{If you get my song reference you’re my new favorite person.}
It’s Pin Party time again! {Here’s Pin Party #1}
Wanna play? Leave a link to an image or post you want pinned/re-pinned! Be sure to visit Lindsay’s pin party for lots of ideas and inspiration.
The poor potato.
It gets such a bad rap.
But it’s not the potato’s fault.
It’s the French fry’s.
See, a single baked potato has over 40% of your daily potassium needs and almost 50% of your daily vitamin C needs. Not too shabby, huh? It’s the frying that ruins it for the rest of the potatoes.
Potatoes are my comfort food. They’re warm, filling, and yummy. Now, I’m not saying I don’t love French fries {or tater tots} because, boy, do I…
But there IS a healthier alternative. The trick is to make them just as delicious. I’ve finallly gotten it down pat.
The key is boiling the potatoes first. The other key? A hot, hot baking sheet. I love to flavor mine with rosemary and garlic, but feel free to season them with just about anything. But oh how good the rosemary and garlic makes the house smell…
Crispy Roasted Potatoes
Ingredients
Instructions
Place baking rack on lowest slot in oven. Put baking sheet on rack and preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Place potatoes in pot. Fill with water to cover potatoes. Bring to a boil. Boil about 5 minutes, just until starting to soften.
While potatoes are boiling, combine olive oil, rosemary, and garlic.
Drain water and return potatoes to pan.
Mix with olive oil mixture. Stir vigorously for several minutes- the idea is to thoroughly coat the potatoes and bruise them slightly.
Spread potatoes on hot baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Roast for 30 minutes, stirring and rotating pan halfway through.
Cook until browned and crispy.
What’s your favorite way to eat potatoes?
I’m having trouble believing next this weekend is Labor Day weekend.
Labor Day weekend. The end of white pants, white shoes, and more importantly, the symbolic end of summer. Kids are back in school and the mornings are damp with a dew. The chill in the air suggests the whisper of the impending fall, but it quickly fades and is replaced by the muggy summer heat we’ve become so familiar with the last few months.
I’m looking forward to fall like you wouldn’t believe: hoodies, scarves, boots, and lattes. Apples, pumpkins, cloves, and nutmeg. But part of me is mourning the end of summer. There were no weekends on the boat this year. No wakeboarding adventures. No wine festivals. No concerts on the lawn and no running races.
But our summer was full of plenty of joy: laughing, reaching, crawling, standing. The milestones we watched this summer were far more important than a few extra moments basking in the sun.
The cooler weather means more walks and runs with baby. Maybe some family bike rides. Hikes and hopefully some apple picking. But first we have to send off summer in style. With good food of course. 
Pull out that grill one more time and use it to add that unmistakable flavor to your burgers, buns, and veggies. Your Labor Day feast doesn’t have to mean mayo-laden potato salad and coleslaw, hot dogs and cheeseburgers. Think outside the box and keep things light and fresh this time around with some of these healthy labor day food ideas:
Black Bean and Roasted Corn Nacho Bites with Avocado Crema
Chickpea Quinoa Pineapple Burgers
Oven “Fried” Pickles with Skinny Herb Buttermilk Ranch Dip
Honey Balsamic Roasted Cherries
A unique burger, scratch made buns, fun veggie sides, and out-of-the-box desserts with end-of-summer fresh fruit. What better way to celebrate the end of a wonderful season?
BACARDÍ Classic Cocktails Light is a new line of low calorie, ready to serve cocktails. At less than 95 calories for a 4-ounce serving, BACARDÍ Classic Cocktails Light is available in Pina Colada and Mojito flavors and is made with natural flavors, real juice and pure cane sugar. Whether enjoying a favorite cocktail after a long day or throwing a party, BACARDÍ Classic Cocktails deliver classic cocktail taste that’s a hit with friends, won’t add inches to your waistline and won’t take all day to prepare.
Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Bacardi via Glam Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Bacardi.
Join Bacardi in sending summer off in style tomorrow night for a chance to win $100 & $150 gift cards from Sur La Table during their chat on the ‘best of’ summer entertaining tips.
*Images belong to posts they are linked to.
Let me start by saying two things.
1. There are a LOT of ways to make a really good chili.
2. The best meals are often the ones with the least amount of thought and effort.
The first one makes me pretty happy. I can say “we’re having chili for dinner” and it’s not greeted with a moan of “agaaain?” because the chances of it being the same as last time are slim to none.
The second one should please me, but it drives me up the wall. Meal planning and dinner-brainstorming is hard work! Especially when you {gasp} have no interest in food.
It seems like the dinners that happen only after hours of staring vacantly into the pantry waiting for magic to appear, and only happen after randomly grabbing things and throwing them into a pot out of desperation {or starvation}, are the dinners that turn out the best.
I’m sure there’s a direct correlation between time spent preparing dinner and it’s subsequent deliciousness, and much to my dismay, it goes in the opposite direction one would think.
Back to the first point. You can make a really stinking good chili that takes all day simmering on the stove or crock pot.
Or you can spend 5 to 20 minutes and come up with something as equally delicious. The frustrating rules of the kitchen.
Case in point: Pantry Chili. Kind of like kitchen sink chili, but without as many ingredients.
Pssst…wanna know my secret for making it taste like it’s been cooking all day? Fennel seeds and Worcestershire sauce. Now don’t go telling anybody…
Chili of course is supremely sufficient as a one bowl meal, but to balance it out and change it up a little bit, it also goes perfectly with a simple side like roasted red potatoes.
Chopped up red potatoes coated in olive oil, a clove of minced garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Roasted at 425 degrees for 45 minutes, flipping after 30.
I think it goes without saying that chili also goes perfectly with corn bread. Something about the spicy paired with the ever so slight hint of sweet. Heck, forget the chili, just give me corn muffins!
Heck, forget the chili, just give me corn muffins!
What’s your favorite version of chili? Black bean wins for me, hands down!
P.S. Vote for my Nature Made Better You entry on Facebook! Please! 🙂
Also: My 21 Week pregnancy update is up over at tiny sneakers!
To me, the day time changes is much more indicative of spring than the actual first day of spring. It didn’t hurt that it attempted to hit 80 degrees here yesterday.
We celebrated with burgers- traditional cookout fare.
Only we also spent the weekend knocking down our deck, so our grill isn’t exactly available for use.
So the burgers were baked. And they weren’t really burgers- they were bean burgers.
{But they were good enough for the husband to say he’d gotten his burger fix… so that counts, right?}
Chipotle Bean Burgers
Ingredients
Instructions
Chop onion and garlic in food processor.
Add beans and peppers and pulse, but don’t completely pulverize- you want to still be able to see some beans.
Stir in oatmeal and seasonings.
Divide mixture into four; form patties and place on greased baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes at 450, flipping half way through.
I had a teeny tiny baby onion, so you might not want to use the whole thing if yours is bigger.
Add beans and peppers and pulse, but don’t completely pulverize- you want to still be able to see some beans.
Stir in oatmeal and seasonings.
Divide mixture into four; form patties and place on greased baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes at 450, flipping half way through.
Since bean burgers tend to be a little doughy and starchy in texture, I served them with toasted sandwich thins to cut down on the squishiness. {And with baked potato wedges tossed in olive oil and rosemary.}
Later smothered with ketchup, Dijon mustard, and lettuce.
I can now say I’m officially obsessed with chipotle peppers in adobo. I usually ignore that ingredient in a recipe because it seemed like too much work to buy a can for just one pepper. But I had some on hand and tried them- it was totally worth it.
What’s your favorite thing about spring?
