Green Monster Smoothie

I promise, this doesn't taste as bad/weird as it sounds. I promise. And I hope you trust me.

My favorite color is green, but I'll be the first to tell you that I was skeptical of this recipe or idea. It sounds a little too good to be true. Spinach in a smoothie, giving you all of the nutrition and vitamins but no spinach flavor? Get real. No way.

It was real. And I'm obsessed. I think I've made these at least 5 or 6 times in the past few weeks.

Sorry there's no ingredient picture! You'll need a chopped frozen banana (freeze it after you chop it up!), 1/2 c fat free vanilla yogurt (you could be extra healthy and go Greek here, I'm just not that good), 1 c. milk (I use fat free, you could be extra extra good and use soy or almond, but us simple folk don't have that lying around the house), 1 large spoonful of peanut butter, 1/4 c. frozen raspberries (optional), and a large handful of your leafy green friend, spinach.

This recipe is very, very difficult. And by very difficult, I mean it's so easy you almost don't have to think. Just push a button,

Put banana in blender.

Put berries in blender.

Put large spoonful of peanut butter in blender. LARGE.

Yogurt decides to join.

Along with the milk.

Now fill the blender to the top with your leafy friend. Do not fear the spinach.

Start blending. You may have to stop after a minute and stir to get the spinach sucked in.

Blend until smoooooth.

Drink it. Love it. Take it to school with you and scare your students. Enjoy your life! You'll like the smoothie taste (it's mostly banana, peanut butter, and berry) and you'll like feeling healthy even better!

Southwestern Black Bean and Rice Salad

Sometimes you find a recipe you love. You want to shout from the roof top how much you love it. You want everyone else to love it to, because that justifies how much you love it. Usually for me that kind of love requires chocolate. (Did you see the Texas sheet cake? I'm fairly certain I ate the entire thing in less than a week...) However, this recipe is chocolate free. WHAT?

Have you ever been to Chipotle? Of course you have - and this salad is similar to the filling you may find inside one of their football sized burritos. This is so good the hubster and I usually double the recipe, as it makes perfect leftovers and an excellent lunch. 

All of the ingredients are pretty easy to find! You'll need 2 cups cooked white rice (brown rice works too, but the white is prettier), 2 cans of rinsed black beans, 1 and a half c. thawed frozen corn, 1 and a half c. quartered cherry tomatoes, 1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco or feta cheese, 4 scallions chopped thinly, 1/4 c. cilantro, the juice of two limes, and 1/4 c. olive oil.

The possibilities are endless. Add anything you'd like really! The hubster realllly likes hot foods, so this last time we added 1 serrano pepper - chopped very small. It was delicious, yet totally optional.

Mix it together. All of it.

That's it! Gah, I love salads. Eat for lunch. Eat it for dinner. Put it in a tortilla and eat it as a burrito. Top it with avocado. Eat it with tortilla chips. SO MANY OPTIONS!

Texas Sheet Cake

Here it is. The dessert of my dreams. I thought I knew what chocolate cake was, but I was wrong. So, so wrong.

This is honestly the best cake I've ever eaten. In my life. Ever. I would be lying if I didn't say that I had a piece on a plate in the kitchen that I get up every few minutes to take a hidden bite out of... It is that good.

The cake is chocolate-y. Soft. Crunchy. Fudge-y. Buttery. Thin. Perfect. Huge I mean, just look. How can this cake be bad?

Please, no comments from the weight watchers gallery. This cake is made for bad, rebellious people who eat what they want and you can't do anything about it. Don't judge me. It was my birthday and I'm in love.

The thing I really liked about this cake was that that it was easy. And I had most of the ingredients. And it was good. Did I say thing? I meant there's nothing about this cake I don't like, which is quite annoying.

The starting lineup. For the cake: 2 c. flour, 2 c. sugar, 1/4 tsp. salt, 4 heaping tbsp. cocoa powder, 2 sticks regular butter (no unsalted), 1 c. boiling water, 1/2 c. buttermilk (which can be created from adding vinegar to regular milk... who knew?), 2 eggs, 1 tsp. baking soda, and 1 tsp. vanilla.

WHEW. I know its a lot, but think - you actually know what those things are! No crazy, fancy ingredients that require specialty stores or a french accent to pronounce. Butter-milk. Buttermilk. You're good.

Melt the butter.

Add 4 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder. Allow it to boil for about a minute and turn off the heat. Set it aside.

Mix together the flour, sugar, and salt.

Powder. Good.

Dump the chocolate mix into the flour mixture to help cool the chocolate off a bit. You'll be adding milk and dairy soon and no one wants cooked eggs in their cake!

Add two eggs to your buttermilk.

Add the vanilla and baking powder.

Mix it all up.

Add this to the chocolate/flour mixture and stir it all together.

It should look something like this when you're done.

Dump the mixture in an ungreased jelly roll pan (which I learned is a cookie sheet with edges). Spread it out so it's even.

Place it in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes. Be sure to take a before/ after smell test right now.

While this is cooking, take a moment or two to do some clean up and wash the saucepan you used to melt the butter earlier.

You need to because while you wait you're going to make the frosting!

I don't have a separate frosting line-up picture. I'm sorry. I'm new to this. You need 1 3/4 sticks regular butter, 4 heaping tbsp. cocoa powder, 6 tbsp. milk, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 lb. powdered sugar, and 1/2 c. pecans (Optional, but only if you have nut allergies. If not, you really must put them in.)

Melt the butter y'all. Nothing bad has come from butter. Do not tell me otherwise.

Take your pecans and chop them up. Chop 'em up reall good and tiny. (Something about this cake makes me want to speak in a southern accent. Maybe it's all the butter and the Paula stuff in the news...)

Use a big knife. I promise it helps. Plus, you feel safer from robbers and murderers.

 See this. Those are tiny chopped pecans. Those are well chopped. That chopping takes skill. Just kidding, it just takes patience which I don't often have much left of when I get around to cooking!

When the butter's all melted, add your cocoa powder. Let it bubble for a minute before turning the heat off.

Add your milk and vanilla. 

Add the powdered sugar and realize you probably should've used a bigger saucepan. Oh well!

Stir slowly (since your pan is just a wee bit small until the sugar dissolves!). Keep stirring and stirring until it's smoooooth.

Throw your pecans right on in the vat of chocolate goodness.

Stir. Sigh. Stir. Sigh. Use a spoon to taste test for quality control. Sigh.

After the cake is out of the oven and the frosting is done, dump the warm frosting on the warm cake. The frosting pretty much spreads itself.

It needs a little help. But the pecans make it look rustic, so it doesn't matter too much if it isn't perfect!

Sit, stare, smell, and wait a few minutes until the frosting sets. (If you don't wait, the fudgey frosting will pool up in the missing piece's spot)

Do a favor for me? Eat a piece while it's warm. Know you're a bad, bad, rebellious human being and throw diets to the wind, for one piece.

Or a few pieces... Gahl, look at that texture.

I highly recommend a nice cold glass of milk with this cake. The cake is so rich that the milk does an excellent job making it even better, which you didn't know was possible until right now.

The question I haven't answered, which I know is on everyone's mind, is "Why is it called Texas Sheet Cake?" Well, let me tell you blogosphere, it's a cake as big and over-the-top as Texas and can have no other name. Except maybe Heaven, but God still hasn't responded to the copyright usage yet.

Meatballs

We love pasta in this house. It's cheap, fast, easy, and lasts in the pantry for a long time. However, plain pasta gets quite boring after a while. That is why we decided to make meatballs the other day!

I can't remember the last time I've had meatballs. They were much easier to make than I'd remembered, so I have a feeling we won't be going as long before we have them again.

You'll need 1 lb ground beef, 1/2 c. panko (or any other breadcrumbs), 1 clove of minced garlic, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. black pepper, 1/2 c. milk, 2 tbsp. olive oil, 1/2 onion - diced, and 1 large jar marinara sauce.

Mix the beef, panko, garlic, salt, pepper, and milk.

This is what it will look like. Add more panko if it is too wet or milk if it is too dry.

Roll them into heaping tablespoon sized balls. I always use the measuring spoon so I get them all to about the same size.

Here they are, all nice and pretty like.

While shaping the meatballs, heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the onions and cook for a minute or two while you finish forming the meatballs.

Place the meatballs in the skillet and let them brown for at least a minute or two.

Flip them over and let them get a bit more color for another minute or two.

Cover the entire thing with sauce. Put a lid on it and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.

I added some chopped basil and parmesan cheese to my finished product, but it was sure tasty either way!