Super Recipes Sunday

I admit, I made a major boo-boo in the blog world, and it's that I didn't stand by my word which was that I would make a recipe post every Friday. Sometimes life happens, and in this instance I was in Chicago all day on Friday and  was playing catch-up on Saturday, so here's my recipe post for the week :-) Perhaps I'll have to do it every other week so I can keep things consistent. Like I said, right now is a learning curve, so thanks for being patient and understanding my lovely readers!

This week was a crazy one. I felt like I barely had any down time, but I also didn't feel very productive either. It's always great when that happens... I spent most of Thursday evening cooking up a storm so that I could be a functioning human being at our school's networking event in Chicago. Whenever I travel I need to have food with me so I don't turn into a monster. This notion aligns with my last post, because I rarely can find a restaurant or caterer that has food I can eat. Anyway, enough of the pity party!

The trip to Chicago was wonderful and I fall in love with that city more each time I visit. I really hope I end up there after graduation. I'm sure I can make it happen :-)

Most importantly, here are some of the tasty dishes and treats I whipped up for myself in the last week. I will admit that I didn't get around to making too many main dishes, so you'll have to bare with me as I work through this post. Either way, there will be plenty of suggestions that you can incorporate into your meal-plan for the week ^_^

1) Bacon

• What can I say about bacon... I LOVE bacon and I think it's good with pretty much any food that I can currently eat. I make sure to get the organic and nitrite-/nitrate-free bacon so that I don't feel guilty for how much bacon I go through in a week. What's even better is that I save the delicious bacon grease/fat that gets on the pan after it is cooked in a mason jar. Then I can have everything I eat taste like bacon, but surprisingly, I do have some self-control and use the fat sparingly.
• I also have come up with an almost perfect time/degree combination that cooks the bacon to my exact liking (very crunchy and crispy but not burnt - I'm a bacon diva I guess...). First, don't even use the stove top for cooking bacon - it is a waste of time and energy in my opinion! I put the bacon on a baking sheet and throw that bad boy into the oven at 385 degrees for 15 minutes. Then I broil the bacon at 500 degrees for about 2-3 minutes and voila! Delicious mouth-watering bacon is now yours to devour.

2) Avocado crema

• This was my first time making this recipe, and I think I need to tinker with it, since there was too much of an onion taste for my liking. I might have just gotten unlucky and had a super potent onion too... who knows! Everyone else really enjoyed it, so I'm going to blame my tongue's inability to handle onions haha. Either way, I might omit the red onions from the recipe next time, or only use green onions. Regardless, this was a great dip to use for the Super Bowl, and it made my tummy happy :-)

3) Bacon butternut squash and broccoli slaw casserole

• This is one of my go-to's because it is easy to make and doesn't require a lot of tending to it. It isn't filling enough for me to make it a main dish, so I usually use it as a side-dish. The combination of butternut squash and chicken broth has a kind of cheesy smell and taste so that is AWESOME for someone like myself who misses cheese with all of her heart <3 Per usual, the addition of bacon makes this dish even better. 

4) Bacon wrapped dates

• I think it goes without saying after my first ramble about bacon that I am obsessed with it. I LOVE the flavor combination that this appetizer creates. It's rich and crunchy and smokey and DELICIOUS! Okay, I'll get it under control for both of our sakes. This recipe is super easy, as I'm sure you could tell. Get some high-quality dates from a whole foods store - make sure the dates are processed or flavored with unhealthy fillers or chemicals.
• To make this recipe it's pretty simplistic, just make sure you have toothpicks on hand to fasten all of the ingredients together: bacon and dates. For more information click the link above :-)

5) Hodgepodge breakfast

• One of the awesome things about finally feeling better is that I now have an appetite in the morning. As such, I like to throw a bunch of leftovers onto my plate for breakfast and call it a day. I never would have imagined myself eating fish for breakfast, but hey, it tasted good and gave me plenty of energy for my workout that day! I like to have salty and sweet dishes on my plate in the morning as well, just because I like to treat myself ;)

Okay, so that's the round-up for this week's recipes. I plan on making a bunch of different stuff this week, so I definitely think I'll have a post ready to go on Friday!

Have you made any awesome dishes this past week that you'd like to share?

Until next time!

- Julie