I had this brilliant idea for my app last week when me and my roommate were struggling trying to figure out what to eat. We often forget all the meals we make and end up making the same 3 dishes over and over again. This is when I thought, why don’t we make our own personal menu?

As you can see above I have created an app where I put together our favorite appetizers, entrees, and deserts. The app allows an easy addition for a new meal to any category.

This is an example of some of the meals I have added and another cool feature is that you can add the prices it costs to make that meal. This is my favorite feature because say for intense me and my roommate were on a tight budget that week, we could easily select the most affordable option at that time.

Me and my roommate have started using this system and it has made our college student life so much easier when it comes to preparing meals.

Heres a link to my previous two blogs on my stir fry and broccoli casserole dishes!

https://bradleyeats.food.blog/2019/09/09/recreating-my-favorite-childhood-meal/

https://bradleyeats.food.blog/2019/11/01/heb-meal-review/

This week was Thanksgiving break and I’m so thankful that I got to drive down to Dallas to see my family. I wanted to take this week’s blog and just talk about how I feel that food brings my family together.

Thanksgiving is honestly one of my favorite holidays, not only because of the delicious food but because of how it seems to bring my whole family together. Being in college and living about 4 hours from your family is not easy but I am extremely thankful for the holidays that bring us together with such as Thanksgiving. It’s not only sitting at the dinner table where I feel a sense of bonding time, but it’s also getting to help my mom and grandmother in the kitchen.

Cooking with my family is the entire experience. We get to catch up and share stories all while blending the perfect medleys of foods for dinner. Thanksgiving, in particular, takes longer to prepare (sometimes even days) which gives me even more bonding time with my dear family. Putting all of our efforts into making dinner a special experience for everyone else is one of my favorite things to do. Each dish is different in its own way and also can hold a special memory. For example, there are countless stories that I can relate to my mom’s famous macaroni and cheese dish. Fun fact, food is one of the only activities that involves all five of our senses. This to me paves the way to food, especially Thanksgiving food carving wonderful memories into my head. Ever since I can remember if I catch a scent of something that reminds me of a specific dish it’s almost like I am transported back into that very moment.

This Thanksgiving was extremely special. I got to see my family in what feels like forever and I’m very thankful to have been surrounded by them and tons of delicious food. Food plays a big role in my family and I urge you all to really take the time and cherish all the moment you have with your family. Even if it’s over something as simple as food, you are making so many precious memories that you will treasure down the road.

Here’s what all of our hard work went in to, and let me be the first to say it was AMAZING!

Here’s some festive music we listen to during Thanksgiving dinner!

Yesterday I had a fun opportunity to review a restaurant within my favorite genre of food. I have always heard about a little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant called Garcias and I decided to take my best friend with me and try it out for myself. I’m also going to be trying something different in this review and give each category my overall rating out of 10. So let’s get to it.

Atmosphere/Cleanliness

My initial reaction to the atmosphere was that it was definitely a hole in the all/ family owned kind of feel. Now, this personally doesn’t bother me at all but I know it’s not everyones cup of tea. The decorations were super cute and I even took included a picture of my new favorite saying down below. Besides the atmosphere the restaurant was very clean and tidy leaving no room for complaints in this category.

Rating 10/10

Service

I noticed right away that majority of the staff is on the younger side, which I loved. Upon walking in the front doors we were greeted with smiling faces and even asked where we would prefer to sit. We decided to sit in the backroom just the two of us so we could talk freely and really take in the overall experience. Our waiter was great and checked on us appropriately. There was absolutely no room for improvement here as everyone did there jobs phenomenally.

Rating 10/10

Menu/Ordering

An important aspect to every restaurant is their menu. Garcia’s menu was super easy to understand and included an array of options. My waiter recommended some of his favorites, but I felt like I had to stick with my guts and order my all time favorite sour cream enchiladas.

Rating 10/10

Photos by Cherish Bradley

Tastiness

Now to the most important part, tastiness. My plate came to me hot and fresh and I could’t wait to dig in. It came with two sour cream chicken enchiladas and a side of refried beans and Mexican rice. The rice and beans honestly could’ve use a tad bit more flavor, but where the rice and beans lacked the enchiladas definitely made up for. Hands down these were some of the best enchiladas I’ve ever had. The chicken was moist and seasoned to perfection and the homemade sour cream sauce was just the cherry on top making all the flavors blend together in perfect harmony.

Rating 9/10

Overall the experience at Garcias restaurant was amazing. I would definitely recommend this delicious place to any of my friends in a heart beat. It was very relaxing and just a fun time. I’ll link their location down below so all of you guys can try this yummy spot for yourselves!

http://garciassmtx.com

This week while I was shopping in the store I came across a super interesting looking meal. It was a pre-packaged teriyaki mix which included snow peas, cabbage, broccoli, and some teriyaki sauce. I was really curious if it would actually be good so I gave it a try. I decided that I would prepare this meal for me and my roommate, who is a pretty picky eater, to review.

Preparing this meal was super easy and only took me about 10 minutes to complete, but while I was cooking it I decided that it would be even more yummy if I added in some chicken. After adding the chicken my roommate suggested serving this meal with some white rice which I thought was a fantastic idea and would recommend you all do that as well!

After the preparation was done it was time for the true test, tastiness! To help me out with this I had my roommate Lacie Bell test it. I chose her to give her opinion because she is a pretty picky eater and if she likes it I know I can say that the general public will.

In conclusion we both loved this meal and it was super easy and very affordable being priced at only 4 dollars a big and it feeds two people which is amazing. I’ll link the exact bag below if you all would like to try this out for yourselves which I recommend all of you to do as it was totally worth it.

https://www.heb.com/product-detail/h-e-b-select-ingredients-teriyaki-stir-fry-kit/1937366

This this week seems to have an ongoing theme of Hispanic foods, but what can I say it’s my favorite! This weekend I decide to travel home for this weeks blog. My mom is honestly the chef of the family so I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned her or done one with her cooking expertise yet. This blog post was actually her idea, she wanted me to sit, learn and blog her making one of my favorite dishes, enchiladas! Now I know that I mentioned that my favorite enchiladas that I’ve ever had were in Cancun, but that was obviously excluding my mother’s, and especially her very special rendition of them. Another cool thing I’m doing in this weeks blog is instead of adding my pictures to every paragraph I’m going to include a slide show so that you all will be able to follow what I am saying fluidly and effortlessly. So, let’s get to it.

Step one

This is actually a prerequisite to all madness we are about to embark on. One of the many things that makes my moms enchiladas so special is her choice of meat. Instead of chicken or even beef my mom used ground turkey. Now, I know this sounds strange, but it is honestly my favorite choice of meat and is known to be healthier than chicken, pork, or beef. My mom did a pre marination on this ground turkey the night before so in the slide show for step one I made sure to include all of the seasonings used to create her flavorful meat.

Here’s a cool article about the health benefits of turkey!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.bodyandsoul.com.au/nutrition/nutrition-tips/the-health-benefits-of-turkey/news-story/a46ea3ecdbe41a64518e35eb27492387

Step two

The next step was simply picking the enchilada sauce. This may seem like a small step, but let me assure you the sauce is everything. She uses Gebhardt’s ranchero sauce. Let me be the first to let you all know, it is the best enchilada sauce on the planet.

Step three

This one is pretty simple as well, but also very crucial. I feel like where many people go wrong is not heating up the tortilla before beginning to roll the yummy enchiladas. By heating up the tortilla you are softening the shell which allows for easier rolling without breaking in the future steps. All you need for this is some olive oil and your favorite pack of corn tortillas. If you are interested we will be using the brand La Banderita.

Step four

After heating up the tortillas comes the fun part. Rolling!! You double dip the tortillas in the enchiladas sauce and begin the scoop the meat into the tortillas (which are now nice and soft thanks to step three) and roll them up nice and neat and place them into your handy casserole pan.

Step five

After the enchiladas are all rolled up nice and neat you are going to go over them with some more enchilada sauce and begin to layer cheese, green onions, onions, and black olives on top. After this is all layered up you are going to put the enchiladas in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until crisp. You can chose to add any sides you want, for this weekend I decided I wanted to pair my dish with yellow Spanish rice and black whole beans for a yummy combination.

Now it’s tome to sit back and enjoy your tasty meal! Here’s what my finished product looked like and as always it was 10/10, thanks mom!

This past summer I had the great opportunity to travel to Cancun, Mexico for my spring break trip. I was super excited to be traveling to another country, but unlike most people who would be excited about the beach or all the attractions, I was most excited for the food. Hispanic food has always been my favorite genre of food, so getting to experience and taste authentic Hispanic food was a huge treat.

The first thing I got to try was a mango on a stick. I know this sounds very basic, but trust me it wasn’t. The mango was perfectly ripe and peeled in way for easy consumption. The best part about this delicious snack was that they covered the entire mango in a sweet and spicy chili powder. This wasn’t your everyday run of the mill chili, but their own native special blend of herbs and spices. This chili turned an ordinary mango into a whole other food experience. The sweet and spicy complimented each other perfectly. The best part is I got to consume this treat while laying out on the beach making my experience 1000 times better than before.

The next meal that I got to enjoy was a breakfast omelette from one of the restaurants on my resort. I am actually not a huge fan of omelettes, but since I was in another country and everything around me was new and different I decoded to give it a try. I ordered the most basic one thought just to be safe. It came out about 15 minutes later and was huge! It looked so good and appetizing and thats saying a lot coming from someone who doesn’t like omelets. On the plate I saw the big fried eggs and as I went to open it up a vegetable medely spilled out. Inside were mushrooms, olives, green onions, tomatoes and a hint of cheese. I was thrilled, all of my favorite vegetables for breakfast! Before taking my first bite I decided to be bold and spice up my experience with some salsa that the waiter recommended and I am so glad I did. My first bite had an explosion on flavor. Everything melted together so perfectly and all tasted so fresh. I am so glad I decided to try this dish and give it another try because now I love omelettes, even though I will never be able to find one in America that tasted like that. I did find a recipe that was pretty close though and I’ll link it down below.

https://cookpad.com/uk/recipes/409076-french-omellete

The most notable meal I got to eat was enchiladas. Now I know that many people here in America are a costumer to this hispanic delicacy, but let me tell you these were no ordinary enchiladas. Enchiladas are by far my favorite Hispanic dish and all my life I never got to have it authentically made for me. When I arrived at the restaurant and got the menu the first page I turned to was the enchilada section. To my surprise there was so many options. I was used to only having two options on menus in America. After what felt like a 30 minute decision, I decided to get the verde enchiladas. 20 minutes later they came out and immediately my mouth started to water. I looked at the plate and on it was two piping hot, fresh enchiladas covered in a light green sauce and served on the side was fresh Spanish rice and refried beans. Before I took my first bite I already knew that this was going to be my favorite meal. I began to dig in and it was phenomenal! The flavors of everything mixed in my mouth and I honestly felt like I was in the Disney movie Ratatouille.

Overall my food experience in Mexico was absolutely amazing. Trying these foods truly added to my overall enjoyment of my trip. I had no clue how much food could influence an experience to a new destination. So next time you travel, even if its the next city over, I encourage you all to try a new restaurant and really emerge yourself in the food and how it makes you feel. I promise you will not be disappointed.

As a sophomore in college, this year is the first year where I’m in my own apartment. So far the expierence has been great and I have learned so much about living on my own. I wanted to share with you all 5 items that I have found absolutely necessary in my kitchen.

CrockPot

When my mom was first helping me shop for my new apartment she added a Crockpot to my list. At first I laughed at her, as I always associated using a CrockPot with being an old grandma. Soon I realized how useful it actually was. For those of you who don’t know what a Crockpot is , it’s a cooking device which slowly simmers many different types of food for you. Just this month alone I have used it to make more than 10 meals. Crockpots are super helpful with my busy lifestyle as a working college student. They also make cooking super easy and fun and it is almost impossible to mess up a meal while using a Crockpot. Lastly, and in my opinion most notably, they are realtively affordable costing on average only 20 dollars.

Heres some fun and easy recipes you can try at home with your CrockPot

https://www.delish.com/cooking/g3849/best-slow-cooker-recipes/

Cast Iron Skillet

Now this may actually be one of my favorite items that I have in my kitchen. This item is basically a normal skillet, but made made out of iron. It is pretty dense and great for cooking anything from eggs to an entire 4 course meal. I actually used this skillet to cook my broccoli and chicken casserole which I have a blog post about if you want to go check that out. The coolest thing about the Cast Iron Skillet is that it actually releases healthy levels of iron into your food! This is great news to me because I have iron deficiency. Like the Crockpot the Cast Iron Skillet is relatively cheap costing only about 21 dollars. The only downside is that the Skillet is now dishwasher safe and you must hand wash it otherwise you could cause damage.

• 

Mini toaster oven

At first I didn’t even know these existed, but ever since my new discovery my life has changed. Now I’m not talking about your average “pop tart” toaster, but a literal mini oven!! Having this around has made making quick snacks super convenient. I no longer have to preheat my actual oven to a certain temperature and wait. Now, all I have to do is twist a little dial and what ever I’m making is done in minutes. In a way, it reminds me a lot of a microwave, but it makes way better food! I would recommend this to anyone, especially a college student or a busy adult! The downside to this item is that it doesn’t fit much more than the space two slices of bread would occupy, but in my opinion is still very worth it! 

Casserole Pan

Now this is something that I have always taken for granted. I’m sure many of you have seen this at your parents or even grandparents house, but do you have it in your own kitchen? These pans can literally be used for almost anything. Since I’ve been in my own apartment I have used this handy item for cookies, brownies, casseroles, and so much more! There is nothing this pan can’t handle. Another amazing thing is that they are also microwave safe, so along with baking with them you can also use the pan to serve food or even just heat something up in the microwave, in other words the versatility is outstanding. Lastly, these pans come in all shapes and sizes and unlike the cast iron skillet are dishwasher safe allowing for an easy clean up at the end of a meal. The price range for this item varies though since there are so many different options.

These items have all made my college apartment living so much easier. They all have saved me time, energy, and money in some way shape or form. I once again recommend all of these for everyones kitchen. They are definitely staple items that everyone needs to invest in. 

This past week I was feeling restless and wanted to get out the house. I decided that I would look up some fun new restaurants and give one a try. I stumbled upon a Japanese restaurant called Toro Ramen. They had 4 1/2 stars and almost nothing but fantastic reviews, so it was obvious I had to give it a try. I’m going to rate and discuss my experience in the following categories: cleanliness/atmosphere , customer service, affordability, and lastly tastiness.

Cleanliness/Atmosphere

As a food lover I feel like cleanliness and atmosphere is extremely important and contributed greatly to your overall dining experience. I was pleasantly surprised with the layout of the restaurant as it was very open and made the seemingly small space feel a lot bigger. The walls were painted in dark neutral tones adding just the right amount of coziness. Along with the atmosphere the overall upkeep and cleanliness was great. You can tell the employees kept up with dirty tables and kept the floors squeaky clean and shiny.

Customer Service

As soon as I walked in the door I was greeted by two friendly hosted. They were super inviting and both had big smiles worn at all times. Costumer service is, in my opinion, the biggest factor in running a successful business and Toro definitely had it. My waitress helped explain the menu to me and even suggested some of her favorite dishes to me. She frequently checked on me throughout my meal and did her best to make my experience wonderful.

Affordability

Now I am a current college student so I understand the importance of saving money, so I won’t lie this wasn’t the most affordable meal. My meal alone was 11.99. I also decided to get some appetizers and of course a drink which brought my bill to a grand total of around 17 dollars. This is definitely not something I could afford to do everyday , but it was nice for a treat.

Tastiness

Here we go, the most important part! I have had Japanese food in the past so I knew that I would like this genre of food. Toro’s menu was pretty straight forward, as it only contained two sides. The front side was mainly rice and chicken options and appetizers while the back side was their soup options. To start I ordered myself some veggie spring rolls. They were super flavorful and I could tell they were fresh. For my main course I decided to try the Chicken Rich Ramen which included ramen noodles, mushrooms, ginger and an array of vegetables. It was AMAZING! All the flavors worked so well together creating a flavor medley in my mouth.

Overall

Toro ramen was a fantastic experience and I would 10/10 recommend it to anyone!

Heres a link with address to get there if you want to try it for yourself.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/toro-ramen-and-poke-barn-san-marcos

This past week I had a super nostalgic idea. What if I recreated one of my all time favorite holiday dishes broccoli casserole , but healthier? I leaped at the opportunity and would like to share my experience and the entire process with you all.

Step one was trying to find a good base recipe which I could alter in a more healthy manner. I stumbled upon a great one by no other than Campbells. I was super excited to see that the brand, which has been used in my family meals for so long, had a recipe.

The recipe consisted of…

1/4 cup of butter

1 large onion chopped

16 oz of frozen chopped broccoli

1/3 cup of milk

1 can of Campbells cream of chicken soup

1 jar of pasteurized cheese sauce

3 cups of long grain white rice

Step two was to go to the grocery store to find and alter some of the ingredients to a more healthy meal.

The first alteration I made was the type of butter I used. Instead of just regular butter I went ahead a purchased a reduced fat butter. Next, substituted the regular cream of chicken soup with Campbells 98 % fat free option. Lastly, I decided to opt out on all the additional calories added by the cheese and replace it with a high protein substitute … chicken.

Step three was to prep and begin assembling the meal.

I followed the exact directions for this recipe so I’ll link it down below.

https://www.campbells.com/kitchen/recipes/broccoli-rice-casserole/

The meal preparation didn’t take much time at all and before my very eyes the dish was done.