Quinoa FAIL

Since I've been sharing my success stories I thought it was time for a big fat failure story. Or should I say big fat and swollen failure story. After you hear how much soy sauce the recipe called for you will understand the swollen part.

As you can see above, this particular dish looked delicious in the picture, as they all do. However my finished product looked nothing like it, and more-so than the usual difference between my finished product and the pretty picture on the website. (Side note: why don't they just post real pictures instead of those fancy professional-looking food pics? I know it wouldn't be as appealing, but people like real. As a matter of fact, Olivia is currently cleaning my kitchen floor, and by cleaning I mean finding bits and pieces and eating them. See? That's what really happens when in the kitchen. If somebody posts a pic of their finished product on a paper plate, I will try their recipe. Just because I respect their honesty. But I digress...)

All the cast of characters were destined to make a great dish.... except one....

1/2 A CUP OF SOY SAUCE!!! If you have ever started pouring 1/2 a cup of soy sauce, there's no way you didn't have second thoughts about it. It's a lot of soy sauce. So since my usual cooking instincts are wrong, I did not listen to the voice saying "too much soy sauce... swollen night ahead... yield! yield!" Sadly, I just kept pouring.

What resulted was a soup of quinoa and soy sauce. The rest of the ingredients don't matter because you couldn't taste them anyways. This was made even more comical when I referred back to the website and saw dozens of comments saying "Do not make this recipe!!" Lesson learned: read the comments before you cook.

All this to say, the men in my household said they liked the dish. I love that they will eat anything.

Love and happy de-bloating,
Amy

Meatball sub

Tonight I made meatball subs. You can see the pin on my food board. They were fingerlickin good. And I'm excited because I used ground turkey instead of ground beef! Sometimes I get nervous when I use ground turkey because it gives dishes a distinct flavor, but it wasn't overwhelming at all.

Here are the other substitutions I made:
- fresh basil instead of fresh parsley (I have a basil plant so I was just being lazy by using it instead of going out to buy parsley, but it gave it a really nice flavor. Win-win!)
- Newman's marinara instead of homemade marinara
- hot dog buns instead of baguettes (y'all know I'm cheap)
- shredded mozzarella instead of sliced mozzarella 

- 1/3 of a yellow onion instead of one shallot 

Even with all the changes, it was really good. It makes about 6-7 subs.  Try it ladies!

Love y'all,
Amy

Creamy Cajun Chicken Pasta

Hey ladies! I've been trying out a few recipes lately but haven't had a chance to post them yet. I will soon! Right now I want to tell y'all about a recipe I just tried from pinterest. On my food board it's called Creamy Cajun Chicken Pasta.

It was delish. A couple things: I forgot to put the parmesan on at the end, but it was still yummy. Also, the recipe calls for using only 4oz of linguine and I was going for a full 12oz box. This lead to me doubling some ingredients which also lead me to over season the chicken accidentally. I'm a very prescriptive cooker so when I go off the script things get a little crazy. So fair warning, if you use more pasta it's not necessary to double all the rest of the ingredients. Moderation is good and you can always add more later.

Try this recipe! It makes a lot of food and it's good. Also, if you haven't noticed already,  Red Lobster now sells their cheesy biscuit recipe at walmart!!! I made them with the pasta and it was great, but let's be honest, I could eat those with fruit salad and think they're great.

I love y'all and can't wait to hear what you've tried lately!

Peace out sistas!
-Amy