Easy Fried Rice

We ordered Chinese food the other day while my parents were visiting and had tons of white steamed rice leftover. I usually end up throwing away the white rice but this time I wanted to find a way to create a new dish with it instead of wasting food.

If you've eaten at a Japanese restaurant where they cook on the hibachi grill in front of you, you can see exactly how they make fried rice and all the ingredients that go into it so I wanted to try to recreate that although I switched it up a bit like using coconut oil instead of butter. 

Total cook time: 15 minutes

Ingredients: 

3 cups cooked white rice

1 tbsp. coconut oil (or butter)

1 tbsp. sesame oil

4 tbsp. low sodium soy sauce

3 tbsp. water

3 carrots, chopped

1 cup frozen peas

1 tsp. minced garlic

2 eggs (optional)

I had all intentions of adding eggs in this recipe but just forgot to do it.

What To Do:

Heat skillet over medium heat and melt coconut oil with minced garlic. Add chopped carrots and cook covered for approximately 5 minutes stirring occasionally.  Beat the eggs in a small bowl and add to the skillet along with frozen peas, stirring the eggs quickly to scramble. Cook covered for 3 minutes or until peas have thawed fully. Add white rice to the skillet and mix well with carrots and peas mixture. Pour soy sauce, water and sesame oil over rice and mix well (if the rice is still slightly dry you can add more water or soy sauce to moisten). Cover skillet and cook rice on medium-low until fully heated for approx 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.

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Healthier Football Sunday Recipes

One of my favorite things about football season is the food that comes along with it although it can typically be high in grease and fat content. I wanted to find some slightly healthier (not deep fried) recipes to try this year for football Sundays and save the indulging for Super Bowl Sunday.

Skinny BBQ Chicken Flatbread

Buffalo Quinao Bites

Black Bean and Corn Salsa

Grilled Pesto Chicken and Tomato Kebabs

Shredded Chicken Nachos

 Zucchini Pizza Bites

Baked Southwestern Egg Rolls

Buffalo Chicken Sliders

I made this recipe in the crockpot a couple Sundays ago and it was a hit! We also had lots of leftovers to take to work for lunch during the week.

Baked Brown Sugar Wings with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

What's your favorite appetizer or dish for football Sunday?

Cheesy Artichoke Dip

I made this for a friend's housewarming party recently and loved how it turned out. 

Ingredients:
1 14 oz. can artichoke hearts
1 cup grated Romano cheese
1 block of cream cheese
1/2 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups light mayo
1 tsp Worcestershire
1 tbsp minced garlic
Black pepper to taste

What To Do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Chop artichoke hearts.

In a large bowl, use hand mixer to blend cream cheese until softened. Add mayonnaise and mix for 30 seconds. Add remainder of ingredients and mix well. Spoon into a baking dish and bake for 40 minutes.

Serve with crackers, tortilla chips, warm bread or pita chips.

 

Enjoy!

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Crockpot Chicken Low Mein

I wrote about making this dish a few months ago but I'm only now getting around to sharing the recipe. Low Mein is one of my favorite dishes to get when we order Chinese takeout so I decided to try my hand at it and it came out amazing! I went to the Oriental market to get a few of the ingredients such as the Low Mein noodles and the baby bok choy. I found the original recipe here from Life Made Sweeter and adapted it to my liking. As the original recipe states, you can use pasta noodles if you can't find Low Mein noodles. I seriously can't wait to make this recipe again.

Ingredients:

2 uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breasts

14 oz. package steamed Lo Mein noodles

2 cups baby bok choy, chopped

1 cup snow peas

3 carrots, peeled and chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp. fresh ginger, minced

4 sprigs of green onion, chopped

Chicken Marinade

2 tsps low sodium soy sauce

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp corn starch

Sauce 

1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth

2 tbsp oyster sauce

2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce 

2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp hoisin sauce

What To Do:

1. Marinate chicken with marinade sauce in the fridge for 30 minutes or more.

2. Spray inside of crockpot with cooking spray and add chicken breasts. Cook on low for 2 hours.

3. Remove chicken from crockpot and cut into small cubes. Place carrots, garlic, snow peas, green onions, ginger and bok choy in slow cooker. Add chopped chicken back to crockpot on tops of the vegetables.

4. Mix together sauce ingredients in a bowl and pour over ingredients in crockpot. 

5. Cook on low for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

6. Add fresh Low Mein noodles and cook for an additional 30 minutes on high or until noddles are fully cooked.

Enjoy!

Turkey Fajita Stuffed Peppers

I recently tried this healthier version of stuffed peppers with lean ground turkey and Italian bread crumbs instead of rice and we love how it turned out.

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground turkey
6 green, red or yellow peppers
1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, diced
2 tbsp Worcestershire

1 tsp. Mexican fajita seasoning

10 grape tomatoes, chopped

1 cup Italian bread crumbs

1/2 cup canned corn, drained
1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
1 tbsp Italian spices
1/2 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese

What To Do:
1. Cut the top off the peppers and remove the seeds and membranes. Flash boil peppers for 5 minutes.

2. Cook turkey in skillet with onions, garlic, tomatoes, Worcestershire and fajita seasoning on medium heat for 10 minutes. Add bread crumbs and corn and cook for an additional 5 minutes until turkey is fully cooked.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use a spoon to fill each pepper with turkey mixture.

4. Mix tomato sauce with Italian seasoning and top the peppers with sauce. Spray baking dish with cooking spray and bake for 15 minutes.
5. Remove from oven, sprinkle each pepper with shredded cheese and bake for an additional 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

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Pesto Brie Grilled Cheese Sandwich

I own a panini press so that's what I used to make it but you can also heat up some butter in a pan and grill the sandwich on the stove top over medium heat, flipping every 5 minutes until the bread is browned and the cheese has melted

Ingredients: 

Bread of your choice

Deli chicken, sliced

Pesto

Brie cheese, sliced

Light mayonnaise

Cooking spray

What To Do:

Mix the light mayonnaise with pesto in a small bowl and spread onto the slices of bread, layer with deli sliced chicken and slices of brie cheese. Assemble sandwich and cook in a panini press or in a pan with some butter.

The pesto brie grilled cheese sandwich/panini would pair really well with the tomato basil soup I recently made.

Shrimp Scampi with Zoodles

I loved how this dish came out. It was light and flavorful although my initial recipe came out too watery so I'm leaving the chicken broth out of the ingredients because I don't think it's needed. Zucchini and squash produce quite a bit of water so that's good enough. I also left out the coconut oil. Clearly I was overzealous when I first started putting ingredients together. Butter is all that's needed in my opinion. You can substitute the butter with coconut oil or olive oil.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 lb. peeled and deveined uncooked shrimp
 1/4 cup onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes, drained
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 tbsp Old Bay or seafood seasoning
 1 lemon, juiced
2 large zucchinis, spiralized
2 large squash, spiralized
2 tbsp dried parsley

What To Do:
Melt butter in pan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add shrimp to the pan and season with red pepper flakes and Old Bay seasoning. Cook for 3 minutes until the shrimp starts to turn pink. Add lemon juice, parsley, Parmesan cheese and diced tomatoes. Cook for an additional 2 minutes. Finally add the spiralized zucchini and squash and cook for 3-5 minutes until the squash and zucchini looks cooked.

Optional garnishes are grated Parmesan cheese and parsley.

Enjoy!

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Tomato Basil Soup

 Tomato basil soup is one of my favorite soups. I've experimented with a few different recipes but this recipe is probably my favorite and is very easy to make and doesn't require many ingredients or cooking time.

Ingredients:
4 cups canned whole tomatoes
4 cups tomato juice
1 cup heavy whipping cream
14 basil leaves, chopped
1/4 cup sweet unsalted butter
black pepper to taste

What To Do:

1. Combine whole tomatoes and tomato juice in pan. Simmer on medium-low heat for 15 minutes.

2. Carefully pour tomato mixture into blender or food processors and add in basil leaves. Blend well for 2 minutes.

3. Return mixture to pan and add in heavy cream, butter, and cracked black pepper. Simmer over medium-low heat for an additional 10-15 minutes stirring occasionally.

You can garnished with shredded cheese which I didn't do this time around since it was just a quick lunch whip together for the two of us (with lots of leftovers).

Makes 8 servings

Enjoy! 

Baked Pesto Salmon & Tossed Balsamic Salad

Baked pesto salmon is one of my favorite dinners to make during the week because salmon cooks very quickly. We usually eat it with a side of veggies such as broccoli or zucchini but this time I tried it on top of balsamic tossed salad and wanted to share the recipe because it's a quick and healthy meal.

Ingredients:
1 lb. fresh Wild Sockeye Salmon
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp. pesto
1 tbsp. minced garlic

Tossed Salad:
 Romaine lettuce, chopped
Raw pecan halves
Dried cranberries
Crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
Light balsamic vinaigrette



What To Do:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Wash salmon in cold water and cut in half to make two 1/2 lb fillets.
3. In a small bowl, mix together olive oil, pesto and minced garlic. Use basting brush to evenly spread pesto mixture on top of the salmon fillets.
4. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray and bake salmon for 18-20 minutes depending on the thickness of the salmon fillets.
5. While the salmon is baking, prep and toss salad with all the ingredients listed above.

Enjoy!

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Rainy Days & Sunday Brunching

Last week's rain continued into the weekend so it made for a fairly relaxing weekend spent at home on Friday and Saturday.

On Friday after work I went to the Asian market to pick up some ingredients for the chicken low mein recipe I posted about on Friday. I loved how cheap everything was and will have to go back to make more Asian inspired recipes.
 

K and I had some happy hour drinks at home on the patio, dinner at home from Publix deli and then watched the movie Drunk Wedding from Redbox which was pretty funny.
 

On Saturday I slept in until 11:30! It was exactly what I needed after the lack of sleep all week. That's the latest I've slept in in a very long time. It was storming all day again so I was productive around the house - laundry, cleaning, meal prepping etc. I put together all the chicken low mein ingredients in the crockpot and let dinner cook itself. It came out amazing!

The weather looked like this most of the weekend but I'm sure Lola was happy to get lots of quality time with us.

On Sunday the weather was still shitty but it held up for us to enjoy some brunch to celebrate one of my best friend's birthday. We all met up at a KASA downtown and enjoyed a really nice brunch buffet along with some mimosas.

Joining the lovely Biana for her Weekending linkup.