Eggplant and Feta Dip

Ok, honestly, this is easily one of my new favorite dips...well second to Megan's buffalo wing dip. Ok, this is my new "on the healthier side" dip. haha. I modified the recipe from delish.com...I tend to always not add as much olive oil as the recipe asks...I mean, I hate to say it but olive oil really doesn't have that much flavor to me; by adding less, I feel like there's more flavor in the dish. ALSO, who knew eggplants were soo mushy! I went to the store to buy one and thought they were all rotten because they were so squishy! Anyway, I'll stop ranting.

Ingredients:
1 medium eggplant
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons crumbled feta cheese
2 tablespoons diced up shallots
1 jalapeno seeded and diced
1 tablespoon parsley
1 tablespoon cilantro
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch of pepper
1 pinch of cayenne pepper

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to broil.
2. Cut eggplant in half and place face down on a cookie sheet. (Pam or butter the cookie sheet or else the eggplant will stick)
3. Put in broiler for about 10 minutes.
4. Take out and let cool.
5. Spoon the insides out of the eggplant into a bowl.
6. Add lemon juice to prevent discoloring.
7. Add oil, feta, shallots, jalapeno, parsley, cilantro, salt, pepper, and cayenne.
8. Blend. (or else dip will be stringy)
9. Serve with chips!

I actually think I might make more of this tonight just because I'm so addicted to it! Here are the nutrition facts...so I'm not sure how to make it more visible without making blurry, but I figured out you can press on the picture and get it in full size. I did one serving size, even though this is easily 3 or 4.
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Curried Chickpeas

Curried chickpeas....yummm. This has all my favorite things right now!...There is ginger, curry powder, and garlic...all it needs is some SOUR CREAM! haha, the funny thing is that it would actually probably go well with sour cream because it is so spicy, but for the sake of my health, I decided to leave it out. I modified this recipe from epicurious.com by substituting tumeric with curry powder. One of these days, I will buy that spice...;) ANywhere, here is what I did.

Ingredients:
1 can of chickpeas
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon cumin
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 inch cube of ginger minced
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (this can be adjusted depending on how spicy you want)

Instructions:

1. Drain chickpeas and rinse.


2. In a little olive oil, cook chickpeas in a saucepan.


3. Add curry powder, cumin, garlic, ginger and cayenne pepper.


4. Mix until chickpeas are hot.


5. Serve!!

Super hard huh? Now, I've gotten requests to start putting nutritional values to my dishes and while it's a work in progress, here is what I have got for this one. I just plug the ingredients into a calorie counter website and out comes the results. Now, I am still trying to figure out how I am going to post it...I'd like to eventually make it look all pretty, but you will have to just make do with what I give now. Now, I just put it as 1 serving size because I'm not really sure how to allocate serving sizes and this dish is really more of a side dish so you figure it out!!

Hot Wings!!

Umm, can I please say that these wings are better than Wingstop's? Ok jk, no wings are better than wingstops, but nate says it's a close second! I got this recipe from Siao who actually got it from the Frank's bottle with some alterations. Frank's is awesome...I mean tangy hot sauce, who can ask for more? Here is what I did.

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon chili powder

1/3 cup frank's hot sauce

1/3 cup melted butter

2 lbs of chicken wings

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Bake wings for about an hour.
3. Take wings out, let cool.
4. Combine Frank's hot sauce, butter, lemon juice, paprika, and chili powder.
5. Coat wings in sauce.
6. Serve!

So, I LOVE hot wings...and I know this is stupid, but my fingers started kind of cramping from holding the wings, getting the meat off, and that whole ordeal. I am totally down with just taking the meat off of wings, coating them in the sauce and eating them with a fork. Is that so wrong? Would I be considered blasphemous from the hot wing community? Anyway, curried chickpeas next!!