Basic Breakfasts

What I’m enjoying most about the summer is being around my family, close to the sun, with access to the beach. I love our shared meals, the fruit we always have in the house, my long post or pre-breakfast bike rides. Making breakfast for the family feels like less of a chore and more of a gift, dinner is more of a chore - if I’m being really real.

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I Didn't Make This Pizza (GASP)!

The day finally came, I warmed up a frozen cauliflower crust pizza (already topped) for my family Friday night dinner. And it was pretty delicious. It felt all kinds of wrong being as we are 1) Italian and 2) my father had a pizzeria but 3) I don’t care. I’m human and making homemade cauliflower crust pizza for dinner wasn’t in the timeline for the day, I needed a beach and some time out of the kitchen. 

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A Picnic Bounty: Fresh Summer Bites + Meals Beyond the Basket

One of my all time favorite spring/summer and early fall events is the picnic.  There's an art to a picnic, you see. One does not want to pack food that is messy or cumbersome, as proper picnic food should be portable, light and easy to eat.  The best picnic baskets, if you ask me, are filled with fresh fruit, nuts, spreads, bread, olives, a

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Two Speedy Stovetop Veggie Sides For Summer

This week I spent $13.49 on vegetables to get me through the week until I fly south to see the family. That said, it's been hot and sticky here in NY which means that roasting and turning on the oven is a huge no no.  Luckily, my life is pretty saucy (that's a pesto joke) and I've figured out a thing or two when it comes to cooking veggies on

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Long Green Thing, You Make My Heart Sing

The cucuzza - known in my home as googootz - may be my very favorite squash. I anxiously await summer because I await its seasonal goodness. OK, the absolute truth, Italian woman’s honor, is that I anxiously await summer because I can finally say goodbye to pale Tina and hello to Turbo Tanning Tina AND THEN I can say

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A Few New Ways To Use Avocados + Arugula

If you’ve read anything I’ve ever written recently or in the past, you know I’m single and over buy produce - it’s my thing. I’m a well intentioned shopper and eater who is sometimes tempted by wine, crepes, a night out or sushi on my couch. Every week I buy what looks best at the market - my only goal is to refresh my refrigerator with real/fresh food and produce.

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Another Day, Another Salad With Fish

Canned fish has gotten me through the last 15 months of health coaching, substitute teaching, random production work, single lady, solo meal, low budget living. That was a mouthful. My love for canned fish runs deep, as deep as it does for good olives, 85% Lindt chocolate bars and $9.99 bottles of Malbec that I so happily

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tina corrado
Burger Salad Dinner Dreams

Cooking on weeknights can be frustrating, tiring, blah, blah, blah.  I know, I get it. I work too. But a burger salad could be the solution to all of your weeknight cooking woes. Yes, it's true. 8 minutes to season and saute meat, and while that's happening you can chop your romaine, cucumbers, onions, cube feta and grab some olives.

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Fake-Out Cold Sesame Noodles

On Saturday night my father sent me a photo of my grandmother. This photo captured the essence of who she was as she stood in her element. Photographed standing over a table in the basement of our Brooklyn home, hair uncombed, glasses on, iron, scissors, clothes, and her sewing machine surrounding her - all I had to do was

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Slow Cooker Chipotle Chicken

Last Thursday I was walking home from work and took a terrible typical Tina tumble on the street. My bod is beat, which makes it kinda hard to do like life stuff. No one to grocery shop or do my laundry. I was tired and grandmaster cranks - but I knew the most helpful and healing thing I could do was take care of myself.

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Sweet + Salty PARTY NUTS!

Sometimes I walk past those semi-dirty looking NYC street nut vendors and I wanna stop, but I say resist - Tina - resist. Lord knows what’s in those nuts and, let’s face it, they smell much better than they actually taste.
Bored of your same old same old mixed nut? You can feel super about this combo of molasses (a great low GI sweetener) and

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tina corrado
Dance With Flavor + Texture: Trick Your Mouth Into Complete Satisfaction

At home, I tend to lean toward cooking food with a lot of flavor and texture. I’ve spent a lot of my downtime exploring spices, writing about the food of Queens and Canarsie - the neighborhood where I grew up. Canarsie, once famed for Italian salumerias and bakeries, bagels and babka - now houses a large West Indian/Caribbean population. It's through this eating and writing that I opened up my mind, palate and kitchen to cooking globally. 

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tina corrado
Cooking Routines + Many Food Photos For Inspiration

This past week of cooking wasn't unlike any other with the exception that I realized a few things about my routine. Over the last 17 years I've created a routine that I so steadfastly maintained to keep up my health, happiness, cooking curiosity and weight loss. After 3 months of teaching, 5am wake-ups and getting home at 4pm I now know that I don't need to apply my old routine from my old life to my new life. In my old life I got home most evenings stupid late and then I checked emails to even more stupid late hours (part neuroses, part necessity). I didn't have time or energy during the week for much of anything but boozing and walks, so I did my best to batch cook on Sundays to get me through lunches and freezer meals for dinner when I wanted and needed.

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tina corrado
Beat That Beet Up

A few weeks I bought my favorite pre-peeled and pre-cooked Gefen Organic Beets. 

Why do I love these whole peeled, ready to eat, vacuum sealed, organic beets?

Because they are mess and hassle free, my weeknight lunch prepping and snacky friends.

Put them in a quick salad, eat them as is (I'm strange, I can snack on sweet beets and sometimes I crave exactly that) or turn them into your favorite dip. 

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A Salad Less Ordinary + A 2 Ingredient Avocado Spread

I’ve been cooking quite a bit, but with the balancing of substitute teaching and coaching - recipe posting has taken a backseat for the moment. Waking at 5am and getting home at 4pm, although shorter than my corporate days are still somewhat anxiety filled (counting kids and making sure everyone is learning, getting along, practicing kindness and has not gone missing) but much more joyful. 
Saying I’m ok with not writing and running myself ragged while I continue to take on new work and projects makes me proud, where as in the past I would have made myself feel terrible for not doing it all.
Maybe you’re thinking, why is this broad telling me this? Just gimme the recipe for that green stuff on that salad and I’ll be on my way … 

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Sweet Potato Noodles: From The Freestyle Cooking Files

This morning I left my home in snow boots and a winter coat, but by the time I got out of school at 3pm I was greeted with melted snow and a sense of calm. Although I hear there is supposed to be a blast of snow yet, again, tomorrow and Sunday. Tonight’s dinner was inspired by the sunny NYC sky and my walk home.  It’s been a minute since I made myself a dinner because I was down and out with the ills. Without a chance to do any shopping, but relying on my staples and produce from last week. So, what’s in this bright bowl of orange noodles? 

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Not Corned Beef + Cabbage

I’ve been warding off the ills since Wednesday. The creep of a cough, sneezes in succession, ear buzzing and a runny nose - I told myself it was the onset of allergies. I popped a Zyrtek and told myself it was the onset of allergies knowing full well that tiny humans who put their hands in their mouths, fingers up their noses and wipe snots on their sleeves … touch me all day long. And you know what, I don’t even mind. I imagined going down this whole sub teaching path I’d be way more neurotic about sickness, being within close proximity to small beings and with the knowledge that all of my teacher friends are always - in some way - sick. I don’t have it in my heart to not let them tap my hand, high five or pinky promise even after said snot riot I speak of above. I simply remind them to cover their mouth when they cough, wash hands after sneezing and remind them how germs spread. 

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