What the heck's a bonbon?

Spicy Cheesy Taco Chips AKA: the reason I will never lose weight

Last week, my friend Colleen over at Souffle Bombay posted her daughter's recipe for homemade taco chips and let me tell you, I've been making them almost every day since.  I just LOVE them.  Here's the link to check out her original recipe!

Of course, when I made them originally I had all the ingredients.  But now, I just don't.  So I've been improvising the last few days.  Today my experimentation really paid off, because I made some chips that came out so flipping good, they are almost gone and it's not even 10:30 in the morning yet.

Spicy Cheesy Taco Chips

• 10 small corn tortillas cut into chip size wedges (6 per tortilla)
• 3 TBSP Avocado oil or other light oil
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp dried minced onion
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• dash-1/8 tsp cayenne pepper depending on your taste
• 1/8 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 cup reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese*

Preheat the oven to 350°. In a large bowl, stir all ingredients besides the tortillas together.  Gently toss in the tortilla wedges so that they are fully coated with the mixture.  Lay the coated tortilla wedges in one layer on a cookie sheet or baking stone.  Bake for about 12-15 minutes until your chips are crisp.  Be sure you check them frequently after the 12 minute mark because they can go from perfect to burnt-to-an-unrecognizable-mess very quickly.  (Don't ask me how I know.)  If you are using a baking stone, remove the chips quickly from the stone when they come out of the oven or they will continue to cook.

*Reduced fat cheese works well because of the,well, reduced fat content.  If you use full fat cheese, you will want to reduce the amount of oil you use or you will have a huge greasy mess.

 These chips taste great alone, but tonight I'm serving them as an appetizer with some salsa while I finish making my chicken enchiladas.  Hope you enjoy them!

5 Things I'd like to un-see in commercials for food

In today's age of DVRing and fast forwarding through most commercials, I very rarely see any anymore which is AOK, in my book.  Don't get me wrong, I do love a good commercial. Some of my favorites include dogs driving cars into lakes, Jake from State Farm, and of course the "French" model from the internet.  But with only about 1:45 to watch 3 hours of DVR'd shows at night, forwarding through those commercials is a real benefit!

But I do always love food commercials.

Well, maybe ALWAYS is an exaggeration.  There are definitely times when food commercials really kinda make me feel everything but hungry for whatever they're selling.  In fact, there are some types of food commercials that I wish I could just remove from my memory banks.  Here they are: 

photo courtesy of flickr.com/foodiebuddha

1. When they squeeze down burgers to show how juicy they are.  Eeeeeww.  I mean, juicy burgers are delicious.  But when you can see that juice flowing in high def 10xs the size it would normally be..?  I would rather eat a hockey puck on a bun with some ketchup.

2. Dog or cat food being shown the same way as people food.  Stop it right now.  Dog and cat food should only be appetizing for dogs and cats.  We do not need to see the can being opened (considering we all know that horrid smell and the weird gel on top that comes with opening one of those cans) or watch the glop of blech get spooned into a crystal bowl.  No.  

3. Drippy creamy sauces on anything.  Please stop pouring that stuff on that beautiful steak.  

4. Food being personified.  If my breakfast cereal squares are so darn tasty that they feel the need to cannibalize each other, I'm OUT!

5. Popeye's Rip'n Chick'n.  Yes, these things have plagued my nightmares for quite some time now.  I'm not sure if these are severed fried hands or fried rooster combs, but either way I'd appreciate it if they would not be shown being ripped apart and eaten on my screen during my favorite shows thank you very much.

Here's the thing:  I'll bet everything they are showing on TV is delicious! (Besides the dog and cat food, of course).  I just don't like the commercials.  

So that's it.  Hungry now?

 

Dinner411: How to Get Dinner on the Table in 30 Minutes or Less- review

OK, you guys know how horrible I am at grocery shopping.  I just go and buy what looks good at the time with really no plan in mind.  Sometimes that works out OK, if I'm in a cooking mood that week.  But usually I just end up making some sort of weird concoction and not really using my groceries to their fullest potential.

So I was very glad when a fellow member of the Philly Social Media Moms and the NJ Digital Moms Christina Hitchcock (from the blog It's a Keeper) came up with this helpful ebook called Dinner411: How to Get Dinner on the Table in 30 Minutes or Less .

It is chock full of tips so that you can plan and execute 7 days of great meals for your family without wandering through the grocery store and then throwing some sort of meal together at the last minute like I usually do.

My favorite part of the book is the printable meal plan pages.  My biggest problem is figuring out what I need to buy in order to make the meals I want to make.  Having a print out is a great way to hold myself accountable in the store.  

Dinner 411 also has some really great recipes and tips on how to prepare foods ahead of time so that you aren't scrambling to shove some food down your kids' throats before soccer practice.  One recipe that looks easy and tasty is the One Pot BLT Pasta.  

• 12 slices of bacon, divided
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 2 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 12 oz uncooked linguine pasta
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup loosely packed fresh parsley,chopped
• 4 oz cream cheese
• 1 oz Parmesan cheese, grated
• Halved cherry or grape tomatoes

1. Slice the bacon cross wise into strips.

2. Cook in a large skillet with high sides for 8-9 minutes, or until crisp. Remove bacon and drain on paper towels.

3. Drain skillet, leaving 1 tbsp of bacon drippings in the skillet.

4. Add onion and red pepper flakes to the skillet. Saute for 2-3 minutes or until tender.

5. Add garlic and cook for 10-20 seconds more.

6. Add broth and tomatoes to the skillet and bring to a simmer.

7. Add pasta, salt and half of the cooked bacon.

8. Simmer, covered for 9-10 minutes or until pasta is almost cooked by still firm. Stir occasionally.

9. Remove skillet from heat and add cubed cream cheese, tomatoes and parsley, reserving 1 tablespoon of parsley for garnish.

10. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes or until pasta is tender and sauce is thickened. Serve with remaining bacon, grated Parmesan cheese and reserved parsley.

I hope you'll check out Christina Hitchcock's ebook Dinner411: How to Get Dinner on the Table in 30 Minutes or Less available at Amazon.com.

 This post contains affiliate links.  I received this ebook complimentary in exchange for an honest review.  No other compensation was received.  All opinions are my own.

Crockpot black bean and chicken soup

Quick!  Throw all this in your crockpot:

• 3 frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 cans of drained and rinsed black beans
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 1 rib celery diced
• 1 carrot peeled and diced
• 1/4 cup diced fresh parsley ...or you can use that vile weed cilantro if you'd like.
• 1/2 cup prepared salsa
• 1 cup water
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 Tbsp corn starch mixed into 1/4 cup cold water
• Salt & pepper to taste

Turn that crockpot on low and wait about 6 hours.

Wait...

Wait for it...

Keep waiting...

BAM!  

It's Black Bean and Chicken soup