Sides

Twice-Baked Potatoes
  • 10 Russet potatoes
  • Olive oil
  • 1 cup low-fat sour cream
  • 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, reserve some for the topping and shells
  • 4 scallions, white and green parts chopped
  • Kosher salt, to taste
  • Black pepper, to taste

PREP TIME: 20 minutes
COOK TIME: 1 hour 40 minutes
YIELD: Serves 10 to 15
1. Preheat the oven to 420 degrees.

2. Wash and scrub the potatoes clean under running water. Dry the potatoes, and poke each potato, in several places, with the tines of a fork. This will prevent the potatoes from exploding. Rub the potatoes with a little of the olive oil. Place the potatoes on a baking sheet, and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes.

3. Remove the potatoes, and allow them to cool. Cut the potatoes in half, lengthwise. Use a spoon and scoop out most of the inside of the potatoes – you want to leave a thin layer of potato on the skin. Scoop all of the potato meat into a large mixing bowl.

4. Sprinkle each empty potato shell with a little salt, pepper, cheddar, and chopped scallion.

5. Combine the sour cream, cheddar cheese, and remaining scallions with the potato meat. Mash the ingredients together with a potato masher, but do not over beat the potato meat.

6. Spoon the mashed potatoes into each potato shell. Top with any remaining cheddar cheese.

7. Bake the potatoes at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are heated-through. Serve warm!
Very very good! We enjoyed them! I didn't have scallions so I used what I had.
Roasted Carrots
  • 2 pounds fresh carrots, peeled
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for serving
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper, plus more for serving
  • 2 teaspoons fresh thyme, finely chopped (or ½ teaspoon dried)
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
2. Slice carrots on the diagonal, about 1 ½” thick. Make sure all pieces are approximately the same size to ensure even cooking.
3. In a bowl, combine carrots, olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme and toss well. Line carrots on a baking sheet and roast, stirring once mid-way through, until nicely caramelized and tender, about 20-25 minutes (cooking time will depend on thickness of carrots).
4. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
I didn't use the thyme for this recipe but they were delicious! Yum Yum Yum!

http://www.onceuponachef.com/2009/10/roasted-carrots-
with-thyme.html#more&disp=58754 
I served this with mashed potatoes and chicken.
Mashed Potatoes With Sour Cream & Chives
  • 4 – 6 Yukon gold potatoes
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1/2 – 1 cup milk
  • small bag or a large bunch of chives, chopped
  • kosher salt to taste
  • pepper

  1. Wash potatoes. Peel if desired. Cute in quarters and add to a saucepan. Cover potatoes with water, add salt, and bring to a boil. Boil over medium heat until potatoes are very tender.
  2. Drain potatoes and add back to the saucepan. Add sour cream and 1/2 cup milk. Mash potatoes with a potato masher. Add more milk until you get the desired consistency. Add chives, adjust salt and pepper to taste.
  3. SO SO GOOD! WE LOVED THEM!

 I served these with roasted carrots and chicken! They rocked!
 Honey Roasted Carrots
  • Carrots (I used 4)
  • 1 tbl honey
  • 1 tbl olive oil
  • Sea Salt or Grey Salt or even Kosher salt for finishing
  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
  2. Peel your carrots and cut into 3-4 inch lengths
  3. Cut each length in half, cut the half into half again
  4. Place your carrots on a non stick baking sheet
  5. Mix the oil and honey with the carrots
  6. Bake for 20 minutes
  7. Remove pan from the oven, and flip them around
  8. Bake for an additional 10 to 20 minutes or until they are tender and browned (as you can see we like them well caramelized)
  9. Place on serving dish and drizzle a bit more honey on top and finish with your salt. A bit of Modena Balsamic Vinegar would be good as well!
I enjoyed them: http://cookingdunkinstyle.blogspot.com/2009/02/honey-roasted-carrots.html
 Garlic Mashed Potatoes
  • 6 Yukon gold potatoes
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 2 or 3 tablespoons milk
  • 1-2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 garlic cloves
  1. You can peel your potatoes or keep the skin on like I did (just make sure you scrub the skins before cooking).
  2. In a pot, boil potatoes until soft (depending on size this can take anywhere from 10-15 minutes. Check to make sure they are cooked through by sticking a fork in, if it goes in easily you are good).
  3. After potatoes are cooked through drain them. Either put them back into your pot or move them to another container to finish.
  4. Peel your garlic and either put it through a garlic press (ours makes it come out looking like a play-doh toy would) or chop it up fine.
  5. Use your potato masher and mash the potatoes.
  6. Add your salt, garlic, butter and milk (start out little by little so you don't have runny potatoes).
  7. Mash until you have a good consistency and all ingredients are mixed up.
  8. Serve with your favorite roasted carrots and a nice kabob if you have one and enjoy!
My coworker suggested adding garlic to my mashed potatoes and I decided to try it out. I am not a huge garlic person but these weren't too bad. I only added about 1 teaspoon of salt and I would have gone with more (I am a sodium girl, as bad as it is). Garlic tends to have a strong flavor so be careful with it especially if you aren't a huge fan like me.
Roasted Potatoes
  • 5 small to medium Yukon gold potatoes
  • 1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/8 tsp. pepper
  • ¼ tsp. salt
  • ½ tsp. dried basil
  • 3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese


  1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.
  2. Scrub and wash potatoes. Pat potatoes dry with a paper towel or kitchen cloth.
  3. Cut potatoes into similar sizes (so they will cook evenly).
  4. Put your potatoes in a bowl and coat with your olive oil (the best way to do this is to use your hands). Add your pepper, salt and basil and coat the potatoes making sure you get as much coverage as you can (so the potatoes don’t stick to the foil).
  5. Spread your potatoes on the cookie sheet laying them flat.
  6. Put the cookie sheet in the oven for 20-25 minutes (closer to 20). They will be soft enough to put a fork through.
  7. When they are done in the oven take them out and move them into a bowl. As they are still warm add the Parmesan cheese (this is to your taste) and mix with your hands.
  8. Enjoy!
Give them a try! I made this recipe up and it's open to change. Basil is what I have in my cupboard but any spice would be great!
Fried Zucchini


We got a lot of zucchini in our garden and needed to use it so I decided to look up recipes for zucchini.. I love the zucchini sticks at farmer boys so I thought this would be delicious for dinner. I found this recipe from the link below. I used butter instead of oil, italian seasoned breadcrumbs(because that's what I have) and I cut my zucchini into strips. It's messy and with it being so hot I was definitely feeling the heat but they turned out delicious(not as good as farmer boys but close) and we served them with ranch dressing.

 http://www.cocktailsandsmallbites.com/?p=729
  • 3 zucchinis
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 Tbsp water
  • 3 C panko
  • ½ C all-purpose flour
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Canola oil
  1. Wash and peel the zucchinis. Slice into ¼ inch circles or slice length-wise into ¼ inch slices. Your choice.
  2. Set up your breading station. Place the flour in one bowl. In a second bowl, beat the eggs and water until well blended. In a third bowl, add the panko. Dip a zucchini slice in flour then in the egg mixture and finally press firmly in the panko. Set aside. Continue breading the rest of the zucchini.
  3. Heat about ¼ inch of oil to medium high heat in a large sauté pan. Place zucchini pieces in the pan and fry until lightly browned on the first side, about 2 minutes. Turn the zucchini and fry the second side until lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Remove from the pan and drain on paper towels.
  4. Lightly sprinkle with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.
Cheers!
Baked Zucchini Fries

As I stated in my previous post on my love of zucchini I wanted to try a different way to prepare some zucchini sticks. These were very good but I found them to be very soft and I like my veggies to have a bit of crunch (especially when being breaded). They were very enjoyable!

 http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2010/01/baked-zucchini-fries.html
  • 3 medium zucchini sliced into 3" x 1/2" sticks 1 large egg white
  • 1/3 cup seasoned bread crumbs
  • 2 tbsp grated Pecorino Romano cheese (can be found in the spaghetti sauce aisle next to Parmesan cheese)
  • cooking spray
  • 1/4 tsp garlic powder
  • salt
  • fresh pepper
  1. Preheat oven to 425°.
  2. In a small bowl, beat egg whites and season with salt and pepper. In a ziplock bag, place breadcrumbs, garlic powder and cheese and shake well. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray and set aside.
  3. Dip zucchini sticks into eggs then into bread crumb and cheese mixture, a few at a time and shake to coat. Place the breaded zucchini in a single layer and spray more cooking spray on top. Bake at 425° for about 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve with 1/2 cup marinara sauce for dipping (.5 pt)

Hot Dog Stuffed Zucchini Corn Dog Bites

This is Jesse's creation (even the oh so creative name). It is inspired by this:
http://betsylife.com/2011/06/10/fair-fare-zucchini-weenies/

We have some big zucchini (not the small stuff you find at the market). Jesse first took a knife and shoved it into the zucchini to get all of the guts out. I don't know how he did this because I wasn't around but he was sure brave to try (you could also drill a hole as the original recipe states). Jesse then used this concept of stuffing a hot dog into the zucchini but instead of keeping them whole (because they are so big he stuffed multiple hot dogs in each), he chopped them up into about 1/2 inch pieces. In a small pot he heated some oil (about medium low, you don't want them too hot or the dough inside won't cook). Then he dipped them in the corn dog batter (recipe below) and fried them until they were golden brown. Just a tip for making this recipe be careful when dipping the 1/2 inch pieces into the batter he had a slight issue with the hot dog falling out. I would suggest using a long skewer maybe? Anyways... These were so good but definitely not healthy... We served them with spicy BBQ sauce. Give it a try!
Corn Dog Batter
  • 1 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup cornmeal
  • 4 Tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 cup milk
Mix all the dry ingredients, then add eggs and milk. Mix till lump free.
BBQ Beans

http://www.food.com/recipe/bbq-beans-168062

 These are delicious! I just put these in the crock pot for 3-4 hours. I will totally make them again!

  • 1 (15 ounce) can pork and beans


  • 1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans, rinsed, drained


  • 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, rinsed, drained


  • 1/2 lb bacon


  • 16 ounces ham, cubed (optional)


  • 1 large green pepper, chopped


  • 1 medium onion, chopped


  • 1 jalapeno pepper, minced


  • 1/2 cup brown sugar


  • 1/2 cup BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Chipotle BBQ Sauce)

    •
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced


    • 1. Cook and chop bacon.
    2. Combine all ingredients in a large Dutch oven (or crock pot if using that).
    3. Mix well. Simmer on the stove, over a camp fire, in the oven (at 350°F), in the crock pot, or on the grill (medium heat) until the vegetables are soft (at least an hour).
    4. You should stir often (unless you're cooking in the oven or crock pot), to prevent sticking on the bottom of the Dutch oven.
    5. Stir lightly, you don't want to mash the beans. 
     Roasted Potatoes
    • 4 or 5 large potatoes (I used 7-9 small potatoes)
    • 1 onion
    • 3-4 cloves of garlic
    • 1 Tbsp. olive oil (or enough to coat the potatoes)
    • 1/2 tsp. salt
    • 1/2 tsp. pepper
    • 1/4 tsp. dried oregano
    • 1/4 tsp. dried basil
    1. Clean potatoes (leaving skins on) and cut into quarters. Dice onion and garlic.
    2. Put potatoes, onion and garlic in casserole dish (mine was smaller than a 9x13 dish)
    3. Then add oil, salt, pepper, basil and oregano, use a spatula to coat the potatoes. 
    4. Turn the oven to 375 degrees and bake for 50 minutes.  
    Crockpot Refried Beans
    These were awesome! I have recently been dying to make some really great refried beans and this is the recipe for me, we really loved them and they were easy peasy, who doesn't love using a crockpot?
    • 3c dry pinto beans (black beans also work, if you prefer)
    • 9c water
    • 5 chicken bouillon cubes
    • 1t garlic powder
    • 2t salt
    • half of a yellow onion, peeled, but left whole
    • 1/4c butter, melted
    • 1c milk
    • Enough reserved juices from the pot to achieve desired consistency
    1. Place dry beans in the bottom of slow-cooker. Pour water over top. Add the bouillon cubes, garlic powder, and salt. Place the onion half right on top of the beans. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or until beans are very soft and fall apart when mashed (if you undercook your beans, they will be grainy and difficult to mash).
    2. Remove the onion and drain the beans, reserving the cooking liquid. Return the beans to the pot, add the melted butter and the milk. Blend with a hand immersion blender until creamy and smooth, adding reserved juices from the pot until desired consistency is achieved (more milk can also be added if you like them creamy). Note: the beans firm up as they cool, so make them looser than you think you need to. Serve promptly. Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator.
    Notes
    For spicy beans, add fresh jalapeno to the pot. For cheesy beans, top with jack cheese after blending.

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