Recipe Round Up

The Pinterest Recipes I’m Loving Right Now

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If I took out a personal ad for my ideal week night dinner recipe, it would read something like this:

“Busy working professional seeks a dinnertime recipe that is easy to make, quick to prepare, delicious to eat, and one that will preferably not cause rapid expansion of my waistline!”

Luckily, there are a lot of recipes out there that fit this criteria.  Each weekend I log onto Pinterest and set aside a few of these types of recipes that I would like to make for the upcoming week. I find that planning out my meals saves me time and money, and cuts down big time on waste. Rather than buying a bunch of random food items I may or may not use, I go to the store with a list and select only the ingredients I need for the meals I plan to make. I like to use Sundays to prep whatever I can in advance to simply things even further for myself.

Another benefit to this is that it ensures I am carefully considering what I will be eating and selecting recipes that are healthier and more wholesome to maintain my weight or in some cases slim down if that is a goal of mine at the time.

Below are a few of the best recipes I’ve discovered over the last serveral weeks, all of which have now gone into heavy meal rotation at apartment.  These recipes have been tried, tested, and approved by me. Enjoy!

Best Ever Dill Pickles

I spend an ungodly amount of time on Pinterest collecting awesome recipes, DIY projects, style ideas and such, but what good is Pinterest if you don’t ever actually bring all these great new ideas to life?! I decided I’m going to make a conscious effort to go through my Pinterest each week and pick out a project or two to tackle.

This weekend, it was pickling! I’ve always wanted to make my own pickles and it seemed like such an easy process. Plus, who doesn’t love a crisp and refreshing spear of cucumber to snack on while cramming their face with sandwiches and burgers during picnic and BBQ season!…. Just me?

A Brunch Classic With An Unexpected Twist!

Blueberry Basil + Goat Cheese French Toast Cups

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Who doesn’t love an unexpected flavor combination? Especially when that combination actually works! When I saw this recipe by Sarah of Broma Bakery for Blueberry Basil French Toast Cups, I knew had I had to give it a try.  First off, the idea of easy to handle single servings of French Toast struck me as genius. Why had I never thought of this?!  I love hosting brunch for friends and family, and have learned over the years that for larger groups it helps to keep things easy — easy to eat, to serve, to prep in advance, and to prepare quickly the day of so you can actually sit down and enjoy the meal with your guests. There’s nothing worse than flipping pancakes one by one, or cooking eggs any style while everyone sits down to eat without you so the food doesn’t get cold!

Keeping things “easy” also cuts down on the mess and let’s you get a little more creative. As with most things in life, I find that some creative details and personal touches really help to make a dining experience memorable so I try to incorporate them whenever I am entertaining. I also try my best to  include a lot of variety on the menu by combining old favorites with dishes that are new and different or re-imagined. It’s more fun for everyone and your guests will really appreciate the thought.

That being said, these little cups fit the bill across the board! Blueberry and basil is somewhat unexpected, but at the same time sounds surprisingly wonderful.

Peter Piper Picked…

Peppers for dinner tonight!

I’m not ashamed to admit that since moving into my new place, I’ve been seriously neglecting my great new kitchen. Moving ain’t easy! It’s hard work, and it’s exhausting. Sure there are fun parts of it, but at this point we are settled in enough that we have no excuse to make our search for the neighborhood’s best take-out a nightly ritual. Nor do we have any excuse to still consider PBJ’s a suitable dinner option.

After weeks of not taking care of myself, I decided it was time to take charge and return to my happy place — The kitchen! I have a pretty impressive collection of recipes in a Pinterest folder that I try as often as possible to sift through and carefully select recipes from when needed. I wanted something healthy that I could take to work for lunch the next day.  Mostly I needed something easy and quick because I’m on summer hours and getting home later than normal most nights during the week.

Que the peppers! 

This is my first post, and also a test…

Welcome to my new blog… testing one, two, three.