Food Plagiarism

I've been eating this delicious salad for ages and (selfishly) I haven't shared it with you yet! It has all the best things: sweet, spicy, and crunchy. It's a combination of Romaine lettuce, avocado, corn, black beans, red onion, seasoned chicken, and a spicy barbeque sauce and some broken tortilla chips on top. Yum! It's the most filling salad that I've ever made and everyone who's tried it has loved it! It couldn't be easier or more delicious, especially with a margarita to celebrate the end of summer.

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I can't forget to mention, for fear of food plagiarism, that my co-worker and awesome friend
Brigid actually introduced me to this delightful dish. I don't know if she made hers exactly the same way, but I tried to use it as inspiration copy it as closely as possible because her version was to-die-for! She also got me started on my winter-time favorite butternut squash soup.

Thanks for reading my thoughts about food...I know it's been a long time but honestly I haven't been cooking much recently and didn't know if I wanted to continue posting or not. I'm trying for a comeback, so stay tuned for what kind of frozen/pre-packaged/scary food we've been eating since I haven't been cooking ... and for a little lamb dish that kick-started me out of my funk.

Salad is Golden (Raisin That Is)

Knowing that you're going to be in a bathing suit in 12 days has a funny way of making salad seem like the most crave-able dinner of all time. Not that I'm keeping track or anything, but here is a list of things that I have not eaten at school in the past two weeks out of my selfish desire not to look like I've been indoors with no sun exposure shoveling pot roast into my mouth for the last 5 months. 

1. Huge brownies with chocolate chip cookies baked into them

2. Chocolate glazed  cake that looked like a huge donut

3. Chocolate cupcakes with Spiderman frosting

4. Oreos, root beer, and homemade cookies left over from a party my 4th class had in 3rd period

 In addition, here's a list of things on my body that are in pain from working out just about every day for what seems like forever. 

1. My right big toe

2. My left elbow

3. Both of my shoulder joints

4. My hamstrings

5. My calves (but only when I walk or stand...or move)

6. My baaaack. Oh my back! Need.  massage.  now. 

In the end, the salad that I made tonight was actually really good. Surprisingly, the croutons satisfied my need for bread and salt and the raisins were nice and sweet. Here is the list of ingredients:

• 1 bag of organic spinach leaves
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of chopped red onion
• 3 tablespoons of organic feta cheese
• a handful (1/4 cup?) of golden raisins
• a smattering of poppy seed dressing 
• A handful of croutons

Brussel Sprout Bandwagon

During Thanksgiving, I noticed that a certain vegetable had recipes "sprouting" up everywhere, like here and here. Being the trend follower that I am (Actually, I'm not at all... I just bought a pair of leggings recently, which came into style, what, 2 years ago? )

Well, I decided to try the brussel sprouts anyway. I have had them maybe once before in my life and it was so long ago that I don't even remember what I thought about them. When checking out recipes on food blogs, and magazines, they looked bright green, crispy, and pretty darn good, so I decided to give them a shot. Greg was not so adventurous at first, so I did what any good wife would do; I bought them and made them for dinner so when he got home from work they were waiting on his plate. Wisely, he did not complain.


To make this dish, I started by preheating my oven to 425 and taking my fresh sprouts out of the fridge.

Then I cut them in half and blanched them. To do that, get a pot of water boiling, throw in the sliced sprouts, and fish them out after about 45 seconds. They won't be very tender, but don't worry, you'll be cooking them in the oven as well.

Then, I drizzled olive oil over them (about a tablespoon) and added some salt, pepper, chunks of yellow onion and a teaspoon of minced garlic.

I spread them out on a cookie sheet and sprinkled them with white wine vinegar. Then, I baked them for 12 minutes. (I thought that Bobby Flay's recipe in the link above, which has an addition of quartered potato, looked awesome as did the one with pancetta. Anything to disguise the fact that we're eating a vegetable, right?)

Here is the end result. I especially like that the white wine vinegar cut into the very slight bitterness of the sprouts. I used about a half a tablespoon. I'm actually really happy with how these turned out. They seemed really versatile. I think cooking them with shallots or mushrooms and Parmesan would taste really good as well. So, jump on...the bandwagon is a yummy place to be!

 Thanks for reading my thoughts about food!

De-LIGHT-ful

When I was in college, I used to work retail. On my lunch break I would walk to Whole Foods to get a fresh Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad from the salad bar. Honestly, finding that salad was probably the one cool thing that came out of that job. (It was a less-than-awesome job).

Now that I'm a teacher (a way awesomer job) and have the summers off, (totally awesome) I'm not buying lunch that often, but I still crave that salad. I love having a cold dinner in the summertime too. It's so refreshing and feels healthier for some reason. I made my own version of it at home a few days ago. You can really add any ingredients that you like, but I kept it simple.

I just cooked up some bowtie pasta, chopped some fresh romaine, and added some leftover cooked chicken  that was in the fridge. I added some pepper, shredded Parmesan cheese, and creamy Caesar (or creamy Italian) salad dressing. Then I tossed it all together and chilled it for about an hour. It was so good on a hot day last week. You could also add red and yellow tomatoes (which also makes it more visually interesting) but I didn't add them because Greg doesn't like fresh tomatoes. I think it also might taste really cool and satisfying with some crisp cucumber. Like I said, you can add anything you like to create different flavor combination, bell peppers, banana peppers, even some big crunchy croutons. So dig in your fridge tonight and throw together a nice cold pasta salad using what you've got, it's budget friendly and definitely refreshing!

My New Friend

Hello Tofu, nice to make your acquaintance. Will you please come into my home, make yourself comfortable in the refrigerator, but stay far away from my husband; he doesn't want your kind around here.

Tofu is my new friend. We found each other right between the milk and the eggs. Hidden there is, what I can only refer to as the "other" section. There are all kinds of freaky meat substitutes, "chicken" nuggets, spicy Italian "sausage," and meatless "burgers." To me, a substance that has no shape, consistency, smell, or taste that comes from nature, is probably not meant to be eaten. Even rotten vegetables are going through a natural decomposition process. But, I want to be open-minded, and soy is a plant, therefore I will not discriminate. So I brought my square, white, squishy friend home for a trial visit.

As it turns out, tofu is a very agreeable substance. I made Tofu Curry (with chicken on the side for Greg) and after two tries I got a pretty great result. Unfortunately, my friend Amanda was the recipient of try #1, with which I used "firm" tofu and  bit too much curry sauce. Try #2 turned out a bit better because I used "extra firm," which has a more meat-like consistency.

I also experimented with a dessert, which turned out to be a fantastic idea. I started out with putting the tofu in the food processor, and mashing the crap out of it. Then I added some baking chocolate, cocoa, sugar, and water. I mixed and mashed this until it was creamy and whipped. Then I chilled it overnight. The consistency was perfect! It was so chocolatey. No one would ever know that I used tofu! Here are some pictures!

Lifestyle Change

I'm back to my old blogging self after a short hiatus. After some thinking, we've decided to eat healthier. Seriously. It's not a phase, it's a lifestyle change. So that's that. 



(God I want to devour an entire chocolate cake so freaking bad.)


Until my body adjusts I'll have to fake it till I make it. Here are some "healthy" meals I've tried out recently. 

Grilled Chicken Salad

One of the healthy choices that we're making is cutting down on salt and sugar. Therefore, I marinated the chicken in lemon juice and freshly round pepper to give it some punch. The salad is lightly dressed and has some crumbles of feta cheese on top.

Turkey Burgers

 I'll be honest, for someone who loves burgers, you have to be a flavor master to make lean ground turkey taste as good as a juicy beef burger. The ones in this picture were okay, but in the next batch I made, I used an egg white and a tablespoon of bread crumbs in the meat, which made it less dense. This made the burgers seem way jucier. I also made them much thinner, so they didn't need to cook as long and the meat didn't dry out as much. See? I'm learning.

Shrimp Skewers

This has been the most tasty meal yet. These shrimp were wild caught, not farm raised and tasted so fresh and delicious. I just skewered the shrimp, sweet yellow onion chunks, and pineapple chunks and grilled them on the Forman for about 3 minutes on each side. After, I drizzled about 1/4  teaspoon of honey down the skewer. Yum! We had this with a salad on the side. It was so good, I am making it again this week.

Thanks for reading my thoughts about healthier food!

Baked Green Beans

I coated green beans in a bit of canola oil and roasted them on 400 for 10 minutes on  baking sheet. Then I tossed them with slivered almonds, dried cherries, salt and pepper and roasted them again for 8-10 more minutes. What a fun way to transform this simple side!