Five for Friday
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Puff Pastry Cinnamon Rolls
Yummy, EASY mini puff pastry cinnamon rolls made in a mini-muffin tin! These shortcut cinnamon rolls are perfect for a small dessert or snack for a baby shower or Mother's Day brunch. They have all the flavor of cinnamon rolls in flaky crust with no yeast, rising, or kneading.
What's it called when it's definitely baking in that we turn the oven on, but very low effort?
That's what I think of every time I use frozen puff pastry.
...Pan Fried Tofu with Thai Peanut Sauce
Our 100% favorite plant-based weeknight dinner that we eat at least every other week! Perfect spicy peanut sauce (make it in advance!), crispy pan fried tofu, and slaw with whatever greens you have make for the most delicious vegan rice bowl dinner that is healthy and comforting.
I don't think I've ever said this about anything before (I probably have), but this is hands down our favorite dinner.
We have other things that we love, other things that are in regular rotation, for sure, but this is our dinner. One that we've tweaked and crafted over the years and every time we have it we kind of sink into this "it's healthy but comforting" haze of joy.
...Seriously Good Pimento Cheese (without cream cheese!)
This classic Southern, slightly spicy pimento cheese recipe is absolutely perfect! I love to have pimento cheese homemade with lots of storebought ingredients (crackers, cheese, pickles, etc) for an easy cheese board at a party or for a snack plate dinner! This is extra delicious paired with some homemade focaccia for dunking.
OK SO.
Let us discuss the glory that is pimento cheese, since even if it's not Master's Weekend, we live in the South and love this dip for any and all snacking occasions. Since I started this blog I've made a LOT of pimento cheese, and have tweaked the recipe over the years to a combination that I absolutely adore.
Other people adore it too, and that's not something I say about a lot of the food I make, because I'm insecure. Pimento cheese homemade, though, is something that people of all walks of life really enjoy when it is good. Back when we used to cater large parties this was one of our most-ordered recipes, hands down.
...Lentil Bowls with Cauliflower and Tahini
The best buddha bowls with cauliflower and tahini sauce! These are so delicious for a make ahead lunch, and the pickled onions and tahini sauce can be made in advance for a quick throw-together meal. These bowls are vegetarian, gluten free, and can be served hot, cold, or at room temperature.
When it comes to "healthy" food, I'm careful to not use words like "cheat, guilt, good, bad," and so on. I think that thought pattern surrounding food can be so damaging, but also I agree that in terms of physical health there are foods that are better for our bodies than others, if we're talking lentils vs cheetos.
I love lentils for the cheap + toothsome + nutrition-packed punch they pack in a bowl like this. They are SO flavorful (because salt) and honestly I could eat a bowl of them on their own.
We made this into a fun bowl with bright pink pickled onions, a shortcut gremolata, and toasty roasty cauliflower, one of my favorite substitutes for meat because when roasted it has just the best texture.
...Five for Friday
Crispy Chicken Cutlets
Homemade chicken cutlets for the feezer! These thin-sliced chicken breasts are breaded then cooked right from frozen for the best meal prep entree ever. These can be pan-fried OR baked, and both cooking methods result in crispy, juicy chicken that is absolutely delicious. Think of this as a grown up version of my baked breaded chicken tenders.
Let us make ourselves some chicken cutlets, keep them in the freezer, and call it good. I am so, so into freshly fried or baked crispy chicken without any effort.
...Five for Friday
Crock Pot Tortellini Chicken Soup
One of our favorite all-the-time slow cooker soups, tortellini chicken soup! This is a super easy, all-in-one dish with pasta, chicken, and spinach. There's no searing, hardly any chopping, just one Crock Pot, a few hours of waiting, and dinner is done! This is not terrible at ALL with some homemade focaccia with pizza dough for dunking.
Hello and hi and here's dinner!
I absolutely can't believe it, but almost exactly one year ago my sister and brother in law came over and brought dinner, a slow cooker tortellini situation with chicken and tomatoes and cream. It was delicious.
We joked about how school would probably be cancelled starting that Monday (they're both teachers), joked about handwashing, joked about...everything.
About 36 hours later the entire world shut down and we didn't see each other for months.
...Five for Friday
Pan Fried Potato Chips
Favorite pan fried potato chips are so easy to make yourself at home! These are a great lunch side dish or an offering for a summertime potluck. Just one russet potato makes enough to serve four people, and this recipe is done in an under an hour. I like Greek yogurt onion dip with these.
Let's make chips!
Because our lunches need a yummy side dish every day, right?
...Five for Friday
Tiny Steamed Potatoes
My favorite steamed potatoes recipe ever! Steamed baby potatoes with herb butter cook on the stovetop with just a few ingredients. I love baby yellow or Yukon Gold potatoes for this, but any small potato you enjoy works great! These are particularly delicious made into a meal with cast iron skillet salmon or prime rib and a lemon kale salad.
Say hello to our new favorite GF side dish! Tiny baby potatoes, simmered and steamed and lightly crispy from butter + salt, tossed in any herbs you have, just super duper simple happiness all around.
These steamed potatoes are simple and quick to make - I serve them all the time and just change the herbs I use so they go with whatever I'm serving them with!
Five for Friday
- Three years ago I made this super easy curry shrimp (and still do alllll the time), and just WOWOW. I wasn't even pregnant with Will yet. It was an entire human ago. But, memory lane aside, it's a really delicious recipe and you should absolutely make it.
- I'm reading (going to finish this weekend hopefully!) Nine Perfect Strangers right now and omgomgomg it is so good. I love everything Liane Moriarty does, but this is better to me than Big Little Lies. HIGHLY recommend. I am so into it in that "please literally anything get cancelled" want to devour every word kind of way.
- SPEAKING OF. I've had a few clients cancel this week because they just couldn't do the work of therapy, and you know what? We love that. Therapy is hard work, and if you don't have it in you to show up every once in awhile it is completely fine. Taking a mental health day from mental health is totally a thing.
- SPEAKING OF 2.0. I have an idea for a series, kind of Q&A with a therapist about how counseling works, considerations we have, maybe even down to the finances/insurance/licenses. Would that be interesting to you? I've gotten a lot of questions about the process recently and am thinking the whole thing is way more mysterious than it should be if you've never been to a counselor or therapist.
- Happy weekend! It's finally not raining or snowing, so we are going to attempt to plant a winter garden and get some fresh air in our lungs. I know lots of you in Texas and other parts of the country are in.for.it. for the next little bit and I'm so, so sorry. Stay warm.
Easy Chocolate Mousse
Super yummy easy chocolate mousse! This is my favorite chocolate mousse recipe in that it is totally foolproof, works BEST when made in advance, and is an easy gluten free dessert for dinner parties and guests. Chocolate mousse is definitely the at-home dessert we need more of!
For Valentine's Day! Or for your weekend, you do you.
A few nights ago Jay and I were ignoring each other on our devices before we fell asleep, as you do, and all of a sudden he was all "what should we do for Valentine's Day?" I probably replied "I want to keep reading stop talking to me," but honestly we don't always do anything for Valentine's Day. We definitely don't exchange gifts, but we've done flowers and fun dates and cooked fun food together over the years. Valentine's Day falls at a time of year where I'm travelling a lot on the weekends, and now that we have Beck we'd rather relax and enjoy family time with no work (the 7 days a week is getting awful), so I'm hopeful that's what we'll do this weekend leading up to the day.
...Five for Friday
Gluten Free Chocolate Cake (with quinoa!)
This gluten free chocolate cake is a BLENDER CAKE that has just a few ingredients and comes together in under an hour! It's totally foolproof and doesn't taste like it's trying to be healthy at all. Instead, think "is it a brownie, is it a cookie, do I care because it's covered in chocolate ganache frosting?"
It's here, it's here! ....Valentine's Day? To be clear, we celebrate very minimally on V-day, maybe make a big fancy meal, although we technically celebrate our dating anniversary on Valentine's Day - TEN YEARS, where did the time go.
Oh, I know, the time went into the pandemic vortex like the rest of my soul.
...Easy Japanese Sweet Carrots
Just like the kind you find on hibachi plates, Japanese sweet carrots to level up your homemade Japanese fusion food! Make these super easy sweet glazed carrots a meal with my favorite hibachi steak, hibachi shrimp, and hibachi vegetables!
More hibachi! This time my favorite little nibbly side dish, the sweet carrots that come on the side of hibachi meals, mainly of the takeout variety.
...15 Minute Hibachi Steak
Steak in just 10 minutes! This recipe for hibachi steak has just 6 ingredients and cooks in about the same amount of time it takes to steam some rice. I use sirloin steak cubes for a super affordable option, but this is also delicious with ribeye steak.
YEAH YEAH YEAH!! ..is my reaction to hibachi steak bowls early in the week in January.
Since the dawn of this blog (you're like, calm down), hibachi recipes and Asian-fusion recipes have been some of our favorites to make, and your favorites to read. The top recipes of all time (and, kind of by a lot) are hibachi shrimp and spicy crab salad (like in sushi!), and honestly they're some of my favorites too.
I think with the hibachi method in general, the hot pan + quick cooking nature of things make them really attractive to us: real people trying to feed our families good food in a reasonable amount of time.
...Cabbage Roll Soup
Cabbage roll soup is a low carb soup version of traditional cabbage rolls; ground meat, cabbage, sweet, tangy tomato sauce. This recipe has just a few ingredients and comes together in half an hour or so. It's a great soup for freezing or meal prep - leftovers are delicious!
It's time for a super easy new cabbage and beef soup recipe.
One of those recipes that is comforting, cozy, filling (with bread dunked into it obviously), but requires no last minute rushing around to get food hot + crispy. It's 2021 on the last day of DJT's presidency in the middle of a pandemic and honestly we need food that just stays, you know? No emotional fortitude necessary, just an easy soup recipe.
...Five for Friday
Five for Friday
One Pot Chicken Parmesan Pasta
One of our absolute favorite weeknight family dinner recipes, this 5-ingredient one pot chicken parmesan pasta is done in about half an hour. If you're looking for easy chicken recipes for dinner with few ingredients, you've come to the right place! For a low carb version of chicken parmesan, my one skillet chicken parm is a forever-favorite with super easy no-knead bread.
Happy 2021! Don't say it too loudly.
...10 Basic Recipes to Master in 2021
Ok, one day left in 2020. One! We did it.
Now, I don't exacccctly know what 2021 will bring, but one thing that I have absolutely loved this year is seeing so many people learn how to cook new things!
One of the things that I think has been so important this year is the idea of caring for yourself and doing things at home alone (sad, yes), even if they aren't necessarily your favorite things. I have a dear friend who dislikes cooking, but damn it if her Insta isn't full of wonderful, nourishing foods for her family week in and week out of this year.
...Best Spaghetti Meat Sauce Recipe
My favorite slow cooked Sunday sauce recipe! This is a version of Sam the Cooking Guy's Bolognese recipe featuring tons of veggies, beef, and a few special ingredients. The recipe is super simple and simmers for a long time to develop a perfect Sunday gravy flavor and OMG the house smell. Best ever.
Hello and hi, let's finish this year with an uber bang. I've been talking with a lot of people recently about things that I make that never change, staples that I think are so handy for everyone to be able to make all the time. A good salad dressing, one kind of bread, that sort of thing.
This easy Bolognese sauce is a new-to-me recipe that I've been working on for a few months. I watched Sam the Cooking Guy make this Bolognese on YouTube, and I loved the method, ingredients, all of it. The key to the flavor in this Bolognese is that we use stock, wine, and milk to flavor and enrich the sauce so that it's super hearty without being creamy by the end.
...No Bake Chocolate Mousse Pie
For the countdown to Christmas, a super easy no bake chocolate pie recipe! This pie has the best chocolate mousse ever as a filling, a par-baked pie crust, and keeps perfectly in the fridge for several days. I love all kinds of chocolate pies at the holidays (this chocolate chess pie is another huge hit!), and this one is a huge favorite!
Welp. Christmas time is here.
I'm sure everyone in the world is thinking and talking about and writing the same "what a strange holiday" lines, and it's true, everything is strange. It seems like lots of people are kind of used to the strange at this point; we know nothing will be like it is normally but that doesn't stop us from wanting it, at least not for me.
The endless back and forth of hard decisions with no clear answer, hurt feelings, fake news, and on and on and on is getting to us as a culture, and some of the best "answers" I've heard for how Christmas will go down this year is somewhere along the lines of "the same but way less."
This no bake chocolate pie recipe is 100% "the same but way less." It's a really, really good recipe for chocolate pie, and it's really, really easy. There's nothing to do besides bake a pre-made pie crust, whip some cream, add chocolate, and chill while it chills.
I couldn't help myself.
...About a Beck! 5 years old.
Five! A lovely round number. I can't even believe it.
I always think on birthdays and big events about life "before," or "when this all started," that type of thing. 5 years ago? Totally different jobs for both of us, different house, different pets, different selves.
Of course Beck has changed a ton in the last 5 years, but we've changed right along with her.
...Five for Friday
Easy White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Cookies
These chewy cookies are just like subway white chocolate macadamia cookies but so much better! I add almond extract for some extra special bakery taste that complements the white chocolate chips so well. And, yes, if you find Funfetti chocolate chips like I did you should 100% use them in this recipe.
First full week of December, we made it!
Let's talk about productive procrastination:
...Creamy Lobster Pasta With Lemon Cream Sauce
Channeling major Kate-Winslet-The-Holiday Christmas pasta recipe vibes with this super easy creamy lobster pasta recipe! Lobster tails are easier to break down than a whole lobster, and the rest of the dish is done in under 20 minutes. I have a lobster mac and cheese recipe too for even more creamy lobster!
Oh HELLO, gorgeous little plate of creamy pasta, tender lobster chunks, and lemon + pepper all over everything. This is one of the BEST creamy seafood pasta recipes you'll ever eat, hands down.
Let's get right into this lobster pasta cream sauce of joy situation.
Five for Friday (black friday edition!)
Five for Friday
Goodbye To Callie
8-Ingredient Small Thanksgiving Dinner
Two weeks until Thanksgiving! And in less than two weeks we'll be elbow deep in stuffing prep, right?
I will be, at least.
I've shared a few new Thanksviging menu recipes this year, and now is the moment that we get our Thanksgiving menu planning hats on and get to work. Lists, prep, groceries, etc.
This year I'm making two new menus - One that is going to be a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for larger groups, and one small Thanksgiving dinner menu plan for gatherings that are just you and some besties. It's Thanksgiving Menu 2020, COVID-style.
...Easy Roasted Cornish Game Hens
Super simple buttermilk cornish game hens roasted to perfection! This recipe has only 3 ingredients and is a fabulous Thanksgiving turkey alternative. The smaller size makes them much more manageable, and they roast in just an hour, leaving time for all of the other yummy side dishes you're making to heat up!
Two and a half weeks to Thanksgiving!
There's another countdown in my head to January 20, 2021, BUT I DIGRESS.
...Five for Friday
Potatoes Romanoff
What is Potatoes Romanoff? Only the best twice baked potato casserole recipe in the world! Envision: leftover baked potatoes, fused with cheese, butter, sour cream, and seasonings. I love this for a super easy Thanksgiving side dish that can be made ahead, but it's also delicious as a meal prep side dish served with my favorite marinated grilled chicken for dinner!
Great news!
We are staving off election and pandemic jitters with carbs and dairy.
What can I say except, you're welcome? (listening to a lot of Moana recently, Will's choice)
...Five for Friday
Sheet Pan Sausage and Veggies
Hey hey, fall sheet pan dinner recipe! This sheet pan sausage and root veggies comes with its very own warm spinach salad made right.on.the.freaking.pan. The ingredients are simple, the method is foolproof, and the salad dressing is seriously, drinkably delicious.
Omg how is it fall, look at us broken records acting like we don't understand time. Like seriously.
...Five for Friday
