Sweet and Salty

A little bit o' fish, a lotta on my dish.
Some spuds so sweet, they rock the beat.

I really should've been a rapper, I think.
I think a better title for these recipes would be "spicy and savory" or "tangy and spicy" or something, but technically, it's a sweet potato recipe and a fish stick recipe -- so sweet and salty is gonna work!

Spicy Disks of Yum
Scrumptuous Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients:
Sweet Potatoes
1 & 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon New Mexico chili powder
1/2 teaspoon smoked sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
1/8 teaspoon granulated garlic
Butter
Olive Oil


Take your sweet potatoes, and cut them into disks. My potatoes were on the small side, but I would recommend about an inch thick.

Fill a pot with water, and boil your potatoes with some salt for about 10 minutes, until the potatoes are softening. You don't want to cook them all the way through quite yet.
Set them aside on a cooling rack, or some parchment paper. (I used a cookie sheet).

Blend your spices together, making sure to get everything nice and blended! Add some fresh black pepper, for good measure.

Using a fork or spoon, (or even the bottom of a clear bowl!) slightly smash in the tops of your potato disks. This will allow for fantastic absorption of spices, as well as some sharp edges for extra crisping!

Drizzle some butter and olive oil on each disk, then begin to add dollops of spices to the warm surfaces of your potatoes.

Turn the disks over, and repeat with the oil/butter/spice mixture.
Roast them in the oven for about 15 minutes or so, at 375º. Turn them over and roast for another 10 minutes or so -- get them all nice and toasty!
The result is a ridiculously delicious spicy sweet crunch, followed by a creamy potato filling.
Both my hubby and I were floored with how good they were!

Parmesan SeaStickness
Spicy Fish Sticks!

Ingredients:
1 pound of cod fillets (Halibut or Tilapia would work too)
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt




I ended up using Tilapia for this recipe, but I would highly recommend cod, simply because I think cod makes for the best fish sticks!

I absolutely loved the parmesan and crushed red pepper combo here. As I've stated before, I love spicyness -- so any chance I get to incorporate it into our dinners, I do! So this recipe was already perfect to add to my collection.

I had some frozen tilapia in our freezer, which I let thaw out, and then cut into little rectangle sticklings.

**Make sure you rinse and pat your fish dry, before cutting them and coating in the "batter".

I then set aside 3 different containers:
A bowl for the whisked eggs, a bowl for the flour, and a small plate for the bread crumb mixture (parmesan, bread crumbs, crushed red pepper and salt).
For my bread crumbs, I simply toasted (really toasted) some sandwich bread from my pantry.

I then just placed them in a bowl, and crunched them up into fine bread crumbs! They worked great. If you're ever in a pinch and don't have store bought bread crumbs, your regular bread will do the trick!

Now comes the fun part. Roll your fish pieces in the flour, dunk them in the eggs, and then roll them in the bread crump mixture!

Yummy!
You can place them on a baking sheet, and either fry them up in hot oil on your stove, or throw them in the oven. The choice is yours!

To fry, add about a cup of oil to a skillet heated on medium-high. Using tongs (if you have them), carefully add fish sticks and fry them for 1-3 minutes on each side, then place them on a paper towel to drain.

To bake, preheat your oven to 450 and bake for 15-20 minutes until edges are golden brown.

For our yummy dinner, I simply sliced a lemon to serve with the fish sticks, rather than making a mayonnaise-based sauce. I fried the surface of the lemon halves in oil and white wine, which gave the fish sticks some great extra flavor!

 

I will fight to the death, arguing with anyone that says fish sticks and sweet potatoes don't go together.

:)

Happy Dining!

In love,
Cait

italiano! (bring on the meatballs!)

Mmm, mmm, good. Vegetarians, look away!

Since getting back from Christmas break, we've been slowly but surely getting back into the swing of things. We didn't have very long to do that, though!
I had to bounce right back into work upon arrival, and Dusty started his one-week intensive session the following Monday.


One of the best parts of being back has been recipe searching, and meal planning. And the first week we were back, it was time for meatballs!

I found a great recipe. Given that I had just seen that my sister-in-law had made some homemade meatballs, this recipe came along just at the right time! I was craving a pasta night. :)
HEALTH ALERT:
These meatballs contain flaxseed, which has high levels of dietary fiber and is great for all-around health!
While some flaxseed recipes are no good, we both really enjoyed these little guys!

I found the original recipe online, at momlogic.com :)

Beefaball a la Parm
(parmesan meatballs!)

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground turkey (we used BEEF!)

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1 tbsp. ground flaxseed

2 egg whites

1/2 cup bread crumbs

¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 tsp. garlic powder

½ tsp. dried oregano

1 tbsp. dried parsley (we used fresh)

½ tsp. dried basil

A pinch of salt

1 tbsp. olive or canola oil

Directions:
(easy peasy!)

1. Mix all ingredients together with your hands.

2. Roll into 1 1/2inch balls.

3. Heat 1T oil in large skillet. Add meatballs and brown on all sides.

 

 

4. Add desired sauce to pan, homemade or otherwise!



5. Cook about 20 minutes or until meatballs are no longer pink on the inside.

6. Serve over cooked pasta! (we used bowtie, which is my favorite!)



Little known fact: I used to eat uncooked pasta all the time! Yum.

 7. Enjoy!

The flavors of this really come together nicely, especially the parmesan within the meatballs. We cut the meatballs in half, and melty parmesan was there to greet us. It was delish!

EFFICIENCY ALERT:

Realizing we had many leftover meatballs, we decided to make some pita pizzas!

Pita Pita Pumpkin Eata

(Pita Meatball Pizzas!)

Ingredients:

-Pita Bread
-Desired sauce (marinara, yum!)
-Parmesan cheese
-Mozarella cheese (shredded)
-Leftover meatballs (chopped up!)
-Fresh parsley
-Fresh ground pepper

-Whatever-you-want, and lots of it!

Directions:

Take pita bread, (ours came pre-sliced in halves), and smother with sauce, cheese, veggies, meatballs, cheese, pepper, cheese, and so on and so forth.
Have a pizza-topping-riot.

Put mini pizzas on a baking sheet, and stick in the oven for as long as you want. :)
We threw 'em in there at around 375 or so.

Since none of our ingredients were raw, we just kept an eye on them until they were bubbly and delicious!

I have SUCH a great helper! :)



YUM!

Be creative with your leftovers.

And now that we have all this cheese, be looking forward to many more parmesan/mozarella themed dinners :)



In love,

Cait