Asian noodle bowl

This is really quick and easy, and you'll pretty much always have the ingredients on hand. Unfortunately, all my measurements are wild guesses since it's something I just make. This makes 2-3 servings. I usually have chicken or shrimp with this but you can opt out of the meat.

1.5 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 cloves garlic
1/4-1/2 tsp grated ginger
Juice of 1/2 lime, plus another half lime on the side
1 egg
1 tsp sesame oil
handful peanuts
pinch black pepper
1 zucchini
4 mushrooms
cooked pieces of chicken or shrimp, if you want
5 baby carrots
1.5 serving rice noodles or spaghetti
1 tsp vegetable or canola oil
Green onion

1. While your pasta cooks, and the chicken/shrimp if you so choose, slice zucchini into half moons, slice mushrooms, grate baby carrots, (finely) grate ginger, scramble the egg in a small bowl, and mince garlic. Be sure to follow the directions on the package well if you're using rice noodles as to not over- or under-cook.

2. Remove your chicken or shrimp from the pan, put it aside with your noodles. Add canola oil to your pan on medium-low heat. After a couple minutes, add your shredded carrots, mushrooms, and zucchini. Once they're a little soft, add the ginger, garlic, and black pepper. Once you can start to smell the ginger and garlic cooking, add your your egg and do your best to scramble it so it doesn't just attach to the veggies even though some will.

3. Once the egg is cooked, add to the pan the sesame oil, lime juice, soy sauce, and brown sugar. Stir until well combined, add your chicken/shrimp to the pan, let it simmer for a minute while you quickly slice up the green onion and peanuts. Let it cook for about 3 minutes, stirring semi-often.

4. Add in the cooked noodles and combine. Add most of the peanuts to the mix and combine it all, mixing evenly.

5. Serve into bowls, top with green onions and leftover peanuts. Squeeze more lime juice on top if you like.

Enjoy!

One pan salmon

God I'm really into this one-pan meal thing! It makes life SO EASY! I was freaking out because I was running low on food when I discovered that I still had two salmon fillets in my freezer. It was like a blessing! Now, these are the baking time and temp for a specific frozen salmon brand, I can't speak for other brands (it's a blue package with a zip-top, and 10 individually wrapped fillets inside the bag)

1 cup of baby carrots
1 medium potato (yellow, red, or white)
1 frozen salmon fillet
A generous sprinkle of salt
Also a generous sprinkle of pepper
A little less than a tbsp of canola or light olive oil
2 sprigs of thyme (fresh is best)
About a tsp of honey

1. Preheat oven to 450f, cut potatoes into 3/4 inch cubes and slice baby carrots in half lengthwise
2. Put them together in a bowl and add about half a tbsp of the oil to the bowl, as well as a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Toss or mix to coat evenly.
3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (and aluminum foil on the very bottom if you're anti-cleaning like me)
4. Add carrots and potatoes to the tray in a single layer, leaving a gap in the middle for your salmon
5. Place frozen salmon in the middle, skin side down. Rub the rest of the oil on the salmon. Sprinkle salt and pepper on top, rub it in if you feel so inclined. Sprinkle thyme leaves on it, and in smalllll trickle-like ribbons top the salmon with honey. You won't be rubbing this in because it'll start to freeze on contact and you'll mess up your seasonings, so try to coat it evenly with thin back-and-forth ribbons.
6. Bake for 20 minutes. Let rest for 2.

One pan pork chops!

So I've recently jumped on the one-pan meal bandwagon. This makes my life so easy, especially now that I'm single which means 1 night of cooking means about 3 meals. Yeah they're all the same 3 days in a row but I'm not too stressed when it comes to variation day-to-day if I'm saving money at the same time. This is a reaalllyy freakin' basic recipe, feel free to add any other spices you want.

- A solid handful or two of green beans, tipped and tailed
- 3-4 cups of mini red potatoes, halved or third-ed depending on size
- 4-6 Boneless pork chops
- 1.5 tbsp olive or canola or vegetable oil
- Salt, pepper, garlic powder

1. Set oven to 400f
2. Tip and tail your beans, cut your potatoes. Add to a medium bowl with 1/5 the oil. Add a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Toss, add to an aluminum or parchment paper lined cookie sheet
3. Add pork chops to a bowl (ideally, have them brined beforehand and patted dry), add the other half of your oil. Toss to coat the chops.
4. Spread a space in the beans and potatoes for your first pork chop, repeat for your other 3-5 pork chops. Sprinkle the pork chops with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
5. Bake for 22-30 minutes. Less time if they're the thin-sliced chops.
6. Serve!

Yellow coconut curry - meatless monday!

So I needed something to make for dinner that didn't involve meat, I looked up a couple curry recipes and came up with this. I'm pretty proud of myself!

Curry sauce
14 oz can coconut milk
1/4 - 1/2 cooking/yellow onion
1 clove garlic, minced
2 1/2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp garam masala
About 1 inch of ginger
Salt and pepper
Canola or vegetable oil (bout 1/2 tbsp)

Other stuff
1 can chickpeas
1 head of cauliflower
2 yellow or white potatoes
Salt and pepper
Garlic powder
About 2 tbsp canola or vegetable oil
Maybe a squirt of lemon juice if you're feelin' it

1. Heat oven to 400f, line a baking sheet with tinfoil
2. Cut the cauliflower into small bite-sized florettes, peel and cut the potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes, drain the chickpeas, throw everything into a bowl or ziplock bag
3. Add salt, pepper, 2 tbsp oil, a couple shakes of garlic powder, and lemon to the bowl or bag, shake/mix it up
4. Spread it all on the baking sheet and, when the oven's preheated, put it in and set the timer for 25-35 minutes, do a fork test for "doneness" at 25 minutes

5. After putting that in the oven, mince the onion while oil heats over medium in a large skillet or frying pan (mince the garlic too at this point if you don't get pre-minced like me), grate the ginger using a grater with small holes, not the kind you use for cheese
6. Cook the onion and garlic for 5 minutes, DON'T let it burn.
7. Add the garam masala, curry powder, and turmeric to the onions and garlic, mix to turn it into a "paste" of sorts. Add the ginger, mix it all up again. Don't let it burn.

8. Finally, shake the can of coconut milk, open it and pour it in the pan. Cook for a minute or two, then blend if you feel like it. I do, I feel like it combines all the flavours really well.

9. Pour the sauce back in the pan if you blended it. Add salt and pepper. I like it a little salty but not everyone does!

10. Let that simmer away. When the veggies are done, let them cool off for a minute or two so you don't burn yourself, then add it to the sauce.

11. Mix it up, let it simmer and soak into the veggies a little. Altogether, the simmering should go on for 10 minutes to thicken up.

12. Add it to rice and enjoy! Because I forgot to put rice on, I just did a little bit of minute rice while letting the sauce soak into the veggie mix.

So that's it! When I have some, I loveeeee sprinkling some of those crunchy fried onions over top. Careful, it's hot. It serves 3-4 adults, I'd assume it would serve 2 adults and 2-3 kids.

NOTE: I don't add chili because I can't have spicy things, but please feel free to!

Roasted chicken dinner

I can't even pretend I wasn't proud of my chicken dinner. It's not hard to roast a chicken, I guess, but I was still proud of myself nonetheless.

Sorry it's such an ugly picture, I was starving
then thought to take a picture at the
very last minute to brag to my mom about
how well I'm doing on my own

For the chicken:
1 Whole chicken, about 5 lbs
3-4 tbsp margarine or butter
1 tbsp olive or canola oil
1 tbsp lemon juice, fresh or not, both are good
2 cloves of garlic, minced, or half a tbsp of pre-minced garlic in a jar
1 tsp Dried rosemary, crumbled as best you can with your fingers OR 2-3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, quickly chopped
1 tsp Dry thyme OR 2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tsp Dry sage
1-2 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Pepper
1-2 tbsp white wine, if you can spare it, mixed with 1/4 cup water

For the potatoes and carrots:
2-3 Yellow potatoes, peeled, cut into 1.5 inch pieces
3 whole carrots, peeled, cut into 1 cm slices
1 tbsp canola oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
a sprinkle of rosemary


1. Heat oven to 425
2. Mix up everything for the chicken in a bowl except the white wine/water and the actual chicken. Make sure all of it is combined.
3. Place chicken in a roasting pan or a deep baking tray (I use a 16X11 tray). Cover the chicken in the butter mix, even a little bit on the bottom but of course most of it on the tops and sides, using your hands or a brush.
4. Put all of the potato and carrot ingredients in a bag, shake it up until everything is coated evenly.
5. Carefully pour all of the veggies around the chicken, try not to let any of them land on top or rub off too much of the butter on the sides. Pour the water and wine mix into a corner of the pan and gently tilt it to spread it evenly
6. Cook, uncovered, in the oven for 45 minutes
7. Pull it out of the oven, flip some of the veggies so they don't dry out too much. Baste the chicken or, do what I had to do, tilt the pan and spoon the juices over the chicken.
8. Cook in the oven for another 20-25 minutes

Let it rest for 10 - 15 minutes after pulling it out of the oven, It's gunna be hella hot and you WILL burn your fingers if you don't let it rest.

Creamy White Wine Mushroom Sauce

So this is pretty grand sauce, and I pretty much made it up by myself (little help from google, of course). It would go well with chicken, maybe some bacon crumble, maybe some sauteed spinach, maybe some green beans, whatever you like with your white wine. I made it with bowtie pasta and that was more than enough.

The lighter chunks are some leftover chicken from the night before

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cup milk, I used 1%
- 2 tbsp all purpose flour
- 2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 3 tbsp butter, more if needed
- 5-6 white mushrooms, chopped
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1/4 - 1/2 cup white wine (not a sweet one)
- 1/3 - 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese - best fresh or that pre-crumbled stuff, not the pre-grated stuff, the pre-grated adds a weird sweet taste that almost makes it taste like the milk has gone bad
- About 2-4 tsp of salt, about 1 tsp pepper

1. Melt 2 tbsp of the butter in a non-stick pan or skillet over medium heat, add some of the salt, oregano, garlic, pepper. Once the butter is melted and bubbling, add the mushrooms to the pan and cook for about 4 minutes, until they're soft and they've shrunk.
2. Melt the last tbsp of butter maybe a little more if it seems like there's not much in the pan, add the flour when the butter's melted and mix the butter and flour together until it's like a paste.
3. While stirring, slowly add the first 1/2 cup of milk. Make sure everything is combined, the milk may thicken up quickly and that's okay.
4. Add another 3/4 cups of the milk, make sure everything is combined. Set aside the last 1/4 cup of milk for later.
5, While stirring, slooowwwllyy add the white wine. Let it cook and thicken up for a little bit.
6. Sprinkle the cheese over top and stir in. Let the whole thing cook for a few minutes, Maybe about ten. If you're waiting for chicken to finish cooking, or pasta to finish boiling, etc... now is when you add that last 1/4 of milk bit by bit to keep it liquid-y.

Italian dressing pasta

It doesn't really have a name, unfortunately, "italian dressing pasta" is more of a description. My friend made it after I showed her that, for her picky threenager, she could freeze small portions of pasta dinners then re-heat as needed. I have to admit, when she first made it, we ate so much she had to make more to freeze! There are no real measurements, so you can decide how much of each you want.

-Macaroni noodles (cooked)
-Ground chicken, turkey, or pork
-Spinach
-Feta cheese
-Tomato (diced)
-Garlic (minced)
-Onion (diced)
-Italian salad dressing
-Veg or canola oil

1. Heat up oil in a pan, cook your onions until translucent and add the garlic. Once the garlic has cooked a little, add the ground meat and a splash of the dressing.
2. When the meat is cooked, add the spinach. When the spinach is limp, add the tomato and feta.
3. Add noodles and another splash or two of the dressing. If you want, add a bit of salt and pepper.
4. Serve! ...or divvy up into small servings and freeze for later.

**Edit: I've just been informed that this is great with greek dressing too!

Cheesy Tuna Casserole

My lovely boyfriend introduced this recipe to me, and I can't help but devour half of it every time it's made!! It's super easy, and takes pretty much no cooking talent, so anyone can make it!

-1 large head of broccoli, cut into bite-size florets

-1.5 cups minute rice

-1 can tuna, drained

-1 can condensed creme of mushroom soup

-Milk

-White canadian cheddar, or any other sharp white cheddar, shredded. At least 1 cup.

1. Dump the rice, tuna, broccoli, and condensed soup into a large glass or ceramic bowl or casserole dish. Fill the empty soup can with milk, that's the amount you need, and pour it into the bowl/casserole dish. Mix it all up, obviously making sure the tuna isn't one can-shaped chunk and that all the rice is covered with milk and soup.
2. Layer about half the cheese on top of the mix. Don't mix it in yet.
3. Microwave for 10 minutes

4. Remove from microwave, mix it all up again, getting the cheese in there.
5. Layer the rest of the cheese on top
6. Microwave for 10 minutes

Serve and enjoy!! Careful, it's freakin' hot!!!

Drumstick dinner in 20 minutes... or 7 hours.

So, first thing first, I love this recipe for the timing involved. The prep is super fast, but the cooking takes a while and that is so perfect, because some times I have long shifts and I don't want to cook when I come home. The issue with that, usually, is that many slow cooker recipes are anywhere fom 2-5 hours... what about my 7.5 hour shifts?! That's why I love this recipe. It works for any time between 6.5-8 hours, and I don't even have to make a side salad or quickly zap frozen peas. Also, it totally looks and tastes like you spent hours in the kitchen making it and putting loads of effort in. Yay for tricking that cutie down the hall that you invited over for dinner!

You'll need:
-Chicken drum sticks, anywhere between 4 and 10
-Onion
-Potatoes (I prefer the tiny "new potatoes")
-Veggie (I usually use carrots, but just about anything will do)
-Spices (I use nutmeg, paprika, salt, pepper, basil, garlic powder, and a little itty bitty bit of curry powder)
-Tin foil

1. Cut up your veggies (bottoms off brussel sprouts, floret you broccoli, tip and tail beans, etc..)
2. Cut your potatoes to about inch-wide pieces
3. Cut onions into thick slices
4. Peel skins off (optional) and rub spices on drum sticks.
5. Loosely crumple a loonngggg piece of tin foil and cover the bottom of your slow cooker. I coil mine, because I have a small cooker. It's ok to use multiple pieces. If you're using more leavy veggies (brussel sprouts, broccoli, bok choi, etc...) pour a half inch of water at the bottom, under the tinfoil.
6. Lay down the veggies, potatoes and onion on the tin foil
7. Layer chicken on top
8. Put the lid on, set it to low, and leave it for 6.5 to 8 hours!


Another idea - Fresh rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper, and lemon slices!

Savory Rosemary Crepes

This recipe was adapted from poorgirleatswell.com. I served this for my friend and I one night as a celebration for her getting accepted to college for the first time, and I actually loved them so much. She, being a chicken lover, devoured hers in a second.

Crepes:
-1/2 cup all purpose flour
-2 eggs
-3/4 cup low or no fat milk
-1 tbsp melted butter
-butter or oil spray (eg.PAM) for cooking

Cream sauce:
-Half and Half cream
-1 tbsp margarine
-3/4 tbsp fresh rosemary coarsely chopped
-1/2 tbsp cream cheese
-Salt and pepper for taste

Filling:
-4 to 8 chicken thighs, depending on the size
-thyme
-rosemary (fresh or dry, doesn't matter)
-2 cloves of garlic
-salt and pepper to taste
-oil


1. Chop the garlic and cut the chicken into small cubes (1 inch by 1 inch) while the oil heats in the pan at a medium heat. Throw the garlic into the pan first, allowing it to turn a golden brown colour. Throw the chicken in after it and season. Stir and mix and flip liberally to evenly distribute the seasoning. Don't be afraid of "over seasoning", unless it really is a ridiculous amount. A heaping teaspoon of everything will do the trick. Let the chicken simmer, stirring occasionally, until it's a nice dark brown.

2. Whisk all the crepe ingredients while your skillet pre-heats to a medium low temperature. Spray or butter the pan. Take about a half cup ladle-full and pour slowly into the center of your pan. Pouring too quickly will give you a weird looking crepe. After a minute or two, when the edges look cooked, flip it and allow it to cook for about a minute more before moving it to a plate. Repeat until all the batter is used.

3. Heat the butter in a sauce pan and quickly saute the rosemary. Add the cream cheese, and once that's melted, the rest of the ingredients. Make sure it's well combined. Let it simmer down to be a bit thicker, and then you're ready to eat!