Baked Salmon, Sweet Potato Cubes and Steamed Green Beans – Yum!

I tried a new (made-up) recipe tonight. I’ve been eating Oreo bark and Cadbury Mini Eggs for the last couple of days, so I was craving something healthy for dinner.

Since Jake and I usually eat a chicken dish for dinner, I wanted to prepare something different. I grabbed the last two pieces of fresh Pacific salmon from the grocery store, some sweet potatoes and fresh green beans from the vegetable section.

It turned out amazing! I’ll definitely be making this again:

Almond-Panko crusted baked salmon, baked sweet potato cubes and steamed green beans

Ingredients

• Two pieces of salmon (each piece I got was 6oz)
• Green beans or French beans
• Two medium/large sweet potatoes
• Mayonnaise (I used low-fat Miracle Whip)
• Panko bread crumbs
• Almonds (a handful)
• Cinnamon
• Sea salt and pepper
• Olive oil

Directions

Salmon:

• Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
• Chop almonds into tiny pieces, and mix in with the Panko bread crumbs. Add the mixture onto a plate/flat surface.
• Coat the salmon with mayonnaise (all sides), and dip the piece into the panko/almond crumbs.
• Place the salmon into a baking dish – I used an 8×8 glass pan. Place on middle rack.
• Every oven is different, but our salmon was cooked to our taste (well done) in about 40 minutes.

Potatoes:

• Cut edges off of your sweet potatoes and peel the skin off.
• Cut potatoes into cubes (as evenly sized as possible)
• Add cubed potatoes to a medium sized bowl and sprinkle olive oil all over. Mix around the potatoes (using your hands) so that they’re all coated with oil.
• Sprinkle sea salt, black pepper and cinnamon (to your taste), and once again, mix the cubed potatoes with your hands so that they are covered with all seasonings.
• Cover a baking sheet with aluminum paper. Place potatoes on the baking sheet – make sure the cubes aren’t touching each other.
• Place baking sheet on the top rack of the oven, and check on your salmon.
• Bake for 20 minutes, then switch the salmon from the middle rack to the top, and the potatoes from the top rack to the middle. Flip the potatoes over (or shuffle them up) to make sure the bottoms doesn’t get burnt.
• Check on the potatoes and salmon periodically – cut into a piece of the salmon to see the color and texture. The potatoes should be ready once they’ve gotten darker/blackened on the edges.
• Take both items out of the oven and let sit for a few minutes to cool (I transferred the potatoes into a serving bowl to cool them off).

Steam the green beans for a couple of minutes while the salmon and potatoes cool off.

And there you have it – a healthy and delicious meal ready in about an hour! Yum!

Enjoy!

Simple and Delicious Stir-Fry Dinner

I was lazy and didn’t feel like cutting up the broccoli…

A delicious and easy-to-make dinner that Jake and I can’t get enough of!

Ingredients

• Whole Wheat Egg Noodles (about half a bag is sufficient for two people)
• Broccoli (as much or as little as your like – I LOVE broccoli)
• Carrots (as much or as little as you like – I usually use two little snack bags)
• Chicken (we use a regular size rotisserie chicken from the grocery store)
• Optional: Teriyaki sauce, seasoning salt

Directions

• Boil water, add egg noodles and cook according to package
• While your noodles are boiling, start pulling apart the rotisserie chicken (or cook the chicken if you’re using using fresh tenderloins).
• Steam carrots and broccoli in a separate pot for 2-3 minutes (we like our vegetables crunchy)
• On low heat, warm up the rotisserie chicken pieces in a large, non-stick pan/wok pan

*Option 1: add teriyaki sauce to coat the chicken – I like using a little bit of Lawry’s Teriyaki marinade because it has a hint of pineapple juice
*Option 2: If you’re in the mood for something plain but just as tasty, omit the teriyaki sauce, and sprinkle Lawry’s Seasoned Salt once all of the ingredients have been mixed together

• Once the noodles are cooked, drain them, and add them to the pan with the chicken.
• Add in the steamed vegetables, and start mixing all of the ingredients.

And there you have it – a quick and delicious meal to enjoy any night of the week!

I know I was very vague with the amount of ingredients needed for this dish, but eyeballing it to your preference/taste/craving brings out your creativity and makes it different every time you prepare it!

Vegan Carrot Cranberry Muffins Recipe

My husband Jake and I are obsessed with carbs. In a perfect world, we would eat endless amounts of pizza, peanut butter sandwiches, pasta, brownies, cookies, cupcakes and all other carb goodies without gaining weight. But in reality, we have to eat all of our favorite foods in moderation, plus exercise vigorously on a daily basis (well, almost every day).

When Jake gets a muffin craving, his request is always for me to make chocolate chip muffins – his mom’s recipe. They’re absolutely delicious! I’ve switched the recipe a few times by using whole wheat flour and adding bananas, but Jake won’t touch them unless they’re identical to the original recipe (so I end up eating a whole batch of muffins by myself).

I was looking for other muffin varieties on Pinterest, when I came across a Vegan Carrot Cranberry Muffins pin from VeganFling. The steps looked easy enough to follow, so I made half a batch to see how they’d turn out. (I usually make half a batch when trying a new recipe, just in case Jake and I don’t like it)
O.M.G. – talk about heaven in your mouth! The smell of cinnamon invaded our apartment and left my tastebuds craving for a taste.
This recipe doesn’t use eggs, butter or milk, which makes me feel a lot less guilty with every bite 🙂
And the best part is that Jake loves them!!

Here’s the recipe from VeganFling:

Ingredients

Carrot Cranberry Muffins

• 2 cups of flour
• 3/4 tsp of baking powder
• 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• 3/4 tsp of salt
• 3/4 tsp of ground cinnamon (I sprinkle a little extra)
• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup of canola oil (I’ve used vegetable oil in the past, but canola oil is healthier)
• 1/4 cup of applesauce
• 1 cup of finely grated carrots (two little snack-size bags of baby carrots is what I use)
• 1 1/2 tsp of pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup of dried cranberries (I throw in a few extra cranberries, just because I love them)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 375 F.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, applesauce, and vanilla until combined. Add in the grated carrots.
• Stir in the dry ingredients until combined. Fold in the cranberries.
• Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.
• *Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the muffins are golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

*I usually bake them for about 18 minutes because I don’t like them too hard. Every oven is different, so check the batter after 15 minutes

The most time-consuming element is grating the carrots, but the end result is so yummy that it’s worth the little bit of work!

Hope you enjoy them as much as we do!