2 Salads: Lime/Shrimp/Avocado & Blood Orange/Sweet Potato/Kale

I am just about ready to kidnap Michelle & baby and fly to Ecuador and stay in airbnb places and Alandaluz, a beach ecoresort. (Michelle, look.) Brittany, you can change your flight back from Mexico and come join us. I just think that I shouldn't have to be around snow right now. See:

Instead, I will make bright, pretty salads.

Lime/Shrimp/Avocado Salad

Adapted from Skinny Taste

1 lb cooked shrimp, peeled & deveined, rough chopped (I sautéed mine in olive oil)

1 avocado, cubed

1/2 red onion, diced

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1 jalapeno, chopped

2 limes, juiced

salt & pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

Toss the onion, lime juice, olive oil and salt & pepper in a small bowl. Let that sit for about five minutes to mellow out the onion. Combine with pepper, jalapeno, avocado and shrimp. Add pomegranate seeds if they're laying around from something you made yesterday. Serve.

Note: You can add cilantro if you want. I like cilantro, and I bought some for this salad but it smelled really bad when I opened it so I tossed it. It's so good without the cilantro that I won't use it when I make this again.

Blood Orange/Sweet Potato/Kale

Slightly adapted from How Sweet It Is

1 sweet potato, rough chopped

1 tbsp maple syrup

3 tbsp olive oil

salt & pepper

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

6 cups salad greens (I used chopped dino kale)

2 blood oranges, chopped or sliced sideways

1/4 cup pomegranate arils

4 oz feta cheese, crumbled

2 blood oranges, juiced

1/4 cup white vinegar

2 cloves garlic, minced

salt & pepper

1/3 cup olive oil

Roast the sweet potato in the oven at 400 in the maple syrup, oil, salt, pepper and paprika. Roast for about 20 minutes or until a little soft. Let cool.

Mix the greens with the sweet potatoes, orange pieces, pomegranate arils and feta cheese. Combine the orange juice, vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper. Pour in the olive oil while whisking. Pour as much as you want to use into the greens and save the rest in the fridge for other salads. Serve.

Make-Ahead Sweet Potato & Sausage Hash

I'm all about the breakfast foods, just usually not for breakfast. Later in the day pancakes, omelets, french toast and co. are awesome, and I make them occasionally for a weekend lunch or anytime dinner. However, I'm not a morning person, and I normally wake up with just enough time to get to work looking like a somewhat normal person - that doesn't leave enough time to make food.

I also don't want to spend time cooking on Christmas morning (and I don't want my mom to have to spend time cooking either). Especially since we started hosting Christmas dinner at my mom's house a couple years ago, Christmas morning is for presents and relaxing before all of the early dinner and holiday hosting crazy prep time.

Today I made sweet potato hash, inspired by a Kitchn post to make it ahead and reheat on Christmas morning in a cast iron skillet with some fried eggs for an easy brunch/breakfast. Hash is my go-to with eggs, like eggs florentine, quiche or scrambled eggs, but I never thought about making it in advance.

Sweet Potato Hash

Adapted from the Kitchn

2 tbsp butter

2 medium onions, sliced

1/2 lb Italian sausage

2 large sweet potatoes

4 large garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup rosemary leaves, chopped (about 4 stalks)

3 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp salt, plus more to taste if necessary

Black pepper

It was only a matter of time before a Pittsburgh food blog had a pierogie recipe.

Sweet potato piergoies: A tale of over-coming doubt and adapting old Ukrainian recipes

Upon hearing that our Friends-giving feast would require every dish to have "a twist" I was racking my brain for ideas.  At Girl Dinner when a few of us picked ingredients from a hat to assure we covered all bases, I ended up with sweet potatoes.  I was quite nervous about making something super unique, while all the time craving my mom's sweet potato casserole.  Luckily, Mekenzee swept in and said "Aren't you who's always talking about sweet potato pierogies?" It's true.  I often try to persuade the waiter at Blue Dust's 25 cent pierogie night to get the kitchen staff to make sweet potato ones and love the Gosia's Pierogies from farmers' markets and the Pittsburgh Public Market.  So the hunt for a sweet potato pierogie recipe was on.

Turns out... no recipe.  Of the few recipes Google gave me there were only ones with cheese and onions and other savory ingredients, and I was still craving sweet potato casserole. Stressed once more I mixed a couple together and came up with my own.  My mom always said "cooking is not an exact science unless you're using leavening".  I on the other hand always use recipes.  If you know that this + this + that = good why not use it as a guide? Here is what happens when you mix the recipes of St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church's pyrohy recipe found in this article (or from a volunteer roommate), and ravioli recipe from Epicurious:

Sweet Potato Pierogies