August 2015 Favorites

Hi everyone, it's been a while! I've had a busy month, so had to take a little break from blog posts for a bit. If you saw my Facebook post, you know I'm hoping to get back into the semi-regular post groove this month. It definitely won't be as frequent as I was doing, and I have canceled some of my indie subscriptions. Not for any other reason other than I was just not as excited about a few of them, and they were the ones that are pretty easy to sign back up for. And honestly, I don't even know if I'll be able to review all of my subscriptions like I was, so just a heads up.

Now to my favorites for August! Despite not writing reviews, I did actually wear makeup and perfume quite a bit. For some reason, traveling actually makes me wear my makeup everyday because I know I'll be going out and about, and I have a bit more time in the morning to do it each day. I tried a bunch of my products I had purchased before going on a strict no-buy, and I'm already working on my September favorites list. Also, I need to majorly destash! I'm planning on getting a sell post up on the Indie Makeup And More subreddit this Sunday, so if you are there look out for that. It will be a lot of duplicates I have, tons of bath and body, eyeshadow, and perfume.

Recipe Thursdays: Halal Cart-Style Chicken and Rice with White Sauce

Welcome to Recipe Thursdays! I said I was going to do recipes again once a week, and here is the first one I've done in a while. I haven't cooked much lately, but I have a huge backlog of food photos and recipes I've made and wanted to post. Hopefully, some of you find something delicious to cook for dinner with these posts!

The first recipe, is something I made last week while I was staying over at B's parents' house, we had some extra chicken thighs and I've been wanting to make this recipe for a while. As always I adapted the recipe to suit my needs, so that's the recipe I will post, with the changes I made. But feel free to use the original instead, or use your own adaptation! Cooking shouldn't be about following directions to the T, but instead doing what feels right to you, and making changes you feel is right for the recipe. Or changing things to save time! I do that a lot. Here's the recipe for Halal Cart-Style Chicken and Rice with White Sauce.

Simple Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes, Basil, and Parmesan Cheese Recipe

This was a simple pasta dish I made for lunch the other day with some of the Pasta Gravy I got from my April Hatchery Box! I wouldn't call the Pasta Gravy anything super special, but it was very spicy! If you like spicy things, especially sauces it might be for you. But you can always use a regular marinara sauce. I just served the pasta and sauce with some fresh chopped basil, tomato slices, and Parmesan cheese. This dish is very quick and easy to make, but it looks so colorful and fun for the Summer or anytime of year.

Chocolate Croissants and Fruit Salad

For Mother's Day breakfast, I made these frozen chocolate croissants from Trader Joe's and a simple strawberry and mango fruit salad! Whenever I would go to a coffee place or bakery when I was younger I would always order a chocolate croissant. They are my favorite breakfast pastry, and I was excited to discover that the frozen ones from Trader Joe's are very good! Like surprisingly good. They have to sit out overnight, so there is some planning involved, but you just leave them out on a baking sheet over night, and they'll be defrosted and risen for baking in the morning. There are only 4 in the box, but they do get pretty large once baked. And they are so flaky and buttery! I highly recommend them if you're looking for an easy way to have chocolate croissants from home.

I mean come on, look at those!

Plated Meals Week April 18th and 50% Off Code (Two Meals FREE!)

Plated sends you the fresh ingredients to make meals at home, all sent directly to your house! It's so convenient and even on the busiest nights, it's so easy to make a home cooked meal in about 30 minutes.

Plated lets you pick your delivery day, Tuesday or Friday, and in some locations they also offer Monday delivery. It's overnighted via FedEx, and usually arrives fairly early in the day, plenty of time to prepare it for dinner that night.

I decided on the Basil Beef Bowl with Quinoa Stir-Fry, and the Roasted Lamb with Agrodolce Pearl Onions and Mashed Potatoes.

Mango, Quinoa, and Black Bean Salad Recipe

This is a very easy and healthy salad to make. I only recently started eating quinoa, but I've had very interesting and delicious recipes made with it. You can even use it to make a breakfast egg casserole! You can cook quinoa a few different ways, in a pot, or I've been using my rice cooker lately. Either way you do it, treat it a little like pasta and add salt to the water it's cooking in.

BBQ Mayo French Fry Sauce Recipe

I just got some of these frozen fries from Costco, they're the Alexis Sea Salt French Fries, and I've been having them as a snack a few days this week. These frozen fries are actually really good, and they get really crispy even from the oven. Of course, me being me, I had to make a sauce for them, so here's the recipe from my creation! It involves some mayo and BBQ sauce, and like usual, a few other strange ingredients so like I always say, feel free to substitute ingredients! I don't think I've ever recreated a recipe without substituting something, and sometimes your innovation can make your dish even better!

I find that mayonnaise makes the best base for most french fry sauces, and it's something I always have on hand. We use the one made with Olive Oil, but you can use any kind you'd like.

Avocado Toast Recipe

I saw a photo of Avocado Toast on Instagram a few weeks back, and was craving it so much I finally bought the ingredients to make some myself! This is one of my new favorite snacks, (or meals!) now and so easy to change up and make in just a few minutes. It's great when you're starving and don't want to take a lot of time to make a meal.

Shamrock Milkshake Recipe

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you! I have a delicious and green-inspired treat to share with all of you today! This was a last minute dessert I made that I didn't even have the proper ingredients for, so I improvised. I don't know why I felt the need to be so festive, I'm not Irish (as far as I know) and generally I don't care for mint chocolate anything! But this was delicious and I highly recommend trying it for St. Patrick's Day dessert!

Lasagna Recipe

I went up to Lake Tahoe this past weekend for a little last minute getaway with B and his brother. While, they were out snowboarding I was in the hotel getting some work done (I'm a terrible snowboarder and I get too frustrated, so I've given up long ago), and making lasagna for dinner! It was a little weird that there was no snow at the hotel ground level, the guys said the snow on the mountain was pretty good. They went to Heavenly, but last time we went to Squaw and they had much more snow at the hotel, but less on the mountain! I think next time the plan is Kirkwood, they always seem to have tons of snow, even with the drought, and low snow levels.

Luckily our hotel had a kitchenette and I brought all the necessary ingredients. Other than forgetting to bring the egg, and the pan with the sauce filled to the top while it was cooking, I didn't have any big problems cooking it in our suite. I brought a cooler with our ingredients, and an aluminum pan for the lasagna. I cooked and put it all together before the guys came back, and just popped it in the oven once we were ready for dinner. You can serve it with a Casesar salad or garlic bread, or beer like we did!

Hashbrowns with Eggs, Cheese, Avocado, Sour Cream, and Salsa Recipe

I make this dish every so often, when I want a great breakfast dish, but doesn't require a lot of work or time. It's fairly hands-off when it comes to the effort put into this dish, but is a great payoff in how delicious it is!

Chorizo Fried Rice Recipe

Chorizo Fried Rice is one of my favorite go-to easy to make recipes when I'm over at B's apartment. It only requires a few ingredients, doesn't take a lot of effort, and is so delicious! I wouldn't call it "healthy" but is a great snack, side dish, or meal in itself.

Superbowl Dinner - Braciole

We were going to make wings for dinner today for the Superbowl, but we had a flank steak in the fridge and I found this recipe for it. Definitely not a very traditional Superbowl meal, but it was very easy to make and you can let it simmer in the oven for an hour and a half so you could make it ahead of time for the game, or have it cooking before the game starts. I served it with some roasted parmesan asparagus, which was tossed in some olive oil, salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese, then roasted in a 400 degree F oven, for 15-20 minutes.

Quinoa Salad with Asparagus, Feta Cheese, and Olives

I made this quick and easy Quinoa Salad for dinner last night, and it turned out very delicious! I don't think I've ever had quinoa before or cooked with it, so it was a bit of an experiment. I modified the recipe quite a bit, as I always seem to do, so the recipe below is my altered version, with the link being the actual recipe I semi-followed. You can kind of treat this salad like a Greek salad as well, and add any other ingredients you might put in a Greek salad, such as cucumbers, kalamata olives, or even some red onion might be good.

Simple Sesame Noodles with Steak

For Christmas, I got a Pioneer Woman cookbook, she's one of my favorite bloggers and one of the few Food Network shows I (try to) watch every week. Occasionally I flip through the cookbook to figure out what to make for dinner. We decided on this, which is a alternate recipe to Pioneer Woman's Simple Sesame Noodle recipe, with added marinated steak. It's a very delicious, simple meal to make for dinner or lunch.

Plated Thai-Style Pork Salad with Papaya and Mint

I already made this recipe in my Plated January 7th box review, but I made it again the other day, and thought I'd add the full recipe here. Along with any of my notes regarding differences between cooking it myself, and the actual recipe which you can find here. This is one of my favorite things I've made, so I highly recommend this recipe! Such an interesting combination I never would have thought of on my own, but now it might be a go-to recipe!

Asian Hot Wings

I received a Pioneer Woman cookbook for Christmas, and I've said it before in some of my posts, Ree Drummond is my favorite food blogger. I watch her Food Network show and whenever I'm looking for a recipe I look at her recipes and Alton Brown's recipes first. I was flipping through her cookbook, and saw the Asian Hot Wing recipe. We keep party wing packs in the freezer, whenever they go on sale. So I adapted the recipe quite a bit, but it was still delicious, and incredibly spicy. I love spicy foods, the more my nose runs and my eyes water the better I always say! But if you don't like spicy you may want to keep away from this recipe, or adapt it to your spice tolerance.

The original recipe calls for frying the wings, but it makes such a mess and requires constant attention. I've found you can oven fry them with much less mess, and no attention required except a timer.

*Note: The original recipe also calls for 2 Tbsp of minced red onion. I skipped this mostly because I was feeling lazy, but if you wanted a less spicy version of this you could leave the onions in, and skip some or all of the jalapeños and red pepper flakes.

Nectarine Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

I randomly threw together this salad, and it turned out to not only be beautiful to photograph, but also delicious and refreshing as well. It was just some romaine lettuce, chopped cucumber, celery, diced nectarine, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, and poppy seed dressing. I used some pre-made dressing, but have also had this salad with homemade dressing. Homemade is good, but hard to get that same taste in the dressing as store-bought. You could go either way.

Pasta with Bacon and Brussels Sprouts

This turned out to be a very simple and easy dish to make. And since I only had a few ingredients on hand, namely bacon, pasta, and brussels sprouts, it was the perfect dish. If you think you don't like brussels sprouts, I highly recommend trying to cook them in this dish, because it makes them crispy and gives them great flavor. And don't laugh at my paper plate because in the place I am, there are never any clean plates.

Guinness Shepherd's Pie

It's almost St. Patrick's Day! I heard of this dish somewhere recently, and decided it would be a perfect dish for the holiday weekend. I had to make it a day early because people weren't going to be home to share it with on the actual day, so I made it tonight, and everyone can just binge on leftovers for the next couple of days. It was also a nice excuse to get some Guinness beer for celebrating as well! ; )

I looked online for a good recipe for this, and I'd say it turned out pretty good. I think next time though I'd adapt my original Shepherd's Pie recipe I normally use and add the Guinness to it. But this one works pretty well. I had to adapt it a little so I could dirty fewer dishes and some of the original ingredient amounts didn't quite work. Anyways, check out the recipe below.