I developed this recipe for a fellow blogger, Raquel at Sincerely Nourished, but wanted to make sure you all got to see it to! This is a super simple recipe anyone can throw together for dinner and is so packed with flavor you will feel like you are on vacation in North Africa!
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I’m back with another edition of The Recipe Roundup! This month’s recipes were super successful, so I am excited to share several quick, easy, and tasty recipes to add to your rotation!
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I’ve got an awesome, super simple, extra flexible recipe for you guys this week! Waffleritos. Yup, you guessed it, a combination of waffles and burritos, and what could be better than that? But first, some practical tips on how to cook with what you’ve got. The inspiration for the recipe and this post comes from this month’s challenge from The Recipe Redux:
Spring Clean the Kitchen. Cook with at least 3 ingredients that are actually in your refrigerator or pantry right now. Try not to go to the store to buy anything new. Give tips on how to make a healthy dish out of whatever you have on-hand.
This topic is near and dear to my heart and is tied to one of the complaints I hear from people over and over again—that they struggle with food waste—vegetables go bad before they can use them all up, meat is forgotten and goes off, and they are reluctant to buy recipe-specific ingredients because they aren’t sure how they will use the remainders in other recipes. I have even spoken with people who have decided that they’d rather order out instead of grocery shop and cook because the food waste stresses them out so much. I am very sympathetic to this struggle as it is one that I experienced for years when I was first becoming comfortable with cooking. I vividly remember going into my produce drawer and finding slimy green things that made my stomach turn. I also remember struggling with what to do with leftover ingredients from new recipes I had tried (I used to avoid buying cabbage and bok choy at all costs for this reason). Over time, though, as I became more comfortable with cooking and improvising, I found this source of stress started to dissipate and I developed a couple of tricks that were really helpful in avoiding food waste….
Each week as I am deciding on our meal plan for the coming week I ask for input from my family. This is a technique I have used for years not only so that I don’t have come up with every single idea, but also because I have found that if everyone knows that one of their favorites is coming in the next few days, I get more buy-in for trying new or different recipes. For my boys the requests are always the same: spaghetti and meatballs, Grappa’s macaroni and cheese, taco/burrito night, hot dogs, and baked chimichangas. Similarly, my husband has a couple of go-tos that he likes to request and one of them is Moroccan chicken….
I received free samples of Sabra Spreads mentioned in this post. By posting this recipe I am entering a recipe contest sponsored by Sabra and am eligible to win prizes associated with the contest. I was not compensated for my time.
It is funny the things we can get excited about sometimes. For me, an unexpected moment of excitement has been around this Sabra Spread contest that I was invited to join through The Recipe Redux. To be honest, I was totally psyched to have reached the stage in my food blogging journey where I get to receive samples and create a recipe around a new product that I feel good about sharing with you. It was super cool to receive the FedEx box with an insulated bag inside filled with samples. And it was equally cool to be able to take my first taste of all three of the different spreads, Garlic Herb, Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper, and Honey Mustard, and know right away that I was excited to start playing around with them in the kitchen. When these small pleasures happen I think it is important to savor them and take the time to relish in them, after all shouldn’t life be about the simple and unexpected pleasures?!
So in the spirit of sharing simple pleasures, I wanted to share with you one of our family’s go-to sandwiches these days. Despite my best efforts, my boys have been giving me a run for my money on lunches recently. My 8-year-old in particular has been less than enthusiastic about a lot of the options that I normally offer, so coming up with this simple lunch option to throw into the rotation has been a life saver! I wanted something that he would be excited about, that I could feel good about, that wouldn’t take too long to prepare, and that wouldn’t break the bank. This Simple Roasted Chicken and Vegetable Medley Sandwich has hit all the marks!…
I don’t know about you, but getting meals on the table during the summer can be a bit of a challenge. I always think that the summer is going to be slower and more relaxed, and in some ways it is, but then suddenly, because of that relaxation and lack of routine, it is 6pm, I’ve got starving kids, and I haven’t even started thinking about dinner yet! Panic!
That is where quick and easy dinners save the day and I have been depending a lot on quick pastas, egg dishes, and rice bowls of various sorts. These are all great, but we all need something new from time to time… or at least I do.
Enter the baked chimichanga. Now, I know that this is not even close to a traditional chimichanga, especially since they aren’t deep fried, but to be totally honest, calling them chimichangas was quite a selling point with my kids. They thought it was fun to say and if it is fun to say, then maybe it is fun to eat, and then suddenly I have two boys who are in love with a new dish to the point where one declares that he loves chimichangas more than hot dogs (true story!). So maybe I could call them baked-delicious-pockets-of-goodness, but it just doesn’t quite roll off the tongue in the same way….
Last week a cold invaded our house. My littlest one brought it home and generously shared it with the rest of us. While he can be quite dramatic about lots of things, the kid is usually very stoic when it comes to being sick, so I didn’t even really realize he had more than a runny nose and a cranky mood until his big brother got sick (and then I was wracked with guilt about how annoyed I had been at his attitude when really he had been feeling crummy—sigh, one more notch in the parenting mistakes column).
Considering it was the end of January, though, and we hadn’t had a cold or flu in the house yet this season, I really couldn’t complain, but just got focused on pulling out all the cold soothing techniques I could. This time ‘round the thing that was most appealing to everyone was broth-based soups. First it was chicken noodle, then it was vegetable noodle, and then there were some of us who just drank broth straight….
This winter has been a weird one, hasn’t it? Crazy warm for a while, then a blizzard on the East Coast that has wreaked havoc. It is kind of hard to know which way is up. My response to such wackiness? Comfort food. Creamy, warm, nourishing comfort food.
My mom calls these foods nursery foods because it is what you would feed little kids in a nursery back in the day. And I’ve got an updated version of nursery food for you today! This is a recipe I developed for a cooking client, but it was such a hit with them and my own family that I thought I would share it with you. This Chicken and Kale Noodle Casserole is sort of like a baked chicken alfredo pasta with a bonus dose of kale. It is creamy, soothing, and warm—all those things we crave at this time of year. But it has the added perk of being healthy enough that it won’t derail your goal of eating healthier in the New Year (if that was a goal of yours)!…
When I was a kid, roast chicken with potatoes and a green salad was one of my favorite dinners. It always felt so comforting and like such an expression of love. I also loved the ritual of it, the carving of the chicken, the fact that everyone had their favorite part—breast, drumstick, the pope’s nose. In addition, the leftover chicken offered the promise of other favorites like chicken sandwiches, pot pies, and creamed chicken. All in all, it was a happy-making meal for me.
The first time I ever made one for myself I was completely petrified. First of all, I was going to have to touch raw chicken. Just the thought gave me the heebie-jeebies. And then I was terrified that it wouldn’t turn out right and all would be ruined. Little did I know that it was an incredibly simple process, and one that would bring me so much satisfaction (and lots of delicious food!). I also found that touching the raw chicken was also quite meaningful for me. I was getting closer to my food and really understanding it better.
Many of us never learned how to make basic recipes (like a roast chicken) and they have become these intimidating presences in our cooking consciousness. We convince ourselves that it is too hard or complicated, that we are not good enough cooks, that it will be a disaster. But the truth is, simple cooking with simple ingredients is a good way to get to delicious food. Sure, you can get fancy with your roast chicken with different rubs, basting, trussing, stuffing, etc. and I do that sometimes, but most of the time I like to keep it really simple and love it every time….
