Healthy Dinner: Spagetti Squash Burritos

B-hubs hit dinner out of the park tonight.  I came home from Barre class (my legs are still shaking) to these amazing vegetarian burritos waiting for me.  They tasted SO good, and this was the first time a homemade taco has compared to the authentic ones we ate in SoCal.

The recipe we used is a spin off of the one featured on Cucinetta, which is a spin off of the one on Smitten Kitchen's cookbook.  Lesson learned here - spagetti squash is awesome in mexican dishes, and you will likely love it with your favorite taco or burrito toppings.

Here's how b-hubs did it.  Have your own version?  Tell us about it in the comments below!

Need:  

• 1 1/2 pounds spaghetti squash
• 1 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 4 8' Joseph's Flax, Oat Bran & Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas
• 1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup frozen mixed bell peppers
• 2 tablespoons feta
• 2 tablespoons chopped green onions
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
• 1 whole avocado, chopped

Do:

• Preheat over to 350°F. 
• Cut the squash in half, scrape out the seeds, and bake both halves for about 40 minutes on a baking sheet covered in tin foil.  We usually place the squash so that the 'open' part is down on the cookie sheet, thinking that the heat will get trapped in there and cook it better.  You'll know the squash is just about ready when you can easily poke a fork or knife through the skin.
• Now, carefully scrape the spagetti squash into a bowl.  It's best to use a fork to do this to get the 'spagetti' aspect of the squash.  You can throw the shells away.   
• Now put your frozen peppers on the cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes until they are cooked, put to the side.
• In a small dish, mix up the lime juice, chili powder, cumin, and salt, then stir into the squash. 
• Make sure your black beans are well rinsed and drained, then heat them in a skillet with a little spray of cooking oil.    
• Place tortillas on a plate and cover with a paper towel, then microwave for 20-30 seconds to heat them.  
• Now,  build your burrito!  We did squash, beans, peppers, green onions, cilantro, feta and avocado, wrapped them up and enjoyed.  They were juicy and a little messy but so, so good!!

Makes enough for 4 burritos, about 298 calories per burrito.

Maple Glazed Donut Hole Cookies

Hi again everyone it's me, the Boston Sweetie husband aka hubs aka B-Hubs.....I know what your thinking and don't worry, BostonSweetie is ok...she has just been busy and luckily I have been on a kick lately of having good cookie ideas.

Growing up I also enjoyed the smell of cinnamon, donuts and french toast. As Frank Sinatra once sang "These are a feeew of my faaaavorite things"...so that's what decided to make - donut hole cookies with maple glaze.

Donut hole cookies by the tree, I'll take that for a present!

After a brief browsing session, I came across Yummly.com . The pictures looked great and I decided to throw my own twist with an extra layer of maple glaze.

First things first -

I added the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and set aside. Next step - mix butter, sugar, vanilla extra and eggs in the mixing bowl - and then combine flour mixture+sugar butter vanilla eggs mix to create the delicious dense dough.

Last touch - roll the dough in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon and it's time to bake. After 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven - voila- donut hole cookies! ....But wait, there's more - I decided that a glaze to finish would be a nice touch so I threw together some confectionary sugar, milk, slight dab of vanilla extract and some real maple syrup! Tasty enough to make me come up with my own Christmasmas song....
"Deck the halls with balls of donuts cookies...falalala la la la la"

Only 11 more days til Christmas!  Lots of cookies to make for Santa!

It looks even better with an extra dusting of Cinnasugar!

For full recipe details please follow this link.

Talk to you all soon!

Best,

B-Hubs

Italian Anise Cookies

Hi everyone! Nice to meet you, I feel like I know you all since my wifey (aka Boston Sweetie) tends to drop my name in a post every now and then (aka "Hubs"). You can call me Boston Sweetie Hubs or
B-hubs for short.

I am not ashamed to say that the 25 days of Christmas this year has made one of the most delicious Decembers that I can remember. Tonight, I decided to keep the daily trend going with one of my favorite types of cookies - Anise! Inspired by some of my favorite North End bakeries like Bovas, Mike's and Modern - I decided to save myself the walk and make my own.

After browsing a few recipes online to inspire myself, I found the one - look no further than Food.com.

Check out the picture of my finished product below - they look good huh?

HoHoHo these look good!

The recipe consisted of two parts - Making the cookie batter and making the icing - which gave me two bowls of extra batter bits to eat....

Anyways....

The first part consisted of mixing a stick of butter, eggs, sugar, anise, and milk- to create a nice anise fluffy sugar mixture which now needed some flour mixture. The flour mixture consisted of some baking powder and ....Flour! After about 10 minutes of mixing with the magic of the Kitchen Aid - we had some nice fluffy anise cookie batter.  Using a cookie scooper to portion - I created some nice round dollops of cookie batter and into the oven they went.  Ten minutes they were done.

The finishing touch was a mixture of confectionary sugar, milk and a drop of anise for the glaze. Simply take the baked cookies and dip them into the glaze, finish with sprinkles and we have Anise cookies!

Merry Christmas!

Only 14 more days 'til Christmas everyone- enjoy the cookies and I'm sure I'll be speaking to you soon again.

You can access the recipe here.

Bye for now,
B-hubs