September 2013 – Loving Food, Fashion, & Life

Black-Eyed Peas With Bacon & Ham

Posted on September 29, 2013 by LFFL

Made with black-eyed peas, crumbled bacon, smoked ham, onions, scallions, green bell pepper, minced garlic cloves, dried thyme, butter, cayenne pepper, chicken broth, and salt & pepper. Served with Rice Pilaf made with long-grain brown rice, shallots, butter, chicken broth, and salt & pepper.

Oh, MAN! This is SO righteous! Now this is some GOOD STUFF. I couldn’t stop eating. The combination of all the flavors was crazy good.

Recipe for—Black-Eyed Peas with Bacon

Recipe for—Hoppin’ John

So, if you have nothing else to do today, make some Hoppin’ John black-eyed peas deliciousness.

Take-Away Life Lesson: Bacon and ham can amp up almost anything.

Pasta With Asparagus & Ham

Posted on September 28, 2013 by LFFL

Made with fettuccine, asparagus, Virginia ham, chopped garlic, thyme, dry white wine, heavy cream, nutmeg, Parmesan cheese, and salt & pepper.

Oh, for the love of pasta! I loved this recipe.

Since the prosciutto at the health food store was astronomical in price, I decided to use ham as a substitute which worked fabulously.

Recipe for—Pasta With Asparagus & Prosciutto

So, if you have nothing else to do today, love yourself some pasta dishes.

Take-Away Life Lesson: You can easily replace prosciutto with ham and replace pancetta with bacon. Good to know. Prosciutto and pancetta are much more expensive than ham and bacon.

Cheesy Enchiladas

Posted on September 27, 2013 by LFFL

Made with boneless chicken breasts, black beans, frozen corn, chili powder, salsa, cheddar cheese, and whole-wheat tortillas.

It was an enchilada night. Deliciosooooooo!

Recipe for—Cheesy Enchiladas

So, if you have nothing else to do today, go all out Mexican on yourself. It’s so easy.

Take-Away Life Lesson: Anyone can roll some gunk inside a tortilla and call it an enchilada.

Shrimp Scampi With Angel Hair Pasta

Posted on September 26, 2013 by LFFL

Made with angel hair pasta, shrimp, olive oil, minced garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, lemon juice, lemon zest, white wine, butter, and fresh parsley.

I actually made this recipe for someone else—because, eewwww, seafood grosses me out. I mean, have you seen what seafood looks like when it’s ALIVE?! I can’t even imagine eating it.

Maybe it’s because when I was growing up we never ate seafood— unless you count frozen fish sticks in a box as seafood, then OK we did. But that’s about it!

So, needless to say, trying to cook with something as simple as shrimp was a disgusting chore. I used super long tongs to grab the shrimp every time I needed to do something with them. I just kept imagining these things were alive at some point with their little antennas and all.

I had also bought them already peeled and deveined. I couldn’t even imagine doing surgery on shrimp myself. YUCK!

But before I put the shrimp into the pasta I, naturally, scooped myself up a dose of the pasta without the shrimp because I knew once the shrimp touched it I wouldn’t be having dinner at all.

Recipe for—Shrimp Scampi with Angel Hair Pasta

So, if you have nothing else to do today, get up close and personal with some seafood if you dare. And, if you’re so bold, pull some lobster, octopus, crabs, clams, oysters, shrimp, or shark fresh out of water ALIVE and then cook, cut, and chop or vice versa—EEWWW!

Take-Away Life Lesson: Rubber gloves and super long tongs can help when you want to keep your distance from any seafood while cooking with it.

Salsa Beef Skillet

Posted on September 25, 2013 by LFFL

Made with ground beef, chunky salsa, macaroni & cheese dinner, frozen corn, Mexican-style cheese, green onion, and water.

How hard was this to do? Just get a pot and start dumping things into it and stiiiiirrrrrr.

Recipe for—One-Pot Salsa Beef Skillet

So, if you have nothing else to do today, make your own pot of goulash from whatever you can find at home.

Take-Away Life Lesson: Never underestimate your dumping and stirring skills. YOU CAN DO IT!!

Lasagna Two Times

Posted on September 23, 2013 by LFFL

Made with ground beef, lasagna noodles, egg, mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, spaghetti sauce, fresh parsley, and water.

What exactly do you want me to say about this? Is there something about the picture you’re just not getting? It speaks loud and clear to me.

Can you imagine a bathtub being layered with this stuff? If only there was a baking dish the size of a bathtub. Man, I’d immerse myself and go to town—right in the dead center! I mean, can you imagine being surrounded by all that good lovin’?

Then again, you have the problem of finding an oven that big.

Recipe for—Simply Lasagna

Made with ground turkey, no-boil lasagna noodles, olive oil, onion, minced garlic cloves, stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, eggs, cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese, fresh parsley, seasoning salt, and salt & pepper.

Now this was a different second lasagna recipe I tried. This one had a few more ingredients in it than the first one above but was still just as lovely and simple to make.

I was reluctant to make any lasagna at first because I always thought there was so much work involved. But once I started making it, there really wasn’t anything to it. It was much simpler and quicker than I thought it’d be. And if you have someone to help you, it can cut the time down even further.

Recipe for—Mama’s Lasagna

So, if you have nothing else to do today, find the largest bathtub-sized baking dish you can find and make a big fat lasagna.

Take-Away Life Lesson: There’s nothing wrong with taking a little cheese bath.

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Fried Zucchini With Spicy Dipping Sauce

Posted on September 22, 2013 by LFFL

Made with zucchini, flour, panko bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, fresh parsley, red pepper flakes, eggs, water, salt & pepper, and canola oil; Spicy Dipping Sauce made with sour cream, buttermilk, shallots, fresh chives, cayenne pepper, hot sauce, and salt & pepper.

There’s no way you can eat just one of these. The crispiness of the zucchini made eating these so much more enjoyable.

They’re so good you don’t even need the dipping sauce to eat with these.

Recipe for—Fried Zucchini & Spicy Dipping Sauce

So, if you have nothing else to do today, take some zucchini, slice them up and fry them.

Take-Away Life Lesson: The healthiness of the vegetable zucchini and the badness of the frying sort of kind of cancel each other out, you could say. So fry away!

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