Salisbury Steak

I don't know about you, but I love Salisbury steak! When I was in college and working I didn't have a lot of money, so I would buy those frozen dinners that would always go on sale, 10 for $10. I loved getting the Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes or with macaroni and cheese. It was great for lunch breaks. This is just as hearty and delicious, but it's healthier to make it at home. Especially since it's so easy! From start to finish, with photographing it, it took 40 minutes. Hope you enjoy!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cheerio Squares

Nothing beats a no bake treat that uses up extra ingredients. We buy Cheerios from Costco, which means two giant family size boxes. After a while Isla loses interest in eating them as a snack, and the majority of the Cheerios get stomped on and then vacuumed up. I wanted to use up some Cheerios and I had marshmallows in the pantry, and figured a Rice Krispie Treat inspired snack would be a hit!

Chicken Enchiladas

These are so delicious and filling! Best part is you can have two enchiladas and a side of beans (or salad? anyone?) and it can be a meal for under 400 calories! Which leaves room for dessert, you're welcome. If you have a bunch of bell peppers on hand and no tortillas, then you could easily turn this recipe into enchilada stuffed peppers. Which would be so delicious, cut calories, and definitely cut carbs. 

Mommy Mondays: Toddler Favorites

After nearly 20 months of parenting, I've really got the hang of it! Haha! I always love to see what other people like for their kids, and I've noticed as Isla grows the list gets smaller and smaller. Here are some of the basics and things that really make life a lot easier.

Vegan Artichoke Veggie Dip

I made this years ago, six years ago actually, when I was eating a vegan diet. It's easy to make, fast, delicious, and full of nutrients! What's not to love? Now that it's football season it's good to have a few dip recipes on hand. This is great alternative for those of us who love spinach and artichoke dip, but have no self control. 

Baked Boston Cream Donuts

I have a lovely and easy recipe to share with you, now you can treat yourself to homemade donuts this weekend. I enjoy watching YouTube because there are some really amazing cooks/chefs/bakers that share wonderful recipes. Two of my favorites are Laura Vitale from Laura in the Kitchen and Gemma Stafford from Bigger Bolder Baking. I recently tried Gemma's no fry donuts and I was inspired! Laura has shared her custard filling multiple times on her channel whether making a fruit tart or filled cupcakes, and I've always wanted to try it. I figured since I was trying out a new donut recipe, I would make some Boston cream donuts. They have definitely become my favorite. After I filled the donuts with the custard, I seriously licked the bowl clean. It's the most heavenly custard I have tried.

My variation for the recipes was using the Truvia baking blend to help cut down on some of the sugar. Unfortunately for the glaze you do need to use powdered sugar. On a brighter note, using a chocolate glaze instead of a chocolate ganache does help cut down on fat and calories. But hey, it's up to you! You cook for you, and do whatever makes you happy. If you aren't making donuts very often, you can definitely go all out. And that also means you can fry these donuts.

Keep reading for the recipe, and a recipe for two other donuts too!

Vegetable Lo Mein

Something I've always ordered when we get Chinese takeout is either lo mein or chow mein, I will always choose noodles over fried rice! Here on the west coast chow mein has fried noodles, but they are not super crunchy or crispy. At least not anything I've had here in California. The chow mein here has the same noodles as lo mein, but they are stir fried separately instead of tossed in at the end. The noodles do have a slight crunch and more chew to them, but I would still consider the noodles to be soft. Especially since they soften over time and when you get takeout there's some time between when it's cooked and when you get it home. The main difference other than the crunchier noodles is chow mein tends to only have a couple of vegetables like celery and cabbage. Lo mein generally has a plethora of vegetables, which is why I prefer to make lo mein at home.

This recipe was a bit of an ordeal, it took over a week to perfect and six attempts total to get the right sauce. The short story is I started with a stir fry sauce recipe from another blog, combined that with a yakisoba sauce recipe to make a sort of hybrid sauce since I love that spice that yakisoba has. It was all wrong. So I started to try other recipes I saw online, and come to find out I don't really love hoisin in my sauce because of the five spice, white pepper isn't as good to me as black pepper, and I don't really like using sherry in the recipe either (most recipes call for Chinese cooking wine but say sherry can be substituted). I also found that while I love a bit of light colored soy sauce, having more than the amount of dark soy is just too salty to me. So when it comes down to it, this is a very basic sauce. I can't believe how many attempts it took, but there you have it. The flavor and type of lo mein I had been wanting to achieve. I will include my little list of tips at the bottom of the page if you're interested, but otherwise enjoy the recipe!