Spicy Pasta with Black Beans

I wouldn't normally share this type of recipe for a couple of reasons:
1. It is rather boring
2. It is just one of my typical quick dinners that I throw together on a busy night just using ingredients that I have on hand.
That's the thing though, I decided I should show you something very fast, easy and a typical dinner I'd eat on those nights when I get home from class at 6:30 I'm starving and I'm not the least bit interested in cooking something elaborate.

This dish doesn't include many ingredients and they're all things I always have on hand vegetables, beans, pasta, and plenty of spices. Another thing is that this particular combination of ingredients that I made the other night came out amazing and even better there is always plenty for leftovers the next day.

This dish is packed with plenty of fiber to leave you feeling full and satisfied. Also consider using whole wheat pasta for an added nutritional boost.

Spicy Pasta with Black Beans

Ingredients
olive oil
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1/3 cup frozen corn
pepper
chili powder
cumin
red pepper flakes
pasta
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

Directions
1. Saute onion in olive oil and then add the carrot and celery until it gets tender, meanwhile cook your pasta according to its directions
2. Add corn and then add pepper, chili powder, cumin, and red pepper flakes to taste
3. When this is all well incorporated add in the black beans
4. Add the pasta to the vegetable and black bean mixture and add more seasoning if needed
5. Garnish with a little cheese if desired and wait for it to melt and then serve.

Valentine's Day

So I know this post is coming a day late, but hey better late than never. Valentine's Day is one of those holidays that people can be very opinionated on some love it, some hate it, and some believe that it is a holiday developed by greeting card companies to make more money. If you push all of those things aside for a few minutes you can focus on the more important part of all this...wait for it...the food!

Yes that's right the food. I sometimes like to think of it as a "free day", to eat what you want and not feel guilty. Of course there's the fact that often large amounts of chocolate are involved on Valentine's Day, which is an added bonus that makes me want to jump for joy. This brings me to the focus of this post sweet treats to give as a gift or enjoy for yourself.
Since time wasn't exactly on my side this year I kept things pretty simple using some time tested recipes and adding a twist. I made 3 batches of cookies chocolate chip, dark chocolate M&M, and sugar. I used the chocolate chip cookie recipe I posted last year, minus the "healthy twist" because really as much as I like to promote being healthy whenever possible, I couldn't do that today. Now for the dark chocolate M&M cookies I went ahead and used the same chocolate chip cookie dough recipe substituting the M&Ms for the chocolate chips (sorry ahead of time for not having pictures of these). However, I do have an M&M cookie recipe I just didn't feel like digging it out when I already had the chocolate chip one in front of me. As for the sugar cookie recipe, I think this one is wonderful. I got it from my mom and what makes it so special is that this one is for drop or bar cookies and not meant to be rolled out. So whenever you're wanting sugar cookies you can have them without needing all the time to roll and cut them out. I think it sounds like a winning situation.

So as my final twist on these cookies, I baked some in the heart shaped mini cake pan my friend gave me for Christmas to mix in with the regular drop cookies. The cool thing about the heart shaped cookies is that they're thicker, so you essentially get a cookie cake, which is delicious.

Banana Bread

There is nothing more perfect than making warm banana bread on a lazy weekend when the weather is less than perfect. I had some bananas on hand that were ripening too fast and weren't anything I'd want to eat, so I decided to find a new banana bread recipe that did not use shortening, since I am trying to avoid that ingredient whenever possible.


I found a recipe that didn't use too many ingredients and only 1/3 cup of butter and I was able to reduce the sugar from 1 cup to 3/4 cup and possibly even more the next time I make it. Another thing I might try is adding some cinnamon or nutmeg the next time I make it to add some spice to it.

Overall this recipe came out really well and I couldn't wait for it to cool down a bit so I could try a piece. It was perfectly moist and not too dense or sweet and even better because it was still warm. This banana bread is perfect for my early morning breakfast during the week and it will freeze nicely to pull out and eat on another day. I suggest giving this recipe a try, you won't be disappointed.

Banana Bread
From: Simply Recipes

Ingredients
3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar (I reduced it to 3/4 cup)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
pinch (~1/8 tsp) salt
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Mix butter into bananas using wooden spoon.
3. Next mix in sugar, egg, vanilla, baking soda, and salt
4. Stir in flour, making sure not to over mix the batter
5. Pour into greased 4x8 loaf pan and bake for 1 hour (I found mine was done after 55 minutes)
6. Cool on rack and then cut into slices to serve

Restaurant Review x 3

I have a backlog of restaurants I've eaten at over the past 2 months here in St. Louis. One dates all the way back to December before Christmas even happened and the other 2 take place throughout January. Since they're from so long ago I decided to merge them all into one post and give the highlights from them and then in the future I'll be more on top of blogging about restaurants soon after I eat at them so that they can have their own special post.

Blue Ocean Sushi

This was the first time I ate sushi in St. Louis and I was not at all disappointed by this experience. I thought this restaurant was really cool and it fit this image that I often have of how a sushi restaurant should look with its aqua colored walls and amazingly comfortable chairs, which I'm thinking top the booth seating that the other side of our table had. Right off I need to comment on my chopstick skills usually they're less than desirable and make for a good laugh, but on this night I was very impressive with them. I was still slow using them, but managed not to drop any food; I chalk it up to all my practice earlier in the day using pencils.

Okay, so now the important part the food...Blue Ocean has a typical menu, but the most interesting part of it is the 3 levels, where they offer 3 different pricing levels with each one including more food than the previous. I stuck with level one there was no way I could eat enough sushi to make level 2 worth my wild. While, they serve traditional rolls like the salmon roll they also have interesting twists on rolls, such as the cheese burger roll, which sounds weird but I heard from a reliable source that it is quite good. I ate a variety of things on this night and left Blue Ocean extremely full. I give this restaurant 2 thumbs up and expect I'll eat there again.

Felix's

Felix's is located in Dogtown, which is the Irish-American neighborhood of St. Louis. This place is one of those hidden gems, it is a restaurant/bar and features local artists. The restaurant has a very welcoming environment that I really enjoyed. I also enjoyed the menu which features BBQ, wraps, burgers and specialty pizzas. At first I had trouble deciding on just one thing, but finally went with pizza and it did not disappoint at all. My 4 cheese sundried tomato pizza was amazing. I actually couldn't figure out what all 4 cheeses were, but they meshed perfectly together creating wonderful flavor that was complimented by the deliciousness of the sundried tomatoes. I would definitely eat here again, but after having that pizza I don't know if I could convince myself to try something else on the menu, though I hear their other food is quite good as well.

City Diner

I had heard quite a bit about the City Diner like how it had a really cool atmosphere, so I of course added it to my list of things to do in St. Louis and finally made it here to eat. However, I was here for dessert on this particular night and I'm very happy with what I got. At first glance there wasn't a ton of dessert options, but then I found the cheesecake listing and saw that there were a variety of options regarding it. On this night they had banana, chocolate peanut butter, strawberry swirl, and dulce de leche. I decided to try my luck with the dulce de leche and I immediately need to say that it was amazing. The caramel flavor was not overpoweringly sweet kind that becomes too much halfway through eating it and because of this I was able to still taste the essence of the cheesecake, which is a very good thing. I also know that the chocolate peanut butter cheesecake is very good too. So, if you're at the City Diner and craving dessert I definitely recommend trying out their cheesecake. I do want to head back to the City Diner and test out their regular menu options, I'll of course report back my findings from that endeavor.

The Almost Churro

I can still remember my first encounter with the beloved churro, it was one of my family's vacations to Disneyland and I still remember instantly loving every bite of it. I had many other encounters with the churro once in Spain where they were dipped into chocolate and then on several occasions I made them somewhat successfully for fiestas in my Spanish classes back in high school. In case you were wondering a churro is a Spanish doughnut, which is usually in the form of a cylinder type shape that has ridges. The dough is fried and then sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.Sometimes I find myself wanting something churro like, but I am in no way up for making the dough and then wasting all that oil to fry them. Lets not forget to reiterate here the oil and frying part that is not super healthy and occasionally eating the full on real churro or anything fried is okay, but I really can't do that every time I'm craving the cinnamony goodness of a churro.

For this exact reason I invented the "lighter" much easier to make version of the churro. All it requires is some simple flour tortillas, cinnamon, sugar, a little time in the oven and viola you get the crispiness that you'd find in the fried version without the excess fat calories. And the inside is filled with the warm cinnamon sugar that becomes slightly melted and tastes oh so good in every bite. Mmm.

Lighter Churro

Ingredients:
Flour tortillas (I use 6 inch tortillas)
Cinnamon (amount depends on size of tortilla)
Sugar (amount depends)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Sprinkle a little sugar and cinnamon onto the tortilla taking the back of a spoon to incorporate them together
3. Roll up the tortilla and place into a baking dish/cookie sheet with the flap side down to prevent it from unrolling
4. Bake until slightly crisp on ends and lightly browned
5. Let stand for 2 minutes and enjoy!

Chicken Pot Pie

Where to begin about Chicken Pot Pie...well to start with who doesn't love a pot pie with its warm tender flaky crust that gives way to the delicious pie filling composed of tender chicken and a rainbow of vegetables all amongst a cream sauce of the perfect consistency. Just writing that makes my mouth water.I used to eat the frozen variety back in my early college days and quickly learned that although the microwave cooked the pie faster it was often soggy and so the oven, though more time intensive, was the best option. Fast forward a couple years when I haven't had a frozen pot pie in maybe 2 almost 3 years and I find myself constantly wanting the perfect pot pie. Lucky for me I now feel more confident in my cooking skills and have braved the task of making it myself, but not so fast there was one tiny problem with all of this...
I have actually been looking off and on for a chicken pot pie recipe for months, but couldn't find the right one that had everything I was looking for. So what is a girl to do? Why make up her very own chicken pot pie recipe of course. I am now a master of whipping up a cream sauce and even went the unconventional pie route by placing my pot pie into a rectangular baking dish. I did however debate on if I should use a bottom crust because I feared it coming out soggy, which I did not want, hence my aversion to cooking frozen pot pies in the microwave. This time I only used a top crust and maybe next time I'll go out on a limb and make it a true pie, which might mean I should actually cook it in a pie dish.
Since, this was a first time recipe and didn't even follow an actual recipe I only tested it on myself, so if it was an utter failure I'd be the only one who knew about it, plus I am still wary of subjecting people to food if I haven't already tested it in some way. Though, now that this was a complete success I'm ready to cook it for people and excited to get to eat it again myself. I have a friend who loves a good chicken pot pie and I think she would be in complete bliss if I made this for her one day.

Chicken Pot Pie

Pie Crust
Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, chilled and diced
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cold water

Directions:
1. Combine flour and salt
2. Cut in butter until coarse crumbs form
3. Stir in water 1 tbs at a time, until dough forms a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour
4. Roll out to desired size and use

Filling
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken breast
1/3 onion
4 celery stalks, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1/2 cup peas (frozen)
3 tbs unsalted butter
3 tbs flour
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 cup milk
garlic powder to taste
salt to taste
pepper to taste
Italian seasoning to taste

Directions
1. Cook chicken as you normally would in the oven.
2. Saute onion and then add celery and carrots cook for about 5 minutes until tender. Add frozen peas and chicken and heat through
3. In another pot melt butter and then add flour to it to make a roux. Add in chicken broth and milk. Stir vigorously to prevent lumps from forming bring just to a boil and allow to thicken.
4. Add garlic powder, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning
5. Mix in chicken and vegetable mixture then pour into a baking dish
6. Roll out pie crust and fit over mixture, cut off excess. Make sure to cut a couple of slits into the top of the crust.
7. Optional: Brush pie crust with egg wash to promote browning
8. Cook at 350 for about 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown and flakey

Happy Belated New Year

I know that I have been MIA for awhile, but things have been hectic. The good news is that I think I am finally getting back to a semi-normal schedule. I hope that everyone had a good holiday season and is ready for the new year. I was lucky enough to get to travel back to California to spend the holidays with my family.

While I was home I did plenty of baking, except one small problem I didn't write down any of these recipes to bring back here and write about and worse yet I took absolutely no pictures of any of the food. However, I can provide a list of a few of the things that I made during my weeks back home. These delicious treats included sugar cookies, gingerbread, pumpkin scones, mini cupcakes, and cranberry orange bread. I also whipped up some chocolate chip cookies (not my healthier version) and cranberry white chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. This list doesn't include the things all the delicious things my mom made for Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Years.

I also received some very cool gifts to use in the kitchen. I now have an adorable mini spatula with a pointed end to get into all the hard to reach places, as well as some bottle stoppers that actually work. From a friend I got a calendar that features a different comfort food every month and will make you very hungry anytime you look at it. I am also the proud owner of a mini heart shaped cake pan. I have lots of plans for this, which include not only cakes but making heart shaped cookies (like chocolate chip ones) and brownies.

I promise within the next week to have a real post up on here and I actually do have a couple of restaurant reviews that I need to write too.