Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken Sliders

Last night I made breakfast nachos for dinner.  Yep, it has been one of those kind of weeks...However, that means that you all will learn how to make amazing breakfast nachos in the near future!

This week have been really busy, but full of good things!  On Monday, I did not have school so, of course, I went for a 12 mile run.  It had snowed recently and so that 12 mile run left me feeling very sore.  This led to me not wanting to run indoors for the rest of the week.  Something about a treadmill just makes me so angry.  So, I decided to bundle up and run my 2 other runs outside.  I left early in the morning (5:30) and it was actually quite pleasant.  I sort of like being the only one out and about in Chicago.  It is peaceful and left me feeling calm and relaxed.

School has also been going pretty well this week.  We are graphing sine and cosine in the precalculus group and in AP Calc we are looking into applications of integration.  Volume is a tough one, but today one of the calc students took a quiz on it and killed it!!! I am so proud and excited for her.  Planning for both of these courses has been a lot of work, but the students are so great and I really love working with them.  It is totally worth the effort!

Otherwise, the condo stuff is still moving along.  We are signing a boat-load of forms, showing our apartment to potential subletters, and trying to work out and manage all of our funds.  It's stressful, but I am so excited to move towards closing on our place.  I LOVE it!

So, one thing that has helped me get through this week has been the fact that I had a mountain of leftovers from that time I made Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken Sliders.  This was one of the rare times that I made a non-vegetarian meal.  This means that I have a ton of leftovers and no one to help me eat them.  So, I have had some pretty delicious school lunches all this week.  The chicken came out great and super tasty.  Then, I mixed some Yogurt Blue Cheese Dressing into some Broccoli Slaw and I used that to put on top of my phenomenal chicken.  YUM!  I am obsessed with this recipe and I can't wait to make it again for some sort of sporting event!  March Madness is quickly approaching and it would be perfect!

Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken Sliders with Blue Cheese Broccoli Slaw

Ingredients:
6 chicken breasts
2 bottles buffalo sauce (I used Sweet Baby Rays)
1 1/2 packets of ranch seasoning
Broccoli Slaw, 1 bag
2-3 tbsp blue cheese dressing (I used a Yogurt/Light one)
whole wheat dinner rolls (24-36)

Directions:
1. Place chicken, buffalo sauce, and ranch seasoning in your crock pot.  Cook on low for 7-8 hours.  After chicken is done, shred the chicken using two forks and leave on warm until you are ready to serve.
2. Pour the broccoli slaw into a large bowl and toss with the blue cheese dressing.
3. Serve with your whole wheat dinner rolls!

Enjoy :)

Crunchy Black Bean Burgers

Guys, I am the worst.  I have been meaning to post this for like a week, but I have been too lazy/busy to work on it.  I've been really busy with school/cheer and I've been really lazy when I'm home because I just want to sleep/read.  However, I have a burst of energy because it is Friday and I am done teaching for the week!  Now I am just looking forward to a fun evening at a school social! 

After all the craziness that was Thanksgiving, it's nice to have a simple and delicious meal to come home to.  This veggie burger is that meal.  It's simple to make and it's a great dinner after all that stuffing, turkey, gravy...etc.  

Bri found the recipe for me because he had heard from a colleague that it was "the best" veggie burger recipe.  I don't know if we thought it was "the best" one that we had ever had, but it certainly was yummy and it reheated really well for leftovers!  

Crunchy Black Bean Burgers

Ingredients:2 14.5 oz cans black beans, rinsed and drained

2 eggs

2 tbsp flour

4 green onions, chopped

3 tbsp cilantro

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp hot sauce

1/2 tsp ground coriander

pinch of pepper

1/2 cup crushed tortilla chips

olive oil

whole wheat hamburger buns

cheese slices, optional

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs with the flour until you have a paste.  Mix in the green onion, cilantro, garlic, cumin, hot sauce, coriander, salt and pepper.  

2. Place chips in a food processor and pulse until you have a finely ground mixture.  Add in the beans and pulse until beans are broken up.  Transfer this mixture to your other bowl and mix to combine.

3. Cover the mixture and place in the fridge for an hour. 

4. Once the mixture has chilled, heat a few tsp of olive oil over medium heat in a pan on the stove.  Form 6-8 patties using your hands and place in pan to cook.  I left them to cook for about 4 minutes on each side.  Serve with buns, cheese and whatever other toppings you want!

Enjoy :)

Salmon Burgers

I had a bit of a crazy weekend.  Friday night was nice since I got to hang with my co-workers at a bowling alley after school and then I went to Half Acre with some friends.  Then, Saturday morning I went for a lovely 8.5 mile run.  I got home, showered and then Bri and I packed our laundry into my car and headed out to do our laundry at my parent's house (I know we are so not adults).  Anyways, while we were on the highway, we were cut off by another driver who was changing into our lane.  His car clipped mine and we lost control.  The car spun and hit the median.  By some miracle, we were totally fine and my car was still drivable.  The other guy was also uninjured, but his car was totaled.  He was blamed for the accident so I thankfully don't have to pay for the repairs on my car.  Overall, I am incredibly grateful to be alive, healthy, and able to back to school tomorrow.  

I think the weirdest thing about our weekend was how normal everything else was.  Laundry, book club, cooking, and so on.  It was just a very simple weekend aside from our crazy car crash.  I made these Salmon Burgers recently and they are super tasty.  I'm going to celebrate being alive and normal by eating them :) Oh, and I made a crazy tasty Siracha Greek Yogurt Spread to put on my salmon burgers! 

Salmon Burgers

Ingredients:

1 lb salmon

1 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper, to taste

1-2 tsp lemon juice

1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs

1 shallot, chopped

2 tbsp chopped Seafood Blend Herbs

1/4 cup non-fat, plain greek yogurt

2 tbsp dijon mustard

1 egg

Directions: 

1. Cook the salmon: Place the salmon on a piece of tinfoil and preheat oven to 400.  Drizzle a little olive oil over the salmon and sprinkle salt and pepper on it.  Drizzle with a tsp or two of lemon juice.  Then, wrap in the foil and place on a baking tray.  Cook for 20-25 minutes or until salmon is cooked through.  Let cool.

2. Once salmon is cooled, use a fork to flake pieces of the salmon into a bowl.  Add in the breadcrumbs, herbs, greek yogurt, and mustard.  Stir to combine.  Then, add in the egg and stir to combine.

3. Lightly grease a pan and form a salmon patty.  I made 6 patties with this mixture.  Place in pan and cook over medium for about 4-5 minutes.  Then, flip and cook for another 4-5 minutes.  

4. Serve with a bun or over a bed of greens and if you want, spread some Siracha Greek Yogurt Spread on top! 

Enjoy :)

For the Siracha Greek Yogurt Spread: Use 1/4 cup of yogurt, 1-2 tsp of siracha, 1 tsp lemon juice, and 1 clove garlic (minced).  Stir everything together and you are good to go! 

Sweet Potato Black Bean Veggie Burgers with BBQ Caramelized Onions

I have a pretty sweet week at school right now.  I survived Monday.  We reviewed graphing quadratics and I had cheer practice after school.  And now I have Tuesday, which I am already all planned for!  Wednesday is Veterans Day and so we do not have school and then Friday is a Teacher Institute Day.  So, I only have two more days of teaching this week!  Crazy!

Today I went to my boot camp class in the morning.  It was super tough since I was still sore from my work out on Saturday.  This past weekend I was hanging out in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin with my bestie, Tamara.  She took me with her to her work out on Saturday morning.  Slow motion push-ups are officially my least favorite exercise.  They are weirdly easy at first, but then you feel like your arms might just fall off for the next three days...Then today we did SLOW MOTION PUSH UPS!  I couldn't believe it.  I'm half way through my boot camp class when the instructor told us that we were going to do them.  We have never done slow motion push ups before, but of course we did today.  Now, I can barely lift my arms above my head.  Ouch.  I guess the good news is that if I keep doing them I'll have awesome looking arms for my wedding dress :)

Sweet Potato Black Bean Veggie Burgers

Ingredients:
1 sweet potato
3 scallions
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp of cilantro
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 red pepper, chopped
3/4 cups old-fashioned oats
1 egg
8 whole wheat buns
cheese if you want (we used colby jack)
BBQ Caramelized Onions:
1 red onion, sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
BBQ sauce, to taste

Directions:
1. Peel the sweet potato and use your food processor with a grate attachment to grate the sweet potato.  If you don't have this, you can use a cheese grater with the largest holes.  Place sweet potato pieces in a large bowl.
2. Put the black beans in the food processor and pulse a few times to mash the beans.  Add these to the bowl with the sweet potato.
3. Mix in the scallions, cilantro, cumin, paprika, cayenne, cinnamon, salt, red pepper pieces, and oats.  Stir well.
4. Preheat oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
5. Mix the egg in with the other ingredients and place the mixture in the fridge to chill until the oven is ready.
6. Once ready, form 8 balls with the mixture and press into burger shaped rounds.  Place on baking sheet.  Bake for 15 minutes and then flip and bake for another 15 minutes.
7. For the caramelized onions, add onion slices, olive oil and bbq sauce to a pan.  Heat over medium until onion becomes translucent and soft.  Serve on top of burgers and feel free to add any other toppings!

Enjoy :)

Spicy Sweet Potato Veggie Burgers

Can you believe it is SEPTEMBER?!?!?

I can't.  It feels like I was just finishing up the last year of school.  I can't believe I am already into my third year of teaching!  School is going really well so far and I am having a great time getting to know my students.  I have high hopes for this year and I can't wait to see how it goes.

Since it is September, I figured we could celebrate with a fall-like veggie burger recipe.  Now, I don't want summer to end, but I feel like good food can help ease the transition.  Fortunately, the weather is still certainly summer-like.  I hope it stays that way for a while!  While, fall is nice, winter is the worst.

I LOVE The Kitchn.  It is a great site with tons of amazing recipes.  Also, I love that the recipes are super use friendly and they all come with tons of tips, variations, and explanations.  I found this Sweet Potato Veggie Burger on their site and then I just changed small tidbits based on what I love and what we had in our fridge!  Please head over to the site for the recipe!

I made the sweet potato patties according to the directions, but here are the few things I added/changed.
1. I did not chop the sunflower seeds.  I wanted a bit of a crunch in there, so I left them whole.
2. I also used my food processor with a grater attachment to grate the sweet potato.  This made things go super quickly!  Then, I simply added the beans to the food processor and pulsed to combine.
3. Finally, for my toppings, I used some sliced tomato, sliced avocado, spicy cheddar cheese (sliced), and BBQ sauce.

Holy moly it was delicious!

Enjoy :)

Spinach Pesto Eggplant Burger with Mozzarella

So camp has started, but there has been a ton of rain this week.  This means that camp doesn't really feel like camp yet.  We had a nice day yesterday at a water park, but today it is all rainy again!  I am running out of ideas for fun/interesting indoor games!  At least the kids are having fun since it is the first week and therefore exciting/new.  I just hope that this soggy summer gets a little more sunny! 

Camp means that I have a ton more time to cook!  I love this! I came up with this fun Veggie Burger recipe after making some Spinach Pesto.  Bri is a vegetarian and we just went out to dinner at Smoque so I felt like I had to make it up to him with this amazing veggie sandwich! 

Spinach Pesto Eggplant Burger with Mozzarella

Ingredients:

4-5 pretzel buns

1 medium eggplant

8-10 tbsp spinach pesto

fresh mozzarella, sliced

salt and pepper

olive oil

Directions:

1. Heat a pan over medium heat and add 1 tbsp of olive oil.  Place eggplant slice in the pan and cook for about 3-4 minutes on one side.  Flip, pour a little more olive oil in the pan and season with salt and pepper.  Continue to cook for another 3-4 minutes.  If you need to, continue to cook both sides until eggplant starts to soften.  

2. Toast the bun in the toaster and then place on a place.  Spread 1-2 tbsp of the pesto on one side and place mozzarella slices on the other.  Place eggplant slice on top of mozzarella and then put the side with the pesto on top.  

Enjoy :)

Butternut Squash Black Bean Veggie Burgers

Last night I had a really great dinner at Crosby's Kitchen.  The food was delicious and it is a really cute place.  I went with my buddy, Katie.  She is leaving for a 10 day trip to Israel! I am quite jealous of this.  It was so nice to enjoy a nice meal together before she leaves.  We both ended up ordering the Wrightwood Salad which has their famous cornbread croutons in it!  Cornbread croutons!!!  It was pretty darn delicious and it made me want to figure out a way to make this incredible salad at home.  I'll see what I can do and get back to you guys.  

I also picked up their homemade veggie burger to bring back for Bri.  He is such a veggie burger fanatic and when I saw that they made a homemade one, I figured he would want to give it a try.  The reviews are in and he said it was a really great veggie burger!  I figure that in the spirit of this awesome meal, I would share one of my own veggie burger creations.  I love how you can basically throw a bunch of your favorite flavors/health ingredients into a food processor and make a really yummy burger.  We make a bunch and freeze them for easy weeknight meals.  I love how easy this makes dinner and the recipe I have today was incredibly yummy.  

Butternut Squash Black Bean Veggie Burgers

Butternut Squash Black Bean Veggie Burger

Ingredients:
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium butternut squash, peeled and cubed
1 shallot, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 pinch red pepper flakes
1 pinch nutmeg
1 pinch cinnamon
1 14.5 oz can low-sodium black beans, drained and rinsed
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup whole wheat breadcrumbs
Toppings:
slices of cheese (I used pepperjack)
sliced tomatoes
ketchup or mustard (Bri is a ketchup fan, and I love spicy dijon mustard)

Directions:1. Heat olive oil and butter in a pan over medium heat.  Add in the squash, shallot, garlic, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, nutmeg, and cinnamon.  Let cook, stirring occasionally, until squash can be pierced with a fork.  This took about 10 minutes.
2.  Place the squash mixture in your food processor and pulse until it becomes smooth.  Add in the black beans and pulse a few times to combine.
3. Place mixture in a bowl and stir in the beaten egg and the bread crumbs.  Place mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.  At this point, you can form your patties and freeze them for later use.  Otherwise, see number 4.
4. Once chilled, heat a skillet over medium and spray with non-stick cooking spray.  Form burgers using your hands.  This mixture should make 6-8 burgers.  Place each burger on the skillet and cook for about 5 minutes or until burger starts to brown.  Flip the burger and repeat with the other side.  At this point, place cheese on top so that it melts.  Serve burgers with buns or bun-less and add whatever toppings you would like!

Enjoy :)

Thai Turkey Burgers

I GOT A JOB! Well, I haven't signed anything yet and I don't know many details, but I do know that I got a job offer at a high school to teach math! I am crazy excited and can't wait to start getting ready!

Also, now that I know where I am going to be, Bri and I are moving forward on looking for an apartment! I can't believe all of this.  I feel a little too grown up right now.  

Since, it is Monday, I also have a Half Marathon Monday update for you all.  I got up to 12 miles and now I get to taper off a little.  My long run this week was 9 miles and honestly it felt like a breeze.  I love getting out there in the morning and getting in a long run.  During the week I didn't run as much because of how busy I was, but I am still feeling great.  The run is only 2 weeks away and I can't wait! 

And, of course I have a recipe to share! This is a super yummy recipe and I found it over on How Sweet It Is.  These Thai Turkey Burgers are full of flavor and super healthy.  I had them for lunch at school and everyone was jealous of how yummy it smelled! I love the flavors here and it was a perfect little meal to have for dinner and then leftover for lunch.  

Thai Turkey Burgers

Ingredients:

1 lb. lean turkey

2 green onions, chopped

1/4 cup shredded carrot

salt and pepper

4 whole wheat buns

1/4 cup rice vinegar

1/4 cup light coconut milk

3 tbsp brown sugar

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tbsp natural, creamy peanut butter

1 tsp fresh ginger, grated

1 tbsp lime juice

1/2 tbsp soy sauce

2-3 tbsp hot sauce or chili sauce (depending on taste)

3 cups coleslaw mix

1/2 cup chopped peanuts

Directions:

1. Make the sauce: whisk together the rice vinegar, coconut milk, garlic, peanut butter, lime juice, soy sauce, and hot sauce.  Pour into a small sauce pan and heat until simmering.  

2. In a large bowl, combine the turkey meat with the carrots and green onion.  Season with salt and pepper.  Pour about 3/4 of your sauce mixture into the turkey mixture and combine.  

3. In another bowl, place the coleslaw mix and toss with the peanuts. Pour the other 1/4 of the sauce over the coleslaw and set aside.

4. Form the turkey meat into 4 patties.  Place in a grill or saute pan and cook for about 4-5 minutes or until browned, flip patties and cook for another 4-5 minutes.  

5. Place burgers on buns, top with coleslaw and serve!

Enjoy :)