In 2020 I have a goal to try 52 new recipes. I have fallen a bit behind because I should be over half way by now. My fiancé and I have been cooking a lot at home but not necessarily following recipes. He is more of a shoot from the hip type cook. This past week I have made a lot of progress with my recipe goal!

I went to the Farmer’s Market in my neighborhood last week and found some great broccoli, zucchini and cucumbers. Pinterest helped me find some fun and easy recipes to try. Here are my first attempts. I’m trying to add more veggies into my diet but in a fun way so it doesn’t feel limiting. It’s all about balance! I still add cheese in some recipes but don’t eat a quesadilla every day. Balance. My fiancé has also been out of town so I can try health recipes that I know he wouldn’t be into at all. Instead of ordering takeout while he wasn’t here to cook for me, I pushed myself to cook at home.

Parmesan Zucchini Bites

I found this recipe from the Everyday Dishes website here. It was super simple to just slice up the zuchhini, add toppings and bake. This is a great easy snack to eat while you are cooking the rest of your meal. Which is exactly what I did. There weren’t any left by the time the other dishes were ready to take a pic of everything together.

Zucchini Garlic Bites

This recipe was a little more complicated because you had to mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then roll into balls. But still very easy to make. This recipe is on the Grow A Good Life Blog here. I put a little too much salt so they were a bit salty but otherwise pretty good. Not quite as delicious as dipping mozzarella sticks into marinara sauce but a nice pretty healthy alternative.

Broccoli Fritters

I mixed two recipes here because I didn’t have all the correct ingredients for either. One was from Cooktoria and the other was from Whole Lotta Yum. One recipe only used broccoli stems for riced broccoli and the other used just the florets. I combined to use both. I also did not cook the broccoli before so it was raw going into the mix. Instead of flour, I used a millet flour as a gluten free alternative. I was impressed with the outcome. There were a couple that got a bit burnt on one side but still turned out fine. The batch was pretty big for one person so I had leftovers for a few days. I chopped up the cakes and put them into salads.

Charred broccoli with Sriracha almond butter sauce

This was probably my favorite recipe of the greens recipe batch, mainly because of the sriracha almond butter sauce. The sauce had a perfect flavor. I almost forgot the sriracha because it tasted great before that and then the spiciness added a whole new level to the sauce. This recipe came from the Pure Wow blog. I forgot to get the edamame like the recipe called for but substituted celery instead. The recipe said to use a peeler to slice off the outer part of the broccoli stems and get to the edible inside. I had never done this before! When you chop off the whole stem, you are losing so much of the broccoli. I didn’t have grape seed oil so I substituted olive oil and it worked out well. Cooking the broccoli on the stove was super simple. I made the sauce while the broccoli was on the stove. Definitely recommend trying this recipe!

Green sammie

This vegetable sandwich was inspired by a recipe on Two Peas and Their Pod for a cucumber and avocado sandwich. I took the recipe as a starting point and added more with ingredients I had in the fridge. It ended up having cucumber, avocado, cream cheese, goat cheese, mushrooms, and greens. The end result was a very refreshing light lunch!

Everything Bagel Cucumber bites

This little side dish was inspired by a recipe on All Day I Dream About Food. My presentation wasn’t as great as on their blog but the taste was great. It’s super simple! Well I cheated because I have Everything Bagel spice in a jar whereas the recipe tells you how to make it on your own. So all I had to do was cut the cucumber into slices, top with cream cheese and sprinkle the Everything Bagel seasoning on top. Delightful.

Tuna Melt Zucchini Boats

Another easy recipe. I already had tuna at home so didn’t have to grab anything extra from the store. This recipe had an easy video to follow on Pinterest but originally came from the Healthy Fitness Meals website. I cut the zucchini in half, covered in olive oil and baked it by itself. While that was baking, I mixed together the tuna salad. Then when the zucchini was done, I put the tuna salad on top with cheese and jalapeños and baked that all together. A nice healthy low carb dinner. There was even some tuna salad leftover that I used to make sliders for lunch the following day.

I’m glad I pushed myself to find creative recipes for the vegetables that I had and it was a fun week of new things to try. I also had so much food but didn’t spend very much money which was awesome. Cheers to veggies and saving money!