Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

Carrots optional. I put together this salad for Thanksgiving from a mixture of different recipes. It seemed like it would be a good basic salad to complement the Thanksgiving flavors. I underestimated just how good it would be! The dressing is simple but so, so good. The toppings worked perfectly together, and they were indeed complementary to a Thanksgiving plate. But the salad itself ended up being one of my favorite things on my plate. This one is a keeper. The Recipe: 1 small shallot, minced 3 tb balsamic vinegar 1 tsp brown mustard 1/2c extra virgin olive oil salt and pepper, to taste 10oz baby greens  1 c pomegranate seeds 4 oz goat cheese, crumbled 1 pear, chopped 1/2c toasted pecan halves Combine shallot, balsamic vinegar, mustard, olive oil, salt, and pepper. (I used a magic bullet.) Layer other ingredients and toss with dressing. The Verdict: Overall grade: A+ Overall reason: Simple, delicious, and versatile Time to

It's worth it just for the boozy cinnamon stick. Here's to new Thanksgiving traditions. This didn't take too much effort, it uses two of the only liquors we actually tend to have in the house, and it's absolutely delicious. I need to invest in a long thin spoon so I can get fruit out of the pitcher in a more predictable fashion. This time I just poured the sangria into cups and hoped for the best, and each person got a varying amount of apple/cranberry/pomegranate, and no one got oranges.  The recipe was a combination of a few different sources, and it's a keeper. Before sitting overnight. The Recipe: 2 oranges, 1 juiced and 1 sliced into pieces 1 bottle pinot noir 1.5c pomegranate juice 1/3c triple sec 1/4c brandy 2 tb lemon juice (for me, this was half of a large lemon) 3 tb sugar 1 apple, sliced into pieces 1/2c pomegranate seeds 15 cranberries, halved (optional; this was festive but I don't think it added much

Big globs of cheese are underneath the smooth-looking surface. The good: -It's super easy to make. I prepped the ingredients in the food processor the day before and it took minimal time and effort to make this come together in the instant pot. -It tastes good. It's rich and creamy and flavorful. -I like that it has carrots in addition to the broccoli. It's healthy, underneath all of the cheese. The less good: -Health-wise, it's a lot of cheese. -I couldn't get the cheese to incorporate. I shredded a fresh block of Tillamook cheddar, which I know melts and incorporates well in things like mac and cheese, but I ended up with clumps of cheese sinking to the bottom. Maybe I added too much at once? -Some combination of the cheese and the roux stuck to the sides and bottom of the instant pot. It wasn't cooked on or anything, but it was sticky and hard to clean. I would make it again when I'm in the mood for broccoli cheddar soup, but I&

Rustic charm. I took a brief break from Instant Potting to bake some bread. Ok, so the bread is to go with some Instant Pot soup, but the point is, I turned on the oven for the first time in a while. I wanted something crusty to dip into soup, and I found this recipe . I followed the instructions exactly, except that I didn't bother with the intermediate "cutting board" steps; I just moved it from bowl to bowl to dutch oven. I also floured the dutch oven, which the original recipe doesn't say to do, but I didn't want to risk it sticking. I may continue to refer back to the  original recipe  when making this bread the next couple of times, but I'll summarize the process below in less detail for when I get it learned. The Recipe: 1 packet active dry yeast 1 tsp sugar 1.25c warm water 1.5 tsp salt 2.5c flour, plus extra for dusting Combine yeast, sugar, and water. Let sit for 5 minutes. Add salt and flour and mix just until the

Served over some Spanish rice that isn't worth blogging about. One of the main reasons I was excited about the Instant Pot is that it's really easy to make dried beans. This was my first venture into dried beans in the instant pot, and there will be many more. It's delicious. The texture is so much better than dried beans, and the flavor is fresher, and they're healthier and cheaper. There's no going back.  I worked from  this recipe  and I followed it exactly, except that I accidentally doubled the amount of vinegar. I corrected that mistake below, so let it be noted that if I follow the below recipe next time and it lacks some punch, I should go back to doubling the vinegar. I also used vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. I soaked the beans for about an hour, but the original recipe says this isn't necessary.  The Recipe: 1c vegetable broth 1.5c water 1c dried black beans, soaked for 1 hour 1/2 onion, chopped 2 cloves g

Success. A short time ago, I was one of those people who didn't understand the Instant Pot fuss. I already had a crock pot, I didn't care much about pressure cooking, and it seemed like all of the other functions could just as easily be done in a pot. Then I needed a new rice cooker, and the Instant Pot Duo Mini was on sale for barely more than a cheap rice cooker, and the extra little cost was worth it to me to have a stainless steel pot (as opposed to the nonstick coating on most cheap rice cookers). So I got it as a rice cooker, and I figured maybe I'd try out some of the other functions sometime if I felt like it. Fast forward 3 days, and I've used it 4 times already. It makes amazing rice. It makes easy, quick, steel cut oats. I can now say I've made my own yogurt. But this risotto is the most exciting thing I've done with it so far.  I second the things that every instant pot risotto recipe blogger has already said: It's easy, it

Fluffy. This started as do most green tomato recipes... with a gigantic pile of unripe tomatoes in the Fall. I gave them a couple of weeks to ripen inside, and at the end, I had about 1/3 of a gigantic pile of unripe tomatoes that were still showing no signs of a color change.  Uninspired by the ideas of green tomatoes, green tomato chili, or green tomato chili/soup, I found some green tomato bread recipes. I found a few with good ratings that were extraordinarily unhealthy, and as I was calculating how to make them a little bit better, I found  this one , which seemed like what I was plotting to do. I followed the recipe exactly, except that I substituted the white flour for all whole wheat flour, and I substituted some of the flour for oat bran. I also skimped on the sugar a teeny bit. It was plenty rich, so I think if I might it again, I might replace even more of the sugar and oil with applesauce. Another change that I made inadvertently was swapping the amounts of b