THE F WORDS | THE QUARANTINE KITCHEN

Listen, I've always been a fan of cooking. I've been obsessed with getting cookbooks and Bon Appétit test kitchen videos and trying everything I see. There's something about cooking that is just the right amount of stressful pressure to get it right, combined with the satisfaction when it's done that really gets me going. A stupid way to put it? Probably. Do I care? No.

Anyway! With the quarantine going on right now, I am trying to find the best in everything. This is the perfect time to take out every single cooking tool I have an start making things I've been thinking about making for so long. I am going to call this series The Quarantine Kitchen and I hope you'll follow along! I am hoping to write these maybe once or twice per month with an update on new things I will be trying. Maybe it will turn into something weekly, that would be great.

If you try anything I put here, please share photos with me and use the hashtag #TheQuarantineKitchen! I would love to see how everyone is making these recipes their own.

4 INGREDIENT, SIMPLE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES | #HITTIHOLIDAY

Oooooooh yes.  Christmas is coming.  I could not be more excited.  I am no different, I always get excited about the holiday but for a plethora of different reasons.  One of those reasons?  Baking.  Today we're talking about a very simple recipe, one that only takes four different ingredients.  Check out these little morsels of deliciousness, these Peanut Butter Cookies.

SIMPLE STUFFED PORK CHOP RECIPE

This is the most simple but delicious fall dinner idea I have ever come up with.  It takes two second to get everything done and everyone in my family really enjoyed the meal.  Pork chops with green beans and homemade mashed potatoes.  Check it out.

DELICIOUS AND SIMPLE CHOCOLATE CHEWS | #HITTIHOLIDAY

Ooooooh, it's November and the closer we get to Thanksgiving, the happier we all get.  These chocolate chews are something that were always made this time of year when I was younger.  I always think about them when November/December rolls around and cant resist making them for the family.  Not only are they the simplest recipe ever, but they're delicious and something different than your everyday Thanksgiving dessert/Christmas cookie.  Check out the ingredients/how they're made:

ALL HAIL QUEEN KALE | KALE CHIPS

Kale chips are everything.  Let's just be honest.  I never thought I would be a fan, but I definitely am and they are so simple to make.  You get almost the same crunch as you do with regular potato chips and it's much healthier.  I've even purchased them already made before and still think that the ones I make are better.  Here's what I do.

SAUSAGE, SPINACH, SALSA

Being that it is still fairly warm here, I am not quite into the whole heavy stew/soup life just yet.  I must admit, I have made some, but not to the highest power that I normally do by this time of year.

This simple little dish is something I pulled together recently that I was surprised tastes so good.  It's very simple and it's light, yet a fall dish.  All I did was sauté some sausage and spinach and put both on top of a bed of bow tie pasta.  I added a simple cherry tomato/avocado salsa on top for a little extra, but you don't have to do that.  If you substitute it for something else, tweet me!  

MINI FRITTATA IN A CUPCAKE PAN | HEALTHY EATS

Probably every single time I open Pinterest I see a recipe for these.  I always find them and I always want to make them so FINALLY I set out to do just that.  Not only are they absolutely adorable and the perfect serving size, but they're delicious and healthy!  Check out these mini frittatas made in cupcake pans.

3 INGREDIENT, HOMEMADE GRANOLA BARS | NO BAKE

I had been scouring the internet looking for some recipes for healthy desserts because I am tired of the same old thing.  Can you agree with me?  I mean really, it does get kind of boring eating the same fruits and vegetables all of the time (even when seasons have just changed). Fall can get especially annoying because everything is about apples.  Don't get me wrong, I like apples, but I don't love them and I get tired of them very quickly.  

With that being said, I came across this recipe for homemade granola bars. When I found them at first, I thought it would be a great snack and what got me excited about it is that there were only three ingredients necessary.  Upon making them, I quickly realized that with the honey and peanut butter, they're a little sweet for me to consider them a granola bar and more of a dessert.  Here's how I made them.

Healthy, Not Boring | Recipes to Try

If you're anything like me, you'll find it difficult to eat healthy when you hang out with your friends.  There's nothing wrong with that, but it's completely true.  Think about it, social eating and drinking is just that, very social.  Every trip out to the bar or night eating out at some new restaurant has to do with the one thing we hate most about life.. calories!  I've made a couple of things over the past couple of days to remedy that problem and here's how they came out.

Light Flatbread Sandwich for End of Summer

As I mentioned, one of the reasons I love the late moments of August so much is because local summer is just around the corner and guess what?  Local summer is FINALLY here.  This is easily one of my favorite times of the year for so many reasons.  I love the calm, dedicated nature of the year.  Everyone seems to be going back to school or work, the weather seems more manageable to everyone and attitudes are just all around better for everyone. 

Because we are still left with 80+ degree days in September for the most part, I love taking advantage of summery meals, the fresh produce that's still growing in my fathers garden, and easily constructible meals.  

This is just a super simple wrap that absolutely anyone can pull together and make.  It is actually perfect for work or school lunches and the ingredients are so simple to adjust should you or your child like something better.  Here are the ingredients and how I made it.

Weekend in Photos 11/21-11/23

Hi everyone!  I hope you all had/are having a fantastic weekend!  I figured I would share my week in pictures today and I hope that you'd share yours as well!

I put up a new Twitter photo recently and I actually really like it!  I put a cute little filter on it so that I could try and block out my eczema because it's that time of year again.  Also take note of these red wine colored nails that I LOVE around the fall/winter.  The last and final thing I LOVE about this photo is my flash tattoo that I have on my wrist.  These flash tatts make me so happy and I'll have another order in for Mr. Kate ones soon!

Now I'll be honest, I think this is from either Thursday or Friday - certainly not the weekend.  TUT.com is an awesome website where you can sign up for daily e-mails that send encouraging messages to you.  It's just nice to have them sitting in your inbox when you wake up or for later on in the day when you finally get a chance to take a look at them.  Sometimes we all need a little assurance or just a pick me up and usually during the week is when it's most needed.  They don't send the e-mails on the weekend, I wish they would, but during the week it's a really nice little surprise.

The dog decided that he wanted to just randomly nap on the touch in this really uncomfortable-looking position that I can't really understand.  Reeeeeeally no other comments on this.

I am so happy to have gotten some new sheets for my bed!  These are obviously just for the winter because they are flannel but they are so nice.  Come spring and warmer weather I'll start looking for something else but these are going to be great for now.  Still no word on what type of comforter I'd like but I have been looking around and have a few ideas.  I don't know if you can tell from the cart but I picked these up from Target and the best part?  I got them for..... $15.99!  They were originally $24.99 on sale for $19.99.  I had a cartwheel and got them for the final $15.99 price.  I love cartwheel, you should most definitely check them out if you don't have it already.  It really gets you a lot of discounts on some regularly purchased items!

This photo is obviously a hilarious snapchat.  I mean obviously lol.  I don't know what mood I was in when I made this but I guess I wanted to be cute and Christmasy.  I'm just noticing now that my hair  makes me look like a Santa beard or something.  I don't know I'm really weird, don't judge.  

This is probably my favorite thing in the blog post.  I have had this poster since I was probably five years old.  My dad got it for me and it has been hanging up in my room forever!  I have always been a lover of all things computer and this totally made me happy hanging on the wall.  Now that I'm older and I have more of a preference for design, I still kept this and look at it every once in a while. 

I apparently live in the town of 'Local Weather' today, as that's what displayed when I tapped the weather app earlier this morning.  I don't know, I was just happy enough to see the 66 degrees for tomorrow!  Who needs colder days?  CERTAINLY NOT ME.  :)

Now these rice crispy treats may look like the most delicious things you've ever seen but they were a total fail this time around.  I followed the recipe on the back of the rice cereal box directly and still they came out too hard.  In the future I'm going to continue to use a little more marshmallows and butter than I did here, it always makes for a little bit of a better final result.

What have you all been up to this weekend?  Nothing crazy insane here, but I wanted to share nonetheless.  Thank you for reading as always, send me a tweet and I'll talk to you soon!  -Brit.

Cooking With Coconut Oil

There has been so much on the internet about cooking with coconut oil and using it as a substitute for several other oils.  I have always been an advocate for just using olive oil for almost everything because it has the best taste and I surely never figured I would give in to COOKING with coconut oil.  The only reason I actually ended up purchasing this coconut oil from Trader Joe's is because I wanted to use it on my skin.  

The way cooking with coconut oil actually happened for me is really simple.  I ran out of olive oil and had nothing else but Pam to use.  For starters I was using a little bit of the Pam but it just wasn't enough and I was mid-cooking already.  I basically ended up going back into the pantry to check for a third time for more olive oil to no avail.  I finally decided to pull out the coconut oil and give it a shot.

I have some sort of stigma against using coconut oil for cooking because I simply can't imagine a sweeter taste with my savory dishes.  For the below dish, I was just making some sauteed zucchini and onions with garlic, salt and pepper.  This is my absolute favorite dish lately, I just cannot get enough!  The simplicity of the dish is perfect and its just so characteristic of summer to be honest.  Also, I love how it's light but savory at the same time.  

Let me just tell you: I ABSOLUTELY HATED COOKING WITH COCONUT OIL.  Maybe I was doing it wrong but the taste was absolutely awful.  The coconut oil taste was super overwhelming and I didn't think it would be.  Like I said, I didn't look up anything when it comes to knowing what you should and shouldn't use when cooking with coconut oil, but I didn't think it was that strict.  For some reason, I just absolutely hated the taste.  I am pretty sure that I have mentioned on here before that I love everything that has to do with coconut.  Coconut is actually one of my favorite flavors for almost everything, so I was anticipating loving this but it just did not cut the mustard.

Do you have any suggestions for what I did wrong here?  Have you ever used coconut oil to cook anything?  Let me know in the comments or send me a tweet, I'd love to know.  -Brit.