About Gina Marie

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So far Gina Marie has created 328 blog entries.

One-Skillet Crispy Lemon Pepper Chicken Thighs and Whole Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Guys, I’m kinda lazy.

Not really. I do stuff. All the time. I’m busy. I’m living my life and trying to keep up with laundry and take the dog to the park, and shove pills down my asthmatic cat’s gullet (honestly, my husband has been doing this–he is a saint, because she’s terrifying). I’m trying to run multiple businesses, continue to heal from multiple illnesses, and all while trying to still be nice to my husband when it’s late and I’m starving and no one has cooked dinner, and we basically just want to eat ice cream and pass out on the couch to Bobs Burgers.  Basically, I am you.  […]

Grain-Free Lemon Apricot Yogurt Cake + How Social Media Makes Me Feel Like A Big Fat Failure

Hello. How are you? I made you cake.

In truth, I made you this cake months ago, but I didn’t share it with you then. Rude. I know.

More truth.

I have two speeds when I’m overwhelmed. The first speed is the high speed of my Kitchen Aid mixer making something superfluous, or the low and slow bubbling of something rich and comforting (read: this eggplant parm). Yeah, the first speed happens somewhere in my kitchen. The second speed isn’t really a speed at all. It looks more like a scared, paralyzed possum who’s instinctively playing dead.  Yes, this is perhaps the slowest speed. It’s a dead (er…playing dead) stop. This is one functional step above lying on the floor of your closet with the lights off and the door closed, foraging a bed out of your impressively large worn-out sweater collection. […]

Is Your Skincare and Makeup Routine Toxic? Mine Was. Here’s How I Changed That!

I’ve always loved beauty products. When I was a tweenager, I would go into a Victoria’s Secret, or a Bath and Body Works, and come out smelling like a very cheap, very young hooker. Rude, but true. I mean, what thirteen-year-old girl can resist rubbing something called “Amber Romance” into her skin and topping it off with a Strawberries and Champagne body spray? Not this one. My father spent years making it very well known that I smelled like an unbearable chemical hooker bomb. Every morning after my daily lotioning and spritzing routine, he would remark in a disgusted voice, “Oh, GOD, Have you been creaming again?” As a teenager, I thought he was being a real oversensitive Daddy Doofus, but as an adult, and as someone who’s struggled with chronic illness and chemical sensitivity (and, honestly, as someone who has inherited that same very sensitive Italian Dad Nose), I can tell you that stuff was simply no good. Have you ever tried to walk into one of those lotion-y, cream-y stores as a sensible Italian-nosed adult? Not to be dramatic, but it’s essentially like walking into chemical cupcake hell. Okay, that was dramatic — but, like, totally correct. […]

Spring Asparagus Salad with Pistachios and Pecorino

Hello. It’s nice to see you all again.

First off, I’d just like to casually acknowledge that I’m not dead. So, that’s good. Still alive. But, if you follow me on Instagram, and watch my Insta-Stories, you might know that I happened to catch some sort of viral pneumonia situation, which at times, felt like I very well might be dead. Or, at least deliriously living in between a state of breathing and some sort of dark cough-prison where my bones weigh a million pounds and the Real Housewives of Potomac waxes un-poetically in the background. Do you understand the depths of Netflix garbage you can consume in a period of nine weeks of respiratory lock down? I pray you never have to know. […]