Blackened Chicken & Lime Quinoa

  My life has been pretty much focused around studying and exams for the past few days weeks which is why I haven't posted anything in 9 days a while. I have been making good grades on my exams and projects so my mom took me shopping to Cavender's where I got 2 new pairs of boots and 2 belts which brings my total of cowboy boots I own to 5 pairs. I still have to take my final exam, complete my final project, and send in my extra credit all before the 10th before I'm officially finished with this class.
  I originally though I would have about a 2 week break between finishing my wintermester and starting my spring classes, but  just noticed that it is actually only have 8 days. In those 8 days, I am planning on spending one day with my grandma since I've been putting off due to classes, trying to finish some of my crochet and knitting projects that have been almost forgotten, and to make & photograph a few recipes to have saved up for later.

This dish that proves healthy food can be delicious and fast to prepare!! 

This is my new favorite dish. 

Original Post I wrote a few months back:

Baked Butternut Squash Fries

  Do you know about the girl food code? It's a thing most girls go through when in high school or college, but it always stays in the back of your mind.  It usually goes like this,"I can eat this is I do this many more crunches" or "If I eat this food with this food, they will counteract each other so it's okay"..like ordering a salad with a side of fries. Well, now you can have your salad with a side of these slightly healthier baked squash fries!

This is the conversation between my dad and I while eating the fries...

My dad: These sweet potato fries taste just as good as white potato fries with ketchup.

Me: They aren't sweet potato fries, they are butternut squash fries.

Dad: SQUASH fries! You fed me squash fries!?

Me: Uh no, you can't go back!  You already said you liked them and you can't take it back because I told you  they were squash. 

Dad: Fine, they are good.We did the same thing when we were traveling in Morocco; we didn't want them to tell us what we were eating and if we liked it, we left it at that.

Chinese Chicken Stir Fry

A few days ago I made my dad this cheesecake because cheesecake is in the top 3 of my dad's favorite desserts and he saw the 3 blocks of cream cheese in the fridge and brought up the subject. I think next time I might try to make a mini cheesecake for me using tofutti's better than cream cheese since I've heard really good reviews saying you can't tell the difference between it and dairy cream cheese. 

I did make a few changes from the recipe above: 

1) I made the filling in a food processor which was faster.

2) I used little chocolate cookies (teddy grahams) to make the crust instead of graham crackers 

3) I added another 1/4 cup of sugar into the batter because I almost made a marble cheesecake, but later changed my mind.

4) I didn't do the chocolate layer at the bottom which I only did once because I didn't realize at the time the chocolate could become completely solid again and once it was chilled it was too hard.

Writers Block, Thursday Trinkets, & Tex-Mex Turkey Soup

"This is for the tired and for the dreamers and for those families who'll never be like the Cleavers with perfectly made dinners and sons like Wally and the Beaver...... So when the world knocks at your front door, clutch the knob and open on up, running forward into its widespread greeting arms with your hands before you, fingertips trembling though they may be."" -Anis Mojgani: Shake the Dust 

  Lately I have been stuck in a rut. It's like everything I had a passion for suddenly seemed useless and the things I strive for seemed so far beyond my reach. The reason for my sporadic and dull posts lately is when it came time to write a post, my mind goes blank and nothing I write seems to be interesting. This isn't the first time since I started blogging, that I thought about taking a break or even deleting my blog, but I never do because I know that some time later I will get back into the hang of it and enjoy it again.

  I'm trying to find out what I am destined to do in this world; I used to think I knew exactly how my life would end up, but that idea has long since faded and I'm just trying to keep head above water some days. Ever since I took debate  as a sophomore I have loved spoken word poetry and it seems to be one of the things that I can always turn to when I'm feeling overwhelmed . So I've decided to start a category of posts called "Thursday Trinkets" where I will post things that I am interested in at the time, whatever is on my mind, and they may or may not also be combined with a recipe post.  Many bloggers do it {like Tuesday Things from How Sweet It Is} and I've thought about having doing something like that for a while now, but I think this will be a good little project to help me from getting detached.

Lemon Pesto Pasta with Chicken

 I love this time of the year when Summer turns into Fall. It's a break from the summer heat and before the sometimes temperamental weather of winter; the temperature is just right to spend all day outside. Fall (or Autumn) to me means sipping hot apple cider and hot chocolate, football, baking pies, the beautiful colors of the leaves changing,  soups, cinnamon spice candles, layering sweaters & scarves for chilly days, more pumpkin recipes to share, and it's just a cozy time of the year to spend curled up with a good book.

  With that said, here in Texas we are still expected to have temperature in the 90's up to 103F for a little while longer so the sweaters will have to stay in my closet for now.  I also have some new DIY crafts & recipes to share soon since I haven't posted any in a while.

Simple Caesar Salad

  The other day at work we ordered in lunch from Cindy's Deli and I got their caesar salad. The salad is served  with extremely juicy and tasty chicken, tomatoes, croutons, and a delicious, yet unique caesar dressing. Needless to say next time we order from Cindy's I know what I'll be getting.

 That night I decided to make a caesar dressing that I bookmarked a long time ago, but it turned out to be  extremely harsh due to the large amount of garlic and dijon mustard compared to the small amount of dressing it actually produced. Unlike the traditional caesar, this recipe doesn't contain anchovies, raw egg, garlic,  or worcestershire sauce, but that doesn't mean it's any less tasty. You could even serve this instead of ranch with a veggie tray at your next party.

Versatile Blog Award & Cheesy Zucchini Rice

Today's Tonight's post isn't really orderly. I basically spent all of this morning building a new rabbit cage, baking another batch of these brownies since 1/2 of the last batch was flipped onto the floor thanks to the dogs, find blogs for to give the versatile award to, getting ready for work tomorrow, attempting another batch of popsicles since we reached 105F the other day and my last batch of popsicles was a total fail..the sticks came out with a little popsicle, but the rest stayed jammed into the mold. I left them in the freezer for 2 days, but it didn't work so I hope the batch I made today is a success and if so I'll post it soon.Anyway, I was nominated for a Versatile Blog Award thanks to Learn 2 [use the] Kitchen.

When nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award, one must do the following steps:

• Thank the person who gave you the award and provide a link to their page on your blog
• Nominate 15 blogs for the award and let them know by leaving them a comment
• Copy/Paste the award on your blog post
• Share 7 things about yourself

7 things about me:

1. I once had a hamster living in my closet. How it all started was, the hamster died, or so I thought. I swear it died because it didn't move when i poked it and wasn't breathing for at least 5 minutes- I stared at it like a hawk. The stupid mistake on my part was putting in a bag and throwing it out in my bedroom trash can since my dad would dump it out anyway instead of taking down stairs. Well, a little later I took my trashcan down stairs to dump it out. Some time later I noticed a little patch of carpet missing from my closet, but didn't think anything of it. What happened next broke my closet door off of the hinges and nearly gave my dad a heart attack. He was trying to fix or look for something in my closet when a little mouse creature popped out, scaring my dad which made him fall back, hitting the closet door with his foot, and breaking it. He finally cornered it and discovered that it wasn't a mouse, but my hamster who I thought had died. I wish that I could find a picture of him after we got him since he was fat, I mean obese because apparently he was eating my carpet and some padding. It turned out that he had turned a little wild and wasn't very fun to handle. He stayed in his cage until he passed away- for real this time.  I don't remember it's name, maybe Honey (I had a several hamsters through the years), but he looked exactly like this little guy. This is one of those stories that you hear that you know has to be true because who could make something up like that.

Avocado Yogurt Dip

  I wanted to share this recipe since I'll be working at my mom's job for the summer starting tomorrow. This means that I may not post recipes as much as I use to depending on how many days that they want me to work. I have a good collection of recipes that I want to try out this summer including this brownie recipe, a cheesy veggie rice, and I might try tweaking this recipe. 

Now back to this dip. 
This dip is delicious!

 I halved the recipe and adapted it a little to what we had on hand and my taste preference. This dip is rich and creamy while having a slight tang from the lime juice and cilantro. I had it on some tortilla chips that had lime seasoning sprinkled on them when I had a good idea. Why not have some of this dip on my turkey burger. And that is what I did. The turkey burger had some spice which was off set by the creamy dip and I will definitely have this dip on burgers again. 

Light Sesame Chicken for 2

  One of my favorite chinese dishes is sesame chicken and this recipe is great since you probably have all of the ingredients in your kitchen. The flavor is simple- great for kids to adults who may not be real big on chinese food and it can be halved (what I did) or multiplied to serve a crowd. Even my dad, who generally will try, but not love the chinese-themed dishes I make said he liked it and finished his bowl.

 It's easy to make take-out at home and you can experiment with different ingredients and flavors. You could leave out the vegetables, add in other veggies, double the sauce portion if your prefer more sauce, and/or add some nuts like cashews or peanuts to add some crunch on top.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

   My cousin had her baby! She is so cute. We have only seen her in pictures because she came so sudden and I was sick so we'll have to wait for our family dinner before we get to see her. It's gonna be kind of weird having baby in the family seeing as i'm the baby and i'm 17. My mom will love having a baby in the family since she has baby fever; she goes gaga over them.

  I have also been experimenting with some items that we got from our co-op like these Lychee Popsicles (i'm still tweaking the recipe), but seeing that most of my posts lately have been of sweet items I thought I should throw in a savory one.

   I made this soup last week and it was good. I thought about using canned tomatoes and adding in jalapenos so I could manage the heat, but instead I used a can of Rotel tomatoes and chilies. And it was the hot version so my dad (who can't handle any kind of heat) only had a few bites. Oops. But my mom and I enjoyed it.

Mango-Avocado Salsa

 On Mother's day, my mom and I ventured into Half Price Books to spend our time until the other stores opened. We came out with about 7 cookbooks and a canning how-to book. One of the books that I got was The Gloriously Gluten-Free Cookbook by Vanessa Maltin. While there aren't any pictures (I'm a visual person) there are a lot of recipes that use fresh, seasonal items and just reading some of the titles made my mouth water.

  I was going through the books to bookmark certain recipes ,when I found a recipe for mango salsa. I've never had mango salsa, but it sounds delicious and refreshing to me and even better, I had all of the ingredients in the kitchen. This dip is a mix between salsa and guacamole which you can eat with chips or serve on fish or chicken.

Chipotle Turkey Burgers with Avocado Mayo

This will be a short post since I have school work to do that I've been kind of neglecting, 2 kittens who seem to have more energy than I do and a never ending appetite, and a few recipes that I have to find and try out for this weekend. 

I'm actually not a big red meat eater when compared to my dad, but I do like a good burger and a rare-medium steak, and of course I love BBQ, but those things aren't always that good for you. So that is why I like to eat veggie burgers, but I don't ever remember eating a turkey burger, so I decided to make a recipe since we had some turkey in the freezer. I based this recipe somewhat off this Southwestern Black Bean Burger recipe and I decided to make an avocado mayo to oppose the heat from the chipotle. 

Vegetable & Beef Stir Fry

  During the weekend, I made carrot cake muffins with a cream cheese filling for church. The recipe can be found here. They were good, but my favorite carrot cake recipe has to be these whoopie pies.

Orange bell pepper & Bok Choy strips.

  I've been hungry for a stir fry recently and I decided that I would experiment to make another recipe since we don't have any take-out near us. I've already made a Baby Bok Choy & Pork Stir Fry and a simple Beef Stir Fry so I wanted something a little different.I like the idea of making Chinese meals (& other meals) at home since you can keep track of the amount of oil, salt, and the quality of products that are going into your dinner. Most places that serve Chinese food that I've been to usually give you a big plate of thick, salty sauce and very little of the actual meat & veggies.

Roasted Tomatoes

  I've made this recipe a few times, but never wrote it down because I also changed it up some depending on what we had in the kitchen. Roasting helps bring out the flavors of whatever it is that you are cooking which is helpful if you have ever bought a few too many baskets of tomatoes at the farmer's markets and you really don't want to throw them away (or in our case, we feed them to our pig, Nola). Just this past weekend my mom & I purchased a 25lb box of tomatoes from a local co-op and we made a big batch of homemade tomato sauce for spaghetti. I'll talk more about the organization that runs the co-op, all the fresh food that they provide for a very low sum, & to see if you have one near you in my next post.

My Weekend & Cornbread Muffins

This past weekend was a busy...

• I finally set up my Keurig single cup coffee maker, which I has been sitting in its box for over a year and I have had 4 cups of coffee and 1 cup of tea. Tigger thinks it's a monster since it makes weird noises.
• Tigger played with some goldfish (the food snack, not the fish, of course) when I discovered that they don't appeal to me anymore. I've noticed that a lot of packaged foods that I use to like now just taste too much like the chemicals in them. We also got a big mouse toy/scratch post/ cat nip holder thing for Tigger and he LOVES it. 
• I found a few new blogs that peak my interest; some involve food while others are of quotes and photography.
•  I'm really into vegan recipes right now (I don't know if I will try gluten-free baking, though). And I want to try to bake using grams since I have a lot of recipes bookmarked that are from other countries and cultures.
• Moonshine, our chicken died :( We were down to 2 chickens from our original 5 when Red started acting sick and we got her back to health and she started to lay eggs again, but then suddenly Moonshine just died. My dad said that Red was pecking her to get up, but when he noticed she wasn't moving and went to check he discovered that she had passed away and buried her.
• My mom and I went to World Market :) and I finally got a jar of Biscoff spread to try since I see a lot of recipes for it and people raving of how good it is.
• I changed my blog header. That is tiny fluff ball with ears is Cowboy when he was a tiny bunny in a itty-bitty saddle at the feed store at which we purchased him. 

• Also I decided that I would post a recipe that I made last week. I actually have a good amount of recipes that I want to test out in the next few weeks like Overnight Oatmeal, No Bake Energy Bites, a Baked Mushroom Risotto, Apple Bran Muffins (vegan), a Honey cake (french) and a few other things. I also will be having either a dinner or dessert recipe for next week since this weekend the family is coming out for dinner.

Sunday Spaghetti Dinner

     This past weekend Twister and his girlfriend (the mare next door) got into a little lover's quarrel.
     The mare's mom didn't seem to care and was a good model for me.
     Since we had good weather I decided to take Hedgie outside for the first time and he seemed to enjoy his little adventure.
 
  This past weekend we had  family out at our house for Sunday Dinner. We expected about 15 1/2 (the 1/2 is for a 6 month old baby), but my cousin had to work so that cut out 2 people and then my dad's cousin and her family couldn't either so it was only 9.

Zucchini Tots: Updated

Zucchini Tots, a photo by raylynntexas on Flickr.

  The original name for these was Zucchini Bites, which was okay. But when these were baking, they smelled just like tater tots. I changed up the recipe a little (by using seasoned bread crumbs,parm. cheese, & I drained the zucchini) so I decided to change the name too and called them "Zucchini Tots instead.And "tots" does mean small and these are small (baked in a mini muffin pan) so the name fits.

Zucchini Bites

Recipe adapted: The Naptime Chef

yields: 12 mini muffins

1 cups zucchini, grated
1 egg (1 large egg equals 3-4 tbsp when whisked together)
1/4 yellow onion, diced
1/4 cup cheese (cheddar or Parmesan work the best)
1/4 cup bread crumbs - I used Italian style
Salt and Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Spray a mini-muffin tin with non-stick spray, set aside.
2. Grate the zucchini and then place in a dish towel to squeeze out the excess water- like when using frozen spinach; if you skip this part, the middle of the zucchini tots will be really soggy while the outside gets crispy and no one wants that.
3. In a bowl combine, the egg, onion, cheese, bread crumbs, zucchini, salt and pepper.
4. Using a spoon or a cookie scoop, fill the muffin cups to the top. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the top is browned and set.

Some Tips  from others:
>Egg Allergy? Try an egg-replacement product or a mixture of 3 tbsp water to 1 tbsp ground chia or flax seed (it will look gelatinous) and let it sit for 10 minutes before adding into the recipe.   
> Gluten Free? Try almond flour, coconut flour, cooked cauliflower, potato flakes, Corn Chex cereals (g.f), or cooked Quinoa. 
>Flavors: Like I do with any recipe I make, I adjust the ingredients to what I have on hand and what I prefer. You can add fresh herbs, use a different (or even dairy free) cheese, keep the skins on or peel the zucchini, add a bit of heat with red pepper flakes ,or even mix in bacon which on reader did. 
>No mini muffin tin? Some have just placed the mixture onto a baking sheet which has worked okay, but you can use a regular muffin tin. If using a regular muffin tin, fill the mixture to 1/2 full or a little less and press down using your fingers or a tbsp measure. Bake for 18-22 minutes and broil to get the tops crispy.
>Salt: Salt helps draw out the moisture in foods which can help in this recipe. After grating your zucchini and placing it in a towel, sprinkle with salt, and let it sit for 10 minutes or so to draw the excess moisture out. Squeeze the towel really good to get as much of the moisture as you can out of the zucchini. 
>Freezing: I have not tried freezing these so I can't say how they will exactly turn out, but here it goes. Sometimes with zucchini that has been cooked, frozen, and reheated it can tend to be squishy so you have have to turn the broiler on for a few minutes.  
**RaeAnne said: "Made these and then froze them and it worked great. I think it is important to let them cool and then flash freeze them on a cookie sheet before putting them in freezer bag. We even reheated them in the microwave for about a minute on high or in the oven to make them crispier. It is important not to let them thaw before you cook them or it is a big gooey mess. "

Roasted Potatoes & Green Beans: Updated

  This is one of my favorite pictures with my new camera- and of Tigger in general.

  With my old camera, this picture would have been a blur, but with my new camera I got to capture Tigger being extra cute.
  It's a shame that he is scared of other people (besides my parents & I) because I think he would be a great kitty model- he's got cheek bones that women pay big bucks for!
                                                    Here are some more pictures of Tigger.

  Now back to the food.
  I got this recipe from a random food magazine that I picked up at the store. Some people buy shoes, jewelry, or just random things even though they may have more than enough of that item already at home. Well, that is me with food magazines and cook books. And they all have plenty of sticky notes that mark enough recipes to try for many years to come without repeating.

   I made this dish this past Sunday dinner that we ate along with a roasted chicken. When they were almost finished cooking, I add some of the juice from the chicken which gave it more flavor, except the potatoes didn't get as crispy. My mom took the leftovers to work with her. While I was making a marinate for some steaks for yesterday's dinner my mom called and asked if I could make the potatoes & green bean dish again. 
  This time I didn't add any more liquid to the potatoes so the potatoes had a chance to get golden brown and crispy.

Baked Spaghetti Dinner

     Today, the family came out for Sunday Dinner. We actually haven't had a Sunday Dinner out here for a while now since everyone has either been sick or busy and this dinner also counted as my mom's birthday dinner (even though her birthday isn't until the 5th).

Here's the deal: Our family doesn't do the whole "birthday party, birthday cake & ice cream, or party hat" birthdays. How we do celebrate, is every few months, depending one how many birthdays fall in those months, the birthday guy or gal gets to pick a place they want to have dinner at and then we all meet, catch up, and eat good food. Also its usually when my cousin, Jaci Keith comes in and the whole immediate family is complete.

  This recipe was given to me by a family friend, Jan, who lives in Kansas. For a few years, I went up to Kansas with my grandparents for harvest and I generally helped Jan and my grandma make the food to take out to the guys in  the fields and I also helped hand reared a few orphaned kittens. This was one of the favorite meals that we made while in Kansas. Jan actually got this recipe out of a small town newspaper and has been making it ever since., while passing the recipe on to many family members and friends.

This was before it went into the oven. I forgot to get an "after" picture.

Oven-Fried Chicken

Magazines.
Food Magazines.
I have a good amount of them.I also have a folder with pages from magazines and print outs of recipes to try. I actually have been trying to put together a binder of recipes that I have tried, liked, or created; so it would be like my own little cookbook. I recently found a recipe for oven fried chicken in a Better Homes and Gardens Anyone Can Cook magazine.

With this being the new year, everyone is trying to eat healthier and that usually means giving up the food you enjoy. Well, my dad isn't able to get out of the house much due to his sickness and he has been craving fried chicken. We did own a little fryer, but we got rid of it because we stopped using it a few years ago. While flipping through the magazine I found a recipe for oven-fried chicken that was simple and looked easy enough so I made it. And it was a hit. I've made this recipe twice and each time I tweeked it a little to try and get the perfect (or nearly perfect) results and I think each time it gets a little better. My dad said that If he didn't know that I baked it, he would have thought it was fried. The cornflakes gave a good crunch, the chicken was juicy, and the leftovers tasted even better the next day.