bangers & mash

bangers & mash

The Minnie Chef
Meals

☘ St. Patty’s Day ☘ For me, it's always been all about the pub grub 🍔, the beer 🍻, and the all green errrryythang 🍀.  It's also my grandfather’s birthday… 🎉 So, every year we've always had a good excuse to celebrate! 

I've spent a lot of St. Patrick's Days at local pubs and bars drinking beer and scarfing down lots of heavy, greasy bar food--the kind that tastes so so good, but makes you feel sorta like you got hit by a truck afterwards.  This year, I decided to pay homage to my Irish roots (partial roots anyway, but enough to have blessed my baby girl with a head full of red hair 😉) this year and come up with a less greasy, not fried version of some good, old-fashioned pub food.  And in true St. Patrick’s Day (and Minnie Chef) spirit . . .

kale caesar

kale caesar

The Minnie Chef
Salad

My love affair with Caesar salads started at a very young age.  Growing up, we had a little French bakery and café across the street from our neighborhood.  On Saturdays, my dad made it sort of a tradition to take me out to lunch for a Caesar salad and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert—my all time favorite treat when I was little. 

The Caesar salads at this place were not just your average Caesar.  They were served in these heavenly, warm, freshly baked baguette bowls.  Every time mine would arrive at the table, I would take the cut out top off, place it crust down in my hand and pile it high with my salad.  I would fold it over and start by devouring my little Caesar salad sandwich.  Next, I’d dive into the salad.  Then after my salad was finished came the best part. . .

sauteed kale and hummus english muffins

sauteed kale and hummus english muffins

The Minnie Chef
Breakfast

I’ve been really into savory breakfasts lately and I’ve been on a HUGE English muffin kick ever since making those Tofu Benedicts and trying Ezekiel Sprouted Grain English Muffins for the first time.  I love them so much, I just can’t stop eating them!  😋😋😋  I just tried them for the first time a couple weeks ago and I’ve already enjoyed them in so many different ways with so many different toppings.  And this 👆 was one of my favorite ways, right up there with the Benedicts.  So good, that I just had to share…

It’s a great savory breakfast option that’s so quick and easy to put together… All you need is . . .

tofu benedict

tofu benedict

The Minnie Chef
Breakfast

Am I going to seem like a creepy obsessed super fan 😁 if I start talking about 💀 The Walking Dead 💀 again??  Well, if I do, it’s because I am!  And I got no shame in my game.  So last Sunday night, when I was watching 📺 the mid-season 6 premiere of the show, I got a little emotional over the “W” man scene in the episode.  It was really the first time in the show where we got an emotional connection to a supporting role villain 👿 through a main character’s storyline.  And just when we wanted to hate this villain the most, he risked his own life to save the life of one of the good guys (who he had just minutes before taken captive).  And in case we thought there were selfish motivations behind his actions, moments later, after he is shot several times in the gut, instead of falling to his death, he selflessly makes one final heroic move to grab a walker 💀 and allow his prisoner to make a run to safety.  👼 Given the overall intensity of this episode, I got a little emotional during this scene (and pretty much every other one, to be honest 😩) and was beyond excited, maybe even relieved, when the actor who plays the “W” man, Benedict Samuels, appeared on The Talking Dead. 🙌

Ok, now I know what you’re thinking… And I promise you this isn’t just some creepy . . .

cauliflower crust pesto pizza

cauliflower crust pesto pizza

The Minnie Chef
Meals

🍕 Pizza… In honor of Glenn from The Walking Dead because he’s supposed to be delivering pizzas right now, not being swarmed by a herd of flesh-eating zombies… 💀 Yesterday was 💘 Valentine’s Day, but more importantly it was the mid-season 6 premiere of the most amazing show to ever air on television…📺

I seriously don’t know what it is about this show, but I’ve never been so emotionally invested in a TV show before.  I literally get anxiety in anticipation of new episodes and sometimes even cry through them!  I know, I know, it’s jut a show… Trust me, I tell myself this all the time—I’m really trying to drive this point home.  But if you’re a Walking Dead fan . . .

 

Chocolate Caramels

Chocolate Caramels

The Minnie Chef
Sweet Treats

Fun Fact: The runner-up name for Zoey was Lucy after the much beloved Lucille Ball, America's favorite red head… I’m a HUGE fan of ‘I Love Lucy’ and have been since I was a little kid.  So much so that I wanted to name my firstborn after the star of the show! But her dad vetoed that idea…. And of course, as irony would have it, Zoey is a red-head!  

So anyway, there’s this one episode of the show in which Lucy and her partner in crime, Ethel, decide to swap roles with their husbands.  The ladies go out and get jobs, while the men stay home and do the homemaking.  Lucy and Ethel end up getting placed at a chocolate confectionery and, of course, their experience ends in complete comedic disaster.  The ladies fail at every task they’re assigned to.  Lucy had a go at dipping chocolate.  Thinking it would be a walk in the park, she aloofly mimicked the seasoned chocolate-dipping veteran next to her until . . .

Cookie Dough Bites

Cookie Dough Bites

The Minnie Chef
Sweet Treats

YES YES YES YAAAAAAAAS! Healthy things do come in scrumptious, decadent packages!  Now here’s where you’re gonna have to trust me.  Ok?  Look at that picture up there 👆… You know you want a bite of that… So, don’t go turning the page on me when I tell you that the main ingredient in this cookie dough is… dun dun dun . . .  

Animal Style Homefries

Animal Style Homefries

The Minnie Chef
Sides

So my honey went to Vegas a couple weeks ago for a business trip and he came back with a packet of ketchup from In-and-Out Burger.  I guess when the cat’s 🐈 away, the mice 🐁 will play… and eat fast food!  

Well lucky for me, seeing the ketchup reminded me of some once swooned over “Animal Style Fries” 🍟 that I tried a few years back when we were on our ”babymoon” in California while I was pregnant with Zoey.  I had never eaten at In-and-Out Burger before that trip and being a Miami native, I hadn’t yet felt the effect of the In-and-Out craze that has swept the West Coast.   

So naturally, I knew nothing of their secret menu until a California native friend told me that I had to try their “Animal Style Fries.”  🍟 I had no idea what he was talking about and told him I hadn’t seen that on their menu (yes, we went multiple times during that trip), but he insisted that I go up to the counter and order “Animal Style Fries” and they’d oblige.  So I did.  And at that very moment . . .

Cookie Monster Pancakes

Cookie Monster Pancakes

The Minnie Chef
Breakfast

Sometimes we have those “that just happened” moments in our kitchen… Those moments when we take a bite of something so epic that we can’t believe we actually created it! This was one of those moments…

These Cookie Monster Pancakes embody all things cookie… There are cookies 👉👈 inside the pancakes and 👇 on top, 3 ways!  From the ginnybakes’ Dreamy Vegan Delight cookies in the batter itself to the heaping spoonful of cookie butter on top, we have no doubt that the Cookie Monster himself would go insane for these! 🍪 We sure did! 

The best part about these pancakes is that they’re actually pretty 🍌 healthy 🍌, way healthier than traditional pancakes.  And with the exception of the cookie butter we used, they’re gluten-free!  So go ahead and do yourself a favor. . .

Banana Pancakes with Strawberry Syrup

Banana Pancakes with Strawberry Syrup

The Minnie Chef
Breakfast

If you follow me on Instagram, you already know by now that we really REALLY like our oatmeal around here.  But we also enjoy a nice stack of pancakes every now and then too.  And if they were healthier for us, we’d enjoy them a lot more often!  So I took our main go-to breakfast ingredient and tried to incorporate it into our other favorite breakfast meal and tried to achieve a healthier balance by combining the two.  Instead of using processed all-purpose flour like in my traditional pancake recipe, I used oats to make flour as the base in this recipe, so we can guiltlessly enjoy a hot stack of pancakes for breakfast more often.  With just a few other simple ingredients and a few . . . 

Nicecream Sandwiches

Nicecream Sandwiches

The Minnie Chef
Sweet Treats

It seems like nobody has been able to escape the cold lately!  ❄️ Even us Miamians have been bundled up, donning jackets and scarves with our flips flops…  seriously though, it hit 46 degrees here! ❄️ I’ve seen pictures and videos all over Facebook and Instagram of people 🏂 snowboarding down the street, swan-diving into the snow and doing all sorts of crazy things with the snow… including eating it. 🍧  So I figured, even though right now . . .

Scrambled Tofu with Crispy Home Fries

Scrambled Tofu with Crispy Home Fries

The Minnie Chef
Breakfast

Most days I don't have time to cook a complete warm breakfast, so we usually opt for oatmeal, a smoothie, or a chia pudding parfait. But some weekends, especially lazy Sundays, just call for a long morning of cooking up something great in the kitchen.  

I absolutely love home fries!  Who doesn't, right??  I think I actually love potatoes in all forms.  I'm not sure I've ever had a potato that I haven't enjoyed, but home fries are especially delicious!  They're so crispy and crunchy on the outside, with just the right amount of pillowy tenderness on the inside.  And these are so simple, but so full of flavor and spice!  They are also so welcoming to ketchup and hot sauce and I just love hot sauce.. I put it on . . .

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