Delicious Caribbean Pumpkin Recipe

From caribbeanpot.com. Click the link to check out this great Caribbean culinary site!

Pumpkin Simmered In Bits Of Salted Cod

Cute Foodie T-shirt!

Foodie Women's T-Shirt The Honeymoon Shoppe

Sweet Potato & Chorizo Calzones

So I decided to enter another dish in the Sweet Potatoes Contest this weekend before it ended just because yeh...I LOVE sweet potatoes! My Sweet Potato & Chorizo Calzones are yummy with a filling of sweet potatoes, chorizo sausage, bell peppers and mozzarella cheese. They are perfect for the kiddos, and I can attest as my toddler Bugs is eating one right now heehee.

SWEET POTATO & CHORIZO CALZONES

1 large fresh sweet potato

2 chorizo sausage links

½ red bell pepper, diced

½ green bell pepper, diced

black pepper, to taste

3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

juice of ½ orange

32 oz refrigerated pizza dough

4 tbsp olive oil

4 tbsp flour, for dusting

1. Wash and peel sweet potato. Dice into small cubes. Place in a pot of water and boil until they are tender but not mushy, about 8 minutes. Drain.

2. Remove casings from sausage and roughly chop links.

3. In a large pan over medium heat, cook sausage, stirring occasionally. When sausage is browned, add bell peppers and cook for 3 minutes. Season with black pepper. Stir in cooked sweet potato, and cook for 2 more minutes.

4. Remove pan from heat and stir in mozzarella cheese and orange juice.

5. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 2 baking sheets with a tbsp of olive oil.

6. Dust flour onto a clean work surface. Divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and then using a rolling pin, roll out each into a 6-inch circle. Fill with sweet potato and chorizo filling. Fold dough over and seal edges with a fork. Brush the tops with a little olive oil and place on baking sheet. Bake until tops are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Makes 8 calzones.

Notes: You can use whole wheat pizza dough if you wish. For the kids, cut calzone in half and make sure it cools a bit before they enjoy. Have fun eating!

Lasagna Love

Stumbled upon a yummy freebie from Sorrento. They have a downloadable Lasagna Cookbook free on their site! They were sending out hard copies but ran out of stock, so they also have it online. If you love lasagna you're gonna love this cookbook, so make sure and download it today!

FREE LASAGNA COOKBOOK DOWNLOAD

Boring old Tuna...Not anymore!

So I entered a Ritz Crackers contest last week on their Facebook page. The prizes are BIG for this one, there will be 10 winners, winning from $1,000 up to $20,000 + a trip to California to meet Guy Fieri! After my first entry, I wanted to do a second and was looking for a way to jazz up boring old tuna salad. I decided to mix in a Moroccan flavor combo called "chermoula", and it turned out delicious! Wish me luck that it wins!

MOROCCAN TUNA SALAD

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

36 whole almonds

1 tbsp white sugar

10 oz chunk light tuna

3 tbsp mayonnaise

2 tbsp onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely minced

2 tbsp cilantro, chopped

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1 tbsp dried parsley flakes

2 tsp hot sauce

36 Ritz Roasted Vegetable Crackers

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a bowl, mix honey and olive oil. Pour almonds into bowl and stir to coat. Spread almonds in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet. Roast until golden brown, about 10 minutes.

3. Remove from oven and sprinkle almonds with sugar. Toss and let cool.

4. In a bowl, combine tuna, mayonnaise, onion, garlic, cilantro, turmeric, paprika, cumin, parsley and hot sauce. Mix well.

5. Using a melon baller or spoon, put a scoop of tuna salad on each Ritz Cracker. Garnish with a honey-roasted almond.

Cream Cheese + Fish?

My hubby brought home some grouper for us, so I wanted to try a different fish recipe than my regular breaded and baked, or sauteed in olive oil, lemon and herbs. I started looking through a Mississippi seafood cookbook that my sis picked up for me, and came across a recipe using fish and a Cajun cream cheese sauce. Hmmm. So I have a few tubs of Kraft Philadelphia's newest product Cooking Creme left in my fridge, sent to me from the lovely folks at Kraft. It's like pourable cream cheese, and comes in 4 varieties: Original, Garlic, Santa Fe, and Italian Cheese & Herb. It is full of flavor and is actually not too hazardous...a 1/4 cup serving of the Original contains 110 calories and 80 fat calories. Decided to use it and put my own spin on the recipe.

So my finished product was a delicious Cajun Creme Grouper, recipe below. The cookbook I used included blue crabmeat in the sauce, but that was the only ingredient I didn't have on hand. It still tasted great though! My worst critic, Bugs (my 13 month-old son) even loved it. I put the sauce on a tiapia fillet for him and he ate it right up. I thought it would be too spicy for him, but mama feared wrong!

CAJUN CREME GROUPER

6 Grouper fillets

salt and pepper

3 tbsp butter

1/2 medium white onion, chopped

2 bunches of green onions, chopped

1 tbsp dried parsley flakes

10 oz tub Philadelphia Cooking Creme

2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp white pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Season fish fillets with salt and pepper. Lay out on baking sheet greased with 1 tbsp of the butter. Bake until white and flaky, about 20 minutes.

3. Saute onion, green onions and parsley over medium heat in remaining 2 tbsp of the butter for about 4 minutes. Add cooking creme, and stir for about a minute. Add garlic powder, paprika, thyme, cayenne pepper, and white pepper to sauce, and let cook for about 3 more minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Remove fish from oven and pour sauce over fillets. Switch oven to Broil and put fish back in, until sauce is golden brown, about 5 minutes. Serve over rice or vegetables.