Avocado Fries

I love avocados- on sandwiches, in guacamole, any way.

So, following my simple recipe trend, I decided to try making my own avocado fries last weekend.

I followed this recipe, but of course, made changes to my liking.

Ingredients:

Avocados

Salt

Flour

2 Eggs

Italian Shake 'n Bake

Cooking Spray

Ranch Dressing (for dipping)

First, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees.

Then, I cut, peeled, and lightly salted the avocados and prepared a tinfoil lined baking tray.

Next, I set up the coating station:

In the first bowl- flour.

In the second bowl- 2 beaten eggs.

In the third bowl- Italian Shake 'n Bake (this is where most people use Panko, Japanese bread crumbs).

I took each piece of avocado and rolled it in the flour, coated it in the egg, and then rolled it in the Shake 'n Bake until fully covered.

Finally, I laid the fries on the baking tray, and coated both sides of each piece with cooking spray.

I then baked at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes.

When they came out of the oven, I was extremely impressed.

With a little bit of ranch dressing on the side- perfect.

I did decide that I like cold avocados a lot more than warm avocados.

But, the Shake 'n Bake was amazing and crispy, so I enjoyed them.

If you're an avocado fan, I recommend you try!

The Finer Things

In the same week that a friend of mine introduced me to Scentsy, I found a candlewarmer at Value Village for $3. I am now addicted to melting wax to make my house smell good // Another new addiction- Mio // A first birthday present for a very special little guy // A trip to the States to pick up some PSSST = heaven to my hair & bank account // I've always hand levelled my cakes, but when I saw this little fellow at Value Village for $1.99, I decided to give it a go- I'll be testing it it out next week (that means new cake photos ;)

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xoxo

The Last Month...

The last month has been absolutely amazing, and our family has been crazy busy.

Check out some snapshots of what's been going on around here as of lately.

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In between work, school, and kids, Chris and I decided to take our first vacation as a couple. We took the four hour drive to Toronto to visit some friends as well as Ikea, the CN Tower, and The Hockey Hall of Fame.

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On June 14th, the love of my life graduated college. He graduated from the Civil Engineering Technology program, and I couldn't be prouder.

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Next, myself and the girls had a chance to ride in the annual Windsor-Detroit River Tugboat Race due to some connections at my work! The kids thought it was absolutely amazing riding on a huge boat along the Detroit river and under the Ambassador Bridge. The best part of the day? Our tugboat actually won the race and the girls got to wave to huge crowds of people along the shoreline!

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Finally, in late June, we attended the Windsor-Detroit fireworks- a traditional for anyone who lives in our area. We had an amazing evening celebrating Canada day!

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...and that sums up an incredible month.

xoxo

10,000

In celebration of my 10,000th page view, I have made some changes to HollyMuffin!

Thank you so much to everyone who reads!

xoxo

1st and 4th

I just wanted to take a few seconds to wish all of my American readers a very happy Fourth of July!

Also, I would like to wish the readers from my own beautiful country of Canada a very happy belated Canada Day (July 1st).

xoxo

Simple Ricotta Shells

Back in January, I made it my 2012 resolution to learn how to cook more simple meals that would work in my everyday life. With school, work, and ridiculous schedules- it sometimes gets hard to actually take the time to make a great dinner.

So, have I been keeping up with my resolution?

Surprisingly, yes. Which is probably a first for me.

Easy meals like this keep me going- there's no point in trying a 42 ingredient dinner when you know you'll never have the time to recreate it on the average Tuesday night.

With that, here is one of my newest favourites- Simple and fast ricotta stuffed shells.

I'm a very picky eater, and am not a fan of onion, tomatoes, or anything else that will make my food chunky. Therefor, I chose to use only a basic cheese mixture in my shells. Next time, I will use spinach, but this time, it wasn't thawed enough.

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To make these lovelies, I used this recipe, but slightly altered it.

The ingredients that I kept included the shells themselves, pasta sauce, ricotta & parmesan cheeses, a bit of salt, some cooking spray, some garlic plus seasoning, and an egg. I simply left everything else out.

I also decided to add some shredded mozzarella cheese for some extra cheesy-ness.

First, I boiled the shells.

Next, I placed all the ingredients in a bowl and slightly melted them in the microwave allowing for them to mashed.

After some mashing, the filling was finished!

One by one, I stuffed the shells...

...and placed them on a baking tray. I put a thin layer of sauce underneath the shells to keep them moist, and then added sauce and shredded mozzarella on top of each shell as well.

Baked at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, and voila!

I was so happy with the results. Such a simple dinner to make- and thinking about it now, it would be possible to make the shells in advance and freeze them.

xoxo