Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Let me preface this by saying: I love sweet potatoes.  Last year, I found out how to bake them so I baked four to last me the week.  They were gone by the end of the night.  Anyways, I recently went out to eat and had sweet potato fries, which I'd never had before, and they were delicious!  The juxtaposition of sweet and salty was amazing so I had to learn how to make them myself.  And imagine how happy I was too learn that it wasn't difficult AND it's healthier than regular french fries (another one of my favorite foods)!

Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato

1/2 tbs olive oil

salt

pepper

any spices you've got around that you think will taste good on the fries

     garlic powder

     ground cumin

     ground cinnamon (this makes them smell amazing!)

Directions:

1.  Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Wash and peel the sweet potato.

2.  Cut the ends off the sweet potato and then cut it into strips.  I wanted smaller fries (so it feels like I'm eating more of them!) so I cut them to be 1/2" thick and I ended up with around 45 fries.

3.  Mix the slices of potato up with the olive oil and spices.  You want each piece to be coated with plenty of seasoning.  Then lay them out in one layer on a baking sheet.

4.  Bake for around ten minutes, then flip the fries over and bake for another seven minutes or so.

And that's all there is to it!  From my best estimation, fries from potato are around 230 calories so it's a pretty healthy snack or side dish.


Lessons learned:  I should have made these sooner and more often :) 


Verdict:  These are delicious.  I might try using different seasonings in the future (I saw recipes with paprika, taco seasoning, brown sugar, etc.) because I'm pretty sure it'd all taste great on these fries.  And a heads up: they're more like steak fries than crispy french fries you'd get from McDonalds.  I love both types so it's great for me!

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Fudge

I found a recipe for fudge from www.recipegirl.com that looked so delicious and easy, I had to try it! It only takes around 30 minutes to make - and that's factoring in my usual bumbling about in the kitchen. I'd say someone who was a bit more comfortable being in a kitchen could get it all done in 15. Easy, fast fudge? Let's go!

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut butter chips

1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

2.25 cups granulated sugar

1 (7 oz) jar marshmallow creme

1 (5 oz) can evaporated milk

1/4 cup butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

Did you get all that? You just know you can't go wrong with those ingredients...

Directions:

1. Line an 8" X 8" pan with foil and spray with nonstick spray.

2. In 2 separate heat-safe medium bowls, place 1 cup peanut butter chips in one and chocolate chips in the other.

3. In a 3 quart sauce pan (you can do it in a 2 quart one like I did, but you need to be careful because the marshmallow creme expands a lot), combine sugar, marshmallow creme, evaporated milk, and butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils. Boil and continue to stir for 5 minutes. Then remove from heat and quickly stir in vanilla.

4. Quickly stir half of the hot mixture into the peanut butter chips and the other half into the chocolate chips. Stir the peanut butter mixture until fully melted and quickly pour into prepared pan. Stir the chocolate chip mixture until fully melted and carefully spread over top of peanut butter layer. Be sure to do this all quickly because the mixture doesn't take long to set.

The peanut butter layer.

And now with the chocolate layer.

5. Refrigerate until completely cool. Cut into small squares.

Yields 36 pieces of fudge (each around 145 calories).

Lessons learned: Don't just dump in the chocolate layer on the top and expect it to spread evenly over the peanut butter layer. It actually melts and displaces the peanut butter fudge so that the center is mostly chocolate while the outer edges are mostly peanut butter. If you want variances in the chocolate/peanut butter composition though, then by all means, go for it! I also found that the texture was slightly grainy when I tried letting the fudge cool at room temperature and then eating it. My dorky engineering background came into play trying to figure out if it was due to not heating it long enough to allow the sugar to dissolve or if I heated it too long and something akin to grain growth occurred. Turns out it just needed some refrigeration for a smoother texture.

Verdict: I'm definitely making this again! But I need to make sure there are plenty of people I can give this away to so I don't end up eating as much all by myself. Everyone that tried it (from my research group to my college friends to Joseph) loved it so I highly recommend the recipe!

Baked Kale Chips

First off, the question is: what is kale? I wasn't too sure when I stumbled upon a baked kale chips recipe on allrecipes.com, but I figured I'd give it a shot because I love chips but was trying to eat healthy while training for a half marathon. Turns out, it's a type of cabbage and looks a little something like this:

Not too appetizing looking when raw, huh?

My cat sniffed it and then left. And that's saying something coming from a cat that eats paper. Yes, my pet has eaten my homework before. No, that excuse does not work on professors.

So the ingredients list is short and the directions are very simple.

Ingredients

1 bunch kale

1 tbs olive oil

1 tsp seasoned salt (I used Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Remove the leaves from the thick stems and tear into bite size pieces. Wash and dry thoroughly with a salad spinner (I don't have one of those yet so I just dried it with a paper towl). Drizzle kale with olive oil and sprinkle with seasoning salt.

3. Bake until the edges brown but are not burnt, 10 to 15 minutes.

Lessons learned: Spread the kale out in one layer on your baking sheet so that it'll all get crispy. The kale will shrink a lot after baking. Also, watch the time carefully. I only baked mine for 7.5 minutes, but I think it was still overdone. Reading through some of the reviews online, it seems that there's about a 30 second difference between it being done and it being burnt. And mine tasted like super crispy (not crunchy) charcoal, which is super appetizing.

Verdict: I only had time to make one batch so there's still half a thing of kale sitting in my fridge. I'll probably make this again to finish it off and cut down the baking time to see if it tastes better. If it doesn't, then this recipe's out for me.

Rum Cookies

Quick background: So one of the vets at Joseph's clinic just got back from a cruise and brought everyone Caribbean Rum Cake. Joseph picked out an amazing pineapple flavored one and it was absolutely delicious. I've been craving rum desserts ever since so I went off in search of an easy recipe that I could make with ingredients in my kitchen. Thank goodness for the internet because I found this cookie recipe fairly easily. I halved the recipe since I was only making cookies for 2 people, but here's the full one:

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter

1.5 cups granulated sugar

4 cups self-rising flour (you can use all purpose with 1 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt)

2 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

2 tbsp rum

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Mix butter, sugar. Add eggs and mix. Add flour, baking powder, and rum and mix.

3. Drop 1 tbs portions and press with fork.

4. Bake 8-15 minutes. Makes about 5 dozen cookies. (With my half recipe, I made small cookies and ended up with around 40 of them. The baking time was also shortened to around 6 minutes.)

Reaction: They turned out... interesting (family code word for "not so great"). They both looked and tasted like biscuits, although very sweet biscuits to be sure. I don't know if it's because I used the all purpose flour substitution or that I used light margarine rather than butter. Then there's also the fact that I lost count of the amount of baking powder I put in and may have put in an extra teaspoon... But the dough was very thick and sticky, which made it difficult to work with. And I didn't enjoy using my hands as much as I usually do because the batter was too rum-full to lick off my fingers. However, they lost the rum flavoring while baking :(

Lessons learned: If the dough doesn't look right, then the cookies probably won't turn out right.

Verdict: I'm giving up on cookies. I've only had success with one type (peanut butter), but I like the Girl Scout peanut butter sandwiches more. I also like Oreos a whole lot. My advice is that if you want a rum dessert, go for a cake.

Easy Chicken Jambalaya

Background: My mom got this recipe from her local HEB and recommended it to me since it was easy and tasty. I set out to buy ingredients on my next grocery shopping trip (I buy what's needed for one dish each trip) and here we are!

Ingredients:

12 oz cooked chicken

1 tbs olive oil

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper

2 to 3 tsp Cajun or Creole seasoning, as desired

2 cups chicken broth

1 can (14.5 oz) stewed or diced tomatoes

1 cup uncooked white rice

1 dried bay leaf

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a large skillet. Saute celery, onion, and bell pepper for 5 minutes; add Cajun-style seasoning and cook 3 minutes until vegetables are tender.

2. Stir in broth, tomatoes, rice, and bay leaf; bring to boil. Reduce to low; cover and simmer 20 minutes or until rice is tender.

3. In the meantime, cook chicken and cut into bite-size pieces. Toss chicken with cooked rice mixture.

This should be enough for 4-6 servings. If it's for 6, it'll be around 215 calories per serving.

Verdict: Easy peasy. And I love it! Joseph had two heaping helpings of this so I know it's good. This will definitely be part of our everyday meal rotation from now on!