FoodFash

Adventure Begins in the Kitchen

Postal Cookies

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Last weekend I stocked up on boxes and bubble wrap and tested out mailing baked goods for the first time.  Getting a picture message of Em mounging on these macarons in DC totally made my day.  It turns out, cookies are the perfect way say to say “I miss you”.

And since I haven’t visited home in six months or LA in ten months (both records), I have a decently large list of people that I miss like crazy.  This means I have a lot of baking ahead of me in the upcoming weeks.  I don’t mind one bit.

For this round of friends, I whooped up brown butter chocolate chip cookies with pecans from Joy the Baker‘s cookbook, embracing yet another opportunity to bake with brown butter.  Not only was this recipe a total success, I am now a brown butter fan for life.

I can’t remember the last time I baked chocolate chip cookies, but I can tell you with certainty that they were not this pretty.  Perhaps I thought the better these cookies looked, the more loved my friends would feel.  Seems logical, don’t you think?

Quesadilla Crush

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Bean quesadillas of sort have been a staple in my life for as long as I can remember.  It’s one of the few things my mom would make when I was younger that didn’t cause a tantrum.  In college, I rotated between bean and cheese quesadillas, egg sandwiches, and spinach mac and cheese (and probably some whiskey…).  When I did the vegan thing in Dallas, I subbed the cheese with spinach.  And today, after an almost 30 year bean quesadilla love affair, I’m still changing things up and totally crushing.

After giving up dairy for most of 2011, I now have a better understanding of which dishes don’t need cheese as much as others.  For instance, pizza will always taste better with real cheese.  Always.  But with bean quesadillas, on the other hand, there’s not much of a difference either way.  However, there’s something about super spicy salsa and cool sour cream that makes me weak in the knees, so I kept it.

FoodFash Spinach, Salsa & Refried Bean Quesadillas (yields 1 serving)

 1 large whole wheat tortilla

1/2 cup refried beans

4 tablespoons of salsa

1 giant handful of fresh baby spinach

1 dollop of sour cream

extra salsa

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Spread refried beans over half of of the tortilla.  Place directly on oven rack and bake for about 5 minutes or until beans are heated all the way through.  Meanwhile, heat salsa over medium heat.  Add spinach and stir until wilted.  Remove tortilla from oven and use a slotted spoon to place spinach over beans, leaving excess liquid in the pan.  Fold tortilla in half and use a pizza cutter to slice quesadilla.  Serve with sour cream and salsa and enjoy!

Fancy, Huh?

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My super simple broil-everything-and-call-it-a-night-dinner turned out much fancier than one could have ever anticipated.  I prepped the salmon and sunburst tomatoes the same by spraying lightly with olive oil and sprinkling with seasoning.  And while they were busy broiling on high, I got to work on something new.

Balsamic reduction, anyone?  I suppose that’s where the fancy came into play.  But really it required much too little effort to be considered fancy in any way, shape, or form.  I brought 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1/2 tablespoon of ponzu sauce to a boil and let simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.  Little to no stirring was required.  I was shocked.

I placed the salmon, tomatoes, and walnuts on a big bed of baby spinach and generously drizzled the room temperature balsamic reduction over everything.  If I had guests over for dinner, I assure you they would have been impressed!

Southwestern Sweet Potatoes

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More often than not, an Austin moving story involves someone coming to town, not leaving.  So when one of your closest friends is part of the uber small leaving percentage, it’s a darn right bummer.  Jodie, who I’ve had some of my favorite Austin adventures with, hit the road last week.  Thankfully we’ve had a steady stream of texts since she crossed the Texas border.  Texts that have gone a little something like…  Boys, boys, inspiration for this recipe, boys.  Things like this make me question my twenty-nine-year-old-ness…

The southwestern sweet potatoes she suggested sounded like an awesomely flavorful way to make a meal out of a potato.  And even more importantly, super stuffed potatoes would be a perfect way to make use of the newest additions to my ever-expanding dish collection.

FoodFash Southwestern Sweet Potatoes (yields 3 potatoes)

3 sweet potatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 serrano pepper, gutted and chopped

1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 cup sour cream (or plain Greek yogurt)

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Bake sweet potatoes in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes.  Heat olive oil over medium high heat and add chopped onions and peppers.  Stir in salt and cumin.  When onions are transparent, add black beans and cook for 5 more minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.  Slice the top of each sweet potato in half and use a spoon to remove the insides of the potato from the skin.  Place all of the insides in a bowl and mix with sour cream until blended and smooth.  Fold in black bean mix and then cilantro.  Stuff each potato skin with an equal part of the sweet potato mixture and enjoy!

Who would have ever thought that sweet potatoes and black beans could be so tasty together?  Surely not I.  This is definitely a dish I’ll make on the regular.  Thanks a million Jodie!!