Instant Pot Sushi Rice

Like everyone with an Instant Pot I love mine! I’m not very good at making rice on the stove top and the instant pot makes it flawlessly with very little attention. I love to use this sushi rice in sushi bowls most of all, but it also works well in sushi rolls and nigiri.

Lemon Caper Tuna Salad

First of all, hope everyone had a delicious and cozy Thanksgiving! Now, how about something super quick, easy and cheap for the post holiday? When I think of tuna salad sandwiches I think of mayo and dill pickle relish. It’s a classic and I think it’s delicious*. I had no plans to “revamp” the tuna salad in my life. But I did, kind of by accident.

Guacamole | Revisited

I pretty much stopped making this fully loaded guacamole I used to love. It required too many ingredients to make on the fly at home. Plus I’ve since learned authentic guacamole is much simpler yet doesn’t disappoint on flavor.

Lemon Garlic Greek Yogurt

A quick one today! This is an amazing yogurt dip or sauce. I know that sounds like an oxymoron to some, but it really is. The original recipe is from a Skinny Taste recipe: “Shawarma-Spiced Grilled Chicken With Garlic Yogurt”. The chicken is really delicious, but the yogurt MAKES it.

Mexican Ceviche

Ceviche is a fresh and bright dish where fish is “cooked” by marinating it in lime juice. If you haven’t heard of ceviche before, “cooking” without cooking does sound very strange but it works! (read this for more info). There are lots of types of ceviche out there, the kind I make most closely resembles the Mexican style. This is a great fresh appetizer to bring to a party. Equally as good enjoyed at home as a light meal or side dish.

Cucumber Seaweed Salad

I love a good seaweed salad at a Japanese restaurant. The texture of the seaweed and the salty sesame dressing is fantastic. Unfortunately, it’s not something I have very often, but it is often on my mind! So when I picked up this little spiralizer* for making zoodles I figured it would do an equally good job at making cucumber noodles. Once I made the cucumber noodles they reminded me so much of the strings of seaweed I decided to toss them in a similar dressing. Success!!

Shallot Confit

“Confit”, so French, so fancy. Or is it? Confit just means something that is cooked at a lower temperature for a longer time, usually submerged in oil or fat. These confit shallots go great with appetizers, meats, veggies even fruits. I paired one with a slice of red pear and brie cheese above.

Quick Pickled Onions

When someone who is not normally a pickle eater or an onion eater tells you they have started liking pickled onions… you make some for them. I love it when people start liking or trying to like foods they previously did not like. Maybe I’m a food nerd, but I find it fun and exciting to like new things myself or watch other people enjoy new things!

Tomato Parmesan Soup

I have made this Tomato Parmesan soup more than any other soup in my repertoire. I’m sure you have noticed I am a soup person by now. I can’t wait for the first cold day in fall to make it, and I don’t get tired of it all winter. There are so many choices and soup is really easy to make. Easy to invent!

Brunch at Home | Roasted Breakfast Salad

I couldn’t fit all the delicious things in this salad in the title. Roasted fennel bulb, seared tomatoes, crispy prosciutto, baguette croutons and fresh arugula. Oh and poached eggs! Hungry yet? Though you are roasting and searing a few things for this salad, it actually comes together fairly quickly once you get going.

Homemade Ketchup: Study #2

Take 2! I made ketchup a while ago, and it was just awful. It tasted like it would go better on a cake than a french fry. I didn't feel inclined to try again until I saw this Whiskey BBQ Ketchup on the Minimalist Baker while I was looking for a baked french fries recipe (the fry recipe is killer too). It didn't have cinnamon or what I associate as bakery spices, and the idea of a smoky whiskey ketchup was super intriguing. Oh man this stuff is good! Yay! I'm forever indebted to them for posting this recipe.

Gyoza Again & Ginger Peanut Dressing

As promised, another crack at Gyoza including: freezing and reheating tips and an Asian inspired salad dressing. See my last attempt here.

Homemade Croutons

These are worlds better than boxed and really give a salad a little something extra that makes it feel satisfying and fancy. They really aren't hard to make either! You only need a loaf of bread, olive oil, garlic, pepper and whatever other dried spices you'd like. Sometimes I just do pepper! Choosing the bread can define how solid your croutons are. If you choose a dense bread, they will be much harder, on the extra crunchy scale. A fluffier bread will make lighter less tooth breaking croutons. They also tend to fall apart more though. Either will work. I've made rock hard croutons and the only one complaining about it at dinner was me. These go great with my Caesar dressing and a couple of these on a Grilled Caesar salad would be smashing. Make these totally from scratch by making the bread first! You can use fresh garlic, or whir up a roasted garlic olive oil in the food processor and toss them in that. The variations are endless.

Hail Caesar!

Caesar salad is by far my favorite salad variety. I like the kind with lots of salty Parmesan cheese, anchovies and crunchy garlic croutons. *drool*

Homemade Ranch Dressing

After seeing this beautiful post on A Beautiful Mess I decided to try it! I only got as far as making the dressing during the weekend and haven't made the veggie chips yet. Which I fully intend to when I have time! At first I have to say I didn't like this ranch when I tasted it fresh out of the bowl. It wasn't bad at all, just very yogurt-y. Confession, I don't really like yogurt. I know, I know, it's so amazing for you and comes in 8 gillion different flavors, textures etc. That is why I keep trying it. I WILL force myself to like it. 

Anyway, when I tried this ranch the next day? Different story. The flavors had 'married' if you will, and no yogurt taste remained. Just delicious ranch! The second time I made this I used sour cream instead of yogurt and liked the outcome much better. It was still more delicious the second day after making, just like the yogurt version. This doesn't taste like bottled ranch, and you shouldn't expect any homemade product to taste just like bottled! But it does taste like ranch dressing!

Bacon Wrapped Scallops (Cheat)

Why is this a cheat? When you look up bacon wrapped scallops recipe everyone of them I found involved putting the scallops in the oven to crisp the bacon. Well I don't know about you, but crisping the bacon at the expense of the scallops (potentially overcooking them) did not sound cool. Scallops are far more expensive and delicate than bacon! I came up with this weirdo backwards way to make bacon wrapped scallops.

Classic Potato Salad

Summer is coming. I can feel it!

This potato salad is loosely adapted from Cooks County's All-American Potato Salad. Really the only things remaining from the original are the mayo-sour cream mix and the celery seed.

Scalloped Potatoes: Study #1

Just like the Macaroni and Cheese, this is not actually the first version I've made of this dish, but it's the first I  have written about. It won't be the last... I have had some really good scalloped potatoes, but I haven't recreated them myself yet.

This recipe comes from Food.com under 'Southern'. I only changed out the salt for cracked pepper (I always salt to taste) but otherwise followed the recipe. I used really nice extra sharp cheddar and Yukon gold potatoes. To be blunt, this was boring. It just tasted fatty and starchy. It needs garlic or onion or something else. One reviewer said she used a squirt of mustard and some minced onions, that sounds intriguing. The best part of this was the cheese burned to the side of the casserole dish.