I made this salad for Thanksgiving and it seriously might be one of my new favorite things. It is SO GOOD. Like, the kind of salad you actually get excited about eating. Dang, now I want it right now. It’s also incredibly easy to make, which is a must and a huge bonus in my opinion.

Chopped Kale, Crispy Brussels Sprouts, & Candied Bacon Salad

Ingredients:

• 4-6 cups of kale, chopped with scissors
• 1 15oz bag of frozen sliced brussels sprouts (you can also buy fresh and slice up yourself but this would take a lot longer!)
• 1 package bacon
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• Manchego cheese
• Chopped walnuts
• Cranberries
• Olive oil & vinegar dressing

Directions:

• preheat oven to 325 degrees & line a baking sheet with parchment paper (for use for bacon)
• cook the frozen brussels sprouts with olive oil over medium heat for 30-40 minutes (low & slow as possible!) stirring frequently until they are crispy
• massage the kale with olive oil and place in a large salad bowl
• use kitchen scissors to cut up bacon into approximately 1 inch pieces. spread out onto parchment paper lined baking sheet. sprinkle the brown sugar over the bacon and press into the bacon, flipping the pieces over and doing both sides. Then place into the oven for 20-25 minutes or until bacon is cooked slightly crispy and the sugar has caramelized.
• Once the bacon is done, lift up entire parchment paper with bacon on it, and place over a wire rack to cool. You could also put it on another baking sheet to cool as well.
• Once bacon is cooled and the brussels sprouts are done, layer onto the kale
• Then add the walnuts and cranberries
• Finely grate the manchego cheese over top of the salad
• Toss just before serving, and drizzle the dressing over top.

Let me know if you give it a try! Hope you enjoy!

xo,

Bess

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Summery Salmon Bowls

We love these summery salmon bowls…they are so easy to throw together and are pretty healthy too!

Ingredients:
– Salmon
– Avocado
– Edamame
– Purple cabbage
– Matchstick Carrots
– Green onions
– Jasmine rice
– Sesame seeds
– Sesame Ginger Dressing (I like the Primal Kitchen kind)
– Soy sauce
– Sesame oil

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Chop up veggies + in a separate bowl combine chopped purple cabbage & carrots in 1 tsp soy sauce + 1/2 tsp sesame oil

Marinate salmon in Primal Kitchen Sesame Ginger dressing + salt & pepper

Cook rice & edamame according to package directions.  I use microwavable options for these just to keep it easier!

Bake salmon for 10-12 minutes or until it is opaque & flakes with a fork.

Combine everything in a bowl, top with more sesame ginger dressing or sriracha aioli & enjoy!

I hope you enjoy these summery salmon bowls!

xo,

Bess

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When I was pregnant with Emma, I kind of *briefly* explored the idea of prepping some postpartum freezer meals, but ultimately just never got around to doing it and didn’t feel all that motivated to do it. The second time around, however, has been a different story.  I think because since I have a toddler now and a lot of our evening routine currently revolves around her bath & bedtime, that when we throw a newborn into the mix, it will just be nice to have some easy meals that are ready to go to take another thing off our plates.

I also just want to be able to rest and soak in the newborn time as much as possible, too, while still making sure I’m feeding my family.  Little things to make life easier, right?!

Now, none of these recipes are my own creation but I have noted when I’ve made some additions or tweaks just based on personal preference.  I’ve linked the original recipes for you.  Each of these make large 9×13 casserole size portions (sometimes I split them into two 8×8 portions) so I know they will each feed us for at least a couple of days!  Also, these are the pans I’ve been using but I am covering with aluminum foil, not the lid it comes with. Then I’ve been writing what the dish is + the cooking instructions on a post-it note with packing tape over it.  You could just write directly on the foil with sharpie but for some reason mine wasn’t writing well, so I did this instead.

I hope you find these postpartum freezer meals helpful!

Postpartum Freezer Meals

Chicken Pot Pie + Buttermilk Biscuits – made mostly according to the directions but I used pulled rotisserie chicken as a shortcut, as well as store-bought biscuits.

Baked Spaghetti – used whole wheat spaghetti

Chicken & Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas – used pulled rotisserie chicken, omitted corn, added diced green & yellow pepper. also used pre-chopped sweet potatoes.

Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole – used pulled rotisserie chicken and frozen broccoli (lightly steamed before mixing in)

Mexican Lasagna – omitted corn, added chopped green, yellow, & orange peppers as well as both pinto and black beans.

Broccoli Chicken Bacon – used frozen broccoli (lightly steamed before using) and pre-chopped sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes. Also used turkey bacon instead of regular bacon.

Southwest Chicken Alfredo – used that recipe but made several swaps- omitted onions & honey, used shredded Mexican cheese instead of cheddar, used a can of Ro-tel instead of plain diced tomatoes. I also just used pre-made taco seasoning instead of making my own! But, it didn’t specify how to freeze, so I searched around for other similar dishes and found one with instructions: Allow to cool. Cover and label, then place in freezer. (You may want to use a disposable aluminum pan for the freezer.) When ready to use, remove from freezer the night before and allow to thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes, until top begins to brown slightly and sauce is bubbly. Remove from oven, garnish with parsley (if desired) and serve.

Root Vegetable Casserole – I wanted a meatless option & this was really easy to make.  I used sweet potatoes, carrots, & parsnips. I made my life a little easier by doing canned sliced carrots and pre-cut sweet potatoes!  Would also make a great side dish for Thanksgiving!

I will update this post if I make anything else!! But I only have so much room in the freezer haha, so we shall see!

Do you have any favorite freezer meals? If so, share them in the comments below!

xo,

Bess

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This super easy Valentine’s Day cocktail (or mocktail!) recipe is a great base and you can easily insert your favorite type of alcohol. I personally prefer tequila but you can do vodka, gin, bourbon, whatever you like.  Omit the alcohol and you have a great mocktail!

Ingredients: 

• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• Strawberries
• 1 can strawberry soda
• 4 oz club soda
• Juice from 2 limes
• Pick your alcohol: 4 oz tequila, vodka, bourbon OR omit this for cocktail!

Directions: Muddle strawberries & sugar, then add the juice from limes and club soda & shake to combine (you can also stir).  Then add in the strawberry soda and alcohol if you wish, stir it all together, then serve over ice. Garnish with a strawberry & you could even rim with some sugar if you’d like!

Makes 2 drinks.  Cheers!

xo,

Bess

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xo,

Bess

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Okay y’all, I told you one of my new year’s resolutions was to try at least 2 new recipes per month and today is the very first one!  After I saw someone on Instagram post a boomerang story showing a huge pot of Zuppa Toscana (which I had never heard of) it looked SO good I instantly googled it to see what was in it.  Turns out there are several different variations of Zuppa Toscana, and for me I really wanted to make it something I can put in the crockpot.  I hopped on Pinterest, searched for some recipes, found a couple that sounded good & easy, and then made my own tweaks.  So the recipe I’m sharing today is my own variation of Crockpot Zuppa Toscana.  And you know what?  I made it on a snowy January day, and it was the perfect cozy soup.

My primary switches were using chicken sausage and turkey bacon instead of traditional pork sausage and bacon.  I just don’t eat much pork and so when possible I like to use chicken or turkey instead.

Crockpot Zuppa Toscana

Ingredients:

• 1 pack chicken sausage (I used Boar’s Head Robust Italian Chicken Sausage – it’s precooked) but you could also use any kind of ground sausage you prefer
• 1 pound yellow potatoes
• 1 pack turkey bacon (6-8 slices)
• Oregano
• Minced Garlic
• Salt
• Crushed red pepper
• 4 cups chicken broth
• One 13.5oz can of full fat coconut milk (you can also instead use 1 cup heavy cream but our store was out. I would have preferred the heavy cream but this is a good alternative if you can’t find it or if you are dairy-free. the coconut milk does have a slight coconut flavor so if you don’t like coconut, you probably won’t like it as much)
• 3 cups of shredded kale

Directions:

• preheat oven and bake the turkey bacon for 30 minutes on 425 degrees (or until desired crispiness level)
• cut up potatoes into 1/4 inch pieces
• sliced chicken sausage and lightly brown them in a frying pan with a little olive oil
• when bacon is done, remove and chop up into pieces once it’s cooled
• add all ingredients into the crockpot and cook on low for 6 hours, or high for approximately 3 hours.
• after the time is up, add the coconut milk and the kale and stir all together, let it cook for 15 more minutes on high

And that’s about it!  Let me know if you make it!  We will definitely be making it again.

xo,

Bess

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I concocted this roasted chickpea, pomegranate & pear salad when I was thinking of different fall flavors and ingredients that would pair well in a salad for Thanksgiving!  I was really pleased with how well it came out.  One change I would recommend is doing kale instead of mixed greens.  Mixed greens is just what I had but I think kale would be better since it’s a “stronger” green and can better hold the weight of all the other ingredients, and also last longer as the other greens seem to wilt under it after a day (which is fine, just means it won’t last as long for leftovers.)  Just massage the kale with a little olive oil first and you’d be good to go!  If you’re not into kale, though, feel free to use whatever green you prefer.

Roasted Chickpea, Pomegranate & Pear Salad

Ingredients

• 2 cans chickpeas, drained & rinsed
• Leafy green of your preference- kale/mixed greens/spinach etc.
• Pomegranate arils (I removed these manually from 1 whole pomegranate. Feel free to find them already separated if you can, it’ll save you some time!)
• 3-4 bosc pears, thinly sliced
• rosemary
• salt
• candied pecans or another flavored pecan (I found a maple pecan at the grocery store & it worked great!) or plain can work fine as well
• champagne vinaigrette

Directions

• preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with tin foil. grease sheet with avocado oil spray or other nonstick oil spray of your preference
• pour chickpeas into a large bowl, drizzle olive oil over top and add rosemary & salt to taste. stir to combine.
• add chickpeas to baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until desired crispiness
• remove & let cool before adding to salad
• Add all ingredients to the bowl over the greens, & add dressing just before serving!

Easy & so good!  Let me know if you try it!

xo,
Bess

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I loveee banana bread.  Anyone else?!  I realized over the weekend that I haven’t actually made it in at least 2 years…wut!  So, since it was the end of the week and we had some overripe bananas, I decided to change that.  I used this recipe that I shared on the blog back in 2016, but I made just a tiny couple changes for this protein chocolate chip banana bread, which I’ll outline below.  It’s all very easy to make and it’s so yummy.  It definitely doesn’t last long in our house.  If you wanted to omit the protein powder, you can do that and instead use 2 cups of flour instead of 1.5 cups…but I don’t think you can notice it and I always like an extra dose of protein for those muscles and to help with satiety!

Protein Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/3  cup melted coconut oil
• 2 eggs
• 4 medium-large mashed bananas
• 1/4 cup almond milk
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1.5 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup protein powder (I used this kind.  I recommend a vanilla flavored one.)
• Dark chocolate chips…as many as you want! (optional, try any mix-ins you want!)  I used the Lily’s Dark Baking Chocolate Chips.

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease loaf pan
• Whisk together eggs and melted coconut oil, then add in mashed bananas, milk, vanilla extract, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon and whisk those together as well
• Stir flour and chocolate chips in until just combined
• Bake for 45-50 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean) and let cool before slicing
• Enjoy!

If you make it, tag me on Instagram @besshcarter so I can see!

xo,

Bess

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If it’s fall then you know we are making chili to have for dinner basically every single week.  It’s just so yummy, so easy, and such a great cozy, comfort food while still having lots of nutritional benefits.  It’s a fall favorite for sure!  I’m going to share my crockpot chili recipe in this post…sometimes I add in other things or take things out based on what I have on hand, but that’s the beautiful thing about chili and the crockpot, just throw it in and it’s okay if you don’t always have the exact same things each time!  I’ll also share my little chili “hack” that really takes it up a notch.

Crockpot Chili

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground turkey (or beef or chicken, whatever you prefer)
• 2 packets of chili seasoning
• 1 green pepper
• 1 small yellow onion
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can kidney beans
• 1 can pinto beans
• 1 can Amy’s Southwestern Vegetable Fire Roasted Soup
• 1 can Amy’s Black Bean Chili
• Toppings: shredded cheese, sour cream, avocado, tortilla chips

Directions

• Brown meat and cook with 1 packet of chili seasoning
• Dice pepper and onion
• Add all ingredients (don’t drain beans) to crock pot and stir in second packet of chili seasoning until well combined
• Cook on low for 4 hours or high for 2 hours
• Complete with desired toppings!

So my “hack” is to add a can or two (depending on how much you want to make) of a soup that you think would be really good to sort of “beef up” your mixture!  I was just finding that beans alone weren’t quite enough for us so these soup mixtures help with that!  I’ve also done creamy tomato soup, and if you like a creamier chili then definitely give that a try!  I’m not about chopping up a bunch of ingredients so these soups add in extra veggies too which is always a good thing!

Hope you like the crockpot chili and let me know if you make it!

xo,

Bess

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Last weekend for our anniversary dinner we went to The Admiral, an Asheville favorite of ours.  We got a few different starters to share, and one of those things were roasted shishito peppers.  (Side note: if you are hoping to see these on the menu, they change their menu weekly so they may not be there.)  Well, let me tell you that those things blew. me. away.  We loved them!  They were soooo good.  And since it was basically just peppers I figured, why not try to recreate this at home?  So that’s the backstory behind how this entire dinner came to be.

I had already decided about recreating the pepper dish, but what to serve with it?  Craig actually had the idea of doing teriyaki chicken when I told him that shishito peppers are from Japan…so there you have it!  Then I just had to figure out how to cook my teriyaki chicken.  I followed this recipe for the peppers and knew I’d need my oven free to broil the peppers, and so I decided to attempt a crockpot teriyaki chicken to keep it extra easy on myself.  Y’all know I’m all about keepin’ it easy especially when it comes to cooking.

To make the crockpot teriyaki chicken, I simply got 2 chicken breasts and poured some teriyaki sauce (the specific kind I used was soy vay very very teriyaki), a drizzle of honey, and some coconut aminos (you can use soy sauce if you prefer, they taste the same) over top and let it cook on high for about 3 hours.  I’ll be honest I didn’t closely monitor the exact time frame, so if you’re cooking it this way just keep an eye on them so they don’t over cook.  I actually prefer for teriyaki chicken to be a little crispier on the outside and still a bit tender on the inside, and it worked out perfectly.  I also didn’t measure portions of the sauce, but it did not fully submerge the chicken.  I did flip them about half way through to make sure the sauce was sinking in everywhere   So yeah…not really a recipe but more of a “throw it all in a crockpot” kinda deal.  It’ll work out.

The peppers are best served with a cool dipping sauce if you’re into that kind of thing…I didn’t think much about this ahead of time so I just used the yogurt ranch dressing I had in the fridge.  But it was delicious!

Let me know if you try it!

xo,

Bess

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