Happy Hump Day BLOG WORLD!

We are halfway through the week already! Not to mention that we are over halfway through JANUARY! Can you believe it!? It will be sunshine and weekends by the pool in no time! But oh boy, that means I better get focused on my 'summer body'.

The IP is great for staying on track when trying to eat healthy. You can whip up a quick, easy and HEALTHY meal in minutes (literally minutes), and I promise, you will never want to run through the drive through for convenience again!

I made this recipe last night, Taco Tuesday, and as you all know I am on the prowl for healthy variations of the beloved beef taco. I decided to try something a little different on this cold, winter weeknight.

IP Chicken Taco Bowls! The recipe is as follows:

4-5 uncooked boneless, skinless breasts if large, cut in half

1-2 packets taco seasoning (1 for mild flavor, 2 for more flavor)

1 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 12 oz bag frozen corn

1 15 oz jar salsa

3 cups uncooked rice (calls for jasmine, I used white)

3 cups water or chicken broth

Cheddar cheese (optional)

Cilantro (optional)

Sour cream (optional)

This recipe is so incredibly easy! It took me under 5 minutes to prep and 15 minutes to cook! That's a total of 20 minutes for a delicious meal that everyone is going to love!

Simply add 1 cup of your liquid of choice into the IP and layer your chicken breasts on top. Sprinkle the taco seasoning (1-2 packets) directly onto the chicken and add your beans and corn. Finish up by adding the uncooked rice and the remaining 2 cups of liquid. Close and seal your IP! Make sure that puppy is sealed! We don't want an explosion on our hands!

Set your IP to manual HIGH pressure for 12 minutes (that's it!), and once the timer goes off do a quick release until your IP is safe to open!

You guys, this is the EASIEST way to do taco bowls! No mess, no hassle and super simple cleanup!

I topped mine with cheddar cheese and plain Greek yogurt (which is the absolute best substitute for sour cream EVER!) After a few bites, my review is..

OMG, what a delicious dish! The chicken was cooked perfectly and shredded immediately with little effort. The rice was cooked perfectly, and all the flavors worked really well together! I have made a recipe similar to this in the crock pot but it was not nearly as delicious!

This recipe is going to become a staple in our house for sure!

Again, if you don't have an IP, GET ONE! You will not regret it!

 

Happy SUNDAY blogger friends!

I am slacking! I made this recipe on Friday night and got so busy with weekend activities that I am just now sitting down to relax (and write)! And just in time for the new week to start! ☺

For me (like many of you I'm sure), this past week was my first FULL week back to work after the holiday season and boy was it LONG! I am proud to say I have stuck to my meal prep ALL week (yes even the vegetarian meals) and tonight I'm going to reward myself with an easy dinner that is just as yummy as it is tasty!


Garlic Bread Pizza! Whos heard of it? I have made this recipe once before, and it was delicious! Friday night and pizza go together as well as peanut butter and jelly! So this yummy variation will do just fine!


The recipe is as follows:


1 jar of pizza sauce (your favorite kind)
Pepperoni or other pizza toppings
3 cups of your favorite cheese (we used a mix)
1 box Texas Toast garlic bread


THATS IT! And I bet most of you have these ingredients in your fridge/pantry already! Not only is this recipe super easy to make, its also extremely cost effective! You can make 8 mini pizzas for under $9! SIGN ME UP! ☺


All you do is preheat your oven, assemble your pizzas, cook em' up for about 5 minutes and eat! DONE! How easy is that? In addition to the 5 minutes of cook time, I broil for about a minute to get that cheese perfectly golden brown!


The only problem with this recipe is how hot it is when it comes out of the oven.. I want to eat it all up so quickly that I end up burning my mouth! So I would recommend letting them cool for at least 90 seconds! I ate mine so fast, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product! Talk about unimpressive! Boy do I need to get it together!


Make them as a side dish, or the main attraction and you wont be disappointed! These mini pizzas are the best of both worlds!


After a long, cold week this was the perfect meal for a Friday night in!


Boone is excited for the weekend, hope you all have a great week ahead! Catch you guys next time!

Philly Cheesesteak! Who doesn't love a good Philly Cheesesteak? I mean I have heard nothing but yummy reviews! Being from the Chicago area, I grew up on Italian Beef from the one and only Portillos!

I have never been to Philly, nor can I say I've had a TRUE cheesesteak. So I decided to try it from home! And because we have given up red meat (still going strong) I found a version that uses chicken! YUM! Oh, and did I mention that this recipe is made using my new best friend. THE IP! (Instant Pot)

The recipe is as follows:

Instant Pot Chicken Philly Cheesesteak!

2lbs chicken breast, cubed

1 onion, thinly sliced (I used yellow onion)

1 large green bell pepper, cleaned and thinly sliced (or if your me, red pepper)

1lb sliced mushrooms (optional)

1C chicken stock (calls for 1/3C, but instant pot rules say minimum 1C of liquid!)

1tbs poultry seasoning (or any seasoning you choose)

1tbs garlic powder

1/2tbs S&P

8 slices provolone cheese

4 buns (I used brioche)

Calories per serving (serves 4-6) : 626 calories (with bun) 467 calories (without bun)

This sounds like its going to be amazing. And the best part is that it is all cooked together in the IP! Easy peasy! I am getting so much more comfortable with my IP that I am giddy with excitement any time I get to use it!

A side note on the IP.. It's true what they say, the sealing ring DOES lock in some of the smells from previous uses, so what I did to clean and sterilize was really quite simple. I cut up two whole lemons and added about 2 1/2 cups of water to be steamed for about 5 minutes. I'm not sure if it was 100% effective but I could taste the difference 😉. 

Ok lets get cookin'!

This recipe was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO EASY! I had the chicken breasts in the fridge, so I trimmed and cubed about 1 1/2 lbs and placed them in the pot. I then seasoned the chicken with poultry seasonings, some garlic and onion powder and mixed it all up. I sliced up the onion, mushrooms and RED pepper. (It called for green, which I thought I had. NEWS FLASH. I did not have green). Mixed all the veggies with the chicken and covered with just over a cup of chicken stock.

I closed the lid, locked it up and set it to manual high pressure for 15 minutes. Once the actual timer started on the IP (it takes a few minutes to preheat) I set my oven to 400 degrees so it would be nice and hot when my chicken was done. I did a quick release (which took about 2 minutes) and loaded up my brioche bun with my chicken mixture, topped it with 2 slices of provolone cheese and popped it in the oven to melt. BOY DID IT MELT!

DING DING DING. That's the sound of my delicious dinner telling me its time to eat! OMG you guys. It was that simple.

When I took it out of the oven it was so bubbly I had to stop myself from devouring it right then and there. Sadly, my bun got a little soggy from the moisture (never a bad thing to have moist chicken!), so I had to eat it open faced with a fork. Over all, this was a delicious meal! The chicken was juicy, tasty, and who doesn't love melted cheese on anything? (If you don't love melted cheese, we are not friends, k bye)!

I would give this a 9/10 simply because my bun was soggy. Now I am totally aware that this was MY fault. The recipe did warn me about the soggy bun possibility that I chose to ignore (for whatever reason). If you guys are Philly Cheesesteak fans looking for a healthy alternative, add this to your list. Just make sure that you buy a GREEN pepper. 😉

 

 

IM BACK!

I hope you enjoyed my first post! I had so much fun writing it, and such positive feedback (other than my dad telling me to shorten it up..), that I thought I would give it another go! I think you guys are going to like this one!

As I mentioned in my last post, I have several kitchen gadgets, and I do, like 1 million. In this post, I'm going to take you guys on a little kitchen gadget adventure. So bare with me, because this is going to get a little crazy.

THE. INSTANT. POT. Dun Dun Dun.... Raise your hand if you have heard of this 'miracle' appliance. Do you all have your hands raised? Good!

I got this gem for Christmas this year and once the excitement of being able to cook things freaky fast wore off, I was feeling one thing, and one thing alone. PURE TERROR. So much terror. I did days of research, reading countless negative comments online and each one more terrifying than the last (why do I do this to myself?). How bad could it really be? I mean, they wouldn't sell something that is known to explode right? RIGHT?

I was (and still am) SO intimidated by this thing. But I was determined to use it. After all, Santa had searched far and wide for this little ticking time bomb. So after reading the safety instructions (and not feeling one bit safer) it was time. I had to use it. Who in their right mind is afraid of a kitchen appliance. ME. That's who.

Other than the initial water test (which was awful) I have used it once since getting it home. I was so worried it was going to explode, that I just stood there staring at it for a good 20 minutes. JUST STARING AT IT YOU GUYS. Like, to the point where I overcooked and ruined the batch of mashed potatoes I was making because I was so focused on what the instant pot was doing. Let me just be very clear about one thing.. Once the lid is closed and the start button is pressed, there is literally nothing that can be done. But that didn't stop me.

Well, its a new year and I'm here to try it again. YEP. And this time I thought, why not try to cook a whole chicken? I mean I have never tried this before, so what's stopping me now? This is supposed to be one of the easier recipes to make, so I'm going to give it a whirl. (Ill just have to wait to make my side dishes this time).

Lets talk about the chicken for a second. Have you ever bought a whole chicken? Well let me just say that I have not. And I was blissfully unaware that it comes with a couple of ORGANS stuffed inside. Oh. My. God. That's all I have to say about that.

The recipe is as follows:

Faux-Tisserie Chicken

For the Chicken:
2 1/2 - 3 lb whole chicken
2 tbsp olive oil
S&P to taste
1/2 medium onion (cut into quarters)
5 large cloves fresh garlic (peeled and left whole)
1 cup chicken stock/broth

For the Southwest Seasoning:
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp basil
Or any seasoning mixture of your choice!

OH BOY. This sounds amazing right? I mean, the fact that it is faux-tisserie is just the best part. There is a zero percent chance that I am going to mess this up. Here's what happened.

I started with the chicken. Now I don't have any children, so nothing could prepare me for how disgusting it is to hold a whole raw chicken. It was GROSS. Once I removed the nasty giblets (it just keeps getting better) I followed the instructions. Lathered him up with olive oil, salt and pepper and placed him in the pot for saute-ing (is that a real word)? It says to saute each side for about 4 minutes, seems easy enough right? WRONG. Once the 2 lb chicken is IN the pot, it is crazy hard to get it OUT. I had no luck. The best I could come up with was dumping the chicken out onto a cutting board and then quickly (before completely burning my fingertips off) placing him back in on the other side.



While my chicken was in the pot doing its thing, I mixed up the seasoning. I used the above recipe without any additions or changes. It was just spicy enough for me.


Once the chicken was done with the first step, I poured him out onto the cutting board (again, couldn't come up with a better way) and let the pot cool. Thats the cool thing about the instant pot, it cools down REALLY fast. Like really fast. Within minutes I could handle the internal pot with bare hands. AMAZING!

I put a little over a cup of chicken broth in the bottom of the pot, added the trivet and lastly in went my chicken, covered in seasonings (breast side up). It was showtime. I kept thinking to myself, you can do it, you've been preparing all day! And I had. Want to know how many times I read the recipe? 11. 11 times. But who's counting?

Thats it! OH.MY.GOSH. I set it to manual high pressure for 25 minutes, and left it at that. I only checked on it 34 1/2 times. The 1/2 is because Reno walked in and I didn't want him to see me obsessing...

It was so easy! Once it was done cooking, I let the steam release naturally (this took about 20 minutes). In the meantime I had cooked up some baked potatoes and creamed corn (I know, but it's Reno's favorite). Successful entrée and sides, all cooked up and ready to go. Holy cow. Had I done it?

We dumped the chicken out and covered it in the broth it had cooked in. You guys, this chicken was falling off the bone. It was crazy! We served it up, and boy was it GOOOOOD. Tender, juicy, flavorful. All the adjectives I was going for. It turned out so much better than I expected. And all 3 of us couldn't get enough! Yes, I allowed Boone to try some! I would give this recipe a 10/10. Anyone who has an instant pot, try this! And if you don't have an instant pot, I feel sorry for you..


BRB, Im gonna go eat the leftover chicken now.

Hi Everybody!


Hold onto your hats because this is my VERY. FIRST. BLOG. POST! I created this blog ( with the full support of my sister-in-law ) to share my experiences in the kitchen with those who are just like me! Inquisitive, innovative, creative and curious! And for those of you that enjoy reading about a girl attempting to make recipes way out of her league, you wont be disappointed.

Its a new year. And we all know what that means, #resolution2018. Now I'm no stranger to half-ass failed attempts at New Years resolutions, but this year, I'm 100% committed to starting anew. Not only have I acquired 43 new kitchen gadgets since this time last year (literally I have everything), but I also have an amazing resolution partner. So this year, is going to be THE year.

Ok so now that we have that out of the way, lets talk about a very important topic. Meat. I like meat. I have always liked meat. And in an effort to focus on my health this year ( along with everyone else 😏 ) I have decided to commit to making half of my meals, wait for it, VEGITARIAN! What am I thinking? This is going to be a tough one to follow through with. Not only did I choose to begin this journey on Taco Tuesday ( practically a holiday in my house ) but did I mention I really like meat? I am determined to make this work, so without further ado, lets talk about what I did for my first vegetarian friendly dish.

Black Bean and Corn Tacos + Avocado Cilantro Lime Sauce. Sounds good right?? The recipe is as follows:

For the (imposter) Taco:

1 15 oz can black beans

1 15 oz can corn 

1 cup salsa

1 tsp. cumin

Corn tortillas

Optional toppings: lettuce, tomato, onion, plain Greek yogurt

For the Sauce:

1/2 ripe avocado

3/4 cup cilantro

Juice from 1 lime

1 clove garlic

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp. honey

Pinch of salt

At first glance, I have to admit, I'm thinking these are going to shape up to be a pretty tasty meal despite them lacking ALL THE MEAT. So here's how it went!

I started with the sauce, and anyone who works with avocado knows that IT IS BLAND! So we ( yes I had a kitchen helper ) made it with the above ingredients first, before adding a million other spices ( red pepper flakes, chili powder, onion powder, cumin, garlic salt ). If I could do it all over again, I would leave out the honey. We like things spicy in our house, so the sweet flavor the honey added forced us to drown it out in spices and sriracha (in true millennial fashion). Just a side note here, I absolutely love to use my food processor. If you don't have one, get one!

That was done, and tasting spicy! So I popped that into the fridge to chill and started the 'meat' of the taco. I drained, rinsed and poured both cans into the skillet and then I just stared at it for a minute. What am I supposed to do with this? To my surprise, it cooked up nicely and once mashed up, had a consistency I could work with. Things were starting to look up!

DONE. It was all done! I couldn't believe it! All these different layers of the tacos complete after only 20 minutes! Assembly was a cinch! We had several toppings to choose from, and I ended with a pretty standard final product. I usually eat my tacos in salad form, but I wanted to experience the full flavor! So it was corn tortillas and all their glory.

I was extremely surprised by the outcome of this meal! I actually ate my entire two tacos and had to stop myself from licking the plate. They were so full of flavor that I hardly noticed I was eating a vegetarian variation ( I like alliterations 😏 ) ! Adding the extra spices to the avocado sauce was the game changer. Each bite I took was better than the one before. The only thing I did not fully enjoy about the final product was the tortillas. They became soggy after only a few minutes and it changed the overall texture of the taco pretty quickly. Other than that, this black bean and corn version give standard beef tacos a run for their money! Even Boone agrees! 😏