Recipes

Pan Seared Salmon with Soy Ginger Glaze

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Pan Seared Salmon with Soy Ginger Glaze

This Pan Seared Salmon with Soy Ginger Glaze is the perfect weeknight meal. It’s easy to make, affordable and the glaze takes the flavor to a whole new level. Plus, the entire recipe only has 7 ingredients! It’s a great recipe to make for your family or just for yourself – it heats up surprisingly well for being salmon (just try not to do it at work).

My first blog post ever was actually a salmon recipe. The stock photo is hard to look at, but the recipe itself is very good. It’s a go-to recipe of mine that I cook all the time, and if you like this Pan Seared Salmon with Soy Ginger Glaze recipe then I suggest you check out the original economical salmon recipe too.

Back to the current salmon recipe…

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Three Flavored Popcorn Recipes to Make at Home

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Flavor Popcorn Recipes Top

When did movies get so expensive? I went to a movie theater a couple months ago to discover that they charge over $20 a ticket. Do you get to watch the movie with George Clooney? Does it include a free massage and steak dinner? $20 for just a movie?! I walked out.

Not only are the movies expensive though, but the snacks, including popcorn, are always overpriced. Thank you Redbox for allowing me to watch new movies at home, and for turning my money-saving dreams into a reality. To help create the full cinematic experience at home, I came up with three flavored popcorn recipes to enjoy why watching my favorite flicks.

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Healthy Homemade Granola in 30 Minutes

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Healthy Homemade Granola Main

I made this Healthy Homemade Granola over the weekend and it was easier than expected. For years I have been buying granola because making it at home seemed like too much work. I proved myself wrong, as this granola was easy to make and only took about 30 minutes. It’s great over yogurt, and even better in my Simple Cinnamon Yogurt Parfait recipe. It’s crunchy, sweet, and pretty addictive.

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Simple Garlic Green Beans

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Simple Garlic Green Beans Main 2

Simple Garlic Green Beans are one of my go-to sides. I typically try to prepare some meals in bulk so I don’t always have to worry about cooking during the week, but this is one recipe I have no problem whipping up mid-week. It hits all the criteria for being healthy, simple and economical:

  1. Healthy: green beans are packed with antioxidants and vitamins
  2. Simple: this recipe only has 3 ingredients and it takes 10 minutes to make
  3. Economical: a serving cost less than $1

The best part about this simple recipe is that it does not taste simple. In my opinion, garlic is the best way to add flavor to any dish, and it does not dissapoint with these green beans. It’s a major step up from just popping a bag of frozen green beans into the microwave, and much healthier than the famous Thanksgiving side – green bean casserole.

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Slow Cooker Beer Chicken

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Slow Cooker Beer Chicken

The Super Bowl is right around the corner, and this Slow Cooker Beer Chicken is the perfect dish to enjoy while watching the millionaires play their game.

Key and Peele Slow Cooker Chicken
Watch Key and Peele

You can easily impress your guests (and/or yourself) with this Slow Cooker Beer Chicken that takes minimal effort to make. Throw it on a bun with some BBQ sauce, or eat it plain with some rice and veggies. Your call.

All you need to get started are two key ingredients:

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Ramekin Eggs: How to Perfectly Bake Eggs

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Ramekin Eggs

I recently discovered how to bake eggs in the oven using ramekin dishes, and it’s an interesting and unique way to whip up your weekend eggs. I have been getting tired of regular scrambled eggs lately – they have been too bland for my super sophisticated palate. Baked ramekin eggs remind me of a cross between a poached and over-easy egg. They’re gooey in the middle but not completely runny. The best part about making ramekin eggs in the oven is that they come out like one of the molded eggs from a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich, except that it’s made fresh by you! Nice job.

Ramekin Eggs Sandwich

These eggs can be made by themselves or topped with any combination of ingredients. I wouldn’t try to fit more than 3 or 4 extra ingredients in there though, if you do, it will get too crowded and it won’t cook evenly. I went with broccoli, cheddar cheese and turkey sausage this past weekend. It turned out egg-celent.

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Simple Cinnamon Yogurt Parfait

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Yogurt Ingredients

Breakfast is often expensive, inconvenient, and unhealthy. What an optimistic way to start a post, eh?

Common breakfast foods such as cereal and granola bars have been masquerading as convenient health foods for quite some time, but they are typically packed with sugar and unnatural ingredients. Starting your day right is important, especially if you are heading to a fast-paced-action-packed office environment.

Anyways, this cinnamon yogurt parfait will taste delicious, and is great for you too. What a cliche!

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Low Sugar Granola Bars

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Low Sugar Granola Bars

I am a huge consumer of granola bars and granola. Mainly because I like to snack on the go, and granola bars are a simple solution to that need. I have had one pet peeve with granola bars for some time though, and that is that a vast majority of them are loaded with sugar. As I’m sure you’ve heard before, many of them are just “candy bars in disguise.” I decided to try to solve this problem and made some delicious, healthy and filling Low Sugar Granola Bars.

These Low Sugar Granola Bars have more protein than sugar per serving! Plus, they have a delicious maple and vanilla flavor that makes you forget their low in sugar. I made a small-batch recipe this time to last me through the week (I made eight 100 calorie bars), but feel free to double, triple or even quadruple the recipe below and freeze the bars to last much longer.

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Irish Coffee with Coconut Whipped Cream

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Irish Coffee with Coconut Whipped Cream

I was awoken last Saturday by construction workers at 8:00 AM. I’m a morning person, but even for me 8:00 AM on a Saturday was rough. Frustrated, and with nothing else to do, I headed out to the grocery store to pick up what I needed to make something for Economical Chef. St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, so an Irish Coffee seemed right. This isn’t your every day Potato-eating Guinness-drinking Irish Coffee though, it’s Irish Coffee with Coconut Whipped Cream.

Yes, coconut whipped cream. It’s actually surprisingly easy to make. I used canned coconut cream, but I heard full fat coconut milk will work too if you can’t find it. Besides boasting a unique and tropical taste, according to the world wide web, coconut cream has a handful of benefits, most coming from its “healthy fats”:

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Let’s Make Rustic Oven-Baked Zucchini Cakes with Our Chef!

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Oven-Baked Zucchini Cakes

For a while I’ve been wanting to make homemade tater tots – they’re trendy and everyone loves a good tot. I wanted to make my own recipe, something a little healthier, like a broccoli version similar to this one. Last weekend I decided to give it a shot, but I was fresh out of broc and had a zucchini staring me down in the fridge.  Zucchini tots it was. Only, I was feeling especially lazy and didn’t break out the food processor. Instead, I went the “rustic” approach and roughly chopped up a zucchini and shallot for this recipe. I quickly realized these were not going to hold up in tot form, but like any great “chef” I pivoted quickly and opted to make these Rustic Oven-Baked Zucchini Cakes instead! They turned out perfect, honestly. I was surprised, but they tasted like a savory potato pancake, except slightly better for you.

I added quinoa to the recipe last minute too. It was not cooked quinoa. I think it worked out well though, despite the fact that most baked goods with quinoa call for the quinoa to be pre-cooked. I thought it did a nice job of absorbing some liquid out of the Zucchini Cake and also providing a soft crunch in the finished product.

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Spicy Soy Sauce Basil Chicken

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Spicy Soy Sauce Basil Chicken Main

Chicken is healthy, but can also be bland and boring. This cold winter night I decided to go with something spicy for dinner, and this Spicy Soy Sauce Basil Chicken is anything but bland. It will give your weeknight dinner routine the shake up it needs. Earlier, I shared a recipe on how to make chicken in a slow cooker, this time I am going to marinate chicken and “grill” it on the stovetop. If you don’t have a grill pan, a regular frying pan will work just fine.

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