The Ravenous Kitchen

recipes from a girl with a big appetite & a tiny kitchen

Browsing Articles Written by

Alana

Roasted Vegetables w/ Honey Balsamic Glaze

Sides, Vegetables By Alana December 6, 2015 Tags: brussel sprouts, carrots, gluten free, Roasted, sweet potatoes, Vegetables No Comments

Before I start baking excess amounts of cookies and sweets for Christmas time, I’m trying to eat as healthy as I can in hopes to offset all the sugar soon to be in my life. While I know eating healthy doesn’t exactly work like that, I like to think that thinking like this helps me eat more vegetables anyways. I also find it’s a lot easier to get your daily dose of vegetables when you have plenty around ready to eat. So for these reasons I decided to roast up a large batch of Brussels sprouts, carrots, sweet potatoes, and red onions.

Look how beautiful all these vegetables are! I’m a big believer of the idea that the more color you have on your plate, the healthier you are eating. Since all these veggies are in season it means the you are also getting the freshest and best tasting varieties than if you were to buy them at different time of the year.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Cookies, Dessert By Alana December 4, 2015 Tags: chocolate, cookies No Comments

I woke up this morning to discover that it’s National Cookie Day so I decided to make some cookies! Well I actually had already planned to make cookies yesterday but it was nice to know I would be making them on the day that’s meant to honor them. I’m suppose to be going to a cookie party/swap later tonight and needed to bake something to bring. As I’m typing this I’m starting to realize that this cookie party was probably purposely planned to be on National Cookie Day and am only now just putting two and two together… Better late than never I guess!

So I decided to bake a cookie recipe given to me by my mother that is always made around the holidays, chocolate crinkle cookies. Little balls of chocolate cookie dough heaven, rolled in powdered sugar, and then baked til they “crackle” on the outside. How could anyone say no to that?

Turkey, Kale, & Brown Rice Soup

Soup By Alana December 1, 2015 Tags: brown rice, gluten free, healthy, kale, soup, turkey 1 Comment

With Thanksgiving being this past weekend, I hope everyone had a wonderful time eating all the food possible and spending time with family and friends, I know I most certainly did. Since I was traveling I went on a little hiatus due to the fact that things can get a little hectic over the holidays and I felt like I didn’t even get a chance to sit down much. Only on the plane did I sit for an extended amount of time and I doubt I have to convince anyone here how uncomfortable that is. Nonetheless, I had a great Thanksgiving full of family, food, and even got to go to the beach!

Returning to Colorado from Florida was a big change in temperature and it was necessary to cook something warm for the cold weather. Enter in this turkey, kale, and brown rice soup. I also decided it was time to make this soup because of all the indulgent food that I have gorged on for the past 5 days. A healthy meal was desperately needed and this recipe is full of veggies!

Carrots, peppers, onions, garlic, and kale to be exact. Not to mention it’s made with ground turkey and brown rice which are two things I never feel guilty about eating. You could of course swap out the ground turkey for another ground meat of your choosing and swap the brown rice for another grain like quinoa. I like this combination though because the brown rice adds a nice nuttiness and turkey is always my go to ground meat of choice.

All-Butter Pie Crust

Dessert By Alana November 24, 2015 Tags: dough, Pie crust 1 Comment

After traveling all day yesterday I was excited to land in sunny and warm South Florida. However, today it looks like I’m only going to get the warm part. Where is the sun!? I was looking forward to getting a little vitamin D and a tan to take back with me to Colorado, but according to the forecast I will unfortunately not be getting the sunshine I wanted. Instead I will be drowning my sorrows in lots and lots of pie. And as we all know, a good pie all starts with a flaky crust.

My favorite way to make a pie crust is with all butter. Many crust recipes call for a mix of butter and shortening however making an all butter crust I find is easiest for me and makes for a perfectly flaky pastry.

Mashed Potatoes w/ Sour Cream

Sides By Alana November 22, 2015 Tags: mashed potatoes, potatoes, thanksgiving 1 Comment

With Thanksgiving just around the corner it’s time to start preparing your menu. And what would a Thanksgiving menu be without mashed potatoes? I personally don’t think you can call it Thanksgiving dinner if there isn’t a huge pile of mashed potatoes on the table. So I decided to share one of my varieties of mashed potatoes. These are made with sour cream to give it a little more tang than the typical mashed potato.

Depending upon how many people you are feeding will determine the amount of potatoes you will need. I think I good ratio is 1 1/2 to 2 potatoes per person. Two per person keeps you safe from running out. It always seems that the mashed potatoes are always gone so don’t worry about making too many!

There are lots of ways to make mashed potatoes these days, with a potato ricer, a food mill, or an old-fashioned potato masher. Depending upon what method you use will determine if you need to peel your potatoes or not. If you are using a potato ricer or food mill, then you don’t need to do it which saves you an extra step! I went with the classic masher today and it’s best to peel the potatoes before using this method. I sometimes like to leave some skins on the potatoes to give the final product a little more texture, plus I tell myself I’m getting more fiber this way!

Finally, sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t add sour cream to my mashed potatoes. It really depends upon my mood. So if you feel like leaving out the sour cream go ahead, they’re your mashed potatoes!

Whatever you do, just be sure to make a big batch of mashed potatoes to go along with your turkey and gravy!

1 … 5 6 7 8 9