cornmeal
Dash of ground pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon paprika
2 cloves garlic, minced
1½ teaspoons minced fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Hot sauce, for serving
1 Crank your oven to 425°F. Lightly coat a large rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray.
2 Chop the potatoes into pieces about the size of a nickel (skins and all if you can hang), chop up the onion, and slice the okra into ¼-inch pieces. Okra can be kinda slimy when you cut it up. Just deal with it and fucking move on. In a medium bowl, toss together 1 teaspoon of the olive oil and the sliced okra. Mix well. Add the cornmeal, pepper, and 1 ⁄ 8 teaspoon of the salt and mix again. The cornmeal will make the okra less slimy; trust. Pour all that onto half of the baking sheet.
3 Throw the potato and onion into the bowl that just held the okra. Add the last 1 teaspoon oil, the paprika, and last 1 ⁄ 8 teaspoon salt and mix it up. Pour this onto the other half of the baking sheet and put that motherfucker in the oven. After about 20 minutes, add the garlic and rosemary to the potato side of the sheet and stir that up. Stir the okra around too and put that fucker right back in the oven to finish cooking. Bake until the okra starts to brown and crisp up, another 20 to 25 minutes.
4 When the okra is crispy and the potatoes are browned and tender, take it out of the oven and sprinkle the lemon juice over the entire dish. Mix the potatoes and okra together and serve immediately with your favorite hot sauce.
GREEN SMOOTHIES SHOULDN’T TASTE LIKE GRASS
Green smoothies are an easy way to get more fruits and veggies into your diet. You can get a dose of fiber, chlorophyll, essential vitamins, and all kinds of other good stuff your body needs in one glass. That is some simple shit. Don’t overthink it.
The greens lay the nutritional groundwork while the sweetness from the fruit handles the flavor labor. But don’t go to some buttoned-up juice bar across town for an expensive-ass neon green smoothie that tastes like grass clippings. FUCK. THAT. Toss some fruits and veggies in a blender and press a fucking button. You know what you like, so be your own green smoothie guru at home. It’s faster, cheaper, and no long-ass line. Here’s a guide to how you want to structure your smoothie experiments:
2 cups of greens like spinach or kale, whatever you got. (If you have a shitty blender, stick to something easier to blend, like spinach.)
1 cup chunks of creamy fruit (like frozen bananas or mangoes or an avocado)
3 ⁄ 4 cup of your favorite sweet frozen fruits (like cherries, berries, apples, pears—use your fucking imagination)
11⁄ 2 cups liquid. This can be a combo of your favorite juice, milk, and water or all water depending on how much sweetness you are after .
Try out some of these combos to get your brain working before you come up with your own shit: tropical fruits like mangoes and pineapples with some coconut milk and water; blueberries or blackberries with almond milk; or do all bananas and sub in peanut butter for ¼ cup of the liquids and do the rest with almond milk and water. If it sounds good enough to eat together, then trust that shit will be dope to drink, too.
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FRUIT SALAD SMOOTHIE
You could also make this a parfait to crank up the fiber and fullness factor: Sprinkle a layer of ground flaxseeds and rolled oats for every cup of smoothie you pour in the glass. eat with a spoon or grab a big-ass straw.
MAKES 1 SMOOTHIE
2 cups fresh spinach
5 pieces frozen bananas, each about 1½ inches long (roughly 1½ bananas)
1 cup tap or coconut water
½ cup orange juice
½ rounded cup frozen strawberries
¼ cup frozen blueberries
Throw all that in a blender and let it do its thing. Taste and add more of whatever you want. If you want it thicker, add more banana. This is obviously the kind of thing you eat right away so slam it down as soon as it’s ready.
SPICED CHICKPEA WRAPS WITH TAHINI DRESSING
This captures the