Homemade Pickles

Ever wanted your pickles to taste fresher? To still have the crunch and freshness of a cucumber when you eat them? Well, I decided I wanted some, too.

2 cucumbers sliced thin
2 cups balsamic vinegar
2 lemons (juice and pulp)
1 white onion (chopped)
Salt
2 hours in the fridge for crispy, tart, refreshing, salty perfection.

Marlipaige Grade: A (tasty and healthy)
Ease of creation: Easy!
Total Time: 2 hours 5 minutes

Honey-Lime Shrimp & Spiced Cous Cous

Honey-Lime Shrimp & Spiced Cous Cous


The inspiration for the main portion of this dish came from the Recipes pin "Honey Lime Shrimp":
http://pinterest.com/pin/141089400797475739/

For this I used:
1 bag frozen peel and eat shrimp (medium)
2 limes (with juice and pulp plus a little zest)
3 tablespoons of honey
1.5 tablespoons of olive oil
garlic salt
cracked pepper

I put everything except the shrimp in a skillet on low to make a nice sauce cook down.
I peeled the shrimp while the sauce was cooking.
I then put the shrimp in the sauce and put a lid over it for 15 minutes
I removed it from the heat and serve it over the cous cous

Cous Cous:
1 cup cous cous
1 cup water
1.5 TBS Turmeric
1 Tsp Curry Powder
1 TBS garlic salt
Dash Seasoned Salt
2 TBS olive oil

I often throw other spices I find laying around in the cous cous too. It can handle them. I just throw it all in the rice cooker and it cooks in 5 minutes time.


Marlipaige Grade: B (the shrimp wasn't the best thing ever. But it was fine)
Ease of creation: Easy!
Overall Time: 20 minutes

Squash and Onions

A summertime staple around the Doss household was always squash and onions. They used to come straight from the garden to the table, but being a city girl now I have to buy them from a store and cook them myself. However, they're still a favorite meal of mine.

Ingredients:

1 white onion chopped

2.5 squash sliced thinly

2 tbs olive oil

garlic salt

I put the olive oil and onions in a skillet and get it nice and hot. I sauté the onions on medium high until they begin to caramel. I reduce heat to medium and add in the sliced squash. I then put a lid overtop and let me them sweat. Occasionally take the spatula and stir them around so they don't stick and add in your garlic salt as you do. They're ready when the edges of the squash begin to brown.

Marlipaige grade: A

Ease of creation: Easy/Medium

Total Time: 20 minutes

Infused Waters

Infused Waters.

These ideas come from two separate pins:

On my Exercise/In Shape Board:

Detox Water
http://pinterest.com/pin/141089400797584115/

And on the Recipees board:

Flavored Water
http://pinterest.com/pin/141089400798309636/



So I looked at these recipes and decided to do one straight:
Watermelon Rosemary

It's very refreshing. Simply line the bottom with cubes of watermelon (bought pre-cubed at publix) and springs of Rosemary, fill with ice, then with water, leave in fridge overnight and you have a super bright tasting water with hints of its components.


My second is based on a drink I had at PF Chang's. I always go there for my birthday dinner and I had a strawberry, cucumber, limeade. So between that, looking at these waters (and the detox water), I arrived at my

Sweet Tart Detox Water

It contains a handful of frozen strawberries, lime wedges, sprigs of mint, and slices of cucumber (about 3/4 of a large cucumber sliced). Then filled with ice then water and left overnight. You definitely get the sweet notes of the strawberry, the tart of the lime, the cooling of the cucumber and the herbal minty mint. It's really nice.

Both of these were so easy. Prep time was 5 minutes (after the shopping), and then you can drink them immediately, but if you let them sit overnight they taste better. This is a super awesome alternative to soda or sugary drinks. The natural sweetness of the fruit is presence in the water without adding calories!


Marlipaige grade: A
Ease of creation: Easy!
Total Time: 5 minutes (then however long you'd like to let them sit to soak up that flavor)

Cauliflower Pizza

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

As found on my "Exercise / In Shape" board which is full of exercise and healthy alternatives to nommies.

http://pinterest.com/pin/141089400797136784/


That picture makes it look like the most delicious, crispy pizza crust. Not exactly like dough, but similar enough in its crispy thinness that it could easily be taken as dough. So out I went to buy my ingredients and whip this up.


The "dough"
1 head of cauliflower grated via cheese grater
2 eggs
2 cups mozzarella cheese
basil (I used paste)

Mix the ingredients together by hand. Spread into 4 mini-pizzas. Cook for 10 minutes by itself at 400 degrees.


Pull out of oven.

The "topping"

I used spicy marinara (premade, bottled)
Thin sliced Squash (yellow)
Thin sliced Zucchini
Mushrooms (sliced)
Onions (chopped)
Ricotta Cheese mixed with basil paste (1 cup)
Sprinkle Mozzarella on top for true "pizza" feel

Cook 18 more minutes.

This was the result. It looks maybe like pizza if pizza exploded in the oven.

It tastes....nothing like pizza. Even a little. It was delicious, don't get me wrong. I loved it. But it wasn't pizza. It didn't come close to pizza. This wasn't even pizza's ugly step-cousin. This was just good baked veggies with cheese and sauce. Which...there's nothing wrong with that...so long as you don't expect pizza.


Marlipaige rating: B (A for taste, but C for deceiving me into thinking it was Pizza)
Effort: Easy/Medium
Total time: 35 minutes (the biggest time consumers besides cook time are grating cauliflower and dicing veggies)

Back in the health saddle

So, now that i'm over the flu (thank God), I'm back in the health saddle. The one good side effect from the flu is that all junk food tastes like CRAP. So i'm just gonna be happy for that and move on. I mean, the whole reason I was eating fried potato chips and full-fat preservative chocked dip was because it tasted SO DAMN GOOD.

So I went to Aldi & Publix and bought enough food to last me a few years it seemed like. And guess what? Almost everything I bought had no more than 5 ingredients in it. Most of the things I bought were whole ingredients: fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, frozen vegetables, frozen fruit, frozen seafood.

Stay tuned for healthy recipes I took from pins, modified from pins, and created myself!

Jewelry Line Launch

I am launching a Jewelry line asap. And I need YOUR help!

I would really love some feedback. 
Go to: http://freewebs.com/marlipaige

Then let me know
 A. to know which pieces you think are something you'd buy / the general population would buy. 
B. What you would pay. 
C. What you think they're worth / what you would charge. 

Thank you!