Side Dish

EASY SKILLET STYLE STREET CORN

July 4, 2020 by Sarah Baade 2 Comments

It has been a month since my last blog post. A full month. My brain has been overwhelmed lately. I know I’m not alone in that. When there is so much going on in our world, it can be difficult to focus on the lighter things in life.

COVID19

As COVID19 shut things down and people started losing their jobs, I felt like food just wasn’t important enough to explore or share. Even when creativity did hit, I had a hard time getting ingredients I wanted.

Black Lives Matter

After the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, my focus shifted to my own friends and neighbors of the Black community. Free time became researching Black history, signing petitions and educating myself on how to raise an anti-racist child. I did not have the capacity to also think about food in creative ways for this platform.

Food

A lot of thought and re-evaluation has gone into this blog and what I want it to provide for others. As budgets have become tighter for a lot of folks, affordable food is more important than ever. Not only that, but sharing recipes brings people together – something we desperately need right now. You can learn so much about a person by exploring the foods they grew up with, who they ate with and what went into creating those meals. Our country needs so much healing right now, so much change. We can’t gather around tables to get to know one another right now but we can still share recipes.

I’m sharing my version of street corn on this post. A recipe I never would have created without the cultural (Mexican) influence within my city of San Antonio. Ingredients required for this recipe are affordable and you likely have most of them on hand already (seriously). Use it as a side dish as you’re grilling out or add it to your #TacoTuesday meal. I know you’re going to love this one!

Easy Skillet Style Street Corn

Sarah Baade

All the flavor you love from street corn, no grill required.

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Course Side Dish

Cuisine Mexican

Servings 6

Ingredients

4 cups frozen corn
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
cayenne pepper to taste (optional)
1/4 cup queso fresco
garnish with cilantro (optional)

Instructions

Add corn to a large dry skillet over medium heat. Cook corn until it starts to char, stir frequently as it cooks.
Once corn is cooked, remove from heat and add mayonnaise, lime juice, and spices. Stir until evenly distributed.
Top corn with queso fresco and cilantro (if desired).

Notes

I used 1/4 teaspoon cayenne but this might be too much heat for those sensitive to spice.
This dish can be enjoyed hot or cold.

Keyword Corn, Mexican Street Corn, Skillet Street Corn, Street Corn

If you are able to make financial contributions to positively impact your community, I highly encourage you to do so. Here are some links to causes I donate to: NAACP Legal Defense Fund , San Antonio Food Bank , Snack Pak 4 Kids SA

8 HOLIDAY SIDE DISHES

November 25, 2019 by Sarah Baade Leave a Comment

I’m going to keep this short. We’re days away from Thanksgiving and we need easy side dishes for the big dinner. I’ve got you covered. I’ve gathered together eight of my favorite side dishes. Each one is easy to make, mostly healthy and definitely delicious. Any and all of these would make a wonderful addition to any dinner table.

1. BROCCOLI AND RICED CAULIFLOWER CASSEROLE

2. SWEET TURMERIC ROASTED VEGETABLES

3. LEMON ROASTED BROCCOLI

4. AUTUMN HARVEST SALAD

5. FARM STYLE BISCUITS

6. SWEET POTATO HASH

7. PARMESAN ASPARAGUS AND TOMATOES

8. KALE SALAD WITH LEMON VINAIGRETTE

EASY VEGETABLE FRIED RICE

September 20, 2019 by Sarah Baade Leave a Comment

A friend of mine was recently asking about recipes that use frozen vegetables. It occurred to me that I have always used fresh produce in my recipes here. Fresh is great but there are some huge advantages to using frozen veggies when you can. Frozen vegetables are actually less expensive than fresh ones. I did a quick price check at my local grocery store and a bag of fresh broccoli florets was priced at 21c per ounce. Meanwhile, the bag of frozen broccoli florets was priced at 11c per ounce. That is nearly HALF the price! If you’re on a budget, frozen veggies are a great way to get healthy foods on the cheap. Speaking of being budget friendly, frozen vegetables won’t go bad in a few days which means you’re not tossing anything out at the end of the week. You’re getting your money’s worth! Finally, frozen vegetables are already chopped. Let’s be honest, chopping vegetables sometimes takes longer than actually cooking a dish. Precut vegetables are a huge time saver! So, have I convinced you to buy frozen vegetables yes?!

Now, let’s get down to this recipe. I started making fried rice a few years ago because I was simply wanting to use up some leftovers from the fridge. I have a habit of cooking more rice than we need when using it as a side dish. Rather than tossing out the leftovers or even eating plain rice again later in the week, I chose to repurpose it. The thing about fried rice is that it is actually easy to customize with whatever vegetables or spices are your favorites. Here, I’m giving you a super easy base recipe for vegetable fried rice. From here, feel free to get creative with what you add in. I’d love to hear how you adapt this to make it your own!

Tips

It is critical to use rice that was cooked earlier and then cooled. If you use freshly cooked rice, you will end up with a pan full of mush.
This is a basic vegetable fried rice recipe but don’t let that limit you. Feel free to add a protein of your choice or a wider variety of vegetables such as snow peas, bell peppers or edamame.

Easy Vegetable Fried Rice

An easy base recipe for vegetable fried rice.

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Servings 4

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
2 cups cooked, cold brown rice
1/2 cup frozen peas & carrots
1/2 cup frozen chopped broccoli
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 Tablespoon tamari sauce or low sodium soy sauce
1 large egg, beaten

Instructions

Heat vegetable oil in a large pan over medium heat.
Add rice and vegetables to the pan and cook until tender. Mix in garlic, sesame oil, onion powder, and tamari sauce.
Push rice mixture to one side of the pan. Pour the egg into the other side of the pan and stir with a rubber spatula until curds form. Stir egg into the rice mixture. Add additional tamari sauce if desired.

Notes

4 servings is based on using this recipe as a side dish. If you prefer to use it as your entrée, double the recipe.
It is critical to use rice that was cooked earlier and then cooled. If you use freshly cooked rice, you will end up with a pan full of mush.
This is a basic vegetable fried rice recipe but don’t let that limit you. Feel free to add a protein of your choice or a wider variety of vegetables such as snow peas, bell peppers or edamame.

PARMESAN ASPARAGUS & TOMATOES

June 26, 2019 by Sarah Baade Leave a Comment

As some of you may know, I followed a pretty strict vegetarian diet for about a year in 2017-2018. I’ve loved vegetables for as long as I can remember so it wasn’t too far of a stretch for me to jump in completely. When I took the time to truly plan my meals, it was a relatively easy diet for me to follow and I truly enjoyed it. When I didn’t take that time to plan and prep though, it was rough. Every Wednesday night my husband and I join two other couples for what we call small group. Fellowship is probably a better word to describe these evenings. We share a meal, talk about Jesus and talk about life. I love our Wednesday nights and these friends are really more like family. However, cooking on those nights became stressful. I would make a dish for the non-vegetarian group of friends. Cook something for my daughter (who wasn’t eating with us or I would have served her the same thing). And after each of those, I was still cooking a vegetarian dinner for myself. It was too much. Too much to accomplish within a small window of time after work and before getting our group together. Ultimately, the diet wasn’t worth the cooking chaos and I started reincorporating meats into my routine. Perhaps down the road I will give it another go but right now it isn’t the right option for me.

I still enjoy cooking vegetarian based dishes at home when life isn’t too crazy though. This is why I have kept the blog as primarily vegetarian. I love the challenge and health benefits of keeping more plants on my plate than meats. Even when we go out to dinner I often choose a vegetarian option. One of my favorite things to do is to order a few different side dishes or appetizers and eat those as my dinner rather than ordering an entrée. I feel like I have more options that way. Plus, I feel like I get to try a wider variety of what the restaurant has to offer. With this in mind, I also enjoy making side dishes at home and claiming them as my main course. I discovered last week that I can eat about a pound of asparagus on my own. Sorry to my husband for not sharing, haha! This recipe is a new one for us but is so easy and tasty that it might very well make it to the usual rotation of favorite recipes.

Tips:

Feel free to swap out the grape tomatoes for whatever small sweet tomatoes you can find at your local store.
I highly recommend sticking with fresh herbs on this one. Dried herbs will not give the same fresh flavor.

Sauteed asparagus and tomatoes with parmesan.

Parmesan Asparagus & Tomatoes

A flavorful, savory side dish that is quick and easy to make.

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Course Side Dish

Servings 4

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon garlic, minced
1 lb asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1" pieces
1/2 cup grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise
1 teaspoon fresh oregano
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
3 teaspoons grated parmesan cheese
salt to taste

Instructions

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, stir frequently. Add asparagus, stirring occasionally, and cook until slightly tender and starting to get char markings, about 5 minutes. Stir in oregano and thyme. Push asparagus to one side of the pan, place tomatoes on other side. Cook tomatoes until they soften slightly and start to get char markings, about 3 minutes. Add parmesan and salt, stir all ingredients together in the pan until well combined.

Keyword Asparagus, Easy Recipe, Side Dish, Tomatoes, Vegetables, Vegetarian Recipe

SWEET TURMERIC ROASTED VEGETABLES

March 4, 2019 by Sarah Baade 3 Comments

Throughout college I spent my summers working at YMCA residential summer camps. While working at Camp Cosby, we would have snacks for the staff who had a little time off in the evenings. Leftover desserts from dinner, potato chips, I even learned to love cheesy toast (literally just sandwich bread with a slice of cheese on it, toasted up in the oven). Since my specialty in the kitchen was baking, I made a blackberry cobbler one evening – made from fresh blackberries we had picked that week. It was such a treat to have a made from scratch dessert but it wasn’t the most impressive snack we had that summer. There were two staff members from New Orleans who whipped up some fried chicken for us like it was no big deal. I watched them gathering spices and I was amazed by how they knew exactly what they needed and/or knew which spices would go well together. I had never seen someone my own age put a dish together like that without a recipe. Not only that, it was some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever had.

Fast forward 15+ years and I’ve become more confident in exploring spices and using my pantry to the best of my ability. I love roasting vegetables but I’ve been needing to get out of a flavor rut with them. I’ve been wanting to try and incorporate turmeric so I just went for it, adding some additional spices and a little bit of honey. Guys, I shamelessly ate the ENTIRE pan of vegetables!!! Sure, these experiments don’t always turn out on a first go or even a fifth go but when they do it totally makes up for the frustrating moments that can happen in the kitchen. I hope you are encouraged by this recipe to explore your pantry or spice rack and try something new.

SWEET TURMERIC ROASTED VEGETABLES

Sarah Baade

Lightly sweetened with spices and honey, you'll love these roasted vegetables!

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Course Side Dish

Ingredients

1 large head cauliflower, cut into florets
3 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2" slices
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoon sesame seeds

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400°F.
Place cauliflower and carrots in a large bowl and drizzle with olive oil. Stir until vegetables are evenly coated with oil.
In a small bowl, mix turmeric, cinnamon, coriander and black pepper. Add spices to vegetables and stir until evenly coated. Spread vegetable mixture onto a sheet pan and roast in the oven for 20 minutes or until vegetables are for tender, stirring halfway through cooking.
Drizzle vegetables with honey and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Keyword Roasted Vegetables, Sweet Turmeric Roasted Vegetables, Turmeric, Vegetables

Market Couscous Salad

April 28, 2018 by Sarah Baade Leave a Comment

The weather is finally getting warm again and I am looking forward to scouring my local farmers market for my favorite summer produce. In particular, I’m already craving fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. I feel fortunate to have access to most produce all year long at my local grocery store but there is something special about meeting your local farmers and buying their fresh from the farm products.

With warm weather also comes outdoor potlucks. The great thing about this dish is that it can be served warm or cold (I actually prefer it cold). With just ten ingredients, this dish is easy to put together and you can make it ahead of time.

Tips:

Don’t feel limited by the grape/sweet tomatoes I used here. Grab whatever is freshest at your local farmers market or grocery store. Even better would be homegrown tomatoes!
Make sure you add that 1 teaspoon to the water as you’re cooking the couscous – it helps to keep it from turning into one huge blob as it cools.

Market Couscous Salad

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon + 1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 cup uncooked pearl coucous (I used tri-color)

¼ cup red wine vinegar

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon fresh thyme

1 cup cucumber, chopped

1 cup tomatoes, chopped (I used a mix of sweet tomatoes)

¼ cup red onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup crumbled feta cheese

Directions:

In a medium pot, bring 1 ½ cups water and 1 teaspoon olive oil to a boil. Add couscous then reduce heat and simmer for 7-9 minutes or until water is absorbed and couscous is tender. Remove from heat. Add remaining ingredients to couscous and stir until ingredients are evenly dispersed. Salad can be served warm or cold.

Five Spice Citrus Salad

February 25, 2018 by Sarah Baade 1 Comment

It has been such a long and rainy winter here in San Antonio. I’m not used to needing a heavy coat for more than a day or two at a time, let alone weeks at a time. I find myself daydreaming about bright colors and warmer climates. I won’t be going on a tropical vacation any time soon so my next best bet is eating bright, flavorful fruit.

We are currently right in the middle of prime orange and grapefruit season. There are so many varieties of citrus available and I took full advantage of that for this recipe. I love the variety of colors as well as flavors from these fruits. Given the tartness that sometimes comes along with citrus, I wanted to contrast that with a little bit of sweet and a little bit of spice. The result is a perfect dish to serve with brunch or eat as a snack.

Tips:

Place some paper towels under the edges of your cutting board, this will help to catch any juice that runs off the edge as you’re cutting the fruit.
Feel free to mix and match your citrus fruits to your liking or based on what is available seasonally. The main idea is variety.

FIVE SPICE CITRUS SALAD

The perfect salad to take advantage of seasonal citrus.

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Ingredients

6 oranges (I used blood oranges, tangelos, sumo citrus)
3 grapefruit (I used one large and two small)
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1 Tablespoon fresh mint leaves
1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Cut citrus fruits into ¼' slices, removing seeds as they are found. Cut rinds off of slices then place slices on paper towels to absorb excess any juice. Move citrus slices to a serving platter and top with pomegranate, feta and mint. In a small bowl, mix together honey, Chinese five spice and vanilla. Drizzles honey mixture over citrus salad as desired.

Blueberry and Pesto Quinoa Bowl

January 18, 2018 by Sarah Baade Leave a Comment

Alright, it’s confession time. I absolutely ate my way through the holidays. I mean, I went all out with sweets and wine and homemade Chex mix (because we all know the homemade stuff is at least a million times better than the stuff that comes in a bag). No treat went uneaten. I’m not even sure what got into me because moderation with food is typically not a challenge for me. But I did it, and I did it joyfully!

What’s done is done and now it is time to get back on the wagon of eating a balanced diet. I ate salads all last week for lunch because I actually do love vegetables but I was bored by Friday. I was eating the same mixture of ingredients that I always reach for when making a salad. I need some variety if I‘m going to stick with eating healthier. As usual, I also want to make this easy on myself so I looked through my fridge and pantry for ingredients I already had on hand. This quinoa bowl gave me a change of pace in terms of both texture and flavor but was also incredibly easy to make.

Tips:

To make this an even faster recipe, feel free to use a premade pesto from the store rather than making the one included in this recipe.
You can absolutely portion this out ahead of time for lunches. Just hold off on adding the pesto until you are ready to eat it.

Blueberry and Pesto Quinoa Bowl

Serves 2

Bowl Ingredients:

4 cups raw baby spinach

1 cup cooked quinoa, cold

2 Tablespoons pepitas

½ cup feta crumbles

¾ cup fresh blueberries

Pesto Ingredients:

1 ½ cups basil leaves

2 Tablespoons pine nuts

1 ½ teaspoons garlic, minced

¼ teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Place spinach in bottom of a large bowl. Top with quinoa then pepitas, feta and blueberries.

For the pesto, combine all ingredients in a blender until smooth. Drizzle pesto over quinoa bowl as desired.

Roasted Vegetables with Lemon Dressing

October 7, 2017 by Sarah Baade Leave a Comment

Easy, healthy and delicious. That is what I love about roasted vegetables but let’s get real here, I’m over the boring potatoes or broccoli. I still need easy but I also need variety both for my palette and my sanity. Why not experiment with a variety of vegetables? I really don’t think you can go wrong with roasting any vegetable out there. My latest vegetable obsession is asparagus so I sometimes add extra of it in this dish. Feel free to adjust quantities based on what is a favorite in your household.

Tips:

Watch the pine nuts carefully as you toast them, they burn easily.
Depending on how evenly your oven cooks, you might want to rotate the pan half way through the roasting process.

Roasted Vegetables with Lemon Dressing

Ingredients:

1 bunch of asparagus cut into 1” pieces (discard stem end pieces)

1 large red bell pepper diced into bite size pieces

1 large zucchini, sliced and quartered (or two small zucchini, sliced and halved)

1 ½ cups matchstick carrots

1 medium shallot, chopped

1 ½ teaspoons garlic, minced

1 Tablespoon olive oil

Salt & ground black pepper

1/3 cup pine nuts

Dressing:

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Juice of 1 medium lemon

1 Tablespoon chopped fresh basil

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Place all vegetables in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste. Stir ingredients until evenly coated with olive oil. Spread vegetable mixture onto prepared cookie sheet. Roast in oven for 20 minutes.

While vegetables are roasting, place pine nuts in a skillet over medium heat. Stir nuts in pan until they are slightly brown and aromatic then remove from heat.

In a small bowl, mix all dressing ingredients.

When vegetables are finished roasting, put them back in the large bowl. Pour in the dressing and add the pine nuts. Stir until all ingredients are evenly coated in the dressing.

Lemon Roasted Broccoli

July 14, 2017 by Sarah Baade 1 Comment

When I was pregnant I couldn’t get enough broccoli. I would eat it any way I could get it – raw, steamed, roasted, mixed into another dish. Of course, the rest of my cravings weren’t quite as healthy so I tried to embrace this one as much as often as possible. As I was reaching the end of the third trimester I just couldn’t stay on my feet long enough to make a full dinner so I started coming up with easier, faster recipes to satisfy the cravings. I suppose it could have been the crazy hormones that guided me to experiment with different flavors. However, I still find myself enjoying this broccoli recipe post-pregnancy.

I’ve had a theory for a while now that whatever food you crave while you’re pregnant, your child will also enjoy. My daughter is not proving my theory wrong. She is a huge fan of green vegetables, including broccoli. I almost hesitate to make that statement here for fear of jinxing myself. She’s starting to be a picky eater at home but thankfully she’ll still eat peas and broccoli almost any day of the week. For this recipe, I really enjoy the red pepper flakes but they are definitely too spicy for my little one. I tend to sprinkle the red pepper flakes on half the broccoli after spreading it onto the sheet pan rather than mixing it into the bowl. This way she gets her portion spice free and I still get that extra flavor I crave.

Tips:

I saved myself the time it takes to cut the broccoli by using a 12oz bag of broccoli florets. According to the nutrition information on the back of the bag, it is already 4 cups.
The red pepper flakes add a pretty mild kick of flavor but if you aren’t a fan of heat at any level just leave that ingredient out.

LEMON ROASTED BROCCOLI

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Servings 4

Ingredients

4 cups broccoli florettes
2 Tablespoons olive oil
juice of 1 small lemon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425°F. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, stirring until broccoli is evenly coated. Pour broccoli onto a sheet pan and roast 10-12 minutes or until edges of broccoli are slightly crispy. Serve warm.