Simple Hasselback Potato

I have been busy with the start of the new semester as well as working 2 jobs in the evenings, so cooking as sort of gone out the window in favor of super simple things that I can throw together in the blink of an eye.

And thus, the Hasselback Potato... simple, and fairly hands off.

Simple Garlic Hasselback Potato

Ingredients
Potato
Olive Oil
Salt, Pepper, Garlic granules (the coarse garlic stuff, not the super fine powder!)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375
Taking a knife, carefully cut the potato into thin slices almost down to the bottom, but leaving it intact, to form a pan.
Brush the potato with olive oil, making sure to get some inside of the fans.
Sprinkle with Salt, Pepper, and Garlic.
Bake for about 45 minutes, until the fans separate, the skin is crispy but the inside of the potato is soft, and ready for munching!

Enjoy!

A Rice Cooker Meal

So I'm currently waiting on my student loans to come in, and we just finished paying rent and a bunch of bills, so it's fairly slim pickings in the money for food department. This means we head back to the staple vegetables: potatoes, onions, carrots, and cabbage. Cheap, delicious, take a little while to go bad. Everything you want in a vegetable when you have a very depleted bank account!

But how to combine them? There is a very easy way to accomplish this. And it involves only 3 items: A small mug, a knife, and a rice cooker.

Here's the sitch:

Easy as Heck Rice Cooker Casserole

Ingredients:
1 carrot, chopped up
a chunk of cabbage, chopped up
1 small onion, chopped up
1 chunk off of a sweet potato, peeled and chopped up
Rice
Water
Spaghetti Sauce

Directions
Take all your chopped up vegetables and chuck them into the rice cooker.

Look at the veg. Yum!

Next, take a mug, and fill it with rice.

I never quite fill it to the top, else I always spill it

Add the rice to the bowl. Next, add 1 mug full of pasta sauce, and 1/2 mug full of water. Stir everything together.

Oooh this looks good!

Turn the rice cooker on, and let it do it's thing.

Sweet Babies!

Then you eat it, and enjoy the fruits of your very cheap labor. Adding things like garlic, regular potatoes, other vegetables, etc, and it'll still work. If you want to add frozen peas (and who wouldn't?) add them in right at the end, else they get all mushy and weird... no good.

nom nom nom!

Blogging on the GO- Boozy Edition!

So I'm in New Jersey.

Ocean City New Jersey to be precise. It's a beach town, as one might guess by the name. Unfortunately for me, I'm not really much of a beach person but it's good for relaxation.

Ocean City also happens to be a dry county, but that didn't stop my sister Shanta and I from making these!

Fishing For Swedes Martini

Ingredients:

1 shot glass of Pinnacle Gummy Vodka

7 Up

2 swedish fish

Directions:

Combine the vodka and the seven up. Add the Fish. Drink your worries away!

This makes a pretty good party drink too! I'd put the swedish fish on some toothpicks and eat them out first, they tend to get a little manky when they sit in liquid for a long time!

Matthew Cooks

Matthew cooked something!

Warning, I have no idea what it's called, or the exact ingredients.

All I know is that it had vegetables, olives, tofu, and was served over rice and incredibly spicy! It was also incredibly delicious! He tells me that it was based off of a Senegalese recipe he found in the Globe and Mail.

If I get the recipe out of him I'll edit this!

Coconut Waffles with Carmelized Bananas

I love waffles... so very very much!

My awesome cousin Bobby and his lovely wife Linda had gotten me a waffle maker back in December, but in the hustle and bustle of the holidays, it got forgotten at my grandmother's house! So I was without Belgian Waffles for many months, still knowing that they existed in potentia, but unable to savor them in my physical existence.

Luckily, my mom brought them back to her house with her when leaving my grandmothers, so I was able to acquire it while home for the wedding. The day after I got back I made these.

Coconut Waffles with Carmelized Bananas

Ingredients

2 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pancake Mix

3/4 cup coconut milk

1/4 cup applesauce

A dash of cinnamon

a tsp vanilla

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 banana, cut into slices and dipped in sugar

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Maple Syrup and Extra coconut milk for drizzling

Directions:

Combine The pancake mix, coconut milk, applesauce, vanilla, cinnamon and 2 tbsp vegetable oil. Mix together. Add in a bit of water if the batter is too thick. 

Meanwhile, heat a frying pan on medium heat, and heat the remaining 1 tbsp oil. Add the sugar coated banana slices, and fry for about 1-2 minutes on each side, until they are browned all over. Set aside. 

Heat your waffle iron, and coat with some oil using a pastry brush (or spray with some pam, whatever)

Add enough batter to cover the iron. (Mine is quite large, so my batter made 2 1/2 waffles, yours might make more or a little less)

When the waffles are cooked, remove, and top with the bananas, some syrup, and any remaining coconut milk from the can! 

It's super good!