Homemade Tortilla Chips for Shrimp Nachos

It's Sunday and we usually like to experiment! We have been curious about making our own tortilla chips. Being the Mexican food lovers that we are, we are always looking for how to make cleaner, lower calorie Tex-Mex. We had some tortillas, some leftover shrimp that we needed to use before it went bad and some cheese. Jacob looked up how to make your own tortilla chips, and stumbled across this recipe on Food Network. We've had really good success with their recipes before so we decided to try!

Ingredients:

• 6 inch tortillas (each tortilla makes 6 chips...we used 5 for the 2 of us and it was definitely enough)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Cover baking sheet with foil. Cut your tortillas into 6ths.
2. Brush both sides of each tortilla with vegetable oil. 2 tablespoons was just about perfect for our 5 tortillas, so pour accordingly!

3. Salt your chips. Place in the oven for 5 minutes. Turn baking sheet around and cook for 3-4 more minutes.

**Watch your chips very carefully! It actually took us 2 tries to make chips because they burned to a crisp the first time (we baked them for 6 minutes + 6 minutes). The second time we were paranoid so we did 5 minutes + 3 minutes. The chips could have been a little crispier and still been good, so I'd watch carefully and leave in the oven for 5 minutes + 4 minutes. They looked like this:

To use up our shrimp, we cooked it in 2 tbsp. olive oil, lime juice, salt, pepper and cilantro. When our chips were finished, we sprinkled with fat free shredded cheddar cheese and 2% milk Mexican blend cheese (I used about 1/4 cup of each on my 12 chips). We then placed one of our shrimp in the middle of each cheesy chip and placed back in the oven for 2 minutes. Then we had this...

They were amazing! We ate them with guacamole and loved them! We didn't feel gross like we usually do when we eat tex-mex or nachos. We may never buy chips again! :)

Healthy Junk Food

If I had to describe this week in one phrase, it would he "healthy junk food." Jacob and I are junk food lovers at heart. Although we are MUCH healthier now than this time a year ago, we still crave pizza, chicken fingers, french fries and sweets. Our proudest cooking accomplishments are always when we find a clean and healthy way to eat our favorite junk foods.This week was a win in that area! On Sunday night, we ate Spicy Curried Chicken Fingers from Food Network's healthy section.

I know what you're probably thinking... "Curry? GROSS." But there is so little of it in this that it just adds a little spice!

Ingredients:

• cooking spray
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon curry
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 cups panko
• 3 chicken breasts cut into 1-inch strips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray (we also put down foil first for easier cleanup)
2. Whisk eggs, mustard, curry and cumin in a shallow bowl. Place the Panko in a seperate bowl.
3. Dip the chicken strips in the egg mixture, letting the extra roll off, the coat with the Panko.
4. Place chicken on baking sheet, coating with cooking spray.
5. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn chicken and respray with cooking spray, then bake 10 more minutes!

Mmm! It was good! Then today, Jacob and I had healthy burgers and fries. Our burgers were MorningStar Farms Spicy Black Bean Burgers, which are my absolute obsession! We eat them on whole wheat sandwich thins with mustard! Our fries were adapted from Skinny Taste's Baked Seasoned Fries. Overall we liked them, but I do have a few pointers from our experience!

Ingredients:

• cooking spray
• 2 medium potatoes, washed and dried
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 tablepoon dried rosemary
• 1/2 tablespoon thyme
• 1/2 tablespoon marjoram
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1.2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400. Line baking sheet with foil for easy clean up (always a plus!) Lightly coat with cooking spray.
2. Cut each potato width wise, then into about 1/4 inch slices. Place in large bowl.

3. Add oil and toss well. Then add all spices, ensuring that your fries are all coated.
4. Place in a single layer (This is VERY important) on baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes or until crisp, turning once halfway through.

We kind of ended up piling our fries on the baking sheet, as our potatoes ended up making a lot of fries. So, some were crispy and some were crunchy. Making sure the fries are in a single layer is very important. They had an AWESOME flavor. Another one of our favorite fry substitutes is Smashed Potatoes. They are basically the same idea, but they take quite a bit longer to make!

Hope you enjoy binging on junk food healthily! :)

Monday Munchies: Shrimp Quesadillas with Tomato Avocado Salsa

Hello! We have been eating really well this week... lots of good recipes! Tonight was made some AWESOME low-fat quesadillas. I know what you're thinking...the thought of quesadillas isn't low fat...but these weren't bad for you and they tasted delicious! We also made our own salsa!

Our recipe was adapted from Skinnytaste with ingredients we could find at our local Super Target!

Ingredients:

Salsa

• 1 medium avocado, diced
• 3/4 regular sized can of plain, diced tomatoes
• 1/4 red onion, diced
• 1 tbsp chopped cilantro
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Quesadillas

• 16 large shrimp
• cumin
• garlic powder
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup fat free cheddar cheese
• 4 wheat/high fiber tortillas (we used Mission Artisan Style Corn-Wheat Tortillas... we are kind of obsessed with them)
• olive oil spray

1. For salsa... pour 3/4 can of tomatoes in bowl. Mix in diced avocado and red onion with a spoon. Then mix in lemon juice and chopped cilantro. Place aside (and try not to snack on it while you cook like I did! :))
2. Spray cooking spray in can. Season shrimp with cumin, garlic, salt and pepper and cook over medium heat until cooked through (2-3 minutes). Set aside.
3. Spray more cooking spray in pan (this is imperative for the quesadilla). Place tortilla in pan. Add 1/4 cup of cheese, 8 shrimp and salsa. Cook over medium heat until cheese is melted.

   4. Place second tortilla over shrimp and goodies. To turn the quesadilla, lift off of pan with spatchula. Place plate on top of uncooked tortilla. Flip plate to bottom and slide back onto pan (I added more cooking spray...I really didnt want them to stick). Cook for 2-3 more minutes until tortilla is brown.

We used the additional salsa to dip our quesadillas in! So yummy!

Let me know if you try it/what you think! We LOVED them! :)

Caliente Low-Fat Chipotle Buttermilk Ranch

Facebook and I have a love/hate relationship. Sometimes, I feel trapped by facebook. I don't like finding out things I should hear face-to-face from there. But, sometimes I think it's fun to catch up with old friends. It was one of those good experiences that led to this revamped salad recipe.

A few weeks ago, after I posted our Lime Chicken Taco recipe, a friend from high school posted on my wall that she had tried putting the chicken on a salad and really liked it. Jacob and I thought this sounded like a good idea, so we wanted to try it.

I also thought it would be fun to try to make my own Chipotle Ranch dressing to go on the salad! So, I adapted a recipe for Low-Fat Buttermilk Ranch from Skinnytaste. I like the idea of making my own dressing because that way I know EXACTLY what's in it and strange processed ingredients don't sneak in!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup fat free sour cream
• 3/4 cup fat free Greek yogurt
• 1/3 cup light mayo
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp fresh parsley
• 1 tsp salt
• dash of pepper
• dash of cumin
• 2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
• 1-1/2 cups low fat buttermilk
• 1 chipotle chile from a can of chipotle chilies in adobo sauce

Directions:

1. Combine sour cream, Greek yogurt, mayo, garlic powder, onion powder, parsley, salt, pepper, cumin and chile in blender. Blend for about 1 minute, until the pepper is ground and combined into the other ingredients.
2. Add buttermilk and balsamic vinegar and blend again for about 30 seconds.

I will warn you that this recipe made a ton of dressing, so I shared it with several friends. Also, it is REALLY spicy. Next time I may try only using half of the pepper. It has really good flavor and consistency, though. It went well with the salad-- the salad even made Jacob full, which is hard to do! :)

Enjoy!