I'm a big fan of calamari but I never would have guessed that the deliciously fried rings that I enjoy so much would ever have come from something that looked like this.  🦑 It's not always a bad thing to be blissfully unaware when it comes to what most of my seafood looks like before it hits my plate. 😂 

I don't fry very much of our food.  The occasional perch filet or a chicken cutlet is about all that gets deep fried in my kitchen.  (Very unusual for a girl who lives in the South by the way.)  Since I'm somewhat inexperienced at frying things - I tend to use the same technique for everything that I fry.  I coat the food in flour, dip it in an egg wash, cover it with bread crumbs and put it in hot oil.  Simple right?  Apparently, not.  I recently learned that the technique for frying calamari is quite different from frying a chicken breast or french fries. 

According to Cook's Illustrated, frying calamari quickly is the key to keeping it from getting rubbery and tough.  They published this very simple and straightforward recipe in their January/February magazine and it was exactly what I needed to tweak my own calamari recipe.   Dredge the calamari in milk instead of egg, add baking powder to the flour mixture and fry the squid hot and fast.  Simple changes that transformed my calamari from bland and elastic to tender and delicate.  

Fried Calamari
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 pound squid, sliced crosswise 3/4" thick
2 quarts vegetable oil for frying

Serve calamari with lemon wedges or marinara sauce. 

I never had very much luck with homemade calamari so it was always reserved for a special appetizer when we went out to eat.  Now that I've perfected homemade fried calamari, we can have it ALL THE TIME.  (This could be dangerous.) 😂

​​Ciao!

Working from home is a DREAM ... for me.  I've organized my space so that I can work better and more efficiently my own kitchen than any other.  Working from home for me is ideal and but my situation is completely different from someone who's been forced to learn how to do their job remotely over the last couple of weeks. 

My husband is one of those people who's been working from home as often as possible and even though he's handled the change like a champ, it's thrown a little kink in my daily schedule.  I'm accustomed to having sole ownership of the kitchen during the day.  When he wanders through my office (aka the kitchen) looking for sustenance,  I feel like I've thrown cake scraps at him in an effort to clear my work space of guests.  😬

Since my work is essentially done in the grocery store and my home kitchen, I've never had to worry about where I was going to eat lunch.  I have access to food all day long so I never worry about where or what I am going to eat for lunch.  Most days, I warm up  leftovers for myself when I get hungry. 

Having Ben work from home has made me to rethink my noontime routine.  The good thing is that it's forced me to take a little break from cooking and sit down for a few minutes in the middle of my day.  It's also compelled me to reevaluate my noontime nourishment because we can't exactly share a half of a roasted sweet potato for lunch.  🥔 #notenoughleftovers

Shelter in place with Ben has me revisiting some of my quick and easy salad, soup and sandwich recipes for lunch.  One of my go-to lunches when I don't have leftovers, is a tuna sandwich.  Not the mayonnaise soaked tuna salad served with an ice cream scoop but really, tasty, great tuna.  A tuna sandwich that will keep me full until dinner and is big enough to share with Ben.  

Provencal Tuna Sandwich
2 Roma tomatoes
1/2 small red onion
1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 garlic clove, sliced
1 baguette, sliced horizontally
1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted
1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 Tablespoon anchovy paste
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 can oil packed tuna
​2 hard boiled eggs, sliced thin

Slice and serve.

While I am super thankful that I get to work from home and my husband gets to work from home on most days, I am extremely grateful for the essential employees that are going to work every day to keep my town, my state and my country functioning during this pandemic.  Thank you.  

Ciao!

I have a home based business and I actually LOVE working from home.  I feel most productive when I'm working from home.  I can throw a load of laundry in the washing machine while I wait for a cake to cool.  I have the flexibility to adjust my schedule to accommodate lunches with my besties and walks with the dog.  My life really should be minimally impacted by the "shelter in place" order because I've already got the "work from home" thing mastered.  

It's always been my preference to work from home. What can I say?  I'm a homebody.  💁🏻‍♀️It's not unusual for me to go three or four days in a row without leaving the house.  And even then it's usually a trip to the grocery for necessary supplies that ultimately gets me to leave the confines of the house.  Now that I feel like I NEED to stay at home for my own health and to protect my family members, I feel like these same four walls are starting to close in around me.  🏡

I've had all of the feels since we entered this global pandemic.  Limited is just one of the emotions that seems to be at the forefront this week.  I miss the days when I could just run out for a can of tomatoes without fear that the grocery store shelves would be empty or catching a respiratory virus.  Or walk into a store without standing in line to wait for my turn to enter.    Oh, the things I took for granted.  🥫😷 

I'm still getting a lot of baking orders and that's bringing a much needed sense of normalcy to this weird time that we are in.  I'm still limiting my grocery store trip to once a week and even though it's been a little harder to find the supplies that I need in the store, I've managed to get all of my orders made.  I've also learned to keep a supply of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in stock because apparently this quarantine has everyone craving chocolate peanut butter cupcakes.  😂

Even though, I'm only buying the groceries that I need for the week and my list is more detailed than ever, I still end up with a few scraps and leftovers at the end of the week.  This week my leftover produce was 1 apple, 1 carrot and a very small amount of raisins in the bottom of the bag that I needed up use up before I restocked the frig.  Maybe it's just because I love to bake and my mind immediately goes to something sweet, but Morning Glory Muffins were the first thing to come to my mind.  Sure they would be great in a salad too but muffins are way more crave worthy than salad.  🤣

Morning Glory Muffins
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup agave, honey or maple syrup
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 apple, shredded
1 carrot, peeled and shredded
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup raisins

Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

Whisk together honey, coconut oil, eggs and vanilla.

Fold in apples and carrots.

​Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.

Fold in walnuts, shredded coconut and raisins.

​Divide batter among muffin tins filling each almost to the top.

Bake at 375 for 18-20 minutes.

​Let cool in pan for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Since the self quarantine started, I am limiting myself to grocery shopping only once a week.   For a girl who used to find herself at Wal Mart at LEAST once a day, this has been a big change.  By the end of the week, I feel like I'm on an episode of Chopped.  I've got 1 sweet potato, an overripe banana, a can of diced tomatoes, a bag of frozen peas and a squished hamburger bun.  😅 I've been doing my weekly shopping on Fridays so our weekend meals are relatively normal.  By Thursday though, it's a whole new level of weird leftover combinations. ​

If anything, my once a week grocery trip has made me realize just how many superfluous trips to the store I was making.  I've always been a menu planner and no matter how thorough my grocery list might have been, I was still making multiple trips to the store every week.  I didn't even think twice about going to the store to pick up more tortillas if were were running low on taco night.  Now we just throw our taco toppings on top of the crushed tortilla chips at the bottom of the bag and call it nachos.  🌮😂

When I started to pull out the ingredients out of the pantry to make this Herb Roasted Chicken with Potatoes, Olives and Lemon, I realized just how unprepared I was to make this recipe.  For starters, I bought chicken breasts instead of thighs because that's what they had at the store.  I didn't have any Castelvetrano olives because my quarantined family had a snack attack. 😂 I used up all of my red potatoes in a different recipe and I only had a half of a lemon left in my refrigerator.  

​I decided to post the original version of the recipe because it sounds way more appetizing than my weird substitute version.  At some point, I plan on remaking this recipe as written.  (Maybe I'll do it on a Saturday before anyone has time to eat up or use up the ingredients.)  😂

Herb Roasted Chicken with Potatoes, Olives and Lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
3  tablespoons fresh oregano
1 Tablespoon fresh thyme
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 pounds baby red potatoes, halved
1/4 cup pitted Castelvetrano olives, chopped
1 3/4 pounds bone in chicken thighs
1 lemon, cut into wedges

Squeeze lemon over chicken and vegetables before serving. 

Despite my lack of listed ingredients for this recipe - I think this recipe turned out pretty tasty.  The chicken was moist and juicy and the salty potato and olive combination was a nice compliment to the lemony chicken.  This whole learning to substitute with the foods that I have on hand - might just work in my favor after all.  

Ciao!

Easter is a little over a week away and I'm over here trying to figure out how to downsize my normally over-the-top Easter dinner to feed our quarantine party of 3!  Three!  Anyone know how to make an Easter dinner for three people?  Ham, potatoes, macaroni and cheese, salad, green beans, homemade rolls, deviled eggs, coconut cake and homemade ice cream.  If I make all that food, we'll be eating "Easter dinner" for a month.  But what do I leave out?  The ham?  The homemade rolls shaped like bunnies?  The coconut cake that I only make once a year?🍰 Decisions, decisions.  

If you've got a great downsized Easter dinner menu - I'd love for you to share it with me.  Help a girl out - I'm struggling.  Maybe someone has a recipe for a macaroni and cheese casserole recipe with ham, potatoes, green beans and deviled eggs.  😂😝

Our menu is far from finalized but I do know that we will be having salad on Easter and since things are anything but normal or ordinary this year, maybe a cabbage salad is the way to go.  I get tired of green salads night after night so I'm always looking for recipes to shake up my vegetable routine. 

I love cabbage but I don't like coleslaw so I usually steer clear of cabbage based salads.  I'm not opposed to mayonnaise but for some reason when it's combined with cabbage, it's an unappealing combination in my world.  
​
Cabbage is a nutritional powerhouse, loaded with vitamin C to boost the immune system, the amino acid glutamine to help reduce inflammation, several cancer fighting properties, which may help inhibit tumor growth.  It's pretty much a super food sure to counteract all of my Easter overindulgence.  😉

A little lemon and blue cheese vinaigrette is the perfect little zesty dressing for my cabbage.  A sprinkle of bacon and fresh cucumber helps give this salad some extra crunch too.  Now that I have a great non-coleslaw cabbage recipes, I'm officially adding cabbage back into my salad rotation.  

​Ciao!