Okay, I’m going to start right out by saying these suckers have the same carbohydrate load as a regular corn chip set of nachos. We just had a hankering for a cheat night, but really didn’t want to ingest corn, wheat or other cereal grains. We are so embarrassingly barbaric with these, we lay down oven mitts on our coffee table, place the hot pan on top and sit on the floor and scarf them down with a fork. Let me also say, the salsa recipe is ‘da bomb dot com’, it’s cheaper to make this than to go out and buy a jar.

Alright, alright, I know, you’ve probably made this before. BUT…here’s our twist, we have found the PERFECT oil for homemade mayo, mixed it with a pile of easy to find ingredients and you’ve got an easy, fast, refreshing and flavorful meal.

Per a request, I’ve finally integrated a ‘Print This’ printer-friendly button. I’ll be updating all the old recipes soon! If you have any suggestions or recipe ideas, please email us. We love to hear from you!

More sausage! Brandon was supposed to make dinner tonight and well, I kind of took over. He wanted breakfast for dinner and I’m totally in to that, don’t get me wrong. Problem is, we’re going out of town, out of the country actually, for the next 5 days and I had some stuff I wanted to use up in the fridge.  So we melded our ‘wants’ and came up with this beauty.

Brandon and I just got home from a wedding in Asheville, NC. We did not eat well. We can markedly feel a difference in our moods, quality of sleep and energy levels, when we eat carbs/sugar again. Should I expound, so you know we’re not perfect?  Okay. Here it is. I’m ashamed. Dunkin Donuts bagel sticks (some new fangled breadstick-like confection) with cream cheese, pesto tortellini, penne with vodka sauce, biscuits with gravy, grits, fried potatoes (that tasted like Arby’s curly fries), sweet potato pancakes and wedding cake (carrot! hmmm, moist!). Time frame: 24 hours. Hahaha! So needless to say, we were anxious to get back to our high-fat, high-protein diet…and I wanted to start it off with flavorful Mexican comfort food. I roasted the peppers instead of frying them in batter and added meat and veggies, instead of just straight up oozy cheese.

Ingredients

• 5 poblano* peppers
• 1 lb. fresh chorizo**, casings removed (slit the back of the sausage with a knife and unwrap the meat from the case) and crumbled
• 4 oz. mushrooms, diced
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 3 oz. raw sharp cheddar
• 2 oz. goat cheese
• 2 avocados
• 1 lime, juiced

Method

Preheat your oven to 450ºF.

Slice the tops off your poblano peppers (reserve them, minus the stem) and take out the seeds. Coat in a little bit of fat and place in the oven to soften. We’re trying to roast them and get the skin off, so this should take about 20 minutes.

While the peppers are working in the oven, saute the chorizo, onions, garlic, mushrooms and the chopped pieces of the poblano pepper tops, until everything is soft, about 25 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the cheeses.

Remove the peppers from the pan and wrap them in one big piece of plastic wrap, leave it on for about 5 minutes. This will steam the peppers, thus making the skin easy to peel off.  Remove the plastic wrap and peel the skin off of the peppers with your fingers, if it’s not REALLY easy, wrap them back up and let them steam for a bit longer.

Using a spoon, stuff the chorizo filling into each pepper and place back into the oven to melt the cheeses and warm everything up.

To make the avocado cream, use a fork to mash up the avocados with the lime juice. Serve with the rellenos.

*Poblano chile peppers are mild mexican chiles. Think of it as the less bitter, mexican version of green bell peppers. They’re found at most grocery stores, around the other chile peppers.

**If you can’t find fresh chorizo (dried chorizo is hard and usually labeled Spanish, fresh is soft and usually labeled Mexican), you could substitute fresh andouille or make the chili recipe from the chili cheese dog recipe.

These take literally less than 30 minutes to make. The leftovers are awesome cold and would be great for lunch. Only drawback, they’re a little messy. Well, Brandon is usually the messy eater and didn’t have a problem, but myself, the neat one, had the sauce dripping down my hands. Nothing I couldn’t lick up though…hehe.

Ingredients

• 3 T oil of your choice
• 1 lb. chicken breasts or ground chicken
• 4 oz. shiitake mushrooms, chopped
• 1/2 onion diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 green onions, finely chopped
• handful of cilantro, chopped
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1/4 c wheat free soy sauce
• 1 t chili garlic sauce
• 1 t sesame oil
• iceberg or bibb lettuce
• 1 avocado, sliced

Method

Heat a saute pan with 2 T oil. Cut the chicken into the smallest pieces possible and add the pan. Don’t worry about overcrowding the pan, the chicken doesn’t need to brown, just cook it until it’s done all the way through.

While the chicken is cooking, add the lemon juice, chili sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, green onions and cilantro into a serving bowl.

Once the chicken is done, add it the bowl.

Add a few more glugs of oil to the saute pan and toss in the mushrooms, onion and garlic. Saute until golden, about 10 minutes. Add to the bowl. Toss everything around to coat.

Remove the stem of your lettuce head with a knife (if you’re using iceberg, slice the head in 1/2, lengthwise). Peel the lettuce into individual “cups” and wash.

Pile the chicken into your lettuce cups and top with avocado.

These meatballs are super tender and extremely flavorful. If you don’t like things too spicy, only use 1 or 2 chipotle peppers.

We used a Pyrex glass dish to bake the meatballs in and well, I guess Pyrex dishes aren’t as indestructible as I thought they were. When I went to pour the tomato sauce on the meatballs….KABOOM! I watched in horror and disbelief as my pan cracked into shards of glass. Mind you, this was at 10 o’clock at night and Brandon and I are both starving. I managed to salvage the meatballs, but thought scraping the sauce out of the bottom of the oven would be taking things a little too far. Hehe. Needless to say, sh*t happens and I have learned a valuable lesson: Ceramic > Glass

Meatball Ingredients

• 1 lb. 94% ground turkey (any ground meat will do)
• 1/4 c almond meal
• 4 T bacon fat or butter (not melted)
• 2 eggs
• 3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
• 1 t + 2 t oregano
• 1 c chicken stock
• 15 oz. diced tomatoes
• S & P

Guacamole Ingredients

• 2 avocados
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 2 t chili garlic sauce
• S & P

Method

Preheat the oven to broil.

Place the ground turkey in a large bowl. In the large bowl of your food processor combine the eggs, almond meal, bacon fat or butter, 1 t oregano, 1 chipotle pepper and some S & P. Process until smooth and add to the turkey. Mix with your hands until combined. The mixture will be wet, don’t fret. Form the mixture into balls and place in an oven safe dish. Broil until browned, about 10 minutes.

While the meatballs are browning, add the diced tomatoes, 2 chipotle peppers, chicken stock and 2 t oregano to the same bowl of your food processor and pulse until smooth. Once the meatballs have browned, turn to oven to Bake at 450°F. Add the sauce to your oven safe dish and continue to bake until the sauce has thickened a bit, about 15 more minutes.

Now for the guacamole, place all the ingredients into the smallest bowl of your food processor. Pulse until it’s the consistency you like.

This salad is very traditional, but for some reason, people seem to forget it exists. If you have some fresh herbs lying around, like oregano, basil, thyme, parsley, chives, throw them into the mix too!

Salad Ingredients

• 2 romaine heads, chopped
• 3 green onions, sliced
• 5 hard boiled eggs, chopped
• 1 avocado, chopped
• 6 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
• 2 tomatoes, chopped (or 2 handfuls of grape tomatoes)
• 1/2 English cucumber (doesn’t need peeling or seeding, here’s what you’re looking for)

Method

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Ta-da. Very easy and full of flavor.

Vinaigrette Ingredients

• 1 roasted red pepper
• 2 T mayo
• 2 glugs of olive oil
• 1/2 t garlic powder
• 2 T red wine vinegar
• S & P

Method

Combine all the ingredients into the smallest bowl of your food processor or a blender and blend until smooth.