Tag: Cooking Light

Make This Now: Recipes for Spring

LaurenLeave a comment

I actually don’t know what makes these spring recipes, except maybe that I made them in spring?  And there’s fresh herbs?  And they’re neither full on winter comfort food nor grill-friendly summer food?  Who knows!  I just know these were all insanely delicious and I feel very eager to pass them along to you so you can enjoy them too ♥

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Ejjeh Quiche

Cilantro, parsley, mint, green onion!  I’d had this recipe saved for soooo long and finally bit the bullet, then had no idea why I’d waited so long because it was truly flavor-packed and amazing.  I was filled with such happiness every time I cut myself a slice.  Oh and I sent the above picture to Joey one night when, due to extracurricular activities, we spent dinnertime separately and challenged him to replicate it.  He sent me back my own picture (expressionless face emoji).

Full disclosure: I used my mom’s crust recipe because it’s unequivocally the best and I need no other crust recipe in my life.

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Sweet Potato Grain Bowls with Turmeric Honey Mustard

I’ve been very into this blog — Dishing Out Health — lately.  Unsurprisingly, since the author is a recipe developer for Cooking Light and as you know, I’ve been a CL reader for many many years.  Joey and I were immediately in love with this grain bowl because A) it tasted so so good (that honey mustard sauce is killer!) and B) it was so dang simple and easy to put together.  How dare simplicity taste this good!

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Wild Salmon with Horseradish-Mustard Sauce + All the Green Things Salad

This dinner was a team effort (Joey made the salmon, I made the salad) and I was so blown away by the final product!  We were skeptical of the salmon cooking method because cooking it on the stove-top AND flipping it aren’t things we usually do with fish but it was so incredible and had the best crispy skin, plus you should just know I love anything involving horseradish.  The salad was chock-full of, you guessed it, green things and they all tasted so fresh and bright tossed in that lemony vinaigrette.  I may or may not have been doing a little happy dance the entire time I ate this plate of food 🙂

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Spring Pea Veggie Burgers

It’s pretty clear what makes this a spring recipe… it’s right in the title!  But also because it includes every green spring produce to ever exist.  Every veggie burger is a game of Will They or Won’t They Hold Together but these held together SO WELL and tasted even better.  I know I already blabbed about how good these were in my Weekend Things post so I’ll stop now but… just… MAKE THESE, okay?

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In other news:

More of our tulips have popped open this week and I’m mesmerized by their vibrant colors, 

We decided to stop letting our dog sleep in bed with us and though he’s mostly been okay with it, we sometimes can’t look him in the eyes at night,

I ate a taco comprised of one single Brussels sprout, cut in half and topped with a spicy crema and I’m never doing that again,

It’s Friday!  Have a good weekend!

The Cooking Light 3-Day Detox

Lauren6 Comments

Hear me out on this one.  “Detox” is dumb.  I have full faith that, unless you’re subsisting off alcohol, processed foods and sugar, your body is fully capable of “detoxing” itself.  That’s what your liver and kidneys are for, right?  But when Cooking Light published a 3-Day Detox meal plan in their January issue, I couldn’t resist, because I like being given a meal plan and I like when Joey and I get to do a little kitchen project together.  Like the Food Lover’s Cleanse, except way shorter, way easier and way less expensive.

Truthfully, I wasn’t even going to post about it, because it didn’t seem exciting or important enough, but I’m trying to take the time to write about those exact things.  They go by unnoticed, but they actually make up most of our lives, ya know?

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Things I Learned:

  • I’m not about a smoothie breakfast — something about not actually chewing food makes me feel like I haven’t actually eaten anything
  • Pork tenderloin and sweet potatoes are the best — I was not even looking forward to that dinner salad on Day 1, but then it was amazingly delicious and those sweet potatoes for breakfast the next day were so satisfying
  • My snack game could be way better — a pear and almond butter is so much better than a Larabar, so why don’t I take the time to actually prepare a snack more often?!
  • C.R.E.A.M., AKA carbs rule everything around me — as in, by the end of Day 3, I felt like if I didn’t eat something more than that 1/2 cup of quinoa for dinner I might actually cry

Okay, I like to think I eat pretty healthy and I don’t think I overeat all that often, but I was kind of starving by Wednesday so I don’t know who that meal plan was designed for, but those portions/meals weren’t cutting it.  While the food was all tasty as hell, it also wasn’t super filling and I so did not get into that “detox” to lose any weight.

In other words, we finished our 3-Day Detox with two big old chocolate chip cookies 🙂