Korean-Style Quick Beef and Veg

So, I promised to get back to blogging recipes. And as much as I love cooking and eating and all things food related, this is ending up being a much more difficult task for me than it has any right to be. So, be gentle on me as I slog through this.

You see, it's been a crazy few years for me. Growing kids with increasingly hectic schedules, family members dealing with life-threatening issues, job changes, and to top it all off, a move. Don't get me wrong, things aren't dire or anything. In fact, they're quite good, knock on wood. But it just makes for the type of situation where here it's coming around to the end of 2017 already and I still haven't sent out last year's Christmas cards with our change of address. THAT kind of crazy.

The other thing that I find complicating is my own sense of perfectionism. I have a difficult time doing things if I don't feel like I can do them the way I think they should be done. I like to show you pictures of all the steps of the recipes I make. I like to have a lighthearted banter in the way I write. I like the food to be easy to make and also delicious. Most of the times, those are not a problem, but right now, the first of those is giving me stress. In the house we moved to, the kitchen is really great, in terms of functionality and usability, and while it needs some renovation, that's probably about 5 years or so down the road at this point. But it's in the center of the house. And while our kitchen has always been the figurative center of our home, it wasn't the literal center before. Which may not seem like it's a big deal, or something that would affect my blogging, but...

...There's no natural light in my kitchen. Which suuuuuuuuuucks for taking pictures. Typical house lighting makes for weird shadows and altered coloring, and I'm not yet really great at photo editing. So I either have to skip all the pictures (Nooooooo! But maybe work with fewer...), take food I want to shoot to other rooms that have natural light (awkward, but yes), deal with shoddy pictures (ugh, hopefully not too often), learn how to preform miracles in photoshop (working on it), get a lightbox or other tools to enable better pictures (on my Christmas list), or just deal with that the pictures kind of are what they are and still forge ahead with the blogging while looking for ways to improve the photographic situation.

So, that's what I'm doing. Like I said, be gentle with me.

And now, back to the food!

Risotto Soup

It's so cold out right now.

Seriously.  Our highs this week barely hit the double digits.  On weeks like this, it's hard to avoid soups.  Delicious, delicious soups.  I could definitely live on soup.

One of my favorite soups to whip up for myself for lunch is Risotto Soup.  It's simple, takes very few ingredients, and is quick to throw together.  It's also decadent, rich, and filling.

Turkey Gumbo

Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and my friends are already teasing me, because I've been stocking up on turkeys.  Right now, I baked one last week, have one thawing in my fridge, and have 4 more in the garage freezer.  Crazy about turkey?  Meh.  More like crazy about turkey gumbo!

Sticky Chicken

I confess, I'm pretty lucky when it comes to feeding times at my house.  My kids are pretty open to trying new things (with the obvious exception of Mr. Picky), and they generally enjoy my cooking.  But it's not often that a new recipe gets a reaction like it did tonight.  My girls were practically fighting each other for more chicken...it was the Hunger Games From Scratch style!

Am I glad they enjoyed a good healthy dinner?  Absolutely.  But I'm even more thrilled because it happens to be a super-easy dinner to make.  Just takes a little planning ahead, and a little under an hour in the oven, and boom: dinner.  I've had this recipe for Sticky Bourbon Chicken with Rice on my Pinterest for a couple of weeks, and I was really looking forward to trying it.  I changed it up a little, cutting back on the soy sauce and upping the ginger, but it's a keeper for sure!

There's a Leek in my Stroganoff!

So, you know how much I like to share quick, easy, yummy dinners that my family enjoys, right?  I kind of look at this blog as a small part of my legacy...a sort of recipe memoir online that my kids will be able to reference when they're grown up and on their own and craving a taste of home.

On that note, this recipe is one that pops up for dinner probably every other week.  It takes less than a half hour, and if I set my rice cooker and have a teeny bit of prep work done, I can cut that down to under 20!  And it's the kind of dinner that wraps you up like a warm, comforting blanket of creamy deliciousness and soothes all that ails you.

I'm just going to jump right into the recipe.  The original recipe is from Jamie Oliver, which is just icing on the cake for me, since I have a minor chef crush on him.

Rice-a-Whati? Homemade Rice Pilaf

I know I've told you about how I grew up eating things out of boxes and cans before, so I won't bore you with it again.  But one hyphenated word: Rice-a-Roni.  You get it.

I love rice, in general.  So does my family.  If we are out to a nice dinner and I have the option of rice pilaf as a side, you can pretty much bet that that's the direction I'll go.  And honestly, in those cases, it can go either way: a delicious, fluffy, flavorful rice medley or an overdone, colorful but bland scoop of blah on my plate.  And, sometimes, I'm pretty sure that it just came out of a box.

Rice pilaf is a great way to change up your grain side for a nice dinner, and it's amazingly easy to throw together, even without the box.  Seriously, the first time I tried making it, I wanted to punch myself for not doing it on my own sooner.  Plus, making it yourself, you'll know what's in it and save yourself from a lot of sodium.  Also, it's yummy stuff.  Basic, but yummy.