Onion Soup

Ingredients:

2 large or 3 medium onions

4 tbsp butter

3 cloves garlic

3 cans chicken broth

1 sprig fresh rosemary

Saute onions with butter over medium heat for 20 minutes or until very soft. Add crushed garlic and diced rosemary. Add chicken broth and simmer 15 minutes or until heated through. Top with havarti or your favorite cheese and enjoy.

Country Fried Steak

 I’ve been out of the blogger game for awhile, but this recipe is too good (and too easy) for me not to share. It’s country fried steak, it’s keto, and it has three ingredients. And did I mention it’s delicious? Because whether you try to eat keto or not, it’s delicious. 

Coat the bottom of a pan with cooking oil (I use avocado oil) and heat over medium high. 

Beat two eggs in a shallow dish. 

Pour about a cup of pork rind crumbs (I used Italian flavor, but follow your tastes) into another shallow dish. 

Pat a cube steak dry with paper towels, then dredge in the egg, then dredge in the crumbs. Place in sizzling pan and let it sit until the juices run clear. Flip, and cook for a minute on the other side. Remove from the pan and repeat with the rest of your cube steaks. 

Enjoy! 

Kitchen Makeover in 1 Week and $200

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I know I'm not the only one who's been feeling the need to keep busy recently through home improvement projects. It can be hard to balance the need to update your space with a tight budget--but it's not impossible!

I took my kitchen from this:

to this:

in one week (home alone with the help of my 1 and 3 year old) for almost exactly $200.

Here's how that breaks down: $40 paint (Behr Marquee semi-gloss), $120 hinges and knobs, $40 this beautiful built-in cutting board to replace the gross old one from who-knows-when. I had the white that I used for the backsplash left over from another project (that you'll hear about eventually). I could have reused the old hinges and knobs if I really wanted to cut my budget (a $5 can of spray paint could help, but these were rusted and had stripped screws... gross).

And can I just tell you? I absolutely LOVE my new kitchen. I get tons of compliments on it, including the backhanded "I was skeptical when you told me you were going to paint your kitchen blue, but it looks really awesome!" 

Small batch chocolate chip cookies

Is everyone else carbo-loading their way through this lockdown? Baking is a great learning tool for my toddler, keeps us occupied for awhile, and keeps us flush with comfort foods. Can you be sad about being stuck in your house while you’re shoveling warm chocolate chip cookies into your mouth? I think not. 

The problem I always have with recipes is that I am feeding two people, and one of us is 3, so it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for us to make a batch of 40 cookies. For these cookies, I modified this recipe and ended up with a dozen cookies. It was perfect for our family!

7 tbsp butter, just melted

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla 

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar 

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup white flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips 

Beat together butter, sugars, vanilla, and vinegar. Add egg yolk and beat again. Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Beat it. Stir in chocolate chips. Roll into balls. Bake on greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until the edges are just starting to brown. Eat warm for best results. 

*edited to add: at room temperature, these are reminiscent of Mrs Fields chocolate chip cookies, so you really can’t go wrong when eating them. You’re welcome. 

Coconut Macaroons

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These are macarons.

This is Macron. (photo credit)

These are macaroons.

They're basically what would happen if a meringue and a coconut got it on. 

My three year old loved making them because egg whites are f*cking magical. He then loved eating them because they're light and fluffy and essentially melt in your mouth. Recipe here, followed exactly. I rarely cook from cookbooks anymore, but this one is a gem. Many of my cookies come from here, although I have found a gingerbread recipe I like better elsewhere.

Freezer enchiladas

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Let me start by saying, I felt like such a badass today! I simultaneously made dinner and prepped freezer enchiladas... with a baby! While on Corona-lockdown! 

Okay, now that that's out of the way. Freezer enchiladas. Pictures coming soon.

Shredded chicken
Enchilada sauce (I prefer green, but that's just me)
Cheese
Tortillas

Pop open your enchilada sauce. Pour a little sauce in the bottom of your pan and also mix a little bit into the chicken. Spread some chicken along the middle of a tortilla (just like you would for a burrito, but pretty much to the ends). Sprinkle with shredded cheese. Roll up like a burrito, but with the ends open. Put in saucy pan with the seam down or to the side so it won't unroll. Repeat. Once all of your enchiladas are nestled together in the pan, pour more sauce over the top. Sprinkle with more shredded cheese. 

For immediate consumption: bake for 15 minutes at 400° then broil for about 5 minutes to crisp up the cheese on top.

To freeze for later: wrap with plastic wrap and aluminum foil, pushing them close to the surface of the food to remove as much air as possible. Defrost in the fridge before eating, then follow the directions above.

I usually make a batch of these in my favorite 8x8 Pyrex pan that has its very own lid (love!) to eat right away, but I REALLY needed to cook the ground beef that was in the fridge. Ya know?

4 Ingredient Broccoli Beef

This broccoli beef has become one of my go-to recipes because it's quick, easy, and delicious. My toddler loves it (minus the broccoli) and calls it sticky beef. 

Here's what you need:

a pound of ground beef
a broccoli crown
soy sauce
brown sugar

That's it. And salt and pepper for seasoning your beef, if you want to get fancy. It's also scrumptious served over sticky rice. So you're looking at a maximum of 7 ingredients if you want all the extras, which is still pretty sweet.

Thoroughly cook ground beef in a skillet. At the same time, broil broccoli florets in the oven until toasted to your desired level of brown-ness. Once the beef is cooked, mix together roughly equal amounts of soy sauce and brown sugar (err on the side of more soy sauce; I usually do about a quarter cup of each) and pour over the beef. Simmer for a couple of minutes to let the flavors combine. 

If I'm serving this over rice, I'll layer rice on the bottom, broccoli in the middle, saucy beef on top.