Thursday Thoughts [Is it Friday yet?]

No seriously, I need it to be Friday like right now so I can start my mini vacation to Austin.  Gotta love holiday weekends.  And my parents and Joel's parents meeting each other for the first time.  But I think it's going to be fun, not at all worried about that!

Oh, there should be a warning on this post... these are all the bad things I have indulged in recently. So if you're easily swayed by, oh I don't know, popsicles, nutella, cupcakes, and warm maple syrup covered french toast... well, look away! Look away now.. You have been warned.

Yup, I made those beauties this weekend- cool whip, nutella, and milk. So simple. So good.

That is a butter pecan, cookie dough filled cupcake with cream cheese frosting and pecans sprinkled on top. A.K.A. heaven.  They were for my friend, Erin's, birthday. Thank goodness I had to make sure they made it to the party or else the damage could have been much worse...

Speaking of baking, can we talk about how cruel this is Pinterest?! I mean how can you just put up pictures of birthday cake cinnamon buns for me to salivate over? Not fair, not fair at all.  Because I know that if I made them the result would be nothing short of me demolishing the entire pan.

Pecans. I don't know what my fascination is with them lately, but they are soooo good.  Hence they are the inspiration for my Brown Sugar Pecan French Toast.  A recipe that in no way, shape or form belongs on this blog where I supposedly discuss healthy eating...

I love my friends, they're awesome-

 Outtings like these keep me sane.  Love to Cool Beans and their last live music show up on the roof.  We won't go into why, you don't want to hear me rant about how my memories of my favorite college bar are being ruined by fast food chains, and way too expensive student apartments... whoops, sorry. Mini rant over.

Oh yeah, have I mentioned how much I love Zumba?

There was totally a Zumba song playing at Oak St Drafthouse when we were there and I had no choice but to break out my Zumba moves and Joel for some reason chose to document it.

And again I say this is just not fair.  It makes all my Zumba null and void because all I do is sit here and think about how much I want to make these, until it stews and festers into a burning, pressing need and then I will end up devouring them in one fell swoop. ugh.

I thought I was done ruining my diet... But apparently not because I also had this frozen yogurt for dessert last Friday night after consuming copious amounts of Chinese food. [But it was eggplant in garlic sauce, does that make it any healthier? I mean it was just veggies...]

But I have been doing better during the week! I really have been eating my quinoa like everyday for lunch, yes I can eat the same thing everyday and not get bored with it. When I like something, I will eat it over and over and over and over [you get the picture] again.

 

It's almost Friday! We've almost made it! Just one more day!

Spinach Lasagna

If you ever are looking for some good food porn you need to get on Foodgawker. Oh. M. Geeeeeee. That's where I found this wonderful recipe.  The picture looked so good, I had no choice but to try it. 

[Don't worry we'll come back to that ah-mazing looking cauliflower another day!]

I made this on Sunday, and I am so craving a piece right now.  I just taught my first Zumba class at 24 Hr Fitness and I just want some carbs!!!  But no, I was good and had a piece of tilapia and some baked squash. [For once the evil craving monster has not defeated me, whoop whoop!]

And for some reason I've been avoiding whole wheat pasta for quite a while now.  You'll be proud to know I finally gave in and tried them with this recipe.  Amazingly, there was no huge difference in taste, so I've learned my lesson- whole wheat from now on.  Cross my heart and hope to die.  Not really.  [Did I actually just say that? Wow can you say flash back to the 90's...]

So this is supposedly a lighter spinach lasagna according to the recipe.  Maybe because it has no meat? I mean with all the cheesy goodness and layers of pasta... I'm just saying I'm not sure how light it is.  Don't get me wrong, it is delicious. And I am basically demanding that if you have never made a homemade lasagna [which I had not up until this one, more on that in a minute] you should do so. Now. With this recipe. You'll love it.  And it is so worth it.

So, yeah... First homemade lasagna.  This week has definitely given me some foodie credits, first the jicama, now this.  I mean, I knew the basics, having made lasagna with my mom before, but this one was all mine! And I am damn proud of it.

So I made just one pretty major change to the recipe.  We had a good 4-5 cups of fresh spinach leftover from something, so I decided to use it instead of the frozen spinach in the recipe.

I took off the stems, then rough chopped it.  If you make this lasagna, you should totally use fresh spinach.  The flavor is just so much better than frozen, and it really doesn't take that much more effort.  Just saying.

 

Oh. You need more than one jar of pasta sauce. I was frantically defrosting some leftover pizza sauce in the middle of throwing this together because I definitely ran out of sauce... It still tasted delicious though, even with the mix of sauces!

 Sprinkling with a little bit of extra mozzarella is a must!

 Just so you can see the layers I took this beauty-

 Yumm...

Yup, that was my second slice. I'm bad. But that's why I Zumba!

Enjoy!

Jicama, Corn, Peach Salad

I am in love with this picture.  Can you say food porn? Oh yeah, that is soooo what this is. Right here. You love me, you know it.

Now jicama.  I was intrigued, but also a little scared of it.  I mean it's been a basket ingredient on Chopped more than once, so it comes off as slightly daunting...  But I also learned from Chopped that it works well in salsas and salads with other ingredients that are on the sweeter side.  So when I came across this recipe I knew it was perfect for my first little tango with the daunting jicama.

Let me tell you, this recipe did not disappoint.  I wasn't sure what to expect taking that first bite, so as I'm taking everything in the thought process goes from, ok this is good to, wow this is amazing!

Radishes, jicama, definitely not my normal go to foods.  Especially when paired with peaches, corn, and a cilantro honey lime dressing.  Now all those things on their own- awesome.  Put them together in this salad- amazing.

Right so making food... [exact measurements can be found in the link]
This is a jicama.

Kinda scary looking. No worries, you just need to peel it and it becomes much more friendly! So take you knife and go at it.

Ah. Much better.  Next I cut it into little matchstick size pieces.

Then I chopped up the rest of the ingredients.  Look at those peaches, how beautiful are they?! And I love how colorful everything is!

Then add them into a bowl with the corn.  Once again my corn dilemma.  I was so excited about corn on the cob... but the prices were insane so unfortunately we have canned here.  Although as far as the final product goes, this salad was still very tasty and I'm not sure there would have been a huge difference had I been able to get the corn on the cob and grill it.

Next I mixed up the ingredients in the dressing,  it has my favorite combo- cilantro and lime!

Then just mix it all together.

Toss to combine and refrigerate over night to allow all of the flavors to combine and get friendly.  Trust me it's worth the wait.

The next day you will have a delicious, light summer salad.  I'm in love with the combination of these flavors, they work so well together.  This will be my new go to for summer salad making for sure!

Jicama- not so daunting any more.  Very delicious, especially in an application like this.

And I feel more like an experienced foodie now that I have used a pretty unique ingredient with such success.  Maybe I should go on Chopped....

...maybe not. Till next time, 

Enjoy!

Salt & Vinegar Tilapia Sandwiches

You may have caught a glimpse of a delicious looking sandwich in my last post.  And you may have thought, "Lindsay, why are you not sharing that delciousness with us?"  No worries friends, today you will have the delicious salt and vinegar chip crusted tilapia sandwich!

Originally I was just doing this sandwich because there is still tilapia in the freezer, and I figured hey, why not use it.  But in the end this became a wow recipe.  Like I want to crust everything in salt and vinegar chips and bake it in the oven and eat it recipe.  Seriously. I think I may have already begged you to try and make several things, but please, you have to try this one!

You think I'm joking? Nope, definitely not.  Totally making a list in my head since last night about the number of different things I can encrust in salt and vinegar chips- chicken, meatballs, potatoes [that one might be a little redundant], cauliflower, ooo here's one that just popped in, asparagus... yum.  The list goes on.

Let's get to it! First off, the original recipe used cod, we used tilapia because that's what we had. And personally, I think it worked great!

So we defrosted out fish, then patted it dry with some paper towels.

Crush your chips. Right in the bag if you want, that way it's one less thing to clean up!

Then prep your bowls for coating the fish. Lightly whisk 2 egg whites in one bowl. Pour your crushed chips in the other. In order to help the chips stick to the fish I added 2 heaping Tbs of flower. Then mix to combine.

Dredge your fish through the egg whites first, then on into your chip mixture. You'll have to press the chips on there to get them to stick.

I used a cooling rack coated with cooking spray over a baking sheet to bake my fish on. Worked perfectly. So move your fish onto there and then place them in the oven at 375 for 15-18 minutes.

Pull them out and voila- amazing salt and vinegar chip crusted fish! Perfect for a sandwich!

We had ours on some onion rolls- a good choice.

Joel had to add some rooster sauce, of course, because he puts it on just about anything involving the word sandwich or burger!

Enjoy!

Summer Quinoa Salad

I have some great summery recipes for you guys this week. I am very excited to share!  They all involve such colorful foods that make for amazing pictures.

So let's get healthy [again].  I will be the first to admit that I have [ever so slightly] fallen off the wagon when it comes to my healthy foods recently.  If you follow my instagram feed, you know exactly what I'm talking about.  But I just have to remind myself that there are so many healthy foods that I can get excited about! Like quinoa.  If you haven't tried quinoa yet, please please please do so now! And I have the perfect recipe to get you started. 

Summer Quinoa Salad with tomatoes and corn. This is delicious stuff.  Very summery and light.  Oh and it makes a ton so you will be eating it for a week.  And let me tell you, I am ok with that.  I think my exact words were "Wow this makes a ton of food, I can bring this for lunch all week.  YAY!!" 

There were a few slight changes that we ended up having to make to the recipe, so let's get started.  I say we because I was attempting to make about 3 different things at the same time last night, so as I was working on another little gem to be shared later, Joel basically made this on his own with my occasional instruction or helpful hint. [Because he is amazing, but we already knew that]

First you'll want to cook your quinoa.  The recipe calls for 2 cups uncooked quinoa, I only used 1 1/2, because that is what we had.  When cooking the quinoa you do a 2:1 water:quinoa ratio.  I have had trouble getting all the water absorbed into the quinoa before so we did 2 3/4 cups water: 1 1/2 cups quinoa. Worked perfectly.  Cook from here according to the package.

While your quinoa is cooking get to work on your veggies.  Chop some shallots,

cut your tomatoes in half,

chiffonade your basil leaves.

Now, the recipe calls for grilled corn, and I was so so so excited about finally getting some corn on the cob this summer.  But no. Apparently the corn gods hate me and decided that it was going to be $5 for 2 ears of corn.  Now that was not going to happen.  It's just the principle of the thing.  So we made do with what we had.  Canned corn.  Then Joel added some spices to it and sauteed it up.  Some red pepper flakes, paprika, and garlic salt, to give it kind of a smokey grilled flavor.

So once you've done that, you'll drain and rinse your cannellini beans, and toss all your veggies together with the quinoa.

It looks amazing already, I know. Next whisk up your sauce mixture.

Then pour it over your quinoa mixture. 

And voila, you have your summer quinoa salad.  This was a great side dish and I can promise you I will be making this one again.  I am so excited to eat it for lunch this week, it will most likely be the highlight of my day.  Sad but true.

Enjoy!