Watched it, Tried it, Loved it

I am a big fan of trying new recipes that I see on Pinterest and Instagram Reels. I have my particular favorite people I watch on Instagram and am never disappointed with their recipe ideas. What I like to do is give it a little spin, since I live in a household of picky eaters, I’m trying to eat healthier and because I try to only go to the store a few times a week. So, this week, here are the foods that I tried, altered a bit and loved. I will make sure to post the credit to the original founders.

Meal idea #1: BLT with chipotle aioli w/side of tomato basil soup

We are big fans of soup and sandwiches. BLT’s are definitely a sandwich that is on both my husband and my “Mount Rushmore” of sandwiches. For my sandwich I toasted two slices of Dave’s Killer Bread, added some chipotle aioli we purchased from Walmart, topped it with two grilled slices of turkey bacon, added some thinly sliced Roma tomatoes from our garden (mine were thin because I hate tomatoes), and shredded iceberg lettuce. This is my favorite version of this sandwich. My husband is more traditional. One thing I love about BLT’s is that you can alter ingredients, and the sandwich always tastes amazing!

For the tomato basil soup, I LOVE Joanna Gaines Tomato Basil soup recipe. I have posted the recipe below. It is by far the most amazing version of the soup I have ever made. If you don’t feel like making your own tomato basil soup, my favorite premade soup is the Sprouts tomato basil soup. If you don’t have a Sprouts, try any local store that makes their own soup, try to avoid canned soups if you can.

Tomato Basil Soup Recipe – Magnolia

Meal #2: Beefy five layer bowl

I have to admit, I am a taco bell fan! I love the taste of the food even though it is so processed my stomach can’t handle it. Occasionally I will bare the stomachache just to enjoy a delicious cheesy gordita crunch. My husband really loves the beefy layered burritos so when I saw this dupe on Instagram Reels by Makayla Thomas, I knew I just HAD to try it. I did modify some things from the original post but I have attached her reel below so you can see how she made it.

Start by cooking up your ground beef. I personally like the 85% organic beef (Sprouts is my favorite place to get beef). While cooking, add half a packet of taco seasoning.

Once cooked, drain all but two teaspoons of the fat and set it aside

Next, make your sauce: I used 1/4c of plain greek yogurt and I added about 2 TBSP of taco bell hot sauce

Next, shred your cheese – Block cheese is a staple in my house. My family is pretty much the cheeseheads of the Pacific NW. We love cheese pretty much on everything. I shredded about 1/2 cup of pepperjack cheese and 1 c of mozzarella cheese (feel free to use whatever cheese or however much cheese you want)

Now time to layer: start with a layer of potatoes. I cut up about 10 yukon gold mini potatoes, sprayed them with a little avocado oil and cooked them in the air fryer for about 10 minutes. I evenly distributed the potatoes between three bowls (one for my husband, me and an extra for work tomorrow). Next add a scoop of ground beef. Top that with shredded cheese. Next, add a mini tortilla (I used almond flour mini tortillas from Trader Joes). Next add your sauce, another layer of ground beef, shredded cheese, shredded iceberg lettuce, diced tomatoes (I typically use the roma tomatoes from my garden or I life the canned diced tomatoes with the green chilies in them), a small scoop of plain greek yogurt, sliced avocado and a drizzle of taco bell sauce on top.

MaKayla Kim Thomas | A Taco Bell 5 layer beefy burrito DUPE—one of my guilty pleasures 🤣🤌🏼 (but had to make it healthy girl meal prep) Just because it doesn’t… | Instagram

Meal #3: Naked Teriyaki Chicken Noodles

s part of my pantry and fridge purge, I had NO IDEA what I was going to make for dinner. Everything seemed to be really bare and nothing really seemed like it would “go together”. I knew I had some chicken in the fridge that needed to be cooked, and a giant variety of sauces that were just sitting in my fridge after using them one time for a dish. No alfredo, no parmesan to make it, no spaghetti sauce, didn’t have anything to make that, out of tortillas and buns, soooo what to cook?? Here is what I ended up doing:

• Cooked half of a box of gluten free fettuccini pasta
• Cooking up the two chicken breast I had. I started by cutting them in small bite size pieces, added salt and pepper and cooked until done.
• Once the noodles were done cooking, drain most of the pasta water (leaving about 2-3 TBSP in the pot with the noodles. I added about 2 TBSP of honey, 1 cup of teriyaki sauce, 2 TBSP of soy sauce, salt, pepper and onion powder. Mix it up and add the chicken to the pot. Once the chicken and noodles were evenly coated in the sauce, I served it up and added some sesame seeds on top.

Simple, sweet and actually pretty darn delicious. I had enough to feed my husband, myself and had leftovers for lunch the next day.

Meal #4: Bacon Jalapeno Jammin Burger with Cauliflower potato salad

Last night I decided to make burgers for dinner. Burgers are easy because everyone in my household likes burgers, they all like them with different toppings, so all I have to do is make the burgers and they fix them like they like them. I had a burger recipe I really wanted to make by the redbowlofficial, and I also had been really dying to try Joanna Gaines herby mayo, so I decided to mash up the two burgers, with some extra fixins. I will post the original recipes for you all to see as well. Here is what I did:

Jalapeno Drip Jam: This recipe needs at least 30-45 minutes to set, so start with your jalapeno drip jam first! I use Joanna Gaines Jalapeno drip jam recipe to a tee, the only modification I made was I used swerve brown sugar instead of regular brown sugar as a sugar free alternative. The recipe is listed below.

Onion Rings: I used the redbowlofficial onion ring recipe with some modifications, I used gluten free flour instead of all-purpose flour. I coated my onion in buttermilk and let it sit for about 20 minutes before I coated it in the flour. In my flour I used garlic powder, cayenne, salt and pepper. I fried them in avocado oil and as soon as I pulled them from the oil, I coated them instantly with salt and pepper. The redbowlofficial recipe is listed below.

Burger:

• I first prepped my mayo: I took 1 cup of mayo (I use the one made with olive oil), next I added 1 TBSP of minced garlic, 1 tsp of garlic powder, 1 TBSP of dried chives (the recipe calls for fresh herbs, I just didn’t have any fresh chives on hand), minced parsley, 1 TBSP of parsley chopped, 1/2 TBSP of dried dill, 1/2 of a lemon juiced, 1/2 tsp of cayenne, salt and pepper to taste.
• After that I prepped the rest of my burger ingredients. I sliced up a Roma tomato from our garden, fresh lettuce and cooked up some bacon (I used hickory bacon for my husband’s burger and turkey bacon for my burger).
• Next, I prepped my burgers. I didn’t have time to make my own burgers, so I bought store bought burger patties from Sprouts. I seasoned them with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Cooked both sides and then melted pepperjack cheese on top.
• While I was waiting for the cheese to melt, I grilled my buns. I used Kaiser rolls and toasted the bun first. After it was lightly toasted, I coated the inside of the top and bottom buns with my herby mayo, then put it on the flat top to cook. I coated the top bun with butter and flipped over the top bun to let the butter melt. After about a minute or so, I flipped the buns back over and while the butter was hot and melted, I topped the top bun with caraway seeds and sea salt (I like maldon’s flaky sea salt the best).
• Now time for the assembly: start by spreading more of the herby mayo on the top and bottom bun, next add some of your formed components of the jalapeno drip jam, burger patty, bacon, lettuce, tomato, homemade onion rings and drizzle on the liquid portion of the jalapeno drip jam, then top bun.

Warning: this burger IS MESSY, but so delicious it is worth it.

On the side: You can serve it with a side of the homemade onion rings. I needed to use up some cauliflower and corn on the cob before it went bad, so I decided to serve our burgers with cauliflower potato salad (recipe listed below) and corn on the cob.

The Cauliflower potato salad is just a version of a potato salad but without the potato.

• Start but cooking your cauliflower
• After your cauliflower is soft, drain and put the cauliflower in a bowl to allow it to cool
• Next, make your base. Take 1 cup of mayo, add garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, salt and pepper.
• I cut up about a quarter of a red onion, diced it up and added it to the base dressing. Add your cauliflower and toss altogether. I usually add 1 stalk of celery but did not have any on hand.
• I like to keep mine in the fridge for 15-30 minutes before serving.

Original recipes:

Herb Mayo (Magnolia Table by Joanna Gaines): https://pin.it/tmZYWRmNN

Onion Rings (Theredbowlofficial): https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAHAkrhJit4/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Jalapeno drip jam (Magnolia Table by Joanna Gaines): Jalapeño Drip Jam Recipe – Magnolia

Meal #5: Easy shrimp and potsticker ramen

My family LOVES top ramen. I just don’t care for how much sodium there is and how processed it is. So, I decided to make my own! I found this recipe in the book Skinnytaste Simple by Gina Homolka (purchased it from Target – I will post a picture of the book at the bottom) for shortcut shrimp ramen. I made it for my whole family, and everyone loved it (except left the shrimp out for the kids – PICKY PICKY KIDS). Here is how I made it:

• I started by cooking 1 TBSP of minced garlic in avocado oil
• Once it became fragrant, I added 4 cups of water and 5 chicken boullion cubes and cooked them until the cubes dissolved.
• Once dissolved, I added 1/2 cup of green onion and about 8-10 potstickers that were frozen (you can make your own if you want but I had a bunch of frozen chicken potstickers in the freezer). While this was cooking in the broth, I took shrimp out (I like mine peeked, tail off and deveined), washed them and soaked them in cold water in a bowl for about 10 minutes.
  • Make sure to not use hot water or it will start to cook the shrimp
• After about 10-15 minutes, I added the shrimp to the broth. I also added two packs of dried organic ramen noodles and let them cook for about 5 minutes
• Add salt, pepper, onion powder and paprika to taste.
• In my bowl, I added a little sriracha and diced jalapeno to add a bit of spice.

Simple and delicious!!

Meal #6: Fiesta Potatoes

This one is super simple and actually delicious! Here is how I did it:

• Start by cooking up some lean ground beef. Once it is almost fully cooked, add taco seasoning.
• After it is cooked, drain all but about 2 TBSP of the grease. Once drained, add about 1 cup of melted cheese (I made a home queso blanco but store-bought works fine too), shredded mozzarella, and about 1/2 cup of cottage cheese mixture (cottage cheese blended with about 2 TBSP of salsa).
• Once fully combined, add the meat mixture to a baking dish. Add about a half cup of shredded cheese on top and then top with tater tots. I did half with sweet potato tater tots and half with regular tater tots (you know those picky children).
• Once the top of the meat mixture is covered in tater tots, put in a 375*F oven and bake for 35 minutes.
• While it is baking, prep your toppings of choice. Here are the ones I prepped last night: shredded cheese, queso blanco, pico de gallo, taco bell sauce, fire roasted corn and plain greek yogurt.
• Once the dish was done baking, I took it out and scooped some into a bowl. Everyone topped their fiesta potatoes with their toppings of choice.

On the side: the kids just ended up choosing a small side dish. Justin and I had the left over caesar salad that needed to be eaten before it went bad.

Simple and was able to meet the needs for not only our family of four but also allowed everyone to specialize it their own way!

Meal #7: Italian Bar

I was really craving Olive Garden’s soup salad and breadsticks for dinner. My kids talked about how much they wanted their create your own pasta dish. Because I didn’t want to spend $80 on dinner, I decided to see what I had in the pantry to make dinner. Looking through the pantry I found that I had everything for a cauliflower toscana soup, pasta and ingredients to make a variety of sauces. A quick trip to the store and I purchased a salad with Olive Garden’s italian dressing and some breadsticks.

I started by making the soup. I used this recipe to a tee, except I didn’t add bacon to mine: https://pin.it/6JVuvEjmB

As that was simmering, I started to bake the breadsticks.

Next, I cooked up some egg noodles (needed to use them up) and two different sauce packets that I had. One sauce packet was for an organic alfredo sauce and the other was for a white cheddar sauce mix (purchased them at Sprouts). After everything was cooked, I put them in separate bowls.

As the final piece, I put together a copycat Olive Garden salad for my husband and myself.

Now it was time to set the table. I lay all the sauces, pasta and salad stuff out on the table. Everyone was able to make their own pasta and dinner was served! Simple, delicious and ten times cheaper than going out to eat!

There you are! One full week of meals planned just for you and your family! Modify as you need to and enjoy!

Related to: Quick and Easy Meals for you and your family this week Quick and easy meal ideas for the you and the family this week – Code 3 Revelation (codethreerevelation.net)