Tag: healthy

Quinoa and Salad

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T.G.I.F.

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 🙂

To be continued…

Gabriela

Pesto Bean Soup with Olives

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Hello, hello!

Two weeks in a row of posting! But don’t get your hopes up 🙂 I’m going to try to post more regularly and make it part of my weekly schedule, but sometimes I forget to take pictures, so then I don’t really have a lot to post. We’ll see though, because I really enjoy posting these!

This week has been pretty light in terms of school work. I had a finance quiz due yesterday morning, but other than that I haven’t had anything due, just a lot of reading. This week I’ve been focusing really heavily on my campaigning for Student Government. We need 3/5 of the student population to vote, and today is the last day (if we meet 3/5 student body). Hoping I’ll win! There’s so much that I want to do in Student Government, and even if I can’t finish it all, I want to at least get it started so that next year’s representative can pick up where I left off.

Yay for corny photos!

But anyway, other than that, there really hasn’t been much else going on. I’ve been really productive these last two weeks. Even though there’s still work for me to catch up on, I almost feel like I’m ahead. It’s a nice feeling because I don’t feel so overwhelmed by all the work I have to get done (ideally this weekend, but let’s be honest).

A few weeks ago I made this Pesto Bean Soup with Olives that I found in Food Network Magazine: Super Easy Soups & Stews (this was a great Christmas gift!). I personally love soups. I think they’re always very easy to make, and they typically turn out great (I had one recipe that didn’t really go as planned…). Plus, there are so many options with soup! And it’s a great comfort food. I must say, I’ve tried very hard to plan out my recipes so that I’m not cooking soup every single week, and it’s hard! They just always look so good!! Also, this recipe only has two steps, so how could I not?

I love how this soup turned out. It was delicious 🙂 I actually ended up running out early because I kept adding a little extra to my bowl every night since it was soooo good. To be honest, I wasn’t going to make this soup at first. When I was originally going through the magazines to pick recipes, this wasn’t one that caught my eye. I think I tend to pick recipes that are photographed brightly/in a lot of light. Almost as if it makes them look more appealing? Or maybe it just makes me picture eating the meal on a nice, sunny day so it’s instantly appealing. The photo for this recipe was really nice though; it may have been because it was a green soup(?).

Overall, 10/10 would HIGHLY recommend. I’ve made pesto pasta in the past because I was craving pesto (and pasta), but I think this satisfied the pesto craving better. There are so many flavors in one spoonful, it was almost exciting eating it. That sounds so corny. But basically, it was really good.

Like I said earlier, I really enjoy writing this blog. It’s fun for me and even though I’m not the greatest photographer or cook, I get to share the things I enjoy with other people. Since I started, I feel like my cooking has come a long way, but I’m excited to see how much more I can improve. Overall, my execution of recipes is much better, but I also feel like my general knowledge is better. For example, when I cook something without a recipe, I feel that I have a better idea in terms of what foods go well together. It’s been really enjoyable.

I have some thoughts about what I want to try out in the future with this blog. I think it would be fun to do more cultural food. I have a few friends who are international students, but also many of my domestic friends are very closely tied with their cultural backgrounds. I think it would be fun to do some posts in the future with them to share some typical foods from their respective cultures. Food for thought…no pun intended 😀

To be continued…

Gabriela

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

Ecuadorian Ceviche

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Happy Friday! I hope your week was less chaotic than mine!

On Wednesday I finally caught up with my work. Which looking back, honestly didn’t take that long, but it consisted of 2 days with a maximum of 3 hours of sleep a night (which is good, considering). Saturday I had a competition that took the majority of my day, and by the end I was so whipped out that I just called it a night. Sunday was a lost day too because I went grocery shopping, cooked, had game night (in the afternoon) and went to soccer, and by the time that was done I think my body just clocked out for the day. Monday was the first painful day — I had 2 case studies and a quiz due on Tuesday and I hadn’t started yet (poor planning on my part). Good news: I managed to finish everything. Bad news: I went to bed at 3am and had to wake up at 5 to start the rest of Tuesdays work and start/finish my study guide for my exam on Wednesday. All-in-all, would not recommend and would not do again. But I made it. Yay!

Don’t forget the salsa fresca (not pictured!)

Heading into the coming week I’m going to be doing a lot of lecture re-watching to prep for my Module 1 finals. I always look forward to the end of Modules/quarters/semesters because usually by that time my schedule has been thrown out of whack, I’m exhausted, and I’m really hitting my check-out point. Knowing its ending gives me a bit of a second wind because I know at the start of the next Module/quarter/semester, I can hit the re-set button and make plans to fix things that didn’t work in the previous round. So dreading the next 2 weeks, but also really excited for the next 2 weeks to pass.

Other than that, not a whole lot of new updates. Working on applications, building my network, doing well in school, and prepping for next year with club plans and goals. This semester I definitely have a lot more work, but it feels much more manageable, probably because I already got the fall out of the way. Currently just trying to swim, while also adding more things to my load. Just trying to find the right balance.

For today’s post I decided to do a bit of a throwback recipe, one that was made over the winter break while I was home. Good news: today’s post features Master Chef: Dad! For those who haven’t read previous posts featuring Dad, I enjoy shamelessly promoting how good of a cook my Dad is because, he is. I think there’s a saying about how nothing beats a home-cooked meal? Right on.

While I was home, Dad (and I ) made two really good recipes! Today I’m going to share with you Ceviche, which is by far one of my favorite dishes from Ecuador!

To make this you’ll need:

  • 4 limes
  • 1/4 red onion
  • raw shrimp (1 lb.)
  • popcorn (no butter!)
  • 1/2 cup ketchup
  • 2 cups orange juice
  • 5 tbsp olive oil
  • 3-4 scallions
  • dill
  • cilantro
  • 1 cup salsa fresca (not the Tostito’s kind that’s thick)
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
what “sliced thin” really means…

The recipe is as follows:

  1. Prep the onions — In a medium/large bowl:
    1. Save 1 half lime and juice the rest
    2. Add 3 tbsps olive oil to lime juice, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt & whisk
    3. Slice 1/4 red onion, very thin; separate and add to marinade and soak onion
    4. Chop up 2-3 stalks of dill, add, mix, soak, set aside
  2. Cook Shrimp:
    • Add raw shrimp to large pot, fill with water, cover and cook. Remove from heat, strain, and rinse with cold water when shrimp turn pink
  3. Prepare marinade for shrimp
    • In a blender: 2 cups orange juice, 1/2 cup ketchup, 2 tbsp olive oil, pulse to blend
  4. Add 1 cup salsa to shrimp marinade and mix
  5. Juice leftover lime and add to shrimp marinade
  6. Add in shrimp, soak and sit for at least an hour (not in fridge)
  7. Chop up some scallions (3), cilantro and prep some popcorn
  8. Serve shrimp marinade mixture with onions, add scallion, cilantro, with popcorn on side.

Other than letting the marinade sit for an hour, this recipe is super quick to make. You can also make extra of the onions and add them as a side to any other meal. It delicious and deceivingly filling, even without the popcorn. But the popcorn makes it extra good, so I definitely wouldn’t skip on that. Plus, how many meals can you think of that feature popcorn?

Thinking of posting one or two of the dinner recipes I’ve made this semester. To be honest, there’s a lot lined up for future weeks and there’s a lot that’s already been made! I almost feel like I’m falling behind. I’m contemplating upping how often I post, but I also don’t want to add too much to my schedule. So for now I’m going to stick to every other week, and we’ll see how it progresses.

Stay tuned for the next post!

To be continued…

Gabriela

Egg “Muffins”

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Hello! I have been so bad about keeping to my posting schedule, but I’m going to do better going forward. Two weeks ago I was supposed to post, but was behind on my schoolwork so decided that was more important. Then I spent the rest of that week playing catch-up, and then it just got buried under everything else. Initially I was posting every other Wednesday, but my schedule this semester makes that a little difficult. Mondays and Wednesdays are my heaviest days because I have 2 classes plus a 3-hour night class. But then Tuesdays and Thursdays, in between my classes, are usually the days I spend prepping my schoolwork for the next day/class. So I think it would be better for my schedule to switch to a Friday or Saturday posting. So other than this post, that change will take effect going forward!

Honestly, no major updates. Grad school is grad school. Busy, little stressful, overwhelming, all the good things 🙂 This week is my “midterm” week. We don’t really have midterms, I just have exams and quizzes this week. I took one this morning and I think it went well! The questions were really straight forward, so I’m hoping I did well. Later this week I have another quiz in my IP class which I’m definitely a little nervous about. There’s a lot of information and some of it is a bit confusing.

One of my goals for this year was to do more cooking rather than just making dinners. The problem with just making dinners is that my dinner would then also turn into my lunch and then I’d be out of food by Wednesday. So by adding lunch meals to my cooking plan, I now have food to last me the whole week, rather than 3 days. In doing so, I also decided to make breakfast. I think breakfast can be so fun, although sometimes I dread it. When I wake up in the morning, I’m always groggy. The heat is on and naturally I just want to roll back into bed and go back to sleep. I’ve been trying to consistently do my workouts in the morning and then take a warm (cold) shower to wake me up, and this usually helps. But on days when I sleep through my workout, the last thing I want to do is go cook.

Groggy morning, post-studying, but got my egg breakfast!

But it’s been a lot of fun! Cooking in the morning is dreadful, but then eating a really good breakfast seems to make it all worth it. Until you see the dishes that now have to be cleaned – but that’s a whole other thing.

In honor of the most important meal of the day, I thought I’d share some of the egg breakfast recipes I’ve been trying out the past few weeks! **None of the links below are sponsored, just wanted to share them to make it easier for someone to follow-up and find the original recipes**

Loaded Scrambled Eggs

I got the initial idea to make something like this from the blog “Easy Chicken Recipes”: https://easychickenrecipes.com/loaded-scrambled-eggs/. However I made a few changes 🙂

These were great because scrambled eggs are SO easy to make and really hard to mess up. From the original recipe, I omitted the milk, cheese, and bacon. To substitute for the milk, I instead used sour cream, which I personally really like in my scrambled eggs, and in general. From the recipe and the photo you can see this is packed with veggies. It has red bell pepper, onion, tomatoes and mushrooms, all of which are a healthy way to start off your day! It’s topped with chives and I added some avocado on the side because avocado always makes a good side to eggs. I really liked this because it was quick to make but also because the mushrooms were hidden. I don’t normally like mushrooms, but when they’re mixed in with other veggies or food and I don’t notice them, I love them. Mushrooms can help stimulate the immune system!

Avo Baked Eggs

So this recipe is from an app called Garden Plate. Many of the recipes are free with the app, but some are only available with the full version which is a paid version.

This was really good and really simple, but I am apparently unskilled in the art of making a hole in an avocado. So to make this, you have to make the pit area of the avocado larger so that the egg fits and sits comfortably. I was not good at this. The egg would spill over or there wouldn’t be any avocado left. So I would definitely recommend using large avocados and wish you the best of luck. When it is successful (and even when it’s not) this is really delicious and really easy to make, especially on a groggy morning. It looks small, but it’s deceivingly filling!

Egg Muffins

A roommate in college had made these once and I had always wanted to make them because they looked so easy to make and they made mornings really quick because you could make a bunch at once for the whole week.

For these, I put a helping of spinach leaves, tomatoes, and bell peppers into the cups and then added in the eggs (about 14 eggs mixed). On top of that I added a little bit of salt and pepper for taste, and then put them in the oven for about 15 minutes at 400º. You can essentially put anything into these to make your own version of the egg muffins. I don’t think I would recommend tomatoes. The liquid made the bottom of my egg muffins a little distorted, but the tops looked nice! If you don’t care about appearance, then go for the tomatoes, because they still tasted really good.

The last week I’ve drifted away from eggs for breakfast and tried some other things. Next week I’m hoping to make banana pancakes and will definitely share how those go, although next time I’m hoping to post a dinner or lunch recipe or something I made with my dad while I was home over the winter holiday. Keep an eye out for what’s coming! (Now back to studying…)

To be continued…

Gabriela

Skillet Sausage and Zucchini

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Hello and welcome back (to me)!

For winter break from grad school, I went back home to New Jersey for about a month. I initially had intended to keep posting every two weeks like normal, but that obviously didn’t happen. The week before break I had finals, and also a scheduled post which I ended up missing due to studying. I was planning to just post it the following Wednesday, but then I flew home, and it was SO nice to just relax and not have any responsibilities regarding school. I was able to sleep in until 11 everyday, have a beer with my dad, go for walks with my mom, and then watch TV or play videos games. It was a perfect vacation. Benefit being that it was also Christmas!

Some of our Christmas decorations!

Soooo I ended up not writing any blog posts.

I will say though that the break was really good for me. During the Fall semester I was still trying (and struggling) to figure out a daily schedule in order to do the things I needed to do, like school, and do the things I wanted to do, like cook, workout, play video games, watch TV, etc. My eating schedule was a mess and sometimes I’d miss meals because I was doing work and then eat the meal I missed 3 hours later but then not be hungry for dinner. Or I would wake up early to try and workout but then by 1pm I’d be knocking out for an accidental 2 hour power nap and then be wide awake at 10pm when I was ready to go to bed. So the holiday was really good for reducing stress and emphasizing relaxation.

The holidays this year were very different, due to the obvious reason. I was able to fly home, and after completing the NJ quarantine post-flight, I was able to spend time with my mom and dad. My sister and her boyfriend stayed in California so we were unable to see them this year. Additionally, my dog passed in April so this was our first Christmas without him. Although it was very different, we still made the most of our time together and we tried to connect at least once every week so it was almost as if they were in NJ! We Zoom’ed for Christmas and we also started doing family game night via Zoom (everyone’s new favorite system). The two games we’ve been playing so far are Azul and Tiny Towns. They’re both strategy games (in my opinion) but they’re easy to learn and a relatively quick play. We tried to play one or two rounds every time we had game night. So that made the holidays really enjoyable. Honestly, there was so much more that happened and I’m so happy that I got to go home. There were so many enjoyable moments and as happy as I am to be back in my apartment, it was sad to leave.

Regardless of me sleeping in until 11am, I did do a lot of things for myself (yes, I was productive). Over the break I: a) spent time planning out a meal schedule for the semester of exactly what I’m going to be cooking for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks; b) created a realistic (catch that bolded word) schedule for myself so that I can do more of the things I want to do instead of drowning in the things I need to do; and c) spent some much needed time with my family.

Speaking of that meal schedule…. I’m very excited to share that the re-vamped schedule is SO good and I’m SO excited to share these recipes and try them out. But before I get to that, I will share the last recipe I made which was before winter break even started! The recipe I made was a sausage and zucchini dish which can be found here, from the blog Counts of the Nether World.

For me, this was such a great mix of veggies and meat and really easy to make, which is always my favorite. As the recipe says, it only took about 10 minutes to make (unless you buy uncooked sausages, which I did once, and it took me ages). I’m essentially always in a jam with time, so having the pre-cooked sausage made this recipe a breeze to make because all I had to do was heat it up. Additionally, I didn’t have to mince or dice any of the veggies. As you can see from the blog and from my photo here, the veggies were cut into chunks which made the whole process really quick.

I didn’t end up buying enough of the ingredients to make a full meal out of this (for the whole week), so I ended up pairing it with some rice to not take away from the focus of the meal. To have as a stand alone meal I think is realistic because the sausage on its own is filling, and the addition of the vegetables is not only filling but also adds more nutritional value to the meal. Had I enough to make a proper portion size of the recipe, then I would have easily made this a stand alone meal. Paired with the rice this was also really good, and for me it was good because it just added a bit more variation to the meal.

A little short today regarding the food, but I would still recommend trying out the recipe if you need a quick weeknight meal. I mostly wanted to give and update. Like I said, I’m super excited about the recipes that are to come (including some that I made while home with the Master Chef, aka, my dad). I’ve also got a whole mix coming up, not just dinner recipes! I’ve added some breakfast recipes I’ve found, as well as lunches and side dishes. I’m looking forward to either sharing a new food blogger for you to follow or a new magazine for you to buy based on where the upcoming recipes come from! The break was SO nice, but I’m happy I’m back to posting and trying out new recipes.

Look for the next post soon! There are so many to choose from so look forward to the surprise 🙂

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