Veggies! LOTS of Veggies!

So this recipe was both a success and a fail in different ways. I know, great introduction, right? Haha

I made it last night with pretty high hopes. It looked delicious, and it tasted pretty good, but it wound up really watery and kind of mushy, and I’m a texture person…

HOWEVER, dumping out the extra liquid and frying the leftover up in a skillet with some salt and Mrs. Dash was pretty tasty.

You’ll Need:

foil
9×13 baking pan
1 large potato, or 3 small red potatoes
1 zucchini squash
1 yellow squash
1 sweet potato
1/4 c onion (sliced or diced up to you)
1/4 of a green bell pepper
1 clove garlic
Stick of butter (just enough to spread on the bottom of the foil-covered pan)
1/4 chopped green onion
salt
pepper
thyme
Mrs. Dash Garlic Herb
1 c Shredded cheese of your choosing

Slice all vegetables and set aside.

Line pan with foil (for easy clean up). Grease bottom of lined pan with butter. Mince one clove of garlic and spread on the bottom of the pan.

Alternating vegetables, pack the pan with all your sliced vegetables. I followed a pattern a first and eventually just wound up shoving stuff wherever it would fit. Sprinkle the chopped veggies (onions and chives) over the top.

Generously season your veggies and plop a couple small spoonfuls of butter on top.

Cover with foil and bake at 400 deg for about 45 min to an hour. Until potatoes are fork tender. During the last 10 minutes or so, sprinkle with shredded cheese!

Some folks might like this as is, again it wasn’t bad, just a little too watery for me. Squash has a lot of juices. But fry up the leftovers in a skillet the next day and it is quite yummy 🙂

Angel Food Slider (SUPER EASY PARTY FOOD 2)

So unfortunately I did not get a picture of these before they were eaten up 😦

But it doesn’t take too much imagination to picture what these will look like.

All you need:
Angel Food Cake – already made from Kroger or Walmart or wherever’s your fancy
1 reg sz bag Milk Chocolate Chocolate Chips
1 container fresh strawberries
Optional: 1/3 c peanut butter

I cut the cake in 1 inch slices. Sliced the strawberries in half (and removed stems) and laid 1-2 strawberry slices (depending on size) on each slice of cake. In a small bowl pour about a cup of chocolate chips and microwave for 20 sec at a time, stirring in between heating until melted. Spoon chocolate into a ziplock baggie and snip a corner (or just use a pastry bag if you have them). Gently squeeze out the chocolate so it drizzles over the strawberries and cake. Refrigerate for about 20 min or so before serving so the chocolate stiffens up.

Peanut Butter Ganache Option: Same as above but microwave 1/3 c peanut butter and 2/3 c chocolate chips together to drizzle over the top. The Ganache will be slightly softer than the chocolate alone, but it is oh so delish 🙂

See? Sooooo easy… and cheap… and tasty!

Here’s a similar picture. They essentially did the same thing, except decided to skewer them, which is also super cute!

Enjoy!

Spaghetti Squash Shrimp Scampi

On my journey to eating better and exercising I have discovered spaghetti squash. Spaghetti Squash is awesome. I started with a recipe online, then decided I could make it better, and here we are!

You’ll need:

9×13 baking pan (I used glass, probably doesn’t make a difference)

1 spaghetti squash, cut in half

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (I am in LOVE with EVOOs)

Various Seasonings (I used oregano, basil, garlic salt, and parsley)

salt and pepper

Shrimp (cooked, detailed, deveined)

red, green, and yellow bell peppers

onion

chicken sausage

Scoop the guts out of the squash. Season the two halves with salt and pepper. Place cut side down in 3/4 cup of water in the baking dish. Bake at 375 for 40-45 min.

While the squash is baking, finely dice about a 1/4 cup of each pepper, and little bit of onion. Slice up one chicken sausage. I usually use Aidells, but the Kroger brand is good too. Sorry my amounts aren’t exact… I just wung it.

When there’s about 10 minutes left on the squash, drizzle a little bit of EVOO in a medium sized skillet, add the peppers, onion, seasonings (to taste), sausage and shrimp and saute on medium-low heat.

Remove the squash from the oven. Hold one half in one hand with a hot pad and scrape the meat out of the squash with a fork into your skillet. You can scrape all the way down to the skin. One squash will yield quite a lot. It fed me for 4 meals.

Mix everything together in the skillet and viola!

PS: you don’t need to use anymore than 1-2 tbsp of EVOO, the squash has plenty of its own juices.

Enjoy!