FoodFash

Adventure Begins in the Kitchen

Breakfast Taco Egg Muffins

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Tyson Foods, Inc. The opinions and text are all mine.

Growing up, weeknights were super busy. Between my mom bringing home work and my endless amount of homework, I don’t have too many memories of eating dinner together. But what I do have are loads of memories of eating breakfast together on the weekends. Whether it was stacks of pancakes, cast iron egg dishes, or bowls full of steel-cut oats, the two of us always made time for weekend breakfasts.

Fast forward to today, when I’m the adult glued to the computer. I try to make time for homemade meals during the week, but they are typically rushed. More evenings than not, I am in my own cooking world, scurrying to take pictures, while my boyfriend reads a book at the kitchen bar. We eat, we catch up about the happenings of our day, and then it is off to editing and writing.

But weekend breakfasts! Weekend breakfasts are still my time for a forced, but oh so welcomed, slow down. Before plans or chores or errands, there’s breakfast. And since we have my boyfriend’s daughter every other weekend, it has become increasingly more important for us to slow down to enjoy weekend mornings and each other.

And because I was comfortable in the kitchen at an early age, I like to make dishes that she {a 3-1/2 year old} can help with, too. These dishes are typically pretty simple and don’t require a lot of steps because my focus needs to be on her versus timing everything just perfectly. And that’s where this Texas-inspired “breakfast taco” egg muffin recipe using Jimmy Dean® Fully Cooked TURKEY PATTIES comes in!

Jimmy Dean® Patties, along with the other ingredients in this recipe, are super accessible and can easily be found at your local HEB. And since they are already fully cooked, they eliminate a few time-consuming and messy steps {like discarding hot grease!}. And for us, that means we get to the fun part of cooking, the assembly part, much more quickly.

There’s some prep work in this recipe that she’s not quite ready for, like shredding and chopping. But once I took care of that, whipped up the eggs, and evenly distributed the eggs into the muffin tin, it was her turn to sprinkle the cheese, onions, potato, and sausage on top of the eggs. And because the Jimmy Dean® Patties are already cooked, there is no worry of her handling raw ingredients! That means there is also no worry of undercooked meat within the egg muffins either.

These egg muffins are super easy to serve and fun for the entire family to eat. The Jimmy Dean® Patties give the egg muffins a wonderful savory flavor that makes the muffins feel fancy enough for a special occasion {like Mother’s Day}, but still simple enough for any old Sunday. And this recipe is simple enough to double, triple, or make ahead if you’re planning a get-together for a larger group.

 

Using Jimmy Dean® Patties chopped roughly fifteen minutes off of my breakfast preparation and cleanup time. That is fifteen minutes I was able to share between teaching the little one about cooking and engaging in conversation with my two favorite people. And it filled our bellies with a super protein packed breakfast so we could take on the day!

You can find all these delicious Jimmy Dean® products at HEB in the breakfast meats section of the refrigerated aisle. If you’re looking for more traditional breakfast taco recipe, click here for the Jimmy Dean® Fully Cooked “Breakfast Taco” recipe. And with this HEB coupon, if you buy Jimmy Dean® Fully Cooked Product, you’ll get a Large Egg 6ct free {expires 5/16/17}!

Brined & Seared Pork Tenderloin

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This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #AllNaturalPork #CollectiveBias

Whether I’m making dinner on a Tuesday night for myself or on a Saturday night for guests, I get a ton of enjoyment from making a meal that feels special. Smithfield All Natural Pork Tenderloin is one of those cuts of meat that always feels special, but is easy enough to prepare on a busy weeknight. And since there is a good amount of inactive cooking time when preparing this tenderloin, there’s plenty of time to whip up a few simple, veggie-filled sides while the meat is brining/cooking {like the mashed cauliflower and sautéed zucchini/squash pictured above}.

Brining meat is also a very simple way to achieve top notch moisture and flavor. By soaking a piece of meat in a salty, flavorful bath of water, the meat absorbs the water and, as a result, loses less water during the cooking process. And more water yields an incredibly tender tenderloin.


In the theme of keeping this recipe simple with classic flavors, I created a brine with water, salt, Herbes de Provence, and sugar. Herbes de Provence is an herb mix that typically consists of savory, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, and oregano, all of which compliment pork very nicely. A step-by-step recipe can be found at the bottom of this post.

Smithfield All Natural Pork Tenderloin is perfect for my home because it doesn’t contain steroids, hormones, or artificial ingredients. And since Smithfield All Natural Pork can be found at your local Walmart, this tenderloin is also a convenient choice.

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #AllNaturalPork #CollectiveBias

Layer Dip @popchips For The Big Game

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Other than watching the Florida vs. Florida State game growing up, football wasn’t a deal in my house. It wasn’t until college that I remember celebrating any big games. And even then, I certainly didn’t get excited about who was playing who. But what I did get excited about was all the yummy food. If tolerating football meant I would be granted access to dozens of dips and bite-sized snacks, then I was all about tolerating football.

And while I loved eating the snacks that other people had dreamt up, I’ve always taken it upon myself to make a lighter version of something – a safe dish, one that I know with certainty didn’t include a super secret jar of mayonnaise.
So when popchips gave me the opportunity to create a big game recipe using popchips ridges, I was all over it! popchips ridges are gluten-free and have zero grams of trans fat, no artificial flavors, and no added preservatives. These chips aren’t baked or fried, but popped!  They also come in flavors that make the perfect as-is snack, like cheddar & sour cream, tangy bbq, and chili cheese. The perfectly salty version is also delish on its own, but makes a wonderful foundation for a variety of big game snacks as well.

Combining my loves of layer dips and bite-sized snacks, I topped the perfectly salted popchips ridges with a simplified version of “seven layer dip”. The chips are topped with a layer of melted cheese that adds flavor and acts as a moisture barrier between the chip and bean dip, keeping the chip crispy for longer.  And then I added layers of spiced bean dip, green chiles, and tomatoes for tang {and color}.

Shop popchips online and get 20% off on your order by clicking http://popchi.ps/shopridges and using offer code “BIGGAME20”!

This post is sponsored by Single Edition Media on behalf of popchips.

Spinach & Parmesan Deviled Eggs

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spinach-deviled-eggs

It’s potluck h’orderves season which, for someone who loves tasting bites of everything, is the greatest time of year! Growing up, there were two dishes that were sure to be on my grandma’s kitchen counter before a special occasion meal: a relish tray and deviled eggs. Now that I’m in Austin and, well, it’s 2016, counters are more likely to be filled with hummus and charcuterie than Grandma’s classics.

hard-boiled-eggs

But over the past couple years, there’s been a resurgence of deviled eggs on restaurant menus. And not your typical deviled eggs, super fancy pants deviled eggs. So when I unpacked a package full of La Terra Fina spinach dips into my fridge and placed them next to a carton of eggs, putting the two together in a dish seemed like the obvious way to whip up some fancy pants deviled eggs.

vital-farms-eggs

There a few wonderful things about this recipe. First, the ingredient list is minimal and there’s no “salt and pepper, to taste” line in the instructions. So when your mind is in party-mode and you’re more interested in remembering to put on mascara than worrying about the right balance of salt, this recipe’s got ya covered.

la-terra-fina-spinach-greek-yogurt-dip

Second, this dip is made with Greek yogurt which is much lighter than mayonnaise. And if you’re going to eat an embarrassing amount of deviled eggs in one sitting {like me}, a lighter deviled egg will allow you to move on to your next bite a little more comfortably.

And lastly, it’s a fun and easy way to change up a classic dish!

Although I received compensation to create a recipe for La Terra Fina, the opinions in this post are completely my own and based on my experience.