Welp sorry I didn’t get a third post up this past week. I had every intention to do so, but I was a bit burnt out this week (the longest week of my life) and time got away from me. But we’re back at it and ready to kick this week off strong!
How was your week? What are you thankful for? Let me know below 🙂 And I hope this week brings great things!
This week I’m thankful for:
Snow (as always)
Making it to the gym on Monday morning
Going to the art museum for my Italian class
Salami and cheese stuffed chicken breasts (catch these on the blog soon!)
Yummy snacks
Comfort food that feels like home (giambotto for the win)
Phone calls home
Friends who help you with homework the night before a test
Friends who understand your stuff
My friend making us all silly valentines 🙂
Our women’s basketball team WINNING
A sweet valentine from my grandparents
Friday night productivity (laundry, dishes, cooking, etc)
Habitat work days
The BEST nap of my life afterwards
Making almost our entire goal for the Habitat spring break service trip!
It is so. cold. in Pittsburgh right now. On Wednesday it was so cold with the windchill (-38°F!) that they cancelled classes. Which was honestly a blessing since I had an ochem test today but anyway.
This week has been freezing and I’m exhausted and last night I really didn’t feel like cooking dinner. Which let’s be real, happens to a lot of us. And most days it feels so much easier to go out to eat but that’s expensive and not always healthy and yesterday all I wanted to do was get in bed and not study ever again. But, we must power through and I ended up cooking last night.
My best advice for nights like that is to just make something easy and something you really like. And as we all must know by now, I really like sweet potatoes. So I turned on the oven (which warmed up my apartment!) and roasted some sweet potatoes and onions. And then I had a bit of a fridge clear out: I had half a bag of spinach that was on the edge of going bad, and we have so many eggs at the moment that I don’t know what to do with all of them. So I fried an egg, I sautéed some spinach. I grated some cheese (because everything is better with cheese). And in about 40 minutes (cause we wanted those sweet potatoes and onions nice and soft and caramelized) we had a bowl of warm (healthy!) goodness.
This recipe is remarkably similar to something my mom made a lot for us when I was younger, giambotta. Technically giambotta is an Italian vegetable stew, but it’s what my mom called it when she threw vegetables and chicken and sausage in a pan and roasted them until soft and delicious. That’s probably why this dish is such a cozy comfort food for me 🙂
So here’s the sweet potato bowl I made yesterday. Like a lot of things it’s so easy to put in whatever you have in the fridge. Bacon or sausage? Bell peppers? Broccoli? Chicken? Just roast it all and top it with an egg and life is good.
Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Spinach and Egg
Cook Time: About 40 minutes
Serves: 1-2
Ingredients
1 medium sweet potato
1 medium onion
Salt
Pepper
Half a bag of spinach
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 egg
Olive oil
Cheese (I used sharp white cheddar)
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Dice your sweet potato and onion and place on a sheet pan. Toss with salt and pepper and roast until soft, about 30-35 minutes. Stir periodically to prevent burning.
After about 20 minutes, in two tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat, start to cook the minced garlic. Add the spinach and salt and pepper to taste and cook until wilted.
Move the spinach aside in the pan and crack an egg. Cook to desired temperature (I like over medium).
Take the vegetables out of the oven and place in a bowl. Top with the spinach, egg, and grated cheese and serve.
Note: It’s so so easy to add more vegetables or even meat to make this more substantial. Just dice and add to the pan with the sweet potato. Some of my favorites: regular potatoes, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, bell peppers, Brussels sprouts, Italian sausage, and chicken.
I’ve shared a few posts that are my go-to’s when I have zero time for dinner. This semester, I have a class that ends at 4:15 and then a 4 hour ochem lab at 6, so on Mondays I need something quick.
This recipe is super basic, but I wanted to share it anyway because it’s an excellent go-to when you have 15 minutes to cook but want something substantial and filling. Cue frozen burgers!
Frozen burgers are honestly the best. My roommate and I ALWAYS have a bag of them in the freezer because whenever you need to, just plop one in a pan, season with salt and pepper, and you’re good to go.
Depending on what I have on hand, I’ll top my burger with sautéed onions, avocado, tomatoes, spinach, etc. I’ll also sometimes sauté vegetables to go on the side, or make a little salad. It all just depends on what you have in your kitchen!
So make sure you always have frozen burgers on hand for the best 15 minute dinner!
Easy Frozen Burgers
Serves: 1
Cook time: 15 minutes
Ingredients
1 frozen burger patty (I like 85/15 meat to fat ratio)
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Veggies of choice (spinach, tomatoes, onions, avocado)
Cheese of choice (sharp cheddar is my favorite)
1 bun (don’t have a bun? Eat it without!)
Ketchup, mustard, mayo etc.
Instructions
In a pan over medium heat, cook frozen burger about 5-7 minutes per side, or to desire doneness, seasoning both sides with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
Toast bun in a toaster over, toaster, or under a broiler.
Place cheese on top of burger after flipping.
Once burger is done and cheese is melted, assemble burger as preferred: add ketchup, mustard, mayo, top with vegetables of choice.
Note: Serve with anything you have on the side! A salad, sautéed vegetables, tater tots, the possibilities are endless.
One of the things I miss most about home is my parents’ cooking. Both my mom and my dad are excellent cooks (and bakers!) and I’m SO lucky I grew up getting to eat so many different things. But man do I miss my dads sausages with peppers and onions or sautéed mushrooms and my moms peanut butter cookies or spaghetti and meat sauce.
Before I moved into my apartment, as a birthday gift (since my birthday is in July) my mom gave me a recipe book full of all of our favorite family recipes as well as some of her easy go-to’s when she was in her 20s. It was the most thoughtful gift and now I can make her peanut butter cookies whenever I want 🙂 (although let’s be real they’re never as good when you make them yourself).
One of the recipes in this book is my mom’s pulled pork recipe. Since my roommate and I had kind of been in a food rut of eating the same things every week, I decided that I’d pick up a pork butt at the grocery store and we’d have pulled pork this week.
Now I feel like the phrase “homemade pulled pork” may be intimidating, but I promise it’s not! This was pretty much the easiest recipe ever because you make it in the slow cooker! All you do is season and brown the meat, cut off the twine that may be tied around it, and then stick it in the slow cooker with some stock. THE easiest meal prep.
It’s difficult to tell, but this is pulled pork atop tater tots and cheese. AKA life changing
I will say, I’ve only used a slow cooker once before and now that I’ve made this pulled pork I am a slow cooker convert. There’s nothing better than dumping a bunch of things in a pot and letting it cook for 6 hours while you get on with life.
The recipe my mom wrote calls for 3 pounds of pork butt, which feeds 9-10. I intended to buy 1-2 pounds to feed us for the week but all they had at ALDI was 5 pounds… so now we have plenty of pulled pork in the freezer 🙂
Lemme know what some of your favorite slow cooker recipes are, I’m on the hunt now that I’ve seen how easy it makes meal prep!
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
Ingredients
3 pounds boneless pork shoulder (butt)
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup chicken broth
Instructions
In a small bowl, combine chili powder, salt, and cayenne pepper. Rub mixture over all sides of meat, pressing to adhere
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, warm the oil. Add the pork and brown on all sides, 6-8 minutes. Transfer meat to the slow cooker.
Add broth to the skillet, scraping any browned bits. Add broth to slow cooker, cover, and cook until pork is very tender, 6-8 hours on low or 4-5 hours on high.
Once finished, shred and serve: on its own, with barbecue sauce, as a sandwich, in a taco, or on tater tots!
Some days I get home and I have a sum total of 20 minutes to eat dinner before I have to go off to club meetings or band rehearsals or study sessions. On days like this it’s tempting to just pick up takeout, but that gets expensive quickly and it rarely the healthiest option.
On these days, I have one recipe that’s my go to. It literally takes 5 minutes to make and it’s super healthy and super delicious. It’s my Tuna and Bean Salad. When I first moved into my apartment and was grocery shopping with my mom, she told me that this is something my dad made a lot and it’s great because it’s cheap, quick, and easy. As a busy college kid I was immediately on board, so thanks mom and dad 🙂
This is another recipe (there’s clearly a theme here) where you really just use what you have. I always have canned tuna in my pantry, which is my starting point. Usually I’ll use Cannelini beans, but the ALDI where I grocery shop didn’t have any, so I bought garbanzo beans instead. What you do past that is up to you! This is delicious with diced bell pepper or cucumber, and sometimes I even mix it with pasta, but this time around I decided to just put the beans and tuna over spinach.
However you decide to make this, it’s a wicked easy, filling, and delicious lunch or dinner that has very quickly become a go to.
Tuna and Bean Salad
Cook time: 5 minutes
Serves: 2 (perfect to bring for lunch the next day!)
Ingredients
1 can of solid white albacore tuna
1 can of beans, drained (Cannelini or garbanzo are best)
Olive oil
Salt
Garlic powder
Red pepper flakes
Spinach
Instructions
In a medium bowl, break up the tuna into small chunks with a fork
Add the can of beans (and any other diced vegetables you decide to add)
Drizzle with about 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil, or until moist
Season with plenty of salt and red pepper, and garlic powder (be careful with the garlic powder, it’s super potent so a little goes a long way).
Top spinach (or pasta or rice) with half the tuna mixture and serve
College Cooking with Celia 