One of my favorite things in the world of food is Caesar dressing. The tanginess and saltiness and creaminess just makes me salivate and want to dip everything I have in front of me – bread, croutons, crackers, vegetables, meat, salad (of course), in it. Just dump the contents of the bottle in a large bowl and let me dig in! I wanted to liven up some frozen green beans and thought this would be the perfect side dish. I could have easily eaten the whole dish!
Caesar Green Beans
Recipe Type: Side Dish
Cuisine: Vegetables
Author: kd316
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 3-4
Green beans with a delicious sauce
Ingredients
1 bag frozen whole green beans
1 T unsalted butter
2 T Caesar salad dressing
s/p to taste
1 T sliced toasted almonds
2 T freshly grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
Cook green beans according to directions package.
Drain.
In a pan, melt the butter. Stir in the dressing and green beans until all combined.
I am finally learning to be creative in what I cook. So, while I still love recipes – I am having fun playing with them and learning to add my own touches here and there. This week is full of those. Can’t wait to have people around our table this week.
Monday: Brinner. Eggs, grits, bacon, and lemon poppy seed cake with blueberry glaze (recipe to come).
Tuesday: Pulled out a cookbook by one of my favorite chefs – Tyler Florence – and am cooking from his Dinner at My Place book this week. Penne with Spicy Italian Sausage is going down.
Wednesday: A sweet pepper quiche with those lovely little peppers that were on sale this week at Kroger.
Thursday: We are having a date night with a gift card and to see a movie! Yay!!!!!
Friday: Stir fry chicken with some great delicious rice. Rice is cheap and easy!
Saturday: We are cooking together with a family who are friends of ours. We are doing taco night on a Saturday. I’m making Tyler’s Mexican beef tacos. And you know there will be guacamole if I have anything to do with it!
Sunday: Leftovers. I love not having to cook for Sunday lunch. And I am going to be making some brown sugar sandwich cookies with spiced cream cheese filling. So yummily!
This breakfast reminds of two of my favorite morning meals. Pancakes at Guglhupf in Durham, NC. And oats in the Bay Area of California with my Dad. Let me tell you about them.
There is a little bakery/café in the central part of Durham that I still crave their pancakes. Ask my husband: they serve the best most amazing, perfect textured pancakes EVER. I wish I could get their recipe. The pancake plate comes with apples, butter, and syrup. At most restaurants, I have to ask my server for my syrup because the pancakes just need help. I rarely have ever used all the syrup at Guglhupf. They don’t need any more. I can devour the plate and be completely satisfied by the rich goodness that I inhale on my fork. Then I want to go home and recreate them – but have yet been able to. My husband is sitting here beside me making up an ode de Guglhupf. Funny man I live life with.
The Bay Area of California. With so much going on – its a place I’ve only been to once but would love to explore more of – and most directly north of there in the wine country of Napa. But as I look at pictures of the Bridge and the Bay, it pulls me and calls me to travel there to explore all of its goodness. One such goodness is the breakfast I had. I don’t remember where we went, but the oats were amazing. This was really before I started eating oats on a regular basis. I grew up a Life Cereal girl. A whole tray of goodies came out with a big steaming bowl of oats. Bananas, raisins, syrup, brown sugar, all to create your own bowl of goodness. I thought to myself oatmeal could be fun!
Well, thinking about these two delicious breakfasts helped me create this mornings bowl of oats. Oats are a healthy and inexpensive way to feed your whole family in the morning. This recipe serve 2.5 (Eli doesn’t eat quite a whole bowl yet.)
Banana Pancake Oats
Recipe Type: Breakast
Cuisine: Oats
Author: kd316
Prep time:
Cook time:
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Serves: 3
Banans, brown sugar, oats, and syrup – yummy concoction for breakfast
Ingredients
1 1/3 cup whole oats
1 1/3 whole milk
1/4 cup water
pinch of kosher salt
2 T brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon sugar
1/2 banana, pureed
1 banana
Maple Syrup
Chopped pecans, optional
Instructions
In a medium sauce pan, bring the oats, milk, and water to a boil and let cook until done.
Halfway through cooking, add in the salt, cinnamon sugar, brown sugar, and pureed banana.
When done, spoon into bowls, top with sliced bananas and maple syrup. If desired, add chopped nuts.
So many liquids to drink out there – and I’ve only named a few. But, what about the one thing that is free and good (at least in our ountry in most cities in America)?
My health fast in the month of March is for the remainder of the month, I will give up my Sonic runs and my unsweet tea and drink only water. So, why should we drink water? These are not scientific but just some thoughts:
1. Fills you up before a meal. So you don’t eat as many calories, so you lose weight.
2. Cleanses your body because drinking more makes you go to the bathroom more.
3. Makes your skin look healthier because you are flushing toxins from your body that usually cause acne.
4. Its free. Our wallet could use a break.
5. It tastes good. I like our water. Clean. Not filtered. Ice or no ice. Lemon, lime, or just plain! PS. If you don’t like your water, there are items like Brita or you can buy Aquafina or Fiji water if your budget allows. Those are my two favorite bottles of water.
