finding time for cooking | for the time-starved or curious culinary adventurer

Feta & Sweet Potato Hash With Greens

February 10, 2019

It’s been over a month since I’ve posted something healthy, which feels like a pretty good indication of what my life choices have been like lately :p #allcarbsallthetime

Between work, travel, and this disgustingly cold polar vortex weather, I’ve been indulging a bit too much, and right now I feel the need to get my eating back on track. But it’s still gross cold and so these healthy options have to be delicious as well. Behold—soft, sweet, salty, healthy feta & sweet potato hash!

The flavors of the mellow sweet potato, the bitterness of the greens, and the saltiness of the feta play really well together, and the dried herbs add depth to the overall flavor profile. It’s a really comforting dish, something easy to throw together and really healthy, but feels like you’ve done something special. Here’s to good choices 🙂

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Sailing & Snacking In Sweden’s Gothenburg Archipelago

February 5, 2019

Wow, I hadn’t realized how long it’s been since I’ve talked about my two true loves together—food and travel!

Today I want to show you a little bit about my trip to Sweden, which was completely impromptu and ended up being completely epic. What started as snagging a cheap flight ($286 from Newark to Gothenburg) led us to stumbling on renting a sailboat on Airbnb and spending a long weekend on the beautiful waters of the Gothenburg Archipelago in the North Sea. This was my first time visiting a Scandinavian country, but I’ve since been to Norway a couple times so expect more on delicious Scandinavian pastries to come!

We landed in Gothenburg and our sailboat captain, Patrik, picked us up at the airport. While our ultimate goal was getting out on the water as soon as possible, Patrik wanted us to get a little glimpse of the city—plus we needed to stock up on provisions. We were starving, so first we sat at a lovely outdoor cafe and tried AMAZING fish cakes in a brown butter sauce, with mashed potatoes and peas. We had their salad bar as well, with a refreshing local beer to wash everything down with. I was really excited about the fish cakes, because they were made with salmon and white fish and no shellfish, which is crazy hard to find.

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Swedish Vanilla Cardamom Bread

February 3, 2019

Ever since spending a few days in Sweden sailing the Gothenburg archipelago and devouring fresh smoked herring and cardamom-laced pastries the entire time, I’ve been meaning to try my hand at Swedish baking myself. This recipe initially came to me as a simple Swedish vanilla bread, but to me that was leaving out the most iconic flavor of Swedish baking, ground cardamom.

So I did us all a favor and made it Swedish vanilla cardamom bread 🙂

So I’ve been playing around with this recipe for a while, both in tweaking the flavors, but also in getting the texture to turn out correctly. The original recipe had way too much flour, which resulted in a much drier dough than I liked, and overall it’s taken some trial and error to perfect. But the time was worth it, and this recipe results in a lovely simple subtly-spiced bread. It’s not really sweet at all, just a nice snack at any point in the day.

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Fizzy Rosemary Gimlet

January 26, 2019

About a year ago—after over a decade as a die-hard wine drinker—I fell in love with gin.

I KNOW. But hear me out. I’ve noticed that gin is a very polarizing subject. I’ve met tons of people who absolutely love it, and a similar amount of people who tell me I’m insane and gin is the grossest thing ever. I haven’t really found anyone who’s like, “yeah, it’s cool sometimes”. Apparently gin is an all-or-nothing 🙂 But I kind of think that’s because people maybe haven’t had a great gin cocktail. In my experience over the last year, gin mixes so well with so many different flavors, and so that’s what led to today’s adventure.

I was first introduced to the idea of a gimlet via my Cheese, my bff in Los Angeles…and actually before I became a gin drinker. We capped off an awesome girls’ weekend with homemade pizza (courtesy of her now-hubby) and French gimlets. A French gimlet basically adds elderflower liqueur like St. Germain to a regular gimlet, which is gin and lime juice. I fell in love…and three drinks later she told me I’d have to Uber to LAX because there was no way she was taking me now 🙂

Ahhh, girls’ night…

So today I bring you a lovely twist on a regular gimlet, where we take the bright botanical gin and fresh lime juice combo, and add to it a delicious herby rosemary simple syrup. It takes like 5 minutes to make the simple syrup yourself and you’ll feel pretty badass. Then top it off with some tonic water to lighten it up and provide fun fizz. Behold—the fizzy rosemary gimlet!

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Rosemary Simple Syrup For Cocktails

January 12, 2019

Friends, we are now venturing into a new realm of foodie-ism. The world where we think of delicious flavors to add to cocktails and then MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Not a bad world, amirite???

Ever since moving to Louisville for my new job and working on spirit brands like Woodford Reserve, Tequila Herradura, and Old Forester, I’ve been introduced to a much wider world of awesome cocktails…new flavors, types of ingredients, ways of preparing, and so much more. I’m fascinated by all the new combinations that are out there. And now that I’ve dipped my toe in by making old fashioneds at home (using pre-made syrup that’s amazing), I feel like I can try and branch out more on my own.

So when I saw this recipe for rosemary simple syrup, I was intrigued. I happened to have some rosemary sitting in my fridge, so on a whim I got up off the couch and put the saucepan on the stove. And five minutes later (plus 20 minutes of steeping on its own), I had my own homemade rosemary simple syrup. I felt like a magician.

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One-Pot Yellow Cauliflower Chickpea Curry (vegan)

December 23, 2018

I don’t want to oversell this, but I’ve got your new favorite Meatless Monday recipe comin’ at ya. It is LEGIT.

Easy One-Pot Cauliflower Chickpea Curry (vegan) | this super easy and healthy curry comes together quickly and provides a great Meatless Monday or healthy weeknight dinner option.

This easy cauliflower & chickpea curry is crazy flavorful and super easy to make. It’s healthy but doesn’t feel like you’re giving anything up. We all win.

The other great thing about this recipe (besides how fast it comes together) is that it doesn’t take much in the way of special ingredients. Other than red or yellow curry paste (which I think most grocery stores have now, and you can easily get online), everything should already be in your kitchen.

Make with this: Easy Homemade Naan Bread

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Whole Wheat Cranberry Pistachio Orange Shortbread Cookies

December 9, 2018

A couple years ago, my sister sent me an email out of nowhere with this recipe and a note that said “This has to be on your blog!” And I’ll be honest…it kind of took me a while to get to it.

But I played around with the recipe, making for a co-worker on maternity leave, for my own personal consumption, and then to take to work. And somehow never got around to posting the final version that I love dearly.

And guys, these cookies are weird. They have no leavening agent and no eggs…which shouldn’t work, but it totally does. In fact, they could be vegan if you substituted coconut oil for butter (though I haven’t tried that from a texture standpoint).

Side note, this cookie dough is AMAZING. Like, try not to eat it all raw before baking it, I DARE YOU. And because there are no eggs, you don’t have to worry about raw egg in it (which…I don’t, but I know some people do).

One of the great things about this kind of recipe, where you make the dough into a log and then slice pieces off, is that you can make parts of it at a time super easily. So the last time I made this, I baked up about half the dough right after dinner, and then two days later sliced up the rest and baked it when I had my whole family over for dinner again. Bonus points because they’re really quite healthy.

Crushing. It.

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Peanut Butter Banana Bread

December 1, 2018

Elvis was onto something.

Not that it was news to me, but peanut butter and banana will always be a magic combo. This bread just emphasizes the point. That’s right, friends, we’re talking about peanut butter banana bread today!

I’ve gotten to the point where I now just buy bananas every couple weeks, knowing full well I have no intention of actually eating them while they’re good. So expect some more tasty banana treats coming your way!

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Apricot Balsamic Rosemary Chicken

November 18, 2018

I’ve been accidentally keeping this recipe a secret the last couple months. I know, I’m sorry…that’s not what friends do.

It wasn’t not on purpose. It’s just that life’s been so crazy, and this chicken has been one of the things getting me through. As the weather has gotten too cold for my normal nightly grilling, I had to try and find something else super easy but still healthy to have regularly. And once I tried this once, I was totally hooked.

This apricot balsamic chicken recipe comes courtesy of Joy the Baker (link at the end of this post), and it’s so simple but feels kind of fancy. The original recipe calls for chicken thighs, and it probably is best because thighs stay more moist and bring more flavor. But I use chicken breasts sometimes, just because I struggle with the texture of thigh meat and don’t typically have it on hand. Chicken breasts work just fine, and my biggest tip is to make sure they’re sliced or pounded thin and even, so they cook quickly without drying out. I also swapped out the thyme the original recipe calls for and added rosemary instead, which I think gives it a punchier flavor.

This is the kind of recipe you can actually whip up on a weeknight after a frantic day of work in less than 30 minutes, then sit down with a glass of wine and take a deep breath.

You know you know what I’m talking about.

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Lemon Elderflower Cake With Strawberry Jam (Happy Birthday To Me!)

November 10, 2018

When I saw that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were having a lemon and elderflower cake at their wedding, I may or may not have fist-pumped.

The second I heard that flavor combo, I was SOLD.

As I’ve mentioned before, I started a tradition several years ago of finding a recipe that seemed a little fancier and more complicated than I typically tackle, and making that for my birthday. It’s given me absolute gems such as:

I MEAN YUMMMM. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I’ve got pretty great taste.

So this year I was kind of waffling, looked through tons of recipes but nothing was really jumping out to me until I saw two different recipes for an elderflower lemon cake. I took both and kind of combined and adapted, and loved the result! But con’t let the amount of ingredients and steps put you off, I actually threw this together pretty easily in between making dinner and pausing my TV show for a bit. Since my birthday is in September, the actual posting of this is *even* more belated that the making of it (which was about a week behind, since I was out of the country on my actual birthday).

I mean, if it’s good enough for Harry and Meghan, it’s good enough for me 🙂

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