MyPlate Bake #3: SuperFood Salmon with Crispy Kale

The MyPlate Bake: SuperFood Salmon
Already have enough recipes for healthy, easy, one-pan, perfectly balanced weeknight dinners? Yeah, I didn’t think so. So here comes variation #3 for my National Nutrition Month series of MyPlate Bakes… and this time, we’re packing some major superfoods! This one-pan-meal is filled to the brim with omega 3’s, leafy greens, antioxidants, fiber, protein, potassium, along with your recommended daily allowance of deliciousness!

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MyPlate Bake #2: Sriracha BBQ Tofu

The MyPlate Bake: Sriracha BBQ Tofu
Ready for take two? In case you missed it last week, this is the second installation of flavorRD’s special feature for National Nutrition Month. Every week in March, we’re biting into a healthy lifestyle with a new balanced recipe inspired by USDA’s MyPlate: the idea is that 1/4 protein + 1/4 carbs + 1/2 veggies = healthy dinnertime success made easy, all on a single sheet pan. This time around, we’re catering to the plant-powered people out there! Whether you’re vegetarian, vegan, or just trying to work in some Meatless Mondays, this spicy sweet garlicky goodness is a full-flavored way to power up your weeknight dinner table.

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Green Eggs + Prosciutto Frittata

Don’t tell me… I know why you’re browsing the food blogs today… because you need a festive brunch recipe to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday next week, duh!

No? OK, well, it was worth a shot. I didn’t actually plan it that way, but I couldn’t ignore the good timing. Really, this is just another easy way to fix ourselves a tasty balanced meal for brunch, dinner, or for packing up lunches for the week. Children’s literature theme optional!!

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Nacho Average Kale Salad

Nacho Average Kale Salad
If you have trouble with healthy eating, never forget that it’s all about balance. To me, building a balanced meal isn’t just about pairing the steaks and lasagnas of the world with steamed veggies and lightly dressed salads… it’s also about enhancing the so-called rabbit food with a little touch of that opposite end of the spectrum. Hence, the perfect pairing under the spotlight today: SALAD and NACHOS.

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All-Purpose Greens

Ready for an authentic glimpse into my kitchen? Here’s the Real Talk: I bought this kale with intentions to make a big fresh kale salad, but I procrastinated too long and the poor greens lost their crunch factor. It was a bummer for about 10 seconds, until I realized the silver lining: they were still perfectly good for sauteing, so now I get to talk to you about one of my favorite tricks for jamming more greens into my diet: All-Purpose Greens, yo!

While you can also whip this up as a quick side dish, this recipe is mostly about healthy-eating logistics. We can all benefit from a trick for making it easier to eat more vegetables, and this is one that I keep up my sleeve. I like to make a full batch of All-Purpose Greens to store in my fridge and use throughout the week in meals that could benefit from an extra serving of veggies. It’s an effortless way to add color and flavor, not to mention fiber, vitamins, minerals, and all of the other disease-fighting phytochemicals that make vegetables the foundation of a healthy diet.

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Savory Stuffed Acorn Squash

Fall is taking its sweet time making its way to San Diego. And the infinite scroll on my Pinterest feed just offers too many pages of impeccably styled autumnal foods for my own good. With the allure of cool days and pumpkin-everything, there’s only so much more I can take of ice water and chopped salads for dinner. If you’re in the same boat, I wish I had a better solution than this one: let’s pretend. This week, I suspended my disbelief long enough to fire up the oven and whip up this roasted seasonal squashy treat. So worth it!

The result was savory, satisfying, and absolutely LOADED with nutrition. And while it gives off the vibe of a fancier weekend dinner, this thing is a 40 minute meal! I can hardly think of an easier way to break into the new season and fulfill your hearty home-cooking dreams.

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BBQ Popcorn

After resolving last week to fill out my Recipe Index with more of my favorite quick weeknight dinners, I noticed another woefully empty blog category here at flavorrd: snacks! (!!!)

I’m definitely a snacker. I fully respect mindful eating, but there’s also nothing I love more after a long work week than a fully-stocked Netflix queue and a big bowl of something crunchy. And if you choose the right snack, there’s nothing wrong with that!

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Peach Cobbler Scones

We all go through phases with our cooking interests, right? Right now, I’m all about baking… and I’m in deep. My current go-to “escape from reality” is to fall down an internet rabbit-hole of baker’s percentages, sourdough starters, and the low-down on all kinds of grains. I’m finding myself leafing through the bread-oriented texts from my cookbook collection, and I even bought my first baking stone! The only bad part is that my timing is a little off, since it’s August and firing up a hot oven in my apartment kind of makes me want to jump out the window.

So, while I’m sort of impatiently waiting for summer to wrap up so I can bake my heart out, I like to make the best of things. If I can’t help but heat up the kitchen anyway, what better way to celebrate summer’s last hurrah than with perfect peak-season stonefruit? This freshly baked treat just oozes with Southern charm – it’s like a flaky buttermilk biscuit and gooey peach pie wrapped into one brunch-friendly morsel. Yeah… it’s time to crank up the AC and get baking!

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Steel-Cut Muesli, California-Style

While I’m proud of my Floridian heritage (ha), there’s no doubt that my heart belongs on the west coast. I’m completely in love with the food culture in my new California home. The most gorgeous produce is both cheap and plentiful. The bulk bins overfloweth with every healthy ingredient. It’s paradise for locavores.

Since we’ve already been talking about planning ahead for our meals, let’s convert all those good vibrations into a make-ahead breakfast fit for a California king!

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Sweet Chili Tofu Salad

Some people start the day with a crossword puzzle, but my morning mental exercise regimen is a little more practical. It involves staring into the fridge, jumbling together edible odds and ends to fill a lunchbox balanced enough to sustain myself through a day at the office. I’m usually pretty good at this game, so that’s my excuse for not being super organized with meal planning. But the day that I struggled to find a better “protein” than a bag of Trader Joe’s peanut butter pretzels… I knew it was time to get serious.

Last weekend I made a very minimal investment of time and efforts, which yielded big lunchtime results. It started with an idea to attempt a copycat recipe for the sweet chili tofu cubes stocked at the Whole Foods salad bar. For a time I used to live in an apartment right across the street from Whole Foods, and since this was during my busy grad student years, I built a pretty strong affinity for some of their healthy convenience foods. That salad bar saved me for dinner many nights, and those sweet, chewy tofu cubes were always a welcome addition to my leafy greens.

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