Sweet Potato Cakes with Garlic Dipping Sauce

Posted on December 13, 2014 by Georgina

Sweet Potato Cakes with Garlic Dipping Sauce

Hello loves!

Happy weekend! I would like to announce to the world that I’M DONE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING!!!

Pretty much a first for me. Usually I’m working away until 12/24! But they are done. I plan on wrapping them up this weekend. I have a few more things that are being delivered in the next coming days and I also have to make one more thing but I have all the supplies for it. I’m so happy!

Christmas is my favorite time of year. People are nicer, the decorations are beautiful (I mean seriously I could just stare at lit up Christmas trees all night long), Christmas music brings back so many happy memories for me, and I get so excited to give my loved ones the presents I’ve put effort and love into!

It all makes me happy. You know what else makes me happy? These amazing sweet potato cakes. Fo’ realzzz

Sweet Potato Cakes w/ Garlic Dipping Sauce

Ingredients

3 lbs. sweet potatoes
1 cup corn kernels (Frozen or fresh)
3 green onions
¼ bunch cilantro (divided)
¼ tsp cayenne pepper – can add more if you like spicy!
¼ tsp chipotle pepper powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 large egg
2/3 cup yellow cornmeal/polenta
2/3 cup plain breadcrumbs (I did gluten free with these)
Oil of your choice (for frying)
1 cup plain greek yogurt (I used this dairy free kind)
1 clove garlic or 1 tbsp of garlic powder for a milder taste

Instructions

Begin by cooking the sweet potatoes. The fastest way to do this is in the microwave. Prick the skin of each potato with a fork. Wrap one potato in a paper towel, place it on a plate, and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Carefully remove it from the microwave, squeeze it to make sure it’s soft in the center, and the allow it cool as you cook the next one. When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut them open and scoop the flesh into a large bowl.
Slice the green onions and roughly chop a handful of cilantro. Add the green onions, cilantro, corn kernels, salt, chipotle, cumin, and cayenne pepper to the bowl with the cooked sweet potatoes. Stir until well combined.
Add the breadcrumbs, cornmeal, and egg to the bowl. These ingredients will bind the mixture together and keep it from falling apart while cooking. Stir until evenly combined. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes. This step is important so you don’t have crunchy cakes 🙂
While the sweet potato mixture is refrigerating, mix up the garlic sauce. In a small bowl combine the yogurt, one clove of well minced garlic or you can use garlic powder for a milder taste, and a handful of cilantro leaves (roughly chopped). Stir until combined and then refrigerate until ready to serve.
After the sweet potato mixture has refrigerated, add enough oil to fully cover the bottom of a medium skillet. Heat the oil over medium-high heat until hot (but not smoking). Shape the sweet potato mixture into small patties and cook about 4 at a time in the hot oil. Cook until golden brown on each side; about 3 minutes per side. Once done, remove from the pan and place on a plate. Continue to cook until all potato mix is gone and add more oil to the skillet as needed.
Top with your yogurt sauce and enjoy!!

You can eat these without the sauce too- they’re equally delicious!!

Soooo damn good and healthy too. These are great by themselves or as a side too.

Hope you enjoy these and I hope you are enjoying the Holiday season so far! Do you have your present shopping done? What do you have left to do? Do you do homemade or buy gifts? Comment below, I’d love to hear from you!

xoxo

Turkey, Leek, and Wild Rice Casserole

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Georgina

Turkey, Leek, and Wild Rice Casserole

Hello fraaaaands!

Last year around this time, I posted this enchilada recipe to give you a new way to use your leftover turkey!It was different flavors than most of us probably had on Thanksgiving and we all know I like to spice it up 🙂 butttt we also know I’m a creature of habit and love the holidays. I love the food of the holidays and usually have too many recipes on my wishlist and end up cutting some out because making ungodly amounts of food is wasteful…… That’s why this year, I’m again going to give you an EXCELLENT recipe to use up some of your left over Turkey meat from next week, but it’s a fall inspired comfort food meal!

Yes Thanksgiving is next week and this recipe is a “week early” but if you’re like me, you like to plan and that includes meal planning. This post is extra special because it contacts some sponsored products!

A while back, I was contacted by popchips to see if I would be interested in trying some of their products and sharing them on the blog. Um yes.

Upon further research- popchips are all natural, gluten free, low fat, not fried, no soy(as far as I can tell- though I haven’t tried every kind) and non to mention- delicious!

Originally I was asked if I could try some of the Cheddar Cheese products because they were interested in teaming up with bloggers in Wisconsin because Wisconsin is apparently one of the only places where Cheddar cheese is a snack consumed at higher rates then anywhere else . I said yes, even if I try to limit my cheese intake we all know- I love cheese. Too much.

They sent me a big box of samples of tons of flavors and even some veggie pop chips.

So I won’t lie- they were so good just as is (especially with Hummus) that that’s pretty much how we enjoyed them. However I did get the idea (rather genius if you ask me 🙂 ) so use them as a crunchy layer on a casserole. It was the PERFECT way to get a healthy crunch!

I was inspired by a fellow Wisconsin food blogger, Sarah from Wisconsin from Scratch. I get her blog posts directly to my email and love every single thing she posts! This dish she made particularly caught my eye. So I did my own rendition. Hope you enjoy as much as we did!

Turkey, Leek, and Wild Rice Casserole
Ingredients:

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large leek, thoroughly rinsed, chopped
8 oz mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme (or ½ tsp dried thyme)
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
3 Tbsp gluten free flour
1 cup almond milk
1 cup chicken or veggie broth
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
½ cup plain greek yogurt
1 ½ cups cooked wild rice*
2 cups cooked turkey shredded or chopped (or chicken too!)
1 ½ Tbsp butter, melted
1 cup cheddar cheese popchips, crushed

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Once hot, add the leeks, mushrooms, thyme, salt, and pepper. Cook until vegetables are soft, around 5 minutes or so.

3. Sprinkle flour over the vegetables, then stir so that the flour coats all the vegetables. Once coated, cook for about 1 minute more and add the milk and broth. Bring it all to a boil, and reduce the heat to low and simmer until it thickens a little, about 3-5 minutes.

4. Stir in the cheese and yogurt until well combined. Once cheese is melted in, stir in the already cooked wild rice and turkey.

5. Pour wild rice mixture into a medium sized (1.5 quart) baking dish or casserole dish.

6. Pour 1 ½ Tbsp melted butter into a small bowl. Add the crushed popchips and mix together.

7. Top the turkey/wild rice mixture with the crushed popchips. Place in the oven and bake at 350 until topping is golden brown and filling is hot and bubbling, about 20-25 minutes.

7. Let sit and cool for about 5 minutes and then ENJOY!!!

*To cook wild rice, combine ½ cup dried rice with 2 cups of water(or broth) in a saucepan. Bring it to a boil, cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer until rice is tender, about 45 minutes. Then drain off any excess liquid.

Hmmm baked cheesy, crunchy goodness. Soo good and comfort foody. So there you have it- the perfect thing to do with your leftover bird.

Hope you enjoy and happy holidays to you and your families! Take time to tell them you love them and unplug from social media/technology and have a drink, laugh and love with them!

xoxo

White Chocolate Fall Bark

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Georgina

White Chocolate Fall Bark

Hellllloooo!

I’ve had major writers block lately and little inspiration for new blog post ideas. Sometimes I am just IN. THE.ZONE. and I’ll write up like 5 blog posts in a day. My little dirty secret is that I’ll store them as drafts to be used later on. It’s hard work to write posts every week! Don’t get me wrong I love every minute of working on my blog and creating things to share with you all but I might not have made every recipe that you see in the week it was posted. Take for instance this post you’re reading right now and the recipe below, this was something that I made 2 YEARS AGO! Yes. Two+ years. Hence the crappy iPhone photo making a return. But this was just something that I had drafted a while ago and never got around to posting it. Most drafts I only hold onto before posting for a week or so, sometimes a month. This is definitely the longest standing item in the draft box of Eat Laugh Craft and it feel so good to finally share it 🙂 haha.

This is a really fun recipe too. Perfect to have kids help you make as it’s pretty much a free for all. It’s a perfect fall snack or treat that looks great to bring to a party. You could add or take out anything that you wanted (like if you cant have nuts at your kids school or something like that). Hope you enjoy and HAPPY FALL!!!!!

White Chocolate Fall Bark

Ingredients

1/2 pound white chocolate (chips,coating,big ole’ block of it etc…)
1 cup pretzels(I broke mine into pieces but you don’t have to)
1/2 cup candy corn
1/2 cup of walnuts broken into small pieces
1/3 cup dried cranberries

Directions

Line an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment, leaving an overhang on 2 of the sides.
Heat the chocolate in a double boiler (or in the microwave at 50% power for 1 minute increments until desired consistency) until melted and smooth.
Spread the chocolate in the prepared pan and sprinkle with the pretzels, candy corn, and dried cranberries.( I sort of carefully pressed all of the ingredients into the chocolate so they were ‘stuck’. Chill in fridge or freezer until firm, about 1 hour.
Remove the bark from the pan and break into pieces & EAT!

How cute and fun is this, right?! Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

Detox Bath

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Georgina

Detox Bath

Hi Hi Hi! This post is something a little different than the regular foodie post but still I really wanted to share this with all of you!

I had heard about detox baths for so long, but never had tried them. I honestly didn’t understand them or comprehend that it was more than just a regular hot relaxing bath. I thought it was totally just a mental/relaxation thing (that IS part of it) but had no idea what a detox bath could actualllllyyy do for your body. Until recently….

I have been detoxing internally for about 3 weeks now. That involves an elimination diet of caffeine, alcohol, gluten, dairy, soy as well as eating as whole and natural as possible (i.e. just because a cracker is gluten free- I still shouldn’t be eating it). The detox program I’m doing is through Arbonne (more on that later) but really it involves sticking to the above guidelines, having one of their protein shakes for breakfast and or lunch followed by a healthy dinner. This is my second detox program (they last 28 days) and the first one I did I lost 14 pounds! So I’m excited to report back after I complete this second one. Anyway, somehow the idea of a detox bath popped into my head and that I should try one. Seriously I don’t know where the idea came from other than I knew I had a Friday night to myself and thought- hey why not. I looked up several “recipes” and combined several to make the version I used.

First before I get into my experience- lets just talk about what the hell a detox bath is in the first place. Our bodies naturally detoxify themselves on a constant basis. As humans we are exposed to toxins at high levels and particularly in this day and age each of us are exposed to more toxins than ever before. We are exposed the second we wake up. We breath in polluted air, we take showers with water that is full of residual pollutants and toxins, we use shampoo and beauty care products full of chemicals, we brush our teeth with toothpaste that most likely contains fluoride, then we move on to eating breakfast. Breakfast probably consists of food that has been exposed to harsh chemicals and pesticides or genetically modified . We don’t even have to leave the house to put excessive strain on our bodies natural detoxification abilities. Then just imagine what happens when you leave your house and are out and about in our dirty, albeit beautiful, world. Our bodies can’t keep up with all the stuff we keep exposing it to. It would be virtually impossible to eliminate all toxins from our body but there are ways we can encourage our body and promote it’s natural ability to boost our health, strengthen our immune system and prevent illnesses.

Our bodies have several ways in which it detoxifies. One is through the liver which removes harmful toxins and metabolic waste, converts them to water soluble compounds and excretes them from our body through our urine. For toxins that cannot be converted to water soluble or aren’t water soluble, our livers excrete this through bile which then travels through our intestinal tract and is removed by going #2 🙂 There are still some toxins yet, that can not be or aren’t removed through these two methods and usually we end up sweating those out through our skin.

In a world where:

2,100 chemicals, including pesticides, herbicides, medications such as antidepressants and recreational drugs are in our water supply
80,000 metric tons of carcinogens are released into the air annually in North America
Over 80% of foods have genetically modified ingredients
The EPA estimates that the average U.S. citizen has residues from over 400 toxic compounds in their body
82,000 chemicals are in use today in the United States, but only a fourth have ever been tested for toxicity ∗

You can see why it’s important to aid our bodies all that we can. I’m not sure who thought of a detox bath but I’m glad they did! For centuries people have been using Mineral Salts (Epsom, dead sea) to aid in healing various illnesses and improving overall health and well being. Most detox baths do have empsom salt(also known as Magnesium Sulfate) in them. Due to it’s properties to help with easing stress, regulate activity of 300+ enzymes, reduce inflammation and relieve sore muscles, flush toxins, and improve circulation. Good stuff!!

Now as I said I sort of combined several “recipes” that I had found and created my own. I’ll briefly go over what and why for each ingredient.

– Epsom Salt – see above 🙂

– Sea Salt– see above 🙂

– Baking Soda– this will not only help help neutralize your water (if you don’t have filtered water) but also improve mineral absorption.

– Bentonite Clay – this is a unique healing natural clay that has electrical components that assist in the ability to absorb toxins specifically heavy metals and chemicals. If you are having troubles finding this you can order online or try looking at your local coop or health foods store. For my fellow Madisonians- Willy Street Coop has a great selection of natural clay powders.

– Ginger– Not only does ginger smell great but it has anti inflammatory properties and for some reason or another it is supposed to really make you sweat. Which is why I added it to my bath- to aid in sweating out all the bad! 🙂

– Raw Apple Cider Vinegar – Not only do I love AC Vinegar for it’s fermentation and all around rock star healthy living awesomeness (I should do a whole post on this stuff) but this is also specifically used in this bath to help remove and flush Uric Acid from your body. But I recommend using raw with the “mother” as this is the most pure and natural form of it and most likely will do a better job. THIS is an amazing brand to use.

– Essential Oils– really meant to help with the mind and relaxation part of this bath. When it smells good you can close your eyes and pretend you are on an island with the water crashing around you…..oh I mean that’s what I did anyway. You can use anything you want (that is safe for topical use) I used a mix of Lavender oil and Tee Tree Oil but you could use whatever you wanted. Make sure you are using pure oils. Unfortunately a lot on the market today have many fillers in them. Young Living is a great brand and my personal favorite but doTerra is another good option. Here is a great source for some ideas on which oils to use for different symptoms.

So now that you know the ‘why’, I’ll tell you how!

Seriously- I’m not kidding when I say, STAY HYDRATED!! On a normal day I drink about 100 oz of water. The day I did this bath, I had already drank about 120 oz by 4 pm and then drank another 32 oz while in the bath, and then another 32 oz when I got out. And I was still suuuuuppper light headed when I got out of the bath. I realize I that drink more water than the average person so please take care of yourself and drink lots of water!!

I was amazed how much I sweat when I was in the bath- seriously my face was dripping in it, even by the end of my 40 minutes in the tub, I was still hot hot hot. And I continued to sweat for about 30 minutes after getting out. It was amazing. Also, without going into took gory of details, my sweat smelled FUNKY! Like I don’t even know how to explain it. But I usually sweat a lot (like I would say more than the average person) and it never smells but this sweat was a little funky smelling. Also when I was done with the bath I noticed it had a beige grey brown tone to it. Way more so than at the beginning of the bath. I mean I know I put ginger and AC Vinegar in there but it was definitely a different color at the end than it was at the beginning.

I was so tired when I was done. My body was exhausted and my muscles were really sore! Almost as if I’d just done a really good workout. Not the sore where it “hurt” but the good sore feeling. You know what I’m talking about, right? 🙂 I couldn’t believe how good I felt afterwards and all of the signs that the bath actually worked and it wasn’t all in my head. Seriously, I’m sold. I’ll be doing these on the regular from here on out.

Hope you learned something today and I hope that you give a detox bath a try! As always that you for stopping by and checking out the blog!

xoxo

∗Some of this information (and specifically the stats cited above) were pulled from http://www.healthylivinghowto.com on September 14th 2014.

∗These opinions are my own. Please do not use as medical advice and consult a doctor if you have questions or concerns before starting a detox regime.

Chicken Fajita Pizza

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Georgina

Chicken Fajita Pizza

Helllooooooo fabulous readers!

So can you believe it’s September? I can’t. Although I’m pretty happy about it. Fall is hands down, 1000%, no doubt about it, my favorite season. Today I went for a walk and it was still a nice day (75) but the air was cooler and the breeze was awesome, and it just got me so excited for Fall to come. I’m all prepped for it. I have THESE amazing new boots in brown (thats dad!!!) and I am just pumped for the first day I can wear them! Also have some new scarves and a beautiful jacket (similar). Not to mention some pumpkin recipes 🙂

Jake and I also have our engagement pictures this fall! Sometime in October so we have that to prep and look forward to! Tonight I’m going to Jake’s football game (he’s the coach) and yesterday the regular season football season started (on a bad note for my beloved pack) but none the less all signs point to Fall!!!!!! And I’m loving every minute.

As summer comes to an end you may be drowning in some veggies (hello tomatoes and peppers!!). Here is a great way to use them up. So delicious. Jake loves anything pizza related and I enjoy that you can make so many different varieties.

I modified the recipe to this a bit- feel free to add/change/remove anything you don’t like 🙂

INGREDIENTS:

1 (11 oz) package Pillsbury pizza dough (although I made my own with this. THE BOMB!)
1/2 cup salsa
1/4 cup re-fried beans
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
1 1/2 cups red, green and yellow sliced peppers or jalapenos depending how much you like heat!
1/4 cup sliced onion
2 cups shredded cheese of your choice
2 tablespoons freshly chopped cilantro, for garnish

DIRECTIONS:

– Heat oven to 400°. Stretch dough to the size of a jelly roll pan. Or follow the directions of the Pizza crust you are using. Once it’s ready to have toppings do the following:

– Mix together the re-fried beans and the salsa in a small bowl and then spread salsa mix over crust as the base.
– Sprinkle 1 cup of the shredded cheese over salsa.
– Top with chicken, bell peppers and onion and then the rest of the cheese.

– Bake according to crust directions or until cheese has melted and pizza is starting to brown around the edges.

– Garnish the pizza with fresh cilantro and some avocado if you’d like.

Sooo good!

There you have it! Another delicious pizza idea in the never ending world of pizza possibilities! Thank you for stopping by and don’t forget about the awesome giveaway coming up this month on the blog!!

xoxo

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