Grilled Sweet Potato Chips - Savory or Sweet

Tried these for the first time during an impromptu grill party on the roof. They were a pretty big hit, so here they are:

Grab some smallish sweet potatoes, preferably of the long and cucumber-like variety.

You will also need: salt (or seasoning salt), pepper, and olive oil.

For Sweet: Melt butter and brown sugar in a bowl with a little cinnamon

1) Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them across to make coin-shaped cuts, or "chips" (or crisps, if you are from England and don't understand that "chips" is pronounced "fries"). Make sure and cut them VERY thin so they cook up crispy and fast on the grill. Chip-thin

2) Throw the sweet potato coins into a plastic bag with some olive oil, salt, and pepper (or the butter and brown sugar concoction) and shake it up.

3) Spread the coins evenly over the grill and close the lid. CHECK FREQUENTLY

4) After about five minutes, flip them over and cook on that side for a while.

5) Do the taste test! Make sure they are cooked all the way through before serving.

Brussels Sprouts. New! Improved! Edible!

This is the easiest recipe ever and super delicious.

You will need: A big ol' bag of Brussels sprouts; olive oil; salt; pepper; crushed red pepper

1) Halve all of your sprouts right down the middle.
2) Put them in a big plastic bag
3) Pour a little olive oil in the bag, then shake some salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper in the bag as well.
4) Shake it like a red headed stepchild
5) place the sprouts guts-up on a baking sheet
6) This is the part where I forgot to tell you to preheat the oven to 350. Go do that, but, you know, earlier.
7) Place pan in the oven and leave the sprouts in for 20-30 minutes. When they are done they should be a little crispy and brown on the outside and a little soft on the inside.

Chicken Fruit Rollups!

I have dubbed thee hammer chicken, for lo, I have smote thee with mine hammer.

...or meat tenderizer to be more precise.

This turned out to be a rather magical recipe.

You will need:

-As many chicken breasts as you have people

-A wheel or two of brie cheese (no, not the giant cheese wheels. If you use two giant cheese wheels you deserve whatever happens to your bowels)

-Three or four apples

-Honey

-(optional) two strips of bacon per chicken breast

-Cooking string (something that can go in an oven, not acrylic yarn... not that I've ever done that...)

-A MEAT HAMMER

-First, just beat the crap right out of those chicken breasts until they are flat like a salmonella pancake

-Then what you want to do is spread a layer of brie over the chicken breast

-Drizzle honey over the brie then spread it out evenly

-Slice up the apples and evenly layer or sprinkle the apple on top of the honey

**-crumble up about two slices of bacon over the apples, if you so choose

-roll up the chicken so it resembles one of those pumpkin loafs you see at Thanksgiving dinner that no one eats because there is pie. Duh. Idiot. Who brings a pumpkin loaf to Thanksgiving.

-Tie it up with your string that is not made of plastic.

-Place in a glass casserole dish and drizzle with honey

-Cover with aluminum foil and put in a pre-heated over at 350 for about 40 minutes, and let it cook with the foil off for about 7-10 of those minutes to brown the honey if you want it to look pretty.

-Cut into it and make sure it is done. Seriously. If it isn't, put it back in the oven. NOT. ROCKET. SCIENCE.

-This goes really well with the apple salad... which I am vaguely assuming I already posted the recipe for...

So yeah, I didn't post it, SO HERE IS THE RECIPE FOR APPLE SALAD

-Chopped up apples

-Spring Mix or watercress

-blue cheese or sharp white cheddar

DRESSING: Really, I just squeeze some lemon juice over the whole salad, maybe a little apple cider vinegar MAYBE, and shake some salt over the whole thing

The Summer Strawberry Salad

This is the magical strawberry salad. It is one of my all-time favorites, super easy to make, and very good for you!

You will need:
Mixed greens
Strawberries
Blackberries (optional)
Feta or Chevre cheese
Pecans or Walnuts (optional)

Vinegarette

You have a couple of choices here:
A) Go buy some strawberry vinegarette at the store! I have no clue how they make it but it is delicious.
B) Squeeze a little lemon juice into a bowl or, if you are a class-act like myself, dump it out of the giant plastic bottle of lemon juice you keep in your fridge. Put a teensy bit of olive oil, a teensy bit of white wine vinegar and a dash of pepper in there as well. You definitely want to go with about a 5:1 with the lemon juice and olive oil. Go easy on the vinegar, too.

OR you could try this recipe for Strawberry Vinegarette I just found on the interwebs!

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/soupsandsalads/r/strawberryvinag.htm

I probably would abstain from the mustard, but that is only because I think mustard is gross. If you are disgusting and like mustard, then please, by all means...



Hokay, so...

1) Wash your spring mix. You don't know who picked it/threw it in the bag/what animal gave birth or pooped all over it. WASH IT. Make sure it is relatively dry, then put a bed of spring mix on every salad plate. If you are doing a large portion, put it in the communal salad trough.
2) Same with the strawberries and blackberries.
3) Crush up your nuts until they are sprinkle-worthy
4) Slice up your strawberries and put them on the salad first, then sprinkle blackberries on top of that.
5) LIGHTLY drizzle whatever dressing you have chosen. (Sidenote: that lemon-pepper vinegarette "recipe" at the beginning is my standby for just about everything salad related).
6) crumble feta over salad (or just put a little dab of chevre in the middle of the salad. Just a little. That stuff is expensive. Probably because it is FROOOOOOOOONCH)
7) Lightly dust crushed up nuts of your choice over salad and enjoy.

I usually don't add protein to this dish, but I can safely say that if you put a couple chicken breasts in a pan or on the grill and drizzle the chicken with honey, it complements the salad really nicely.

Ratatouille Stuffed Chicken

Yet another night of giving away all of my secrets because I can't sleep.

Here is my recipe for ratatouille stuffed chicken

Step one: Buy yourself a chicken.

Also buy: red pepper, yellow pepper, orange pepper, 1 red onion, eggplant, zucchini, summer squash, celery, 1 c. whole wheat bread crumbs, a little bit of chicken stock and2 tbsp. of butter

Garnishes, herbs, etc: balsamic vinegar, basil, sage, oregano, garlic, salt, pepper

1) First, thaw out your chicken entirely if you need to. No, you cannot cook a frozen chicken. Rub the chicken with balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper.

2) Throw the minced onion, chopped celery, butter, salt, and pepper, a little sage and a little garlic, into a pan and sautee until the veggies are soft. Then throw that into a bowl with the bread crumbs and add chicken broth/stock until the breadcrumbs are soft. Leave it there.

3) If you are not lazy like me, roast the peppers in the oven at about 350 until the skins are a little brown and you can peel them off. However, if you have shit to do, just chop up the peppers, eggplant, squash, and zucchini and throw them into a pan together and sautee until soft, occasionally adding bits of salt, pepper, and the rest of the herbs (to taste). Shake a little (very little) balsamic vinegar in as well.

4) Mix the sauteed veggies into the bowl with the rest of the stuffing until it looks and feels pretty even.

5) Shove the stuffing into the chicken, and if it doesn't all fit, put it in a casserole dish and bake at 350 for about 14 or 20 minutes, or until finished.

6) Put the chicken in a casserole dish or whatever you deem appropriate, and cover with aluminium foil. I find it is helpful to take about a cup of water mixed with about a teaspoon of salt and a little bit of balsamic vinegar in the bottom of the pan, and baste it over the chicken while it cooks. You don't have to do this if you don't want, it just makes the skin a little crispier and a little tastier and the chicken looks gorgeous when it comes out of the oven.

7) Leave it in the oven for as long as the instructions tell you to on the packaged chicken. Am I too lazy to look that up for you? Yes. Yes I am.

Though I have to say, for a recipe I made up when I was wasted one night, it turned out pretty delicious. It also tastes awesome with couscous or rice.

Can't Sleep, so here is my recipe for California Tilapia Salad

I've hit a virulent strain of insomnia. So here. Have a recipe.

You will need this stuff:

2 tilapia fillets

A couple hand-fulls of grapes

1 Avacado

Spring Mix

A couple hand-fulls of crushed pecans

Feta cheese

Dressing

Balsamic Vinegar

Olive Oil

Basil

3 ft. pepper mill

FIRST

1) Grab a couple of tilapia out of your local freshwater habitat such as a river if you live in Africa, or your local supermarket.

2) Smite tilapia with rock or open the package it came in you unadventurous pansy

3) Clean and bone fish with the mad skills of an Eagle Scout or just slap it on the table and stare at the adventure you are not having.

4) Put tilapia in a bowl and douse with balsamic vinegar, a little salt, a little pepper, and some basil. Leave it in there for at least ten minutes. The longer you leave it in there the stronger the taste will be. Be sure to keep lions and/or Mr. Whiskers away.

5) Grill tilapia on bad ass survivalist grill of painstakingly homemade coals, rocks, and animal bones. Or your George Foreman.

6) Grill until done. Set aside and guard with musket.

7) Gather local flora for salad, such as millet. Or open your pre-packaged spring mix from Whole Foods, put it in a colander, and wash away your shame. Or try anyway. Once washed, put on plate or trained zebra's back.

8) Steal avocado from Californian

9) Slice up avocado and I swear to God if you use a four-in-one avocado scoop from Williams and

Sonoma instead of a spoon I will come to your house slap you.

10) Distribute avocado evenly over both salad beds.

11) Slice grapes distribute evenly over both salads.

12) Poach pecans from pecan orchard, outrun angry orchard owner, stare down an elephant until it agrees to serve as a nutcracker or just sprinkle them out of the nestle bag.

13) Raise many goats. Make cheese out of their milk. Sprinkle on salad.

14) Put fish on salad, put oil and vinegar on fish.

15) Whip out that three foot pepper mill and just go to town .

This would have been so much more interesting if you lived in Africa but no. You had to live in a suburb with a disposable income. Well good for you. Way to go to college, get married, and have 2.5 kids! One of them isn't even an entire kid. WAY TO GO.

I want to go to Africa