Savory Salmon

One of my favorite fish is salmon. I have prepared it in the following ways: 

• Pretzel crusted
• En papillote
• Pesto
• Mustard and beer

Most recently, I prepared it simply but it was delicious. I seasoned the filet with paprika, dry mustard, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, pink Himalayan salt, and pepper. I baked it for 25 minutes and served. 

Easy, fast and delicious. That is all there is to it. 

Couponing: Coffee Filters

Coffee filters is one of those items that is an unsung hero. You can clean screens, deodorize rooms, garden, and lots of other uses for coffee filters. As a glasses wearer, coffee filters are great for cleaning lenses!

Publix has a digital coupon for a $1 off a package of Publix brand coffee filters. A package of 200 retails for $1.29. 

I feel silly buying them since my primary coffee maker is a Keurig. Check out all the things you can do with coffee filters here. 

Garlic Shrimp Spaghetti Squash

Need I say more? 

I found this delicious recipe on Pinterest and have made it a few times in the last few months. 

It's a flavorful pasta dish without the carbs, gluten, and guilt of pasta. Spaghetti squash for the win. 

I added fresh basil and tomatoes to the mix at the end. I felt that it needed a kick of freshness. 

Christmas High Tea

Last year, I was invited to a Christmas Tea sponsored by a local church. At the tea, there was an opportunity to volunteer to host a table for the following year. Guess who signed up!

I've always loved entertaining and have been sad the last few years having a smaller abode without room to host parties. This was a great outlet for me.

There is one hitch! I do not have any China or elegant dishes anymore. I've moved so frequently from city to city and state to state that I've given a lot of it back to my mom for safe keeping.

I had to find a way to get a hold of dishes for this event without breaking the bank.

I went to work visiting thift shops and online postings on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.

That did the trick and allowed me to acquire beautiful dishes at a low cost. 

I was able to host 8 ladies with whom I work. What a lovely evening of fellowship, worship songs, an encouraging speaker in a beautiful setting. Each gal felt like a precious jewel! I was so pleased to be part of this lovely event! Perhaps I'll host next year!

Thanksgiving 2017

I have to admit that it has been difficult to be back in the habit of blogging since the hurricane in September. Where does the time go? 

Here we are in the midst of the holidays spanning from Thanksgiving until New Years.

This was the first year in almost 6 years that I did not have to work on Thanksgiving. The previous years I worked in the Canadian division and observed Canadian holidays. 

We had a mini-banquet with my department this year. I brought a veggie tray decked out like a turkey. Thank you Pinterest!

On Thanksgiving Day, we had a small celebration with some friends from church. It was nice to stay local. I refreshed the veggie tray from the previous day and brought a pumpkin pie. Since my husband does not eat eggs, I found a recipe that is eggless. Amazingly delicious!!!

Now we're in a mad dash with Christmas around the corner. I love all the activities this time of year!

Texas Taters

Years ago I went to a Tex-Mex restaurant that served something called a Texas Tater. It was a hollowed out potato that had a cheesy chicken mix. 

Even though we don't eat chicken, I thought beans would be a good protein source for this dish. 

I got out baking potatoes and microwaved them for 10 minutes. Cut them and hollowed out the potato filling. I set the oven to 375°.

Next, I heated up a can of black beans and added chopped onion, garlic and the potato filling. 

Once the mixture was hot, I filled the potato skins with the filling. I added shredded cheese and baked them. 

I served the potato topped with sour cream, diced tomatoes, and chives. 

This was a hearty meal perfect for a Fall day!

Couponing: Flushable Wipes

Time for a delicate topic: potty wipes. Cottonelle flushable wipes were a good buy at Target especially with their Cartwheel app.

The retail price is $2.42 per package at Target.  

The Cartwheel app had a $1 off manufacturer coupon. 

In addition, ibotta had a 50¢ rebate on 1 package. 

Here is the breakdown: 

     $2.42 retail price

-    $1 manufacturer coupon

=   $1.42 out of pocket

-    $0.50 rebate from ibotta

=   $0.92 

That's a $1.50 savings!!!

Couponing: Paper Goods

It is one of those things you don't want to be caught shorthanded. 

When there is a good sale on paper goods, I stock up!

This time the sale was at Walgreens on both Angel Soft and Scott. 

The Walgreens app had a 50¢ off coupon on Angel Soft toilet paper and a $1 off on Scott paper towels. 

There was also $1 from my Walgreens Balance Rewards deducted from this transaction. 

In the end, I paid 27¢ per roll for the Angel Soft.

Spring Rolls

My parents are great cooks. 

My mom is a comfort food kind of cook. My father likes to experiment with dishes from around the world. It is part of what inspired me to explore the globe.

A dish that we would make as a family was spring rolls. It was everyone's responsibility to assemble the spring rolls. 

I still make them! This time I chopped cabbage, carrots, green onions, bean sprouts, soybeans, garlic, ginger, and tofu. 

I mixed olive oil, natural peanut butter, salt and pepper for flavor. Toss it all in a bowl with the veggies and give it a good stir. 

I buy these spring roll pastry packages at our local market which caters to mostly Caribbean customers but has a lot of Asian products as well. I paid $2.29 for this package of 25 wraps. 

Scoop a spoonful of the veggie mix onto a wrap. Tuck the sides in an overlapping pattern. Roll the rest from bottom to top. 

Place all the rolls onto a baking sheet. To make the rolls crispy, use egg white or olive oil. 

Bake the rolls for 25 minutes at 375°.  Serve with wasabi, soy sauce, horseradish, salsa, or any other tasty dipping sauce. 

Hello Fresh: Cheesy Chorizo Orzo

For the latest edition of the Hello Fresh meal service trial, we have the cheesy chorizo orzo dish.

This dish has chorizo (pork sausage) along with orzo pasta and roasted tomatoes seasoned with garlic and thyme. 

The refrigerated ingredients came packaged in a labeled brown bag. The sausage was in a chilled section of the box. 

Unwrapping the contents of the brown bag revealed all the ingredients necessary in the portion needed for the recipe. 

The only exception is the can of tomato paste. Luckily, we use tomato paste as a base to many stews so I had the few spoonfuls needed already. 

Since my husband is not a meat eater and I am on occasion, I separated the chorizo sausage from the rest. Following the directions to a point, I then separated the pot of orzo goodness into another pot that had the cooked sausage. 

My husband likes everything hot and spicy which is customary in Africa. I cooked my portion with the sausage. I cooked his portion with a Scotch bonnet pepper. 

The finished product was delicious! Fairly easy to prepare. Exceptionally easy to eat!

An Office with a View

I have been blessed in so many ways with my new job (as of December). I now have a laptop which gives me the ability to work from home. 

While I like the discipline of going to an office and talking with people, staying home to work is nice, too. I find that I get interrupted and distracted less at home than at the office. 

I got so much work done the other day staying home. I was doing laundry at the same time as office work. 

Multitasking ninja in the house!

Homemade Pizza

I have not made a pizza at home in a year or so. I thought I'd try to put one together for us. 

I use the Cuisinart recipe for the pizza dough which calls for 1 packet of yeast, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and 1/2 cup of warm water to start. 

Next, gradually mix 4 cups of flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and 1 cup of water. I add garlic powder to the dough also for additional flavor. 

Place the dough into a ziploc bag for the next hour or 2 to rise. 

After a little over 2 hours, the dough has risen. For a thick pizza, use all the dough. For thin crust pizza, cut the dough in half. 

Sprinkle flour on a surface and roll out the dough. Try to make a similar shape to the pan you plan to use. Spray the pan with cooking spray or grease with oil before placing the rolled dough on the pan. 

I opted for vegetables for toppings for the whole pizza. I also chose sausage for my half of the pizza. Raw vegetables or sautéed vegetables make for nice toppings. 

To start building the pizza, I sprinkle seasonings of garlic powder, basil, and oregano. Next, I spoon sauce on the seasoned dough. 

Once the sauce is on the dough, sprinkle mozzarella cheese or an Italian combination of cheese. After the cheese, add the toppings. 

Bake for 35-50 minutes, depending on the thickness of the dough at 350°. Cut and serve!

Buon appetito!

Organic Dinner

Some of our dinners are made up of random dishes just to be fed. 

This dinner a few nights ago was just that. We started with an avocado salad which is made from avocado, cucumber, bean sprouts, and tomatoes. Dice and toss. 

Next, we had some fried tofu. This organic tofu cutlet is firm enough that it does not fall apart. When fried, it is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. 

Finally, we fried some sweet plantains. Sometimes I salt them afterwards and sometimes I leave them plain. This time, they were plain. 

Creole Black Eyed Peas and Rice

I am always looking for a way to change up our rice dishes. 

At my husband's request, I purchased black eyed peas. You can see in the photo below, I upcycled another glass jar to store the beans.

Not having a lot of experience with these types of beans, I searched for recipes. I found a Creole Black Eyed Peas and Rice recipe on allrecipes.com  

The recipe calls for ground beef. I eliminated that ingredient and focused on the beans and rice. 

The recipe also calls for cans of beans. Since I had dry, I had to boil the beans first and then set them aside. 

Then, I chopped onion, pepper, and cabbage. I sautéed them in olive oil until they were soft. 

Next, I added rice and water to the veggie sauté. Along with the rice, I added some spices to give it a kick. Once it boiled, I covered the pan and turned it down to simmer. 

Once the rice was mostly done, I added the beans to the rice mixture and simmered some more. 

I served mine with a twist of lime and turkey sausage. My husband took his without meat. 

We both really liked this dish. It was a welcome change from the typical rice and sauce combo. 

Space Saving: Fruit Baskets

For the last few years, I've used a large plastic bowl and 2 small glass bowls on the countertop for fruits and vegetables.

Since the countertop is rectangular and the bowls are round, there was never a good fit for the fruit bowls on the countertop. I decided to look for a rectangular basket of sorts to make better use of the space. 

I found this double decker sliding drawer-basket at Marshall's for under $10. (Typically, you get Shopkicks for walking into Marshall's as well).

My countertops are not as spacious as I would like, so I am not able to use this basket system as drawers. It works well on the countertop as is.

I like that it is double decker and a wired basket. With the other bowls being opaque, I would lose track of the produce I had. This basket system allows me to see the produce with no barrier. 

More Smoothie Recipes

I have posted about smoothies before (see more here). They are something we make for breakfast or an afternoon snack.

This time the recipe consisted of:

• strawberries
• blueberries
• pineapple
• splash of lime juice
• splash of lemon juice
• Ocean Spray Cranberry Mango Juice
• Nonfat Greek yogurt

I paired this smoothie with a bowl of tapioca. This breakfast kept me going for awhile!

Florida Summer

Now is the time of year the rest of the US relishes: summer time. 

In Florida, on the other hand, it is time to "hibernate." We tend to be less visible to neighbors than the rest of the year, similar to winter up north. We may deal with heat but not with snow!

The humidity is can be stifling. Most people stay indoors all day soothed by the air conditioning. If one needs to do yard work, it is cooler out after the sun goes down. 

Summer is still a great time for convertibles, pools, and beaches. 

Eating outdoors may occur on occasion at home or at a tiki hut restaurant. 

Enjoy the summer everyone!