Tag: recipes

So Lush Lifestyle

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In case you haven’t noticed, I have changed the title of this blog and the domain. I always knew there would come a time when I would have to buy a domain. For the past month or so, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with something cute, unique and encompassing of what I actually blog about. I decided to go with So Lush Lifestyle for a few reasons.

1.)    This is a lifestyle blog.

The things I blog about are actually part of how I really live and what I’m really interested in. I cook, I shop, I work out (sometimes), etc. These are my real interests and passions in life.

2.)    “Lush” is something I used to say as a teen.

When I was around 15 or 16, “lush” was my WORD. It basically means “awesome” in the context that I use it. I picked it up from Charlotte Church so I guess it’s actually British slang. Either way, I said it all the time and it was even on my MySpace profile so you know it was official.

3.)    A “so lush lifestyle” is something I aspire to have.

I am someone who believes that women can have it all. I want to be able to say that I’m a great wife, a great mother (eventually), a great cook, etc. I want the nice car, the nice wardrobe and handbags, the nice house. I want it all. I truly believe that I can have it all. And I believe that other women can too.

Maple Mustard Glazed Salmon + Garlic Parmesan Broccoli

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During our last trip to the grocery store, my fiancé picked up a huge slab of fresh salmon. It was so big that I couldn’t possibly use the whole slab for just one dinner for the two of us that night. So I had my fiancé cut the slab in half and freeze one half of it. The first night we had the salmon and asparagus recipe that I posted about a few months ago. About a week later, I decided to use the other half of the salmon because I just didn’t like the idea of the salmon being frozen for too long. My fiancé did not want the same salmon recipe that I had made the week before because he had been eating the leftovers from that dinner at work for a few days. So I found another recipe on my Pinterest board that I had only made once and paired it with a new way to make broccoli. My mom used to boil broccoli all the time when I was still living with my parents. Sometimes we would have it two or three times a week. It’s kind of a running joke in that household. But I had a bag of frozen broccoli that needed to be used in my freezer, however I decided to try something new with it so that it wouldn’t feel as redundant.

The salmon came out perfect. Continue reading →

Cravings by Chrissy Teigen

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One of my birthday gifts this year was Cravings by Chrissy Teigen. My mom bought it for me because she knows that I’ve been learning the ropes in the kitchen via Pinterest. I’ve never had a cookbook before so this is my very first one. And I’m also a big fan of Chrissy Teigen. I’m super duper excited to try these recipes, many of which I have never even thought about making before. Although I love my recipes board on Pinterest, having an actual book with pages and pictures that I can look at is going to be awesome. I won’t have to scroll and screenshot images on my phone or worry about my touching my phone with food on my fingers. Eventually I’ll make my own cookbook binder with all of my favorite Pinterest recipes but I haven’t had the time to invest in that right now. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to post a link to the recipes like I usually do because that could get me in trouble but I can post a link to purchase the book. If you like Chrissy Teigen’s personality and sense of humor and you also like to cook, I would suggest buying this for yourself. Her write-ups are funny and hopefully the recipes are delicious too. I guess I’ll find out soon enough…

Happy Birthday to Me!

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I’ve been twenty-six for two days now. My actual birthday fell on a Thursday so I took the following Friday off work. Friday was a very busy day for my fiancé and I. We had been planning on buying a Macbook Pro for a few weeks, but we decided to go to the Apple store in Charlotte so that we could use a friend’s discount. I’m actually typing on it now and it’s very exciting to have a computer again. My last laptop died on me a couple of months after I graduated from college so it has been a while since I’ve had my own computer. We also did a little window shopping at Louis Vuitton and Tory Burch, before visiting a car dealership. We spent about an hour searching for the perfect family car to buy after we get married. I think we made a decision but I change my mind a lot so… this may not be a final decision. We’re not making any big purchases until after the wedding anyway so, I have time to figure out what I really want. My birthday gifts this year were so cute. I got an All-American Chocolate cake from Maxie B’s and Chrissy Teigen’s new cookbook from my mom. And I got three new charms for my Pandora bracelet; two from my babe and one from my dad. I can’t wait to start using that cookbook so that I can share my outcomes here!

Chapter 25 was amazing. Here’s to starting Chapter 26…

Balsamic Chicken & Vegetables

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This is a recipe that I should’ve tried a couple of months ago but I kept putting it off because I never seemed to have all the ingredients at one time. Last week I ended up getting everything I needed so I decided to give it a go anyway and hope for the best. 

First of all, the food came out looking beautiful! I almost didn’t want to eat it because it was so pretty (we still ate it though). Secondly, this recipe includes a good amount of carrots (I hate carrots), but surprisingly I still enjoyed it. I don’t cook just for myself so sometimes I make dishes that include foods that I don’t necessarily enjoy eating (i.e. carrots, salmon, etc.). Both of the vegetables in this recipe were tasty though, and that’s probably due to the sauce that they were cooked in. Lastly, the recipe calls for you to remove the chicken from your pan and put it on a serving plate prior to cooking the vegetables… don’t do that if you have no way of keeping the chicken warm. No one wants to eat cold chicken and warm veggies. I don’t have a serving plate that has the ability to keep the food warm so I kept my chicken in the pan with the vegetables and my chicken wasn’t burnt at all.

  

Click HERE to try this recipe.

Spaghetti Carbonara

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A few days ago I tried making Spaghetti Carbonara. It turned out… “Ok”.

I decided to post this recipe because it really is a good & easy recipe but also because I kind of messed up. Why would I post a recipe that I messed up on? Because most people mess up from time to time and I want anyone who does this recipe to not make the same mistakes that I did.

So the only issues I had with this recipe had to do with BACON.

First of all, the recipe says to “dice” the bacon and I didn’t even know what that meant so I had to google it. As I’m watching a video on dicing bacon and preparing to follow along, the guy in the video says its best to do this while the bacon is frozen. And… My bacon was not frozen. It was too hard to follow the video with my bacon already thaw so I used scissors to cut the bacon up because I’m resourceful. AND uncooked bacon smells just as good as cooked bacon so I was really hungry at this point.

My next screw up came with putting the bacon in the pan. So I didn’t put all the bacon in at the same time. Looking back, I should’ve put it all in at the same but of course hindsight is always 20/20. So some of my bacon got burnt while the other bacon was browning. But it was too late to turn back and I didn’t want to waste anymore bacon, so I proceeded with the recipe (burnt bacon and all).

It wasn’t the worst mishap that could’ve happened but it kind of bummed me out. The food still turned out pretty though. And if you were lucky enough not to get a burnt piece of bacon on your plate, it tasted good too.

Click here to try this recipe!

Salisbury Steak Meatballs

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I tried another Pinterest recipe last night. Halfway thru the process, I started having my doubts because I felt like the recipe was taking way more time for me than it was supposed to. It actually just took 15 more minutes than the author predicted; I’m just impatient. This is one of the more difficult recipes that I’ve tried recently. It requires some multitasking; whereas many of the other recipes have allowed me to just put everything in one pot/dish and just wait for it to be done. But it turned out really well! I was pleasantly surprised. 

  

Click HERE to see the full list of ingredients and directions.

Baked Salmon & Asparagus 

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Now that I’m in my own place and cooking is a responsibility of mine (and my boyfriend; he cooks too), I’ve been using Pinterest to find new recipes to try. So far I’ve tried “baked ravioli”, “cheesy chicken & broccoli with rice”, and “baked salmon with asparagus”. All of the recipes have been a success but I only have pictures of the baked salmon.

 The baked salmon recipe was the third recipe that I tried and I’m really proud of how it turned out. I actually don’t even like salmon that much but it was a relatively low maintenance recipe that required very little clean up afterwards so I decided to go for it. Since everything is baked in foil, you literally don’t have to do anything besides throw the foil away when you’re done eating. That was the best thing about cooking this. Oh, and it smelled REALLY GOOD while it was in the oven.

Click HERE for the ingredients and instructions to make this awesome dinner.