Home Remedies: Tips and tricks for making restaurant food at home

With the new reality of quarantine and social distancing, there’s one thing we’re all missing — restaurant food. And yes, we could rely on curbside pick up, but let’s face it: with the stay-at-home order, sometimes leaving the house can feel daunting. To help cure my my no-dine-out dejection, I’ve come up with easy at-home recipes to make some of my (and hopefully your) favorite restaurant foods: an acai smoothie bowl, a salad from The Mixx and a frappuccino from Starbucks.

Acai bowl

At-home smoothies have always been my go-to for breakfast, lunch or a snack. But quarantine has made me more adventurous and given me too much time on my hands — I’ve branched out to making acai bowls — basically glorified smoothie bowls with an added crunch. 

Of the three recipes I recreated, this one was the easiest. All I had to do was partially thaw one of Trader Joe’s acai packets and follow the directions on the back, adding a frozen banana, strawberries and orange juice into a blender. I tried to use as little OJ as possible — I wanted to make sure it was thick. I like my acai bowls pretty frozen, so I stuck it in the freezer for 30 minutes until the top was frosted. To top the bowl off, I added sliced bananas, granola and honey for added sweetness.

Not to toot my own horn, but it turned out pretty well. Everything worked in harmony to create a a fruity, smooth-with-the-occasional-crunch snack. Whether that was from the crunchy granola and natural candy-esque honey or the refreshing taste of the fruit. What I love about acai bowls is that you don’t even need a recipe, so I encourage you to raid your freezer for frozen fruit and swap out your normal smoothie for an acai bowl. 

The Mixx Salad
Normally when I want to treat myself to a healthy meal, I drag myself to The Mixx for a mini thai salmon salad. But since I’m trying to leave the house as little as possible, I decided to make one for myself.

After looking at their menu I decided to recreate their Main Street Chop Chop salad. Their menu lists every ingredient in the salad, so I made a list and headed to the store. The list was pretty extensive, I have to say — I doubt everyone has sugar snap peas, lentils and turkey in their pantry. After mixing everything together in a big bowl for my whole family and even making my own mustard vinaigrette, I went to show my mom — she smuggly replied “you know when they make their salad they chop it all up with a knife.” Tough critic.

After trying out the “chop” part of the salad by jamming a chef’s knife into the salad laid out on a cutting board, I realized that it was too much work and decided to stop. At least it’s just a recreation, right?

Despite my lack of chopping ability the salad was delicious. The vinaigrette harmonized with the garbanzo beans, lentils and turkey — and the sugar snap peas offered the perfect bit of crunch. Although it was a lot of work, it fed my whole family and kept us all full, something I would consider a win. And any of their salads can be recreated at home, since their menu lists all the ingredients — I may even try making their Santa Fe Chicken Salad next.

Starbucks
For me, nostalgia has come along with the quarantine-boredom. As I was stalking myself on Instagram last week (yes, I’m that bored), I found a selfie of me with a Starbucks frappuccino. My eighth-grade-self led me to find a mocha-chip recipe from a very trustworthy source, the Pioneer Woman, a cook who has her own show on Food Network.

This one didn’t even require going to the store, since the only thing I didn’t have was sweetened condensed milk (pro tip: granulated sugar makes a good alternative). Even though the blender can be tricky to deal with sometimes, the outcome was worth it.

The flavors of chocolate and coffee made for a rich combo and its slushie-like texture is just what you need after a family walk. The chocolate chips added the much needed crunch and texture variation of the drink. The only complaint I had was that my cold coffee for the recipe wasn’t strong enough for my taste, so make sure that when you make this yourself, you make the coffee the night before and concentrate the grounds a bit more than usual. This definitely raised my spirits and provided a much needed blast from the past during this crazy time.