Monday, June 6, 2011

A healthy take on a very fried dish

Hi! It's been a while since I posted. So my camera is not working but I would've LOVED to have taken a picture of the dishes that I just made for dinner. Actually, you can see the pictures on the website I'm about to link you to. Anyways, I will admit, I still eat like a kid. I mean, I'm not so past those years but at the same time, i still eat like a kid.

I was really picky as a kid meaning my family would go to restaurants and I could usually order about one or two things on the menu. My go to was always, drum roll please, chicken fingers. Yep, that's right!

Last summer I stumbled across the website Sugarlaws (http://www.sugarlaws.com/) when I was looking for a good souffle recipe. I actually tried to my first souffle last year - it was a banana souffle and guess what? It did not fall! I hate it when souffles fall. It's kind of like seeing your hopes and dreams come to a crash. Okay, maybe I'm being a little dramatic but it was so exciting that the souffle did NOT fall. But getting of the tangent train, I've been addicted to Sugarlaws ever since last summer and constantly cook from it. The woman who writes it is a food/fashion blogger and she's fantastic! Her blog actually inspired me to write this one.

So tonight, I made her chicken fingers - http://www.sugarlaws.com/oven-baked-chicken-fingers-with-honey-mustard (I don't actually use the honey mustard but my sister loves it!) and to go with it the sweet potato fries -  http://www.sugarlaws.com/sweet-potato-fries. Just to be clear, these recipes are completely Sugarlaws. I did NOT write them. I absolutely adore chicken fingers and fries and still like to order them out but don't you just feel kind of gross after eating them? I know I do. But these recipes are guilt free!! The chicken fingers are coated with Panko breadcrumbs which are these airy, fluffy, and crunchy Japanese breadcrumbs. No worries, you can buy them in the supermarket. And the sweet potato fries are literally just coated in olive oil and seasoning and then baked. Yes, baked and they are delicious! My advice is to double the recipe because you really will eat all of them in under five minutes. Both recipes are delicious AND healthy!

When coating the chicken fingers, I acutally like to dip them in the egg, then in flour, and then back in the egg before I put the breadcrumbs on just to create a solid coating. But yeah, the links are here to check out the recipes and enjoy! I thoroughly reccomend Sugarlaws as a blog. It is fantastic!

Tata for now,

J

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Go-to breakfast wrap!

Alright, well I kind of decided it was ABOUT time that I started blogging about food because yes, that was the original intention. So onto food. The thing that I most love about reading other people's blogs are the personal anectdotes that they tell on them. So here goes...

As a kid, I was never too much of a breakfast fan. In seventh grade (I believe) I think I skipped breakfast entirely. Most of the time, breakfast consisted of pop tarts or little bites... I've now realized that this a complete mistake and really? Little bites and pop tarts? As much as I like that kind of stuff, sometimes that's just too much sugar for me that early in the morning and completely dismisses the point of breakfast. Isn't breakfast supposed to be about giving your start of the day a boost with long lasting energy?

I was also quite a picky kid and wasn't even quite sure I liked eggs until I hit high school. Yeah... I know, weird but now I love them. I guess that was nature's giant neon sign screaming: You need more protein! I'm not a huge meat person and actually on eat chicken. I guess you could call this a "white meat vegetarian" or a "polotarian" and what not but I'll just be honest, I DO eat chicken. Chicken is meat. Meat does not equal vegetarian!

But that's besides the point. There's this lovely little farmers' market in downtown Sarasota, Florida that my family and I always visit when we're visiting the extended family. We walk around, look at the art, enjoy the live music, and usually end up getting breakfast. I think one of my favorite parts about it is the fresh pasta stand. Nothing beats the smell of fresh pasta. We usually end up getting a breakfast wrap from this one stand. The ones I usually get consist of scrambled eggs, cheese, potato, and onion. When I first had it, my mom said to me, "Wow these are great! Perhaps we could recreate them because you need more protein in your diet". Haha, okay, thanks, Mom. And of course, two years later, I finally decided to. I kind of went ahead and made up the recipe as I went when I was too lazy to go through with an entire Spanish Omelete. Yes, I was being lazy but let me just say that the laziness ended up working out for me in the end.

And just as a side note, it makes your house smell delicious. It just smells like... breakfast. The smell of the potatoes and onions together is really nice :)

Ingredients:

6 small potatoes - you can use as many as you want but this usually makes a good amount
3/4 an onion - once again, you can use more to accomdate the potatoes
Any kind of shredded cheese, I use cheddar
Flour tortilla wraps
3 eggs
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
Milk

1. Wash potatoes and then peel. Most of the time I don't peel the skin off though, but that means you just have to wash them well! Cut up into slices, and then cut the slices into cubes. The slices do not have to be super thin but can be whatever width you want them to be. It's really up to you!

2. Heat the olive oil on in a skillet or saute pan and then cut up the onion in small pieces. I like to leave them in little slivers.

3. Once the olive oil is heated, add the potatoes and let them brown before adding the onions. You'll know when the onions are done heating because they'll start to get translucent. Make sure that you stir the onion potato mix and evenly heat everything. Feel free to add whatever else you'd like, like peppers or zucchini, this is just what I like to use.

4. Crack the three eggs into a bowl and whisk until blended. You may add a pinch of salt for flavor. Add some milk, as if you were making scrambled eggs -- just enough for the eggs to turn a pale yelllow color instead of the bright color of the egg yolks. Now here's the part that is up to you. What I ended up doing was adding the egg mix into the skillet with the potato and onion and ended up treating it like scramble. That's one option. The other option is to scramble it separately and then just add them into the tortilla wrap. That's up to you but I do suggest option 1 and treating it as a scramble.

5. Once the scrambled eggs/onion/potato mix is done (the eggs are fully done), lay out a flour tortilla and add the egg mixture in the middle of the tortilla wrap. Fold the bottom half in, and then the sides in and on top of the bottom tail end, creating a wrap that is open at the top. Voila! There's my go to breakfast recipe :). Horray for breakfast wraps!

- J

Friday, May 20, 2011

Go Radio


Yes, I also talk about music on here. Or at least that's what I'd love to do since the three things that I love most are music, writing, and cooking. So why not blend them all into one lovely, little blog? So tonight I saw the favorite band of mine, Go Radio. I guess you could say that they're the genre of alternative/punk rock but they are so much different than the rest of the bands in that genre.

The thing that I admire most about Go Radio is that they ARE NOT like the other bands. Most of the time I listen to this kind of music because it's aesthetically pleasing to me -- not for good quality music and lyrics. It's just nice, poppy, catchy stuff I can listen to have a fun listening to. It's a little bit like radio music. Most of the stuff on there is actually pretty bad (bad lyrics, terrible subject matter, autotuned voices, etc) but it's so catchy and hey, if you like it, you like it. No need to try and NOT like something just because it's mainstream and too trashy or whatever. But the thing about Go Radio is that they not only have a great sound, but they also have beautiful lyrics, clever and catchy tunes, and most importantly raw heart, emotion, and soul. Jason Lancaster, the lead singer in the band throws his heart and soul into the songs. They are beautifully written and lyrics just seem to mean so much.

The guys in the band actually came out and made themselves available to talk to after the show. I have a lot of respect for those who greet their fans because I mean hey, I'd love to talk to you! But it's more than that. Their fans are who support them... why not show them that you're grateful for them? But they came out and talked to pretty much everyone in the room and were all friendly, kind, and gratituous.

Thank you Go Radio for a lovely evening.

Cooking blogs coming soon once I start getting less busy!!

- J

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Welcome to the blogging world!

So let me just start by saying that this if my frist blog. I've been reading blogs for quite a few years now and always wanted to start my own and finally today, I did! I especially enjoy reading cooking blogs because well, I love to cook. I'm no cooking genius or anything but I enjoy cooking. I usually take a lot of recipes from online and other blogs which is mainly what I'll do, but the whole purpose of this blog (at least for me) is to tell my story about the dishes that I make. I love taking pictures of what I cook, I love to write, and I love to share the recipes along with a personal anecdote. I know, it sounds cheesy but I can't help myself. So here goes... Let the great experiment begin!

- J