“Crack” Beef & Cabbage Stir Fry

Nov 13, 2016

This was my first “back on the healthy train” recipe since coming back from quite a bit of travel over the past few months—including a week and a half inhaling pastries on the French Riviera.  So I didn’t need normal healthy, I needed SUPER healthy.  A sort of food detox, if you will.

What I didn’t expect was for this to be SUPER yummy as well.

And cheap and easy.  Fast, cheap, healthy, easy, and yummy is like a unicorn of a recipe.  I mean, it’s no mac and cheese, but it’ll do.

This is going into my regular rotation of uber healthy meals.  It’s got a ton of fiber from all the veggies, is surprisingly satiating, and still has just enough protein from the beef.  You could definitely use a whole pound of beef instead of a half-pound (or substitute turkey, chicken, pork, whatever), but I didn’t feel cheated by the amount of meat, and it lets you stretch your meat further.  This was lunch leftovers all week for me, and I didn’t get sick of it, which is a miracle in and of itself.

Easy Pad Thai

Aug 22, 2014

I never expected pad thai to become my Everest…

Pad thai is such a great, uncomplicated dish. Simple flavors, not too many extras mixed in—it’s basically thai comfort food. Recipes vary, many more on the authentic route using tamarind paste, fish sauce, and other Asian staples. Others, like this one, stick to the basics. I’ll be trying the more complicated ones later [update: tried, hated, sticking with this one], but this one is a great place to start.

The sauce calls for only three ingredients—brown sugar, soy sauce, and lime juice. And maybe a squirt of sriracha if that’s how you roll. The first time I made this recipe, it came out pretty great. “This is so easy!” I thought. “But honestly I’d like it to have a little more sauce, it’s a little dry. I’ll try it again.”

Cue descent into madness…

I don’t know what was wrong with me but the next few times I made it, something went terribly wrong. First of all, I am the WORST at reading directions, so I had to throw like three different batches of sauce away because I accidentally added the oil to it instead of to the pan. (Don’t be like me, boys and girls.) And then one time I soaked my noodles exactly like I had before and when I added them to the pan they were still super tough and gross. Had to throw the entire pan of food away.

However, I finally got my act together and here you go. It really is a simple recipe, I have no idea why I had to make things so hard. So without further ado, I submit your next favorite 30-minute meal…

Thai Peanut Noodles with Chicken & Veggies

Aug 17, 2014

Any time I’m home to visit my family, we’re always feeding a big crowd. Generally we stick with what we know—grilled burgers or chicken, taco salad or nachos, soup and chili, or something similar. But every so often my sisters and mom and I put our heads together and come up with something different.

When I was home in July, we had one night where we were only going to have like 15 people—a considerably smaller crowd than our usual 25 or more. My sister and I decided we were really craving Thai food, so quickly had Mom poke through her cabinets to see if we had the makings for a Thai peanut sauce pasta. Since my mom’s cabinets are better stocked than most small grocery stores, we had almost everything we needed.

Beyond the basics of the sauce recipe, we totally winged it (wung it??), adding all the delicious flash stir fried veggies we could find, chicken, and whole wheat noodles. This dish was meat, carbs, and veggies in one, so we knew we had to make enough to get the whole hungry horde through dinner.

And it was definitely a hit! There wasn’t even a spoonful left after supper, the pan was scraped clean. Combined with the moist strawberry shortcake I made for the big group, I think everyone was stuffed.

Dynamite Grilled Chicken

May 10, 2014

Last Sunday I just wanted something SIMPLE. I’d had a super long, exhausting week at work and even after resting up over the weekend I just found the prospect of cooking daunting.

I didn’t want to assemble 20 ingredients or spend an hour preparing different elements of a meal. I wanted quick and tasty and healthy. Also, I wanted ricotta, which is a weird craving but I went with it and threw together a delicious spinach, tomato, and ricotta frittata (bonus breakfast leftovers), then I added some more protein with this “dynamite” chicken.

Honestly, the main reason I made the chicken was so I’d have some leftovers for lunch, and also because I wanted to use my grill for the first time this spring. Aaaaand, that was a total fail because when I went out to grill the chicken like half an hour after turning on the grill, it was totally cold. I went to plan B (the stovetop), but still need to figure out what’s going on with my grill.

Oh well…it was worth it in the end, because the flavors on this chicken will knock your socks off. It’s really got some tangy bite, which was a nice complement to the more soothing, mellow frittata. Also, it was super easy, which is always a win in my book.

Souper Jenny’s Hungarian Mushroom Soup

Feb 25, 2014

All this cold weather and the snow days we’ve been having have made me crave soup. So I dug out some old Souper Jenny recipes and this guy jumped out at me.

Souper Jenny is an Atlanta (Buckhead, to be specific) institution. The owner and her staff have been serving healthy, fresh soups, sandwiches, and salads to crowds often backing out the door for over 15 years. A while back a few co-workers and I got to do a cooking class with the head chef, where she walked us through making five of their awesome soups in a couple hours.

When perusing the recipes initially, I was least excited about mushroom soup. So I was shocked when we were tasting everything later and this may have been my favorite—or right up there with the lamb & Guinness stew. The flavors were so much more complex than I expected, the scent was amazing, and the creaminess really hit the spot. It was also super easy, a win in my book.

Easy Sesame Chicken

Jan 2, 2014

How have I not tried this recipe before?!

This is one of those things that has sat on my Pinterest board for a couple years now, and every week I look at it and then pass it over for something else. Why? I have no idea. Sesame chicken is my jam when I get Chinese food. But over the winter break I decided to give it a try since it looked simple and I was already making a dessert as well. And I’m so glad I did—this recipe is simple, delicious, and mostly healthy. You can add whatever veggies you want and it can be ready in the time it takes to cook your rice.

The one major change I’d make is to double the sauce recipe…as you can see in the picture above, there is NO sauce to spare. I like my sesame chicken saucy, so it can soak the rice a little, so double the sauce and you’re good to go.

Sesame-Soy Grilled Salmon

Sep 27, 2013

I’m having trouble accepting that my grilling season is almost over.

Yes, I realize that the weather in Atlanta will permit grilling pretty much year-round, but I’m also realistic about how well my electric grill will heat up if it’s 40 degrees outside. So I’m trying to squeeze all the grilling in that I can, and I’m on a super salmon kick. I was so excited when my first salmon grilling (Maple Citrus Grilled Salmon) went so well, that I felt brave trying it again. This one was just as easy, but more of a savory (I always want to spell it savoury, like the Brits) spin.

Grilled Balsamic Chicken…on my own grill!

Jun 30, 2013

I’ve wanted a grill for as long as I’ve lived alone. In my head, a grill was all that stood between me and these awesome meaty dinners every night of the week. Now, I can privately admit that that’s not entirely the truth—let’s not pretend I’d actually make dinner after a 12-hour day. But, I WOULD cook meat way more often, and it would open up a whole new world of culinary possibilities. Plus, who doesn’t love that freshly-grilled flavor?!

However, my apartment complex would never let me have a grill, and my new condo complex is the same. But there’s this nice patio just begging for a grill! What’s a girl to do? Well, I did some digging, and apparently electric grills are a thing—not a very well-known thing, but a thing nonetheless. I knew I didn’t want to go the oversize George Foreman route. I found a few that got good reviews, and lucked out at Target a couple weeks ago and found a great CharBroil one on sale. This recipe was its maiden voyage.

Isn’t that an amazing plate of food?! Look at me, making dinner on a work night like a grown-up BOSS.

Ain’t she gorgeous?! Putting it together wasn’t super fun, but totally worth it.

My patio, on the other hand, looks a little rough since my dad and I pulled up the tile a couple weeks ago…

Balsamic Beef in the Crockpot

Mar 23, 2013

Prepare yourselves, folks. My family came and visited me for a solid week, so we cooked and baked up a storm—so you’ll be inundated with recipes in the next couple weeks. We’ll start with this absolute gem, a flavorful and easy main dish that’s perfect for big groups (provided you make enough of course!).

I’ll let you in on a secret…I’ve never liked roast. I find it weird and kind of blah usually. I do like my mom’s beer roast once in a while and I love barbecue beef, but otherwise it’s just not my thing. I’ll make an exception for this balsamic beef, however. It was moist and chock full o’ flavor, and was way easier than I’d expected. In fact, it was probably the easiest, least time-consuming dish we made all week!

Lime Curry Chicken

Jan 27, 2013

I’ll be honest—this recipe is a little outside my wheelhouse.  I wouldn’t have seen a pin labeled “lime curry chicken” and thought, “Oh man, I’ve gotta try this!”.  I’m a sucker for authentic Italian cuisine, Southern comfort adaptations, that kind of thing. My sister, on the other hand, gravitates toward flavors like curry, cilantro, lime, and the like, flavors with Asian or Mexican inspirations. It’s interesting how we can both have grown up eating the same food and diverged on very different flavor paths as adults.

So I was visiting her over the winter break and we whipped up this little recipe for dinner. The actual prep time didn’t take long at all, simply some grating and whisking together ingredients. But I would recommend letting the chicken marinate in the sauce for a half-hour or so before cooking, lets these flavors really soak in.

This chicken was so flavorful and yet all of the flavors worked so well together. And it was so moist! It’s actually called “lime coconut chicken”, but to me you couldn’t taste the coconut milk flavor (which is totally okay in my book) and you COULD taste the curry. So I made an executive decision. We served with lime cilantro rice on the side, but it would be great with regular rice, noodles, or regular side dishes and bread.

The original recipe calls for it to be grilled (which was delicious), but I don’t have a grill and you’d be fine sauteing in a pan or even (if necessary) baking. I think saute is probably better than baking, but either would work.