istoleyoursnacks

[istoleyoursnacks]

Onions!

I realize I've been gone a long time. Between my main blog, my job, and my hobbies, I don't always think about the foodie blog as much as I should have. I don't know if this is the return, but I do want to share more of what I make in the future.

So here's my talk today, it's below the cut (spoiler: it has to do with onions)

So with onions, you've noticed a few varieties while traipsing around the produce section. Big ol' red ones, Vidalia size, white, pearl, etc. The biggest one I want to talk about today is the yellow one!

^ those. They're so versatile and lovely and aren't super pungent when it comes to slicing and dicing them. You may also see them in those mesh bags cause they're sold in bulk. If you're looking to save some money (like I am lately, saving up for college tuition is going to eat up a lot of my free cash), grab a bag! They're usually sold in 3lb bags. If they're on sale, get more than one!

You: but snacks, I am by myself! I don't want to drown in onions.

Me: I have a secret. You can freeze them!

Yes. I was at the store yesterday and saw the yellow onions that sit freely for individual purchase were ENORMOUS. Almost mutant sized. No way was I going to conquer that onion before it went bad. But when I backtracked, I saw a 3lb bag of perfectly sized ones. I picked one up. Though it gave me literally 17 of them, I had a plan, and I'll share it with you.

I kept two or three out in my veggie and fruit bowl for the stuff that can sit at room temp (my onions are snuggled next to my bananas now), and I divided the rest into two separate bowls. One for slicing, and one for dicing.

I had already started slicing the ones in the bowl closest to you before I took the picture. But once they were sliced and shoved into sandwich bags, they laid pretty flat when I put them together.

There's seven bags, meaning seven onions were sliced and put into this gallon sized bag. Now if I need sliced onions for fajitas or in a beef roast, I can just grab a bag and toss it in.

And my diced onions! Great for everything else that would call for onions in a pan or pot. Onions typically freeze pretty well as long as the air is out of the bag, and don't take really any time to prep ahead of time. They don't usually turn to mush when you toss them into a pan.

If you want some other tips or tricks on freezing things, drop me an ask! Thanks for reading!

[istoleyoursnacks]

Sesme chiky

That looks sticky and yummy as hell. Would go great over rice.

[istoleyoursnacks]

Samin

Slammy Sammy!

Tell me what you made dis wiff. It looks delicious.

[istoleyoursnacks]

Guys I had the best toast this morning. Not full fancy toast but semi-fancy

Toast, almond butter, pistachios, and finally a drizzle of honey!

Wish I had a picture but oops it was too good. Try it! Sticks with you for a while!

[istoleyoursnacks]

Duuuuuuuuude. You give the best recipe advice.

This is what you get when you ask a food blog what to do with a cheap cut of meat you bought

Savory pulled pork with roasted potatoes

Sage, black pepper and red wine for the marinade and then I popped it in the slow cooker while I was off at work today. Best dinner to come home to.

[istoleyoursnacks]

Hey! Hey you! 🐔

Got some chicken in the fridge but have no idea what to do with it? OR maybe you're sick of the boring chicken recipes that you've always had and it turns out dry every time?

Well, wait no longer! I have tips!

Veggie-friendly people, I still love you, but I thought I'd share some tricks about chicken for those who eat meat! (It's below the cut!) This has some... Interesting language. Buckle up, buttercup.

So! You want juicy chicken, eh? Stuck with the tiddy meat? That stuff dries out real fast and is SO FINICKY.

I get you, my dude. Thigh meat is the best anyway. If you can get it on sale, stock up. Don't give me crap about it being non-white meat and it's bad for you, etc. No. Get it. Enjoy the things in life. It's easier to cook with anyway.

But let's say you're stuck with chicken tits. Here's how to keep those nice and moist.

Got cream cheese? Sweet. Mix that with some cumin, garlic powder and maybe a few cranks of pepper. Throw some green chilies in there too. Make it spicy if you want, I don't care, they also sell mild if you don't like setting your tongue on fire. Not feeling that? Italian seasoning. Bam. Smear that shit on the chicken. Give it a good coating. Top that with shredded cheese.

No cream cheese? Fine. Get the Mayo. Hush, you. Get it. Mix that with pepper, putz around with some spices or leave it plain. Want crunch? French fried onions. Just slap that on.

Bake. 15 ish minutes for thighs, around 20 or more for tits.

There's gonna be juice on the bottom. Thats fine.

Serve with your favorite veggie. Feel like a million bucks.

[istoleyoursnacks]

BREAD.

BREAD!

[istoleyoursnacks]

I did it! I made bread! Next time I'll put it all into one pan. I was nervous about the first time being too big that it would be too big for my loaf pan, but I'll try it all in one next time :)

On the negative side, all of my phyllo broke for baklava. But that's alright, I'll try again in a few weeks. I'll have some help then too.

Now to make dinner... 🤔

[istoleyoursnacks]

Bread

Bread

It's resting, please keep your voice down

[istoleyoursnacks]

Bread

🍞

[istoleyoursnacks]

Bread

Bread

[istoleyoursnacks]

I'm making bread! I will share when it's all done. I'm also doing some baklava cause my dad requested a homemade batch. Time consuming work, but it'll be worth it!

[istoleyoursnacks]

Soup's On!

Hey, foodies! I made some wonderful soup the night before. It's seriously amazing. I don't have much else to say about it, except it was a great way to kick off soup season, and this made about three servings. It's perfect since Snacks lives by herself and doesn't like to eat the same foods over and over for a week. Variety is the spice of life, amiright?

Anyway, let's dive in! Recipe and pictures are under the cut!

Creamy Chicken and Rice Soup

2 Tbsp butter

2 carrots, peeled and chopped (about a cup's worth)

Medium onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, sliced

1/4 tsp dried thyme leaves, crushed (I used both dried and fresh. About half and half)

2 Tbsp flour

2 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cups milk

1 cup shredded chicken (or you can use turkey if you want. I used a half a container of rotisserie chicken already cooked and then shredded it)

1/2 cup cooked seasoned long grain and wild rice (Uncle Ben's has a microwavable packet that is cooked in 90 seconds.)

Pepper (usually I would say salt here but there's plenty in the rice and the rotisserie chicken)

Heat the butter in a saucepan or pot over medium high heat, then add carrots, onion, celery, and thyme, then cook for around 10 minutes or until they're tender. I added pepper too here and let it really smell good. When I chopped my carrots, I cut the bigger discs in half to keep it around the same size.

Stir in the flour, then increase the heat to high. Add broth and milk, then bring to a boil. Stir constantly and let it cook for 5 minutes.

You'll see butter coming to the top. That's okay. Just stir and get it bubbly for a few minutes. Once it starts boiling, it'll mix in evenly.

Once the five minutes are up, turn the heat back down to medium and then add the rice and chicken. Give it a few stirs to mix in and let the chicken and rice heat up. You can add pepper here too if you want. I did and it was lovely.

And ta-da! Soup! I'm sure you can dunk some crusty bread in there for a good soup dipping experience!

Also yes, there are two loaves of bread on my counter. My microwave doubles as my bread box but I might change that to my little shelf I recently got. Brioche bread for french toast and bread pudding, and regular bread for sandwiches.

I got this soup recipe from eMeals! They have a couple more soups on there that I want to try, but I have some eating to do to make room in the fridge!

Happy cooking! You can reblog this if you want to share with your friends. This was really easy to make and theres a nice chunk to broth ratio that I love. No slurping broth when you finish (which I don't like. No matter how many saltines I throw in, I don't like broth drinking very much).

[istoleyoursnacks]

Friends! Food eaters! I'm not avoiding anyone, I promise.

Brain has been hindering cooking lately so I haven't been as active on here. But I've been making meals! And I'll share a few and link them together!

AND

I'm going to make soup today! I'll share a few things and tricks if you want to make soup! Today is Creamy Chicken and Rice soup! Stay tuned and I'll get you the recipe and my notes!

[istoleyoursnacks]

I made sexy little ginger cookies for some friends I haven't seen in a while :') I can't cook for shit so every little victory counts

Ohhhh this is beautiful! Great job, dear! They look delicious!

Set aside one for me too!

[istoleyoursnacks]

That pop is the most wonderful sound after so much work! I love the look of the jam!

I have so little energy today. But the goal is to make some hot toddy jelly and I will get that done.

Mostly cause I am already halfway through the process

[istoleyoursnacks]

I'm here! I promise!

So a little bit about me, Snacks. Don’t worry, it’s under the cut to keep your dash clean. Sort of a long post, oops.

 I love cooking for people (a lot of my friends know this already) but there are days where I just have no ambition to go to the store or actually cook. So I did a meal service for a while, mainly Hello Fresh, which was great for variety and the amount of time it takes to actually make the meals.

I've stopped doing it for a while (I couldn't keep up with it as I battled a few personal things at once), but kept some of the same aspects of prepping. I use the brown paper bags to separate my ingredients for my meals, and measure out the dry ingredients like pasta. It helps, honestly.

But I've also started doing eMeals. It's different than Hello Fresh, in that you pick the meals you want to make and it makes a grocery list for you. After that, you can choose to have it done for you, or if you're like me and like to go yourself, you can use the list to shop. You can also bounce around on different meal plans. I primarily eat the Mediterranean diet, but there are days where I really just want a nice, 100% veggie meal. They have those! Clean eating, vegan, vegetarian, family friendly, 30 minute meals, budget friendly, you name it. Need a crowd pleasing dessert? They've got it. Drinks? Yup. (Don't worry, I'm not being paid to rave about it, thank goodness, it's just something I found that's really neat)

Anyway, before this turns into a huge scroll-fest, I made a new thing today. Roasted radishes with mint couscous and garlic rosemary chicken. Recipe is below the pictures!

Garlic Rosemary Chicken (from eMeals)

3/4 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped

1/2 tsp garlic powder 

1/4 tsp salt (honestly, this is optional. I can’t tolerate a lot of salt, so most of the time I leave it out)

Give the chicken a pat-down and then rub with a teaspoon of the oil, the garlic powder, rosemary and salt. Heat a pan over medium-high heat with the other teaspoon of oil. Don’t worry, I typically use more than it says cause I don’t like things sticking to my pan. Oops. Anyway cook the chicken 5-6 minutes each side or until done.

Roasted Radishes and Mint Couscous

1/2 lb radishes, halved

2 tsp olive oil (or vegetable. I used veggie oil instead)

2 tsp minced garlic

1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped

salt and pepper

1/3 c Israeli (pearl) couscous

3 Tbsp chopped fresh mint

2 Tbsp olive oil vinaigrette

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F (204C). Toss the radishes, oil, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper together. Roast for 20 minutes or until golden.

Cook couscous according to package directions. Stir in mint and vinaigrette. All done!

Let me know what you think! Did you sub anything out for something else? Did you use more herbs and spices? Let Snacks know! I’ve never had roasted radishes before, so I’m excited to try this!