Overnight oats

 So, I've been hearing so much buzz about overnight oats lately I had to try them. I always prepare my meals the night before I go to work, so I was super excited about this new weapon to add to my breakfast arsenal. I usually just have Greek yogurt with fruit and nuts, but overnight oats took my go-to meal to a new level of yummy. Nutritional info is at the bottom of the post.

OVERNIGHT OATS 

1/4 c. quick oats

1/4 c. Greek yogurt (full fat is the only way to go)

1/4 c. milk, 2%

1/2 c. frozen or fresh fruit (I used frozen mixed berries)

2 Tbsp. walnuts

1. Mix the first three ingredients together in a mason jar.

2. Top with fruit and nuts.
3. Stick it in the fridge overnight.

When you eat it in the morning, just stir everything together and ENJOY. It's sooo good. You can substitute any type of yogurt, milk, fruit or nuts.

Ready to eat

Gorgeous, right?

My recipe has 331 calories, 36 g carbs, 18 g fat and 10 g protein. I enjoy my full-fat foods way more than I should, but you could easily cut fat and add protein by using nonfat yogurt and milk and adding some sort of protein powder. 

Queso Dip

My mom makes a queso dip that is extremely easy--cooked ground beef, Rotel tomatoes and cream cheese.  It's soooo good, but I wanted to develop my own version that's a little healthier and a little more sophisticated. Yes, I realize there is NOTHING sophisticated about creamy cheese dip with tortilla chips, but I try, oh, I try.

Anyways, my dip was inspired by this version (he used chorizo, guys! SO sophisticated). It was a little lighter than my mom's (the cooking creme I used has about half the fat/calories of cream cheese) and at least comparably delicious. P.S. Ruby, I totally made up the name of this dip by myself, with the help of Google Translate. Spanish pro up in hurr.

Queso salsa con carne

1 lb. ground turkey
2 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 large onion
1 roma tomato
1 jalapeno, seeded
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup tequila
1 pkg. Santa Fe Philadelphia Cooking Creme**
2 cups Mexican cheese

**This stuff was on sale and I wanted to sample it. It was pretty dang delicious, but bottom line is it's processed crap, with maltodextrin, a form of MSG, corn syrup and sugar in it. Next time, I will make my own version to keep this dip as unprocessed as possible. So, what can you substitute for the creme? I would pick sour cream, plain Greek yogurt or creme fraiche (you'll need 1 1/4 cups). Then, add some Mexican flavor--onions, jalapenos, chipotle peppers, cilantro, cumin, taco sauce, even salsa. You can easily achieve the same effect without the processed crap.

1. Put the turkey, butter and spices in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Fry for 7-8 minutes.

Mmmm raw turkey.

2. In the meantime, chop the onion, tomato, jalapeno and garlic in a food processor until finely chopped. Add to turkey and cook for 4-5 minutes.

Fresh veggies

3. Once the turkey is almost cooked through, add the tequila and turn the heat up to high. Cook for 4-5 minutes, until it doesn't smell like alcohol anymore!
4. Turn the heat down to low. Stir in the cooking creme and cheese, cook slowly until everything is melted together.

Real cheese!

Thai soup, breakfast burrito and mushroom English muffin

THAI CURRY VEGETABLE SOUP

Easy Thai soup! With the broth, coconut milk, ginger, curry paste and Sriracha sauce, you get a delicious Thai flavor. I had some kick ass homemade chicken broth, so that may have helped. You can put pretty much anything in the soup. The black beans were a bit odd, but I had to use them up. 
3 cups chicken broth
2 tsp. chopped ginger
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1 cup raw squash, chopped
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 heaping Tbsp. red curry paste
1/2 cup black beans
1 cup frozen peas and carrots
1 tsp. Sriracha sauce

1. Bring the broth and ginger to a boil over high heat. Add the potato and squash; cook until soft (about 20 minutes). Turn heat to med-low.
2. Add the coconut milk and curry paste. Stir until warm.
3. Add beans, frozen vegetables and Sriracha sauce. Cook for 3-4 minutes without bringing to a boil.


BLACK BEAN BREAKFAST BURRITO

This burrito packs a punch! It's so filling, full of yummy and healthy protein (25g!) and carbs, I barely had to eat the rest of the day! You could make it into a salad instead of a burrito to lighten it up. It's soo delicious. The creamy salsa is fantastic.


1 whole wheat tortilla
2 tsp. olive oil
1 egg
1/2 cup black beans, cooked
1 Tbsp. shredded cheese
2 Tbsp. chopped lettuce
2 Tbsp. chopped tomatoes
1 heaping Tbsp. Greek yogurt
1 heaping Tbsp. salsa

1. Heat up the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the beans and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the egg and mash the beans and egg together. When the egg is fully cooked, sprinkle the mixture with cheese, remove from heat and cover while you prepare the rest.
2. Mix the Greek yogurt and salsa together. Heat up the tortilla.
3. Assembly! Put all of the ingredients on the tortilla and enjoy!

MUSHROOM, HONEY AND BLUE CHEESE ENGLISH MUFFIN

 We had some leftover mushrooms, onions and garlic that were sauteed for steaks. I made a delicious toasted muffin for lunch with the rest of it.

1 half of an English muffin, toasted
1/4 c. mushrooms, onions and garlic sauteed in butter
1 Tbsp. honey
2 tsp. blue cheese

1. Spread the honey on the English muffin.
2. Mix the warm mushrooms with the blue cheese.
3. Broil for 1 minute until the cheese starts to melt.

Smoked herring salad and updates on my cooking adventures

I bought an entire smoked herring from a local shop a few weeks ago. I LOVE smoked fish, and the stuff  from my nearby smokehouse is delicious AND cheap. The herring is caught by a local fisherman (who I actually interviewed for work once!) from Lake Superior. He departs from a marina about 15 miles from my house to snare the unsuspecting fishies and then sells to a smokehouse just down the road. Fresher than fresh, I tell you. Anyways, people in my family do not like fish unless it "doesn't taste fishy," and this was apparently too fishy for them to handle. So, I've been slowly pecking away at my entire fish. 

I'm almost done!

I consumed most of it by just plain snacking on it, and the other portion was put on salads with a balsamic dressing. So good, but after four smoked herring balsamic salads for lunch in one week, I was a little over it--and so were my coworkers, I think. Turns out, smoked fish can really smell up our tiny fridge.

Anyways, so I developed this EXTREMELY DIFFICULT, GOURMET salad to use up a little more of my fabulous little fishy. 

SMOKED HERRING SALAD ON A WHOLE WHEAT PITA

1/3 cup smoked herring
3 Tbsp. minced onion
2 Tbsp. chopped cucumber
4-5 sliced cherry tomatoes
1 heaping Tbsp. mayo
juice and zest from half a lemon
lots of pepper

1. Mix all ingredients. Put on a pita.





Tough, right? Anyways, it's delicious. Here are some more awesome things I've made in the past month or so.

Lasagna cups:  Mini lasagna cups baked in a cupcake pan. These are great--so much easier than regular lasagna! I made them for a potluck with some friends. The only issue is the wonton wrappers--I coated the exposed edges in olive oil so they would brown, which worked fine, but the rest of the wrapper became a mushy/rubbery texture during baking. I tried covering the second pan for 3/4 of the baking time to try to make them cook more thoroughly, but I'm not sure it worked. I'd like to find a better "pasta" to substitute or a better way to bake them to solve this problem.

Chicken gyros: Another day, another potluck. These were great, my dear friends LOVED them (I think feeding them a lot of wine helped). I used Greek yogurt and cooked the chicken in a crock pot. Other than that, followed Annie's recipe. I served the gyros with a Greek salad and...

Zucchini keftedes/mucver: Fried zucchini patties with yogurt dipping sauce (I just used the tzatziki sauce from the gyros). These were TO DIE for. They are also a Turkish dish (gotta represent!) but this particular version is Greek. I was too cheap to buy fresh mint and my grocery store doesn't have panko so I just used regular bread crumbs. These fell apart when frying, so I'll have to work on binding them a little more effectively.

Brioche French toast: This is from another cooking date with my friends (WHAT CAN I SAY, we love to eat). This recipe is just all around wonderful. I am obsessed. It's more like dessert than breakfast, but for an indulgent day or special occasion, it's perfect.

Chocolate caramel cookies with sea salt: This woman should get some sort of medal for this recipe. It's mind-blowing. I'm super into the whole sea salt/caramel trend, and these satisfied my cravings. JUST MAKE THEM THEY ARE SO GOOD.

Bal kaymak: Condensed cream with honey. This is something I've been craving ever since I left Istanbul. Turks always have this with breakfast, and I had to make it. You basically just constantly "stir" a pot of simmering heavy whipping cream over med-low heat for 20 minutes--healthy, right? Then, you chill the condensed cream. To serve, bring it to room temp and drown it in honey. Best on bread. It turned out pretty good, but a little scalded--I have to work on my technique.

Ghee: I'm starting this 7-day Yoga Journal detox on Wednesday, and you basically eat the same rice and bean stew for 7 days and drink a lot of herbal tea. Thrilling, I know. I really need a detox after all the junk I've put in my body lately, so this will be good for me. Anyways, the recipe called for ghee (clarified Indian butter) and I couldn't find it at my Whole Foods (and was too embarrassed to ask because I don't know how to pronounce it) so I just flipping made it. A win win, really.

That's all for now!

Chicken burger with sweet potato fries and lemon zucchini

I made this meal for a Skype dinner date with my boyfriend. I modified it a little bit to feature lemon--a nice zip during the winter, when that summery taste of farm-fresh fruits and veggies is tragically missing. Here is the original recipe (in Dutch).

This recipe has a lot of components, so here's a road map of what the final product looks like--helps you keep perspective :)

You assemble it like this:
Bottom half of toasted bun-->lemon zucchini-->chicken burger-->tuna salad-->top half toasted bun
The remaining lemon zucchini is served on the side with the sweet potato spears.
Recommended order of cooking:

Zestin' lemon!

1: sweet potato spears, because they take quite a while to bake. I recommend the recipe I linked from Mango Tomato, but instead of the serving sauce she recommends, just drizzle the fries with lemon juice when they are finished.
2: Put a liter of water on the stove to boil--you'll need it for blanching the zucchini.
3: Zest and juice a lemon (needed for every component in this recipe).
4: Prepare the chicken burgers. While they're cooking, you can whip up the tuna salad and finish the zucchini.




So, without further ado, here's the recipe :)

CHICKEN BURGERS
with zucchini and baked sweet potato spears

Serves two.

Burgers
2 buns
1 chicken breast, finely shredded (I used a food processor)
Zest of half a lemon
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
Pinch of salt
1 tsp. canola oil for frying

1. Mix all the ingredients well and form into two patties.
2. Heat oil in frying pan over med-high heat.
3. Add burgers and fry for about 4 minutes on each side.

Tuna salad
1 5-oz. can tuna in oil, drained
3 Tbsp. mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. capers (without juice)
A handful of chopped onions
Zest of half a lemon

1. Mix all of the ingredients well.
2. Put in food processor and mince finely, until the capers are no longer little round guys.

Lemon zucchini

Thinly sliced, y'all!

2 zucchini, very thinly sliced (I used my carrot peeler to slice them)
Juice of half a lemon
1 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

1. First, blanch the zucchini. Put the thinly sliced pieces in a colander and pour at least one liter of boiling water over them. That's it! You're done cooking them!
2. Allow the zucchini to drain well, then toss with the rest of the ingredients. Set aside.

Assembly
Toast the bun. Layer a few pieces of the lemon zucchini on the bottom half of the bun. Top with the chicken burger and a couple scoops of the tuna salad. Serve remaining zucchini on the side with the sweet potato fries (drizzled with the remaining lemon juice).

Starbucks Berry Hibiscus Tea Copycat

I'm so obsessed with the Berry Hibiscus Tea from Starbucks. It's the perfect amount sweet and refreshing. I know people are all about the autumn drinks right now, but I can't get enough of this iced tea despite the cold temps! So, I recreated it, with some inspiration from this blog.

ICED BERRY HIBISCUS TEA

1 cup brewed yerba mate tea, cooled

2 Tbsp. hibiscus simple syrup (more or less to taste)

a handful of fresh raspberries

ice

Mash the raspberries with a fork in the bottom of a glass. Add ice cubes and pour the tea and simple syrup over; stir.

Hibiscus simple syrup

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp. dried hibiscus flowers

Heat the sugar and water over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, add hibiscus and let steep for about 10 minutes. Strain hibiscus using coffee filter or cheese cloth.

Links to new recipes I love

So, I haven't posted in FOREVER which means I have about 20 new recipes. These are the recipes I didn't change at all (or very little), so I'm just posting pics with links :)

ROASTED SWEET POTATO SOUP

This soup is FANTASTIC and from one of my favorite bloggers (I think she will start appearing a lot in these pages...). I used sunflower seeds because I didn't have any pumpkin seeds; other than that I followed Olga's recipe completely.











SWEET POTATO FRIES WITH GARLIC YOGURT SAUCE

Again, made directly as Olga says :) I just added some mayo to the sauce...because I'm weak, so weak.

 BEET AND PEAR SALAD 






Too good. Honestly, this is the perfect blend of flavors--I'm astounded by how well everything works together. Find the recipe here.










MINESTRONE SOUP

The perfect pair to the salad. I pretty much followed this recipe, but I had to cook for much longer than it says to soften up the potatoes and carrots I added.








These two recipes, I might modify more and repost in the future. For now, just links and brief modifications.

RED VELVET CUPCAKES

I made these for a friend's birthday and they were fantastic! Just a couple words of advice:
-Whip it good! But seriously, whip the batter between steps as much as possible (at least as much as the recipe says, maybe even more). It will keep them moist and give them great texture when they're baked.
-I used beet juice in place of half of the food coloring. I was worried about the food coloring giving the cupcakes an artificial tang, so I roughly chopped and boiled 3-4 beets (skins on) for 45 minutes. Keep the water level low, you don't even need enough to cover the beets; this will concentrate the color in less liquid. Then, use the water they were boiled in in place of half of the food coloring. I think I might try all beet juice next time.
-The frosting recipe is excessive. I could have easily halved the recipe and had enough. I'm also going to try it with less powdered sugar next time so the cream cheese taste will come out more.

BUFFALO CHICKEN ROLLS

I love these. So much. I usually use this recipe as a template for homemade/healthier blue cheese dressing to dip them in.
Modifications:
-I've found that straight hot sauce is too strong for me. I usually mix in a bit of butter. Heat up the butter and hot sauce (about 2 parts hot sauce to 1 part butter) and stir until blended.
-I hate cooking spray, so I just use olive oil and brush that on the egg rolls. It covers them better and doesn't have the artificial aftertaste of cooking spray.