Chinese Slapped Cucumber

I am back from China! We had an amazing time, but traveling is so exhausting and over the course of our 2 week trip, we were in 4 different cities and on 6 different planes. Whew! Believe it or not, this was one of our very favorite dishes our tour guide searched out for us. I definitely cannot pronounce nor write the name in Mandarin, but it literally translates to slapped cucumber.

Pearl CousCous Vegetable Salad

 This has been one of my favorite side dishes lately. First off, look at at all of those colors! Helloooo vitamins! Thanks for joining the party- you are super delicious.

Miso Shrimp with Sautéed Vegetables (Clean and potentially Paleo)

Y'all, it has been a whirlwind of a past few weeks! Not really anything different has happened, other than I feel like I have been going non-stop from the moment I wake up at 5 am to the second I pass out from exhaustion at 10:30 pm with barely even a chance to check my email. It's pretty much a miracle my teeth get brushed and the dog gets fed and I haven't yet left my keys in the freezer. In the meantime, fast but fresh dinners like this one have been absolutely imperative during this recent craziness. 

Cowboy Caviar

I love that football season is here again. It's definitely more fun when Travis and I are able to watch games on TV, but here in Okinawa the games are usually on at odd hours.... like 2 am. Besides, we don't have a satellite dish or cable subscription- the monthly fee wasn't worth getting 5 American channels and 10 Japanese ones. Just didn't make sense, ya know? So we catch highlights on the military network at our respective jobs and live vicariously through friends on Facebook. We're both looking forward to next year when we'll move back to the States and can maybe get to a mid-season game or two!

Zucchini Cakes

The light at the end of the tunnel is in sight! In just a week, Travis and I are going on vacation to Sydney, Australia for 9 days! We are so excited and this vacation is very much needed- not to mention it will be a wonderful break from the heat and humidity here in Okinawa since it's the end of their winter there. 

In preparation our absence, we are trying to use up the produce in our fridge so it does not spoil. I've had several zucchini hanging out waiting to be used- it's very probable I saw some awesome zucchini recipes prior to going to the grocery store and plumb forgot what they were after buying the veggies! 

Crock Pot Macaroni and Cheese

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of this surprisingly delicious dish. I have a good excuse, I promise: I fed my coworkers. My overworked, under-appreciated, exhausted coworkers. The enlisted corpsmen live in dorm style barracks and have little to no facilities to cook food on their own, so they are forced to choke down whatever the hospital's cafeteria has to offer (Hospital food = bad. Military chow hall food = bad. Combine those and that's what they eat daily) or take a taxi out into town since most don't have cars and pay a lot more money to eat local cuisines. I feel for them, I do. I remember missing certain foods when I was a freshman in college and having no money but being completely sick of the cafeteria food. The other option was the 7-11 style store, which sold frozen dinners and junk food, which also gets old extremely fast.