Branzino.

Veggie Shepherd’s Pie with Sweet Potatoes. Om nom.

Adapted from Happy Herbivore:

What You Need:

• 3 avg. sized sweet potatoes
• 3-4 cloves roasted garlic (I’ll show you how to do that)
• 1 can of black beans, or you could cook your own.
• 1 small red bell pepper, diced small. About half a big freaky one.
• 14 oz fire roasted canned tomatoes, diced.
• about 1/2 cup medium hot salsa. I used chipotle flavor.
• 1 stalk celery, small diced
• 1 ear fresh corn, cut off the cob. Or use canned/frozen, about a cup.
• 4 sliced thin green onions.
• spices: oregano, chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper, pepper flake.
• cheese, preferably Monterrey Jack or something similar
• minced cilantro

How You Do

• Pre Heat oven to 350. wrap one head of garlic with a little oil in foil, and put it in the oven. 
• Poke hole in your potatoes, wrap in foil or place on a baking sheet as is. Roast till done. This could be 25 minutes, it could be 40. Check them periodically. They are done when soft to the touch, they pull back off the skin a little, you’ll see goodness oozing from the holes you poked. You want them SOFT. You are MASHING them.
• The garlic will be done much sooner, usually around 15 minutes. You’ll smell it, and when opened and you poke it, the garlic wil lbe soft to the touch. It’s easy to take pieces out- you can squeesh them out like a pimple even. YUM.
• While your shit is baking, saute your diced veggies. You need a medium-large saute pan, a little oil, and medium-medium high heat, do not burn your shit. Add the tomatoes and their juice after a few minutes; the stuff is done when the veggies are tender but not mushy, ok you don’t want mushy.
• 
• When the potatoes are done, peel them and mash them. Use a fork or a masher or whatever. Throw in a touch of seasoning if you’d like, I did.
• Layer the beans and then veggies in a 9 by 9 casserole dish. 
• 

• Smooth the potatoes over this. Sprinkle on the cheese if you want to use cheese.
• 
• Bake off in the oven until everything is nice and hot, and cheese is a little brown if you’re using it. What I did was broil it for four minutes because I work fast and shit was still hot. 350 until browned will work for people not that fast. I don’t want you to burn your shit.
• Take out of oven, let cool a little, sprinkle with cilantro, and fucking enjoy.

Fuck it. Watching Babettes Feast.

youcrashquims:

Blackberry jam.

16 oz blackberries, frozen/thawed + 1/2 c fresh oj (i used tangerine juice actually), 3.5 oz fresh picked basil, 2/3 c sugar, 3 T lemon juice. blend all but the blackberries; add liquid to the blackberries in the pan, simmer half an hour, and bam, you’re done!

Olive oil-orange Polenta Cake

This is a recipe adapted from one I use at work; I took out the butter and substituted extra virgin olive oil instead. I’m not saying it’s Super Healthy, but I’ve cleaned it up some. It’s like cake and cornbread had a love child, and it’s a good, light snack cake, and pairs beautifully with orange, with pears, with strawberries, and with blueberries.

• 3/4 c extra virgin olive oil + 3 T
• 11 oz raw sugar (you can use regular, but I always use raw where I can)
• 5 eggs, room temperature
• 6 oz polenta
• 8.5 oz unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2.5 tsp baking powder (aluminum free if you can get it)
• 2 t salt
• 2.5 oranges- the juice and the zest
• 1/2 c sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 300 Fahrenheit. grease 2 9 inch cake pans, and put down parchment circles in each, and of course, then grease/oil/butter those. Or use one big pan. Baking times will then vary of course. 
2. Cream the oil, and sugar; it will not get light and fluffy like butter and sugar do, but let it mix a while in your mixer, or do it by hand and make sure the shit’s good and mixed.
3. Add the eggs 1 at a time, scraping down your bowl to ensure it’s all mixed up. Shit will get creamier at this point.
4. 4. Add 6 T fresh squeezed orange juice, and mix in.
5. Combine the polenta, flour, salt, baking powder, and zest; stir into the egg and oil and sugar mixture slowly, and do not over mix.
6. When combined pour into your greased, parchment lined baking pans. The parchement is important because this batter can be sticky. Make sure the sides of the pan are well oiled down. I’m sure you could do flour and butter, but I didn’t, so. 
7. Bake for about 35045 minutes or until it’s done. You want it light brown, and you want the middle to be not-liquidy. you can poke it with a toothpick to make sure it’s not wet.
8. When it’s done, lightly go around the edges of the pan with a spatula before flipping it out onto a cutting board, or cake rack, whatever.
9. IF YOU WANT: the remaining oj and sugar can be slowly heated to a syrup; when that syrup is totally combined- no gritty sugar, guys, you then poke a few holes in the cake and pour the syrup on top. 
10. I didn’t do that, though, I served it with homemade strawberry jam and it was fucking awesome.

Mexican chocolate scones!

Baked.

Before the baking- blueberry walnut muffins. 76 of them.

Too earlty to be in this cold ass walk in.

Duckin remy is all we got a french tradition we show our ass nd smokecigas. He’s right. Ih my ogdd

Hake fillet with sugar snap peas, roasted baby potatoes, corn, and salsa verde

Yule cookies, folks.

Butter cookies filled with raspberry jam.

So my phone is being a fuckass.

I made blackberry basil preserves for my friends, and strawberry preserves for Daniel’s family because the blackberry basil is too weird for Maconites. I made the banana pecan streusel bread for some friends, and also some dark chocolate-white chocolate- oreo- peppermint bark, which is currently cooling so I can break it into bits and pieces. I feel accomplished, because I did all this in about three hours worth of time. The pics don’t want to load, and I don’t know if it’s my phone or tumblr. Probably both.