Summertime Salsa

Easter is the one holiday where my dad doesn’t cook. Instead, my entire family goes to my aunt’s house for dinner, and it’s a good thing we do or else I would have never tried this salsa! I have a large family and were all in the kitchen trying to help my aunt finish dinner. My sister and I helped finish a black bean and corn salsa by cutting up avocado, red onion, tomato and a jalapeno pepper.  It took us less than five minutes to do and afterwords my aunt mixed all the ingredients in a bowl and served the salsa with tortilla chips. It's a healthy appetizer made of fresh veggies and perfect for summer. The salsa could even be turned into a light meal by serving it over a salad. 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 avocado, diced
• 1 cup frozen sweet corn, thawed
• 1 cup kidney beans, black beans or pinto beans
• 1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
• 1/2 large tomato, seeded and chopped
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 2 tbsp freshly chopped cilantro

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Recommendation: we used black beans when making the salsa and I wouldn’t have changed a thing

Chicken, Broccoli and Rice

Growing up, one of my favorite meals was broccoli, chicken and rice. Even to this day, my mom makes it for me every time I go home for break. I recently asked her for the recipe, and found out it was really easy to make. The recipe is so simple, consisting on only 4 ingredients! However, even though it lacks ingredients, it doesn’t lack taste. I made the recipe last night and my roommates finished everything, they loved it!

Ingredients:

4 cups Broccoli

2 Chicken Breasts

1 cup Rice

2 cans Cream of Mushroom Soup

Preheat oven to 350°, cook rice as directed by package, and boil 8 cups water. Trim stalk of broccoli and cut chicken into cubes. Add broccoli to boiling water and cook for 4-5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to chicken for taste. Butter a pan and cook chicken on medium heat. Pour thoroughly cooked chicken and broccoli into an oven safe dish and cover with cream of mushroom soup. Bake for 15-20 minutes and serve over rice.

I recommend Campbell’s low sodium cream of mushroom soup, it tastes the same as traditional cream of mushroom without the extra salt.

 

Chicken and Mushroom Pasta in a Vodka Sauce

I actually made this recipe up because I happened to have all these ingredients on hand and it seemed like they would meshed well together. I was right! The recipe turned out wonderfully and was so delicious. It was quick and easy to make, and had few ingredients. It took me less than a half hour to cook and clean up! My roommates loved this recipe as well and I’ve made it many times again. Also, there are plenty of left over’s, so you can reheat it the next day if you don’t feel like cooking or are in a rush.

                                                  

Ingredients:

1 large chicken breast

4 large mushrooms

2 cloves of garlic

1½ cup fresh or frozen spinach

olive oil

½ can vodka sauce

½ lb. pasta

Add ½ lb of pasta to boiling water and cook until noodles are al dente. Mince garlic cloves and cut chicken breast into cubes. Coat the bottom of a pan with olive oil and sauté garlic and chicken. Slice mushrooms and roughly chop spinach and add to pan containing chicken and garlic. Pour vodka sauce and pasta over the chicken, mushrooms, spinach and garlic. Reduce heat to simmer and cover for 10 minutes.  

* I use and recommend victoria’s vodka sauce

Real vs Canola

I've always been a huge mayonnaise fan. I mix mayo in ketchup to make dipping sauce and even put it on my burgers. I was brought up eating Hellmann's Real mayonnaise, and typically stick to tradition, but I recently decided to try Hellmann's Canola Mayonnaise. If the bottle had said low fat, I would have never made the switch. In my opinion switching from real to low fat anything usually means skipping out on taste with the addition of artificial chemicals. However, in this situation low fat is both healthier and better. Canola Mayo tastes exactly the same as real with the bonus of less calories and less cholesterol. 1 tablespoon of Real Hellmann's mayo has 90 calories with 100% of those calories coming from fat which include saturated fats. 1 tablespoon also contains 2% of your daily value of cholesterol, although 2% doesn't seem to be a large number when put into perspective 2% of your total daily value comes from only 1 tablespoon of food! Hellmann's Canola Mayo, on the other hand, contains no Cholesterol and contains half the calories per tablespoon as real mayonnaise. Also, instead of 90 calories from fat, canola mayo only contains 40 calories from fat with no saturated fats, making Canola mayo one lower calorie substitution that's worth the switch!

DAD’S SHRIMP FRIED RICE ☺

I decided to cook a family dinner for my roommates, and remembered how my dad used to cook shrimp fried rice for my family.  My dad’s fried rice is much healthier than Chinese takeout and one of my favorite meals, so I had him teach me how to make it step by step over the phone and wrote down the recipe. There weren’t too many ingredients and they weren’t expensive either especially if you buy the shrimp on sale. I followed the recipe exactly as he said, and it turned out great! My roommates loved it…

DAD’S SHRIMP FRIED RICE J

Ingredients

2 pounds of shrimp

5 eggs

2 ½ cups white rice

1 small onion

1-2 large carrot

½ cup of frozen peas

Canola oil

soy sauce

Directions:

Boil 5 cups of water. Once boiled add rice and cover. Turn heat down to simmer and cook for 20 minutes or until rice is light and fluffy. Peel shrimp and if large cut in half for bite sized pieces. Finely chop onion and carrots. Coat the bottom of a large pot with canola oil and cook shrimp and onions together over medium high heat. After shrimp is fully cooked, take off heat and put aside. Then cook frozen peas and carrots in the large pot over medium high heat until peas are tender. Set aside. Scramble the eggs in the large pot with ¼ tsp. of salt for taste. Remove eggs from pot. Coat the bottom of the pot with canola oil and fry rice over medium high heat. Stir shrimp, onions, carrots, peas and eggs into rice and add soy sauce and pepper for taste.  For a more authentic Chinese flavor fry rice in a combination of sesame and canola oil. 

Muffins!

I love breakfast foods and dessert and found a recipe for the best blueberry muffins I’ve ever had! These muffins are really sweet and have a crumbly top, which I love. I’m not a good cook or baker by any means and this was a simple recipe to follow. The ingredients are common for a lot of recipes and can definitely be used again. Blueberries aren’t in season right now and are relatively expensive so I used frozen blueberries that I thawed which was much cheaper and still delicious.

Ingredients

         1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

         3/4 cup white sugar

         1/2 teaspoon salt

         2 teaspoons baking powder

         1/3 cup vegetable oil

         1 egg

         1/3 cup milk

         1 cup fresh blueberries

         1/2 cup white sugar

         1/3 cup all-purpose flour

         1/4 cup butter, cubed

         1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.

Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.

To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/to-die-for-blueberry-muffins/Detail.aspx

Being a college student myself,  I'm always looking for easy meals, food that lasts, and trying to eat healthy. With a hectic lifestyle, it's easy to stick to recipes you know. My goal is to try a new recipe at least once a week and through this blog I hope to share in my quest for ultimate meals.

Over the past three years of college I've devised a list of grocery list must haves...

Freezer Section
1. Ravioli
2. Tilapia
3. Salmon
4. Chicken breasts
5. Shrimp
7. Vegetables
8. Chicken nuggets
9. Sausage


Fridge
1. eggs
2. english muffins
3. cheese
4. shredded parmesan
5. jelly
6. milk
7. ketchup
8. syrup
9. your favorite dressing


Produce
1. lettuce
2. carrots
3. tomatoes
4. apples
5. oranges
6. bananas
7. onions
8. potatoes
9. garlic

Cabinet
1. rice
2. pasta
3. oatmeal
4. bisquick
3. soy sauce
4. peanut butter
5. garlic powder
6. olive oil