Tag: Dinner

Balsamic Chicken Broccoli Bake

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Happy Saturday!

There has been a lot going on the last few weeks. Between school work and clubs/extracurricular activities, it’s a bit hard to try and find time for myself. Last week we had our much needed spring break. I spent the second-half of the week up in San Francisco which was really nice. I was planning to a get some work done that week, but I ended up mostly relaxing and playing video games. I also re-made my schedule based on how my first Module went. This past week I’ve followed it really well, and it’s much easier to stick to because I’ve given myself a lot of buffer in between scheduled items. Even so, this week has been very busy with new board positions for one of the clubs I am in, and on Monday we have Student Government speeches, and I’m still trying to piece mine together. We only get 2 minutes, which while I’m speaking will feel like forever, but in reality, it’s not a lot of time. So I want to make sure I’m focusing on the most important points. Wish me luck!

One of my first weekends of the semester I tried this Balsamic Chicken Broccoli Bake recipe from the magazine All-Time Favorite Home Cooking Recipes by Centennial Kitchen. The magazine has a lot of great recipes and I’ve tried a few of them out, which I’m looking forward to sharing in the upcoming weeks. The final photo doesn’t look appealing, but the dinner was really good!

As is the case with most of the recipes I try, this recipe was super easy to follow and didn’t require a lot of work. The veggie mix was broccoli, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, red onion, and mushroom. I’m usually not the biggest fan of mushrooms, but mixed together like this I didn’t really notice them, so it was a great way to get an intake of mushrooms. I will say though, I didn’t think the mushrooms would last very long raw, so I cooked the whole package. This made the mushrooms the more dominant veggie, whereas I would have preferred more broccoli. Also once the veggies were cooked, they seemed to disappear. So if you like a lot of veggies, I would add a little extra to the pan so you know you have plenty left over. On that note, I ran out of chicken super fast! Cooking the chicken as a whole breast was really easy, but it made it very difficult to portion it out over the week. So next time, I might cut the chicken up prior to cooking it so I can better see how much chicken I really have. Additionally, the seasoning on the chicken could have been better. It was very balsamic-y, which is on me, because apparently I missed the chicken with the salt and pepper shakers.

In this recipe, it worked out nicely because there were also veggies included in the dish. However, many of the recipes I try are strictly for cooking the chicken or fish, and so there often aren’t sides. One thing I’ve been trying to incorporate more into my meals are mini side dishes, mostly to make sure I’m full on my meal before I go back for seconds (and then run out by Wednesday!). For the week I made the balsamic chicken, I didn’t actually read the full recipe before going to the grocery store, so I bought ingredients for a side dish and made that as well. For the side dish I made a Creamy Cucumber Salad which I got from the blog The Stay at Home Chef.

This cucumber salad was a great addition, and would likely make a good addition to any meal! It was very easy to make, but I unfortunately think that I managed to mess it up. I may have added a bit too much sugar, and I know for a fact that my cucumbers were not “sliced thin” (Dad would be disappointed with my slicing skills). But overall, it was still really good. I added it on the side of my plate, but this could also be placed in a small separate bowl if you don’t want to risk mixing things on your plate.

Overall, great meal! Just need to get some better photography skills, but you get the gist. On the page to the left of this recipe there’s a recipe for Honey-Lemon Turkey legs which looks REALLY good, but it’ll have to wait until I finish the recipes that are already on my list!

Next time I’m hoping to post some of the lunch wraps I’ve made, but to be honest, it all depends on if I find the photos or not. If not, I’ve got another great salmon dish to share! Until next time 🙂

To be continued…

Gabriela

White Bean and Sausage Rigatoni

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I think I need to start taking notes of what happens every week because half the time I end up forgetting. Last week is a bit of a blur, and this week, Monday felt like the longest day, and Tuesday felt like Thursday. And it’s only Wednesday…

Not too many updates. Module 2 of fall semester is going well. I feel like I’m actively participating in class and actually retaining and learning the information, whereas Module 1, it felt like it was going in one ear and out the other. Even though I’m taking an extra class this module, I feel that I have more time for myself and a better handle on everything.

Honestly, it’s probably all due to my calendar update. I re-vamped the whole thing. It’s a little scary to look at because it’s so overwhelming, but it really keeps me on track. I’ve put EVERYTHING, like literally ~everything~ into my calendar. This includes when to wake up, my morning routine, reminder for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, homework/study time, gaming time, bed time, everything. And it’s been really great actually. I used to feel like I couldn’t do certain things like working out or playing a game because it didn’t fit into my schedule. But now that I’ve allocated time to do those things, it’s actually really easy to do them and a lot of the time I end up being ahead of schedule rather than behind schedule. And if something ends up not fitting, I don’t feel bad because I know I’ve accomplished so many other things in my day. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, I would highly recommend doing this, it really helped.

I also started using these notepads that my sister gave me a while back. They’re called “Today’s Plan of Attack” and its split up into most critical, would be nice, and not a chance. It’s pretty limited space which is good because it means I can’t over-pack my day. And then I get to cross things off as I finish them, which is really satisfying and makes me feel like I’ve accomplished so much, even if it’s just a minor task.

Anyway. Halloween weekend a friend of mine won a brownie and cookie making kit, but wasn’t going to use it, so I ended up making it. Just the brownies, the cookie box is still on my counter. I’m not a great cook, but I’m very comfortable cooking and following cooking recipes to make something edible. Baking on the other hand is a whole other story. I don’t think I have ever baked something that has turned out how it was supposed to. I don’t know why. I follow the directions and things still turn out burnt, or undercooked, or just plain ugly. These actually turned out kinda okay! It was really exciting. They were really painfully sweet, but good all the same. I didn’t take a picture, but the box came with a coffin cut out and some icing, so we (I) got to decorate the brownies to look like coffins, post-Halloween. It was a lot of fun!

Aside from my questionable baking skills, I made a rigatoni recipe which turned out delicious (I think I say that every week…). I had a bit of help cooking the sausage because anything other than chicken makes me a little nervous that I’m undercooking it, and we definitely don’t want that. The recipe was really straight forward, and there actually wasn’t a whole lot of prep time, mostly cooking time for the sausage. I also thought I took photos, but apparently I only took like 3… soooo sorry about that. Must have slipped my mind.

The recipe for this week is from Better Homes and Gardens, New Cook Book, 16th Edition. As you can probably guess, this recipe is located in the Pasta section of the book. The book is like 700 pages long, so there are a lot of other really good recipes and ideas in here, some of which I’m hoping to try and share with you in the future.

I had nearly double for everything except for the beans and I think I should have bought 2 cans. They weren’t overwhelming but there also wasn’t really enough to realize that they were there. I think it would have been nice if there were more. I also noticed that the sausage the recipe recommends is PRE-cooked. That saves a WHOLE lot of time. So, for next time, I will buy already cooked sausage so I don’t have to struggle again. This turned out really great. I didn’t add in the dried basil, but having the fresh Basil added on top was a really nice touch. And I of course added loads of Parmesan cheese. Since I decided to cook the sausage, it took me much longer than 20 minutes to prepare this, but overall the recipe was really quick. It was a good cozy meal.

After preparing this, the rest of the night consisted of watching yet another episode of Monsters & Myths. We finished The Haunting of Bly Manor the night after Halloween. The whole season was SO good, and the ending kinda sucked. It was just so underwhelming. Like they had this great buildup and then were like “oh, we need to wrap it all up in this last episode.” It was a little disappointing. But overall, the show itself was really good. Next up: Christmas Movies!!!

Deciding between a zucchini dish or a pork dish for next time. We’ll see 🙂

To be continued…

Gabriela

Sweet Potato-Quinoa Chili

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Happy Halloween!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It’s so much fun to decorate for. I, of course, went all out! I found a lot of great stuff on Amazon for pretty cheap and a lot of stuff at Dollar Tree. I didn’t want to spend too much money so these stores ended up being great. I had a mini get together (7 people maximum) for Halloween, just to get some friends together for a post-Finals break. We all live alone or with a roommate and haven’t had much to any interaction since grad school started so I felt comfortable with a small gathering, but definitely made sure everyone who came was also practicing COVID-safe guidelines. It turned out to be a lot of fun.

I was planning on posting this on Wednesday, for it’s usual bi-weekly scheduled posting time. But it’s amazing just how overwhelmingly busy I am. Even the other day, I had a headache all day simply because I was stressed and didn’t know how I was going to get everything done that I needed to get done. I really can’t imagine posting this every week. It doesn’t take very long to make a post, but it is time that is devoted to something other than my studies. Even though I have free time for taking a break, that break time is specific for break time, not blog time. So the two week schedule is really manageable and half the time I’m surprised that it’s already been two weeks, so I can’t imagine how it would be if I posted every week. Plus it gives me a chance to take a break from making recipes when I need to (like I am this week).

For the Halloween season, my friend group and I started watching The Haunting of Bly Manor which is on Netflix. I’m not a big horror person and I’m typically the person that sits there with my eyes closed and my hands covering my ears, but this is actually a really good show. The first few episodes made me nervous, but now that I know what kind of “surprises” are expected to be in store for the rest of the show, I’m okay. Now it’s picking up and getting really good! All of the hidden details and background stories are coming out and everything’s connecting. We have ONE episode left (which we’re hopefully watching tonight) and I CAN’T WAIT.

I ended up making this meal (and next post’s meal) with a friend because we’ve started to watch this show on Netflix called Monsters & Myths, which is a docu-series talking about why certain myths have lasted so long, and what makes them so good/interesting. I highly recommend. It’s actually really good.

This week I made Sweet Potato-Quinoa Chili which is a recipe I found in Eat This, Not That! magazine. It was really easy to make and I (for once) followed the recipe perfectly. I think I was also pressured because someone else was going to be trying my food, so of course it HAD to be good. I only messed up once (with groceries….again). The probably with recipes is that they don’t say “Buy 3 red bell peppers.” They say “Use 3 cups red bell pepper,” but I don’t know how many bell peppers that correlates with! So I typically buy more so that way I know I for sure have enough. It worked out fine, I used the extra stuff for other meals, but still.

The recipe was really straight-forward and the only thing that took time was the chopping. Other than that, everything just sat happily in the pot to cook. The Greek yogurt, green onions and fresh cilantro are actually all toppings to the dish, and are not incorporated in to the actual cooking. I didn’t know this and bought a BIG tub of Greek yogurt, only to use a little scoop. Even though it was a small scoop, the Greek yogurt really balances out the spices and density of the quinoa chili, so even though it’s a small aspect, it really makes the dish come together.

To finish off our (my) hard work, we had the bowls while watching Monsters & Myths. A relaxing weeknight in preparation for a chaotic week. I feel like I’m finally getting into the flow of grad school, so maybe it’ll get easier from here on out? We’ll see. Probably not.

Next time is a rigatoni dish, so stay tuned!

To be continued…

Gabriela

Salmon with Roasted Tomatoes and Shallots

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So what’s happened in the last two weeks?

Two Friday’s ago we had a resume event where we were able to make changes to our resume to make it as good as possible. I had lots of little tweaks but now looking at my resume, it’s so much better. So that event was a success! Last Tuesday we received our first projects in which we get to work directly with a company. Our first meeting as a team with our client is actually later today, so I’m both excited and a little nervous. On Monday (two days ago!), my Medical Diagnostics class gave our phase 1 presentation for our project. It went really well and we got a lot of great feedback and constructive criticism from our professors, so I’m excited to see how we progress with phase 2.

This recipe is the first recipe that I researched for and it turned out way better than I was expecting it to. In all honesty, I didn’t have high hopes just because I haven’t followed a recipe in a long time, so I was sure that I would mess up somewhere. I think this was also my first time cooking fish? I’m always nervous cooking any fish or meat because I always think that I am undercooking it, since I don’t like when it’s overcooked. It’s the little things.

As you can see here to the left, the recipe itself was actually very straight forward and easy, so it was a good choice to start off with. This recipe is from a magazine series titled Better Homes & Gardens Special Interest Publications, and the specific magazine was the 13×9 One-Pan Comfort Food. I grabbed this magazine a while back since I knew things with grad school would be picking up quickly, and I thought this would be a great way to still have healthy meals while not totally cutting into my already busy schedule. Plus, I need to eat! So why not make something fun?

The recipe calls for salmon, salt, pepper, cherry tomatoes, shallots, garlic, oregano and olive oil. Having most of these items already in stock, the shopping list for this recipe was not only extremely short, but also well within budget. The most costly thing was the salmon of course. I also have this habit of not reading the amounts I need, rather I just read what I need, so I ended up buying a little bit over 1-lb. of salmon, which turned out fine, but in the end, I think I should have purchased a second package of cherry tomatoes. less tomatoes didn’t make or break the dish, but I think it would have been nice to just have a few extra goodies on the side.

As you may or may not be able to see from the photo, the recipe suggests finishing the dish off by adding “a bed of hot cooked Israeli couscous tossed with olive oil and a few handfuls of fresh arugula or baby spinach.” Now, me being me and not reading directions, I, of course, did not see this, so I just finished it off with some good ‘ole classic rice. Worked just fine 🙂

What can also be seen from the photos are the clear differentiations made in my version. I initially was following the image by using whole cherry tomatoes, but then having finished the package and wanting a bit more, I sliced up a Roma tomato (and I wish I had sliced up a second one). I also chopped the shallot smaller, rather than in the strips that the image suggested. Additionally, I cut the salmon into portions prior to cooking. I mainly did this because the salmon I bought was so long that it would not have fit in the pan. But it also turned out to be beneficial because it made platting the food much easier (in my opinion).

As I mentioned earlier, I finished off the dish with some rice and I added teriyaki sauce for some added flavor. This in and of itself was delicious, but seeing as how this was my big meal for the day (quite literally), I was noticing that I was getting hungry a bit after eating. So I decided to add a bit of a spin onto the recipe and instead of doing Israeli couscous with baby spinach or arugula, I added chopped up sweet potato and avocado. This was delicious and I personally feel like it really added a lot of great flavor.

So that was this week’s recipe! I definitely recommend trying it out, it lasted me the whole week (with ~ 1.5 lbs of salmon). I don’t know if my salmon was farm-raised or wild caught (I prefer wild caught for taste and environmental purposes), but if you do choose to try this out and have wild salmon, here’s a nutrition fact about wild salmon:

Wild salmon is high in omega-3 fats and a good source of protein. It also contains other nutrients such as B vitamins, potassium, and selenium. (Information obtained from The Power of Superfoods magazine – I love my magazines).

Hope you try it out! Next post is a quinoa based dish!

To be continued…

Gabriela

Black Bean Quinoa Chili

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Week 8!

I am sooooo close. This week I have a biochemistry midterm and a research proposal due and then Week 10 I have an inorganic “midterm.” I say “midterm” because our final exam is the following week, so it’s really just a large test. And then its spring break!!!

My roommates and I have decided to go to Santa Barbara for a few days. Initially I was just going to go to visit some of my friends from when I used to live there, but then we decided that we should all go together! I’m excited for my roommates to meet my friends from SB and vice versa. One of my roommates has never been to SB before so I’m really looking forward to showing her around.

Toe update: I’m cleared! Kinda. I’m allowed to start practicing again on Monday, but this weekend I’m supposed to start running and do toe exercises to start stretching and strengthening my muscles. My exercises involve picking up marbles with my feet. That’s it. And it’s so difficult. I have to concentrate really hard in order to get my toes to curl just slightly. But we’re getting there. Progress.

So anyway. All is well. I’m sleeping and eating. Not stressed. Definitely ready to graduate.

I’m also back to my usual schedule again which is so nice. I’m going to the gym in the morning, cooking my meals on Sunday, etc. Normally when I go grocery shopping I go to Sprouts for all of my veggies and then head over to Trader Joe’s for everything else. I did this because I always thought that Sprouts was relatively expensive for things other than produce, but this week I did all of my shopping at Sprouts and it was so cheap! And I bought so many “actual” groceries (which isn’t usually the case). It was so exciting to NOT spend a fortune!

 

~SO~ with that, this week I made chili! Well, not really. It had no meat in it, but if you use your imagination, the quinoa could be the meat base. So it’s really just a burrito bowl? Maybe? But regardless, it was really good!

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I followed the recipe from Health Food. It took me a bit of time to find all of the groceries for this meal, mainly because I’ve never really bought groceries at Sprouts. But with that, this recipe was super easy to make. I only had one accident and it was with the garlic. I put one clove int the press and it got stuck, so I pushed harder, and in pushing harder I accidentally turned the press and the garlic went ALL OVER my laptop! It was such a mess.

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This meal wasn’t as filling as I thought it would be but it was still really good. I think next time I would either increase portion sizes or I would add something else to it (I don’t know what though). But either way, it’s still in the books to make again! So delicious!

To be continued…

Gabriela

 

Lentil & Vegetable Soup

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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!

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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.

IMG_6157The 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.

IMG_6162Tweaks 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!

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To be continued…

Gabriela

Citrus Shrimp & Avocado

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TGIF. But actually. I’m looking forward to the long weekend, and especially no classes on Monday. I love my classes this quarter. They’re a lot of fun and they’re really small, which means I’m getting to know my classmates really well! But I really need a weekend for my weekend, so I’m happy there’s nothing to do on Monday.

I wanted to make a light dinner since typically my lunches are very heavy, plus the fact that I tend to come home pretty late. And having a huge, heavy meal right before bed makes it hard for me to sleep. However, to be entirely honest, I didn’t love this meal. The shrimp were DELICIOUS….but I should not have made them into a salad. I felt that the salad just didn’t do it for me. I think next time I would top the shrimp over rice and add some veggies on the side. The shrimp were so good and I feel like the salad just really drowned them out.

But anyway: I highly recommend making the shrimp. I followed the shrimp recipe from foodiecrush. The instructions were really easy and straightforward. Basically, chop and mix and cook. No brain power needed.IMG_6071

Everything smelled soooo good. To the sauce, I also added some lemon and orange zest because I was having a “why not?” moment. I don’t know if it did anything, but it made me feel like it did. Additionally, I only used a 2lb bag of shrimp, which I think contributed to me not liking the salad portion. Next time I would cook 2 bags of shrimp (the recipe calls for 3lbs but I only had a 2lb bag at home).

For the salad, I also followed a recipe from foodiecrush. I think this salad would have been really good, but I think there were a lot of errors on my part and so it just wasn’t really what I was hoping it to be. For starters, I think I had way too much lettuce. I had plenty of avocado (so good), and I bought the almonds….and then forgot to put them into the salad. IMG_6072

They didn’t end up being mixed in, but when I pulled a portion out for dinner, I added in the almonds separately. It definitely made a difference. It added more flavor to the dish overall.

But like I said earlier, I think this would have been good if I had made it a little better. But I do think that next time I will make the shrimp and put it over rice with some veggies. The shrimp was very easy to make and turned out absolutely delicious.

To be continued…

Gabriela