Experimenting in the Kitchen #2

It's been a while since I posted one of these "Experimenting in the Kitchen" posts. I tend to have my go to favorites for cooking and baking {avoiding these at the moment}, but I'm getting kind of bored of them.  This week, I decided to test out some Pinterest inspired recipes. I feel like we haven't had a good week at home in a while, so it was nice to actually be able to plan meals.  Here's what I was able to come up with this week, with the ingredients we had at home, and what I could get at the local grocery store around the corner. I haven't had to go to the "big" grocery store in quite some time and really don't need to, so that's kind of nice. I can just walk around the corner and pick up everything I need. The joy of living in the city =)

Avocado Chicken Salad - perfect lunch meal! {thanks for bringing me the good avocados from Costco Jill M.}

Seared Salmon Tacos - we used left over slaw {courtesy of Erin P.} we made from the previous nights dinner (not mentioned since it's an old recipe) in these tacos and they were great



Croutons - we had a left over baguette that I was about to throw out, but realized I didn't have any croutons for our caesar salad so looked up how to make croutons, so easy! i don't remember pinning any one in particular though. all you have to do is cut up the bread into cubes, drizzle with a good amount of good olive oil and whatever spices you want. bake for 10-12 minutes or until they're golden brown and crispy. i used a garlic herb spice mix for ours. croutons are expensive in the UK (small bag for £1.50 or something) so I think I'll start making my own from now on.



Best Baked Chicken - i saw someone post this on their FB page so since I had all the ingredients on hand, I decided to give it a try. so EASY, and TASTY! I didn't get to eat this for dinner since I was out with some girlfriends,  but I was able to use the left over chicken breast {gerald liked this so much he wanted to eat both chicken breast, but realized that would probably be too filling for him} to make a chicken pita the next day. Yummy!


Copycat Jimmy Dean Hot Turkey Sausage - I used this to make breakfast over the weekend. I miss Jimmy deans and this is a healthier version of it. The breakfast sausage in the UK just isn't the same so this definitely hit the spot.



What's nice about these recipes is that they take no time to make and are super tasty and somewhat healthy.  I feel with all the spices I have, I can pretty much make anything! Gerald thinks I have way too many, but I don't think you can ever have enough =P It's convenient to have this many spices when you're trying new recipes so you don't have to worry about going out to get it. For a cook, that's one less worry =)



I have so many recipes to try on my Pinterest Board so hopefully I can experiment with a few new ones this week too!