carrots – Gabriela Maria

Red Tomato Salad

February 19, 2023March 4, 20231 Comment

Today is the last post from what has been a very fun February Color Series! Next week I’ll do a regular recipe, and from there we’ll be transitioning into March for the color green!

This was a great side salad to pair with lunch or dinner, and was delicious both cold and warmed up. Prep work was the longest part of making this dish, but overall it was very quick and easy. Save yourself time and purchase pre-sliced roasted red bell peppers!

Red Tomato Salad

Recipe List:

1 small or 1/2 medium onion, sliced thin
3 Roma tomatoes
1 thin jar or 1/2 a large jar of roasted red bell peppers, sliced
3 large purple carrots, halved and sliced thin
Basil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Recipe Directions:

Prep onion, tomatoes, roasted red bell peppers, and purple carrots
Mix veggies with basil, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper
Serve!

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Lentil & Vegetable Soup

February 10, 2020September 28, 2022Leave a comment

Happy Monday, Week 6!

I’m already halfway through my quarter. My roommates and I all feel the same way – we’re ready to graduate. Last week went by so quickly, and when Friday come up, I didn’t really believe it was already Friday. I ended up not posting because my schedule was so out of whack.

But now I’m ready!

I should be out of my boot within the next two weeks, and hopefully back to lacrosse in three weeks. These next two weeks are going to be pretty chaotic. This week I’ve got test corrections due for my inorganic exam, and I’ve got a 15 page sulfur lab report due. Then I’m in LA for the whole weekend, including President’s Day. Then the following Friday, I have a bioinformatics research draft due, and a graduation requirement essay due. I have yet to go grocery shopping for this week, and to be honest I don’t know what to make yet. But, one thing at a time.

So anyway, back to food. This past week I made a lentil soup for dinners. I’ve actually never had lentil soup, or cooked lentils, so there was a bit of a learning and tasting curve. This recipe turned out really good and ended up being really easy to make. It was great to have because it’s been relatively cold outside, so it’s been great to come home and have a warm soup for dinner.

The recipe I followed was from Cooking Classy. I measured most things out this time, so I followed the recipe pretty closely. I only used one box of vegetable broth, since two boxes wouldn’t have fit in my pot. The only other tweak I made was with the tomatoes. I saw them on the list, and knew I needed to buy crushed tomatoes when I went to the grocery store, and yet, I did not come home with crushed tomatoes. Thankfully I had some leftover cherry tomatoes in the fridge, so I instead cut those up and tossed them into the soup.

Tweaks and all, it turned out really good. Although, next time I will remember to buy crushed tomatoes (inserts face palm emoji). This was great because I felt like I wasn’t going to make enough, but it ended up lasting me the whole week, which typically doesn’t happen. I’ve recently been trying to minimize my meat intake. To be entirely honest, it’s kinda expensive and I never feel like it lasts me long enough. However I’m still going to the gym so I need to keep up my protein intake. The lentils were a great substitution for that.

So now that it’s Monday, my whole week is off by a day. I normally do my cooking for the week on Sunday. I have yet to go grocery shopping or even decide what to make, so we’re off to a great start. Hopefully I’ll figure it out by tonight before the week slips away from me again!

To be continued…

Gabriela

White Bean and Tomato Soup

January 25, 2020September 28, 2022Leave a comment

Hello and happy weekend!

I broke my toe this week and it’s thrown my schedule all out of whack! But I am finally getting back to it. I’ve taken care of that, taken the GRE, and now I’m ready to enjoy my weekend. I have a GameCube and recently bought MarioKart and Animal Crossing, and I’m hoping to buy Zelda or Mario Party Sunshine at some point. But the thing has been a mess because my controller won’t stop vibrating when I shake a tree in animal crossing, and the disc was “unreadable” right as I was about to win in Final Fantasy! So frustrating. So I’ll have a look at it today so that it’s up and running for my weekend relaxation.

This week’s soup is SO GOOD. I know Chicken Noodle Soup is the “go to” for when you’re sick, but this is better. The crushed red pepper flakes (which I love) really do wonders on your sinuses. Literally all you need is a spoonful. Also, its soup! Soup and pasta are by far the coziest foods to eat, you can’t really go wrong.

I got the recipe for this soup from Making Thyme for Health. The blog focuses on plant-based recipes, so if you’re vegetarian, definitely check out some of the other recipes! This recipe was also really simple to make. It’s not a recipe where you can just throw everything into the pot and wait, but the directions are very straight-forward and clear so it’s easy to follow along.

I don’t have a very large soup pot, so I had to modify the recipe so that it would all fit in the pot I was using. I only changed amounts, not ingredients, and I added a lot (not really) of red pepper flakes. I’ve never eaten white beans (I think?) so it was cool to try something new within the recipe. I’ve also never cooked using a can of crushed tomatoes. While they’re not overwhelmingly new experiences, it was still cool to use new things in my cooking!

It was also great because there was kale in it! Side note, I think kale is gross. Plain, I can’t stand the taste of it. I applaud people who do. It’s really healthy, but so nasty. But recently I’ve been adding it into my smoothies, and my cooking so I haven’t been tasting it as strongly. It’s great because now I get the benefits of kale without the strong taste.

Overall this turned out so delicious and I would and will 100% make this again. It was nice and filling, and the perfect thing to come home to after a “long” day of “working hard.”

To be continued…

Gabriela

“Garlic” Chicken and Veggie Pasta

January 10, 2020October 1, 2022Leave a comment

Happy New Year and welcome to week one of winter quarter!

I’m ~almost~ done. Not in the homestretch yet, but I’m sure this quarter will go by quickly. So far I’m really enjoying my classes and I work well with all of my lab partners. I have a lot of work ahead of me this quarter, but somehow it all feels incredibly more manageable than last quarter. Which is great because I have other things that I’m looking forward to doing this quarter other than just sitting in my library cubicle.

As it is a new year, of course there are new year’s resolutions to be said! For starters, I want to firmly stick to my gym schedule AND I want to start using the machines. Even though I grew up as an athlete, I’ve never really gone to a gym because all of my workouts were on the field. Now when I go to the gym, I notice I’m really intimidated and feel like everyone is watching me. It makes me feel really pressured and also makes me scared to try things that I believe “I can’t do.” I started Tuesday and Thursday, and both days I used a new machine. Going on Thursday, I noticed that because I had gone to a machine on Tuesday, I already felt more comfortable approaching the idea and I ended up having a great workout!

Secondly, I really want to expand on my cooking abilities. So for the next 11 weeks (the entirety of my winter quarter), I want to cook a new recipe every week for lunch and dinner. I’ve always wanted to try a bunch of new recipes, like the ones everyone secretly has pinned on their Pinterest boards but never actually tries. I really want to feel comfortable and feel like I can make something delicious!

Of course, as I’m sure it’s clear, I love food and I love to cook. I used to be awful at it (actually though…), but I’ve had a lot of practice and I’m starting to really enjoy it. It’s become a normal part of my Sunday schedule. In the morning, grocery store, buy some flowers to spruce up the living room, come home, and meal prep for the week. Meal prepping has been great for my busy schedule and also helps me stay on track with what I’m eating and making sure that I’m getting all of the calories I need. Between playing lacrosse, going to the gym regularly, AND swimming on weekends, I burn quite a lot of calories and need to make sure I’ve got something in my stomach to keep me going.

To start off with my New Year’s resolution, I made a Garlic Chicken and Veggie Pasta which I found off of a Facebook video from Tasty (I think). Personally, I think this dish is improperly named. One, because I definitely didn’t taste garlic and two, because I have never used THAT much oregano. But it was still really tasty!

Since it was just a video, there were no measurements or super clear instructions, so I just kinda winged it. It turned out great though!! It was delicious. It was super easy to make and lasted me for 4 days of lunch, although to be honest, I probably could have pushed that to 5 days. With the combination of chicken and pasta, the dish was heavier than I was expecting it to be, so I definitely could have stretched it out over another day.

The recipe consisted of chicken breast, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, shallots, kale, and penne. To start, I had to prep all of the veggies. The carrots were shaved and sliced, and the zucchini and yellow squash were sliced. I used 2 carrots, and 1 zucchini and yellow squash. The chicken was cut into little cubes and cooked in olive oil on the stove. I added some salt, pepper, and oregano. While cooking the chicken, I prepped the penne in a separate pot. I opted for whole wheat penne from Trader Joe’s and used about half the bag (around 3 cups). When the chicken was finished, I placed it into a separate bowl and cooked the carrots, kale, zucchini, and yellow squash in the same pan. While cooking these, I added in about a quarter of the shallot, 3 gloves of garlic, and some salt, pepper, and oregano. When the pasta was finished, I mixed it into the pan and added the chicken in as well. On medium-low heat, I mix everything around in the pan, and added some more salt, pepper, and oregano.

It was a lot of food, but a lot of really good food! I plan on sticking to my schedule of making a new recipe every week, but I definitely can’t wait to try this again. I would highly recommend it! Enjoy!

To be continued…

Gabriela

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 29, 2019October 1, 20221 Comment

As the title states, Happy Thanksgiving!

I had Thanksgiving up in San Francisco again at my sister’s place. Last year we had a whole group come over and she hosted. It was a lot of fun but also required a lot of work on her part – prepping the food, baking the pies, cleaning the house, getting alcohol, etc. Which was fine, and we all had a great time, but this year we’re just doing us and it’s much more relaxed.

This year I really wanted to pitch in and help out so I made a side dish. I intended to prep the dish at my place and then drive up, but I woke up later than I intended to and traffic was already starting to get heavy. So instead I brought all of the ingredients up to her place and prepped the stuff Thanksgiving morning (which actually turned out better because I wasn’t as stressed).

I made some Garlic Butter Roasted Carrots as a side dish and they looked soooo good online, so I had to try them out! The recipe was super easy to follow which was nice, and it didn’t require me to buy much other than carrots and parsley, which was great because I didn’t want to buy a bunch of stuff. I followed the recipe from a blog called Diethood (here’s the link), which I originally found on Pinterest.

The recipe calls for 2 lbs. of carrots which I initially thought was A LOT, but to be honest, if I were to make this again I would probably add another pound of carrots. We eat a lot at Thanksgiving, and it’d be nice to have extra for leftovers. I started by washing and peeling the carrots, which normally I just wash them. I never really think to peel them, because I’ve just cleaned them, but they look so much more appetizing once they’ve been peeled. It takes a little more time but I’ll probably do this from now on.

From there, the recipe says to cut the carrots into diagonal 2-3 inch pieces. For some of the thicker parts of the carrots I cut them smaller than the 2 inches because they were so thick and I didn’t think they would cook all the way through (which they kinda did). For the thinner pieces I left them at the 2 inch recommendation. I eyeballed it, so my measurements were probably super off, but hey, at least they look pretty. Additionally, in the photo the displayed on the blog, 2-3 inches seemed more like a recommendation rather than a direction. So I went for it.

The next step was to melt the overwhelming amount of butter (I had to double check the recipe three times and then I googled the amount to make sure I wasn’t crazy). It required 5 tablespoons, which I thought was nasty, but when it came down to it, I think it was necessary. 4 tablespoons probably would have worked as well, but at that point, what’s the harm in adding another one? 4 cloves of garlic were added to the melted butter and mixed around until the garlic was light brown. From there, this was mixed in with the carrots and then popped in the oven at 425º. The recipe said to cook them for 22-30 minutes. I opted for 25 minutes and then kept them in a little longer after (an extra minute or two) because the really thick pieces weren’t tender enough yet.

After that, I transferred them back into the bowl and added parsley, salt, and pepper. They smelled SO GOOD! As you can see from the photo, 2 lbs doesn’t really fill up the bowl, which is why I might recommend another pound, just so there’s plenty rather than not enough. My sister said the carrots look good so we were looking forward to trying them with our Thanksgiving feast. Like I said, this recipe was super easy to follow and I’m so glad I found it. I highly recommend trying this for your next Thanksgiving feast or even just for dinner one day (mind the butter). The blog also has a ton of other recipes that look delicious! You might find something else you like!

As you can see, I’m really proud of my carrots. I think they turned out great.

After the carrots were made, my sister came home from errands and started prepping the cranberry sauce, vegetables and, of course, the turkey. While we were waiting for the turkey to finish up, we did some Champagne and Prosecco tasting; planning for a holiday party. We agreed the Champagne was better and that’s what she’ll probably opt for.

And now, the turkey is officially ready! Time for us to eat, and then probably watch some Rick and Morty or a movie. I’m thankful I get to spend Thanksgiving with my sister, and can’t wait to see the rest of my family during the Christmas holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and enjoy your holiday!

To be continued…

Gabriela

Featured Image was obtained from: http://www.carlswebgraphics.com/thanksgiving-graphics.html