Cooking With Carly | Healthy Recipes for a Healthy Life

And So It Begins…

by Carly on May 20, 2012 in Dinner, Lunch, Random Ramblings with No comments

Well, hello there!

(Baby arugula, baby spinach, hummus, a little bowtie pasta salad, sweet potato, rotisserie chicken, steamed rainbow carrots and Goddess dressing)

As evidenced by this awesome salad photo, you can see that I am, in fact, still alive and kickin’. Which is shocking, considering that this was my first week of NURSING SCHOOL!

Wanna meet my new best friends?

Their names are Essentials of Nursing, Roles of the Professional Nurse, Health Assessment and Community Health! They get pretty wild on the weekends, let me tell ya .

My program is 15 months and extremely intense. The class ahead of ours started with 65 students, and they now have 42. The good news is, I’m absolutely loving it. I just no longer have a social life, that’s all.

Due to the overwhelming time commitment that my school work requires of me, I’m afraid the little blog is going to be rather neglected. I am going to try to post recipes as often as I can, but that may not be as often as I would like. I hope you will all stick around as readers until I can get through this program and reach a very big goal of mine!

So, what’s been going on over here?

For starters, my hubby is officially an MBA graduate!

So proud of him!

My sister, Lauren, came to live with us for the summer.

She’s been adopted into our little family up here. Here’s a picture from Mother’s Day of us on a picnic with my mother-in-law, Maureen:

Corey helped me build a lovely, Pinterest-inspired office:

I realize now that it looks much cuter in person .

Speaking of Pinterest- I can’t leave you guys without some sort of recipe.

A few weeks ago, I decided to try a week of Pinterest recipes. Here are my favorites!

Veggie Burgers

Vegetable “Noodles” in Thai Peanut Sauce

Avocado Chicken Parmesan

What did we do before Pinterest?

Time for me to get crackin’ on some studying. I have quite a to-do list for the next few months…

Luckily, I have my faithful study buddy by my side.

If you have any wonderful Pinterest-inspired recipes that you’ve tried, please feel free to share them in the comments section!

Mexican Zucchini Skillet

by Carly on April 10, 2012 in Dinner, Mexican with No comments

You can learn a lot in the break room at work during those glorious 30 minutes of lunch…

Sometimes you get to know people more than you wanted to, and other times…you get recipe inspiration!

I am lucky enough to work with girls that appreciate healthy food, and the most common question you’ll hear at lunchtime is, “What’s everyone making for dinner?”

My co-worker, Danielle, brought leftovers on Monday that looked fabulous. She shared her Pinterest-discovery with me, and I ended up tweaking the recipe just a bit. By substituting quinoa for the rice and adding spiced-up chicken, this becomes a complete meal full of protein- and flavor!

Click HERE for the original recipe.

Mexican Zucchini Skillet

with Chicken and Quinoa

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa

2 cups water

olive oil

1 zucchini, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 can reduced-sodium black beans

2 cans Rotel tomatoes (I used cilantro & garlic), one drained, one undrained

4 chicken cutlets

1 tablespoon paprika

salt and pepper

1/2 lime

shredded cheddar cheese for topping

guacamole (optional)

Directions:

-Pour the quinoa and water into a pot and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and cook for 10 minutes (or until you can see the clear coating when the grains are puffed and fully cooked)

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Season chicken cutlets with paprika, salt and pepper and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove, cut into bite-size pieces and set aside.

-In a skillet, pour 1 tablespoon olive oil and place over medium heat.

-Add the zucchini and bell pepper. Cook for 5 minutes.

-Add the black beans and tomatoes to the skillet, stir and bring to a simmer. Cook for 5 minutes.

-Add the cooked quinoa to the skillet. Stir until combined, and cook for an additional 2 minutes.

-Remove from heat.

-Add the chicken pieces and combine together.

-Finish by squeezing the lime over top

-Top individual portions with shredded cheese, a side of guacamole and serve!

Lemon-y Roasted Green Beans

by Carly on April 5, 2012 in Side Dish, Vegetarian with 2 Comments

Guess what?

No work for fo’ me tomorrow! Woohoo!

Happy early weekend, to muah. OK, I’m done rubbing it in.

This week has been pretty blah on the food front- which is usually how it is when we get back from vacation. It takes me several days to get back into my usual routine, and that can sometimes include making dinner.

So, it’s been a protein shake…

Whole Foods hot bar…

…kinda week.

I did manage to take the pup on a walk. At least I’m not totally useless.

On that note- I’ve got a quick little side dish recipe for you guys!

Roasting vegetables is one of the best ways to prepare them, in my humble opinion. Ya like chips? Then you’ll like roasted veggies. The high temperature gives them a crispy texture, which can take a veg from boring to BAM!

Lemon-y Roasted Green Beans