Easy Banana Muffins

makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

3-4 ripe, mashed bananas (can use as few as two)

1/2 c. sugar (original recipe calls for 1 whole cup but, yikes, that's sweet especially with chocolate chips! might have to play around with that to get perfect ratio)

1 1/2 c. flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg beaten

1/4 c. melted butter

1/4 tsp salt

nuts and chocolate chips are optional (if you're the type of person who thinks nuts and chocolate chips are, in fact, optional...I'm not.)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix ingredients, divide in buttered or Pam-med muffin tin, bake until tops are golden brown, about 15 - 20 minutes.

Sirloin Lettuce Wraps

Ingredients:
Sirloin, 1/2 inch strips
Cilantro, chopped
Garlic, minced
Tomatoes, chopped
5 Limes, juiced
2 Avocados
1 can White Beans, drained
Chipotle BBQ Sauce (your choice, whatever)
Onions, 1 chopped, 1 sliced into strips
Red Peppers, strips
Romaine Lettuce
Salt, to taste

Preparation:
Marinate your sirloin in the bbq sauce of your choice (Trader Joe's ahs one already marinated) and lime juice. While it marinates you can combine chopped onions, garlic, salt and lime juice in a bowl and let that sit while you puree your avocados and white beans in a food processor. Heat a skillet for your meat on high. Add the meat and cook till done, about 6 minutes. Remove the meat and let rest. Add sliced onions and red peppers to the pan's juices and cook till tender. Meanwhile, combine the avocado mixture with the onion and lime juice; add cilantro and tomatoes.

Wrap the meat and veg in lettuce wraps and serve your guacomle with sliced veggies or chips.

Beet and Goat Cheese Salad 2

Ingredients:
Red and Golden Beets
8 oz Goat Cheese
Dried Tarragon
Walnut pieces
EV Olive Oil
Watercress
Salt

Preparation:

Wrap beets in aluminum foil and roast. Chill overnight. (Maybe spend a Sunday afternoon roasting so they'll be good to go for Monday dinner.) Arrange your chilled, peeled, and chunked beets on a plate (the red ones stain!) and salt. Drizzle with olive oil; top with walnuts and washed watercress leaves. Serve with dollops of goat cheese mixed with dried tarragon.

Carrot Ginger Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients:
1 Onion, chopped
3 Cloves Garlic, chopped
1 Shallot, Chopped
1/4 cup Ginger, peeled and minced
3 Tbs Butter
2 Tbs Oil
Salt and Pepper
1 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 lb carrots, peeled and sliced
4 large sweet potato, peeled and sliced
8 cups Veg Stock

Preparation:
Saute onion, garlic, shallot and ginger in butter and oil until soft and aromatic. Deglaze with wine and cook for 5 minutes. Add carrots, stock and sweet potato, boil for 45 minutes. Puree. Serve cold or hot iwth a pinch of curry and a squeeze of lemon if you'd like. Yum!

Happy Anniversary!

Haha, it's been a year! I really like how this blog has worked out for me. It actually has become my own cookbook of tried and true, Andy-proof recipes. I have used the Shrimp Scampi recipe countless times; Andy begs for puttenesca; the balsamic glaze is still a favorite over fish and broccoli with lemon, yum.

Some of the recipes I've made exactly once since they are so time-consuming: Crusted Tuna and those delicious fishcakes.

I hope to add lots more successful (read: easy!) recipes in the months to come!

Creamy Lobster Stew

Ingredients:
2 onions, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
4 red bliss potatoes, chopped
the meant of 2 lobsters
8 oz Heavy Cream
2 cups vegetable stock
4 cups milk
S+P

Preparation:
Steam lobster in a large pot: fill pot with two inches of water, set in your lobsters and cook until bright red. We cut the tails off at one point and realized the meat was still raw and threw it back in, no harm done. The second time we took it out, some meat was still raw but cooked the rest of the way in the stew. (So, you'll be fine even though lobster is scary and ugly before it's cooked.)

While your lobster steams, saute your veggies in the vegetable stock with a dash of salt and pepper. Add meat of lobster, milk and heavy cream; season to taste with salt and pepper. There you go--nothing to it!

(Leftovers can be served as pie with puff pastry.)

One Pot Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients:
(Eyeball amounts)
Whole chicken
Leeks, sliced in rounds from stalk to leaf
Zucchini, sliced
Onion, sliced
Apples, sliced
(Carrots and celery can be added, too.)
Olive Oil
Tarragon
Water
Egg Noodles
S+P

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 375.
In a large pot, saute in oil your chicken innards and wings (cut from the whole bird) until golden brown.
Pop the rest of the chicken with some apple slices and drizzled with oil in the oven for an hour to roast (or until inner temperature reads 180).
Add veggies, tarragon, and apples to the large pot and saute with a little more olive oil until veggies are softened.
Add enough water to serve as broth for soup.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Boil the mix for almost an hour as the chicken roasts (you are making chicken stock!).

Once chicken is roasted, you can carve off pieces to add to the soup and boil your noodles. Keep the noodles separate from the soup, preparing enough for as many servings as you need. This way the noodles don't get mushy.