mango chipotle pasta

As much as I love cooking, I eat an embarrassing amount of pasta with jarred tomato sauce gussied up with a handful of pre-washed spinach. Loath to eat my standard pasta ration yet again, and inspired by my elevated consumption of salsa (tomatoes! onions! chiles!) at work, I gave the tomato base a little Mexican persuasion. Smoky chipotle brightens up with sweet mango and a dollop of yogurt. Maybe yogurt sounds a little weird, but think how hella rico chipotle mayo or sour cream in your burrito is.

Mango Chipotle Pasta

1/2 lb pasta (~1/2 a box)

1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 mango, diced

1 chipotle pepper, minced + spoon of the adobo sauce

1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano


1/2 jar tomato sauce
2 spoonfuls plain yogurt

lime juice to taste


Boil the pasta to your liking.

Meanwhile, heat up a pan and cook up the onion, garlic, and bell pepper in some oil. After a few minutes, hit it with the chipotle, adobo sauce, cumin, and oregano.

Add the tomato sauce and yogurt. Stir in the pasta, adjust the seasonings, y fin!

Texas Cookies

Things I miss about Texas today (in no particular order):

1. Wearing shorts
2. Bluebonnet and Indian paintbrush-lined highways
3. Queso
4. White chocolate bread pudding



Things that taste good and are largely from Texas:

1. Ruby red grapefruit
2. Pecans


Inspired by Homesick Texan's grapefruit cookies, I bring you these sassed up chewy sugar cookies that remind me a little bit of warm days, though mostly call for a cup of tea.

My Texas Cookies 

1 ¼ c sugar

8 tbs (1 stick butter)

¼ c canola oil

1 egg

½ tsp vanilla extract

2 tbs grapefruit juice

zest 1 grapefruit

2 c flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ c crystallized ginger finely chopped

¼ c pecans finely chopped

Heat oven to 350F.

Cream together butter, sugar, and grapefruit zest. Mix in canola oil. Mix in egg, vanilla extract, and grapefruit juice.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

Stir flour mixture into wet ingredients a third at a time, mixing in between. Stir in ginger and pecans.

The dough will be sticky, so chill it for a spell.

Scoop out dough balls and give them room to spread on the baking sheet. Bake off for 10-12 minutes.