Cherry Goat Cheese Bundles!

Ingredients:

• 1 (17 ounce) package frozen puff pastry, thawed

• 1 (8 ounce) package goat cheese, round

• Zest of one orange

• 1 lb whole pitted cherries, frozen

• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar

• 1 whole nutmeg piece

• honey (for garnish)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Place frozen cherries in a saucepan with balsamic vinegar.

2. Simmer until the vinegar is reduced to a syrupy consistency (10-15min)

3. Add orange zest, grated nutmeg.

4. Preheat oven to 425.

5. Lightly grease cookie sheet.

6. Roll puff pastry dough into a square.

7. Place goat cheese wheel on top.

8. Place balsamic cherry compote on top of cheese.

9. Bundle Puff Pastry up and around the cheese.

10. Bake for 15-20 minutes, checking for golden-brown color.

11. Remove and let cool for five minutes.

12. Garnish with honey and orange zest!

See us in action below!

Ginger Pistachio Carrots

Simple ingredients :)

• 1 pound baby carrots (or heirloom, if you're feeling fancy).

• 1/4 cup honey

• 1/4 cup coconut oil

• 1-2 teaspoons fresh minced ginger

• 1/2 cup shelled pistachios

• Salt & pepper, to taste

Crushed pistachios 

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.

• In a small bowl, whisk together honey, oil, ginger, salt and pepper. Toss carrots with glaze (in a large bowl, or right on the foil-lined pan).

• Crush pistachios and sprinkle on top of the carrots.

• Bake for 15-25 minutes (depending on the size of your carrots), turning and stirring once during cooking, until carrots are tender.

Voila! 

Dorito Dusted Wings!

The perfect marriage.

Have you ever wished you could smash the flavor of ranch dressing directly into your chicken wings? We have. This is why we came up with one of our most beloved snacks yet: Cool Ranch Dorito-Dusted Wings. Chicken, meet Doritos. You're welcome.

You'll need:

• 10 chicken wings

• ¾ cup “Dorito Dust” (Cool Ranch flavor)

• 2 Tbs Butter

• ½ cup milk

Cooking Instructions:

• Wings are usually cut into three pieces. Using a heavy knife, cut through the joints in the wings to separate then into three pieces. A sharp knife should slide through the joint easily; there is no need to cut through any bone. It's easiest to see the joints with the underside of the wings facing up. 

• Preheat oven to 375*F.

• Melt the butter and then add the milk whisking well to combine. Keep the heat low and only as long as necessary to melt the butter: you don't want the butter to separate.

• Toss wings in milk/butter mixture.

• Toss them in the “Dorito Dust”.

• Grease a baking sheet with cooking spray. Arrange the wing pieces skin-side-up. They should be snug, but not too crowded. Keep in mind they will shrink as they cook.

• Cook undisturbed for 35 minutes until golden brown, and until the wings release easily from the baking sheet. Using a pair of tongs, turn the pieces over and return to the oven to bake for an additional 15 to 20 minutes, until crisp.

Enjoy!

xo,

E&J

Chocolate Chai Mug Cake!

MMMMCHOCOLATE.

In honor of all the love wisdom we soaked in from this week’s guest, Alexi Wasser, our ingredient for the week is chocolate!

And if you’re like anyone, you’re probably always, “OMG SOOOO BUSY!!!” 

But, that leaves no excuse to not have your chocolate fix. We have the answer in a super simple, super delicious chocolate chai mug cake.

Here’s how to get your fix!

dry ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons coconut flour

• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder

• ⅛ teaspoon baking powder

• ¼ tsp chai spice mix

• ⅛ teaspoon baking soda

wet ingredients: 

• 1 1/2 tablespoon maple syrup

• 1 egg large

• ¼ cup almond milk

(and feel free to garnish with plenty of whipped cream like we did)

Instructions

1. First, spray a coffee cup with coconut oil cooking spray and set aside.

2. Then, mix together all of the dry ingredients inside of the coffee cup. Set aside.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together maple syrup, egg white, and almond milk. Then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix again.

4. Microwave on high for about 2 minutes (Do a toothpick check at 90 sec).

5. Thanks to the cooking spray, your cake should drop out of the mug very easily. You can then add frosting, whipped cream, or eat it as is!

Until next time, stay hungry and curious!

xoxo, J & E

Spaghetti Squash Lasagna Cups!

Tis the season for all things squash!

Instead of the traditional festive acorn or butternut, this week decided to create a snack with the slightly less popular spaghetti squash.

Named after the gorgeous, angel-hair like strands it produces when cooked, this squash is the underdog of the squash kingdom. We decided to combine our love of lasagna with the spaghetti squash and voila, these squash lasagna cups were born! Because really, we’ll eat lasagna-flavored anything. Lasagna rubber cement? Yea, we’d try that.

Anyhow….to make this snack you’ll need:

• 1 pound ground pork

• 1 tsp salt (adjust to taste)

• 1 medium to large spaghetti squash (4 cups spaghetti strands, packed)

• 3 eggs, whisked

• ¼ cup parmesan cheese

• ½ cup of your favorite marinara sauce

• ¾ cup mozzarella cheese (or your favorite cheese to top pizza with!)

Instructions

To prepare the squash:

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and add a little oil, salt and pepper to cut sides.

3. Place squash cut side down in a baking dish.

4. Bake for 45 minutes or until you can easily pierce the skin with a knife (cooking time depends on size of squash).

To make the lasagna cups:

1. Cook your spaghetti squash (see oven method below).

2. In a bowl, combine spaghetti squash strands, parmesan cheese, and salt. Taste to check for seasoning, then mix in the whisked eggs.

3. Scoop this mixture into a greased muffin pan and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. After 20 min, top with sauce and mozzarella cheese and place the cups back in the oven for another 10-15 min or until cheese is completely ooey and goey!

4. Remove from muffin tin and enjoy!!

They were so good that we ate them directly out of the pan ;)

Onion Dip Cheese Balls!

Spooky! Delicious! Adorable!

If you're like us, you're not ready to let go of Halloween and move on to Xmas/Hanukkah yet.

Solution? Make adorably spooky and delicious snacks with this week’s themed ingredient: onions!

Here’s a fun and festive onion dip cheeseball. It's fun to look at as well as fun to eat. Also, chopping the onions gets the tears flowing...so if you need a good cry, look no further.

You'll need:

• 2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, at room temperature

• 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

• 4 tablespoons minced onions

• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

• ½ minced garlic

• 3 handfulls of nacho cheese flavored chips, finely crushed

• 1 nice-looking stem of a bell pepper (reserve the pepper for another use)

• blue corn chips, for serving and decorating

Put the cream cheese, Cheddar, onions, garlic, and cayenne pepper into the bowl of a mixer, and blend thoroughly. Form into a pumpkin-like shape, and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.

Before serving, roll the cheese ball in the crushed nacho flavored chip crumbs. Arrange the cheese ball on a plate, and press the bell pepper stem into the top - it should like a mini pumpkin stem.

You can serve the pumpkin as-is, or break off pieces of corn chips to form a Jack-o'-lantern face. The chip pieces should adhere to the pumpkin cheese ball if you gently press them onto it, but you can also stick them on using a very small dab of the cheese ball mixture on the back of the black bean chip features; this will act like glue.

Enjoy!! Let the season stretch on. Or...we guess these could transfer to ornaments? Santa bellies? Doesn't matter, they'll be eaten quickly. :)

Mini Miso Portobello Sliders

MMmmmmm Fungi. 

Do you believe in magic?

Well, “magic mushrooms” really live up to their name if you combine the right ingredients (and in this case, no physdellic drugs are involved. Whether that's a good thing or not is up to you).

Yes, we managed to make a vegan, healthy snack that also taste amazing. In case that wasn’t magical-sounding enough, there’s also no gluten in this recipe (we know, who the f*** do we think we are!?)

We didn’t even miss the meat in these babies!

In our latest episode with former LA Times food editor Russ Parsons, we discuss the science of portobello mushrooms. Did you know that they aren't their own breed, but rather just an over-grown, overly mature cremini mushroom? They've grown in popularity in recent years for their ability to act as a meat substitute due to their size and versatility. We decided to use the smaller variety as both the "buns" and the "meat" of our sliders, and we couldn't have been happier with the results!

Lo and behold: our mini portobello sliders are not only vegan and gluten free, but adorable. This snack wins all around!

Mini Miso Mushroom Sliders

1 tsp grated ginger or ginger paste

1 tbs minced garlic

1 tsp miso paste

2 tbs soy sauce

2 tbs sesame oil (or coconut oil)

sprinkling of sesame seeds (mainly for garnish!)

8 mini portobello mushrooms

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

Wipe the portobello mushroom caps with paper towels and remove the stems.

Arrange the mushroom caps with the inside up in one layer on a baking sheet. Roast them in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes until they are lightly browned and set aside

Make the miso slaw:

heat sesame oil in large skillet or wok.

add garlic and ginger, sautee slighting infusing the oil with the garlic and ginger but monitor your heat carefully so nothing will burn!

Add broccoli slaw, soy sauce, miso paste, and water and stir fry until semi tender (but still crisp). Stir in sesame seeds and place slaw on baked portobello caps. Top em off with another mushroom cap and viola!

Shroom sliders for the win!

Smoked Salmon Spread!

Our Smoked Salmon Spread on Crunchmaster's 7 Ancient Grains Crackers! Match made in heaven. 

This week's ingredient: Smoked Salmon!! We were really excited to take on the challenge of using FISH as the main ingredient in a quick, fun and tasty snack. We came up with our own twist on a smoked salmon spread, which, after we whipped it up, needed the perfect vehicle to get to our mouths. Luckily, we had a whole bunch of crackers that had just been shipped to our front door from our buddies at Crunchmaster.

We’re gonna say something we NEVER thought we'd say in a bajillion years: 

We’ve found a gluten free cracker that we actually like.

Shocking, we know, and don’t expect us to say this regularly because we usually associate gluten-free with cardboard or plywood.

But Crunchmaster cracked the gluten-free code and were kind enough to help us out with this week’s snack.

In this week’s interview with Marc Summers, we learned he actually used to sell smoked salmon to Costco. We immediately decided that we'd pay homage to his job as a salmon salesman by coming up with our own salmon snack.

This smoked salmon spread is SO good, you might enjoy it on actual plywood (but we suggest Crunchmaster crackers, obviously. Here's what you'll need:

Smoked Salmon

8 ounces whipped cream cheese, at room temperature

4 oz goat cheese

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon chopped shallots

1 tablespoon minced fresh dill

1 teaspoon prepared horseradish, drained

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

6 ounces smoked salmon, minced

In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer to combine all the ingredients.

Serve on crackers, bagels, or just eat with a spoon!