Roasted Vegetable Stacked Enchiladas

Roasted Vegetable Stacked Enchiladas

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Ingredients:

1 large red pepper, chopped, seeds removed
1 medium zucchini, chopped
1 medium yellow squash, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 sweet potato chopped
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeño, minced
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 cups red enchilada sauce
9-10 small corn tortillas
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese

*This is optional but I added the zest and juice of 1 lime to mine 🙂

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place red pepper, zucchini, yellow squash, sweet potato, and onion on a large baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and toss until vegetables are coated. Season with salt and pepper. Roast vegetables for 30-40 minutes, or until tender, stirring occasionally. Remove vegetables from oven and let cool to room temperature. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F.

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2. Grease an 8×8 square baking pan and set aside. In a medium bowl, combine roasted vegetables, black beans, cumin, chili powder, garlic, jalapeño, lime zest and juice(if using) and cilantro. Stir and season with salt and pepper.

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3. Spread 1/4 cup of enchilada sauce into the bottom of the baking pan. Add a layer of tortillas, to completely cover the bottom of the pan(See my picture before for a trick!). Top with 1/3 of the vegetable/bean mixture and 1/3 of the cheese. Make a second layer of tortilla, enchilada sauce, vegetables/beans, and cheese. Top with with a layer of tortillas, enchilada sauce, vegetables/beans, and cheese. Spray a sheet of aluminum foil with cooking spray and cover the pan.

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My mom taught my this trick to cut off two sides of the round tortillas. This makes them fit perfectly in the corners of pans with minimal overlap so you have a perfectly even layer. She’s a genius 🙂

4. Bake enchiladas for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and the enchiladas are bubbling. Remove enchiladas from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Cut into squares and serve warm.

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This is another beautiful meal. I served this with some Salsa and chips and we had a delicious light meal. Hope you enjoy and of course thanks for reading my blog. I’m blown away at how many views and comments I get in a day. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that so many people would visit my site when I started this. Seriously you all make me so happy! 🙂

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Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Hi everyone! Ok I’ve been a busy cooking bee- but a lazy blogger. (for real it’s embarrassing how little I’ve blogged lately- there is reason for it but I’ll save that for a later post!)Needless to say,  I can’t wait to share some of my creations with you 🙂 This particular recipe is one of my favorite recent ones! So tasty, easy, and healthy. The perfect trio for an awesome recipe. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

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Gorgeous right?!

Ingredients

  • 2 cups cooked quinoa
  • 1 (4-ounce) can green chiles
  • 1 cup corn kernels
  • 1 cup black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1 cup diced tomatoes
  • 1/2 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
  • 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves (I love cilantro so I always add more)
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon onion or garlic powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, or more to taste
  • 1/2 teaspoon smokey paprika, or more to taste
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 6 bell peppers, tops cut, stemmed and seeded

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9×13 baking dish with tin foil.
  2. In a large bowl, combine quinoa, green chiles, corn, beans, tomatoes, cheeses, cilantro, cumin, garlic, onion and chili powder, paprika, salt and pepper, to taste.
  3. Spoon the filling each each bell pepper cavity. Place in prepared baking dish, cavity side up, and bake until the peppers are tender and the filling is heated through, about 25-30 minutes.
  4. Serve immediately and enjoy!  🙂
  5. PS. I only cooked 4 peppers since there fewer people I was feeding but then I put the extra quinoa mix in a baking dish, topped with a little more cheese and baked along with the peppers. This was great for lunch throughout the week 🙂 As you can see there was quite a bit of extra “stuffing” so I think you could do more than 6…but experiment! 🙂

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I just love how pretty this dish is! So colorful and fresh looking and not to mention out of this world delicious. This is a recipe you could seriously have so much fun with and experiment with different flavor combinations and ingredients. Also easily could be vegan with some small adjustments. Please stop back and share your own concoctions 🙂

As always, thanks for stopping by!

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Black Bean & Corn Salsa

BLACK BEAN & CORN SALSA

Honestly never met a person who didn’t like this(sometimes people prefer no cilantro, but never didn’t like it)

So delicious, so healthy and so easy. honestly throw all the crap in a bowl and stuff your face 🙂

I have one of these veggie chopper things:

and it works PERFECT for this(but obviously you could do it by hand too)

sort of guessing with this recipe( long ago I’m sure there was a recipe I followed but now it’s just sort of whatever I feel like) You can experiment with to make your own perfect recipe too!

SALSA INGREDIENTS:

2 cans of BlackBeans(rinsed)

1 can of corn(they sell salt free, preservative free corn in a can now, so buy that, it’s so much better for you)

couple tomaotes

1 avacado

2 jalapêno pepper, seeded

1 bell pepper of your choice(red,green,orange,yellow)

1 small or 1/2 cup red onion

1/2 cup of fresh cilantro

chop all those to a size of your liking and mix all those items in a bowl(not tooooo much so as to not mush the avocado) then mix the dressing in a separate bowl:

DRESSING INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup vinegar(red wine, or white wine or white)

Tbs of Olive Oil

juice of 2 limes

and a dash of salt

Pour over the mixture and try not to eat it all in one sitting 🙂

Thanks for reading!

xoxo

-G

Salad Caprese

SALAD CAPRESE

Soooo, one of my favorite things of ALL time would have to definitely be Salad Caprese, in any form imaginable.

It is possibly the most simple amazing thing to make. you need literally 3 ingredients(however I use like 6) haha…but still that is so simple.

1) TOMATOES

2) FRESH MOZZARELLA CHEESE

3) FRESH BASIL

4) GOOD OLIVE OIL

5) BALSAMIC VINEGAR

6) SALT

okkkk now for the tricky part:

Slice your tomato,mozzarella, and basil. Alternate slices of tomato and cheese and sprinkle with basil. Drizzle with olive oil and a tiny bit of balsamic vinegar and if you so like(I do) a bit of Kosher salt.  And beeeeeeeeehold:

HEAVEN

Try not to drool.

I have also made another version of this amazing invention! It is an party appetizer version of the same thing. So fun and cute and soooo easy to make and eat! You use all the same ingredients except in different forms. This time you will need GRAPE TOMATOES and small MOZZARELLA BALLS oh and toothpicks! I just slice the tomatoes in half and start poking away with the toothpick. I usually do Mozzaralla, basil, tomato. I find they don’t easily slip off that way and they stand up straight on a platter, but you can do what you like 🙂

How fun is that right?!? Fresh, Refreshing, Summer loving….ahhh. good food.

If you have recipes that are similar or another version, please share as I’m obsessed 🙂

Thanks for reading,

xoxoxo

-G

Spring Asparagus, Tomato, & Lemon Pasta

YUM! This recipe is seriously SO fast and easy and healthy oh and delicious 🙂

I sorta made this up- so I don’t have exact measurements because I eye-ball things, but I’m gonna do my best to give good directions.

Ingredients:

  • Pasta(I used fettuccine but you can use whatever you would like)
  • Olive oil
  • 2 cloves of garlic- minced
  • 1 pound of Asparagus cut into pieces
  • 1 cup of grape tomatoes-halved(Approx. more or less depending on preference)
  • Fresh lemon Juice(I used the juice from one half of the lemon)
  • Feta Cheese-crumbled

Instructions:

– Bring pot of water to a boil, add a teaspoon or so of salt along with your pasta and cook uncovered for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

– In a large skillet  heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium/high heat. Once hot, add your minced garlic and sauté for about 3 minutes or until it softens a bit-but be careful not to burn it!

-Add your Asparagus pieces and sauté for 8-10 minutes. Add your tomatoes.

-Once your veggies are heated through and soft enough to your liking, remove the pan from heat and squeeze in your lemon juice.

-Drain pasta and place into skillet with asparagus and tomato mixture. Toss enough to combine and then add your chunks of Feta cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste.

See?!?!!? SO EASY and healthy and delicious. Hope you enjoy!

Thanks for checking out my blog!

xoxo

-G