Finding Home in the Kitchen

July 17 - Don’t let the restaurants and traveling fool you, behind all that I’m a home body at heart. There’s nothing better than feeling at home, and since I’ve been bouncing around for months now, to Europe, back home and then to a new job in a different state, home has been a real relative term. The one thing that I can do anywhere and make it feel like home is cook.

In Spain, my host mother cooked all my meals, and as amazing as she was, all I could think about was the first time I’d get to be home and in control of what I’m eating. At first this meant Shake Shack and a hot date with the Chick’n Shack (The best thing on the menu and I WILL fight you on that). But soon it turned into thoughts of a home cooked meal. For most college kids that most often means from their parents, but for me, it means cooking for myself. As you’d imagine, traveling away from home for that long, and then moving away to a new job comes with a lot of anxiety, and for me, constant thought about where to be and what I need to be doing. But cooking, that’s just between me, the kitchen, and the food. Set time where all I need to be doing is following a recipe and paying attention to the progress. (And drinking a glass of wine of course.) It’s bliss. It’s a self-made home anywhere I go.

The people I’m with help, too, of course. So, for this post I’ll include three recipes, all of them inspired by some of my favorite things I’ve cooked in the past that I’d been missing, which I enjoyed alongside people I had missed as well.

Family dinner - Chicken Piccata (Including Brenda and Bob, of course)

Best friend dinner - Roasted onions, peppers, black beans with rice and green chile sauce

Derived from: Sheet Pan Tostadas with Black Beans and Peppers

To make it like us: Ditch the tostadas and serve roasted veggies over brown rice with the green chile sauce (add to your heart's desire!)

Boyfriend dinner – Lemon chicken with a pesto and avocado caprese salad

Piece it together yourself with these recipes: Chicken Breasts with Lemon

Use the mozzarella, tomato, basil salad from this recipe and add avocado: Chicken Milanese