I was looking for something quick, easy, and with minimal cleaning required. This Ground Beef Casserole was a great option! I found this recipe from EatingWell. It’s intended to have some kick to it, but I opted to cut most of those out. You’ll see my substitutions below!
Rating
10/10
Recipe
Ground Beef Casserole
This was very easy to make. I only wish there was more! Items with an * were omitted in my version and any replacements will be in parenthesis.
Ingredient List:
1 lb ground beef
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
3 cups cauliflower florets
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp chili powder* (2 tbsp paprika)
2 tsp ground cumin*
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground chipotle*
15 oz no-salt-added petite-diced tomatoes
2 cups extra sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded
1/3 cup sliced pickled jalapeños*
Recipe Directions:
Preheat broiler to high
Heat oil in a broiler-safe skillet over medium-high heat
Add onion and bell pepper cooking until softened, about 5 minutes
Add beef and cauliflower, cooking until beef is no loner pink, breaking into smaller peices. About 5-7 minutes.
Stir in garlic, chili powder* (paprika), cumin*, oregano, salt, and chipotle*, and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute
Add tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Cook until cauliflower is tender. Remove from heat
Sprinkle cheese over mixture and top with jalapeños*. Broil until cheese is melted, 2-3 minutes.
Serve and enjoy!
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Recipe at bottom of post. Happy cooking!
Hello everyone! Thank you for your patience while I adjusted my posting schedule and also had some unexpected events in my personal life. I also really appreciate the following support on my Instagram. Although I was offline for a little more than two weeks, I actually gained some additional followers which was a nice surprise.
I haven’t had a chance to post any updates so I’ll start with that. For Christmas, I was gifted a noddle maker and a massive nutrition book, both of which I’m super excited to use. The noodle maker is exciting because I’ve been looking to start making more foods from scratch whether that be pasta, marinara sauce, pickles, etc. I really want to see what I can do.
The nutrition book is significantly larger than I was expecting. I thought it was a normal sized book – it’s a whole textbook. There’s a lot to go through, but I am excited for it because I want to start making my own dishes instead of focusing on recipe reviews. With the dishes I make, I want to make sure they’re covering all of my nutrition basics and why. I really enjoy learning, so this is a great way to enjoy my cooking a bit more.
A fun gift that was unexpected was a set of assorted olive oils and vinegars. Thankfully, a little recipe book came with them to offer some ideas, but I’m excited to try those out to see what new flavors I can bring to my food.
Naturally, all of these wonderful gifts will be used in my cooking blog! I’ve really enjoyed trying new recipes and making some of my own. The hardest part for me is remembering to record videos and take pictures, and remembering to post it. I think I find it hard because I enjoy cooking and I enjoy sharing my cooking, but my motive behind it is not to grow a following or have a famous Instagram account or anything. I enjoy writing and cooking, and this was a great way to bring those two aspects together. However, doing the recordings and posting on Instagram is the way for me to share these meals with other people. So although it’s sometimes difficult, I try to keep that in mind to boost my video-recording motivation.
I have many more updates since I’ve last posted, but I’ll save those for next week’s post so that we can get started!
This week I am very excited to kick-off my first series! I was originally going to post a delicious Balsamic Glazed Chicken recipe, but I wanted to kick this series off sooner rather than later, so the chicken will be for next week. Stay tuned!
Welcome to my Color Series! For each month, I’ve selected a color to represent that month or the holidays in that month. There were a few obvious ones such as February, October, and December, but for many of the months I had to think about what color might relate to them and why. There will be at least one recipe a month dedicated to that month’s color and my goal is to have an assortment of dishes: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, or desserts. So now, January….
January is white! I picked white because, although it hasn’t snowed in January in a long time, I’ve always associated January with white tones. For New Year’s celebrations, Champagne is a white wine and many of the poppers, confetti, etc. are usually a white or silver material. Way back when, when I was very young, it used to snow in January. Even now, although it no longer snows very often, January is typically cold and windy, and even the air seems to have a white tone to it because of the morning frost that occurs.
Thinking of white foods was initially very difficult. I thought of the usuals, garlic and white onion, but I couldn’t initially think of how to piece those together into a meal. Thankfully, Google exists, and was very helpful. The core of this white dish used garlic, white onion, white mushrooms, cauliflower, and sea scallops. Of course a few extra ingredients were included (that were not white). Check it out below and let me know what you think!
Seared Sea Scallops with Cauliflower Purée Sauce
Recipe List:
4-5 garlic cloves, minced
1 small/medium white onion, sliced or diced
1 pack white mushrooms, sliced
1 head cauliflower
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bag sea scallops (between 1-2 pounds)
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup of chicken broth (plus a little extra for later)
1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice
A bundle of parsley
1/2 pack of linguini*
Salt and pepper to taste
Recipe Directions:
Thaw your scallops if needed. Pat scallops dry to remove excess moisture.
Heat olive oil in skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add scallops in single layer. In a separate pot, prepare water for boiling to make linguini (cooks for 8-9 minutes)*
Season with salt and pepper and fry for 2-3 minutes, then flip and fry again. remove from skillet.
Melt butter. Add in garlic, mushroom, and onion. Cook 1 minute.
Add chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 2 minutes. Add sour cream and simmer until slightly thickened. Add lemon juice and parsley.
Remove mushroom and onion from skillet. Add cauliflower, small amount of chicken stock, and small amount of sour cream. Cook until cauliflower is tender.
Add enough liquid to just cover the cauliflower. If easier, transfer from skillet to a pot. If there is too much liquid, the sauce will not get thick enough.
Using a blender or an immersion blender, blend cauliflower and liquid into a purée.
Adjust consistency as needed – thickening by cooking further, or thinning by whisking in liquid.
Once blended to your liking, mix in linguine.
You can also mix in the mushrooms, onion, and scallops!
Serve scallop, mushroom, and onion mixture over linguini. Add parsley and additional sauce as needed.
*The steps are optional depending on preference
Since this is my first “big” recipe that I’m sharing, I thought I’d also share some lessons learned:
Making a purée is much harder than I thought it would be. As you can probably tell from the pictures, my purée didn’t turn out as I had intended. I think I added too much liquid, and I think the skillet I was using was not deep enough to use the immersion blender. I had a hard time getting the cauliflower to break down even though it was tender.
It was also my first time using an immersion blender. The directions on the pack say not to use the blender for more than a minute, and to let it cool for 4 minutes. I wasn’t sure how long blending would take, but I figured it would be quick. I think it’s quick if you know what you’re doing 🙂 I think I just became impatient and gave up/ Instead of a purée, I ended up with a delicious cauliflower sauce that mixed in with the linguini very nicely.
Biggest lesson: It doesn’t have to be perfect. This was still delicious and I would make it again. I had so many firsts in this dish (scallops, purée, blending), and it was so fun to learn new things and cook with ingredients I haven’t cooked with before. While it didn’t go according to plan, it tasted just as good, and possibly even better than what I initially had in mind. Just have fun with it!
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I announced last Friday that I would not be uploading a post due to the holidays, but it feels like I’ve been away much longer. I spent Thanksgiving at my parent’s place which was nice. We had been debating whether to go out to dinner or to cook at home and ultimately decided to make a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal. I ended up helping out a bit and made Garlic Butter Roasted Carrots which I made a few years ago at my sister’s place. This time we added some broccoli to the mix to use up some of the veggies we had in the fridge. If you decide to add broccoli to this mixture, I would either cook them in a separate pan and mix them in later, or mix them in at the halfway point. The oven temperature is very high and the carrots cook for about 30 minutes. If the broccoli is in for too long it becomes a bit too soft.
Here’s our Thanksgiving spread! Shout out to my dad for making such a delicious meal!
I’m spending some time in California this week. I’m not sure how much cooking I’ll be doing so I may be sharing some old dishes on here. You can tell they’re old because the photos I took are not great, but they’ll do for now. I didn’t take PTO for this trip. Instead I’m working remotely from California following an eastern time work schedule. My day starts early, but I also end early due to the time change, so it’s actually been really nice. I have so much time in the afternoon now. I do a small workout, watch a few episodes of a TV series, and get to make progress toward a certification. Next week I am taking one day of PTO to go on a day trip which I’m excited for!
This recipe is from one of the magazines I picked up at Whole Foods. They have them strategically placed right next to the checkout counter and of course, while I was waiting in line, I was looking around and it caught my eye. That’s how they get you to spend an extra $20 at the grocery store! In all honesty, I could have put it back, but this magazine specifically focused on chicken recipes. If you’ve been following along, you’ll probably have noticed that many of the dishes I post are not very heavy with the meat and instead pull protein from other sources. Well my boyfriend loves to have meat. If eating beef everyday was healthy, he would do so, but he settles for chicken and only has red meat every now and then. I grabbed this magazine hoping it would generate some ideas of what to cook that would offer him a break from my plant-based dishes.
I remember taking a picture of the recipe, the dish name, and the magazine name, but of course I can’t find them on my phone! If I was home it would be quick to just grab the magazine and jot it down, but the official name and magazine will have to wait until I return home!
Rating
9/10
Recipe
Ranch Marinated Chicken and Rice
Don’t let “Ranch Marinated” scare you away from tryin this dish out. I thought it was a bit odd, as ranch is not an ingredient I use at all in my cooking unless it’s to have as dip for my carrots. When I read that I would be marinated my chicken in a bowl of Ranch dressing, I was a bit concerned as to whether or not I was following the recipe correctly, but it turned out delicious.
This recipe also included one of my favorite rice “hacks” which is to cook the rice in broth instead of water. This gives the rice some flavor and it makes cooking easier because there’s one less pot to clean!
Some notes and lessons learned:
Although there is spinach mixed into the dish at the end, I would have liked some additional veggies. To me, this dish was on the heavier side with the chicken broth rice and the chicken. I felt that it needed something to balance that heaviness.
Although the recipe calls for bone-in chicken, it was a hassle to remove the bone when it was time for dinner. I would have much rather purchased boneless chicken. Next time!
Try it out and let me know what you think!
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I don’t have too many updates this week, but sometimes that’s a good thing! I’m in the midst of preparing for my holiday trips, some of which I will be taking PTO for and others in which I will just be working remotely. My first stop is to my parents house to celebrate Thanksgiving. We haven’t had the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving together as a family in a while since both my sister and I moved to California. This is the first time in what I believe is 6 or 7 years that we will be having a Thanksgiving dinner together. My dad is in charge of preparing the Thanksgiving meal, so I know it’s going to be delicious. I’m really excited for it. It’s been nice being back on the East Coast for a while and being able to visit my parents more often. My sister is also on the East Coast for a quick visit, so I’m glad the 4 four of us will get to spend some more time together.
After Thanksgiving I will quickly but safely drive home and get ready to head to California for a bit. I’m thrilled for this because I think it is freezing n the East Coast right now and I can’t wait to be back in California for that “winter” weather. I’ll be visiting my boyfriend which I’m excited for since we currently live on two different coasts. It’s definitely been tough, but I think we’re trying all we can to make the distance feel minimal.
After visiting my boyfriend, I get to relax in my home for a few days before I have to start packing again. This year I’m spending Christmas in Spain with my boyfriend’s family. It’ll be my first year not having Christmas with my family which makes me a little sad. I do really enjoy spending time with them and being together at the holidays is always special. We’ll be doing a mini Christmas on the 21st so that we can still say that we had Christmas together!
In between all that, I’m fitting in my work schedule, my blogging, and I’m looking to be a part of some virtual volunteering opportunities. It’s hard to find something in my location because I do travel quite a bit to visit my family and there is potential for future work travel. I don’t want to commit to an in-person volunteering event only to find out that I can’t make it. I think the virtual option is much more realistic for my schedule.
On the topic of food, I’m starting to draw a blank. I have a few recipes and pictures on file that are ready to be shared, but I can’t decide which is a good choice to share. I assume I’ll eventually share them all, but some are from before I purchased a ring light, and now looking back at those photos, they’re pretty bad.
I shared the blueberry scones on my Instagram this past Monday, but a post relating to them is not live. So if you’re looking around for it, stay tuned!
This week I’m sharing this super easy One-Pan Lemon Garlic Shrimp and Asparagus recipe. My biochem brain sees “asparagus” and immediately thinks of asparagine because that’s how I would remember the amino acid and know how to spell it. Full disclosure, I used two pans. You can find this recipe from the blog Carlsbad Cravings. I’m always amazed when I look at the home pages of the blogs I try recipes from. Everything looks so effortlessly delicious, and it usually is!
Asparagus is high in asparagine, from which it was named (of course!). Asparagine is a non-essential amino acid (amino acids our body can synthesize) which is critical for producing many of the body’s proteins, but also plays a role in the metabolism of ammonia.
I’ve started to notice that many of the recipes that I am making are not heavily focused around meat (even fish). It’s not intentional, I just found it curious that it was a pattern. This week, however, I am sharing a shrimp recipe and for dinner I made some chicken (which will be shared soon!).
I’m so focused on taking videos for my Instagram page that I often forget to take pictures. This is one of those recipes in which I forget to take a picture of the full, finished meal. I did take a picture of the shrimp, which turned out delicious!
This was a great recipe to make in a pinch because i only had to purchase 3 ingredients to make this work because I already had the rest at home. Some notes and lessons learned:
Add rice or pasta to make this a more filling and complete dish, unless you’re stacking up on the shrimp and asparagus
Following the cook time from the blog, my shrimp were still heavily grey when I pulled them out
I popped them back in for the same amount of time and they turned out great. Just play it by ear to make sure you’re cooking the shrimp based on the capabilities of your oven.
If you don’t like asparagus, my recommendation would be to replace with broccoli. I personally find them to be relatively light vegetables so the dish doesn’t make you feel stuffed afterward
This is what my shrimp looks like after the full cooking session. This includes the addition of the parsley and the butter.
Try it out an let me know what you think!
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Another pretty open week at work. Our original project is on hold for this week to focus on a separate training aspect of our project. We had the first session yesterday and I think it went really well! There was a lot of engagement and positive feedback, and we had some constructive feedback that will help us for the next few training sessions. After these sessions are done we’ll be transitioning back into the main project.
I’m not contributing too heavily to any main content right now, but I’m pulled in when we need to make any updates to the presentations and I get to participate in all of the meetings with the senior teams. In my downtime I finished up some online Green Belt courses and have been taking some LinkedIn Learning courses to both help my project and to develop skills. Long-term (for now) my interests lie in business development and strategy, or something that couples those two aspects. Some of the LinkedIn Learning videos I watched (and took notes on!) dove into this a bit more and gave more insight into the business aspects that I’m not directly interacting with currently. Even though I’ve got a bit more free time at work, my project is still a main focus and I don’t have the bandwidth to completely dive into a business-based project to get more hands-on experience. The LinkedIn Learning gives a good opportunity to learn some of those skills so I can refer to them in the future.
This weekend I’m spending some time with my family. We bought matching glow-in-the-dark skeleton costumes for Halloween and are going to do some trick-or-treating. I haven’t gone trick-or-treating since middle school, maybe high school. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and I’m really looking forward to it!
Other than that, there hasn’t been anything too exciting this week. I did a mini online shopping spree but ended up returning more than half of the items I ordered. The few pieces I kept though I really like. Since I moved, my wardrobe has been in need of some updating due to the change in weather. I’m trying to do this progression slowly so I don’t break the bank 🙂
Now onto the food!
This week I made an Instant Pot Pumpkin Chili from the blog Noble Veggies. I’ve made chili a few times and I always love the variations I find. Most of the chilis I’ve made have been veggie based, but still filling and delicious. The Instant Pot Pumpkin Chili of course featured a special ingredient: pumpkin!
Pumpkin, like other types of winter squash, is high in fiber which supports digestive health.
Having just driven 4 hours back to my apartment, I was most definitely not in the mood to cook or prepare food. Finding this recipe was great because it uses the Instant Pot! My prep work included cutting the zucchini, onion, and bell pepper, and mincing the garlic (with my garlic press). Other than a few minor initial steps, once these ingredients were in the Instant Pot, they were ready to go! Check out the post on The Noble Veggies blog to find the instructions!
As I said in my last post, pumpkin is not an ingredient that I regularly cook with. In fact, I think prior to my previous post, I had never cooked a recipe using pumpkin puree. I really wanted to try this recipe in the spirit of Halloween and fall, but have to admit I was a little nervous. In last week’s recipe, the taste of pumpkin was very subtle and added a small sweetness to the pasta. I was nervous that in a broth form the pumpkin puree would have a more powerful taste, and I’m not sure if that’s a flavor I like. It turns out that I had nothing to be worried about. Similar to last time, the pumpkin was subtle. I did taste it a bit more in this recipe, but it was a good taste and a great mixture of the different flavors.
This recipe cooked very, very quickly which makes it great for a busy night. I didn’t eat right away, but I kept the Instant Pot on the “Keep Warm” setting and the chili kept nicely. This recipe lasted me about 5 servings with a mix between small and generous portion sizing.
Another added benefit of this recipe is that the clean-up process is super quick. The prep work easily took me the longest amount of time. That can be cut down by purchasing pre-cut veggies at the supermarket.
This was so easy to make, so incredibly delicious and a filling dinner. Best part was the minimal prep work and the minimal hands-on requirement. Please, please try this. It was so good! Some notes and things I learned:
Add some extra goodies to each serving like avocado and shredded cheese
Here’s the final product! I’m still learning to take good looking photos, but I bought a light source for next time that should help. Top this with some avocado and cheese!
That’s my only note and lesson learned. Honestly this recipe was perfect. It’s a bit heavy so I can’t make this every week, but I would love to make this a part of my regular meal cycle.
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This week I had the luxury of free time and leaving work on time! We just finished a project workshop and my next set of action items are on hold until I get the needed materials. This means I’ve had a bit more free time at work to pick up other projects that were put on hold to prioritize materials for this workshop. It’s been nice to get back into the other projects and have a bit of a change-up, but by the end of this week, the main project has picked up again so we’re back to it!
Good thing is that I’m really enjoying the project and the work that I’m doing. We’ve had a few late nights associated with this project, but I always feel energized at the end of the day. We still have a lot of work, but I know we’ve made great progress and it’s great to be a part of it.
As we begin to enter the next stage, there’s “chatter” that we may be able to travel to some of the different site locations. Fingers crossed! I think it would be great to see this project implemented at some of the locations and get a better understanding of the impact it will have. There may even be an opportunity for some international travel which would be very cool!
To get into the spirit of Halloween and fall, I decided to make a recipe that had pumpkins in it! Pumpkin is not an ingredient that I regularly (or ever) cook with, so I was excited to give this a go. I was a bit relieved to be using pumpkin puree rather than having to buy a pumpkin and start from scratch.
Pumpkin is one of the best-known sources of beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant.
I found this recipe from The Washington Post which surprised me a little. I never think of looking on these types of sites for recipes, but they have some great suggestions! I’m really thinking about subscribing to get the weekly recipe ideas. They always look delicious and easy to follow.
All the goods minus the protein we added! I have two cans of pumpkin puree pictured here, but I only needed one. I also only needed one out of the 4 bottles of chicken broth.
I would say that this recipe took me about 40 minutes to make including prep work. I try to use as much fresh stuff as I can because I personally find that it tastes a little better, but you could easily cut down on prep time by purchasing prepared items.
The one thing I absolutely loved about this recipe was how easy it was. I’ve found that blog posts tend to give a lot of details for how to heat up your oven, or how to chop up your onion, and sometimes you can get lost in the weeds. These directions were very clear, very short, and very direct (directions my Fiery Red personality loves!).
The big mix! Plated with the extra goodies really makes this look delicious.
I would say this is one of a few recipes that for me, turned out exactly or very similar to the photos displayed in the article. The article suggests serving the pasta with steamed broccoli. It wasn’t clear to me if that was intended to be on the side or mixed in, so I mixed my steamed broccoli into the pasta and it was a great addition. I also switched up other additions such as protein. One night I added some leftover balsamic marinated chicken and another night I added dried prosciutto. Even though I loved this dish, I think it would have been a bit plain without some of these additions.
This might be my new favorite comfort food. It was really easy to make and for me, gave a new twist on the classic pasta with marinara sauce. I would 100% recommend trying this, and please do and let me know what you think! Some notes and things I learned:
I think I somehow made it a bit drier than it was intended. I’m not sure how, but maybe I needed a bit more liquid or not to cook the sauce for as long
Adding protein to this was a great idea. It really upped this recipe. My recommendations:
Small broken up pieces such as chicken, prosciutto, beef, etc.
I think anything could work honestly, even some shrimp, etc. Experiment with it!
Don’t forget to add the sage and parmesan on top!
I forgot for the first bite, but added it for the second and it was even better
The final product!
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Welcome to my first restaurant review. As much as I would like to cook something new every week, that’s just not the reality of things. I travel quite a bit whether it be for work or for leisure, which means it’s not always practical to prepare a meal for the week. On top of that, I also do have nights where I have no desire to cook or I’m just too busy to cook or go to the grocery store. On other occasions, I have the time to meet up with friends and enjoy a night out.
To keep a running consistency of posts, I decided to start reviewing what I order at restaurants as well. I eat out quite a bit and these reviews may end up being beneficial for someone who lives in an area I’ve travelled to.
This week for work I had the opportunity to travel and meet the rest of my team in person for the first time. Busy is an understatement. We had a lot of work to get through this week, but we made amazing progress. It was great to spend time with my team and get to know them better.
I was also able to spend some time with my family this week. Last weekend, my sister and I went apple picking at a farm nearby. It was spur of the moment but a lot of fun. We spent most of our time waiting in line, but we tasted an Apple Cinnamon doughnut and some Apple Cider while we waited. Once we got up to the apple trees, we got a little lost looking for the apples we wanted, but we eventually found our way. Tonight we’re thinking of going on a haunted hay ride, and tomorrow we’re seeing a show.
A few weeks before my work travel, I was able to meet up with some friends for dinner, drinks, and dessert. Coincidentally, we ended up ordering the same things, two and two. We went to a restaurant called Silver, which has locations in Cathedral Heights, Washington D.C. and in Bethesda, Maryland. None of us had been to Silver before, so we were excited to try it out!
Here’s what we ordered:
House-made Tomato Basil Soup
Two of us started off with this Tomato Basil soup. I love soup and always order it when I have the chance. This soup came over to our table steaming hot and smelled delicious. I’m actually not a huge fan of tomato soups, but I really liked that this wasn’t overpowering with tomato. I’m not sure what was in this, but there was a great mix of flavors.
Crispy Brussel Sprouts
Yummy! These crispy brussel sprouts were a great sharing appetizer. I didn’t have too many of these because I also ordered the soup, but the plate was empty when it left the table. I would really recommend these to split. With the soup, I found them to be heavy and filling, but if I hadn’t had the soup, they would have been perfect.
Moroccan Tomatoes Tagine
Another big win. This dish was also plant-based and gluten free. As you can probably see from the picture, this was very tomato heavy. I wasn’t expecting so much tomato (even though the dish says tomatoes), but this was really great. It’s got a mix of quinoa and leeks and a few other goodies. I ended up being full before finishing this but took the rest home in a box. I had it the next morning for breakfast with my omelet. It was a great mix!
Truffle Bison Meatloaf
Don’t let the truffle bit deceive you or scare you away. If the name didn’t say truffle, you would never know that there’s truffle in this recipe. I didn’t order this dish, but those that did said it was really good and they would order it again!
Overall, I really recommend trying out this restaurant and some of these dishes. The atmosphere was great and the food was delicious. Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think!
Disclaimer: Any links are provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval of any of the products, services or opinions of the corporation or organization or individual.
I’ve officially rebooted my Instagram and am working on setting up a posting schedule to keep up the consistency. In the process, I’m learning that keeping consistency on Instagram is not as easy as I thought, and that I am not as well-versed in Instagram as I thought.
On the first note, taking photos while cooking is difficult. I’m able to use a small stand to take many of my photos and position the phone, but the “action shots” are a bit harder. I would like have enough photos on hand to keep a steady flow ready. In addition, I’m trying to take some videos of the prep work or the cooking, but that means I can either take photos or take a video. Deciding between the two becomes harder when I think about trying to keep a balance of posts versus reels on the page.
Check out my first reel on Instagram! Be sure to like and follow to stay up to date on blog activities.
On the second matter, my only experience with Instagram has been with posting photos. I’ve never used social media heavily and I don’t post “professional” photos. It’s something for fun and for my own enjoyment. The quality of the photos has never been of much concern. However with my blog Instagram, I care much more about the quality of the photos. I’m learning to use the editing tools and filters, but I have a long way to go until my photos look how I’d like them to. I’m also learning to use new features that I’ve never used before like the reels. Posting a reel this past Sunday made me feel very out of touch. I had no idea what I was doing. I eventually managed to get a reel posted, but I could tell right away that I didn’t do it “correctly” and it took me significantly more time than it probably should have. I did learn for next time though, so I anticipate it will be better!
I really enjoy taking the time to search for new recipes to try. I find it difficult at times to think of something new, or what changes I can make to a current dish to make it into something new. Finding recipes online usually takes me a long time because I want to make sure it’s something that fits the cooking timeframe I have, and I want it to look good. Regardless, I find following someone else’s recipe to be just as enjoyable and delicious, and it saves me some time.
When searching for recipes I always look for the photos. I like meals that are either very colorful or that look like cozy comfort food. For me, this recipe hit both marks.
My biggest interest with this recipe was that it was a one-pot dish. I’m sometimes skeptical with these, but this one turned out great! Having a one-pot recipe is great when you’re busy because it minimizes how much clean up there is after! That’s a huge win for me because I hate doing the dishes, but I also don’t know anyone who enjoys doing them either.
To add to the convenience of this dish, the recipe called for refrigerated gnocchi. I’ve tried gnocchi a few times and it’s a bit too much potato flavor for me. However, the refrigerated gnocchi I bought from the grocery store this past week were delicious. I still don’t think they’re something I could have regularly, but I was pleasantly surprised to have really enjoyed the gnocchi. I think the mix of flavors helped minimize the potato taste, in favor of something better. It was also a huge time saver for me because it was one less thing I needed to prepare, either by making gnocchi from scratch or pre-cooking dried gnocchi.
Something else that really peaked my interest with this recipe was the addition of leek.
I’ve never tried or cooked with leek before, so I was excited to try it out. Foods such as leek sometimes fall into the domain of intimidating. For me, it was because I didn’t know too much about the taste of leek, and I have no experience preparing or cooking it.
Mix of the leek, yellow onion, and garlic cooking. Leeks are halved, sliced, and rinsed before use.
I loved this recipe and would definitely make it again. I recommend it for anyone who is in a big rush or has a tight schedule. It was a very easy recipe to follow. Some notes and things I learned:
I opted for Vegetable Stock because it’s what I had on hand
I opted for Half & Half because it’s what I had on hand
I would pay more attention to how long I cook the gnocchi for – I think my gnocchi ended up overcooked
I had a hard time squashing the cherry tomatoes – next time I would opt for a different cooking utensil that would be able to do this better
I would add more liquid – my gnocchi turned out very thick. It was still delicious, but I would have liked it more creamy.
It tastes better than my picture looks! As you can see, the dish turned out really thick, so I would opt for more liquid next time to thin it out.
The Fork in the Kitchen blog lists at the bottom how to adjust the creaminess to your liking. Try out this recipe and some of the other recipes featured on Fork in the Kitchen and let me know what you think!
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Hello to old and new followers, and welcome back to my blog!
I took a long break from blogging and cooking new recipes to focus on my graduate degree. After completing my Master’s, I continued to do business research with a professor, and opted for a summer internship program with a biotech company. With both roles, it didn’t seem like the best opportunity to start blogging again, so I held off. Following completion of my internship, I started working for another biotech company which required me to pack up and move from southern California back to the East Coast!
I’ve lived in California for quite some time now, and it was a bit strange coming back to the East Coast. I’ve been back on the East Coast for about 2 months now and have spent most of it either traveling back and forth from my new apartment to my parent’s house, buying new furniture and decor, or taste-testing the local restaurants.
As for the job, I’m really enjoying it and it’s only been about 3 weeks! I feel that I’ve already been given so many opportunities to develop my skills and showcase my abilities. It’s been really rewarding. I’m also excited because my new role involves a bit of travel, which is something I’m always itching to do. For now, it sounds like the travel will remain in the US, but I’m excited nonetheless.
Happy to be back to cooking and testing out recipes!
Since my graduate program was mostly online due to the COVID pandemic, my new in-person schedule is very different than what I’m used to. Being online meant I didn’t need to be highly structured about when I made my meals, or when I went to the gym, or when I took time for myself because I was always home and everything was within reach. Now that I’m in-person for my job, I’m realizing how quickly the day goes by and how difficult it is to fit in everything I’d like to do. Most importantly, I’m learning about the importance of a standard schedule to ensure I’m getting my laundry done, making my lunches, and running any errands, otherwise I’ll either have no clean clothing, no lunch to eat during a busy day or or have to buy a lunch within my lunch break!
This is where we now talk about what you came here for. Likely, you have a busy work schedule, or a busy schedule in general, and time is not a luxury you have to be cooking fancy meals that take all day to prep. My hope is to minimize some of that potential stress by reviewing and taste-testing some popular recipes online, or sharing my own recipes to see what really is a schedule friendly meal.
This Northern White Bean salad is a no-cook recipe that goes great as a side dish for any main meal. I personally love pairing salads like these with my lunch which is usually some chicken and rice. I try to change up the salad every week to keep the meal a bit interesting.
Balsamic marinated chicken with Northern White Bean Salad and some rice
The biggest time killer in this recipe is the prep work, essentially all the dicing and mincing. If you are crazy busy, you may want to look into getting a faster option compared to the manual version. I’ve seen this Vegetable Chopper on Amazon frequently, and also seen it in Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, and Target. I’ve never used this before, but I’m very tempted to try it out. If you end up using one, let me know in the comments how it went for you!
I didn’t time myself, but with chopping the tomatoes, onion, garlic, parsley, and cilantro, this recipe took me roughly 30-45 minutes to make (with a TV show on in the background). What I love about this recipe is that it doesn’t require a high capacity of my attention. I can (carefully) cut my vegetables while watching a show or having a conversation. This provides the opportunity to do the things I need to be doing (cooking) while also doing the things I enjoy doing to relax. It means this doesn’t feel like a “task.” I also cut my tomatoes one-by-one so if you use a better method, you’ll save significantly more time!
I made enough to last me everyday for lunch, and enough to pick on during the week. I also have a guest staying with me who eats significantly more than I do, so the list below calls for quite a bit of food. When finished and mixed, this dish at the amounts listed below fit into my 4 qt bowl Tupperware, right up to the lid. For a smaller overall portion, I recommend cutting the items required in half.
Aside from my guest, I’ve started increasing the amount of food required to create a recipe because I’ve found that I typically run out by Wednesday or Thursday. I don’t usually have enough time during my work week to re-make a meal or a side dish, so this was incredibly inconvenient and also meant that I was spending money on take out when I’d much rather be putting that money to a different use.
This recipe is incredibly easy. With the canned beans, pop them open, rinse, and drain. I know some people have a preference for drying canned items such as beans, peas, corn, etc. after they’ve rinsed it, so do whatever you’re more comfortable with. I halved my tomatoes short-ways and diced my onion. The diced onion was nice because I didn’t notice how much onion was in the dish, but I think next time, my preference will be to have the onion in thin slices, just to add some variety to the sizes of items. I minced the parsley and cilantro, and threw everything into a big bowl.
Working my way through the numerous tomatoes!
For the dressing, I combined about 1/2 cup olive oil with a full lemon’s-worth of lemon juice, and 2 more cloves of minced garlic. I stirred that up a bit, and mixed it into the salad.
Food Fact: Tomatoes are a good source of vitamins A, C, and K
If you’re interested in having a fuller salad or creating this as more of a main dish rather than a side dish, here are some of my recommendations: avocado, spring mix or arugula (or kale if you like it), salmon or chicken, and/or seeds. I haven’t done much cooking with seeds so I wouldn’t know which to recommend, but if you do decide to add some, let me know which and how that mixture tasted! I’d love to try it out.
Garlic and onion are typically not ingredients people consider when they think of work-friendly food usually because the food either smells, or your breath smells. For the food smell, the good news is that this dish is great when served cold. You will not have to worry about making the office microwaves smell like onion or garlic. I personally don’t worry too much about the breath portion, as I don’t interact with many others directly in-person. We typically communicate via video calls and chats. However, I like to keep some breath mints with me just in case, and I recommend you do the same if you’re feeling a bit worried about that.
The completed Northern White Bean Salad mix
I hope you’ll try this recipe out and let me know how it goes! If you’re looking for other variations of this recipe, there are SO many on the internet, you’re sure to find something that fits your taste. You can also substitute different types of beans and goodies to make this exactly what you’re looking for. Enjoy!
Recipe List below:
For the Salad:
4 32oz Canned Northern White Beans
2 pints Cherry Tomatoes
1 Red Onion
6 cloves Garlic (more or less depending on preference)
1 bundle Parsley (more or less depending on preference)
1 pack Cilantro (more or less depending on preference)
Salt & Pepper for taste
Optional addition:
Avocado
Feta or another type of crumble cheese
Arugula or any salad mixture
Seeds (based on preference, I haven’t cooked much with seeds)
Fish or Meat based protein
For the “Dressing”
Olive oil
2 cloves Garlic
1 Lemon (for the juice)
Salt & Pepper for taste
Recipe Directions below:
Prep veggies and goodies:
Halve tomatoes
Dice or slice onion
Mince parsley
Mince cilantro
Mince garlic
Optional:
Cube avocado
Cube salmon/chicken
Drain and rinse beans
Prep dressing
Combine olive oil, lemon juice, and minced garlic
Combine all ingredients into large bowl
Mix and serve
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I don’t know how you all feel, but this has been a LONG week. I’m feeling very worn out. And this weekend only has more in store for me! I have two tests on Monday and homework, but I also feel like I still have a lot of catching up to do. But I’ll get there. Slowly powering through.
I will say, something that has really helped me stay sane is sticking to my eating and workout schedule. It’s very tempting when I get up, to go right to my desk and get some work done so I feel caught up. But I think that burns me out even more. Doing my workouts in the morning helps me start off the day feeling accomplished, and eating healthy and regularly helps me keep up my energy.
This week I’m going to share what I ate for this week, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Although, I can’t share photos of my dinner because I forgot to take them 🙂 but it was really good! Plus, the blog I got the recipe from has a better picture which makes it look even better.
Quinoa Fruit Salad
Okay, first thoughts: interesting combination…. Second thoughts: wow, this is delicious.
Unfortunately I’m not going to share the recipe because I got it through my fitness app which is paid. The app I use is called We Glow. I personally really like this app, I really like the workout programs, and of the recipes I have tried, I’ve really liked all of them and they’ve been very simple, easy to follow. Added bonus: this dish looks pretty, so I feel like it already gives a boost to my morning. I cooked the quinoa on the weekend, and would cut the fruits in the morning. Sometimes once you cut fruit, it doesn’t last very long in the fridge. It only took a few minutes to cut, so it wasn’t a big deal. 10/10 recommend (also recommend the app or any paid fitness program if your motivation is low, or if you don’t really know what to do/where to start. Paying motivates me because I’m losing money, so I better be using it!).
Buffalo Shrimp Salad
This salad was a winner. This was actually supposed to be buffalo shrimp lettuce wraps, like lunch burritos, except the ~healthy~ version. Yeah. I tried them! They were….boring. And tasted like a mouthful of lettuce. So, I converted this into a big salad instead because I felt that the lunch needed more color and excitement. This turned out really good. I don’t typically finish salads because I get bored while eating them and tend to eat all the goodies first. This is probably the first time that I devoured a salad. 10/10. I also don’t usually like iceberg lettuce because, well, it’s iceberg lettuce, but I think it was actually the better choice for this salad because it let all the other flavors really show. SO this salad was a mix of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, buffalo shrimp, cranberries, strawberries(!!!), olives and balsamic vinaigrette for the salad dressing. it was an interesting mix but such a good mix. It was also a good opportunity to use some ingredients in my fridge that were probably going to go bad soon. Great way to just combine everything and enjoy.
Easy, Creamy Beef and Shells
Yes. This was easy, creamy, and delicious. I found the recipe on Pinterest, from the blog Kitchn. Unfortunately I don’t have pictures! This also didn’t last me very long because it was so good that I just kept eating it. I loved this dinner. It was so so easy to make and it was one of the few recipes that didn’t have a mile long ingredient list or instruction list. There were a few big differences between mine and the recipe I followed. For starters, the recipe calls for a 15-oz. can of tomato sauce, and I bought pasta sauce (which to me is tomato sauce). Looking at the photos in the Kitchn blog, there are smaller cans of tomato sauce that are literal cans. I don’t think there’s a big differences between the two, but mine was a little hard to measure out because it was a full jar of sauce. So I think this made my finished dish more liquidy, but it was still really good. I also didn’t include as much cheese. The recipe calls for 2 cups of cheese, which I had. But after the first cup of shredding, I felt lazy, so my dinner only had one cup of cheese. For me it didn’t make a huge difference, but I’m also not a big cheese lover. if you love cheese, definitely do the full 2 cups. I also used half and half instead of heavy cream, mostly because I couldn’t find heavy cream. This was such an easy and cozy meal. Great to have after a very long day of sitting in front of the computer. It was also nice to have something a little heavier after a lighter breakfast and lunch.
Other than that, not a whole lot going on. I’ve got a lot of work to do…but I also bought a new Switch game soooo, we’ll see. Looking forward to at least taking a mini break today, even if it’s just for an hour. In other news, I hosted champagne tasting with some of the girls last weekend. I think we were all caught off guard by how quickly the champagne hit us but it was still a lot of fun! I also made my first cheeseboard! And to be honest, I’m really proud of it, so I thought I’d share a picture 🙂
Gabriela Maria 