Greek Chicken Salad

This healthy version of chicken salad is a hit in my book. I love love greek salads, or really anything with olives and feta. I made a batch of this and have been bringing it to work for lunch.

8 oz. greek yogurt
1/2 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, shredded with any remaining water removed (for yogurt sauce)
1/2 large cucumber peeled and sliced
3-4 garlic cloves pressed
1 tsp white wine vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil
Some fresh lemon juice
2 cups cooked chicken, chopped into small pieces
1 cup tomatoes, seeded and diced
sliced olives
Salt and pepper, to taste
Pita or bread, for serving
Crumbled feta cheese

For the yogurt sauce:
-Mix yogurt, shredded cucumber, garlic, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, and lemon juice. Drizzle lightly with olive oil.

-Combine the chicken, cucumber, tomatoes, olives and yogurt sauce in a medium bowl. Stir well to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve as desired over pita or bread, topped with crumbled feta cheese.

Enjoy!

Dal Makhani

I love love spicyness, fresh veggies, and warm wholesome dishes, especially when it's cold outside. So it makes since that I would love Indian food. I've looked at many recipes that look expensive and some of the ingredients would be hard to find. I haven't been able to catch it yet, but I'm stoked to watch the food network's show Aarti Party with Aarti Sequeira. Perhaps she will give me ideas and her recipes will be more authentic, but for now I decided to experiment with this recipe. I had invited Joseph over for dinner and really didn't think it had turned out. It smelled good, but it just looked like brown mush and it had burnt pieces in it. However it was DELICIOUS! Very rich, filling, comforting. And Joseph explained to me that indian food is supposed to be somewhat burnt. Good to know! I'm not sure how authentic it is, but it was so good, I will probably make it again this week. This recipe serves 3-4 people and tastes just as good as leftovers for lunch. I served it with toasted pita bread,white rice, and a glass of milk. It is very spicy and rich so it requires some toning down sides.

1 cup dry lentils
1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cup water
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
salt and pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro

-Boil water and dry lentils in a large saucepan. Reduce heat to a simmer for 10 minutes, until lentils are open and tender. Drain and return to pot.
-Use a spoon to stir lentils around pot, mashing some against the side of the pot. Add tomatoes, ginger, garlic, cayenne, water, butter, salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat for about an hour, or until thickened. Periodically check to make sure the water has not cooked out. If so, add a bit more water and cover pot for remaining cooking time.
-Stir in cream and cilantro and serve immediately.

Perfect for a freezing cold day!! Enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice Latte

Here is my breakfast, left over Nutella Banana Oatmeal Muffins with a Pumpkin Spice Latte!!

So everyone loves Starbucks, but does not want to pay for it, right? Well me being the coffee fanatic I am have been in search of the perfect pumpkin spice latte recipe for at home. Here it is:

2 cups milk
2 tablespoons canned pumpkin
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tablespoon packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or cinnamon and nutmeg)
strong coffee or espresso

Using a blender, puree milk, pumpkin, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and pumpkin pie spice until combined. Pour into a saucepan and heat over medium heat for about 5 minutes until warm and frothy. If you have a milk frother, you can use that to make it even frothier! Combine this with coffee or espresso to satisfy your personal coffee/latte ratio. Haha.

This is my coffee central. I like to use my french press to make rich coffee for recipes like this.


Here is my milk frothing up!

Nutella Banana Oatmeal Muffins

These are great for breakfast, snack, or dessert! Enjoy!


1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup Old Fashioned Oatmeal
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 large eggs
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
3 very ripe, large bananas, mashed
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup nutella
Chocolate chips if you like!!

-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

-In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, oats, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

-In another bowl, combine the mashed bananas, eggs, Nutella, melted butter, and vanilla. With a rubber spatula, lightly fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until combined and the batter is thick and chunky. Do not overmix. Fold in chocolate chips.

-Distribute batter into muffin tins and bake until muffins are golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 15 minutes.

This made about 20 muffins for me, but I kept adding spices, oats, etc. to batter to satisfy me. :)

Winter Life

So I've been slacking. Not on living, but on updating. Recent happenings include:

-Huntsville for Thanksgiving w/the fam and Joseph, which include birthday celebration for Jeremy, Maura and Joseph. It was so wonderful to be home. I hadn't been since August and I was lucky enough to be off work Monday through Thursday! We had our traditional favorites, then packed a lot of it up, and Joseph, Maura, Jeremy and I headed back to Tuscaloosa for Iron Bowl weekend. I had to work Friday, but I got put on call Saturday so I was able to spent the day with everyone! Of course I love going home, but I also love when my family comes here and I can host and just show them what my life is like here.

-Joseph's Birthday, as well as our 2 year anniversary! We went up to a French bistro in Birmingham we've been wanting to try called Chez Fon Fon. The food, wine, entire experience was wonderful! They had everything safe (ex. Croque Monsieur) to adventurous (ex. steak tartare, escargot) and all in between. I love going places like this with Joseph, because I can order the traditional egg dishes, fish dishes, cheese plates, wine, etc. that call my name, and I also get a taste of all the exotics that Joseph craves (which I like, but not more than the aforementioned). Now let me tell you what... Joseph just LOVES this plan. He is such a wonderful food sharer. :) Then there is a heavenly dessert, Chocolate pot de creme! This is a giant pot of creamy chocolate, eaten with chocolate biscotti and a spoon. Of course coffee was a must with it, so needless to say I was up all night.

-We went canoeing out on the lake at our friends' place. The dog idea was scary, but were guaranteed that the dog would help keep the canoe steady, instead of knocking us over. (It was probably 40 degrees). It was SO beautiful out there at sunset, as you can see.






-Making Christmas plans! I was able to set up my work schedule so that I can travel to Detroit to see my family between Christmas and New Years, and so that I can go to San Diego with Joseph for a week in January. Yay! I've also purchased my first Christmas tree! Still in the process of decorating it, but hey, baby steps.

-I purchased my first TV! After shopping for quite awhile, I finally gave in and bought a 40 inch Samsung! I was going to go bigger, but now that it's set up in my apartment, I realize that this is plenty big and the picture and sound is just phenomenal! I wasn't going to give into paying for HD, but turns out I was able to get it for only $7.99 more a month. Now how could I pass up that. I'm enjoying using my netflix and other internet apps. I had no idea I could do so much on a TV!

-Me cooking in all my spare time! I have really gotten into it lately. I'll be posting some of my recipes I've been trying out the last few weeks.

Tacos and Cupcakes

Last night I made fish tacos and blueberry crisp cupcakes for Joseph and our friends Ali and Leila. Everything turned out delicious if I do say so myself, and it seemed to hit the spot for everyone else as well. Ali and Leila are from Iran and had never had tacos or cupcakes so I figured these were must try items!

For the tacos, I grilled fresh Mahi-Mahi and chopped tomatoes and cilantro. I wanted to use avocado, however the ones I picked up last week were still not ripe enough. I used sticky rice and yogurt sauce. The yogurt sauce is what I think really made the taco. I used plain Greek yogurt, mayonnaise, sour cream, ground cumin, ground red pepper, the juice of a lime, and more cilantro. I wrapped everything up into browned flour tortillas! Delicious! I used a mixture of recipes to put this together, as well as things I've tasted on restaurants' fish tacos. The only thing I will do differently next time, is to add the avocado and make and use more yogurt sauce!
Tonight is two dollar taco night at Fuego Cantina in Birmingham (see last post). Did I mention my newest obsession is tacos? :)

The blueberry crisp cupcake recipe is from a cookbook called "Old Fashioned Bake Sale" that Debbie gave me for my birthday, and I've had my eyes on this recipe ever since. This book has an entire cupcake section, which is wonderful.

Blueberry Crisp Cupcakes

2 1/3 cups flour, divided
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 sticks of butter, divided
3/4 cup of milk
3 egg whites
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3 cups blueberries
1/4 cup uncooked oats
1/4 brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts or pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line 30 muffin cups with baking cups.

2. For cupcakes, combine 2 cups flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl, mix well. Beat sugar and 1/2 cup butter in a large bowl, then add egg whites, milk and vanilla. Beat, then add flour mixture and beat again. Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling half full. Sprinkle blueberries over batter and bake for 10 minutes.

3. For streusel, combine 1/3 cup of flour, oats, brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in remaining 1/4 cup of butter until mixture resembles course crumbs. Stir in nuts and sprinkle over cupcakes. Bake 18 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

'til next time.

Alimento!

So it's been awhile. I'm settling into work and post college life and I'm loving it.  I've never had spare time before! This is causing me to learn a lot more about myself, which is awesome. There is this artsy, creative side of me that is coming out that I never knew existed. I've been spending a lot of time on little home projects and cooking.  A few of them are on my walls and around my apartment, and Debbie and I are going to be working on a upholstered headboard next. My apartment is now almost what I would consider completely decorated.  I will be posting pictures soon. Get ready.

A few days ago I purchased a rice cooker, thinking it would be easy and convenient to cook rice. I had no clue how many cool things you can do with a rice cooker, and you don't have to babysit it, because it turns off on its own! If you're like me and get distracted easily, it is perfect. Yesterday I made a single serving of rice and lentils with salsa. It was delicious for a rainy fall day and very filling. It took about 10 seconds to prepare, 20 minutes to cook and probably cost a total of maybe 10 cents. And it is healthy! When I finished I just threw the inner bowl in the dishwasher.


Some things you can make with a rice cooker include: Beans, scrambled eggs, frittata (this is next on my list), spaghetti, potatoes, stews, oatmeal, stir fry, and many others.



TACOS- Last night was two dollar taco night at Fuego Cantina in Birmingham. This has become a Tuesday night must for my friends and I.  Some of the their tacos include steak, fish, buffalo chicken, crispy shrimp and brisket tacos. My fav is the steak, which has cilantro-lime aioli, pico de gallo and fried crispy jalapeno. Delicious! They are also known for their mojitos and martinis (they make their own fruit-infused vodka and sour mix).

More to come!!

Well here I am...

Recent happenings in the life of Miranda:

New job. Kind of. I started in June, but I still feel incredibly new.  I work with critical heart patients at DCH in Tuscaloosa. Originally, I never would have thought I would have ended up staying in Tuscaloosa, but as all has fallen into place (and I thank God for that), I really couldn't imagine living anywhere else for now. I love my job so far and I'm surrounded by friends and support. I have one week left of orientation, then I am out on the loose! I am nervous, but so excited. This long journey of nursing school, licensure, and now orientation is almost to an end and I am nothing short of thankful.

New apartment. I've moved into my own 2 bed, 2 bath apartment! I love all of the space and I have NINE closets. I also just love having the choice of which bathroom to use... I've actually figured out that the hall toilet is closer to my bed than master toilet... HA :). I am loving all of the shopping and decorating and will post pictures as things come together more. I also know lots of my neighbors, which is a huge plus.

I even have new hobbies! Even though I've working in the roundabouts of 40 hours a week, I still feel like I have so much free time. As mentioned above, I spend a lot of time shopping and decorating for my apartment which is a huge work in progress. I enjoy it, but still cannot wait til it's done.

After weighing options for the last few weeks, I've joined the University Rec Center. It beat the other gym options mainly because I love going to all of the dance, step, water, whatever classes I happen to be in the mood for. And as most of my friends around here happen to be University students, I have company. I'm excited about having a fun way to get into shape.

Joseph and I have taken on cooking through a Gordon Ramsey cookbook. We have make in the roundabouts of 20 dishes so far, and we always look forward to the entire process. The grocery shopping, the company, the cutting (which IS relaxing, as far as I'm concerned), the cooking, and of course the eating is the most important part! We are rating recipes as well to keep up with which ones we like. See Joseph's facebook album for pictures.

We also had our first ballroom dancing lesson last night. We've always wanted to learn, and we found the perfect little place in Northport that is so convenient and reasonably priced.  We learned the basics of the Waltz and the Hustle. Our instructor was so much fun and just a great teacher and everyone we met seemed really nice. They even have a group party every week for all who go there to mingle and practice. We are going to wait until after a few more lessons until we jump into that, but it's something to look forward to!

Today school started here, and most everyone I am surrounded by is caught up in that, however, I am glad to be school-less for now. For the first time in my life, I don't feel like I'm waiting for the next thing. I am just living each day to its fullest and striving to serve God through all that I do. What a good feeling.

God bless!