Hey everyone!

The rainy season has finally begun in Florida! Summer thunderstorms are a constant here and this year they've started a little early. Rainy weather always makes me want to lay in bed cuddled up with a book and a cup of coffee. Another thing I crave during overcast days is comfort food. I absolutely LOVE comfort food, which to me is anything warm and creamy. Beef stroganoff is one of my favorite comfort foods, and one of my boyfriend's favorites.

Here is a simple beef stroganoff recipe for a rainy day. It is honestly so simple to make and so filling that you will be enjoying stroganoff for days.

Beef Stroganoff
1 1/2 pounds steak
All-purpose flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tsp of garlic
half a diced onion
8 ounces of fresh mushrooms
1 10 oz can of beef broth
1 10 oz can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream
noodles
salt
pepper

To cook:

Cut the steak into thin strips or cubes (whatever you prefer). Add the olive oil to a pan with the garlic on medium heat. Add the steak and a pinch of flour to the pan and cook the steak until it is browned. Remove the steak from the pan and and the mushrooms and onion.


Sauté the mushrooms for several minutes and then add the cream of mushroom soup, beef broth, and steak back into the pan.


Add another pinch of flour, salt and pepper to season. Mix and cook covered for 30 minutes. Meanwhile boil water to cook the noodles in and cook your favorite noodles.



After 30 minutes stir in the sour cream and serve over the noodles. Enjoy!! 

It's the start of a new week!

But, last weekend so much happened that I just have to tell you about it. I'm going to start with this delicious recipe for the most moist original Philadelphia cheesecake. It isn't healthy one bit, but it is delicious. One day I may come back with a twist to make it more healthy. But for now, I feel like dessert should be what it is, a sweet treat to occasionally indulge in and enjoy. So here is the recipe!

Ingredients:
4 8 oz packages of cream cheese
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp of vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups of graham cracker crumbs
3 tbsp of sugar
1/3 cup of melted butter

It is the easiest recipe and it's actually the same recipe from Kraft! You can find it here. My mom has been making it for years and just passed it down to me. Now that I enjoy cooking and baking whenever my family is together I always make the desserts, so I made this cheesecake for Easter weekend.

Here is how to make it:

Heat the oven to 325 F and DON'T FORGET, THIS NEXT STEP is the most important part, to put a glass pan on the second rack in the oven filled halfway with water. This is the trick to making a moist cheesecake. Dry cheesecake is probably the worst thing in the world and if you do this ONE STEP you will have a delicious cheesecake. Okay back to the cooking part. Combine the graham crackers, 3 tbsp of sugar, and butter in a 9-inch springform pan. Use a spoon to push onto the bottom to create the crust. Let the cream cheese reach room temperature and then beat with 1 cup of sugar and vanilla until blended. Add the eggs one at a time mixing on low until blended. Add to the crust and bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until the middle is set. Cool before removing the rim of the pan and then refrigerate for at least several hours before serving.



Another way to make your cheesecake the best ever is to serve it with various berries. I used strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries to give my cheesecake an extra texture and tang. 

We went to church on Sunday and ate it after lunch! My mom made us mac'n'cheese, ham, and green beans for lunch which was amazing. She's such a good cook and I hope I can be as seamless as her one day.



In track news I ran the 3k steeplechase this weekend at the UF relays and I ran a 20 second pr! I ran 11:03 and my previous pr was 11:22. It was a big deal for me because I feel like I crossed a barrier that had been in front of me for the past two years. It's such a good feeling seeing your hard work pay off.



I haven't pr'd for two years in this race, and it's my favorite race. My advice to you guys is to just keep pushing. Your work and effort will eventually pay off. It took me two years to get it but I still did get it! I'm praying that the momentum can continue and I will pr again. Only time will tell but I'll be sure to tell you guys about it.

I can't wait for all that this week holds! I hope you guys have an amazing week, keep working hard and enjoy some dessert too!

Hi everyone!

I hope your week is going well!

This is my first week back after spring break and I have to say it's kind of hard getting back into the swing of things.

Our first outdoor home track meet was this weekend so my parents drove up at watched me. I ran the 2k steeplechase as my season opener. It wasn't bad but it also wasn't great. I'm looking to improve a lot in the 3k steeplechase this weekend.

I took advantage of my parents being here and made them take me grocery shopping. We went to Winn-Dixie and I got all my food for the week. I'm really trying to eat more vegetables and fruit so that's mainly what was in my cart. As you can see I got two packets of mixed greens, so of course salads are on the menu for the week.

Speaking of salads, I made one just last night with chicken breast and raspberry vinaigrette. It was delicious and so easy to throw together. I made sweet potato fries to go as a side with some ketchup and then devoured everything.

Here is the recipe:

Preheat oven to 450. Peel sweet potato and cut into thin strips. Toss in bowl with 1 tsp of olive oil, and 1 tsp of each paprika, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. (In all honesty I never measure things out but this should be a rough estimate). Spread aluminum foil on baking sheet and then spread the sweet potatoes evenly on the sheet. Cook for 30 minutes.

Add a tbsp of olive oil to a skillet and turn the stove top burner on to medium heat. Pat dry two chicken breasts and season with paprika, salt, pepper, and onion powder. (You can use whatever spices you want I just kind of threw whatever I had in the cabinet on the chicken). Cook each side 7/8 minutes or until it's no longer pink in the middle if you cut into it.

Let the chicken cool a bit and then cut into bite size pieces. Throw onto a bed of mixed greens and add raspberry vinaigrette, fresh raspberries, pecan pieces, and shredded parmesan cheese. Put the sweet potato fries on a plate and add ketchup. Trust me you won't regret it, ketchup makes everything better. Enjoy!

Hey everyone!

I'm so sorry I have been absent these past few days! My school work just caught up to me and I was very busy this weekend and kind of just in a funk. I didn't really feel like recording my cooking so I took a break. But I'm back!!

Since this is the last week of school before spring break my motivation level is minimal. It also means that I didn't really need to buy that much food from the grocery store. I plan on living off the few things I bought and whatever else I can find in my pantry. I'm not going anywhere for the actual week of spring break as I will be training for our first outdoor track meet. However, I will be going this Thursday through Sunday to camp with my parents. I can't wait. I haven't been camping in years and it will be so fun!

On Sunday I shopped at Aldi and they had some great deals. Their avocados were only 69 cents a piece! That's unheard of. They also have my favorite salsa for $1.40 and it comes in a huge jar. My cart contained the following: tortilla chips, snyders pretzel pieces (I have a weakness for these), orange juice, hazelnut k-cups, macaroni, salsa, three avocados, bananas, a mango, blueberries, ground beef, and purity organic juice. I wanted to try the purity juice because I've heard its delicious. It was a small cart I know but it was all I needed.

I planned on making tacos this week and mac and cheese and of course gobbling up those avocados! I also have some frozen chicken in the freezer and some frozen veggies so I will probably make those this week. Another thing I usually always have is pesto so I can make some pesto noodle dish if I'm feelin it.

That night my Chris and I made the macaroni, well more like he made it. There are a few dishes he is really proud of making and I guess Mac n Cheese is one of them. He wanted to buy Velveeta cheese to add to it and I said absolutely not.

We used the cheese I had in my fridge and I honestly thought it was still delicious. It wasn't the healthiest as we used an entire stick of butter (call me Paula Dean) but I added some roasted broccoli to it just to get some greens in. I sent the leftovers home with Chris so he wouldn't starve while I'm gone camping.

This week I probably won't be cooking anything too interesting, but when I get to my parents camp site we will be cooking up some of that good good stuff. I will be sure to write about the best meals for camping and I can't wait to share it with you guys! By the way, where is your favorite place to camp?!