Baked Vanilla Donuts

Super simple vanilla cake donuts dunked in chocolate frosting!

I don't know why, but I tend to forget about how quick homemade donuts are to make. And every time I finally get around to making them, I kick myself for not doing it sooner. Most of the recipes I've tried so far are cake donut style, which is my preference. Once the batter is ready, it's just 8 minutes of cooking time. That's it! Faster than a lot of other breakfast recipes out there for sure. These are super simple and super quick. You have to try them!

Easy Taco Salad with Homemade Cilantro Lime Dressing

Taco salad is classic but this one comes with a homemade cilantro lime dressing with tomatillos!

Hello, readers! I apologize for the lack of regular posting lately - life has been wildly busy. Honestly, just throwing in work for me has eaten up any time I had to do anything at a leisurely pace. Add in also volunteering with the high school marching band on Friday nights and I'm straight exhausted every weekend but also trying to catch up on all the things I have not done during the week. I'll continue to keep posting but it is going to be much more sporadic. At the time, I plan to at least get a post up each Monday. If I'm able, I'll post more (keeping to MWF schedule), but no promises!

Now this recipe - taco salad is taco salad. It's kind of a no brainer really. However, this one sets itself apart with the homemade cilantro lime dressing. It really makes the whole dish. I want this dressing on everything forever.

Steak Gyros with Tzatziki Sauce

Fantastic marinated flank steak with homemade cucumber tzatziki sauce that I dare you to not eat by the spoonful!

We had a German fast food restaurant locally for many years and we went every few months to get doner because it's sooo good. Unfortunately, before COVID even struck, the restaurant closed down and we lost our doner supplier. My understanding is that there a lot of things in the Europe area that are similar, including gyros. I am the only person in my family who likes lamb, so I thought this recipe would be great for sating the doner cravings but also not having my entire family complain about lamb. Also I don't have a rotisserie spit thing to throw a big bunch of lamb and beef on, so flank steak will have to do. I definitely want to try pita flatbread next time instead of pockets. I think it'd be way easier to serve.

Blueberry Pie Yogurt Parfaits

This stunning yogurt parfait has all the flavors of blueberry pie and is a perfect breakfast or snack!

I pretty much eat yogurt for breakfast every day and have for a good while now. When I have the opportunity, I love making parfaits. There's something so satisfying about the different layers in the cup. I don't particularly care for blueberry pie - it's okay - but I love the elements of the pie in this yogurt parfait. I mean grahams and yogurts with fresh blueberries - YUM!

Chicken Gyro Salad

Gyros in a bowl - salad style!

I really love gyros and Mediterranean food. I also really love salads for dinner. Finding this recipe was kismet. I will say that the pita chips are such a fun addition but I prefer to mix them in right before serving and don't want extras in if there are leftovers because they will get soggy. This recipe of tzatziki sauce was really wonderful too! Just slightly different than I'm used to, but really great.

Peach Crumble Waffles

Dessert for breakfast with fluffy waffles, peach pie topping, and a cinnamon oat crumble.

Over the years, I've made many different kinds of waffles - some of them were ones that I would all of a sudden be craving but had never had before. That is how these Peach Crumble Waffles were born. I was like, I want streusel on a waffle. I think I originally had set out to make blackberry crumble waffles but could not find any blackberry pie filling. I still would love to make it eventually. Basically, you could do any flavor of pie filling you can find: apple, cherry, blueberry, etc. Nick loves peaches though, so this ended up being a really good alternative to blackberries.

Baked Spicy Chicken Sandwiches

These chicken sandwiches are as healthy as you'll get with yogurt dipped chicken and baked instead of fried.

I've been struggling with getting things posted on here for the last few months. I hit job hunting really hard and found a full time position that I started last Friday. This is my first full week of work and I'm really excited. However, I now have even less time to do blogging, so I decided to give myself a little grace and not worry about all the extra stuff bloggers **should** be doing to make their blog better for search engines and all that. I'm just going to go back to sharing the recipes I'm making, like I did in the beginning almost 11 years ago. I still want to make them easy to print, but that part doesn't take too long.

That was a long little bit, longer than normal for me - ha! But now let me say something about the recipe today. I think this is the first time I've tried a baked recipe where you mix the dry breading with oil and usually it's buttermilk or milk and eggs for the wet part of the breading, this recipe uses yogurt. So it's overall a healthier way to make fried chicken sandwiches. The breading was so crunchy and crisp and I really loved the honey yogurt slaw!

Loaded Turkey Taco Salad

Load up your taco salad with all the fixings and a homemade cilantro lime dressing!

I've been making a lot of Taco Tuesday meals with turkey lately. Part of that is due to my hereditary high cholesterol kicking in and the other part is that ground turkey doesn't taste too different from ground beef with taco seasoning mixed in, so it isn't this huge "culture shock" of a different protein. I really enjoy this particular salad recipe because there are no tortillas to fuss with and I love salads. I also love that there is corn and beans plus a homemade cilantro lime dressing that is super quick to make.

Sheet Pan Chicken Gyros

These gyros are so flavorful and we love a sheet pan recipe moment! The lemon yogurt sauce and Greek lemon rice are so good too!

Prior to this recipe, I cannot remember if I've had chicken gyros. I thought a sheet pan version sounded wonderful. I made this while Nick was in training in early 2020 and was pretty obsessed because it's very Greek and I love love love anything with lemon garlic flavors and yogurt sauces and feta and hummus. Sign me up!

Spicy Chicken & Avocado Tacos

A super simple chicken taco recipe loaded up with avocado and creamy cilantro lime sauce.

So I initially had this post almost ready to go and then realized that I remember making these and looking at it and going...where's the heat? How is it spicy? So when I did the marinade, I chose to add cayenne. Otherwise there is literally nothing that adds any bit of spiciness to the recipe. This is a really simple way to make chicken tacos and has lots of bright flavor from the lime. I love the creamy cilantro lime sauce a ton.

Jalapeno Popper Tuna Melts

Tuna melts with a kick of roasted jalapeno plus extra cheese and a bit of bacon too.

I have never had a more delicious tuna melt in my life. I love roasted jalapenos and they are super easy to do and are a genius addition to tuna salad. I loved the tuna salad part of this recipe too. I think I'm going to be adding a little lemon juice to every tuna salad I make for the rest of my life. That zing of lemon is perfect. We also got to try muenster cheese for the first time and we all liked it. It's always fun to try something new and everyone likes it :)

Queso Smothered Chicken Fajitas

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Turkey Taco Salad + Meal Prep Instructions

This is a great and healthy taco dish that is perfect for meal prepping into 6 ready-to-go portions!

I just want to start out by saying this actually supposed to be a meal prep food. However, in 2020, there was absolutely no reason for me to meal prep. I'm going to leave the instructions on how to do this for meal prepping if that is something you are looking for. We ended up just having this for dinner and it was fantastic. I have spoken here and there about how we are making the switch to subbing turkey for red meat here and there to help with my borderline high cholesterol (hereditary - yay!).

Greek Meatball Bowls

Meatballs with a secret ingredient served over couscous with a tomato cucumber salad and tzatziki sauce.

I feel like I'm posting a lot of foods that are Greek or Mediterranean and I cannot get enough of it. I am always craving tzatziki sauce. As long as I'm not making the boys eat tzatziki or feta, they are okay with Greek food. Well, Matthew also doesn't eat the cucumber and tomatoes either, but he's fine with the protein and the grain LOL. I only have one other couscous recipe on my blog which is crazy to me because it's from January of 2020 and it took me this long to post the next one. That likely means that we had couscous for the first time in 2018 and then we had it again in 2019 (this recipe). I cannot think of a time in 2020 that we had it and I'm definitely going to remedy that in 2021. Alright enough boring rambling, check out this awesome recipe!

Buttermilk Fried Chicken Sandwiches

This sandwich is better than any fast food fried chicken sandwich out there!

This sandwich was one that my daughter chose from a cookbook she got as a present. I let her do the work with some supervision and she made the best fried chicken sandwich I've ever had. The seasoning in the breading was perfect and anything that is close to tzatziki is going to be an absolute winner in my book. I don't think I've ever used boneless chicken thighs before, but they are the perfect size to fit on a bun, so I see them being used a lot in the future.

Chicken Pot Pie Stew

This yummy crockpot stew has all the goodness of a pot pie without all the hassle of the crust.

It's soup and stew and chili season even if it's a million degrees outside. September is fall. You cannot change my mind. I really like pot pie filling but I don't like pot pie because of the crust. I love when I get the things I like without the things I don't, so, of course, I loved this stew! I was a little unsure of the Greek yogurt part, but it added a really nice, slightly sour creaminess to the stew.

Salsa Verde Pepperjack Chicken Salad

Every salad should be like this with perfectly marinated chicken and lots of veggies with a fresh mango dressing - a little spicy and a little sweet!

I adore a salad for dinner and I have been enamored with many of the recipes I've tried lately including this one. It checks the salsa verde box for my husband (who wants all the salsa verde all the time) and it has spicy pepper jack cheese cubes throughout it, avocado, corn, bell peppers, and mandarin oranges. I cannot even with how awesome the combo from veggies with oranges was! We don't eat a lot of oranges because my oldest is allergic, but this was fine because I didn't have to put oranges with his salad. I really loved the mango dressing - it's yogurt based and fabulous!

Food Cart Inspired Chicken

This Food Cart Inspired Chicken is perfect for summertime with the lemon garlic chicken - veggies and a delicious yogurt sauce!

I am not sure what kind of food cart food this is supposed to be (Greek, Mediterranean?) but I'm on board with it. I love a yogurt sauce that's similar to tzatziki and having cucumber, tomato, and onion with it. I love this lemon garlic chicken too - it paired with everything so well. YUM!

Quinoa Berry Parfaits

The perfect filling breakfast or snack with just 3 ingredients!

When I was in the hospital after giving birth to my third child a little over 5 years ago, I was given the option to have oatmeal for breakfast. I jumped on it because 1) it's supposed to be good for breastfeeding moms and 2) it's oatmeal. Heck yeah! When they brought it up, it was completely unseasoned and I only had one packet of sugar (which was going to the coffee). I had a yogurt as well and on a whim, I threw my yogurt into the oatmeal to flavor it and sweeten it. I became obsessed and still eat yogurt with my oatmeal to this day.

Why am I talking about oatmeal on a quinoa post? Because this recipe reminded me of that but a fancier version and a slightly lighter version too. I loved the fresh fruit with it too. This is so easy to make in advance or with little prep the day of. Bonus because it can be portable if you need to grab breakfast on the go!

Mediterranean Meatball Gyro Sandwiches #FantasticalFoodFight

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The winner of the ICE CREAM Food Fight is Nichole from Cookaholic Wife with her Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream. There is a fresh blueberry syrup swirl and crumbled graham crackers with the cheesecake filling but best of all, it's a no-churn recipe!