All Things Food!

I love food.  Like I really, REALLY love food.  Recently I've started to cook a lot more and I love to try out recipes on my boyfriend.  I'm into easy recipes with a lot of flavor and not too many ingredients. 

As I share the recipes, I'll add a "Carrie Rating" at the bottom of each just so you know how easy it is to make and how good it tastes. 

I'll use a rating system of 1-3 for ease:

1 = "piece-a-cake", 2 = "took a little work", and 3 = "that was tough"

For taste, I'll use stars (*):

1 star = "uuuh it's okay / probably won't make again", 2 = "pretty darn good", and 3 = "amaaazing"

If you ever want to share a recipe, I'd love to try it!  Just email it to me at carrie.loveyourlife@gmail.com and put RECIPE in the subject line.

Here's an easy but deeeelish meal I made on a recent Sunday night...it was so good that it had my BF slurping the juices off of his empty plate.  Really. lol

NY Strip Steak w/ Onion Blue Cheese Sauce, Corn on the Cob, Roasted Potatoes, and Summer Salad (In the words of Adam Richman from Man vs Food: "Oh my gooooodness, OH. MY. GOODNESS!) 

ONION BLUE CHEESE SAUCE RECIPE (Courtesy of Ree Drummond, www.foodnetwork.com)

Ingredients:

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 stick softened butter

1 large yellow onion, sliced

1 cup heavy cream

3 to 4 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

3/4 cup crumbled blue cheese

Directions:

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat, and then saute the onions until golden brown, 7 to 8 minutes. Pour in the cream, a dash of salt and pepper and the Worcestershire sauce. Let it bubble up, then add the blue cheese and stir together to melt, adding more pepper or Worcestershire sauce as you wish.

Carrie Rating:  Ease: 2 / Taste: ***

SUMMER SALAD RECIPE (Courtesy of ME!)

I call it "Summer Salad" because it's best to make when tomatoes are in season.  Seriously...you'll want to make this all summer long - it's that easy and that good.

Ingredients:

6-8 Roma Tomatoes

1 Large Red Onion

1 Large Cucumber

1 Package of Dry Ranch Dressing Mix

1 Container of Feta Cheese

1 1/2 cups of any Italian Dressing

5-6 Basil Leaves

Directions:

Dice tomatoes, onion, and cucumber equally and place them in a large bowl.  Pour in the remaining ingredients and mix well.  Roll up the basil leaves, slice into pieces (this technique is called "chiffonade"), and sprinkle over the top.  Take a bite and wonder why you haven't been making this for a million summers already!!

Carrie Rating:  Ease - 1 / Taste - ***

ROASTED POTATOES RECIPE (Courtesy of ME!)

This isn't really a recipe but rather a how-to paragraph since I don't use exact measurements making this...

I buy the bags of small red skinned (purple) potatoes because they seem to taste the best and look pretty, too.  Wash the potatoes and chop them into bite sized pieces.  Spread them in a single layer onto a cookie sheet and drizzle them (liberally) with olive oil.  Season them with a good amount of salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning.  Dice a garlic clove or two (or three or four is fine, too depending on how much you love garlic) and scatter the garlic pieces all over the potatoes.  With your fingers, toss the potatoes so that they're all covered with the oil and seasonings.  Bake on 450 for about 20-25 minutes.

Carrie Rating:  Ease - 1 / Taste - ***

 

CORN ON THE COB TIPS

I've finally figured out how to make corn on the cob to where it falls off the ear.  Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil.  Salt the water as it boils.  Place the corn ears in the pot and let them boil for 15 minutes or so.  Turn the stove off and cover the pot.  Let the ears sit in the covered pot for another 15 minutes. 

Drain all of the water from the pot and leave the ears in there.  Butter and season all of the ears at once by placing a 1/2 - 1 stick of butter in the pot and just toss the ears making sure they are all coated in the butter.  Salt (and use whatever other seasonings you like) them all and then place them on a serving dish.  Perfection!


NEXT UP!  Cooking Clubs 101 - If anyone has any ideas they'd like to share on how to create / operate a cooking club, please comment below!  Thanks! :)