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Stop throwing your Salad leaves away| Repurpose your salad ingredients | Asian inspired Sweet Potato Noodle Salad
Last week I wanted salad, which is a rare thing, but I purchased arugula and tomato and such for said salad! Well a week later (not even a week really) and I noticed my salad leaves were started to go bad; you know how they start to get wet and slimy and such (real gross)!
However today, I thought, why not repurpose my salad ingredients so I can stop throwing away my yummy salad leaves.
This meal is vegan-friendly, so no meat involved. So here we go with my tasty warm Asian inspired noodle salad. Everything is leftover and sitting in my fridge, looking sad.
I boiled and drained my sweet potato noodles, cut them into smaller piece and rinsed in cold water to stop the cooking and set to the side.
1 package of baby bella mushrooms quarter and about 7 baby bell peppers sliced.
3 roma tomatoes. I had a half bag of each of the following: spinach, arugula, and broccoli slaw.
In my big wok pan which I love sooooo much is olive oil, heated. Add mushrooms and peppers and garlic and stir-fry for 4 minutes or so. Then add in the broccoli slaw and cook for another 4 minutes.
Add in the salad leaves
Let them cook just until wilted then add in tomatoes and I had some alfalfa sprouts
Mix and cook for 1 minute; I just let my tomatoes get warm.
Now the last steps are adding in the noodles and sauce. The salad dressing I used was an Asian sesame dressing, but you can use what you want, this is what I had 
Mix and serve. You can eat hot, cold or room temp. I will never again throw away my salad leaves or other salad ingredients. 
After heating all the veggies, I could have added them to rice, or other noodles or even potatoes. Better yet, I could eat them without a carb!!! I just wanted to share with you guys. Until next time remember to Cook, Eat and Enjoy!!!
Comfort Food: Veggie Lasagna & Chicken Lasagna
Let’s talk comfort food. Technically, all food can be comfort food if said food brings you comfort when you think about it or partake.
For me, when I think of comfort food, the foods that immediately spring to mind, makes me smile and makes my mouth begin to water just from the thought are: fried chicken wings, homemade Mac and Cheese and Lasagna.
I do not eat any of the aforementioned often because… well… I am trying to eat better and all that jazz. However, sometimes, it is good to treat yourself. Self care comes in many forms and me being a food lover, what better way to show myself some love than to make one of my happy food dishes. 
So, I typically make Lasagna the traditional way. Okay let me specify because my family traditional is probably not the same as actual ‘traditional’. So traditional meaning a ground beef meat sauce, ricotta and different shredded cheeses. But since I am trying to be a bit more healthy, I decided to make a veggie lasagna for me and since my family loves chicken, I made them a shredded chicken lasagna.
Chicken lasagna is super easy, I just boiled chicken breast in seasoning and shredded it.
For the veggie Lasagna, I used veggies that I love and that would hold together. I used yellow summer squash, zucchini squash, a medley of 5 mushrooms and red spinach. Red spinach has a slight bitter taste, so the next time I would just use regular spinach. Never-the-less, my family devoured the chicken lasagna; I got none, but they definitely enjoyed it. The Veggie lasagna was so hearty, that I forgot it did not have meat in it!!!
If you want to see how I prepared these two dishes, check out the video HERE!
And please like comment and subscribe.
Let me know in the comments below, what is your favorite comfort food?
Until next time, Cook, Eat and Enjoy!!!
Apple Butter Granola
Happy 2017 Foodies. It has been a while. I hope 2016 ended good and 2017 has been just as good thus far. I have been… living life; still cooking and eating, but just not cooking as much as I use to. However I will do my best this year to get as many new post out as life will possibly allow.
So, been dealing with all sort of health issues which has caused me to start to change my diet. I am trying a more gluten free and vegan approach to life, however, please believe I still eat my meat, just not as often.
Surprisingly, it is not really that difficult to substitute a few meals a day with completely vegan options, especially since I like veggies. The difficult part is that I have to monitor what types of veggies I eat and how much. But life is all about balance and I am constantly trying to find mine. On to this yummy granola.
I did my best to make sure all the ingredients I used were gluten free, and surprisingly, this only took 5 ingredients to make:
1 (2 pound bag) old fashioned rolled oats (gluten free)
2 cups oat bran (gluten free)
16 oz of Apple butter
3 tablespoons Ground Cinnamon
3 tablespoons coconut oil
First heat your oven to about 400 degree Farenhieght. Line a cookie sheet with foil and set aside.
Now in a sauce pan, add the 3 tablespoons of coconut oil and the entire jar of apple butter and let melt together on medium, to medium high heat.
Next, Add oat meal, oat bran and cinnamon to a large mixing bowl, and mix together. I used a wooden spoon, doesn’t stick as bad.
Once the Apple butter and coconut oil has melted together and you have mixed, added to the oats and begin to mix with spoon. It may look like there is not enough apple butter or to much oats, but continue to mix and everything will coat.
After you have coated to your heart’s desire, spread a layer of the mixture onto the cookie sheet. If you have more than one cookie sheet, go ahead and use them. For me, I baked about 3 batches.
Once in the oven, bake for about 10 minutes at a time until it is the desire brown and crunchiness you want, taking a spoon an mixing it around each 10 minutes.
Let each batch cool on counter before storing in an air tight container.
My daughters and I love this as a topping on our yogurt, or as cereal. With the oat bran, it adds extra protein to this granola which helps add energy to any snack.
This is such a quick and easy granola and I absolutely love making it and all version of it.
Until next time, continue to Cook, Eat and Enjoy!!
Easy Bean Salad
So today is Memorial Day and I decided to cook in instead of cookout. And a bean salad was on my mind. So for the vegetarians out there, this is perfect.
Here is what I used:
Low sodium canned white, black and kidney beans. A can of white sweet corn, can of diced tomatoes. 1 yellow bell pepper, a half sweet onion, 1 bunch of cilantro. Jalapeño feta cheese, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, honey, and apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper.
Okay here we go:
Open all beans and corn and put them in a strainer, drain all liquid and rinse with cold water let sit
Dice small a half an inion and the yellow bell pepper
In a large bowl add onion, bell pepper, beans and corn and can tomatoes. Mix together.
Now time for the dressing:
In a bowl added 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil, 2 tsp lemon, 2 tbsp yellow mustard, 3 tsp apple cider vinegar and 2 or 3 tsp of honey.
Sprinkle with pepper then whisk until smooth
Pour over beans, then rough chop and added cilantro and feta cheese
Mix everything together. Add salt and pepper to taste. You can serve cold or warm.
Until next time, cook, eat and enjoy!!!
Couscous with Veggie Medley
I have been trying to make my life easier as I continue on my high protein diet by making some of my sides ahead of time and adding everything together.
This time I wanted to experiment with couscous because I have never had it before and I love trying new things. To make couscous you follow the directions on your package, or if you get it in the bulk-food department like me, here is how I made it.
I used multi-colored couscous
1 and 1/2 cups of couscous in a pot with a bit of salt and add water until it just covers the couscous.
Cover, Bring to a boil and then lower heat and let simmer on low heat until water has soaked in completely. Remover from heat, mix from the bottom, replace top and let the heat steam.
Now time for the Veggies. 1 Can of Garbanzo beans rinsed, 1 tomato, diced. My favorite garlic pop-ins and grilled onions.
Speaking of new things, have you ever heard of Kale Sprouts? I went to Trader Joes and found it here. I love Trader Joes, I always find something new there that I haven’t seen or heard of.
Anyway, Kale Sprouts are a mix between, you guessed it, Kale and Brussel Sprouts and have a similar flavor.
Rinse and cut the ends off.
I happen to have made some bacon the morning of, so I used the oil from that, but any oil is okay.
Heat oil then add Kale Sprouts, tomatoes, 4 pop-in onions and 4 pop-in garlic saute for about 4 minutes.
Diced 1 roasted red bell pepper.
Add in the Garbanzo beans, bell pepper, salt to taste and I like a little heat, so I added about 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper.
Let all that cook together until the Kale Sprout are cooked to your liking.
Last step is add in the Couscous, mix and place top over pan for about 5 minutes off heat.
This is the perfect side dish or you can eat it as a main meal. All the protein , fiber, vitamins and such, in one meal, that is actual really light.
Until next time, cook, eat and enjoy
Nothing Fancy: Pan cooked Trout
People tell me all the time that they are afraid to pan cook items. Afraid that they will burn or not cook their item enough, etc. One of those items is fish fillet.
Everything doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated; a lot of times, simple is best.
So I am gonna show you how to pan cook a trout fillet with yhe skin on. I love skin on my fish, especially when the skin is crispy.
So. I have two store bought trout fillet with skin on. I seasoned both sides with seasoning salt, black pepper and garlic powder.
In a frying pan, big enough to fit both fillet and have some room, add about 3 to 4 tablespoons of olive oil and heat. You want you pan hot, but not smoking.
Now add your fish, skin side down. When you put it in, it should be sizzling. You want your skin to be crispy.
You are only gonna flip your fish once so the skin will stay crispy. When you see the edges of the fish turn white, it is a good bet that it is time to flip.
So flip your fish
You can see the pretty caramelization on the skin. Now you have to give the other side time to cook, abot 3 to 5 minutes.
I did a quick check and the meat side is starting to brown, but it is not quite cooked through, so add about 1/4 cup water to the hot pan
The water to the hot pan and oil will create steam and take the fish over the finish line of done in the middle.
The water will cook up and create a nice little fish broth as well that, in my case I added over some steamed broccoli I had leftover from the night before.
And there you have, nothing fancy but extremely tasty pan cooked trout with crispy skin.
Until next time, cook eat and enjoy!
