Author: talbakes

My name is Tal. I love to cook. Besides an oven, my life consists of a hodgepodge of things that shouldn't go together, don't make sense, are super random, really epic or just plain suck. I'm not an expert by any means. But I agree to take you along with me and maybe we can learn from each other. T.

A Donut Shop Really?

So believe it or not, I actually do own a donut shop. It sounded cute and cuddly until I started actually working there. I had to juggle my 3 kids, a crazy ex-husband and an extremely back-breaking business venture. The previous owner was one of my friends and she worked there by herself. And when I say by herself I mean BY HERSELF. We were super excited about me taking on this new project and completely unrealistic. So yeah I had to learn how to make donuts and some different pastries. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever learned to cook. Not to mention the most labor-intensive.

Then I had to deal with customers who were extremely hurt their favorite donut lady was leaving. Probably the most depressing time of my life because it seemed like nothing I did was working. The building itself was extremely old from like the 70s. So everything you can imagine that could break on my watch, did break on my watch. It put a new meaning to 99 Problems. Lol. So between learning how to make donuts, shit breaking all the time, and a crazy ex threatening to burn it all down I lost a little bit of my sanity along the way.

I had to learn how to run a business while I was running a business. I don’t suggest anyone try that at home. I picked up side hustles to still pay my bills while I was figuring out the financially draining situation. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I do have direction and I do know how to make donuts really well. So now that most of my finances are caught up, it now leaves me more freedom which means I can focus on making the shop better. So NO, I haven’t given up on my business I just realized not all my eggs are going into it. I have to make sure that I have other things set up so that I can truly have the time to grow the business. And be able to profit from it.

Lol starting from scratch sucks… Yet here we are…

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Pinto Beans

So pinto beans are actually one of my favorite kinds of beans. They’re very versatile as far as flavoring goes. A lot of people put ham in their pinto beans to flavor it. I don’t eat pork anymore due to dietary laws so I had to figure out new creative ways to flavor my favorite beans. This time around I wanted to give them a more bolder flavor. I don’t want to bore you with a step-by-step process. I mean it’s pretty simple you wash the beans. Finely chop up some onion and fresh garlic and sautee with sea salt and black pepper. Once those are browning go ahead and add the pinto beans stir them around. Add about an inch of water above the beansh. Lastly add a Maggi seasoning cube. Put in about a teaspoon of tumeric and of cumin. Add more salt and pepper to taste and let it cook down. It’s super fast and super easy and they’re pretty much done in about maybe 15 minutes at the most. 👌🏽

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Tomato and Cucumber Salad

I love salads but they can get boring real fast. I swear in America we have some of the most simplest boring foods out there… like no creativity. Like our salads consist of lettuce tomato, cucumber and put some dressing on it. And the dressing kind of makes it pointless that you ate a salad if you’re counting calories and stuff. What I found useful is to remove the lettuce. You want to make a salad interesting once you take lettuce out of the picture you now have to figure out how to make this a full side. That’s when you start to experiment with different types of vegetables, spices and herbs that can actually make your salad exciting and people will want to eat it. Also this will make it healthier for you and you can get away from that dependency of “Do I have salad dressing in the refrigerator?”

So tonight I made a tomato and cucumber salad influenced by Mediterranean cooking. I used what I had in the pantry. I tend to keep vinegar and olive oil on deck at all times. You can always use them to flavor food’s. What makes this a little bit different is that I add cilantro. So if you’re one of those people who hate cilantro you can actually get off my blog right now because I love it and it tends to pop up in the most unusual dishes. Also I love these little spicy peppers they’re pretty as far as color goes and they really pep up a salad.

What’s in it? Cilantro, peperoncini, tomato’s, cucumbers, red onions, black olives and feta cheese.

Toss with red wine vinegar, olive oil, sea salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

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