Take-Out Fake-Out: Curry Fried Rice

Every single person is super busy, especially in today’s day and age. Some days (usually hump day), the last thing you want to do is cook dinner.

That take-out menu is calling your name- Chinese? Thai? Sandwiches? Just one click or call away!

However, I usually find that if I get just a little creative, I can easily whip up a spicy, savory, hearty meal!

Let me preface this by saying I am such a huge fan of frozen vegetables – at any given moment you will find packets beyond packets of frozen corn, peppers, carrots & peas, and all those “steamable” vegetable mixes. Do not let the frozen food aisle lead you astray – these babies were picked at the peak of freshness and then frozen, so they are so incredibly delicious every single time. I use these frozen veggies in everything from last minute enchiladas/fajitas to an easy side with grilled meat.

So taking a packet of frozen peas & carrots and some frozen corn, along with chicken I grilled (although 9/10 times i use whatever chicken I have on hand!), and some of that fantastic 90 second garlic quinoa-brown rice* (time saver!), I have a phenomenal Chicken Curry Fried Rice!

(Disclaimer – yes you can take all fresh ingredients, obviously. I am just lazy. Also the below recipe is just for 1-2 people, I usually save half for lunch the next day.)

Processed with VSCO with a6 preset

 

Ingredients

• 1 Chicken Breast (although leftover rotisserie chicken shredded, grilled chicken, or any meat substitute would do just fine)
• 1 Egg
• 1 Packet of 90 second garlic quinoa brown rice (*=you can get these kinds of rice packets at any grocery store but I have an obsession with this particular stuff)
• 1/2 Yellow Onion – diced
• 1/3 Packet Frozen corn
• 1/3 Packet Frozen Peas & Carrots
• 1 Tsp Sesame Oil
• 1 Tsp Rice Wine Vinegar
• 1 Tsp Soy Sauce
• 1 Tsp Sambal Oelek (you can use Sriracha but this stuff is beyond perfection)
• 1 Tsp Chicken Curry Powder (+ about a pinch for the chicken)

1. Heat pan over medium heat
2. Place chicken inside some plastic wrap
3. Using a rolling pin, firmly pat the chicken until it is about the same thickness all around. (This will help to ensure faster cooking time.) Add some salt and pepper to both sides of your chicken and a sprinkle of curry powder
4. Drizzle about 1 tsp olive oil to the pan and add the chicken. Let it cook fully.
5. Microwave that 90 second rice!
6. Remove the chicken and place onto cutting board.
7. In same pan, add diced onions. Cook about 30 seconds.
8. Add the frozen veggies. Let them warm up. (Just a couple minutes)
9. Cut the chicken into bite size cubes (again note, if you have leftover chicken, this goes by even faster!)
10. Add the rice and chicken back into the pan along with about another 1 tsp of olive oil and the 1 tsp of curry powder.
11. Last step – IMPORTANT – crack the egg into a small ramekin or bowl, whisk. Add into the rice. Stir the rice around. Essentially scrambling the egg into the rice. Not gonna lie, this makes the fried rice so much better!

Eat & Enjoy!

PS – I only used 1 tsp of curry powder – use more at your own risk 🙂

“Cajun” Makes Everything Sound Better

My boyfriend has a strong belief that the word “cajun” makes all food sound better.

So we decided to test it out:

• Chicken Alfredo CAJUN chicken alfredo
• Cornbread CAJUN cornbread
• Potato wedges CAJUN potato wedges

So far, pretty delicious right?…it didn’t last long. Below is the list of things that do NOT sound better:

• cajun ice cream (and I’m not talking some fancy pecan butterscotch ice cream! I mean with cajun spice)
• cajun peanut butter

yeah…

So where is this going and am I just rambling (probably yes)? Today’s recipe of course!

Ever since I first heard Food Network chefs mention the word “roux”, I knew my life had changed. I have never gone back to boxed macaroni and cheese, alfredo sauces, or bechamels. (Unless I’m super lazy….which happens more than I care to admit.) However, sometimes I just get the hunkering for a creamy, cajun pasta, so hence, today’s recipe:

Cajun Chicken Pasta

• 1 tbsp butter (I use Smart Balance)
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1/2 cup – 2/3 cup skim milk (add more if you want more sauce)
• salt
• pepper
• cajun spice mix (I am lazy – judge-free zone!!)
• 10 asparagus chopped
• 1/4 cup red onion chopped
• 1 red bell pepper chopped
• 1 clove garlic – finely chopped
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 cup orecchiette
• 1 chicken breast (obvi add more if you have more than one person…)

Warning: this involves some juggling of pots and pans/multi-tasking…but it comes together pretty quickly.

Pasta

1. Bring a pot of water to boil.

2. Add salt.

3. Add pasta. (duh)

4. When al-dente (you know, cooked but still has a little bite to it! A la Food Network), use a cup to reserve a cup of the starchy pasta water (this will help with the sauce). Drain the pasta.

Chicken

5. Add olive oil to a pan – medium heat.

6. Add cajun spice to both sides of chicken.

7. Cook thoroughly.

8. Remove, cool, cut into bite-size pieces.

Vegetables

9.  Coat a pan with the olive oil and heat to medium high.

10. Add in the onions – heat through (till onions are starting to carmelize)

11. Add the peppers and asparagus

12. Add salt, pepper, and garlic. Lower heat.

Creamy Cajun Sauce

13. In a separate pan, melt the butter and add the flour.

14.. Mix together. (this is the “roux”)

15. Slowly add the milk.

16. Mix with a whisk – get all the clumps of the roux. This will act as a thickener for your sauce. Be patient!! It takes time.

17. Add cajun spice mix. Whisk into sauce, and reduce heat to let the sauce thicken. Don’t let it stand too long, every couple minutes, stir.

Put All Together

18. Add chicken and pasta to the pan with the vegetables.

19. Add the sauce.

20. Add about a quarter of the cup of pasta water – add more as needed to get the sauce mingled with the pasta.

21. Mix the pasta, sauce, chicken and veggies.

22. EAT. (Isn’t that why you did all this work?!?)

Close Up:

Not gonna lie – I ate it all 🙂

Hope you guys like it…and for those of you adventurous enough to try other cajun themed foods, hope they turn out just as delicious!!

Food Restrictions be Damned!

So I’m standing in the middle of Kroger, on the phone with my sister, asking her how far my family has gotten in their trip. My parents and sister had gotten all bundled up and were coming up to Michigan for the weekend to visit me! I figured, what would be better than an awesome home-cooked meal to welcome them with?

I had spent the whole week thinking of what I should cook; my mom and sister are vegetarian, which automatically took out half of my recipes. I had settled on an awesome kale and spinach white lasagna (My mouth is watering just thinking about it…), and a big salad. Plain and simple but hearty and delicious.

Walking into Kroger, I suddenly realized that I should probably check with my family about their food restrictions. Lucky thing I called my sister. “No cheese for me or dad!” Crap. There go all the dreams of lasagna. “No soy for mom! No edmame! No heavy fats! No red meat for dad!”….awesome. There goes the other half of my recipes.

I must’ve wandered around the produce section of the grocery store for about 20 minutes before I was completely gave up.

I finally spotted some brussel sprouts. YES. Awesome. I knew I had potatoes at home. Okay one appetizer and one side dish. I had salad at home. Done. Now…what to do about a main meal?? I stared down the zucchini, going back and forth about whether to grab it or not. I knew my sister didn’t like zucchini.

I decided right then and there that I was going to cook a hearty simple meal with ingredients I found and if they didn’t like it, tough.

By the time I finally made it home, I only had about 3 hours before my family showed up – at which point I said, to hell with food – I NEED TO CLEAN.  (You all know the feeling. Don’t even lie)

[I eventually did get around to cooking dinner…although some of the final touches came after my family had already reached Hey! At least it was fresh and whatnot.]

Dinner menu?

• Roasted Garlic Brussel Sprouts
• French Onion Roasted Potatoes
• Side Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
• Vegetable Ragout
• Warm Whole Grain Bread
• Fruit Tart/Pie (I’ve heard it both ways)

So now…  to the food:

Roasted Garlic Brussel Sprouts

Literally the easiest recipe: Wash brussel sprouts (I used about half the pack – I didn’t know how it would go over). Slice is half. Douse in extra virgin olive oil. Salt. Pepper. 1 big clove (or 2 small) of garlic – chopped. Put into oven (I did 350, if there is a better temperature, I have NO idea). Rotate once. When they start to look golden-y with crispy outer layer – you’re good to go.

French Onion Roasted Potatoes

Can’t even pretend to take the credit or this…I do make mean roasted red potatoes but this was basically because I had leftover french onion dip mix…and it’s on the back of the box…

Vegetable Ragout

• Half a Zucchini – diced
• Half a Yellow Squash – diced
• Half an eggplant – diced
• 1 can of diced tomatoes (italian style)
• 2-3 squirts of tomato paste
• 2 cloves of garlic – diced
• Salt and Pepper

1. Evoo in the pan. Enough to coat.

2. Add the veggies. Salt and pepper. Cook till heated through/start to tenderize.

3. Add garlic and tomato paste. Tomato paste needs to be heated to really activate it’s tomato-y  goodness.

4. Add tomatoes. If you want more of a smoother sauce, you could put tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper into the blender and then add to the vegetables. I liked the hearty texture to go with the rustic theme of the dinner so I left it as it was.

5. Put out some parmesan if people want to add individually. Also put out the bread (warmed via oven) to soup up the ragout!

Fruit Tart

Okay so you have to have dessert right? And since I only eat fruit about once every…3 months, I figured, why not? Honestly. This is so easy, it just looks really good. And tastes pretty good.

• Premade pie crust
• 1 packet fat free vanilla pudding mix
• milk (for the pudding)
• Fresh Berries

1. Mix the pudding mix per the directions.

2. Put into pie crust.

3. Put in fridge for about 3 hours. (you can do less but I think this is what it said on the package for the pudding anyway)

4. Arrange the fruit all nicely (in this case my sister did that for me!). Sprinkle a little sugar over the fruit. I find this helps to even out the sweetness of the fruit (in case one is not as sweet as the others) and it makes the overall taste better.

5. EAT.

Not gonna lie. After this meal was over, we all slipped into food comas. However, I wish to take this time to say: I MADE A MEAL EVEN WITH FOOD RESTRICTIONS. Woohoo!

P.S. I feel like the ragout would also have done well with polenta. Noms to try next time!

Friends. Diets. Pizza?

Framily. Friends and Family. Most recently used in a Sprint commercial (I’m assuming they have some sort of claim on this word…). However, to me, this is much more than a strange word mashup; it’s so very real. The funny thing about college is that, regardless of how you did (As, Cs, Intramurals, Greek Life, Robotics club, Winning everything, winning only happy hours), you somehow come out of it with some of the best friends you could possibly ask for.

I never thought I would find better friends than my high school gang (whom are still some of my closest), but going to Carnegie Mellon basically let me come out of my shell and accept who I really am (a nerd). College allows you to meet people from the most diverse backgrounds, coolest perspectives, and most amazing passions.

Now that I’ve been out of college a few years over, I still have some of the most amazing friends. A few of us have gotten even closer since college…aka my framily. We are those crazies that somehow manage to spend once a week hanging out via google hangout(most of us live in different parts of the country), in something we dubbed Virtual Happy Hour, and yet we still plan vacations and trips to see each other. Lucky me, we have a wonderful trip to Cancun planned for March!

Unlucky for me, that means one thing: the D word. Diet. Ewwwwwwwww. No one likes to diet. If you do, you’re lying and obviously have no taste buds. We would not be friends.

Even worse for me, as you have surmised…I LOVE FOOD. So how does a food junkie (I’m craving fries as I write this btw), diet for the beach?

I cook lots and lots and lots of veggies; douse them with tons of delicious flavor; and then allow myself cheat days (yummm cheeseburger). Which brings us to today’s recipe: Roasted Veggie Pizza.

(Ignore the slight burn mark on the corner – I ate the ones that weren’t burnt before I remembered to take a picture…I’m not very sorry about this)

P.S. This is a super easy recipe with awesomely delicious results.

Normally I prefer to make pizzas with fresh dough that I get from the grocery store. However, in a pinch, I use naan.

Ingredients:

• Naan (premade)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Garlic (1 small bulb – because is there ANYTHING better than garlic? – NO)
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Bell Peppers (I used those little sweet ones instead of one big one so I could get more colors)
• Onion (I used half of one, in wedges)
• Fresh Mozzarella
• Crushed Red Pepper, Oregano, Salt, and Pepper

(If you’re going to get really fancy, you can roast the peppers directly on an open flame…but I was lazy and used my oven’s broiler setting.)

1. On an baking sheet (or in my poor man’s version, any sort of oven safe pan), place the peppers and onion wedges. Douse in evoo, salt and pepper. Broil away till you get those awesome marks of deliciousness. When the peppers and onions are done, chop into bite sized pieces.

2. Chop the top off the garlic bulb so that the tops are expose. Grab some aluminum foil and place the bulb inside. Top with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake for 30 minutes or until garlic is nice and tender. Remove and set aside. Don’t turn the oven off!

3. Use a paper towel to sponge olive oil across  the naan.

4. Grab the garlic bulbs and now that they are tender, you can easily glide them across the naan. Btw, this is the most amazing smell in the world. Just warning you now.

5. Chop the cherry tomatoes.

6. Add your toppings. Add the oregano and crushed red peppers.

7. Top with wonderful chunks of fresh mozzarella.

8. Bake until the cheese just turns golden.

9. EAT YOUR FACE OFF.

Enjoy!

Welcome!

So you’re probably sitting there thinking, “What is this?”

I promised myself that in 2015 I would actually stop being afraid of trying new things and just do it. One of those wonderful things was starting this blog so that I can share my love of food (and my dog) with the world.

Disclaimer: I don’t claim to be a chef, or any sort of professional cook, or any sort of professional writer. This is just another way for me to obsess over two of my absolutely favorite things in the world: food and my dog (hence the name of the blog…)

So let’s get started, shall we?