Chorizo Huevos Rancheros

September 9, 2014 by Christine Skari

A crunchy baked tortilla that’s chock full of fresh veggies, flavorful chorizo, and topped with a perfectly cooked egg! These Chorizo Huevos Rancheros are the perfect way to start your day!

I never want summer to end. The toasty warm weather, relaxing vacations in Hawaii, the lazy mornings spent chopping fresh veggies to make a delicious and hearty breakfast. In other words, I want every day to be chorizo huevos rancheros day!

I’m going to be honest here and throw out that I’ve been more of an oatmeal-for-breakfast kinda girl for the last few years, and this is one of the first times I’ve gone the extra mile to make something savory to start the day. It’s not that I necessarily enjoy sweeter things for breakfast more, it’s just that I have my whole oatmeal routine down.

It goes something like this:

Take out the Quaker oats container. Throw a few handfuls into a big bowl, add water and a sliced banana. Microwave for two minutes (laziness reigns supreme when I haven’t had my morning latte yet). Stir in a splash of vanilla extract and a mountain of cinnamon and sprinkle brown sugar on top. Done and done. Easy as that.

While these do take a bit more time than my morning oats, they are so worth it. The crunch from the baked corn tortilla that’s supplemented by a giant burst of flavor from all the chopped veggies. That drippy egg yolk that gloriously breaks in slow-mo and drizzles over every part of the dish. Oh! And good amount of queso to top the whole thing off and add a soft and creamy texture. Can you hear my heart pounding?? I think I’m in love.

I pass these off as a breakfast food, but c’mon, look at how versatile they are! They’re a cross between a deconstructed omelet and crunchy taco, which automatically allows them to traverse the breakfast-lunch-dinner boundary.

As usual, I had Kyle by my side throughout the cooking process to help be my official taste tester and overeater. It’s a hard job, but he’s always up for a challenge. I actually put him to more work than usual this time and had him cook up the eggs and left him busy trying to form a “good-looking egg”, which he obviously took to mean perfectly circular. Kyle is the type of guy that gets borderline obsessed with trying to figure out how to fix or make things a certain way. Like I mentioned before, the engineer in him gets him fixated on any and all projects. Sunny side up eggs are no exception.

25 minutes later and with scraps of egg and cookie cutters lying around (don’t ask, he tried to use them as a mold), I forced him to give up. While the perfectly circular egg eluded us, this recipe was still a big success ;).

Healthy Chocolate Chip Pancake Muffins

September 3, 2014 by Christine Skari

These past few weeks I’ve been on a big pancake kick.

I tend to cycle through my breakfasts and lately it’s been oatmeal—>eggs—>PANCAKES. There’s just something about a fluffy stack with golden maple syrup dripping down. I mean, just look at that picture above. Isn’t maple syrup a thing of beauty? So shiny 😯 .

The one drawback of pancakes is that they usually require a sit-down meal at a table and 15-20 minutes to make in the morning. While I love a lazy Sunday morning brunch, on the weekdays I’m usually in a rush and don’t have much time to spend hovering over a frying pan. And then it hit me… the answer to all of my (pancake) problems: pancake muffins! I loved the idea of putting pancakes in an easy-to-grab form so I could eat them on the run. While I’ve been enjoying these with maple syrup, they would be awesome with a smidge of peanut butter!

To ensure that I could eat pancakes on a daily basis without feeling weighed-down from all the sugar and hungry 30 minutes later, I pimped these bad boys out with whole wheat flour and only one tablespoon of butter in the entire batch. Hooray! Each pancake muffin comes out to only 70 calories and a bit of fiber and protein to help fuel you through your day. It’s a great alternative to sugar-filled cereal and will make even the most fussy eaters happy!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread with Vanilla Glaze

September 1, 2014 by Christine Skari

I think the world would be a better place if we just sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on everything. I swear, that stuff is what dreams are made of. I want to roll in it. Bathe in it. I want my first child to be a sugar cube. That, my friends, is commitment.

Also, what did I just say?

I know I’m not making much sense right now. I blame it on the food coma I’m in from the long Labor Day weekend. One thing you should know about my family is that we looooveeeee to eat. Love love love to eat. We’re the kinda people who will be sitting at an all-you-can-eat buffet, stuffing our mouths with crab legs and pasta salad, and be talking about what our next meal will be. Some call us glutinous. We prefer insatiable flavor and texture investigators.

So anyways, this last long weekend was full of food. We had some German friends stay over for the week, and to celebrate before they left, we decided to hold an early party on Sunday and invited all of our extended family. We deemed it our “Axis Powers Party” since we had apple streusel and three types of German sausage, Japanese sashimi and octopus salad, and Italian appetizers. Pretty original party theme, huh?

Annnnnd today, I went over to Kyle’s family’s house and feasted on enormous tacos, apple pie, and chocolate cake.

I am so full I could pass out. I am never eating again… until tomorrow.

But back to this bread. Let me tell ya a bit about THIS bread.

First off, the amount of deliciousness in this bread is out of control. Perfectly moist, a thick double layer of swirled cinnamon and sugar, and drippy vanilla glaze. This is BY FAR the best cinnamon swirl bread I’ve ever had in my life.

Second off, I can’t even remember what else I was going to say. I keep looking at my screen at these photos and wanting to stuff 7 pieces in my mouth pronto.

TELL ME YOU’RE AS EXCITED AS I AM.

This is the kind of bread that makes you excited to get up in the morning. I’m typing this up at 10 o’clock at night and honestly can’t wait for it to be morning so I can dive into a slice with a cup of coffee in hand. *Swoon*. That’s a perfect morning, if you ask me!

Recipe adapted from Taste of Home

Fluffy Chunky Monkey Pancakes

August 21, 2014 by Christine Skari

I’ve had the idea to make these pancakes forever. And by forever I mean 2 months, because they’re basically the same to a young adult like me. What is patience anyways?! I keep a list on the Notes app of my iPhone for when inspiration strikes, and I remember jotting down the idea for this recipe after trying my friend’s Ben & Jerry’s ice cream with the same flavor.

I go to bed every night with food on my mind and always seem to draw my best ideas while trying to get to sleep, hence the needing a handy iPhone app to help me organize my thoughts. My mind doesn’t care that it’s 1 in the morning and I’m exhausted. All it can think about is how I can incorporate chocolate into everything I eat and maybe I should make blueberry biscuits and smother them with a vanilla glaze or make mini chicken teriyaki bites because everything is cuter in mini form and the crunch would be great and, did I mention people love mini things? Also, CHEESE. What was I saying again? My mind = a disaster.

OH RIGHT. Fluffy Chunky Monkey Pancakes.

I mean, can you go wrong with putting bananas, chocolate, and walnuts into a perfectly puffed and super fluffy pancake and smothering it with maple syrup and extra chocolate sauce? I think I’ve discovered the meaning of love. Let me give you a hint. It has the words pan and cake in it. Cake pan? No. Try again.

Good. Very good.

Like these. These are just plain good. The kind of good that gets all of your housemates ooing (autocorrect just changed that to oozing, I hope that’s not the case or else they should see a doctor) and ahhhhh-ing after every bite. These pancakes were especially stubborn to shoot and I spent a good 30 minutes with my camera furiously adjusting things and being unsatisfied with every photo before they got to dig in. And once I was finished with their photo shoot and they were fair game? Think annihilation. It was a pancake massacre.

I decided to add in a portion of whole wheat flour because… HEALTH… and it blends in really well! If you’re feeling especially in-tune with yo’ body and arteries and insides and whatnot, feel free to try going all-in with the whole wheat, but be warned, that wild idea hasn’t been tested in my kitchen. I’ve found in the past that a mixture of whole wheat + white flour gives a bit more nutrition to a dish without compromising taste or texture. What’s the point of healthifying something if it makes it taste like cat food? Not that I would know, of course. You should ask my sister. She tried a bit of kibble when we were 10.

The moral of this story is don’t eat cat food. Eat a plate of these instead.

Just yum, my friends. YUM.

Tangy Vanilla Mango Protein Smoothie

August 19, 2014 by Christine Skari

The mango obsession is unreal right now, you guys. It’s gotten to the point where I’m eating at least 1-2 huge ones everyday and unripe mangoes have become the bane of my existence. This might seem a little drastic, but I think I like them more than Kyle.

I kid, I kid.

Speaking of Kyle, get this. He’s been having these weird allergic reactions to something that cause him to puff up like a chipmunk (don’t worry, he’s a cute chipmunk). We’re not sure what is it, but they sometimes spring up the day after he eats, you guessed it, mangoes. GASP. I think he’s doing it to spite me…

But you know what? This mango-obsessed girl will not be stopped. Scratch that, she CAN’T be stopped. My mindset is eat aaaallll the mangoes and in any way, shape, or form possible. Today’s daily dose of the good stuff? This Tangy Vanilla Mango Protein Smoothie!

I actually did this recipe up before I left for Hawaii since I had this adorbs little vision in my head of posting Hawaiian-themed recipes a few days when I was gone. I did pretty well with my Best-Ever White Chocolate Macademia Nut Cookies, but after that, my enthusiasm tinkered off as I came back exhausted from the chores of swimming on the beach and going zodiac riding with dolphins and pilot whales all day. Did I mention all the delicious food I ate? My jaw got a serious workout and hardly had any time to rest. I think I pulled a jaw-muscle and I had to ice it with ice cream most nights. It’s a hard life 😉 .

My point is I got lazy. So this tangy smoothie is coming at ya’ll a little late and doesn’t have that OMGZ posted-in-hawaii charm to it, but better late than never, no? It’s packed with a base of vanilla greek yogurt that contributes the protein punch and creamy texture, along with mangoes which add all that is good in the world. Not to mention it only has 4 ingredients that you simply throw into a blender and BOOM. Instant yumminess.

Quick note, I’ve tried this with plain greek yogurt before and it was a bit too tangy for my taste. The vanilla adds a perfect sweetness!

Make. Sip. Carry on my mango legacy.