TK: Creamy Black Bean and Cilantro Dip and Pineapple Guacamole

Because Collin keeps a strange work schedule, I meal plan on Wednesdays instead of Sunday like normal people. So when Sunday evening rolled around (and I'm already in bed) and Collin announced that he wanted to smoke a brisket on Tuesday and have people over that evening I literally had to shove my entire meal plan aside and figure out what I was going to prepare last minute for company. Lucky for me, I love this kind of shit. Last minute planning is my favorite - and I'm really not kidding. I'm a planner. It's what I do, and if I'm being honest, I'm pretty damn good at it. As a matter of fact, if you really wanna get my motor going, throw in a crisis during a last minute event that I'm planning and watch me handle that shit. *sigh* It has been too long.

Anyway, before I get way too turned on, I decided on a medley of things from Thug Kitchen and Cravings. I did toss together a double batch of Chrissy's Secretly Spicy Deviled Eggs, but I won't post about those because I already have. Of course, those were popular AF and were the second things to go. Yes, they were second. To what, you ask? Read on:

The one thing that got the most raves was, shockingly enough, the Creamy Black Bean and Cilantro Dip from Thug Kitchen. I'm not kidding. Everyone commented on how good this was. My sister even liked this and she really can't stand cilantro. It's such a breeze to make, too. You throw a bunch of stuff in a food processor and it blends so beautifully and the flavors mingle so evenly that it really just tastes like bean dip from heaven:

Here is a close up. Now I know why the book didn't boast a picture.

Recipe: 2 1/2 cups cooked black beans (or 1 2/3 cans black beans, which is what I did), 1/3 cup veggie broth or water (I used veggie broth), 2 cloves garlic, juice of 1 lime, pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, 1/2 cup chopped green onions. Throw it all in a food processor and go to town.

I decided to make 2 dips from Thug Kitchen, and I'm glad I did because the brisket took way longer than we thought and people were very snackish. The next dip I made was called Pineapple Guacamole. I felt I used too much pineapple as I did not measure anything out and eyeballed it all. I was in a serious rush and short on time so next time I'll remember to measure out the pineapple. However, this went just as quickly as the bean dip - if not quicker:

Dip is hard.

Recipe: 2 avocados, 2/3 cup chopped pineapple (I used canned), 1/2 cup chopped red onion, 2 tbs. cilantro, 2 cloves minced garlic, grated zest of 1/2 lime, 1 tbs. lime juice, 1/8 tsp. ground cumin, pinch of salt. I actually didn't mince or chop anything and threw it all in the food processor (except the avocado) until smooth-ish. I mashed the avocado in a bowl with a fork and added the rest of the ingredients until mixed. Delish.

Side by Side

So basically, if you want to impress anyone - anyone at all - you need these. Someone call the Queen of England and tell her I've got her next dip recipes for high tea. Wait - do they have dip at high tea? Someone get the Queen on the phone, I've got a game changer here.

Skinny Taste: Fast and Slow

I've been on vacation (I think I've mentioned that) and tomorrow I go back for my first whole week at work. Throughout this little break I have done nothing but eat what I want, when I want, and I haven't worked out in weeks. This has resulted in some very obvious poundage (on top of the extra poundage I had accrued since I stopped working out) and I know it's time for me to scale back and get my life back together. This also means I need to get back on seriously meal planning instead of ordering take-out from menus that were placed on my doorknob. I've also been flipping the pages of my cookbooks looking for something easy and appetizing to kick back into gear and it's just so hard. Then I  remembered scrolling through Instagram a while back and screenshotting a cookbook I wanted to try:

Voila! 

This cookbook features recipes that are 30 minutes as well as recipes for the slow cooker and *drum roll* they are all healthy! This is the answer to my lazy girl problems. I often flip through these books and wonder if I'll ever gather enough motivation to spark my own originality when I cook again. Eh, who cares. I did that shit up until now. My mind needs a break. 

This book is nifty. She adds in a little key chart:

SO convenient!

I love this. This makes my life even easier. By the way, if you're reading this and you buy me things - I want a pressure cooker/instant pot. 

And she adds the keys to the contents page of each chapter. LOVE.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to let you know that I'm adding a new book to my rotation.

OH. I've been asked this a few times. Because I cook from a few different books, I put an abbreviation before the recipe name so you know which book it's from: 

TK - Thug Kitchen

SS - Skinny Suppers

ST - Skinny Taste

And if there is no tag before the name then it is from Cravings. :D

Pineapple-Grilled Short Ribs with Sweet and Salty Coconut Rice

I have never found it necessary to purchase short ribs. I have never, to my knowledge, eaten short ribs and I probably could have gone my entire life without ever tasting them (and being quite OK with it). That being said, I had no idea what a flanken short rib was and really had no idea what they looked like. Thankfully, the Kroger I went to had ONE package of short ribs that actually said "flanken short rib" on it and it was the amount I needed. It was fate - except really. 

She suggests a 12-24 hour marination period and after last night's extra crispy almost-disaster, I did just that. As a matter of fact, as soon as I wrapped up blogging last night I got to work on these bad boys. Because marinating is literally letting meat soak in various spices and liquids, there is really nothing to elaborate on there and I'll move on to more important things.

Marination Station

Important things like, for example, the sweet and salty coconut rice. Do ya'll remember way back when I started this blog and I said that I absolutely had to make the recipe as-is? Well, I'm sure ya'll have figured out by now that I really can't be trusted because I fucked up again today by not double checking that I had all the ingredients. Can you believe I ran out of sugar? SUGAR. I had everything else: jasmine rice, salt, coconut milk, coconut flakes but not a spoonful of granulated sugar was to be found in my pantry. I then remembered putting sugar on my whiteboard grocery list outside my pantry door, but this did not change the fact that today I was sugar-less. Lucky for me, she does not specify what kind of sugar you need for this. It simply says "sugar" and nothing else. So, I am NOT cheating when I say that I used dark brown sugar (because, what do you know, I was also out of light brown sugar). Hashtag winning.

Oh, here is where I should also probably mention that I have never made a pot of rice (that wasn't instant) that came out edible. I swear I have cooked before and I am good at 95% of it, but rice is my nemesis. It's like it can smell the fear as I'm following the directions to the letter. Every. Time. Once, I attempted a pot of brown rice and it came out so crunchy I wondered if I had blacked out at some point and forgot to add water. That one still remains a mystery, actually. 

So now that you know my history, understand that I was very nervous while making this and checked, doubled checked, and checked again to make sure that I was doing this correctly. When all was said and done and the lid came off the pot it looked...creamy. But not bad. It did not "fluff", but after a good stir and a little taste I was certain that this was the end of my rice-fuck-up streak. Guys, this was amazing. AMAZING. And that was with dark brown sugar. I can only imagine how good this would taste using granulated sugar. I wasn't even mad that Collin was taking forever getting the grill ready because it gave me more time to eat this. 

Kind of looks like oatmeal.

And because I'm so thrilled this didn't come out crunchy:

There's one with the book.

As you can see, this looks a bit like oatmeal and/or brown rice because of my sugar choice, but fear not. It is as delicious as you hope it will be. 

So once the grill was finally ready, I forced Collin to read the recipe to make sure these were done right because the man has never met a rib that cooked in under 8 hours. However, he did as he was told and a few minutes later we had dinner:

Yeah I gnawed on it a little before I realized I should probably take a picture.

To summarize: these two were fantastic. Collin asked me to keep the marinade recipe and we chowed down. This is one of the most satisfying meals I have had in a while so do yourself a favor and treat yo-self.

"Everything" Chicken Sandwich Melts

This is one of those recipes that takes up more than one page, which means I was very reluctant to make it <--- that's the lazy girl in me. It doesn't matter that this looks amazing and every time I flip through to make something I think to myself "Why haven't I made that?" and then I remember it's because the ingredient list consists of 20 different items (yes, I counted). However, I am on vacation and decided there really wasn't a better time because I pretty much have nothing but time.

I should probably mention that the 20 different items are made up of mostly spices, making this much less complicated than I lead on. Basically, you toss some spices together in a few different bowls, coat the chicken, and fry away. It's really not that hard.

That being said, I have mentioned on more than one occasion that I do not...and I mean I do not, have any luck with frying meats. I tried to blame it on Chrissy at first, but if I'm being honest with myself I have to realize that this all can't be a strange coincidence. The failed fried meats all have one thing in common: Me. (Well... and this cookbook, but I'm looking past that). I will say that this is the first time I did not follow the recipe to the "T" in that I thought I had canola oil on hand, but I was mistaken. Because I did not realize this until the chicken was already coated, I substituted with what I did have...which was vegetable oil.

Now, I remember reading somewhere a while ago that different oils have differences when heated...something about how you should use this oil for that, etc. and there is a legitimate reason for it...OK maybe I don't remember exactly what it said, but it doesn't change the fact that I was aware that something could go wrong by switching up the frying oil. Are you sensing some foreshadowing here, because I'm laying it on pretty thick.

So I filled my pan with the oil and turned it onto medium heat as instructed. The moment I put the chicken in I knew it was over. They browned immediately. And then they got darker and darker very quickly, but I was determined to leave them in for the specified 2 minutes. When I took them out the breading was burned, obviously. The skeptic in me also just had to know if 2 minutes was enough time to cook them through, so I cut one open and it was perfect. Perfect. If it weren't for the burnt coating I would have nailed it.

This is about the time that Collin decided to waltz in and check things out, by they way. He actually told me to cut him off a little piece to see if it was still good and if you haven't noticed by now, Collin is a picky eater so this surprised me. I was even more surprised when he said it was good. Yes, you read that correctly.

Anyway, I turned the heat down to medium and tossed in the other two chicken breasts and they turned out a little less burnt...but not by much:

I ran out of tomato and cheese so the back one on the right is a little sad. Burnt and sad.

These just look hilarious. Here's a close up of one on my white plate.

No, that's not a burger. There is chicken under there.

And despite the singed outer layer, the perfectly cooked chicken underneath:

It makes no sense.

As far as taste goes, these were a bit too spicy to give to the kids so they had something else, but these were pretty good. I did dip mine in ketchup - it was pretty good that way actually - and Collin ate TWO of these. He even ate the tomato and I really thought he would pick it off because he doesn't particularly like tomato. 

What a strange dinner. 

TK: Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes

Today is Easter! Calvin gets really excited about Easter because he is obsessed with egg hunts. Every year, the kids spend the night with the grandparents Saturday night and go to Easter service at church with them on Sunday. They don't get home until about 10:30, which gives me time to get everything set up, and this year I felt like making a cute little brunch.

So I fiddled around Pinterest for a few minutes and found cute little bunny butts made out of pancakes. I remembered that Thug Kitchen had a pancake recipe, and it's a good thing, because I didn't have any pre-made mix on hand. The recipe is simple and you always have the ingredients on hand. I whipped up a batch, divided it in two, and dyed them pink and blue. It was around this time that I realized I did not have any syrup. Obviously there is more than one way to eat a pancake and I was confident I could still make it work, so I decided to assemble the kid's bunnies peanut butter and jelly style. I stuck two pancake rounds together with peanut butter and jelly and assembled the rest with dabs of peanut butter here and there. They did not turn out as cute as I had hoped, but oh well:

I used a smashed tator tot for the tail since I didn't have whipped cream.

You also can't really tell that they're dyed until you bite into them. Lesson learned. 

Now for the really fun part of being a mom. I had to threaten Calvin to eat them, Andrew ate everything but the pancake and eggs...so basically just banana and raisins. And then. My husband, after witnessing all of this, tells me he won't be eating any pancakes because we don't have any syrup. 

At this point, I smacked my knife on the counter out of frustration and told him he'd better suck it up and figure it out because now I was extremely annoyed. He did take pancakes, and I really have no idea how he ate them - nor do I care. I, however, smeared peanut butter on mine and topped it with sliced bananas like a normal, problem solving fucking person and it was delicious.

Here is the pancake recipe:

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (I used regular white because I'm sick of whole wheat)

2 tbs. brown or white sugar (I used brown)

2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 cups milk

And if you want to make them banana, which I did not this time but I have before, mash 1 small banana.

Whisk together the dry ingredients, then add the wet. Do not mix too much or your pancakes will be tough.

VOILA! Happy Easter!

John's Marinated Steaks, John's Crispy Roasted Potatoes and IL Buco-Style Kale Salad

Today's post is a triple whammy. I realized two things while meal planning for this week: 1) I hadn't blogged in a bit and 2) I was short a meal for the week and was out of motivation. And that is how tonight's dinner was born. I skimmed through the book and found a nice medley of recipes that were sure to be winners. That being said, this will likely be a longer post than most - but I'll compensate with extra photos. I feel like everyone wins here. 

To start, me and the hubs had a little kid-free day and evening yesterday so we took that time to see a movie and do a little work around the house. You know, married people stuff. The evening ended with us jumping on the trampoline whilst drinking from a bottle of champagne and the hubs throwing up. 

So this morning when I realized I needed to marinate the steaks, I was simultaneously eating Chinese food to get my life right again. 

Fat steak in a little bowl

Because the bowl I chose was not quite big enough, I flipped the steaks after a few hours to ensure no steak was left out of being marinated. I'm fair like that. I feel like I should note here that this recipe is very easy to half. My small family can get by with 2 steaks instead of 4 - one for me and the boys and the other one for Collin because steak=manly. 

Once dinnertime rolled around, Collin was in charge of the grill while I tackled the potatoes and salad. I don't use the grill and have no desire to learn how, but I feel like I've touched on that before so I'll move on. 

The first thing I made were the croutons. Oh, man did those start out fun. I bought a nice, crusty bread maybe 5 days ago when I did my grocery shopping only to find that it had molded yesterday. I. Was. Pissed. I had to throw the entire thing away and made sure to curse the ever living shit out of Kroger in the process. To top it off, when we went to HEB to get the steaks I forgot to buy more bread. So today I guilted Collin in to going to the store to buy me more bread, which he did even though I could tell he absolutely did not want to. Once I had the bread, it was smooth sailing.

Good thing I made these first: I got to snack on them the whole time I was cooking.

This made an absurd amount of croutons. Way too much for the salad, unless you prefer your salad to be half salad, half croutons. Then this was probably perfect. They were delicious, though. However, since I am the only one who likes croutons in this freaking house I knew that the excess would likely be thrown away. It doesn't make any damn sense. Collin will eat toast, but doesn't like fucking croutons. I really just can't even get into that right now because I could go on forever. UGH.

The salad calls for Kale and you have to dunk it in boiling water for a few seconds before you submerge it in ice cold water. Then she stresses how important it is to dry the Kale as much as possible. So, I pulled out my trusty salad spinner and spun that Kale like you wouldn't believe. I spun at least 6 times and then put Collin on spinning duty for a while. I was so certain that this would be the driest Kale in all the land. HA. I could hear the Kale laughing at me while in the spinner because, although no more water was spinning out, the Kale was still very moist. Slick to the touch, even. I was baffled and didn't know if this was dry enough or if I should continue. I decided to blot with paper towels, just to be safe, and wouldn't you know - there was no water blotting onto the paper towels. What kind of game was Kale playing here? What kind of sorcery does this Kale entertain? Unimpressed, I decided that enough was enough and if the dressing didn't stick then so be it. 

 As you can see, it all worked out in the end. 

Now the first bite of this salad left my mouth puckered. The lemon flavor was entirely too strong and I had to choke back a cough. When paired with the croutons it tones down a bit, but if you're a crouton hater like my husband there's really nothing to be done. The leaves also feel a bit....thick...as you eat it. I can't describe it, but your teeth will have gotten a workout once you get through this salad. Here comes the strange part: I found myself unable to stop eating this. I would still tone down the lemon next time, but the tangy dressing paired with the garlicky croutons was irresistible.  

The potatoes required a bit more prep what with all the chopping and what not. She markets these potatoes as being crispy and I could not be more down with that if I tried. I love a nice, crispy hunk of potato. 

This photo is not at all relevant, but I thought it would make a cool picture so I took it.

Basically, you chop up a bunch of stuff and throw it in a bowl and when you're done it will look like this:

She has you pre-heat some oil in the oven and swears this is the secret to crispy potatoes every time. I get that. Oil crisps things. Makes sense. Either way, I couldn't wait to pop one of these in my mouth and hear the satisfying 'crunch' that only a crispy potato can provide. 

There they are. Browned and waiting.

I scaled the sheet and picked what looked to me to be the crispiest of them all and tossed it in my mouth...and was met with a soft potato. Soft. Not crispy. As a matter of fact, nothing about these were crispy. They were good, don't get me wrong. we enjoyed them and ate them up like nobody's business...but if you're going to market something as crispy and get my hopes up then you better damn deliver. To this day I have to say that the BEST crispy potatoes were made for me by my brother. It was the morning after we had spent all night drinking and playing board games. He threw these potatoes in the skillet with some sizzling oil and they were the most amazing things my taste buds have ever encountered. Salty and crispy heaven. His secret? Worcestershire sauce. You may take that information and do with it what you'd like, but I'll never go back.

Alright, Folks. We've reached the main event: the steak. She gives you a detailed description on how to cook the steak in the book, and I tried to get Collin to read it but I think we all know how that went. You can't tell a man to follow a recipe on how to cook a damn steak. I think all men are born with this information, actually. She gives you a little mini recipe on how to transform the steak marinade into a steak sauce, so I did that and it was easy enough.

Without steak sauce

With steak sauce

This steak was freaking delicious. Collin commented several times on how great the steak sauce was and I had absolutely zero complaints. This was amazing. Even the four year old ate it with ease - and that's a feat nowadays. I would recommend this recipe over and over again and it is just that good. I actually regret not getting 4 steaks because there is no more left. We ate it all. It's all gone and that honestly makes me a little sad. It felt like Christmas when all the presents have been opened. Mostly because it will probably be that long before I spend that kind of money on steak again. In the meantime, I still have chocolate and that puts the smile back on my face again. Anyway, food coma time. 

SS: Southern Biscuits and Gravy Casserole

Yeah, I know. I said I was back and then flaked for a month. A month I would rather not re-live, actually. I did not do much cooking and I have no excuse other than I did not want to. That being said, I flipped through and found this little gem a few weeks back and I am not one to ever turn down biscuits and gravy so: challenge accepted.

I've said before that biscuits and gravy is a delicate thing. One should not pretend to know what they're doing - I'm looking at you, Cracker Barrel - because it can ruin people's lives. Seriously, that was over two years ago and I'm still scarred. However, the author of Skinny Suppers, Brooke Griffen, is a southern girl so I had really high hopes and happily rustled up these ingredients and went to town.

First, you whisk together some eggs and cheese and milk and stick that in a pan with some turkey sausage links plopped right on top. She has you bake it for what sounds like a reasonable amount of time. This is the part where I start to get reallllly skeptical. This is what it looks like when you take it out of the oven:

The cheese melted, so that's good...but overall this was still incredibly runny.

Now, I understand that because we are adding biscuits on top that will need to bake that we do not want the egg to be fully cooked yet. However, I did not feel that they should be this runny at this stage and cooked them for about 10 minutes longer, which didn't do much but made me feel a little better. Oh, I also took the liberty of adding chopped orange, red, and yellow bell peppers because this was dinner and I felt better knowing there were veggies in it...also, I like bell peppers in my eggs for breakfast so this wasn't too far of a stretch. 

While this is "cooking" she has you make the gravy. 

I always add way more pepper than called for because I like a peppery gravy.

This went as expected and without issue. Pour it all over the under-cooked egg mixture and toss some Pilsbury biscuits on top. Now. Because I felt that the eggs did not cook enough in the beginning, I cooked these longer than the suggested time. You will also want to do this. The biscuits will get a nice golden brown on top, but the egg will also have time to cook through. 

Voila!

Because I have children, or because I have a strange appetite - I'll own it, this is not my first recipe with biscuits on top. I have had recipes where, because the biscuits are close together and on top of food, instead of straight on a baking sheet, they never cook. What you are left with is cooked biscuit tops and raw biscuit dough on the bottom. This recipe had potential for absolute disaster because of the short cook time for the eggs and the nestled biscuit dough. All factors pointed to pizza here. 

I cooked the shit out of this. I think I just about doubled the cook time and it turned out nicely. I did find a few problem areas, but nothing to write home about. In the future I will cook the eggs until firm with a little jiggle and there should be no issues. As for taste? This was freaking delish. Tweak it a bit and you've got yourself a winner. 

Holler if you want the recipe cause my kid is crying and I'm about to make bedtime half an hour earlier fa sho.