Sweet potato frys!

I am NOT a fan of sweet potato! I like... correction HAVE A CRAZY LOVE for potato, but not the sweet kind! Recently i tried a sweet potato fry, and kinda sorta loved it!!! i wanted to make my own, a little healthier... SOOOOO I DID!!!! Here's what you'll need:

Sweet Potato (i used 2)
Salt (1/4 teaspoon)
Pepper (to taste)
Paprika (1/2 teaspoon)
Cinnamon (1/4 teaspoon)
Rosemary (i used a pinch because I'm not a huge fan, make sure you crush them up in your fingers before adding to the potato
Olive Oil (1/4 cup... or less if you wish!)
Zip Lock bag

Preheat Oven to 425
Cut up potato's into fry like shapes
Add them and everything else into a Ziploc bag
Close, and SHAKE!!!!

Place them on a baking sheet in a single layer

Bake for 30 mins, turning every 10 mins

You'll want to eat these up all by yourself before your family finds out you've made them!!! they are THAT GOOD!!!!!!

cute idea for tomato soup

I'm making tomato soup tonight for dinner, and thought i would "jazz" it up a little... I am mostly going to use soup from the can... but I'm adding a few things...

I'm roasting tomato's, onion's, and garlic @ 400 degrees, for 35 mins. I'll put them into a blender, (you could use a food processor or hand blender too!) blend up the veggies and then add to the soup that is already in the pan. Use milk instead of water, and I'm gonna add a little cream cheese. You could use Sour Cream also.

Here is the best part!!! we like to make grilled cheese sandwich's and dip them into the soup... well I'm gonna make grilled cheese croutons. Just make grilled cheese sandwich's and cut them up into little squares, and put them on top of the soup! I'm so excited for this dinner... I hope you try it out for a little special dinner :)

Left Over Pork casarole

I had a bunch of left over carnitas pork from a few nights ago, so this is what i did.

I took the pork... Cooked as carnitas: pork + garlic + onions in the crock pot, cook all day, and shred up before eating.

for the left overs:

take the pork, and chop it up so its in smaller pieces. Add BBQ sauce and mix it all up. Put the pork in the bottom of a casserole dish. Then add mashed potatoes to the top, and shredded cheese to the top of that. For a little extra add french fried onions and bake at 350 for about 30 mins.

For the potatoes, you could use boxed, or fresh.
I boiled 4 red potatoes with the skins on with garlic and salt.
drained
added 1 tbsp of butter, and about 3 tbsp of sour cream. Add dry parsley, and green onions, salt and pepper. Mix well and add to the top. You could make the potatoes how ever you want! you could also do scalloped potatoes!!!

I was almost going to make a box of mac and cheese and mix that up and bake with a little cheese.

Another yummy pizza recipe

This is a nice refreshing BLT pizza, with out a lot of heavy greasy toppings. here's what you'll need:

Pizza dough - Use whole wheat if you can find it! and you could use pre-cooked or un-cooked, its up to you!
Cheese - any kind!
bacon - about 4 slices
Lettuce
Tomato
Avocado
Mayo, or ranch dressing

Start by chopping up the bacon into small pieces, and cooking it up in a pan, you could also use pre-made bacon, turkey bacon, or REAL bacon bits

Roll out the dough to form the pizza
add the cheese to the dough, and then add the bacon on top, and a little more cheese to to top of the bacon, cook as directed by the dough.

Chop up the lettuce into thin ribbons, wash and dry. Add about 2 tablespoons of mayo or ranch (use fat free ranch if desired) coat the lettuce thoroughly.

Slice the tomatoes and avocados and set aside until the pizza is done.

once the pizza is finished, add the lettuce to the top, add the tomatoes and avocados to the top of the lettuce. Slice, and Eat!..

You could also add chicken to the pizza if you want to go for a "BLT club" pizza. But i like to keep it simple.

home made chicken noodle soup... so worth it!!!!

This takes about an hour or so, but its soooo worth it!!! and you can make it in larger or smaller quantities! Here's what you'll need:

2 chicken breasts
1 sm/med onion
1 cup of carrots
1 cup of... (i used green beans, you could use WHAT EVER YOU LIKE!!!!)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup of pasta, I used orzo, rice shaped pasta, (because it doesn't get too mushy if you need to save left overs)
1 box of chicken broth
powdered or cubed chicken broth

Start off by browning the chicken in a large pot, you won't need to cook it through, just brown it and set aside. To make it healthier I didn't use any olive oil or butter at this step, but you could if you wanted to.

Remove chicken from pot
Add onions along with 1 tbsp of olive oil
Brown onions slightly, don't over do it because they will disappear once the soup has to boil.
once the onions are browned add the flour, and mix, if the flour is too dry, add in the 2nd tbsp of oil, mix up for a min or so to cook the flour.
Add in the liquid slowly to make sure the flour is not lumpy. Add 1/4 cup of liquid or so, mix up to create a creamy mixture, and then add more liquid, and so on and so on until you've added in about 2/3rds of the liquid.
Add in the carrots and chicken and let boil for about 30 mins making sure the carrots are tender.
After the 30 mins, you can add in any of the quick cooking vegetables you would like.
remove the chicken and shred it with a fork, add it back in.
let boil for a little while longer.
At this point you'll want to taste the liquid. If you find it flavorless, add in a tbsp of powdered chicken broth until you reach the desired taste. You can also add in parsley flakes, and any other dried herbs you like.
Add in the pasta, and once its cooked, serve and eat! its sooo good! you won't be able to stop eating it!!!!

**For all you weight watchers our there, I made the above, calculated it for 2 servings b/c i was very hungry! and it is 13 points per serving, you could cut the serving size down to 4 servings and it would be 7 points. you could also cut the flour and oil and it would be less. I use the flour to make it a little heartier but its not needed.