five new recipes | recipe one

One of my February goals was to make five NEW recipes. I cook every night, and if you cook every night as well, you know how hard it is to come up with around 20 recipes per month. Well, it's easy if you repeat I guess...which is the rut I had gotten in to. I am hoping this goal leads to some yummy finds! (It helps that this month, I meal planned in advance for the entire month as opposed to week by week!)

I am always looking for good and healthy sides for when I cook chicken. A believes that every meal needs a protein, so I let him gobble down on some chicken while I stick to the sides, so that means the sides have to be good. (No, not a vegetarian, but I'm not the biggest fan of chicken.) This is a side that I will now gladly incorporate into my meal planning, and you should too! Don't let the fact that it's quinoa scare you away. Embrace the quinoa! 

Quinoa is probably one of the more difficult foods to photograph, so I apologize for that looking like a pile of mush. My first venture into quinoa was with quinoa pizza bites, which are delicious, but I knew I had to figure out a way to make it and have it replace some of the rice we eat. And let me tell you, this is a great way! 

I based my recipe off one from Beauty & The Beard, but of course had to change it up a bit. Here's how I did it, and how you should, too! (And if you click over, don't think this will replace Mac and cheese. It's good, but nothing will ever replace Mac and cheese. Nothing.)

1 cup quinoa

2.5 cups water

Salt + pepper 

1 T olive oil

2-3 cloves minced garlic (I tend to over garlic) 

1 T dried basil (I use the kind you have to refrigerate. If you use true dried basil, use a little less) 

1/3 cup parm cheese (I used asiago and it was delish!) + parm to top with

Dump the quinoa and water in a small pot and add in some salt- not too much because the cheese is salty! Turn the heat on high until it reaches a boil. Lower the temp to a simmer, then cover and simmer for 18 minutes. When the timer goes off, if water is absorbed it is done, if not just add a few minutes on and cook until absorbed. 

While that is cooking, sauté garlic in olive oil for 30 seconds, just until fragerent. 

When quinoa is done, turn off heat and stir in cheese, garlic, basil and pepper to taste. Serve and top with parm cheese. 

I promise you will like this! It's super creamy, which surprised me because terse nothing but cheese in it, and salty and delicious.

One down, 4 to go! Except I planned 10 just in case something happened! 

taste of tuesday | turkey parm mini meatballs

Lately I have been spending hours and hours on Pinterest trying to find new recipes. I have a huge collection of great ones we have made before, but cooking the same things every month gets pretty old. Unless it's Avocado Pesto Pasta, that will never ever ever get old. 

If you also spend hours in the "Food and Drink" section of Pinterest, you already know this fact. 99% (or so it seems) of the recipes are deliciously bad for you. Ten pounds of cheese and butter sure sounds good, but I personally am wanting my backside to shrink, not grow after one meal. Hence the spending HOURS on Pinterest - it takes that long to find some good healthy recipes!

Not that this recipe is the best thing ever for you, but I'd like to think it's better than the deep fried mac and cheese that was right above it. 

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Turkey Parmesan Mini Meatballs

inspired by this recipe by the hilariously amazing BevCooks

Ingredients:

1 cup panko

1/2 cup parmesan cheese - split

1 T+ olive oil

1 egg

1 pound ground turkey

1/2 cup finely diced red bell pepper

5 cloves garlic (those not obsessed, lessen to two) minced

1 T dried oregano

7 fresh basil leaves, torn/chopped/cut

1 pinch salt + pepper

16 mozzarella balls or cubes 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Put 1 cup of panko and 1/4 cup parm into a small bowl. Starting with 1T EVOO, drizzle it over the mixture and mix with hands until fully coated. I added a few more drizzles because most of it felt dry still. Set aside.

Place the egg in a larger bowl and slightly beat. Throw in the bell pepper, garlic, oregano, basil, salt and pepper. Mix with hands.

Place a couple of tablespoons of the mixture in a greased (I use the Coconut Oil spray from TJs) mini muffin pan. Punch down a little area for the cheese.

The original recipe calls for cubes, but I balled up some fresh shreds because that is what we had. Place the balls in the cheese area, and then cover up completely with the meat mixture. I pushed the cheese down and this was easier. 

Place the panko mixture on top of the meat mixture and pat down slightly. I used lots as you can tell!

Place in oven for 25-30 minutes. Don't get scared if the cheese bubbles out.

Serve over sauce + pasta (we use the organic veggie noodles from HEB) and enjoy!

Linking up for Taste of Tuesday with Ashley and Jessica.

spinach feta turkey burgers :: taste of tuesday

I've always wanted to link up for this, but that would require taking photos of the cooking process. And to be honest, that's not really at the top of my list when I'm cooking at night. But I said I would blog every day this week (I've got to stop saying that) so here I am. With what I cooked tonight! 

Woah that's a large picture. Moving on. Simply put - you need to make these. I found the recipe here and I am so glad I did. I added an ingredient here and there, but stayed pretty true to the original recipe. We served ours with zuch fries and corn. And on summer plates because it just screamed a summer meal to me. My mouth is still watering over these, y'all. MAKE THEM.

You will need:
1 lb. ground turkey (super duper lean)
Spinach - I prever to use fresh because the frozen is WAY too watery. Two handfuls of it.
1 cup Old Fashioned Oats
4 garlic cloves
2 large egg whites
1/2 cup crumbled feta
Salt + Feta

Let's review how to make these, shall we?

SUPER fine, so when you eat the burger, you aren't just eating clumps of spinach. trust me on this.

mince your garlic. mincing garlic is therapeutic for me. yes, I am aware of my oddness.

so yea, it says half a cup. but who actually pays attention to recipes when they list amounts of cheese? oh, that's just me?

Not much salt is needed because feta cheese is pretty salty as is. when recipes say that about any other cheese, they are lying. only feta, but then again I could eat salt so you probably shouldn't listen to me on that one.

I started with a half a cup and added more as needed. I did not use the full cup, though.

mix just until it all comes together.

I got 6 patties with this list of ingredients.

Then grill for about 5ish minutes on each side and serve! My dad and A LOVED these, as did I. My mom said they were too salty, so if you know people who don't like salty things (HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE) just reduce the feta...or actually just use 1/2 a cup. Whatever, if you don't like good things, that's your problem.

But basically, you need to make these and perfect them for yourself and then put them on the 4th of July menu. Trust me. People will be like "what beef? I don't need no stinking beef burgers!"

I probably should stick to blogging in the mornings.

linking up with ashley and jessica

where I pretend to be a food blogger

Around May I found a recipe on pinterest for Lasagna Soup and was so excited for fall weather to roll around so we could cook it. Well, fall doesn't really happen in South Louisiana so we didn't get to try it until mid December. And I don't even think it was cold out when we made it, I just couldn't wait any longer. 

Hands down this is one of the best soups I have ever had. And I'm a total soup lover. Best part? It is really healthy! AKA - no cream or milk or butter. I really didn't think I was going to like it because, lets be honest, I love me some cream, milk and butter. 

We made it for the fifth time Sunday night and made extras so my parents could have yummy and homemade lunches this week. And I decided to pretend I was a food blogger and share the recipe with y'all. Clearly you'll see why I am not one. And that I tend to forget I have a nice fancy camera all the time. iPhone for the win on this one. 

So here we go:

Lasagna Soup

Recipe by Kaitlyn loosely adapted from Bobby Dean

The ingredients:

I doubled the recipe so we would have extras, but for one batch you will need one onion, 1/4 C basil (which is one package), 32oz chicken stock (or one condensed stock pod + 3 cups water), 1/4ish C ricotta cheese, 15 ounce can tomato sauce (plain, no need to get fancy), 1 package Kraft + Touch of Philly motz cheese (trust me on this, it melts better!), one pound ground turkey, garlic powder and salt & pepper. NOT PICTURED: five lasagna noodles, uncooked.

Now whip out your handy (and beautiful) Le Creuset pot. If you don't have one, I HIGHLY recommend getting one. And if you are getting married any time soon, do yourself a favor and add it to your registry. They are pricey but SO SO SO worth it. (I actually got this one for my Mom on Rue for around 70% off! And they have them at Marshall's all the time for a good price.) Anywho, you'll need to chop up your onion. I learned some fancy way from The Pioneer Woman that makes it easier, but in reality, I always look like that while chopping. Amazes me daily that I found someone who would want to be stuck with that for life!

But eventually you will make them all pretty and chopped. But then you'll look anything but pretty. Yikes.

Happens every time. My eyes don't just water, I seriously look like I just spent a good 20 minutes crying my eyes out. 

Moving on. Put some olive oil in a pot and then throw in the onion and the turkey. Season your little heart out with some Garlic Powder. I really like garlic so I sprinkle a lot, but you can taste after the turkey browns and always add more if you like. Cook on medium until browned. 

After the turkey browns (or whitens, let's face it, ground turkey just don't brown), add in the tomato sauce. Then add in the stock (I did the pod + water method). Then season with salt and pepper. Bring this to a boil and then reduce to simmer and let it sit for 15 minutes. 

Then break up your lasagna noodles and add to the pot. Bring to boil and reduce to simmer for another 15 minutes. While that is simmering, chop you up some basil. Neat trick, stack the basil and roll it. Then chop away and it's perfect! 

After the 15 minutes, take off the heat and add in your motz cheese (1 C or so), ricotta and basil and stir until melted. 

Then ladle into a bowl and sprinkle some more cheese on top. And, most importantly, serve with champagne. What, you don't drink champagne on Sunday nights? You are missing out. 

Another reason I can't be a food blogger is because that post was all OVER the place. And the longest recipe ever. BUT, y'all should seriously make this and tell me how you liked it. Because I know you will.