Last week, in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, I decided to brush up on my Mexican dishes. I experimented with guacamole, tortilla stew (which I turned into a bean soup), rice and bean salad, and allergy free tortillas (not as tasty as corn tortilla *sigh*). Before I go posting all of the recipes, I need to perfect them first, so today, I’ll just share the rice and bean salad recipe since it was fail-proof and it photographed really well 
. Before I get into the recipe, I’d like to share a little “Did you know?” about my family. My uncle’s [...]… Continue Reading
Category Archives: The Kitchen
Mexican Rice and Bean Salad
SweeTango Apples: The Best I’ve Ever Had & A Muffin Recipe
While I generally love anything with apples; applesauce, apple pie, apple jelly, apple whatever, I don’t eat the fruit (apples) as often as I’d like. I prefer an apple that is both equally sweet and tangy and those are hard come by. The apples I have eaten have either lacked sweetness or tanginess. Weeell, I was offered the opportunity to try SweeTango, a new variety of apples promising to be oh-so-delicious. I figured if I didn’t want to eat them as is, I’d just bake with them. The latter did not happen. I received a shipment of SweeTango apples (overnighted, first [...]… Continue Reading
Slow Cooker Mixed Bean & Italian Sausage Soup
Italian sausage during grilling season is one of my weaknesses. The flavor of the sausage combined with a well done grilled taste, hint of BBQ sauce of a bun is enough for me. So when asked to try Johnsonville’s new Brat and Italian Sausage Burgers, I was super excited. Italian sausage in the form of a hamburger patty? Heck yeah. So I thought. I really wanted to like the Brat Burgers, but I have texture issues. I have a hard time biting into anything that mimics a scrambled egg patty, no matter how delicious the flavor is. The burgers were [...]… Continue Reading
Grilled Spinach Veggie Pizza
One thing I’ve been meaning to do this summer is cook a pizza out on the grill. Well, Sunday night I decided to do so and it came out sooo yummy and beautiful! It’s been a while since I’ve made homemade pizza and I have been reminded of its deliciousness! Homemade pizza is so simple to make although I feel bouts of laziness set in when it comes to making the dough. So besides the dough, my ingredients include a regular pasta sauce (too lazy to make my own), minced garlic, green pepper, red onion, shredded mozzarella cheese, and a [...]… Continue Reading
Patriotic Star Vanilla Cupcakes With Fruit
I swear the 4th has snuck up on us. Which also meant scrambling for ideas for this year’s special dessert. I wanted to bake some cupcakes and give them a patriotic twist without artificial coloring. I’m just on the fence about them and avoid them as much as possible. So I decided that strawberries and blueberries would give my star shaped cupcakes a patriotic splash of color. Using my favorite recipe for vanilla cupcakes, I folded sliced strawberries and whole blueberries into the batter and topped them with a cream cheese icing and more strawberries and blueberries. I love how [...]… Continue Reading