Baked Avocado Fries

Hey Guys! Here's an awesome recipe Gianana and I decided to try from pinterest! I got the recipe from here:

http://bethcooks.squarespace.com/journal/2011/1/6/baked-avocado-fries.html

Pasted here with my changes:

Ready for breading

BAKED AVOCADO FRIES
1/4 cup flour

1 tsp kosher salt

2 large eggs, beaten

2 cups panko (Japanese bread crumbs)

3 firm-ripe medium avocados, pitted, peeled, and sliced into 1/2-in. wedges

Preheat oven to 450.

Coat avocado slices in the four, then egg, then panko. Place on a cookie sheet coated in butter for nonstick. Drizzle wedges with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, then bake for about 20 minutes at 450, or until they are golden brown.

   

Pre-cooking

I highly recommend them! I used Italian seasoned Panko mix from Progresso and 3 avocados, and drizzled the fries with olive oil instead of a spray. It goes great with a variety of sauces, I tried ranch, hot sauce and peppers coated in oil and all were great. The original recipe also suggests sour cream and I really want to try them with marinara. 

Pure deliciousness.

Enjoy!

Pita Pizzas!

As a recent college grad (11 months is totally still recent so shhh), I'm pretty lazy in the kitchen. Part of this blog existing is to motivate me to cook more. But today I came home exhausted from work and stuck to my fallback-- Pita Pizzas! I like to pretend that I single handedly thought of these and invented them last year, but I'm sure some other lazy bum has made them before me. Basically you just take a whole pita and pretend it's pizza crust. Add the veggies you would normally stuff into the pita on top instead, and use either pesto or tomato sauce as a base. Or even olive oil if you're out of ingredients! Today I made one with tomato sauce, spinach, mushrooms, olives, grape tomatoes, and feta cheese because that's what I had lying around. I also added fried zucchini on top that i sauteed in olive oil, then put salt and pepper on everything. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes until the spinach shrinks up and it looks nice and toasted. Yum!

Here's the one I made today, and some others from the past are below.

Pesto pizza with parmesan, feta, and bacon bits.

Tomato sauce, Prosciutto, mozzarella, feta, parmesan, spinach pizza, before it's cooked.

Same pizza after the oven. Melty cheese and shrunken spinach. Yum!!

Variation Using BBQ sauce instead of Tomato Sauce

Variation with BBQ sauce olives, mexican cheese, tomatoes and parmesan

I hope this has been a wonderful lesson in laziness and utilizing the same ingredients in multiple recipes! haha. Because the one I made today was basically the pita from last week but warmed up with tomato sauce :) Happy cooking!

The Second Best Thing Invented by the Greeks... PITAS!

Healthy Eating. Gross. Right? WRONG!

Foodgasm acheived based on this super yummy yet very healthy meal: 320 calories, and full of vitamin D, veggies, whole wheat, and fiber.

Ingredients:

Wheat Pita Pocket (Sara Lee was on sale)

Hummus (Athenos Garlic and Artichoke)

Baby Spinach

Sliced black olives

Sliced Baby Bella Mushrooms

Grape Tomatoes

Reduced Fat Feta Cheese, crumbled

Salt and Pepper to taste

Spread one tablespoon of hummus on each half of the pita, then stuff each slide with other ingredients. Spinach goes in first, then cheese and veggies, salt and pepper last.

YUMMMM and so very filling :)

A variation with Mozzarella instead of Feta for a Caprese-like Pita

If there's one thing Italians know how to make, it's pasta sauce. And mine is the best.

Ancient family recipe I tweaked by using canned mushrooms. Used it for a lasagne and it came out amazinggggg. May or may not have eaten the whole thing in 2 days. :)

DONDI’s HANGB PASTA-MEAT SAUCE

½ oz Dried Italian Mushrooms                       2 lbs. Ground meat (Beef, Veal, or Game)    

3 tbls Olive Oil                                               1 cup Dry Red Wine

¼ cup Butter                                                   2 (28-oz.) cans Contadina Seasoned Crushed

4 cloves fresh Garlic, finely chopped                 Tomatoes, w/Italian Herbs

1 lg. Onion, finely chopped                            2 tbls dried Italian Seasoning

2 med. Carrots, finely chopped                       1 tbls dried Basil

2-3 Celery stalks, finely chopped                   1 tbls dried Oregano                 

½ lb. Italian Sausage, ground                              Salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste

Soak dried mushrooms in 2 cups of hot water until they are reconstituted, then strain thru a cheesecloth lined sieve, retaining the strained liquid,  chop the mushrooms along with the other veggies.  Melt butter with oil in a large saucepan.  When butter foams, add onions, garlic, carrots, celery, and mushrooms.  Saute over medium heat until lightly browned.  Add ground meat & sausage. Cook and stir until meat in no longer pink.  Season with salt & pepper.  Increase heat and stir in wine and reserved mushroom liquid.

Cook until liquid has evaporated. Press tomatoes through a food mill or sieve, to remove seeds.  Stir tomato pulp into the meat/veggie mixture. .Add all the spices.  Cover and reduce heat.  Simmer 1 to 1 ½  hours or until sauce reaches a medium-thick consistency.  Stir occasionally during cooking to mix and prevent sticking.  Makes 5-6 cups of sauce. Leftover sauce can be frozen.                 

       

Lasagne

8 oz noodles

8 oz ricotta cheese

1 egg beaten

2 TBL grated Parma. cheese

3/4 lb. Mozzarella or Monterey jack sliced thin

1/4 cup Parma. cheese.

Cook noodles according to pkg. directions. Drain and cool a bit. Blend ricotta with egg and 2 TBL Parma. cheese. In a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish spread about 1/2 cup of sauce. Over this layer 1/3 of noodles, half of the ricotta mixture and 1/3 of the Mozza or Jack cheese. Cover with sauce. Sprinkle with grated Parma. Repeat. Top with remaining Noodles, cover generously with sauce, remaining Mozza or Jack, and Parma.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.

The place I probably spend the most frivolous money at any given week... MIKUNI

Davis has no shortage of sushi buffets. Nobu, Fuji's, the appropriately titled Davis Sushi Buffet... all solid places to get tempura sushi in mass quantities for cheap. But if you want melt in your mouth deliciousness... Mikuni is where it's at! I cannot recommend their platters enough, $50 each on mondays! Feeds 4 comfortably or 3 to capacity with forcing yourself the last few bites ;) Great deal and super delicious varieties. But I mostly go there for happy hour! No, not that kind of happy hour, though they do make some sweet drinks and sake. They have $3-$5 rolls from 4-6 on weekdays! Amazingness, you can get a simple roll for $4 or $5, $1 miso soup, and unagi of the day for $4! plus tempura, edamame, and FLAMING SHROOMS are all on the menu too. Flaming shrooms are tempura mushrooms stuffed with crab and cheese and covering in spicy sauce. Best thing EVER. Wow now I really want to go back. Good thing I'm going on tuesday! (All my tip money goes to this restaurant).

Pro-tip-- Sign up for the Mikuni card and you get a point for every dollar you spend. If you are a frequent eater like me, it's awesome cuz you get shirts and gift cards and points towards vacations and such after a few hundred points, easy if you go with bigger groups! They give you points based on the total bill, not just your plate. :)

Food Porn!

Flaming Shrooms

Una-Cali Roll

Soft-Shell Crab/ Spider Roll

Fried Shrimp & Avo Roll, Una-cali Roll, Judy Roll (Spicy Tuna and Crab)

Judy Roll, Unagi Nagiri, Miso, Flaming Shrooms, and Una-Cali Roll

Pank Shrimp and Tuna Roll and Unagi Nagiri

Albacore Pepperfin

Triple chocolate Mouse Dessert

Crab Avo Roll with Salmon, Yellow Tail, and Tuna on top, Spicy Crab Handrolls

Al Pacino Roll!

Bacon Roll! (Sorry for the bad pic quality! Pre-iPhone ;))

Enchiladas! Because anything covered in cheese is amazing.

Sooooo I have no rights to this recipe as I got it from a dear family friend, but I have to say these are the best enchiladas EVER and got me to eat again while I was on an emo-induced hunger strike so clearly they must be phenominal.


Loooook at the cheese!

The best part about this recipe? It used a cooked chicken and canned sauce! Easy Peasy. There is no way you can mess this one up. And it's only 350 calories per enchilada :)

Without further ado, the recipe:

2 Packages Flour shells from Safeway and they say “Hand Made” on the package (they come 8 to a package). In a pinch you can sub Guerrero fajita size flour ones that come 20 to a pack.

2 Large Cans “Green Enchilada” sauce

1  Whole Roasted Chicken from Safeway

3 Bags Lucerne 4-cheese Mexican blend

2 small cans sliced black olives

Cut chicken off of bone and dice into smaller pieces.

In microwave, heat tortillas for about 12 seconds (enough to allow them to fold easily)

Pour a little bit of Green Enchilada sauce in a pie plate or regular plate and coat the tortilla

After coating tortilla place in chicken, olives and cheese and then roll it up and place it into a backing dish

Repeat the above until you run out of ingredients, usually about 15-16 enchiladas.

Now take the remainder of the Green Enchilada sauce in the can and pour it over the enchiladas. I usually use two rectangle baking dishes and thus one can per dish.

Now spread a vast amount of the cheese (about ¼ to ½” thick worth) over all of the enchiladas.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes.

DELICIOSO! :)