That’s right! Time for an oldie but a goodie here on the blog: a what I eat blog post. I haven’t done one of these in YEARS! A few years ago I had some stomach issues and I found that what I ate had a lot to do with how I was feeling and so I documented that journey quite faithfully at the time. But we’re talking 2013-2014 here and so it’s been a while since I have been really sharing many of my meals on Instagram or on here. Since I love to cook and I have been really trying to make more time for it lately, I decided I should dedicate a full blog post to what I have been making these past few weeks and months.
What I Eat // New Recipes, Old Favorites and Cooking up a Storm
^^I made the above leak-potato soup after seeing Emma Hill and her hubby make it in a vlog. I thought: hm I have never had leak-potato soup before and it sounds like a good, classic, easy to make recipe. So I looked some up, probably went with one by BBC Good Food (that is one of my favorite websites for recipes) and decided to make it. I added some double fried bacon pieces and chives to round it off and it was delish!
This was a 100% vegetarian meal (probably even vegan for the most part) that was a combination of several recipes. I cooked spaghetti squash for the first time according to a recipe by Detoxinista and I made her cauliflower alfredo sauce to go with it. Since I wanted something else there for a bit of chewiness I sauteed some mushrooms with some thyme (a classic combo) and I also roasted some chickpeas with some cajun spices for a bit of crunch. All in all the combo really worked and I loved making it.
Next up is a traditional Dutch dish: Boerenkool Stamp. Also known as potato and kale mash in English. I had it with smoked sausage and it was delish. Again, not something I make very often, but I used my mom’s traditional style of making it (the mash should contain both milk AND butter) and so this is a bit of nostalgia for me. Growing up, we ate this kind of food all the time though and I do like a bit more variety these days.
Gnocchi bake time! One of my favorite meals to make in recent years has been a gnocchi bake with a blue cheese sauce. Again, I think I found this on BBC Good Food after spotting gnocchi in my supermarket and thinking: hey I never cooked with that before. I like it best with a bunch of mushrooms and plenty of other veggies. Throw is together in the oven with a rich creamy cheesy sauce and you have yourself a great meal.
Another Detoxinista recipe: I love her healthier take on traditional dishes. I made her vegan enchilladas before from her blog, but in one of her cookbooks I found the tip that it was less time consuming if you used the zucchini to make boats instead of slicing them up to use them as a wrap. So that is what I did. It was spicy, it had that tex mex vibe and something I was really craving that day. I had lots of sauce left over though, so I took it to work one day, topped it with some grated cheese and ate it with nachos. That was a great lunch!
Are we sick of the Detoxinista recipes yet? Because I have another one for you. This was the first recipe by her I ever made. What it is: vegan Mac N Cheese. That’s right. Tastes great, but it doesn’t have that many calories and it is dairy free. Well mine wasn’t because I was out of almond milk, so I subbed in regular milk instead, but you can easily make it 100% vegan. So what makes it taste like cheese you might ask? Nutritional yeast (Dutch: edelgistvlokken) and cashew nuts make up the bulk of the sauce. Lovely with some roasted broccoli and not much else we are here to indulge.
One of this week’s meals is a bit of a cheat as I use a curry paste to make this. So all this is is: sautee an onion, use the paste according to the packaging. Add your veggies, add your shrimp and in the mean time cook some rice. Add in some coconut milk towards the end and let it simmer. Bring it all together into one giant pan and you are left with a meal that is ready in about 20 – 25 minutes. Great for lazy cooking evening. Especially because I bought my veggies precut. I know that is cheating majorly, but it is the only way I can keep the amount of food down to a minimum. To make a stir fry I would need to many ingredients and it would lead to my chucking away half of the stuff I bought or having to eat this till Easter.
Another comfort food staple that I had completely forgotten about for a minute are sweet potato fries. I like tossing mine with plenty of rosemary and pepper. For a bit of an extra kick I added in some cajun spiced chicken as I really like that combo. It is again a super easy one and because the fries are prepared in the oven, the clean up afterwards is super easy too. What’s not to love?