Showing posts with label cous cous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cous cous. Show all posts

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Meal Prep.. GO!

My mission at the end of last week was to do a test run of cooking ahead [aka, weekly meal prep] for an entire week's worth of lunches. I eventually want to phase into both lunch and dinner, but baby steps.. baby steps.
okay little guys..
Thanks to Pinterest and some other tips from the world wide web of people who are professionals at this, I gathered some tips, recipes and things to avoid, and dug in to a bulk cooking session.  
meal prep
Chicken, fish, cous cous, rice and a variety of different vegetables are on the menu for this week, and at the risk of bragging, I'll just say that I'm actually proud of myself for doing it!

finished, labeled and ready to go! :D
Success. Believe it or not, this is the first time I've actually done a full week's worth of cooked meal prep that didn't include sandwiches and light stuff. Here's to frugal, healthy eating!

xo | cmd

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Nommas Nommas Salmonnn

Work? Check
WorkOUT? Check
Quick trip to the grocery store? Check
Awesome dinner and consequently a fun salmon recipe to share with the class?
Check & Check!

Yep, it's another recipe post! This one can be found here on the First Home Love Life page; I added some of our own touches to it, but for the most part I stuck to what I had.. and it... was.... amazing. (:
roasted red pepper salmon (:

NEED
* Salmon. For us, I just got 2 fillets from the seafood counter.
* 2 tbs light oil [I used olive]
* 2 tbs soy sauce [low sodium if you really want]
* 1 cup teriyaki sauce
* ½ cup balsamic vinegar 
* ½ cup honey
* 1 tsp sugar
* 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
* ½ cup dicded red bell peppers
* salt & pepper
 
DO
1. Dump all of the ingredients into a large freezer/ZipLoc bag to mix it all together.
Add the salmon and marinate in the fridge for 1-2 hours.
 
2. Once everything is marinated, broil the salmon until it is finished. I didn't actually time this out, but rather used the old-fashioned fork & toothpick method to make sure it was perfectly cooked through. Some people prefer the inside to still appear fleshy; I took it just past that to make sure it was opaque all the way through and slightly browned on top.
 
3. Add some sides and ENJOY!  
dinner time!
I whipped up some cous cous and added green beans for this, and I am definitely going to make this again. It really didn't take long at all to dump everything into a plastic bag, mix it up and let it broil.

NOM. NOM. NOM!

Have a great week, blogbots!

xo | cmd
 

Thursday, February 13, 2014

TBT | Salmon Recipe

I'm slowly catching up with the social media world; today I caved in and downloaded Flipagram, which is basically a way to create .gif stuff for Instagram or wherever else we choose to post our daily meanderings. I dug up some sequential photos from ... 2004? & decided I had to share. So, to honor #TBT, here's that time when I was a Ginger Ninja [... Ginja?] & Enjel went bowling. Oh.. and I was still in my skate shoe phase [thank you, Journeys... RIP Globes haha].
On the topic of videos, after Sydni and I had an all out jam session on the way to Mindi's this morning [to music from Frozen, of course], I bumped into this remake. I think 1] this little girl is phenomenal, and 2] The African influence kind of makes this seem more summerish than wintery, which is juuuust fine for me right about now. I'm not perched on my snowboard on a slope all day, erego I'm done for now with this weatherrrrr...
Love. (:

Back in the real world, the day wore on as usual, and I got home in time to get dinner put together, trying out a variation on a salmon recipe. We're all about amino acids in this place.. haha.

Anyway, here's a simple salmon recipe if you're into that sorta thing:

Ingredients:
* Salmon steaks
* Olive oil
* 5 tbsp honey
* 6 tbsp honey mustard [I would really recommend honey mustard, too.]
* ½ - ¾ c fresh-squeezed orange juice [the original recipe calls for 1 full cup of OJ, but even ½ was a lot for 2 salmon steaks]

First things first:
➊ | Preheat oven to 375°. I chose not to broil these, but if you are set on broiling, go for it. Spray a baking pan and lay in salmon. Add some salt & pepper, and a thin layer of honey on the salmon. Put it in the oven for about 10 minutes.
 ---- Note: I made green beans and cous cous as sides for this. I would recommend getting the green beans going before the salmon if you are using fresh beans. I boiled mine down some before they hit the skillet just so they'd cook a little faster. The cous cous takes like, 8 minutes from start to finish, so that should be bad. 
salmon & green beans [& some fresh tea brewing!]

➋ | While the salmon is baking, squeeze out your oranges, measuring out however much juice you prefer. Like I said, I chose to use somewhere right between a ½ and ¾ cup of actual juice, even though the original recipe calls for a full cup [it's just.. a lot]. And no, I'm not sure if using regular OJ from a jug would be as good or not. I think I used 4-5 medium sized oranges with no juicer [sad face] to get mine done. Add the honey & honey mustard to the juice and stir well.
 
➌ | Add the juice mixture to the salmon once it's been baking for that first 10 minutes or so. I think mine cooked for about 13 minutes or so before I got back to it, but it wasn't bad.
orange juice + honey + honey mustard + salmon
➍ | Let the salmon bake again with the mixture in the dish for another 5-8 minutes or so, so everything can absorb. If you're doing a side and you time everything right, it should all come out at the same time. I'm no professional at plating food, but here in the privacy of our own home, I'm really not overly-concerned about appearance as much as taste-tester approvals.
yummmmm!
➎ | Devour! And, if you're like me, take notes on what you'd do differently the next time around. I might actually, if I do this again for just the two of us, use even less juice and maybe a little less mustard. I am all about salmon glazes, so while the soupy consistency of the juice blend was still delicious, I'm bent on finding a way to carmelize it. There will definitely be some orange marmalade in this the next time around. Oh, and next time I probably won't make tea at the same time as dinner; I'm not a huuuge fan of lukewarm iced tea, even with ice cubes. Haha.. Oh well.  
delish!
The crowd decided this was a good one, so we'll bookmark it and bring it back in a couple of weeks with the revisions.
 
For now, I'm parked on the couch about to watch Soul Surfer with my favorites before we put Thursday to rest. 
gosh, i love them.
 That's a wrap, blogbots. ♥

xo | cmd