Tuesday, August 19, 2014

what I've been eating lately. which you obviously care a great deal about.

I want to tell you what I've been eating lately.

I'm not kidding when I say I've been thinking about writing a post like this for months. That may or may not have to do with the fact that I basically went without a kitchen and normal dinners for 2 months, but still. I also have no idea how interesting this will be. I mean, can I make food sound interesting? It's worth a try.


CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI CASSEROLE

First up is a tried and true recipe that everyone should have in their repertoire (also, totes def couldn't spell that word). That, my friends, would be Chicken and Broccoli Casserole. Now, I'm all for using canned soup and whatever, but I just happened upon this recipe and it has worked for me and we love it. Except you should know that I put in like a teaspoon or two of curry powder and oh my gosh, I'll die happy. Also, you should know that I love the blog that this comes from except that a few months ago she announced that she's gluten free and so now her recipes will be gluten free which is neat but I guess I really love gluten. #notbeingglutenfreeprobs But still, she has AMAZING recipes.


EASY CALZONES

Up next, Easy Calzones. But seriously, easy. If you look at the recipe, she gives you all the deets for making calzones of the sausage-y variety but I prefer to just stick with the pepperoni version because duh, it tastes good and takes like 4 minutes to put together. Levi claims that these are moving up on his list of favorite things that I make although he might warn you that eating like 5 or 6 for dinner may or may not have been the best choice for him. Oh well, we can't all make the best choices for our stomachs 100% of the time. I'm pretty sure that Bruce Bogtrotter from the cake scene in Matilda would agree with us.

APRICOT CHICKEN (sorry, no picture. just believe that it's amazing because it is)

This next one is a recipe from my sister that came from her roommate. It is important that we all have sisters who have roommates who have good recipes, especially recipes that are one million billion easy. There is no link to this recipe but it is as follows:

Apricot Chicken
Chicken
1/2 c Russian/Catalina Salad dressing
1/2 c Apricot jam (I only had apricot pineapple jam at the time, still tasted delish)
1 pkg Onion Soup mix
1 tsp curry powder (I didn't put this in, but I'm sure it would have been delicious)

Put it all in a crockpot for like 8 hours and bada-bing, bada-boom! Yum. Serve with rice of course. Also, I basically double this so that we could have more sauce. I probs didn't need to do that, but you live and learn. Also I didn't measure anything because measuring things like salad dressing and apricot jam seem like a waste of time when I could just as well squirt and dump whilst guesstimating appropriate amounts. But to each his own.

MAGICAL TURKEY BURGERS (also no picture but also still amazing)

Another one from the sister's roommate vault. My sister calls them magical turkey burgers and I would have to agree. Make these bad boys, put them on your George Foreman (wedding gift, oh yeah! Thanks, Somers!) for like eight minutes and then be so so happy. Again, no link, but listen and learn.

Magical Turkey Burgers
3/4 c seasoned bread crumbs
1/3 c crumbled feta cheese
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
2-3 tbsp pesto
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1.25-1.5 lb ground turkey
(makes six burgers)

Oh man, you guys. We had these for dinner last night and I will totes def one million be having one for lunch. Very magical. We had these with an AMAZING avocado & grilled corn salad with cilantro vinaigrette that my sister-in-law gave me the recipe for. SUCH a good recipe and I don't even love cilantro. I wasn't going to take the time to write out that recipe, but now I just feel like I need to.

AVOCADO & GRILLED CORN SALAD with CILANTRO VINAIGRETTE

4 grilled ears of corn--brush with olive oil prior to grilling (or if you are lacking in the grill dept as we are, I would recommend frozen corn grilled on a skillet with 1 tbsp olive oil--works great!)
2 avocados
4 tomatoes (or in my case, 3 since tomatoes make me sad)
1/2 red onion, diced
3/4 c feta (perfect, since I was already using the feta for the burgers)
Romaine and red leaf lettuce
Grilled chicken (or in my case, I had some previously cooked shredded chicken so I just browned that a bit on the stove and threw it in!)
1 diced red pepper (unfortunately, as much as I love peppers, they give me heartburn so I left this out. sad.)
cilantro leaves (I was running low on cilantro, so I just had it in the dressing)

Dressing
6 tbsp olive oil
1/5 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp sugar
3-4 tbsp fresh cilantro
1/2 tsp salt
5-10 grinds fresh ground pepper
Throw it all in the blender and blend! Then pour on top of the salad.

This proved to create a fabulous dinner. Levi says I've been stepping up my game lately because I've been serving more than just a main course. As in I've been making side dishes and I must say, I've been quite proud of myself and it really is an accomplishment for me.


CHOCOLATE COVERED OREO COOKIE CAKE

And as my parting recipe for you today (even though I have like a million more I want to share), I give you the Chocolate Covered Oreo Cookie Cake, which will quite literally make all your dreams come true. This recipe came from one of my mom's really good friends, Carol. This cake is SO easy to make and I'm being serious because I'm am one of the least talented baketresses out there. Of course, I was going to tell you about how their recipe for the glaze was terrible! just awful! came out as runny as water! But then I looked at the recipe more closely just now and noticed that it does not say 4 pieces of bakers chocolate. It says 4 ounces. Now I feel quite foolish because I ended up finding a different glaze recipe somewhere else when really I just needed to add more chocolate. Well, like I said, we can't all make the best choices all the time.

So anyway, yeah. There are some recipes. I've found a crazy number of new and delicious recipes lately so it's really exciting for me even though I'll probably hit another dry spell next week. It is what it is, right?

Also, Taylor Swift's new album. How excited are we all because I am ONE MILLION BILLION excited. As I noted on facebook this morning, you may have noticed that her new album is entitled "1989" which is the year I was born. You may also have noticed that her album comes out on October 27th, which OH YEAH is my 11/12 birthday. Coincidence??? I think not. This is probs going to be my favorite album yet since it's basically dedicated to me. I also have a strong feeling that she wanted to release it on my birthday, but then she realized that my birthday is on Thanksgiving (#occasionallynationalholidaybirthdayprobs), so the second best choice would be my 11/12 birthday. Thank you, Taylor. You're so thoughtful.

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