Time for some spring cleaning.  But not the boring type.  

The boring type would be cleaning my closet or bathroom.  I'm talking the food involved type.  Spring cleaning my fridge!  So this month, the Recipe ReDux theme is "Spring Cleaning."  It wasn't difficult to realize that I had some ingredients that needed used up.  Honestly, some of my favorite meals are thrown up by looking at what is in my fridge and just going with it.  

So where have I been these past 5 weeks?  Busy.  Gosh I'm a terrible blogger.  Guys I'm so sorry.  So I'm in the food service rotation of my dietetic internship and if your at all familiar with food service, the hours aren't typical and there is food around me ALL DAY LONG.  Sounds like a good thing from a money standpoint (and a food lovers perspective) but it probably isn't... but I'll get to that later.  Because I haven't been preparing many of my own meals for the past month and a half, I haven't really been cooking or grocery shopping.  Hence, no recipes recently.

So, when I was tasked with spring cleaning my fridge, there wasn't much to go through.  However, I had recently bought a bunch of eggs on sale that were going to go bad, and had some veggies that were on their last leg, in addition to some chicken sausage in the freezer and then BAM!  This recipe was born.  Frittatas are no brainer recipes that you cant mess up.  Throw in whatever you need to eat into the mix and then bake.  Couldn't be easier.  The best part is that I've had a grab and go breakfast for days now.  Just pop a slice of the leftover frittata in the microwave and you're good to go.  For those of you unfamiliar with frittatas, think of it as basically a crustless egg pie.  SO DELICIOUS.

So if you've made it this far in the post, congratulations!  I wanted to take a minute to share with you some of my personal observations while temporarily joining the world of food service management.  Having the majority of my meals provided for has been nothing short of wonderful.  However, it has put me in an environment forcing me to make choices I haven't had to make in a long time.  As many of you know, I am a huge advocate for the concept that nutrition is dependent on us making educated choices; weighing the decisions of the food we eat.  I don't think of any one food as good or bad.  I think of eating as a series of choices.  I think that it's okay to eat that cookie, as long as you understand that it might be less filling than eating Greek yogurt with fruit.  Eating is all about understanding the choices we make in order to achieve balance.  My typical stocked fridge at home is mostly filled with healthy snacks, fruits, and veggies so making the smart decision is usually pretty easy for me.  However, being in an environment where all the healthy and less healthy options I could ever dream of are readily available has been nothing but challenging.  I have made the conscious choice to pick the options like curly fries and cookies instead of fruit and baked potatoes.  Having the less desirable choices around is tempting and choosing to not eat them is not easy.  I've even gained a few pounds these last few weeks, however, I don't fall back on my opinion.  Eating is not about the food options available, but the choices we make in order to achieve balance.  I've chosen to eat cookies every day.  That's my choice.  It's not the fault of the facility I'm working in that I've gained a few pounds.  They have not forced me to eat a cookie with lunch every day.  I've decide to.  I'm using this as a way to reflect on the experience.  While I understand why some people may not always agree with my nutritional perspective, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on these past few weeks and relate it back to my soapbox.  

I like this recipe a lot.  You can literally throw in any veggies or meats you like.  Get creative with your frittatas and tell me what add-ins you'll use!  

serves 6

OH HEY GUYS.  Life has been crazy.  Ranch makes it better.

I'm getting back into that whole, being sent all over Central IL to spend 40 hours each week working dietitians only to come home to grad school homework.  Let's put it this way.  I'm not in the mood to think creatively.  Food consists of lots of eggs.  Lots of eggs.  Because who doesn't love eggs?  And the fact they've been on sale recently may be a part of it too...

Anyway... this past Sunday was the Super Bowl.  While football happened, I think we can all agree the real winner Sunday was left shark.  So there was a gathering of sorts for the game.  I'm sorry I meant for the "Katy Perry concert featuring football."  Sorry I'm not very funny.  This gathering was a bunch of the dietetic interns so clearly it was more or less a healthy Super Bowl party.  And this amazing ranch dip was made.  Shout out to Katie (or should I be blaming her...) for making me dream of ranch this week.  

I'm all for making things from scratch, don't get me wrong but I've been craving ranch like no other and wasn't about to go to the store to buy extra spices when I had 2 packets of ranch seasoning right at home.  Do you ever just have those moments where you want something right away and don't want to wait?  That's the story of my life.  I love instant gratification.  Like if I have an insane cookie craving, I have no patience to wait and defrost one from my freezer, or bake a batch from scratch...NO I have to run to the store and buy cookies.  My impatience can almost be an inconvenience sometimes.  But not with these burgers.  Ranch seasoning makes instant gratification exactly that:  instant.  Hence the inspiration for my ranch burgers.  Ranch tastes good on a burger so why not mix it in?  You could totally make the ranch seasoning blend from scratch but when you're busy, who wants to spend more than 20 minutes cooking and cleaning?  I'd like to argue that this meal took 15 minutes to make.  That's right; I dare you to come time me.  

While the burgers cook, you prepare the ranch dip.  Who doesn't love ranch dip?  This is creamy and tart and has all the ranch flavor you love.  And I made it with Greek yogurt!  So it's got protein and it's low in fat.  It's the best because it's healthy ranch.  If you aren't a Greek yogurt fan, you could always do light sour cream and half yogurt.  It's a good way to ease yourself into becoming a yogurt dip lover.

I suggest you eat your ranch sliders with your ranch dip.  Maybe even on a delicious bun with avocado, sriracha and some sharp cheddar.  Excuse me while I go make that sandwich now.  And if you're feeling extra crazy, some baked green bean fries to dip in that ranch?  My mouth is watering.