homemade

Sprouting Lunches 3 Days a Week

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By Tiffany Young

My new “resolution” is to bring my lunch to work at least three times a week. This is primarily to save money, since I work downtown and it can get expensive eating at Whole Foods for lunch almost every day. But I know the lunch has to pretty good to convince myself not to go hang out with my coworkers away from the office for an hour or even 30 minutes. That means less store bought frozen meals and more homemade frozen meals. So, this week I made mac ‘n cheese and Sriracha roasted Brussels sprouts and packaged them for my mid-day meal. You can find the recipe at The Austin Gastronomist. I had been eying the recipe for sometime, but was a little intimidated by it for some reason. However, the recipe was pretty easy to carry out and has turned out to be a delicious choice for my lunch. My only caution is that some coworkers think it smells up the office when I reheat it. Also, when the recipe says that the sauce will bubble up on you, that means step back! There was definitely a little splash back when I poured the hot water in. Other than that, everything went well and I would definitely make it again!

Let us know what some of your favorite lunches are in the comments!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homemade Pasta is Always Best!

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11042282043_3c26c6e091_oBy Tiffany Young

After Bird’s Barbershop’s Besties Party, my friends and I weren’t ready to say goodbye, so Eric & Lisa invited Christine and I over to make handmade pasta at their place with their little one, Bea. To be honest Baby Bea did not make a lot of pasta, but she was a fun addition to the night of playing games, eating and enjoying each others’ company.

Lisa had already made the dough, so the hard part was over. We used her new pasta maker for the first time, via trial and error. Lisa gave us the challenge: We could either watch Baby Bea or we could figure out how to use the pasta machine. Not feeling up to the challenge of caring for a small child, we decided using the pasta maker would be our challenge for the night. I don’t think either one would have been that challenging, but I tend to feel more comfortable in the kitchen than with bodily functions.

We immediately took to YouTube to get things started. This was the best one we found:

It was a little challenging not getting the pasta to stick together at first, but then we learned to add more flour than we thought to keep it from sticking. It turned out beautifully! Eric did the actual cooking part, chopping up mushrooms and sauteing garlic to make a traditional alfredo sauce: http://www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/The-Real-Alfredo.

 

He made two batches–one without mushrooms and one with. They were both delicious.