I remember being in high school or maybe junior high, I’m not sure, and my family being OBSESSED with Tortilla chips with a hint of lime. My mom bought the bags by the 2s and we’d beg to ‘snack’ for dinner so that we could binge on the chips.
I remember my lips stinging after while from the salt but going back for more. We didn’t even dip the chips in salsa or use them in a taco salad: we just ate them.
I haven’t seen these bags of chips around the stores in awhile – I’m not sure if it is because they’re no longer made or because my trips down the chip aisle are much more rare. Because I’ve been making homemade baked taco shells I’ve found myself with a surplus of corn tortillas and without a craving for more tacos. Enter these chips.
Baked Tortilla Chips with a Hint of Lime
Ingredients
corn tortillas
cooking spray
1 lime, zested
1 Tablespoon table salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Combine salt and lime zest in a small bowl; set aside.
- Spray corn tortillas with cooking spray on each side and cut into triangles.
- Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet.
- Place in oven and bake 7-10 minutes, or until beginning to crisp.
- Remove from oven, sprinkle with salt mixture, and return to oven.
- Bake until uniformly crisp and brown, 3-5 minutes longer.
My husband and I are very honest with one another. Honesty is very important in our marriage. I think honesty is important in most marriages but the kind of honesty we share might be different from the average relationship.
Most men learn in the course of their marriages that some statements are just better left unsaid (remember when your body was hot before we had kids? You just have a knack for doing laundry – is that because you are a woman?).
I prefer all things be said. Some call that ‘brutal honesty’ but I just call it normal.
So I reminded my husband that pushups were a good way to keep his pecs in shape.
And my feelings weren’t at all hurt when the Omnivore admitted to me last week that my dinners have been on the low end of the bell curve when it comes to interest and flavor. It wasn’t news to me: I’d been eating the meals, too! I’d been depending on my pantry, slacking in true meal planning, making large batches of things to be reheated multiple times throughout the week, and just plain on my C game. I was busy. Hey, at least we were eating.
He’s a lucky guy because I started pulling recipes that were sure to rock his world. One of those was this pizza. We live in a land of strawberry fields. I jog by acres and acres of berries and just smell the sweet scent the entire time. My running partners were talking strawberry shortcake this past Saturday morning but I was thinking strawberry pizza. With bacon. And goat cheese.
I made this pizza with guidance from three recipes I’d recently seen that combined goat cheese and strawberries:
Roasted Strawberry Crostini with Basil and Goat Cheese
Balsamic Strawberry and Goat Cheese Flatbread
Strawberry Balsamic Bacon Pizza
I picked aspects from eating that I was drawn to and the result made the Omnivore forget that there was ever such thing as a dinner rut. He even went back for seconds, which he doesn’t do since he generally needs to save room for dessert. Also, when he awoke the next day and saw the leftovers in the fridge, he immediately ‘called’ them for his lunch. Winner!
Strawberry Goat Cheese Pizza with Bacon
Ingredients
1 1lb ball pizza dough
2 strips of thick-cut bacon, cooked and crumbled
4 ounces crumbled goat cheese
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
6 strawberries, hulled and thinly sliced
1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
2 tablespoons chopped basil leaves
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
- Roll pizza dough out into a 12 – 14″ round.
- Using a pastry brush, apply balsamic vinegar to entire surface of the pizza dough.
- Top dough with sliced strawberries and then the red onion slices.
- Distribute goat cheese all over dough and then cover in crumbled bacon.
- Bake 12 minutes or until done. Sprinkle with basil leaves and serve warm.
Preparation time: 15 minute(s)
Cooking time: 15 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 4
When we lived in Charlotte we would go out to eat Indian food quite regularly. The Omnivore always played it safe and ordered butter chicken or chicken tikka masala, but I always dabbled in the curries. One of my favorite dishes to order was the mango curry – for some reason I felt I never could approximate it at home (one of my criteria for ordering off restaurant menus).
Now that we’ve moved away from Charlotte to an extremely small town where there are no restaurants – or Indian restaurants – figuring out how to recreate dishes I loved from our past becomes a challenge worthy of taking.
Janet at The Taste Space is a loyal commenter on my blog. One morning while I was ditching out on my 5:30am run I started perusing her posts and ran into a recipe for Mango Curry. Her recipe uses split peas – which would be great, but I only had lentils on hand so that’s what I used, and also calls for making a homemade peanutty spice blend.
I used store bought garam masala instead of making the spice blend and we loved the results. This was one of those meals that I couldn’t reveal to my husband what was in it until after dinner. He loved the flavor, but had no idea it was derived from mangoes. He would have cringed at the title, and you might, too, but I encourage you to give it a try.
Lentil Mango Curry (inspired by the The Taste Space)
Ingredients
1 medium-sized firm, ripe mangoes, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp cumin
1 tbsp oil
1 onion, diced
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
Instructions
- Heat the oil over medium heat in a large soup pot. Add onion and saute for about 3-4 minutes, until beginning to tenderize. Add garam masala, cumin, turmeric, and salt. Cook 2-3 minutes.
- Add 3 cups water and 1 cup lentils and bring mixture to a bowl.
- Remove and discard any scum that forms.
- Once boiling, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes until the lentils are mostly tender.
- Add the mango, chopped cilantro, and an additional 1 cup of water to the lentils. Cover pot and simmer for an additional 30-40 minutes, until the lentils are very tender.
- Partially mash the lentils if desired. Remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes before serving.
Preparation time: 10 minute(s)
Cooking time: 30 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 4
This meal was MVP of the week. Quesadillas aren’t something I make often – for some reason I categorize them as ‘unhealthy’ and add them to the list of ‘don’t make too often.’ I never order them in a restaurant because they’re a cinch to make at home but I never make them at home because they seem like a splurge reserved for a restaurant.
(Aside: all of the sudden I wish I taught high school English instead of biology – what a great explanation for a Catch 22.)
We recently were expecting company for dinner and because I knew we’d be preoccupied with the horses I wanted something quick and easy to whip up. I also wanted a crowd pleasure – but not something too boring a normal. I had planned to make crab and avocado quesadillas but I found out my dinner guest wasn’t big on crab, so I turned to chicken.
The mango salsa certainly added interest to the meal and it was even better the next day. The next day? Yeah, so our dinner guests had to unexpectedly cancel, which left us with a metric ton of quesadillas to consume. At first we were bummed but then we were so happy we had all this extra deliciousness. They really aren’t your normal quesadilla fare – they are way more awesome.
Cumin Spiced Chicken and Avocado Quesadillas (adapted from Pink Parsley)
Ingredients
1 avocado
2 scallions, minced
2 Tbs minced cilantro
juice of 1/2 lime
4 oz. Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
8 ounces boneless skinless chicken
1 tsp ground cumin
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
8 5-inch flour or corn tortillas
oil, for the tortillas.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Season chicken with salt, pepper, and ground cumin. Place in a baking pan and bake 15 minutes or until cooked thoroughly. Set aside and allow to cool slightly, then shred.
- In a large bowl, mash avocado and combine with scallions, cilantro, lime juice, chicken, and cheese. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
- To make quesadillas, lightly coat each tortilla on one side with cooking spray.
- Heat a heavy skillet to medium.
- Spread about 1/3 cup of avocado chicken filling over one side of the tortilla. Fold in half and cook in the hot skillet about 2 minutes per side, until the inside is melted and the outside is crisp and spotted golden brown.
- Serve with mango salsa (recipe below).
Preparation time: 15 minute(s)
Cooking time: 10 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 4
Mango Salsa
Ingredients
1 mango, peeled, pitted, and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1/2 roasted red bell pepper (jarred is fine)
1 jalapeno, seeds and ribs removed, minced
1/4 cup cilantro, minced
2 scallions, minced
juice of 1 lime
1/4 cup minced red onion
kosher salt
Instructions
- To make the salsa, combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl. Taste and season with additional salt and pepper if necessary.
Preparation time: 5 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 4
Nearly every day I come home to a vase of freshly cut roses. The Omnivore isn’t going out and purchasing roses nor is he really tending a rose garden to ensure production – the last owners of our farm planted a ton of rose bushes and they simply produce well.
It is still super thoughtful of him to adorn our house with these beauties, though. It also gives him a lot of ‘stock.’ This means when he casually mentions that he’d really like a soft and chewy oatmeal cookie I can’t rightly refuse that request.
To be honest, I didn’t even really think I liked oatmeal raisin cookies. Maybe I never really gave them a proper chance, though. Or maybe I never ran into a recipe as excellent as this one. The texture is perfect and I suppose that comes from using three different types of fat in the batter. The raisins are *just* plentiful enough and the flavor is awesome – spiced with both cinnamon and nutmeg.
Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Cookies (adapted from King Arthur Flour via Sugar Duchess)
Ingredients
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (trans fat-free)
4 tablespoons butter, room temperature
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2-1/4 cups brown sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups rolled oats
1-1/2 cups raisins
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream together the shortening, butter, oil, and brown sugar until completely mixed.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Beat in the sour cream and vanilla extract.
- Stir in the flour mixture in three additions. Stir in the oats and raisins. Make sure the batter is uniform.
- Drop the batter by spoonfuls onto a parchment-lined (or mat-lined) baking sheet.
- Place the baking sheet in the fridge for 10 minutes. Bake for 13-15 minutes.
- Let them cool on the sheet for 5-6 minutes, then carefully transfer them to a wire rack to cool. Makes about 4 dozen.
Preparation time: 20 minute(s)
Cooking time: 15 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 12
