned some from the caprese dressing onto the zucchini mixture. I think if I had put the correct amount of basil into the dish, it would have been more flavorful. Also it needed more of a sauce. Next time I would reduce 1 cup of white wine in the zucchini mixture after it was browned. This should add a lot more flavor and liquid. All in all, the dish was mediocre, even with the addition of the peppers and onions (which were delicious!). This is ok because the Caprese Salad turned out amazing!

Caprese Salad

I did not have access to good heirloom tomatoes, so I substituted the most flavorful tomatoes the grocery carries, campari. Fortunately for us, they were on sale! I have been waiting months to see them 2(1 lb packages) for $4 rather than $4-$5 each! I used 1 lb tomatoes and 6 oz of mozzarella for the 2 of us but pretty much used the entire vinaigrette recipe. I didn't measure the oil and vinegar exactly, just kind of poured and stirred until it looked right. I substituted white balsamic vinegar for the red wine and it was a perfect substitution. Alex and I were discussing whether I should follow the recipe, use balsamic, or white balsamic. Alex thought I should use balsamic because of it's sweetness, but I thought it would be too strong and compete with the other flavors. We both thought red wine vinegar is just too boring. I decided to use white balsamic because it is light, but very bright. It worked perfectly and I would use it again and again. I quartered each tomato (it is about the size of a pingpong ball) and cubed the mozzarella into 1/2" cubes. Alex and I almost ate the whole thing! I loved it on garlic bread and by itself. This is definitely a repeat, especially while the campari tomatoes are on sale. If i was still in Orlando, I would definitely go to the Winter Park farmer's market every Saturday to buy the heirloom tomatoes to make this salad every week. They are also wonderful and come in MANY different colors, purple, yellow, orange, green.

Oven-Fried Chicken with Pineapple Salsa and Potato Salad

Even though I've been on a healthy kick, I have been craving fried chicken! This low-oil version looked like a good candidate.

Spicy Oven-Fried Chicken

I forgot to make the marinade the night before so it did not marinade as long as I had intended. I used the Cholula Chipotle hot sauce because I am obsessed with it. It is unclear what they intended for the onions. I followed the recipe and sliced them (maybe i will make onion rings - oh so healthy!) but they were just in the way when I was trying to find chicken strips to bread. I think the chicken strips were smaller than what the recipe intended, as some of the chicken strips were dried out after baking. Also several stuck to the baking sheet, so I would lightly grease next time to prevent losing breading. It was a mediocre dish, I am not sure if I would make again. Alex and Kelly made a different fried chicken (real-fried, NOT part of my diet atm) that was a lot more flavorful.

To dip the chicken fingers in, I decided to make a pineapple roasted poblano salsa.

Pineapple Roasted Poblano Salsa

This turned out very tasty. I blended in blender for a few seconds to give it more of a dip quality. I also added two roasted red jalapenos alex picked up from the nex since poblanos have no spice. It definitely got some heat. I think it is delicious as a salsa, but not necessarily for a chicken tenders dip.

To accompany fried chicken, I chose a mayo-free potato salad. It had sweet and regular potatoes, so I figured the more variety and color, more nutritious. Kelly requested mashed potatoes, but I just couldn't justify nutritional benefits.

Yam and Russet Potato Salad

I decided to forgo the bacon (I considered turkey bacon, but decided with the chicken, we didn't need any extra protein and fat) and I substituted mustard greens for spinach (as other reviewers did) since we had spinach in the fridge and since I have never seen mustard greens at the grocery. The marinade turned out very honey-mustard, but not as spicy as I hoped. I think the olive oil flavor was a bit overwhelming. Next time I might sub for a more mild tasting oil, grapeseed oil perhaps? When I steamed the potatoes for the recommended time, I thought I had steamed through, but discovered at dinner that many were not quite cooked through all the way. Also, the spinach did not wilt like I had hoped. Next time, I will make sure to cook the potatoes through and maybe throw the spinach on the steamer in order to wilt a bit.