You know I’m always up for some good Mexican food so it should come as no surprise that my meal planning for Cinco De Mayo is well underway. And to make your meal planning a little bit easier I’ve put together a list of some latin favorites from HLF so you can have them all in one easy place! I’m pretty sure your going to want to pin this.

Skinny Pork Carnitas A classic reconstructed to be a little kinder to your hips.

Chili Colorado Burritos Slow-cooked beef wrapped up in a flour tortilla and smothered in homemade enchilada sauce. Amaze-balls.

Baked Crunchy Taco Casserole This is one of the most-view recipes on HLF and it’s for good reason. It’s definitely one of my favorite ways to cook tacos.

Green Chili and Cheese Enchiladas A quick homemade green enchilada sauce over a cheesy jack filling wrapped in corn tortillas.

Mexican Style Ground Beef This is great for filling burritos, tacos, enchiladas, or topping nachos when you don’t want to use a seasoning packet.

Black Bean Confetti Salad Filled with black beans, corn, tomatoes, onion, peppers and lightly dressed. I love eating it straight up or rolled in tortillas

Broiled Fish Tacos with Tangy Slaw  The fish cooks quickly under the broiler and with a bag of coleslaw mix you can have dinner done in 2o minutes, easy

Slow-Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup This might be my favorite soup ever. Just sayin’

Homemade Enchilada Sauce Super simple to make and  you probably have all of the ingredients on hand already!

Queso Blanco Dip LOVE. THIS. STUFF. the end.

Slow-Cooker Cilantro Ranch Chicken This chicken is great in tacos, burritos, over rice or just on it’s own. Super flavorful and simple to make.

Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas It’s a classic, but this time I made them WITHOUT the cream soups. I just might convert you

The Best Guacamole There’s a secret ingredient in this guac that makes all the difference in the world.

Vegetable Quesadillas One of my earliest attempts at blogging! The picture might not scream yum but these are amazing.

Happy Cinco De Mayo! What do you have planned?

If there is one thing I always make sure my pantry is stocked with it’s canned tomatoes. I use them in everything ( see exhibit A, B, C, D) and they are especially helpful in getting dinner ready and on the table in minimal time.  This creamy spinach and tomato spaghetti is a family favorite of ours. It comes together super quickly and is great on it’s own or along side a grilled chicken breast or sliced Italian sausage.

I’m usually all about a funny side story, but my mind is totally drawing a blank right now. Is this what writer’s block is? Good grief, I don’t even know who I am anymore. Guess we’ll just go straight to the recipe and hope for a better write-up with my next post. Pasta cures all, right? At least that’s what my Italian grandmother would say if I had one. An Italian one, that is. I do have a grandma.

Anyway…

We start the sauce by building our first layer of flavor- caramelized onions. These will give the sauce some much needed sweetness and that tastes-like-its-been-simmering-for-hours effect.

Once your onions have cooked down and caramelized in a couple tablespoons of olive oil with some garlic cloves, toss in dried oregano, red pepper flakes, salt and sugar. Next up is adding the chicken broth and the tomatoes; you’ll need some canned diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and a couple tablespoons of tomato paste. If you’re like me you hate opening up a whole can of tomato of paste for only a few tablespoons. So next time you’re at the store look for tomato paste in a toothpaste-like squeeze tube. I’ve noticed quite a few store have started carrying them and they are prefect for recipes like these; squeeze out what you need and put the rest in the fridge for next time! Genius!

Bring the sauce to a simmer, add the cream cheese to the sauce in chunks and stir until the cream cheese has melted into the sauce. I’m not going to lie- it takes a little bit of work to get the cream cheese to mix in completely but if you keep at it, I promise it will. This last time I used my non-stick skillet so I couldn’t use a whisk and I was able to get it combined in about 5 minutes. If I had a silicone whisk it would have gone MUCH faster. A Note about types of cream cheese: some low-fat and all fat-free cream cheeses have stabilizers that make them extremely hard to combine with hot liquids and usually curdle. Substitute low-fat options at your own risk

Once your sauce has come together or even before, throw a pound of spaghetti into a pot and cook until al dente. Before draining the cooked pasta, reserve a cup of the hot pasta water and set aside.

Add 4 cups of fresh baby spinach to the sauce, stir until wilted and remove from the heat.

Once your pasta has been drained add it directly to the sauce, adding a little bit of the pasta water to loosen it up a bit if needed. Top with grated parmesan cheese and get ready for a plate of pasta goodness.

Back in the day when I was single and more-often-than-not had no one to kiss on New Year’s Eve, my roommate and I made it a tradition to go out to breakfast on New Year’s morning. I think our tradition only lasted a couple of years before we both found our Mr. Charming and preferred snuggling up to dragging ourselves out of bed after a long night. But talking over the events of the night before with glazed, tired eyes and thinking about the new year was always fun. Our breakfast spot of choice was Cracker Barrel and we’d wait ridiculous amounts of time waiting for a table just so we could have a side of their cheesy hashbrown casserole.

I’m a sucker for all things starchy, cheesy, and otherwise detrimental to my dierriere so it’s a given that I can hear most types of  hashbrown casseroles call my name even when I’m sleeping. Yes, even the kind with corn flakes on top

It’s been almost a decade since I’ve been back to a Cracker Barrel so my memory might not be so crisp, but this is the recipe I make when I have a hankering for those New Year’s morning potatoes. They are cooked in a skillet and then baked which makes for a crispy crust and creamy underbelly. Am I allowed to use the word underbelly on a food blog?

Let’s make ‘em! You’ll need a package of frozen hashbrowns, some shredded cheese, minced onion, milk, beef broth, butter, and some herbs and spices. Mix everything but the butter in a big bowl until combined.

In a medium-sized skillet (mine is 10 inches) melt a few tablespoons of butter and spoon in the potato mixture.

Over medium heat stir constantly until the cheese is completely melted and creamy.

It will look a little something like this…

Toss the whole pan into the oven and bake for about 45 minutes or until it’s bubbly and the top is crispy. Sometimes I  add a little fresh parsley to the top to spruce it up a bit.

It’s creamy, cheesy, and definitely a keeper!

With the summer grilling season right around the corner I want to share a couple of recipes that are great for entertaining and warding off that summer heat: Spiced Apple Pork Burgers and Strawberry Banana Smoothie Pops

When your husband finishes off 2 burgers and asks when you can make them again, you know you’ve got a good recipe on your hands—or more accurately, in your face. This recipe comes from my friends at Tree Top and I’m so glad they introduced me to it. In all honesty when I first looked at it I thought, “pork burgers? Is that really a thing?” but I quickly learned they were in fact a glorious thing when I had that first bite. They are juicy, full of flavor and I seriously can’t wait to make them again.

The secret ingredient in these is the addition of apple sauce to the ground pork.

The other thing that makes these so special is the combination of spices used to season the meat. Chili powder, cinnamon, ground mustard and black pepper marry together the apple flavor marvelously with the pork.

Give the meat a good little stir and portion it out for patties. When I make burgers I like to form the meat into a mound in the bowl and score it so I don’t end up with one huge burger and a bunch of little ones or vice versa. It’s not fair to give your burgers a little man complex.

These patties are great for grilling and work equally as well on the stove top. Cook just like you do regular burger patties; once they are  no longer pink in the middle you’re set! The finishing touch on these burgers is a maple-dijon sauce. A super simple mixture of dijon mustard and real maple syrup makes a sweet and tangy sauce that is perfect on these

I topped our burgers with caramelized onions, fresh baby spinach, a tomato slice and, of course, that dreamy maple-dijon sauce.

Hello, lover.

These burgers prove that apples are great for all types of cooking. I love using applesauce as a substitute for fats in my baking and adding apple juice to savory recipes like soups and sauces can create amazing layers of flavor. Tree Top’s 3 Apple Blend juice is one of my absolute favorites for cooking and drinking alike.  Here’s a fun little info graphic on the juice making process at Tree Top.  Click to enlarge

Speaking of using juice in your recipes, homemade smoothie popsicles are a great way to cool off, save money, and sneak copious amounts of fruit into your kid’s unsuspecting bellies. This recipe uses fresh strawberries, bananas, apples, yogurt and apple juice. Just throw all the ingredients into the blender, mix until smooth, pour into a popsicle mold and freeze!

What’s not to love about a popsicle speckled with  fresh strawberries? Ah, I love summer!

This is a sponsored post by Tree Top Inc. All comments and thoughts, as always, are uniquely mine. 

Quinoa has been picking up a lot of speed lately in its popularity but I have a sneaking suspicion that some are still scared to try it. I mean, it does look a little alien once cooked and the germ unravels. But the truth is that it makes a great rice alternative and is an absolute superfood filled with vitamins and packed with protein. Did you know that it’s actually a seed (as opposed to a grain) and is most closely related to spinach and and beets? Crazy! Read more