Stuffed Poblanos

   We got together with Mary, Amy's old roomate, for this delicious dinner and just to hang out since we haven't seen her since our wedding in March. This recipe we have made before but it was before we started our blog so we wanted to include it now! Along with the stuffed peppers, we made corn bread with green chiles.

Ingredients :

Serves 4. Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes

1 can peeled tomatoes in juice

1 jalepeno chile

2 small onions coursely chopped

3 garlic cloves, 2 crushed 1 minced

salt and pepper

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup cornmeal

1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
1 teaspoon ground cumin

3/4 cup water

4 large poblano chiles, halved lengthwise,ribs and seeds removed

Puree tomotoes, jalepeno, half of the onions, and crushed garlic. Season with

salt and pepper and then pour sauce into a 9x13 inch baking dish.

In a bowl, combine beans, cormeal, 1/2 cup cheese, remaining onion, minced garlic, cumin, water.

Slice peppers in half, removing seeds, but leaving the stems intact.

Divide bean mixture evenly and stuff peppers. Place on top of sauce in baking dish.

Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Cover dish tightly with aluminum foil.

Bake at 425 until poblanos are tender about 45 minutes. Remove aluminum foil and continue to cook until sauce thickens slightly and cheese is browned. 10-15 minutes more. Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Also, for our homemade cornbread...

3 tablesoopns unsalted butter, melted

3/4 cup yellow cornmeal

3/4 flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons salt

1 large egg

1 1/4 cup buttermilk

mix in a small can of diced green chiles for color and flavor

Comine ingredients and spread batter in prepared pan. Bake until golden, 15-20 minutes. Serves 6

Playing with Friends & Food :)

Today we had our friends Tony and Kellie over for the labor day weekend. We spent the morning shopping at the Sunflower Market (which I had never been too), and then headed back to our apartment to begin with our creations. Our menu consited of the following:

Lunch-

"Wierd Pizza Thing"-aka a tortilla and 3 ingredients

1. sour cream

2. brown sugar

3. grapes

Crisp tortillas in oven: 3 minutes per side, then spread sour cream over the top, mixing in brown sugar and then top with grapes. Wha-la!

"Spring Salad with Strawberries and Creamy Orange Avacado Dressing"

1. baby spring mix

2. strawberries

3. orange juice

4. avacado

5. green onion

6. walnuts

For the salad dressing, blend OJ, avacado, and green onions together in food processor until smooth and creamy. Then prepare strawberries walnuts and baby spring mix and toss together with the dressing.

Dinner-
"30 Minute Gumbo"

(Which actually took an hour!)

 with Cornbread

Flank Steak Stir Fry

We tried making this stir fry for tuesday night's dinner. It turned out well, but it was a little bit difficult because you are supposed to cook everything on high heat so its very fast paced and everything that you throw into the stir fry needs to be prepared a head of time- which we didnt do. So we learned from that, and everything about it tasted good. The best part was it was done in less than 30 minutes! This meal is for those who don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen! Served with Basmati rice...

Snickerdoodles

We got a new cookbook! "1001 cupcakes, cookies and other tempting treats".  We needed new recipes to make this week and Snickerdoodles are one of Ryan's favorites cookies. So I gave Ryan the book and told him to choose something to make and those are what he chose! They called for a few ingredients that we didnt have so we made a special trip to our favoite spice store "Penzey's".

SNICKERDOODLE RECIPE:
1 cup butter, softened                                                     
3/4 cup superfine sugar (regular sugar works great too)   
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract                                                       
3 cups all-purpose flour                                                  
1 tsp baking soda                                                            

1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
pinch of salt

CINNAMON COATING:

1 tbsp superfine sugar
2 tbsp ground cinnamon

Mix butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and eggs. In a seperate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, nutmeg and salt. Stir in until mixture becomes thoroughly combined. Shape the dough into a ball, cover and refridgerate for 30-60 minutes. Preheat oven to 375. Grease/spray cookie sheets. For the cinnamon coating, mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Roll dough into balls (about tablespoon size) and roll in the sugar mixture. Place on cookie sheets evenly spaced out. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 5-10 minutes and transfer to cooling rack. Enjoy with milk!

                                                 .                                                   

Famous Hamburgers-Minnesota's Famous: Lions Tap!

These Burgers are to die for! We have to go here everytime we visit Minnesota, or for at least one of our family birthdays. My favorite is the California Burger with bacon and cheese. You also gotta add on a side of fried onions (almost burnt), a basket of french fries, and a pitcher of root beer. This completes the entire Lion's Tap experience! Ryan likes to order the Mushroom Swiss Burger...wait, you better make that a double! We enjoyed going this time with Grandpa and Grandma Melling to celebrate Amy's 22nd birthday.

Summer Jam Making

We have made jam in my family for years. Grape, peach, strawberry, and now cherry! This was the first time though that I was able to learn the process from my mom. We visited my family up in Minnesota for 9 days and during the week, Micaela came over and we learned how to make cherry jam! There is the amazing invention-the cherry pitter. Without this thing, we would have to use a knife to pit every single cherry. Way too much work! So Ryan, Micaela and I spent the morning pitting cherries, and after lunch time, we started making the jam with Mom. You use the basic canning ingredients: Sugar, fruit, and Sure-jell (this is what makes it thick). We also added a bit of lemon zest for a kick of freshness. You also must boil the jars and lids for sterilization. It was so much fun, we intend on continuing this tradition at home here in Colorado :) Thanks mom!

Sherbet Watermelon

This is an easy summer time treat I used to make when I lived at home. It was for my birthday one year. So one of the weeks this summer that was in the 90's, we decided to make this watermelon!  All it is, is Sherbet-Rasberry and Lime. You have to let the lime sherbet melt just a bit so that you are able to mold it inside of a bowl. Leave an open center so that you can put the raspberry in the middle. And I would say mix in about a cup of chocolate chips to the raaspberry sherbet for the watermelon seeds! Let it freeze fully for a few hours, then flip the bowl upside down and let the watermelon fall out. Cut and enjoy!

 

Mom's Best

Chocolate chip banana muffins...You could say that these tasty treats are one of my mom's trademarks. She would make them for breakfast before we left for school, on the weekends, for an afternoon snack or whenever! These had to have been made at least once a week in our home so now I've continued the tradition in the Heylin household! I don't think Ryan could go a week without these either ;)

pAiNt!

So we decided to paint our kitchen today! Every other room in our house is so plain that we wanted to add some color! It just so happens to be our kitchen!!! We chose the color to match our Le Crueset collection :)  The only downside is we'll have to paint it back when we move out, but for now we have a new kitchen!