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!

Protein and potassium breakfast bowl

Literally one of my easiest breakfasts. As mentioned a few posts ago, my potassium drops pretty easily, so I needed to get it back up again. Yesterday I stuffed half a sweet potato with scrambled eggs and cheese and tomatoes and mushrooms. Delicious, but filling, and I wasn't in the mood for cheese.

- 1 egg
- 1/2 leftover sweet potato
- butter
- salt
- pepper

1. Heat a non-stick pan, ideally no added butter or oil. If it needs it, only a little bit.
2. Microwave your leftover sweet potato until it's warm, verging on hot, about one minute
3. Fry your egg, try not to pierce the yolk. Lightly sprinkle some salt and pepper on the egg
4. Scoop the sweet potato out of the skin into a bowl. Add about a tsp of butter and mash it up. Sprinkle some salt and pepper and combine it all.
5. Plop the egg on top of the sweet potato
6. Enjoy.

Sweet potato fries

Recently, for about two months, I'd feel like my heart was fluttering or beating way too fast, more often than I was comfortable with. Somehow in my "Working with children & adolescents" class we got on the topic of heart palpitations sometimes being caused by wonky electrolytes, and electrolytes being something involving potassium and sodium, and in that moment I remembered a while ago (3-4 years ago) my nephrologist told me that my potassium levels were very low. I tried upping my potassium intake and bam! Haven't had any fluttering or pounding in a month and a half. Now, I like bananas, but I'm really not their biggest fan, and I certainly can't stuff dark chocolate in my face constantly. After a bit of googling, it came to my attention that sweet potatoes are an excellent source of potassium. Of course I immediately went out, bought two small sweet potatoes, put them in my produce drawer planning to make sweet potato pancakes the next morning, and promptly forgot all about them for two weeks. Guess it doesn't help that I don't want sweet potato pancakes like ever, and my boyfriend doesn't like sweet potato fries. He went away for the weekend, my roommate said something about sweet potatoes, and that night we enjoyed a lovely dinner with veggies, sweet potato fries, and chicken thighs!

- 2 sweet potatoes
- 1.5 tbsp canola oil
- 1-2 tsp of salt
- a few "shakes" or "twists" of pepper
- a pinch of smoked paprika

1. Heat oven to 400f
2. Peel the sweet potatoes (really peel them, don't stop at the yellow, stop when you see the sweet-potato orange) and cut them into half-inch wide fries.
3. Add everything to a bowl and mix, making sure everything is covered and evenly spread
4. Lay the fries down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper
5. Cook for 30 minutes

Serve this with ketchup, mayo, chipotle mayo, or nothing!

Cracker chicken

Huge shout-out to a friend for showing this recipe to me. Insanely delicious and easy, and really simple to multiply for more than one serving.

6-10 ritz crackers (3-5 per chicken thigh, we used low-sodium because it's what I had)
Garlic powder
1 tbps mayonnaise
salt and pepper
possibly chili powder if you're feelin' it.
2 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs

1. Heat oven to 350f
2. Crush the ritz in a bowl, add your salt and pepper (to taste) and your spices
3. Pat down chicken with paper towel, rub the mayo all over the thighs
4. Roll them in the crumb mix and place on foil-lined baking sheet
5. Bake for 35 minutes

It's actually a funny story, she was planning to make one dinner and I was planning another. I went to her house and it was like 5000 degrees and my phone was dying so we grabbed her chicken, went to my house, and decided to make both and it was like... the best meal I've had in a while.

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!!!

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

So it snowed (a worthwhile amount) for the first time today. Yay Canada!! It's so beautiful, I couldn't possibly deny myself a warm winter-friendly breakfast to get my day started. Thankfully, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. You can easily pack this up and run to class, too. Breakfast on the go!

Ingredients:
-1/2 cup oats
-2/3 cup milk - and a little extra for at the end
-1 sweet apple (mcintosh, gala,red delicious, empire, pink lady, whatever you'd like. I guess you could even do granny smith if that's what you like)
-2-3 tsp brown sugar
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-pinch of salt

1. Pour your milk and oats into a bowl. Let those sit while you cut up your apple into slices. Depending how much you like, I used two slices and cut them up to tiny bits, but you can use as much as you'd like I guess. I just ate the rest while it cooked, no use in wasting fruit.
2. Mix your small chunks of apple into the oats and milk
3. Microwave for 2 minutes, 15 seconds
4. Mix in a dash of milk, the brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt.

Be careful not to burn yourself taking it out of the microwave, it can be pretty hot!

Grilled cheese with no stove

I'm not kidding, this is the easiest thing in the world. Turn on your broiler in your cute little toaster oven. Make up your sandwich like you would if you were about to use a frying pan... but instead just put it on a baking sheet and pop it into your oven. Wait until that side turns golden, then flip it. When that side's golden, you're good!!

Ingredients:
Butter
Bread
Cheese

Baked potato - no baking required!

Honestly, this is the easiest thing to cook in your microwave. Yes, a baked potato, in the microwave. It's filling, familiar, warm, and I'm pretty sure everyone gets tired of minute rice as carbs on their plate pretty damn fast. I actually have to give credit to my mom, she showed me this first.

Ingredients:
-1 russet potato (whatever size you want)
-1 tbsp (maybe a bit more if you got a big potato) of canola, sunflower or vegetable oil
-1 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp black pepper - coarse ground is best

1. Oil up the potato. Sprinkle the salt and pepper on it, rub it all over.
2. Prick it 5-10 times with a fork
3. Microwave for 5 minutes. When it's done, poke it with a fork. If it goes through nicely, it's ready. If not,
4. Microwave for 3-5 minutes more until the fork goes through. Keep doing those 3-5 minutes if the first try didn't work, until it does.

Put this on a plate with some baked chicken, done in your toaster oven, and frozen peas defrosted and cooked with boiling water from your kettle, and you're good to go! Honestly, you don't even need butter or sour cream. It's flavoured enough from the salt and pepper!

Ramen noodle upgrade: Pad thai

Alright! I'm happily settled into residence, my roommate is cool, my whole kitchenette and bedroom is well stocked, and I've started to eat dorm-style. Today, I was starving my face off after orientation so I made myself a lunch.

-1 package mr.noodle or store brand ramen

-1 tbsp all natural peanut butter (of course, you can use kraft or skippy, but I really don't like the flavour of those)

-1 tbsp soy sauce (use a little less if you're not using the 100% natural PB)

-1/2 tbsp lime juice, if you have it

-1 egg if you're in need of a little extra protein, and a splash of milk, cream, or butter

1. Boil your kettle (take this time to stir your natural peanut butter if you're opening it for the first time or if the oils have resurfaced)

2. Pour boiling water over noodles and the flavour powder in a bowl, leave it to soften up.

3. Take this time, if you're adding an egg, to mix it (and the milk/cream/butter) up in a mug and microwave for thirty second intervals, stirring after each time.

4. Once the noodles are soft, strain the liquid (leaving about 1/2 a tbsp of the liquid), add the peanut butter, soy sauce, and lime juice.

5. Chop up the eggs in the mug with a fork, stir the chunks of egg into the noodles. Add green onions if you have them

Eat it by itself, or serve it on a plate with some kind of veggie to pretend you're being healthy!

Good luck, and enjoy!

Breakfast cups

Some days I wake up and I think I might die if I don't eat something. Eggs are definitely my favourite breakfast food, however I get pretty darn tired of frying them and eating them plain. I got creative, thinking of other recipes I've seen, and I made some breakfast cups! :)

Ingredients:
- 2 eggs

- 1/4 tomato
- 2 slices of cheddar cheese

- 2 leaves of spinach

- 2 slices of deli meat (ham, turkey, chicken, etc..)

1. Dice the quarter of the tomato, chop up the spinach, slice the cheese horizontally to make short + thin pieces
2. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl or cup
3. Try to line the ramekins or mug with the deli meat.
4. Add spinach and tomato to the bottom
5. Pour egg either half and half into the two ramekins or all into the one mug
6. Sprinkle the cheese on top. Add salt and pepper if you want.
7. Microwave for aprox. 2 minutes for the two ramekins, or 1:30 for the mug

If it seems wet, keep putting it back in for 10 seconds until it's fully cooked.

Enjoy!

Chocolate mug cake

The best one I've had so far - here's the recipe!

4 tbsp all purpose flour
4 tbsp white or raw sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder (you CAN leave this out, but it won't be quite as fluffy imo)
pinch of salt

3 tbsp milk
3 tbsp oil
1 egg

optional: peanut butter, chocolate chips, chunks of berries, jam, or whatever else you want.




1. Mix the dry ingredients in a mug or bowl (has to be a big mug)
2. Mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl or cup
3. Add in whatever extras you want... or none at all.
4. Microwave at full power for 3 minutes.

Be careful, it will be very hot. If it's someone's birthday, maybe put some sprinkles on it and a candle in the middle!

Strawberry Overnight Oats

1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup vanilla yogurt or greek yogurt
1/2 tbsp honey
1/3 cup steel cut or rolled oats
4-5 strawberries
6-7 almonds

-Combine milk, honey and yogurt
-Slice (and chop if you want smaller pieces) the strawberries
-Carefully cut the almonds so you end up with chunks and not shredded pieces of almond (yuck)
-Add oats to the milk mixture, stirring and eventually making sure there aren't any clumps of dry oats
-Add the strawberries, mix them in a little
-Press the oats down and make try your best to make sure they're covered by liquid.
-Sprinkle almond chunks on top, press them down lightly, don't mix them in
-Leave overnight in the fridge, preferably covered to avoid "fridge taste"


Microwave in the morning if you want to take the chill off :) Enjoy

Microwave Apple Crumble

This was an experiment.. a relatively successful experiment! Don't do what I did... I ate half the apple cubes raw because it was overflowing, totally forgetting that apples shrink when cooked! Whoops!

For the apple part:
-1 apple, diced
-1 tbsp margarine or butter, melted
-1 tbsp sugar (brown or white, your choice)
-dash of cinnamon

For the crumble part:
-2 tbsp granola
-1 1/2 tsp margarine
-dash of cinnamon
-1 1/2 tsp brown sugar

I'll put the directions to how it SHOULD have been done instead of how I did it.

Combine all the ingredients for the apple half. Stir them up, and try to get them ALL into a ramekin dish. Even if it's a massive pile on top. Microwave for 30 seconds.

Combine the ingredients for the crumble and spread over the apples. Microwave again for 2m30s.

Allow to cool for about a minute, and enjoy!