Blog Every Day in January Day 14: Getting Stuff Done

I had an amazingly productive day today! I went to visit the high school where I'm student teaching to have a meeting with my cooperating teacher, and I started the day off on a really positive note and I think I rode that wave all day long. And I have some things to show for it, too!

1.) I uploaded a new video onto the Sisters, Not Twins YouTube channel. I'm working on trying to make these videos a little more concise, and I think part of that process will be more planning ahead. I always get a little anxious as I watch the number next to the little thumbs up on Facebook, and the viewcount on the video page. But I've actually been enjoying the video-making aspect of this, and I like to see how many of my friends come out of the woodwork and tell me that they've been watching!




2.) I tackled another recipe! I tried the chicken and dumplings recipe that I mentioned in my post from last week, and it was SO SO SO good. The texture was very stew-like and hearty, and even though it was SUPER filling I still went back for seconds. And I shared with friends, because the recipe made a MASSIVE pot of soup. The only thing I changed was that I cut up some carrots, onions, and celery and sautéed them in the butter before adding the chicken broth. I think next time I'll season it a little more heavily, since there was so much flour in the recipe that it wound up being a little bland.

SO MUCH SOUP 

Dumplings are the key to a girls' heart

3.) It took some time, but I finally got to the bottom of a long list of emails I've been avoiding responding to. Well, the list never really started out that long, but as I crossed items off more items would pop up. As of right now, there are NO MORE ITEMS.

4) Speaking of emails I had been avoiding, I also emailed my nutritionist. #babysteps

PROOF THAT I DID IT

Aaaand as per usual, I have written this entry at the very end of the day. Did I already use the hashtag #babysteps? It still applies.

Blog Every Day in January Day 12: Fun Drinks for My Friend's Birthday

Today was my friend Victoria's birthday, and since one of our favorite YouTube series is You Deserve a Drink, I figured it would be fun to create some drinks with pun-y names related to Victoria. They turned out pretty good, so I figured I would share the recipes with you!

Victoria Rosé Wine Coolers

The name for this one was easy, since her name is Victoria Rose (she distinguishes her middle name because she knows someone else with the same name). As it turns out, real Rosé wine is a little out of my price range (a lot out), I just used blush wine. Pink moscato probably could have worked, too! This drink was good in concept, but wasn't the most exciting of the three. I think this could have used some more fizz and less wine. I probably won't muddle the strawberries next time, and instead keep them frozen to keep the drink cool. The chunks were a little...grotesque. Also, I used diet strawberry kiwi sparkling water, but I'm listing in the recipe to use peach seltzer because that's what I originally wanted to use but forgot to buy. Hence the diet strawberry kiwi whatever whatever.

Ingredients
-Peach seltzer water
-Frozen Strawberries
-Pink wine of your choice

Instructions
1.) Thaw your strawberries and muddle them at the bottom of your cup OR keep them frozen to use as ice cubes (choose your own adventure!)
2.) Fill your cup about 2/3 (give or take, depending on taste) with peach seltzer
3.) Fill the cup the rest of the way with wine (assuming you have accounted for space at the top so you don't...you know...spill everywhere. How drunk are you?? Jeez.)

IF IT'S YA BIRTHDAY SHAKE SOME NOISE

This drink name is a pun on a very aggressive birthday song. Nevertheless, it was SO FREAKING GOOD. I'm serious, make this. I don't have anything else to say except for YOU SHOULD MAKE THIS.

Ingredients

-2 or more scoops of Vanilla ice cream (depending how you prefer the consistency of your milkshake)
-About a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream (or more if you really love Baileys)
-Milk (JUST A SPLASH AHH)
-About 1 tbsp of Nutella (don't go too heavy on this stuff, a little goes a long way!!)

Instructions
1.) Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend them together.
2.) That's it that's the whole recipe idk what you were expecting it's a milkshake.

Schnapp-era Zinger Shots

She's a voice performance major!!! Do you get it???? GUYS I'M HILARIOUS. Anyways, this shot was RE-DONKULOUS. While I was prepping it, the entire kitchen smelled like lemons and we 100% thought it would be disgusting, but O M G IT WAS SO GOOD. And it was like stupidly easy. We also tried an alternate version, which added orange juice to bulk up the volume and make it more like a cocktail and WOW so good. Try both!!

Ingredients (for 2 shots)

-1 1/2 shots of peach schnapps

-The juice of 1 lemon

-Lemon sugar (mix the zest of 1/2 a lemon with about 1 tbsp of sugar)

-A shaker full of ice

Directions

1.) Use the squeezed out carcass of your lemon to rim the shot glasses, then dip the shot glasses in the lemon sugar. THAT'S RIGHT, YOU'RE BEING FANCY TONIGHT.

2.) Pour the peach schnapps and lemon juice into the shaker and cover it and shake it up like that Florence and the Machine song that everyone is like obsessed with.

3.) Pour the shots into the shot glasses and enjoy!

I'm pretty impressed with myself for making these up. Like I ain't no bartender, but WHATEVER. MAYBE I SHOULD BE.

...Uhh.

Make these drinks and let me know how they turned out for you! 

Blog Every Day in January Day 8: Recipes That Didn't Go So Well

So I've had a lot of success with a number of recipes, and I really do enjoy trying new things when it comes to food. I don't know if cooking is something that I'm so passionate about that I would pursue it as a career, but it is definitely a genuine hobby of mine. That is to say, I get really excited when I find a recipe that I want to try, and I invest a lot of time and effort into planning and preparing new recipes. Seriously. Ask my friends--before I tried making macarons I read dozens of articles and watched hours worth of YouTube videos. I did extensive research on the perfect egg-white ratio for Ina Garten's cheese and spinach soufflé. I lost hours of sleep when I did the turkey for my roommate's Thanksgiving because I was so nervous that it wouldn't thaw or cook and I didn't know if my recipe would work. Moral of the story: I try very hard when it comes to food, and I do it because I like it.

Obviously not every recipe has been a big success. Once I messed up a batch of macarons so badly, that I just started smooshing them all into the pan and my mom and Sarah had to witness me having a mental breakdown and harassing the silicone baking-mat company via twitter. I also often forget to add salt to recipes that are so simple that it's like--how could this go wrong! I'll tell you how it could go wrong, YOU COULD FORGET TO SEASON THE ENTIRE DISH. Yikes.

Anyways, here are some of my top recipe fails:

7.) White Chocolate Fondue.

Don't be fooled by the picture, it 100% did not look like this. Let's start off with the fact that I was TWELVE YEARS OLD when I tried to make this. Forget about the fact that I am currently 21-going-on-22 and afraid to work with chocolate in any form other than cake, this recipe was HELLA HARD. And it required a full vanilla bean--which was HELLA EXPENSIVE and my mom never let me forget about it. I don't even remember which recipe I used, it was in some rando fondue cook book that my mom bought after I insisted we buy a fondue pot. We had just gone to the Melting Pot that summer before and I was fondue-crazy. Even as a 12 year old I was ambitious. I made this for my friends at a sleepover, and it was a soupy, floury, sugary mess. Seriously. We also tried making sushi that day, which essentially wound up being rice-and-seaweed balls. Good job, 12 year old Melanie and Friends.

6.) My mom's banana bread recipe.

This recipe and the fondue are lower on the list, because my failures had nothing to do with the recipes but rather with me being a moron. Seriously, when a recipe says to "grease and flour the pan", it means "take your stick of butter and get messy, and sprinkle that flour all around until NOTHING STICKS". In no way does "grease and flour the pan" mean "be distracted by 30 Rock's series finale and haphazardly spray the pan with Pam during commercial breaks". Also, don't add chocolate chips to a recipe when your mom tells you not to add chocolate chips to the recipe. Yikes.

5.) My beloved chicken parm panini from T'Licious (RIP)

Last summer my favorite place on Main Street, T'Licious, went out of business. Not only did they serve the best bubble teas with the freshest flavors, but they also had this bangin'-ass chicken parm panini. This is what the real thing looks like:

Beautiful, crispy, flavorful, melt-y, tomato-y heaven. I tried to recreate it this past November, and as you can see, it was NOTHING like the original. The breading and seasoning on the chicken was off, the baguette I bought wasn't crusty at all, and my tomato sauce smelled suspicious so I didn't put enough on the sandwich. Just a disappointment over all. WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME, T'LICIOUS?? IT WASNT YOUR TIME TO GO!!

4.) Thanksgiving Pizza. AKA: Your Digestive System's Worst Nightmare

I still maintain that this was an amazing idea, and that I can't believe more people haven't done it. It's just that the execution was...a little rough. The construction was: Boboli pizza crust, "thin" layer of mashed potatoes, gravy, cornbread stuffing, more gravy, leftover turkey, mozarella cheese. Then you bake it in the oven and put the cold cranberry sauce on top. HOW COULD THIS HAVE GONE WRONG?? The problem was that it was like two full meals worth of food per serving. Just too much. I felt sick for like a full day afterwards. Someone, please perfect this recipe. And send it to me once you've figured it out, because I don't think my digestive system can handle any more trials.

3.) "Fried" Honey Bananas

I saw this on Pinterest and thought "WOW what a simple and creative healthy snack!" which is true--it really is a simple and healthy way to change up a serving of fruit. And I'm sure that lots of people have had success with this recipe because of how simple it is, but I am not one of those people! I got really impatient with this one, and didn't let the pan heat up enough (which, fun fact, is a common mistake I make because I literally do not know how to wait). So this was a failure for me. And the reason why this made it so high up the list really has nothing to do with the recipe itself, but with how I messed this up so badly that the end product was literally one of the most disgusting things I've ever forced myself to eat. Since you add a water and honey mixture to add the sweetness, and since I decided that I wasn't going to wait for the pan to heat up enough for any part of this recipe, I wound up with soggy, gooey, goopy banana slices in sticky honey water. Honestly, I don't know what's wrong with me. Go look at the recipe and see for yourself how foolproof it is. I am ashamed.

2.) Greek Yogurt Macaroni and Cheese

I've seen a zillion different sources for this recipe, and they are all essentially the same thing: you cook some pasta, then you add some greek yogurt and cheese. And honestly, I don't know what I was expecting. It tasted like greek yogurt, cheese, and pasta. Imagine those three things happening separately. Now imagine them happening at the same time. That is literally what you taste. The greek yogurt doesn't transform into any sort of creamy goodness (...actually it curdled), the cheese doesn't melt into the yogurt, and the pasta doesn't absorb any of it. I'm telling you right now, unless you love greek yogurt SO MUCH that you would eat it on hot pasta, do not make this recipe. It is a lie.

1.) THIS FREAKING BREAD RECIPE

This picture from the website is absolutely ridiculous. That is NOT what this recipe looks like. I wish I had taken a picture of the flat, pale, and bland monstrosity that this recipe actually was for me. I've alluded to this recipe a number of times, but now I'm going to set the record straight. I've had questionable luck with bread recipes in the past, often because of impatience, faulty equipment, or bad circumstances. But in all other instances, regardless of texture or appearance, they've all at least tasted good. So I thought HEY maybe this recipe will work. HOO BOY WAS I WRONG.

FIRST OF ALL the amount of kneading specified in the recipe is so downplayed. I literally kneaded for a half an hour. Ask my roommates, I was getting REAL MAD in the kitchen trying to get this dough to form. I mean--come on. Give me a time frame of how long it takes for me to knead this bread. I was expecting 10-15 minutes, NOT 30-40. And yes, I was supposed to knead it for that long. The texture of the bread wound up being pretty great. WHICH IS A DAMN SHAME because

SECOND OF ALL this bread had LITERALLY. NO. FLAVOR. I didn't think that bread could be flavorless. I could not comprehend the idea of bread tasting like NOTHING. LIKE AIR. Especially with the amount of time I spent working with that freaking poolish. My roommate commented that it was "like eating hot water in bread form". GAH. I literally spent an ENTIRE DAY making this freaking bread. What a mess. I had to call it quits for a while after making this recipe, because I was so traumatized. BUT I WON'T GIVE UP! BACK IN THE SADDLE!!

How about you? Have you ever had any major failures in the kitchen? Let me know in the comments!

Blog Every Day in January Day 7: Recipes I'm Dying to Try

Since I've been home for the past few weeks, I haven't really been cooking or experimenting with recipes. My mom tends to plan meals for the week, and I usually just roll with whatever she's cooking rather than making something separate for myself. It's nice that I don't have to cook, but I kind of miss it!

I was scrolling through my Pinterest, and for the record, I do usually try the recipes that I pin. I know that Pinterest tends to become a dumping ground for nice pictures of food and home decor (...at least it does for me), but I've actually made a ton of recipes from Pinterest that have been super successful. I've had my eye on a few recipes that I pinned a while back, and I'm hoping to try some of them out when I go back to school:

1.)

This Cheesy Zucchini Rice recipe (originally from realsimplefood.com but has been adapted several times over). I don't know what it is about this recipe, but I have literally pinned like four different versions of it. So clearly I really want to try it. I mean, how could you go wrong? Zucchini? Good. Cheese? Good. Rice? Good. I should just get it over with and make it!

2.) 

This 30-Minute Chicken and Dumplings from Parade.com. I am a true sucker for comfort food, especially when it comes to stews. This looks like the perfect recipe for a day as cold as today was, so I think I'll break out this recipe for the next time I'm at school and it's as cold as the arctic outside.

3.)

This No-Knead Bread from Jezebel.com. In my post about Things I Would Like to Do post, I mentioned that I've been searching for a bread recipe that was easy but also not super bland. My cousin Anne posted this on my Facebook after I wrote that entry, and then my other cousin Monette made it a few days later and put photos on Facebook. It looks SO GOOD and super easy! So I'm going to put my apron back on (figuratively--I don't usually wear an apron) and give it a shot. I love bread so much.

4.) 

CHOCOLATE MOLTEN CAKES. I found this recipe (from Jenny Steffens Hobick's blog) on Pinterest like a year ago, and I really just never stop thinking about it. I am an EXTREME chocoholic, and WOWOWOWOWOW MOLTEN CHOCOLATE IS MY DREAM. I dream of molten chocolate. I want to travel to a land where there are waterfalls of molten chocolate in nature, and I can just BATHE IN THEM.

Sooo yeah those are on my get-it-done list at the moment. I will definitely do some follow ups when I make each of these recipes. In the meantime, tune in tomorrow for a post on recipes that I've made that were a total FAIL. Pinterest, man. Sometimes you win, sometimes you spend six hours making a bread recipe that ends up tasting like hot water in bread form and wow there goes like an entire sack of flour. Not that I'm bitter about it. 

September in October: Getting Creative with Healthy Eating

So in the past month I've gotten a lot more serious about eating healthier and losing weight and all that good stuff, and I will be writing an update about that soon. But one of the things that I've really been focusing on in order to keep myself excited is trying out new recipes. I've been doing a lot of experimenting with pins, and also improvising out of my own fridge. I figured I'd share some of the things I've made in the past month (...these are all taken from instagram).

Standard tomato soup and grilled cheese, but I added some fresh basil and parmesan to the soup to get some more flavor. Not too impressive, and it's not something I would have considered to be "healthy"...but if you get a little crafty, it's really not bad for you at all (310 calories if we're talking specifics). Plus the meal itself is super filling! And I enjoyed the HECK out of it. HECK.

You may remember this recipe that I posted when it was actually September. Well..this counts. So I'm putting it in! You can find out what I did in this post. SO GOOD.

One of my improvised recipes: Buffalo chicken pizza! Omg I literally died over this pizza. I used a whole wheat Boboli brand pizza crust, shredded up some chicken breast with buffalo sauce and laid that on top of the crust, and then covered that with low fat blue cheese crumbles and part skim mozzarella. I cooked it according to the pizza crust package instructions, which worked out pretty well. I also drizzled on some low-fat ranch to cool down some of the spice. It was a big hit among my friends, and I'm pretty excited to try it again!

Yet another improvised recipe: Dumpling squash soup and baked cornflake chicken tenders. I bought this cute little dumpling squash on sale when I went apple picking with my friends, and I decided to make it into soup. It was very simple. I halved the squash and oven roasted it until tender, then scooped out the meat into a blender with some skim milk and pureed it until it was a smooth and creamy soup. Then I put it back into a pot and added some salt, pepper, and nutmeg. It was a little bit stuck between savory and sweet, so I might try to go more towards an extreme the next time I make it, but it was super delicious!

To make the chicken tenders, I mixed together a tablespoon of dijon mustard and a tablespoon of honey, then dipped the raw chicken breast pieces in it (instead of dredging in egg and flour) before dipping it into some crushed up corn flakes. I baked them in the oven for about 20 minutes (at 350? I don't even remember) and I flipped them halfway through. So crunchy!!

I had leftover ricotta from making baked ziti for a potluck, so I used it to make these ricotta and spinach stuffed portobello mushrooms from a recipe I found on Pinterest. These made my entire apartment smell amazing, and they tasted DE LI CIOUS. Plus, they were so low-cal that I didn't feel guilty about eating a side of pasta.

This one was actually 1.) not healthy and 2.) a failure, but I figured I would put it here anyways. I made this supposedly fool-proof bread recipe, and wound up with sad, flat, beige bread that only tasted good on the first day. I've been desperately trying to get good at making bread, but this recipe was just a no-go for me. In fact, I was so disappointed that I'm not even going to POST the recipe. SORRY THAT I AM NOT SORRY. Anyways, I tweaked the bread recipe by adding some rosemary to the dough, because I was making it to go with my roommate Nicole's delicious beef stew that has a ton of rosemary in it.

I don't think I ever talk about how much I love beef stew. I'm obsessed. The ratio of times when I am craving beef stew versus the number of times that it is socially appropriate to eat beef stew is seriously skewed. I want to try every beef stew recipe that exists. Nicole's is great because it uses squash (or sweet potatoes!) and vegetable broth, so it's a lighter spin. Plus I'm obsessed with all the rosemary and thyme and parsley that goes into it. HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I LOVE BEEF STEW??

...sorry. Anyways, I made this bread to go with the stew and it wound up being delicious straight out of the oven, but way too dense after it cooled down. It was a no-knead bread, but I think it probably could have used more kneading. And proofing. And...time. Basically, it was just a dud recipe. Also, I tried to make another recipe that following weekend (I WILL NEVER GIVE UP ON MY DREAMS OF BREAD) which rose more, but was BLAND AS HELL. Seriously. I didn't know that bread and hot water could have the same flavor, but they did. It was HORRIBLE. Just HORRIBLE. I've decided to stop trying no-knead recipes and just put off all bread baking until I am back in a place that has a stand mixer with a dough hook, because no-knead means NO GOOD. #breadrage

The last recipe I want to talk about (...mainly to redeem myself for the horrible bread rant) is my current breakfast obsession, the breakfast burrito. I found these 80 calorie tortillas, and I've just been going nuts with them. I scramble up one egg with a chopped up colby cheese stick (Sargento makes low fat ones!) and then plop it onto the burrito with some salsa and plain greek yogurt (because my stomach can no longer handle sour cream in the morning..sad times). It's one of my favorite ways to start the day.

Part of my struggle with weight loss has always been that I'm basically obsessed with food. It's really easy to associate healthy eating with like...misery. But it definitely doesn't have to be that way. Getting creative with healthy recipes makes me really excited, and it gives me an outlet to express my love of food. I've got lots of recipes pinned, and tons more ideas to come so look out for those in the future!

Zucchini Lasagna

This summer, one of my mom's coworkers gave her a giant zucchini from her garden, and my mom had no idea what to do with it. We had SO MUCH zucchini, and my mom tried out so many zucchini recipes. One of my favorites that she made was this zucchini lasagna, which used zucchini slices in place of the pasta, and I was so in love with it that I called my mom up and asked her for the recipe.

This recipe is a modification of what she gave me, but most of it is pretty similar. It was surprisingly simple! I've never made lasagna, but I'm definitely less afraid of it now!

Here is (some of) the cast of characters:

In this picture I've got 1 zucchini (although I really should have had 2...), onions, celery, garlic, tomato sauce, tomato paste, fat free ricotta, part skim mozzarella, and 93% lean ground turkey. Not pictured: fresh baby spinach, dried oregano, fresh basil, salt, pepper, olive oil, and parmesan cheese.

The thing I love about this recipe is that it's so filling, and the heaviest components are the turkey and the cheese--which aren't so terrible for you. 

The first thing I did, even before leaving for the grocery, was peel and slice my zucchini into as think pieces as possible. My knife skills are a little sub-par, so these slices aren't really even. But they get the job done! Like I said, I definitely should have used more than one zucchini to have more of a pasta-like layer, but I worked with what I had.

After I sliced them, I sprinkled salt on each side of every zucchini slice and let them sit to pull out some of the extra moisture. Nobody likes watery lasagna. Just sayin'.

The first thing I did was heat up my "saucepan" (it's just a pot) and drop in some olive oil, minced garlic, and diced onions. I already had the garlic and onions prepared and chillin in my fridge, since I use both of those things frequently enough to just always keep them around. I'd say this was about 1/3 cup of diced onions and 1 clove of garlic. I would probably be a little more generous next time around.

Not pictured: I dropped in some celery last minute because I thought it would be nice.

I drizzled in just a tiny bit more olive oil (like a teaspoon?) and threw the turkey into the pot to brown it up with the onions and garlic on medium high heat. I forgot to season the meat though, so DON'T DO THAT. Salt and pepper goes a long way. After the turkey was all cooked through, I drained some of the excess water.

I dropped the temperature down to medium low and poured in two 8 oz cans of tomato sauce (not jarred sauce! There is a difference!) and about 1 tablespoon of tomato paste. If I were to use jarred sauce (which my mom did), I would just brown the turkey and pour the sauce over it. But I didn't have jarred sauce and these cans of tomato sauce have been sitting on the shelf for like six months. So I got it done.

At this point I went to taste the sauce and realized that I didn't season the turkey, so I just attacked the whole thing with salt and pepper. After that was all sorted out, I threw in about a tablespoon's worth of dried oregano.

I've declared my love for fresh basil on this blog before, and I still stand firm on that statement. I love basil. I chopped some up and threw it in the sauce, and took the sauce off the heat.

I also added some parmesan cheese because my mom told me to. This was about 1/4 cup. I mixed it all together and you know what? I probably could have stopped here and just poured it over some pasta. BUT THIS IS LASAGNA. So I carried on.

I sautéed a bunch of spinach with some garlic, and I used a little bit of olive oil to get the job done. I only made enough spinach for one layer, though, because I forgot about how much spinach cooks down and I actually needed to leave some fresh spinach for like...the rest of the meals I'm eating this week. Go figure. THEN I STARTED TO ASSEMBLE THE LASAGNA!!!

I only had one zucchini, so I used a smaller square pan. I think this is 9x9? Whatever. First step is to put some sauce down on the bottom!

The next step is to lay down some zucchini slices, or in my case, desperately stretch the amount of zucchini you have to cover one layer. 

Of course, I patted the slices dry with paper towels because they were very wet at this point. Salt, man. It does the trick.

I've never actually made lasagna before, but my mom told me to put the ricotta down before the spinach?? I just did what she told me. I was skeptical about using fat free ricotta, but the final product actually wound up being pretty similar to regular ricotta so 100% would use again.

I laid down my one single layer of spinach down on top of the ricotta, and despite using almost an entire container's worth of spinach, I only had this dinky little sprinkling of spinach to show for it. Pathetic.

And then I started the whole thing all over again! Sauce, zucchini, ricotta, NO spinach because I ran out, and then one last layer of sauce. Mmm. Lasagna's are just like ogres. They have layers.

I used about 1 1/2 cups of mozzarella cheese to top off the lasagna, but you could definitely afford to use more. I was just trying to be portion-conscious, since I originally intended for this to be four servings. It wound up being six.

I popped the lasagna in a 350 degree oven for forty five minutes, and O M G when I pulled it out of the oven, this is was the beauty I beheld:

Cheesy, tomato-y, and SO SO SO delicious. It did wind up being a little watery, but a little water never hurt anybody! There's so much going on in this lasagna, that you don't really miss the pasta. The zucchini has such a lovely and neutral flavor and texture, so it acts to bulk up the dish and let the sauce and cheese be the stars. And boy were they stars. SHOW STOPPERS.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Here's the recipe:

Zucchini Lasagna

Ingredients:

-Zucchini (probably 2)

-1 lb of ground turkey

-1/2 onion, diced

-2 cloves of garlic, diced

-2 8 oz cans of tomato sauce

-1 tbsp of tomato paste

-2 cups of part skim mozzarella cheese

-1 15 oz container of fat free ricotta cheese

-About 3 cup of fresh spinach

-Salt & Pepper

-1 tbsp of dried oregano

-1 tbsp of fresh basil

-3 tbsp of olive oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1.) Peel and slice the zucchini into thin strips, and place those strips on a tray in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt and flip to sprinkle the other side with salt. Let sit while you prepare the other layers.

2.) In a saucepan (or pot) on medium heat, sauté the onions and half of the garlic in about 1 tbsp of olive oil until the onions begin to look translucent.

3.) Add about 1 tsp of olive oil to the pan, and brown the turkey with the onions and garlic on medium high heat. Season the turkey with salt and pepper.

4.) Once the turkey is cooked through, add the cans of tomato sauce and the tomato paste and reduce heat to medium low. Stir occasionally until the sauce begins to thicken.

5.) Off the heat, add the oregano, basil, and parmesan cheese. Set aside for layering.

6.) Sauté the spinach with the remaining garlic and olive oil until the spinach has cooked down. Set aside, and begin layering.

7.) Layer the lasagna: Start with a layer of sauce on the bottom of a 9 x 9 inch pan. Cover with a layer of zucchini slices. Spread half of the ricotta cheese on top of the zucchini slices. Evenly layer the spinach on top of the ricotta. Repeat the process with another layer of sauce, zucchini slices, and ricotta. The final layer should be sauce covered with the mozzarella cheese.

8.) Place the lasagna in a 350 degree oven and cook for 45 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and starting to look brown around the edges.

9.) Enjoy! Serves 6.

Blog Every Day in July: Day 10, Sun-dried Tomato, Feta, and Chicken Couscous Salad

Today I made one of my favorite couscous recipes for lunch.

I brought it to work in a lil tupperware. So cute!

I put this recipe together once during last fall semester, when I had bought some feta and sun-dried tomatoes without planning something to make with them.  I just really like feta cheese and sun-dried tomatoes.  I threw them together with some couscous, and then decided to add the chicken in because I was tired of eating plain chicken breast, and voila!  A delicious couscous salad.

Here is a neat and tidy collage of all the main ingredients in this salad.  There is nothing neat and tidy about my kitchen setup when I cook.  Ooops.  I used the couscous that said Whole Grain on the box because it makes me feel healthy.  The sun dried tomatoes were the only jar that I could find in my entire grocery store, which was RIDICULOUS, and the feta cheese I bought was already in crumbles because cutting a big block of feta is TOO MUCH DRAMA.  I used two chicken tenders in stead of one chicken breast, because it's what was in my freezer.

The first thing I did was cook the chicken.  I just used a nonstick pan with some cooking spray, because I didn't want it to be too greasy.  I seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper while it was cooking, but then after it was mostly cooked through I threw in a splash of balsamic vinegar (for a mediterranean flavor) and let the chicken finish cooking while that reduced.  The balsamic vinegar doesn't impact the taste of this salad too heavily, so if you skipped it you probably wouldn't miss it.

It's all fluffed up with fork.  Mmmmm.

While the chicken cooled, I made the couscous according to the directions on the box.  Riveting stuff, I know.  I made two servings worth of couscous, so I would have enough for lunch today and tomorrow, but you could just make this for one day and halve all the rest of the ingredients.

Tomatoes, feta, chicken, oh my!

While the couscous was cooking, I went ahead and chopped up all the other ingredients of the salad.  I also chopped up the feta a bit more just to get some consistent pieces.  After that I threw it all in a bowl (which was not big enough)...

and I sprinkled in some dried basil!  I would have loved to use some fresh basil (which we did not have), or maybe throw in some oregano, but all I could reach in the spice cabinet was the basil.  I ain't no Barefoot Contessa, but this stuff will do just fine.  Mix it all together....

And there you have it!  A nice couscous salad.    I've never eaten this particular dish cold, so I had to try it.

Hmmm...not enough evidence tasted to form a conclusion...

Yup.  It's good cold.

I think if I was better prepared, I would throw in some fresh herbs or make a simple dressing.  But this is delicious as is!  When eaten warm, the feta starts to soften ever so slightly and the heat offsets the tanginess of the tomatoes.  When eaten cold, all the flavors have time to get together and become best friends.  SO GOOD.  Enjoy!

Recipe is after the jump.