cooking Archives - How She Styles

I have been writing this type of post since November and I have rarely accomplished all the goals I give myself. A lot of people would consider this a failure. However, for me I just believe that the goals I am setting are not manageable enough for me to accomplish in a month’s time. This time around I decided to give myself five manageable goals that I know I can accomplish all at once within one month. I also tried to choose goals that are involved in different areas of my life, like personal care, fitness, health, etc. I am working towards creating a daily routine I can stick to and make these goals into habits that are part of my daily life.

February Goals 2018 - Read 1 Book This Month

Read One Entire Book

I haven’t done this in a few months and I miss reading. I find myself on my phone all the time. Reading gives me the chance to take a break from a screen, and maybe learn something new. I took out two books from my local library. One book is all about understanding compulsion and the other is a collection of short stories from The Moth.

Cook Once Per Week

This is something I have tried before and failed at, but I am determined to get into the kitchen. Like a lot of people my age, I am so reliant on eating out and that is money I could be spending somewhere else. Money saving aside, making my own food puts me in complete control of the portion and ingredients so I can tailor it to my needs.

Be Active 30 minutes A Day For Four Days A Week

Staying active in the colder months can be really difficult. Even if I’m staying in my house it’s easy to be too warm and cozy in my bed to workout in the morning, and too tired to workout in the evening. Giving workouts a time limit makes it easy to fit it into my day and puts fitness into manageable bites. I am not expecting myself to workout every day because sometimes life gets in the way. Maybe if this goes well I will increase the time spent exercising or number of days I am active. I just want to use something that I can keep track of so I don’t go to many days without being active.

Sell/Donate At Least 20 Items

I did a big clear out back in the summer and now I am going to do the same with all my winter stuff. If I haven’t used a piece this season I probably won’t. I am going to go through my entire wardrobe and pulling out at least 20 pieces I am not wearing to try and get to my perfect wardrobe.

Use Nail Oil Every Day for The Month of February

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to take better care of my hair, skin, and nails. With that, I want to start with my nails. They have always been a pain because up until I was 18 I was biting them. Now I am not biting them but I pick, and they get really dry so it’s not a pretty sight(TMI). My goal is to start to add nail care to my daily routine. I want to make my nails and the skin around them to be really healthy by applying nail oil daily either in the morning or at night.

Those are the five goals I will be trying every day to accomplish. What are some of your monthly goal? Let me know in the comments below!

As you may know, I just moved to a new apartment and I’m all on my own (with roommates), which means I’m cooking 90% of my meals, unless my mom sends me home with leftovers when I visit her. I don’t know about you guys, but cooking is terrifying for me because I don’t have much experience cooking with meats. I’m always worried I’ll make myself or others sick or the worst case scenario, it won’t taste good.

Concerns aside, I knew I needed to figure out this cooking thing, since I wanted to be able to entertain guests with food and really prove to myself that I could do it.

Until recently I had been surviving on pasta and eggs. For my first real meal I went with a chicken dish called Bang Bang Chicken.

Apparently it’s sold at Cheesecake Factory or inspired by a dish there. It’s a slightly spicy chicken dish with only a few simple ingredients.

The first step was to go grocery shopping, which was a painful experience because I had so little in my kitchen that I needed to buy some staple foods and it cost me more than I’d planned.

I made this dish with a friend in the past, but making it by myself was slightly more challenging due to the fact that there were so many variables. A ton of breaded chicken, adding the appropriate amount of oil, and of course a hot frying pan.

The recipe calls for a few chicken breasts cut up into pieces and that makes a lot of chicken bites. I decided to put the chicken in the pan three batches at a time because I had a lot of chicken and not so large pan.

My first batch was a bit of a struggle because all my cut up chicken pieces were stuck together and my brain and my spatula were disconnected. I couldn’t flip the chicken over when necessary so I wasn’t sure if the chicken was cooking evenly. I was adding a little oil here and there to avoid overcooking the chicken, but I went a little overboard and the chicken in the first batch was a bit too greasy.

After the second batch turned out well, I decided to start making the accompanying sauce while I was waiting for the chicken to cook. This actually went pretty well there was only slight burning on the bread crumb coating, but the flavor didn’t change much. I felt like an expert by the third batch, but some of the pieces of chicken were bigger than others and weren’t cooking at the same rate, so I started took pieces off as they finished cooking.
Who knew cooking could be fun! The rush from making something delicious is awesome! I learned it’s ok to make mistakes, just keep them in mind next time you hit the kitchen. Next, I’ll have to conquer some beef.