Monday, September 23, 2013

Nominated for an Award?!

So I have apparently been nominated for the Liebster Blog Award by my friend and fellow food blogger, Jules, over at Wolf it Down - thanks, Jules! It's an honor, and I'm not sure I have enough content up yet really to merit it, but it's certainly appreciated :) You can read more about the award in her post here. But basically it's for blogs that don't have too many followers yet, and if you're nominated you're supposed to find ten other blogs you like, nominate them, and also answer the 10 questions posed by the person who nominated you!

Now, I don't actually know of any other blogs that fit the criteria myself...but! I had some fun thinking about the answers to these questions, and this is what I came up with:

1. What are three words that best describe you?
I’ll do three positive and three negative :P
  • Positive: Creative, Thoughtful, Logical
  • Negative: Obsessive, Insecure, and of course, Lazy :P
2. Where were you brought up?
In good ol’ New Jersey, the rural part :P

3. What is your favourite band or artist, and why?
Hmmm tough, depending on what I’m in the mood for, but Two Steps From Hell may be my fav instrumental. Also gotta mention Nightwish and Within Temptation.

4. On a rainy day - what would you get up to?
I would get myself a nice hot cup of coffee and some granola, and spend a few hours with the aforementioned music in my ears at my computer doing something creative, preferably writing if the inspiration is flowing :) I’d also be sure to find a few hours to get in some videogames, go for a run, and whip up a few lazy somethings :P

5. What is the best gift you have ever received?
A very hard one, but one thing that comes to mind – for my 21st birthday, back in ’09 *readers begin to do the math* my brother gave me a box full of all sorts of little things that were nostalgic/retro from the 90s – including the bubblegum we got at our regular pizzeria from the time, a Yankees paddleball+raquet, the 2nd season of Doug on DVD, and Pokemon LeafGreen, a remake of the original Red & Blue versions. Awesome theme and great to get that burst of nostalgia. And many, many hours were logged on the Pokemon cartridge :D

6. What is you favourite dish of all time?
All time? Hmm…this is quite tough. In general, sushi is my go-to fav food, but that’s more a category than a particular dish…currently my favorite dish is this Mediterranean chicken with red peppers, tomatoes, and olives, a recipe my mom and I found and modified :)

7. If you were to bake one cake - which one would it be?
When I was in the 4th grade, I actually had a phase where I would frequently bake cakes. It was always this one called Starlight Cake, simple vanilla with chocolate icing. So it’d probably be that one. Although I try to eat healthier now, so I might experiment with some alternative ingredients.

8. Do you have a top three list of your favourite places to eat?
East Tokyo Sushi (even though they changed their name, I’m still calling it this – the place I celebrate pretty much every birthday/graduation/anything)
Hmm after that, I don’t have any real regular spots. But there is a nice collection of restaurants in the town nearest me, so it’s fun to try new ones there :)

9. What is your favourite post on your blog, and why?
Well, there aren’t many yet, but I’ll go with the micro-eggs. They were tasty, photo came out ok, and I like the name :P

10. Where do you find inspiration?
I tend to find inspiration in nature. Sometimes just taking a look at the trees and sky outside my window puts me in the perfect creative zone. And walking or jogging on a nice day is like 10x that. I also get a lot of inspiration listening to music, so combining both of those things puts me in a nice place :)

Happy Autumn! Shire Salads for Hobbit Day




So this weekend I got around to whipping up a few more salads, using the plenty of leftovers available in the fridge. For the first one, I used grilled pollock, and tossed in some grape tomatoes and avocado - fish and avocado is always a good combo, reminds me of sushi :P And to top it off, I sprinkled some garlic salt, plus squeezed some juice from a lime that had been left out in the kitchen - lazy man style! This was actually quite tasty, and the flavours did seem to blend pretty nicely.

To follow up, I also made a salad outta some leftover grilled chicken, adding tomato, red onion, and green pepper- hadn't used peppers in a salad before, and it was a nice touch. Like a fajita eaten as a salad :P Each of these took about 5-10 minutes to prepare, and it helped to have a lot of the ingredients on hand as leftovers. Nutrition-wise, each probably contains about 150-200 calories, so just a nice snack to keep you going.
 


And, in celebration of the arrival of Autumn, here are some of the pumpkins that are in the house now - I always love this time of year! There will definitely be some Autumny-spice-type somethings appearing on here in the near future. The other day while doing a stir fry (which did not make it up here on account of it not being an entirely lazy sort of meal :P), these pumpkins just happened to be right next to the stove, which gave cooking a hearty fall meal a nice touch.


Saturday, September 21, 2013

Lazy Dogs

Had this for my Saturday lunch. Was needing some quick protein, and there were some leftover chicken hot dogs in the fridge. A few quick steps, and bam! Lunch!

- put the hot dogs on a plate
- place in microwave, press reheat button
- rinse and slice a few grape tomatoes whilst listening to the hotdogs pop as they heat
- put the hotdogs on some whole wheat bread and slather with mustard
- add the tomato slices, and throw in a pickle for good measure

And there ya have it. I think it took me about five minutes to put these together, and about three minutes to eat them :P

 

Nutrition: about 350 calories - chicken or turkey dogs have a lot fewer calories than beef ones. This plate had enough protein and fiber to fuel me up for the afternoon :)


Thursday, September 19, 2013

Micro-eggs

A thing I'd heard several people mention to me was this concept of making scrambled eggs in the microwave. For a while I ignored it, cause it seemed to good to be true (and I am the Lazy Guy for a reason), but recently I looked it up on the internet and it seemed legit. I think I even cut out some of the steps from what I found. 

All I do to whip these up is crack two eggs into a bowl, toss in some spices, and stir em with a fork until properly scrambled. Then I microwave em. Depending on your microwave's power, you'll probably have to fiddle with the settings to find what works best, but for me, I just to a minute on high (two presses of the Express button for this lazy guy), and then I stir em up a bit more before putting them in for another 30-60 seconds. This helps make the eggs look more scrambly instead of like a giant egg patty, but even the giant egg patty is fluffy as heck and tasty :P

Once cooked, I like to adorn my eggs with some mexican sauces or salsas - this time I tried Trader Joe's Peach Salsa, which was great! With a side of cantaloupe and some tea, this was a nice brunch-time snack. I'm also a fan of dousing them in tabasco sauce, chipotle flavor - or buffalo! Cause if you can have buffalo chicken, you can have buffalo eggs. Enjoy!

Time Taken: Like 5 minutes
Nutrition: Between 120 and 160 calories for two eggs, depending on the size, plus plenty of protein :D

Note: The bowl used to microwave these in will get some egg residue on it - be warned, as it may take an extra couple minutes to clean, not usually something the lazy man puts up with, but for this tasty dish, it's worth it.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Classy Wine Accompaniments

One of my favorite ways to unwind at the end of the day is with a glass of wine and a nice snack plate to accompany it :) Here are a couple I put together recently:

This one includes a roasted red pepper from a jar, sliced, along with some olives and two babybel light cheeses cut into toothpickably-sized pieces :P Oh, and the grapes! Grapes are awesome.


And here we have a similar assortment, cantaloupe, grapes, and cheese, all perfectly toothpickable.


Time taken: Just a few minutes to rinse a few grapes, cut up the cheese, and plate everything. If you have fresh cantaloupe pre-cut in the fridge, that saves some time :)

Nutrition: Each plate (not including the wine) comes to about 200 calories, just something light to satisfy any after-dinner cravings :P


Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Leftover Chicken Salad


So this was my lunch on Sunday. It was actually fairly easy to throw together, because I had...leftover chicken! So I pretty much just cut up a few slices and tossed in some fruit and nuts.

Not too long ago, I had this awesome salad at a restaurant that had chicken, apples, grapes, walnuts, and goat cheese (or feta cheese? I forget), plus a cool vinaigrette drizzle. And it came with tortilla chips even. I had been wanting to make something similar myself, and when I realized I finally had chicken, apples, and grapes all at the same time, I figured it was a good opportunity to make it.

This is definitely the lazy man's version though, no cheese or vinaigrette drizzle, but it still ended up pretty tasty for something quick. Which I suppose is the point :P


Ingredients
  • 1/2 chicken breast, leftover, sliced, served cold
  • spinach and arugula
  • a few grapes, cut in halves - plus some more on the side :)
  • about 1/4 of an apple, sliced into small pieces - larger slices on the side as well
  • just a bit of walnuts crumbled all over - this lazy guy took from the bottom of the container, where the walnuts were pre-crumbled :P
Time to make: Like 10 minutes maybe? And only if you painstakingly (or OCD-ishly) cut the fruit into tiny pieces like I did.

Nutrition: probably about 300 calories if you include the rest of the apple and cup of grapes on the side. For the salad itself, closer to just 175-200.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Apple and Granola

So here's basically what I meant - simple snack, nothing too bad for you, and is totally something you can just throw together in a few minutes. But I slice and arrange the apple so that it looks fairly classy. Makes it look about 200% more legit than it really is :P

Just wanted to get a quick post up with some actual content in it - to get an idea of how lazy I am, the reason I chose this one was cause the filename for the photo was first alphabetically in its folder...more spectacular things await, I promise.

The Lazy Guy is in

Hello, blogosphere! Do people still use that word? Well, I'm using it anyway.

I'm one of those people who has started blogs multiple times and then failed epically at following through on them. I like to think it's because I had other things going on at the time, or that maybe they were just ill-conceived ideas, but I think the truth is that I'm just lazy.

I've always been that way; a lot of the time it just seems most practical to apply the minimum effective dosage to whatever I'm doing. After all, time is precious and whatnot. And I totally am still used to the student-y lifestyle of just throwing things together as quickly as possible to get by. This is most evident in the style of meals I create.

But awkwardly enough, I also have this bizarre appreciation for making those quick meals nicely. It's almost an art form, albeit a really pitiful one. Like, how little time and effort can I put in to making something that still both looks nice and tastes pretty good? And that isn't going to eff up my health either :P

Anyways, that brings me to the point of this blog. This here is going to be my space for posting photos and recipes of all the little concoctions I whip up in the kitchen. I'll include things like the time spent, and all the ingredients will be things you can pretty much just toss together with minimal prep and cooking. The extent of cooking will typically be the use of a microwave. Cause us lazy guys don't have the patience for anything more. But that doesn't mean it can't turn out nicely.

So hopefully all you blogospheroids out there will enjoy seeing some of the nommables I post up here - they'll all be a combination of healthy, tasty, and most importantly - easy.

See you on the other side! ...the side where I have, you know, posts and stuff.
- Matt