A family favorite. Delicious and loaded with healthy stuff.

2 (15oz) cans black beans, rinsed
1 (17 oz) can whole kernel corn, drained
2 large tomatoes, chopped
1 large avocado, diced
1/2 red onion, chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Dressing:
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
3-4 Tbsp lime juice
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

1. Combine all ingred. in bowl.

2. Cover and chill.

3. Garnish with avocado slices

or cilantro sprigs.

3. Serve with tortilla chips

Number of Servings: 24

I’m excited to share a recipe that I finally got around to making yesterday after it haunted me for weeks. My husband and I got to go on a 5 day Carnival cruise to the Bahamas after New Years (while my parents stayed with the kids! Yea!). The weather wasn’t great, and the seas were pretty choppy, but one thing I enjoyed immensely was the food (of course!). Once I got home, I searched online for this Grand Marnier Souffle I had on the last night. It was delicious! I will warn, although it’s easy, it’s not something you whip up in a hurry. If you’re willing to spend a little time, it’s well worth the effort! One bit of advice before you begin, in order to make the process go a bit more smoothly, I would suggest separating your eggs first, before you start preparing anything else. That way, they are ready to go when the time comes to add them. Some people have to learn those lessons the hard way. I have a bad habit of jumping into a recipe without reading the whole thing first.

Here are some photos of the Carnival version…

Here are the ones I made! Not too bad… and they tasted EXACTLY like the ones on the cruise.

The recipe says that you could use vanilla extract in place of the vanilla bean, but I personally would advise against it. The little black flecks are so pretty in the creme anglaise that goes over top. This dessert light and eggy and fluffy and delicious! Hope you enjoy. Follow the link below for the full recipe and instructions.

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I used top round steaks simply because this is what was in the freezer. Next time I’ll plan ahead and use a ribeye or filet instead. As always liberaly salt and pepper. Allow them to come to room temp. Cook on a hot pan. remember always add oil to the pan. Never heat it up to high with nothing in it. I cooked them to just a little before medium. Theyll cook a little longer when placed back into the sauce.

After taking the steak out you cook it using the previous recipe. one of the changes was to add a little bit of flour after cooking the shallots. Make sure you cook the flour all the way. You don’t want the taste of raw flour in the final dish. This will help thicken the sauce. In the original recipe using chicken, you dredge the chicken in flour before cooking it. Since I didn’t dredge the steaks in flour you will just added it to the sauce instead. cooking it with the oil and shallots also assures you dont get any clumps in the sauce also.

Once the sauce is prepped and ready, add the steaks back in and thoroughly heat the steaks. remember I took them out just before cooked to medium? This will finish them off to the perfect desired temp.

Finally we served it over a pile of whipped mash. Later on I’ll have to post the recipe for these potatoes.

I’m all for shortcuts as long as they don’t interfere with food quality. This recipe is full of flavor. It’s the best chicken pot pie recipe I’ve ever made.

You can either cook up some chicken using your favorite method, or use one of those pre-cooked rotisserie chickens you can find at the grocery store. On this particular night, I cooked some boneless skinless breasts in my pressure pot and shredded it. My pressure pot is old and ugly looking but certainly does the trick!

While the chicken is cooking, slice up 8 oz of button mushrooms. The next step sounded a little strange to me but worked. Put the mushrooms on top of a couple of layers of coffee filters and microwave for about 6-7 minutes. This will soften them and dry them out a bit so they can be ready to add to the filling.

While the mushrooms are cooking, add cream, broth, vegetables, Boursin cheese, cornstarch and salt pepper to a sauce pan. Combine until smooth and add chicken and mushrooms when they are done.

Get it nice and hot to save cooking time in the oven. At this point you are really just concerned about browning the crust.

The crust, as you can see, will come from Pillsbury. It’s a great shortcut since, in my opinion, the quality of this pre-made crust is excellent. You just need to unroll it and place it on top.

Tuck the excess crust under and pinch against the pie plate all the way around to seal the liquid inside. Cut a small hole in the center and poke holes through the crust with your fork. Bake at 425 for 25 minutes until crust is golden.

My whole family loves this one, and it’s quick!

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Begin by cutting up 4 chicken breasts into bite sized pieces. I figured I had enough photos of raw chicken on this blog for you to know what they look like. Toss a cup of cornstarch in a gallon sized zip lock bag and dump the pieces in.

Give it a good shake to ensure all the pieces are coated and then spread out on a plate. Beat three eggs and put in a bowl beside chicken. Heat 1/4 cup of canola oil in a skillet. When oil is hot, dip chicken pieces in the egg and then put straight into the hot oil. This is the tedious messy part that I don’t care for, but it is worth it in the end!!

Cook the pieces on either side until golden. There is no need to cook them all the way through. You will be putting these in the oven for an hour.

Transfer the pieces to a 9×13 baking dish and spread them out. In a medium sized bowl, mix together the honey, soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar, ketchup, rice wine vinegar and garlic.

Pour the sauce over chicken and stir to coat. Stick the baking dish in a preheated 325 degree oven. It will cook for an hour in the sauce and the sauce will thicken up. I gave it a stir every 15 minutes. While it’s cooking is your chance to clean up the terrible mess you made with the egg and cornstarch and oil. I also took an added step and toasted some sesame seeds to sprinkle on top. To do this, just add the desired amount of seeds to a nonstick pan. Turn heat to medium high and toss them around until they look toasted, about 2-3 minutes. Do not add anything else to them.

By now your house should smell heavenly… if you like sesame that is. Take the chicken out after an hour and let stand for about 10 minutes.

Sprinkle the sesame seeds on too and serve!

I served this with some Trader Joes vegetable fried rice and frozen spring rolls.

The chicken was a hit with everyone, even the husband who, after eating the leftovers, kept grabbing pieces from the pan and saying “hmmm that’s pretty good.”

If you don’t mind a little effort and mess, this is just as good if not better than your favorite Chinese takeout. I’ll definitely make this again on a night I don’t mind some extra prep time.

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I used a foodsaver bag. Sealed the steak and marinade inside and let it sit for a few hours. The fish I just put in a glass dish for about 20 minutes with the marinade.

Once they were cooked I just warmed the tortillas on the hot grill and assembled.

The steak taco I added cilantro, finely diced red onion and a little bit of the green chile salsa. The fish taco got shredded cabbage, thin sliced red onion, tomato salsa and some crema in place of the usual sour cream. I’ll be making these again for sure. Really you can add whatever you want to them. Try them out. Experiment a little.

Steak Marinade and Seasoning:

Juice from 3 Fresh Squeezed Limes

Juice from a Medium Orange

3 Finely minced garlic cloves

Salt and Pepper to taste

Fish Marinade:

Juice of 2 fresh squeezed limes

1 garlic clove finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon of chili powder

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Kosher Salt

You want your chicken to be tasty, so the first thing to do is season it with this homemade seasoning mix. Equal amounts of garlic powder, paprika, salt, pepper and onion powder. I think I will keep a jar of this mixed up and ready to go. It made the chicken super tasty!

Heat olive oil over medium high heat. While oil is heating, coat chicken with the seasoning. Carefully add the chicken to the hot oil and cook 2-3 minutes per side.


Once chicken is browned on both sides, put the chicken into a 350 degree oven and bake until juices run clear. Depending on the thickness of the breast, this time can vary from 10-20 minutes.

Once the chicken is in the oven, start a pot of water boiling for your noodles. The original recipe I found called for angel hair. Spaghetti noodles work just as well, so that’s what I used. Zest two lemons, grate one cup of parmesan and mince 4 cloves of garlic. This will make the next steps go quickly which means the sooner you can stuff this into your face eat!


Pour olive oil into a skillet and add garlic and crushed red pepper. Adjust the heat to between low and medium low. Cook garlic and pepper for about 7 minutes being careful not to burn garlic. Cut back on the crushed peppers if you have kids or people that don’t like lots of spice. This definitely had a kick to it!

Add half and half and lemon juice.

Because of the lemon juice, the half and half will curdle a bit. Don’t worry!! This is OK. Add a ladle of the pasta water before draining noodles.

Add noodles, lemon zest, and half of the Parmesan cheese.
Stir together until cheese melts and sauce coats the noodles. I stopped here and asked my husband if he would like me to set aside some noodles for him before adding the spinach. He said no!! But… he did pick out all the spinach in the beginning and ate it first so he could enjoy the dish. Funny husband. Baby steps.

Add cut up chicken and spinach to the skillet and toss around until the spinach a a little wilted.
Serve in a big BIG pasta bowl and top with more Parmesan. Oh boy this was good. Deliciously lemony and spicy at the same time.

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The prep is really easy and uses only a few ingredients that I think most of which are already in your kitchen. The Hawaiian rolls you can get in the deli section of your local megamart. Start to assemble the sandwiches using the ham, cheese and rolls.

After the sandwich is put together, pour and soak the sandwiches in the mixture that I will provide the ingredients for further down. Honestly it doesn’t look like its going to work with all the mixture soaking into the bread.

Thinking about it, the ingredients in it would do little to leave too soggy. After a few minutes in the oven the tops get golden brown and delicious looking.

I also made made the oven baked potatoes. Another of of Erin’s suggestions. It all seemed to work and I got two out of three thumbs up. The third I think wasnt so into it since someone filled her with junk food (McDonalds).

Funeral Sandwiches
1 package of King’s Hawaiian Rolls
1/2-1 lb. good ham deli meat
Swiss cheese, thinly sliced
1/2 c. butter, melted
3 T. worcheshire sauce
2 T. mustard
2 T. brown sugar
dash of onion powder

METHOD:
1. Cut the rolls in half and line the bottom of a baking pan with the bottoms of the rolls. Layer the ham slices, then cheese and place the top half back on.

2. Mix together the butter, worcheshire, mustard, brown sugar and onion powder. Pour the whole works over the buns, drenching each one. Cover tightly and marinade anywhere from 4-24 hours.

3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 15 minutes,uncovered,or until cheese is melted and bun tops are a bit golden.

I found the original recipe here. Preheat oven to 400 and open a can of garbanzo beans. They are already cooked in the can but you could prepare dried beans in your slow cooker or on the stove. I decided to use the canned beans I had. There wasn’t anything else added in the can besides water anyway so I didn’t see a need to make them from scratch.

Mix oil, salt and seasonings in with the beans and toss around to coat them evenly.

Spread them out on a cookie sheet and put into the preheated 400 degree oven.

Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and give them a stir. Continue baking for 10-15 more minutes or until they are crispy.

Let them cool and begin snacking! I ate the whole can. I can see all kinds of possibilities with these and different seasonings. Share your ideas with us!

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Usually I will get a whole chicken, cut it up and soak it in buttermilk overnight. Since this was a last minute thing I used legs and thigh pieces and used my latest gadget to help in the soak process.

I put it all in a Foodsaver bag and sealed it removing most of the air. This seemed to work. It did get messy moving the pieces and fluid into the bag and holding it all in while air was removed from the bag.

After it soaks for 12-14 hours put it into a colander and let all the excess liquid run off. Then season liberally. I used my secret recipe seasoning mix. I might share it with you.

I meant to get a pic of the pile of chicken I had but i could not hold off 5 hungry ladies. Also I forgot. It smelled too good to not dig in. This is what was left. Okay so honestly, it’s not my recipe. It’s one of Alton Browns from “Good Eats”. Here is the recipe. I’ve also added the direct link at the bottom of this page

Ingredients
1 broiler/fryer chicken, cut into 8 pieces
2 cups low fat buttermilk
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons Hungarian paprika
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Flour, for dredging
Vegetable shortening, for frying

Directions
Place chicken pieces into a plastic container and cover with buttermilk. Cover and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.
Melt enough shortening (over low heat) to come just 1/3-inch up the side of a 12-inch cast iron skillet or heavy fry pan. Once shortening liquefies raise heat to 325 degrees F. Do not allow oil to go over 325 degrees F.
Drain chicken in a colander. Combine salt, paprika, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper. Liberally season chicken with this mixture. Dredge chicken in flour and shake off excess.
Place chicken skin side down into the pan. Put thighs in the center, and breast and legs around the edge of the pan. The oil should come half way up the pan. Cook chicken until golden brown on each side, approximately 10 to 12 minutes per side. More importantly, the internal temperature should be right around 180 degrees. (Be careful to monitor shortening temperature every few minutes.)
Drain chicken on a rack over a sheet pan. Don’t drain by setting chicken directly on paper towels or brown paper bags. If you need to hold the chicken before serving, cover loosely with foil but avoid holding in a warm oven, especially if it’s a gas oven.

Alton Brown’s Fried Chicken