Oven-Roasted Potato Wedges

Happy 4th of July everybody! I’m celebrating by playing games and watching 4th of july-themed movies/tv show episodes with my mom, eventually watching fireworks go off and eating some Hot Chick sandwiches with these delicious potato wedges !

It’s pretty easy to make these. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. For three people, we get three large russet potatoes, cut each into 8 pieces and place them in a large mixing bowl . Pour a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil over the potato wedges and toss to coat. Now take a 1.13 oz. package of seasoning (I use McCormick Grill Mates Chipotle Pepper Marinade Mix) and pour it over the wedges, tossing until fully coated. Take a baking sheet and line it with aluminum foil, spraying the foil with nonstick cooking spray afterwards. Place the wedges on the foil and cook for 28 minutes, flipping them half-way through.

These potato wedges are so freaking delicious ! The chipotle coating gives it enough heat to notice without having to need something to drink and the potatoes are fully cooked. It’s also easy to change the coating to something else if you want to.

I was not paid in any form to promote McCormick’s.

Take care y’all !

Corn and black bean salad

This is such an easy side dish to put together !

All you need are 2 small red onions (chopped), 4 cans of black beans (rinsed and drained), 2 cans of whole kernel corn (drained) and a 16 oz. bottle of balsamic vinaigrette. Combine those ingredients in a large mixing bowl and while you can serve it right away, it’s even better served chilled ! You can also easily make this a main meal by mixing in some seitan. I like cooking up 3 (8 oz. each) packages of Sweet Earth’s Traditional seitan strips and chopping them up into bite-size pieces and mixing it in with the other ingredients.

This recipe me and my mom made was inspired by a chicken black salad but they wanted less corn, beans, and red onion and also wanted actual chicken meat and they wanted Italian dressing.

I was not paid in any form to promote Sweet Earth.

Take care y’all !

Spicy Peanut Noodles

If you’re looking for a quick dish to fix up, you gotta try this out !

The recipe mentions that it’s a 15-minute dish and while I think it took me longer than that, it was still pretty quick to prep and cook. I didn’t have the brown rice noodles at home that the recipe calls for so I used a package of fettuccine instead (guess I should be calling it spicy peanut butter pasta). The recipe gives you some options on what to choose and in the listed order for myself I chose extra-virgin olive oil for the tablespoon of oil, 3 tablespoons of low-sodium soy sauce, 1/4 cup vegetable broth, 2 tablespoons sriracha, 1 tablespoon of maple syrup and to use the optional chili-garlic sauce and ground ginger. The garnishes of chopped up peanuts and green onion slices add a little texture and color but you could skip them and still have a spicy, flavorful dish on your hands !

This recipe came from a website, you can get the recipe by clicking here.

I wasn’t paid in any form to promote this recipe.

Take care y’all !

Cajun Tempeh Po’ Boy

I love a good sandwich so when I came across this recipe I wanted to try it out and see if it could become a new favorite.

I was hoping it would be spicy (there’s two teaspoons of cayenne that go into the seasoning) but I suppose between the bread and toppings, any heat goes away. This was still a flavorful dish though ! Messy (needed a paper towel or two) but delicious. I didn’t have pickles on the po’ boy in these pictures but my mom tried her po’ boy with dill pickles and loved the acidity and crunch that they added to the sandwich.

This recipe came from the cookbook “The Spicy Plant-Based Cookbook”.

I wasn’t paid in any form to promote this cookbook.

Take care y’all !

Chickpea Curry

I wish I knew where we got this recipe from so you could make this yourself. The cilantro adds a little flavor but contributes more in color. The lemon brightens it up but if you don’t have lemons or cilantro, the chickpea curry being served on brown rice could stand all on its own ! I was surprised that a curry dish would have ketchup in it but it just contributes to a pleasant level of sweetness along with the pinch of ground cloves and the cinnamon stick. The onion, garlic and hot madras curry powder gives an equal amount of savoriness to each bite. For some reason I’m having trouble being able to access my photos and get them loaded onto here but you can see my pictures of the chickpea curry on instagram. Just search for @caloriesdontexisthere

Take care y’all !

Shrimp Po’ Boy

This was just something I put together on a previous shopping day. I got an Italian loaf and scooped out the inside filling, spread a Tabasco-mayo mixture on the inside (1 cup of mayo blended with 2 tablespoons of Tabasco gets you what you need with a little leftover) spread some shredded lettuce on one side and loaded a family value pack’s worth of shrimp onto the sandwich. Cut this into thirds and enjoy ! The shrimp wasn’t bad but that Tabasco-mayo mixture is what really made the sandwich, it gave a pleasant level of heat without overwhelming the other flavors in the po’boy.

I wasn’t paid in any way to promote Tabasco.

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The Hot Chick

Whenever I want an easy vegan dish after shopping, this is one of the first things that pops into my mind:

I love the different levels of crunch from the lettuce, red onion slices, and vegan bacon bits and the patty has a pleasant level of heat to it. Quick tip, the amount of hot sauce called for is actually enough for two batches !

This recipe came from “Quick & Easy Vegan Comfort Food” by Alicia C. Simpson.

I wasn’t paid in any form to promote the cookbook or Alicia C. Simpson.

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Wendy’s Frosty

If I was only allowed to get two things from Wendy’s for the rest of my life, it would be their spicy chicken nuggets and their chocolate frosty. If you’ve ever tried out copycat recipes for their frosty, you’ll know they usually don’t hold a candle to the original. Doesn’t stop me from trying out the copycat recipes though !

The picture that accompanied the recipe had their frosty looking a lot thicker than what mine turned out (mine was more like a slightly thick at best milkshake) but the flavor was surprisingly similar ! It also tasted really good when I tried dipping some french fries into it. Overall, I think this is probably the best recreation that I’ve tasted so far. This recipe came from delish and if you want to try it out yourself, you can click here .

I wasn’t paid in any form to promote Wendy’s or delish.

Take care y’all !

Spicy Fried Chicken Party Sub

After a day of running errands, I just want something easy to fix so when I came across Food Network’s list of 50 party subs and saw #12 (spicy fried chicken), I knew I wanted to try it out.

This was so easy to make y’all ! The filling is just ranch coleslaw, fried buffalo chicken tenders (the ones I used just said spicy, figured it’d still work out just as well), dill pickle slices, and some extra ranch squeezed on the bread itself ! I was glad that the chicken had enough heat to it that you could still taste it even with the ranch getting used two ways. The only trouble I remotely had with this was the part where you’re supposed to hollow out the inside of the bread… I may have hollowed out so much that I started to create a small hole in the bottom of the bread. I just tried to fix it by putting some the hollowed out bread back in and pressing it down so it’d stay in place. I’d gladly make this again in a heartbeat !

For the actual recipe, click here.

I wasn’t paid in any form to promote Food Network.

Take care y’all !

BBQ Oven-Baked Ribs

I love the idea of going low and slow on a grill/smoker to get a beautiful rack of ribs but I also love the idea of not getting sunburned and possibly ending up with heatstroke from staying outside in this hot a** weather that we’ve been having lately so when I came across this recipe for ribs that gets cooked in an oven I jumped at it ! When all was said and done, this was the end result:

The ribs are nice and tender and the glaze is sweet but not so sweet that you feel like you’re eating candy. There was still a decent amount of barbecue sauce leftover so I just dipped the meat back into the extra sauce and it only made it better. If you don’t want to cook up some ribs outside or simply can’t afford to have a grill/smoker due to space or cost, this is a recipe worth making !

This recipe came from delish. Click here for the recipe.

I wasn’t paid in any form to promote delish.

Take care y’all !