How to: Freeze Bananas

You may think this is the stupidest post in blog history. It’s possible you’re right, but it’s also possible you’ve spent a long fifteen minutes getting freezer burn while trying to peel a frozen solid banana. This post is for the second group of people.

The first group? Those who never heard “Oh, just freeze your ripe bananas and use them for baking later” and promptly stuck the entire fruit, skin and all, into the freezer then looked on with dread when you wanted to use it? You guys can move right along. I’ll see you soon!

Ginger-Sesame Chicken Wrap for Two

What makes wraps so amazing? Seriously, I sometimes think they must be made with unicorn blood or baby tears because I can eat the same ingredients on bread or in a wrap and I’ll usually prefer the wrap.

These wraps are really dependent on a good salad dressing. It provides the marinade for the chicken and is added to the wrap just before eating. If you never had Sesame-Ginger dressing, you’re in for a treat. I love Newman’s Own brand because it’s low-calorie, great tasting, and the proceeds go to charity, but use your favorite brand.

I tend to over stuff my wraps as you can see below, so feel no shame in doing what I do – hold them once you’ve finished rolling with one hand while wrangling the aluminum foil. This method also serves as your cardio for the day while you accidentally hold your breath while trying to work fast enough so the filling doesn’t fall out.

Enjoy!

Eggs in Southwestern Spicy Tomato Sauce

I love breakfast, but it’s often tricky to make it fresh every morning. Don’t get me wrong – unlike 98 percent of the world, I have enough time most mornings. I just get distracted. I need to catch up on my emails, see how Matt and the crew from the “Today Show” are doing, and spend a few minutes staring blankly at my closet trying to figure out what I’m going to wear to work.

You’d think I’d manage to squeeze in making a great breakfast in that hour, but I tend to default to a smoothie or toast too frequently. Recently however, I’ve been trying my lunch strategy on breakfast – make a big dish that can be portioned out throughout the week so I have a hot meal that comes together quickly.

This was adapted from SmittenKitchen because I had an extra can of black beans and the only canned tomatoes in my pantry had chilis in them. So southwestern style spicy tomato sauce instead! Still, really tasty though – I hope you enjoy!

Linguini with Broccoli and Peanut Sauce

There are a million and 10 recipes for peanut butter noodles on the internet (I know, I counted). I'm not claiming this one is my favorite, but it did hit the spot recently when I couldn't figure out what I wanted for dinner. It's vaguely reminiscent of Pad See-Ew with the whole wheat noodles, soy sauce, broccoli, and egg but it's sweeter and doesn't employ dark soy sauce. Instead, it uses a variety of ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen. I always love recipes that don't make me buy new spices that I'm not sure I'll use again (it's one of the reasons you haven't seen anything made with 5 spice powder or all spice - I'm not sure how often I'd use either and am still on the fence about making such a commitment). 

As I've told you before, I'm a weird breakfast person so bear with me when I tell you these are awesome cold and early in the morning. Give it a try! Not every day has to be a smoothie or pancakes kind of morning. Or you can always eat them cold when all the microwaves at work are busy and you're too impatient to wait another minute for tasty tasty noodles. Not that I have experience with that kind of behavior...

Cinnamon Heart Buns

What is this? A Monday post?

I know, how unlike me to deviate from my careful Tuesday-Thursday posting schedule, but these were too cute and too timely not to share. What better way to celebrate Valentines Day than with some heart shaped buns? You can share them with your sweetie or do as I did and revel in the fact that these can be all yours.

My friend Caitlin passed this recipe along to me after talking about her homemade cinnamon buns on Facebook. I played around with her original recipe a bit, but I really like its simplicity. My favorite cinnamon buns are from SmittenKitchen, but those take hours due to the necessary rising time for yeast. These are yeast-free but still utterly delicious. And seriously, fresh cinnamon buns in about 30 minutes (and that’s including pre-heating time for my oven) cannot be beat.

There’s an odd piece of equipment for this recipe – dental floss. I’d read about the trick before, but it had never seemed worthwhile. Let me tell you, it’s totally worthwhile. It makes cutting the log of dough into buns so much easier and cleaner. Plus, you’ll then have the floss on hand for when you need to brush your teeth from the sugar bath they’ll receive from eating the buns!

I think you might be well served by putting the rolled dough in the fridge for a minute or two to help it firm up. It’ll make cutting and forming the hearts a bit easier.

Thick 'n Spicy Hot Chocolate

The weather outside is frightful, but my oven is so delightful, and since we’ve got no place to go, give me some hot chocolate.

Wait, that isn’t how the lyrics go? Really? Because in my mind, when you have terrible weather you need hot chocolate. And today, I needed some hot chocolate. But I was out of Swiss Miss (feel free to gasp in horror here. It’s not great stuff but man is it convenient when you need hot chocolate and you need it now) so I hit the internet. I found this recipe and for once had all the ingredients already, so I gave it a try.

But I wanted to spice things up a bit so it’d be reminiscent of one of my favorite hot chocolates from Chicago – Mexican hot chocolate. I know that Chicago did not develop the concept of spice and chocolate, but I had it for the first time there during college so in my mind the two are linked. This worked out even better than I could have dreamed. And probably only took a minute longer than the Swiss Miss.

Yup, it’s a keeper! 

Healthy Spinach Gratin

I think it’s pretty obvious I think spinach is awesome (see: Spinach Quiche, Chicken Stuffed with Spinach, and Spinach with Shallots). And really, why not? It’s delicious when paired with garlic, cheese, or anything really; it’s stuffed with iron and other nutrients; and it’s generally really easy to a) find in the supermarket and b) cook. Winning!

You don’t know how hard it was to resist writing a tiger blood or Charlie Sheen joke here.

In any case, I’ve made this recipe from Smitten a couple times to great success. It combines all the things I love and is relatively healthy – no cream, only a bit of butter, and just enough cheese to make things delicious. I like this recipe too because it's forgiving; I've added the ingredients in the wrong order, used fresh spinach from the farmers' market, used bagged baby spinach from my local grocery store, used chicken stock, used vegetable stock, forgotten to take it out of the ice bath right away - it doesn't matter. It still tasted good at the end of the day.

So I hope you enjoy it as well!

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Tacos

I love tacos, but sometimes I don’t love buying hamburger. So when I found this recipe for a veggie taco with two of my favorite veggies, I was sold. Joy’s tacos might take longer than simply browning hamburger and adding a packet of taco seasoning (which don’t get me wrong, can be delicious) but it’s cheap and tasty. I think my total costs came out under $5 for all the ingredients at Whole Foods. And really, how often can you brag about that?

I hope you enjoy!