Restaurant Style Salsa

I have been wanting to make homemade salsa for a really long time. My mother-in-law makes a killer homemade salsa that I still haven't made the recipe for (and need to find in my recipe stack) and seriously...homemade salsa is the way to go. You can control heat, how chunky it is, how much cilantro is in it...etc. This is kind of a fast, easy, shortcut salsa in a way because you use canned tomatoes, however, actual tomatoes could be substituted easily. The original recipe had no cilantro and salsa just ain't salsa without cilantro, so, of course, I absolutely HAD to add a bunch :)

Chicken Fajita Soup for a busy day

There are some days where I just dread dinnertime. You know those days - you are going all day long and the last thing you want to do when you get home is slave over an hour to an hour and a half prepping and cooking dinner. Not to mention dirtying half your kitchen to get to clean up after dinner when you still just want to relax. This is where this soup comes in...

In the original recipe, canned chicken is used, but I went ahead and sauteed up some chicken really fast for it. You could even use leftover shredded chicken. Regardless, this soup comes together quickly and it's packed full of flavor!

Philly Cheeseburger Gnocchi Bake

It is no surprise that I am digging this gnocchi bake. It's got all the elements of a great meal: PHILLY CHEESESTEAK. I mean, 3 1/2 years ago if you told me Philly cheesesteak anything was for a meal, I would probably have fake gagged and made a distasteful face to go along with it. I made my own Phillies during one of Nick's deployments because it's one of his favorite foods and that was it. I suddenly found myself liking Philly cheesesteak anything. I've been all sorts of cheesesteak goodies and I know Nick absolutely loves that I am just as obsessed with cheesesteaks now :)

I am also completely obsessed with my cast iron skillet! Nick and I just celebrated 10 years of being together and he got me another cast iron skillet from the Lodge Cast Iron Factory. I hope we can get into a house soon, so I can use them! :) So basically this recipe is just everything that is right in the world and super delicious!

Nutty Cheesy Salad

Prior to this lovely surprise pregnancy, I was on a salad binge. I ate salads for lunch every single day. I could not get enough veggies and yumminess. Then...SURPRISE. I got pregnant. Most of the time, I ate chicken on my salads at lunchtime...then I suddenly hated chicken. It always tasted like it was 3 days old (like leftovers) and microwaved...no matter how it's cooked. This quite literally drove me insane. Thankfully, second trimester is being kind to me and I can eat chicken again. AND COMMENCE SALAD EATING! I never stopped eating a crapton of veggies. This pregnancy has been very kind with cravings - veggies and fruit, please!

We had this salad prior to pregnancy for dinner one night and it was super super good. I typically will eat almonds and/or sunflower seeds on my salad. In fact, most of my salads are very similar to this...except that we used a ton of nuts to make it extra nutty. And it was fabulous!

Hashbrown Potato & Sausage Quiche

I'm still very new to cast iron cooking. I have a skillet and now a casserole dish/stock pot type thing. I have yet to use the latter, as I got it right before moving. The skillet is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite things to use for cooking. I love the way it makes everything taste!

I'm a huge fan of quiches or any type of potato and egg casserole dish. So I was really excited to try this one out. Plus it has Italian sausage instead of breakfast sausage! I decided to switch out the fontina cheese with gouda and mozzarella. The gouda added a nice bacony-smoked flavor to the overall taste and it was perfect. I would love to add some kind of green to it next time - whether that be spinach or kale, I'm not yet sure :)

IPA Loaded Baked Potato Soup

I've posted a few potato soups here and there over the last 4 years of blogging...including Crockpot Loaded Baked Potato Soup, Cheddar Baked Potato Soup, Kale Soup, and Pepperjack Potato Soup to name a few. Potato soup is one of my favorite types of soup - it's so filling and they almost always include bacon and cheese. You can never go wrong with bacon and cheese. I've also really started to love the addition of beer in savory dishes. Fortunately, we always seem to have some Sam Adams on hand. Nick LOVES Sam Adams beer. Most packs will come with their Boston Lager and their Latitude 48 IPA. They aren't Nick's most favorite beers of the Sam Adams, so he doesn't mind if I snatch one up and use it for cooking. This soup also contains leeks and carrots which I also adore.

Roasted Red Pepper & Asparagus Quinoa

Hello, all!
Don't know if you can see me...but I'm over here on the Quinoa Bandwagon!!

Oh yes, I made that joke :) A really lame one.
Don't mind me over here just giggling about the corny hilariousness.

Like I said, I am on board with this quinoa craze. It's just one of the most versatile and delicious of grains. It can be in savory or sweet dishes from breakfast to dinner to dessert. So what's not to like about it?

This fabulous recipe comes straight from Jocelyn of Inside BruCrew Life. She is always posting some amazing looking sweets, but she doesn't shy away from posting some incredible main dish/savory recipes too - like this one!

There are few ingredients, but that doesn't mean it isn't flavorful. The little bit in the dish goes a long way. It's perfection - y'all have to try it!

Asian Turkey Meatballs over Easy Thai Noodles

Find the recipe on The Recipe Jackpot

Taco Stuffed Zucchini Boats

Oh, once again, the horrible New York lighting struck again. We had a couple of really mopey cloudy months to start summer and I did not feel like digging out all my fancy light box stuff and what not. So excuse the pictures that don't quite capture the true color and deliciousness that is this recipe.

I really like the picture below....it mostly captures how scrumptious this recipe looks. It's all cheesy and gooey and YUM! I love zucchini and thank goodness I'm in the South now where produce is decent for most of the year. Even in the summer in NY, zucchini is hard to come by. I think I had planned this particular recipe for a few weeks before I finally got zucchini at the store to make it.

What I really enjoy about this recipe is that you use ground turkey in place of ground beef. It's a great recipe and not too outrageously fattening - so you don't have to feel guilty about going back for more :)

Pizza Dip

I almost tried this appetizer out for New Year's Eve, but decided not to when Nick came home early from deployment. He would never touch this appetizer in a million years. So I made it when we had friends over since it's my favorite thing to do to make a cheesy food that we can all dig into. I think that when I did it, we used tortilla chips, but I think something more substantial like slices of French bread would be much better.

Jalapeno Popper Pizza

Dear cheese and duplex with no natural light,

C'mon y'all!! I'm trying to get a really good picture of this incredible pizza.
It's creamy and spicy and bacony and all things that good pizza should be.
But noooo...you gotta be all dark and orangey and make my picture look overexposed and weird.

*sigh*
Love,
Sarah

But for real, this pizza is good! I've tried a few jalapeno popper pizzas and they are all different and delicious in their own ways!

Chipotle Steak Quesadillas

Quesadillas are kind of the bomb. I mean you can choose so many different flavors [cheesesteak, jalapeno popper steak, chicken, bacon, & avocado, bbq chicken & pineapple, and copycat taco bell chicken] and they are typically very easy and quick to make. What I love about this particular quesadilla recipe is that the flank steak goes into the crockpot and by dinnertime, you get this ridiculously delicious filling for the quesadillas. Unbelievably good!

Hawaiian Pizza with Beer Crust

I love pizza. Don't most people?
We alternate pizza and burgers on Fridays and I always look forward to pizza night.

I mean...how many different combinations of pizza are there?? I mean I can't even keep track of all the different ones we've tried: see?! And with homemade crust - even better! I just really love everything about homemade pizza.

I was excited to try this recipe because it was one of my all-time favorites: Hawaiian! AND it has beer crust. The crust itself turned out to be thinner and crunchy. It offset the toppings perfectly and the whole thing was just incredibly delicious. I wish I had better words to describe its deliciousness, but I do not.

Crockpot Beef & Broccoli

I love a good Asian meal with lots of veggies.
I especially love a good Asian meal with lots of veggies that I can throw into a crockpot!

And that's exactly what this is...
I served it up with quinoa because I'm super obsessed with it right now. It's a very filling and delicious meal that makes everyone happy :)

Olive Garden Tuscan Garlic Chicken Copycat

I have only been to Olive Garden a handful of times. I think the first two times I just ordered their traditional spaghetti. Then I tried the eggplant parmigiana and then the last time I had chicken parmigiana. So...maybe 4 times...there may be another time in there...but I probably got spaghetti.

I have tried a few copycats at home now and I have to say...I really want to get back in there and try the real thing to see how the copycats compare...because the copycats are AMAZING!!

I think this one is honestly my favorite though. It's an alfredo-like sauce (from what I gather, for it to be alfredo it has to be butter and parmesan) and it has red bells AND spinach in it too. The family really loved it as well, so this will definitely be made at home.

Crunchy Buffalo Chicken Salad

I'm a sucker for a salad. I have been known to make myself a salad at 9 o'clock at night, just because. I love crunchy crunchy salads in particular. I think it's just a texture thing - crunchy veggies - yummy!

This particular salad recipe was heavily adapted to fit what we could find in our not-so-great produce section and what the family typically likes to eat in the salad. I was the only one who ate my salad with dressing and I'm not big on ranch or blue cheese dressing, so I adapted it with creamy Caesar (my current fave!). No cheese or anything to cut on the spiciness anymore than what is already in the salad - spicy is fine by me!

Southwestern Chicken Casserole

Nowadays, this isn't something that I would typically gravitate towards making. I very rarely will make something that has cream of anything soup plus carb-heavy and lots of cans of foods...just not my style. I'm not saying these foods can't be delicious, but it's rare that I make this type of food anymore. I did have it saved on my Pinterest boards and really wanted to try it out.

I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious it was and it also made a ton of food. I filled up my biggest tupperware container with leftover casserole and froze it for a quick meal down the road. Everyone gobbled it right up too!

When I make it again, I am going to try and modify it with more fresh ingredients. I personally have become accustomed to the thought that "fresh tastes better". I also would like to split this up between two casserole dishes. It was overflowing in my 9x13x2-inch pan.

Jalapeno Coins

Sometimes you look in the mirror and you don't recognize yourself...

It seems I've been doing this a lot lately when it comes to my time in the kitchen.

I'm not really a beer drinker. I like some beers, but it's not my first choice of any type of beverage. I am hooked on beer foods though. [insert meme: BEER BATTER ALL THE THINGS!!!!] It's crazy. I also invested in a little deep fryer that also can be a steamer and a pot-shaped slow cooker - it's pretty awesome [see it on Amazon]. Once upon a time, I said I would never get one because I remember how messy they were from the Fry Daddy my family had when I was a kid. But so far, it's amazingly easy to clean and take care of. I kept the container that the oil came from and use a measuring cup to pour it back into that container. It's surprisingly easy to keep everything clean and not greasy all over.

These beer battered jalapeno slices are so addictive. I couldn't make them fast enough!

Texas Queso Dip

I've always sort of hated the cheese you can buy in a block and use for dips...you know...the one that starts with a V. Blech. I always though it tasted so fake. So I've been experimenting with different recipes for dips and appetizers that use real cheese and so far the results have been amazing :)

This queso dip I made on NYE and it was demolished very quickly. My personal opinion is that you can never go wrong with pico de gallo. It's one of the very best things in the whole world and it really did make this queso dip incredible.

For serving, I suggest keeping it warm in a crockpot or a fondue pot. Ours didn't last long enough for it to need that, but it does begin to solidify if left at room temperature, which is a normal thing for it to do, but it does make dipping hard!

Bacon Cheeseburger Skillet

Not every recipe turns out pretty-looking. It kind of drives me bonkers. I mean food is typically something that needs to be aesthetically pleasing. Most people won't eat something that doesn't look appetizing.

I think I'm not as picky because I grew up eating casseroles and hot dishes that weren't pretty dishes, but tasted amazing. This skillet recipe is a good recipe. It's not necessarily the most pretty, but it is delicious! With the potatoes and meat, it's very filling, but it has the classic flavors of a bacon cheeseburger with the condiments added right in!