Nickelodeon

I'm going home this weekend- not for long. I'm leaving tomorrow morning and coming back the next day. Partly because it's Easter, partly because it's a week from my birthday, I'm going to have a little celebration time with my mom and hopefully bring back a bunch of leftovers so I won't have to spend as much on food next week when I have to buy alcohol for my 21st birthday party. :)

Well I know it's not a long weekend, but with the tomato shortage going on and the tomatoes on my counter being a little sketchy, I wanted to cook up something tonight that I'll probably have leftovers of when I get back. Basically here's what I have that I wanted to use up before I leave: tomatoes, spinach (Jane left the rest of it from Wednesday with me) and some soaked black beans (I buy dried because then I can pick through them more...plus sometimes they're cheaper then canned and they take up less space). So...what in the world can I make with that? I mean, I love all of those ingredients, but I don't know any recipes for all of them together. Ok, so I did a little Google search (Topeka search? :P) and I found some recipes- all Mexican/Tex-Mex/Cali-Mex (yum!). One was a tomato spinach and bean burrito (which I'm going to cook), one was a Mexican poblano, spinach, and black bean 'lasagna' with goat cheese (which sounds great, but I don't have all the ingredients for), and one was spinach black bean empanadas (also sounds delicious, but I don't have masa).

Like I said, I'm going to be cooking the burritos (tonight- I'll try and get back to you on them), but  I wanted to mention the last recipe a little more. Although I'm not making it, the last link intrigued me. First off- spinach and black bean empanada- warm, fluffy, savory pastry- sounds delicious. Second- it's on a parenting website, so the recipe is actually aimed at getting kids to eat vegetables, so it should be something I could make say, for my nephews and hopefully they'd enjoy it. Most interesting to me however was the fact that this parenting site is actually by Nickelodeon.  It's called Nickelodeon Parents Connect and it's basically a social network for parents where they don't have to poke your wall, but they can like your recipe or discussion topic and comment on it. I had no idea Nickelodeon had something like that. I mean, I knew networks like this existed, but I didn't realize that there was a Nickelodeon sponsored one. If you think about it, it's kind of a cool way for them to say thanks for spending that extra money on your cable bill to watch us- now talk with other parents who you can vent. Haha...well sort of. I'm probably making it sound worse than it is, so I'm going to stop there.