Culinary Adventure - Tex Mex Chicken

Hi everyone!

Yesterday, I decided to do another crock pot recipe: Tex Mex Chicken. This is probably my favorite recipe that we have tried so far, and I hope you certainly give it a chance! And since it is a slow cooker recipe, it just cooks all day while you're at work and you come home to some seriously amazing smells. 

Just a side tip: we shredded the chicken when it was close to cooked and used the entire mixture as a topping to a bowl of brown rice. Mixing the Tex Mex Chicken with rice made it an absolutely INCREDIBLE dish! You know you want to try this. :)

As far as keeping to the original recipe, I did not make any major modifications. I will say that I used a restaurant style salsa to keep the dish from becoming too chunky. In addition, I decided to leave out the diced onion (but that is only because I am not a huge fan of any onions except green ones, haha).

To make it better for next time, I agree with my husband, and we would like to try this with a slightly spicier salsa. This will hopefully give a slight kick that we like in our foods. :)

Recipe: http://tone-and-tighten.com/2014/05/healthy-crock-pot-tex-mex-chicken-recipe.html

Til' the next adventure! 

Emma K.

Culinary Adventure - Brown Sugar Garlic Chicken

Hi all!

The other day I decided to break out my crock pot and I made a wonderful dish: Brown Sugar Garlic Chicken. Now, before you think it sounds too weird to eat, just hear me out. This chicken turned out so AMAZING with the perfect combination of sweet and spicy ingredients. I really enjoy crock pot recipes because they cook while your gone at work all day, and when you come home you are instantly welcomed by an amazing smelling dinner! 

While putting this recipe together, I failed to read all the instructions in order. Instead of keeping the water and corn starch out until the very end to make a glaze on the stove, I combined all the ingredients for the slow cooker mixture. Thankfully, the dinner turned out fantastically anyway and I actually think it ended up better overall. It ended up with a soft thin glaze anyway as it cooked in the mixture, and this way I did not have to worry about creating a thicker glaze later on the stove. 

In the recipe below, you will notice some of the text in black italics. I decided to follow the already modified version of the recipe and believe that it was certainly the way to go. It is up to you though, whether you want to just combine all ingredients in the morning or do a thicker glaze on the stove later in the day. Either way, I'm sure it will turn out great. I also added in some red pepper flakes to make it a bit more spicy. Charles and I really enjoy kicking up the spice in our foods. :)

Recipe: http://kim-thislittlelifeofmine.blogspot.com/2012/10/slow-cooker-garlic-brown-sugar-chicken.html

Stay tuned for the next culinary adventure!! 

Emma K.

Culinary Adventure - French Toast Sticks

Hi everyone!

I hope all of you are enjoying the culinary adventure postings so far. This next post is great for tasty and relatively simple breakfast: French Toast Sticks. For my first attempt, they did not turn out perfect, but they were still super YUMMY!!

So the first mistake was not using Texas toast as specified in the recipe. Unfortunately, we did not have any thick bread, so I ended up using normal sandwich style bread. This made the sticks become less stable after I had dipped them into the cinnamon-egg mixture, and they became very difficult to flip over. The second problem stemmed from the fact that this was the very first time I had tried to make French Toast. I did not realize that the egg cooked quickly and should have been on low heat. Sadly, I burnt a few of the pieces. BUT, the majority came out looking pretty good and the taste was INCREDIBLE! I added some powdered sugar to the top to give it just a little bit of a sweeter taste and make it have that 'restaurant style' look. 

The only major modification to the recipe was that I used a substitute for the heavy cream to make it slightly more healthy. Instead of 1 cup heavy cream, you can use 1 cup of skim milk and 2 tablespoons of corn starch mixed together. With the use of Texas toast next time, I think this will be a more common weekend breakfast in our home! 

Recipe: http://www.justataste.com/2014/01/easy-cinnamon-french-toast-sticks-recipe/

Til' next time!

Emma K.

Culinary Adventure - Spinach Stuffed Shells

Hi all!

I have attempted my second culinary adventure of the New Year! This time I decided to make Spinach Stuffed Shells, and man did they turn out AMAZING! Lesson learned for next time, only make half of the recipe. The entire recipe (see link below) makes around 10 servings.

 

On this first attempt, I didn't really make any modification to the original recipe. For next time, I would like to make the sauce a little more flavorful. Perhaps I will add in some minced garlic, minced onion, and red pepper flakes. Overall though, a very delicious and pretty simple recipe to make! 

I would suggest garlic bread and a small dinner salad to accompany this wonderful main dish. 

Recipe: http://www.macaroniandcheesecake.com/2009/04/spinach-stuffed-shells.html

Stay tuned for the next culinary adventure!

Emma K. 

Culinary Adventure - Green Chili Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas

Hello all!

As part of my New Year Resolutions, I have decided that I want to embark on some culinary adventures. The goal is to build up my Pinterest board with all sorts of recipes that I think might be yummy and throughout the year, cook each of those recipes. I want to build my culinary expertise and make delicious home-cooked meals! I'm tired of eating out so much or having simple "pre-made, just heat in the microwave" meals. Home-cooked meals are often cheaper and taste so much better! In addition, they are often much healthier than meals you get at fast food restaurants.

For my very first culinary adventure, I decided to make Green Chili Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas. They turned out super amazing and tasted fantastic! Below is a picture of the outcome.

One of the main difficulties I had with this recipe was dealing with the corn tortillas breaking while I was rolling them. Next time, I will try to add more moisture to them to soften them up a bit more and hopefully they won't break as much.

For next time, I would like to add black olives and green onions on the top, like I did with the diced tomatoes. And perhaps add in some diced green chilies to the sour cream, chicken filling. The only major modification I did on the recipe below, besides adding additional toppings, was that I shredded a rotisserie cooked chicken instead of slow-cooking the chicken breasts.

Recipe: http://cookingformykids.com/2012/05/23/recipe-green-chili-chicken-sour-cream-enchiladas/ 

Stay tuned for the next culinary adventure!

Emma K. 

First Post - Impostor Syndrome

Hi all!

Welcome to my new blog posting site! If you recall, I attempted to create a workout blog in which I chatted about the difficulties (but also benefits) of making yourself get into a workout routine. In addition, I also reviewed several different workout types. That blog is still alive and I do plan on occasionally posting there still. However, I have turned my attention elsewhere and thought it would be nice to have a blog where I just can write about anything and everything that I feel like, hence the title of this blog post: Where The Day Takes Me. 

For my very first blog post, I thought it would be nice to chat about the subject of impostor syndrome. This is something that I have struggled greatly with, and if often quite common among female scientists. As one of my good friends points out though, it can also occur among males as well. 

Impostor syndrome is essentially defined as the feeling of not being good enough, even though you actually are. You tend to feel that you don't deserve to be where you are. People who experience this are unable to internalize their accomplishments and often just believe that shear luck is doing all the work. That at any moment, someone will call you out on it and your cover will be blown. 

I can not tell you how many times I have felt this way, that I am in graduate school not by my own accord but by shear luck. This often gets worse after something negative happens and reinforces my thoughts of not being good enough. For example, I learned last week that a paper I had submitted for publication was rejected. I was upset and really did not believe I had it in me to continue pursing my degree. However, thanks to encouraging words from my adviser, I was able to read through the comments again (on the third round) and see that there was encouragement from the editor. There was encouragement to resubmit with a new title and new focus. My idea was good and worthwhile, but it needed some tightening up to be better. In all the cases where I haven't felt like I deserved to be where I was, I chatted with my adviser or other co-workers, and I was able to find encouragement through them that I did belong and did deserve to be where I was. Now, I'm not saying that the feelings ever completely disappeared. But, what I am saying is that it is possible to tame those feelings and at the very least deal with them head on.

Impostor syndrome is quite common, so remember that if you ever feel this way, you are certainly not alone. It can be difficult to deal with sometimes, but below are some tips that have really helped me to not let it completely control my life. 

1. Find an encouraging adviser

2. Talk about it to other co-workers (undoubtedly there is someone in your workplace who feels the exact same way)

3. When given praise for your work, don't just brush it off - learn to say "Thank You"

4. Don't be afraid to celebrate your accomplishments - go out to dinner or treat yourself to a sweet

Til' Next Time! 

Emma K.