Time for food. Time for Life.
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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A few years ago I was really desperate to find ways to get vegetables into my younger son. I had tried the battles, I had tried the pleading, and now I was trying to use the division of responsibility approach, which meant that I would choose what foods were offered but that he then would have the freedom to choose what he ate out of what was on the table and there would be no special meals or negotiations. What that meant for our family was that some nights I made a dinner that had vegetables on the side, which he almost never ate, and some nights I made a one-pot meal that included the vegetables in the dish. Often times he would pick around the vegetables, but sometimes I would find a dish that he loved so much that he would plow right through, not even noticing the vegetables.
There were two types of one-pot meals that tended to work for us. Soups and baked pastas. The kid loved (and still loves) pureed vegetables soups, which was very helpful when I felt like I was going to lose my mind. And while he would sometimes pick around the vegetables in a baked pasta, some strays would make it into his mouth and he was always cheerful when pasta was involved. Win-win. So when I discovered lasagna soup I knew I had to give it a go….
It’s that time again! Time for another Recipe Redux challenge recipe. And this time I get to share one of our go-to comfort food meals with you! The challenge this month was:
Packed with protein, fiber and color, plant power bowls are trendy and delicious. Show us the healthy recipe that’s in your bowl.
When I read this prompt I immediately knew what I was going to share with you! This is a family favorite that I developed as a quick and simple dish that is inspired by one of my all-time favorite Brazilian meals: feijoada.
For those of you who don’t know, feijoada is the national dish of Brazil. It is a black bean based stew that is filled with many, many different cuts of pork. It was developed by the slaves when all they had to work with was black beans and leftover pork. If you ever have a chance to have a real feijoada (and you eat meat), definitely do it! But the real deal is very labor intensive and requires a long, long time to cook. One day it occurred to me, though, that what I love about the dish more than the stew was the salty and sweet flavor explosion that is added through the use of toppings and that was something I could recreate very quickly and easily, so I did!…
When I was growing up I always hated lentils. I thought they were bland and heavy and gross. And, to be totally honest, even today if someone tells me they are serving lentils I cringe just a little bit. But since discovering the joys of Dal (Indian-style lentils) and lentil pasta dishes, I have started to come around to being a fan. Here’s what I love about lentils: they are a great, cheap, and easy-to-cook source of protein. There are many different varieties, so you have to be careful you are buying the right kind, but that wide variety also means that there are lots of different things you can do with them, which is fun!
The trick with lentils, in my opinion, is that you have to help them in the flavor department. They offer a great base on which to build flavor with herbs, spices, vinegars, onions, garlic, and/or lemon, but skip that step and you are facing a big bowl of bland.
So if, like me, you are dubious about lentils or if you haven’t cooked much with them but are curious, this recipe may be a great introduction for you because it uses lots of seasonings to bring a punch and depth of flavor to your meal. Plus it is super easy to make, and fun to do with kids (they love forming the balls)….
This week was a week of kitchen failures for me. I was working on developing three new recipes to share with you in the coming weeks and two of them definitely did not go as planned. The frustration was real. Here I was, working in a time crunch, trying to take advantage of the little time I had to produce dishes that were tasty and easy and they just weren’t going as planned. I tried to be flexible, tried to find variations or tweaks that would work, wracked my brains to think of how to fix these disasters, but it just wasn’t happening. So I swallowed my pride, accepted defeat, and moved on. Don’t get me wrong, these are recipes I am determined to master and to be able to share with you soon, but it became clear to me as I was growing increasingly frustrated that the time was not right.
Sometimes cooking is like that. It is frustrating and does not go as planned. Mistakes are made and we have to accept defeat and move on. The trick, though, is that moving on in that moment doesn’t mean that we give up on cooking overall, it means that we accept that the time is not right but trust that it will go better another time. Sometimes that means going back to the basics and making something that you are comfortable with, whether that is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a favorite go-to recipe and, let’s be honest, sometimes that means literally stepping out of the kitchen and ordering a pizza. Either way, the important thing is to not give up entirely.
So this week, after my fiasco cooking adventures I decided to go back to basics and I was really glad I did because I ended up putting the finishing touches on a really simple recipe that I get to share with you today: the simplest breaded fish recipe ever….
Many moons ago, when my now-husband and I first started dating, we did the thing that many couples do: we tried to increase our appeal by cooking meals for one another. At the time, neither of us cooked very much, so we both fell back on comfort foods that we had grown up with. For me, that was my dad’s Bolognese sauce. For my husband, it was eggs and rice.
When he first told me of his love for eggs and rice I was dumbfounded. Outside of fried rice at Chinese restaurants I had never heard of the combination. And to be completely honest, I thought it sounded absolutely awful. But in the interest of being a good sport with my new boyfriend, I agreed to try it. As I looked down at my plate of rice topped with a fried egg, I was still doubtful. And then I took my first bite and I was blown away! It was delicious, nourishing, and comforting. It felt like something I would imagine a grandmother would make for you when you were home sick….
This week has been a rough one for us. The boys and I got knocked flat by the flu, the cat got sick, and my husband has been super stressed at work. Not a great start to the New Year. Outside of surviving, the only thing I was really able to accomplish this week was managing to make a number of simple, comforting, and nourishing dishes that could keep us all going. One of the recipes I made was a crock pot chicken chili, which was great. It took a whole 10 minutes to get into the crock pot and then we enjoyed it for a number of meals. But I still had a lot left over and needed another simple meal to build from it. Enter Chili Lasagna.
This is barely even a recipe, but it is so delicious and easy I had to share it. It is a great addition to the meal plan for a week when chili is already planned because it is different enough from the chili itself that even haters of leftovers will probably be ok with it. It takes 10 minutes to put together and 35 minutes to bake. You could even assemble it ahead and either freeze it or just keep it in the fridge for a day or two until you are ready to throw it into the oven….
When I got the email from Lisa Leake of 100 Days of Real Food inviting me to write about her new book/cookbook, I was incredibly honored and excited. Lisa is such an inspiration to me! Her passion for healthy food as well as her incredibly realistic and down-to-earth approach to cooking has inspired millions to rethink their approach to feeding themselves and their families.
The book, 100 Days of Real Food: How we did it, what we learned, and 100 easy, wholesome recipes your family will love!, continues the great work she has been doing on her blog and website. The first half starts off with a moving and inspiring explanation of how she and her family took on the challenge of eating in a much more conscious and conscientious way. She then lays out ways that others can start to add more wholesome foods into their own diets and lifestyles. It really takes a lot of the mystery and intimidation out of cutting out processed foods and cooking from scratch….
I come from a long line of food-shouldn’t-be-wasted-ers. While I wasn’t raised in a
“clean plate club” household (thank goodness!), my family, and especially my mom, made sure that whatever was left was eaten as leftovers or used in another meal later in the week. The little bits of meat ended up in a pot pie or a pasta, the bones were used for stock, the stale bread became bread crumbs and croutons, all of those things that have become popular again were present all throughout my childhood. And for that I am so grateful.
But as I have gotten more and more into my own version of making the most of my food there were certain things I noticed that I was still throwing away and it bothered me. Beet greens, carrot greens, fennel fronds, to name a few. The beet greens were easy- sautéing them as I would kale or chard is delicious, especially as a warm salad with roasted beets and some feta! The fennel fronds have been a wonderful addition to my stocks. But carrot greens?…
My kids have told me over and over again that they don’t like beets. I have tried offering them in a variety of ways over the years- roasted, steamed, grilled, in salads, as a side, with herbs, and plain. Never any success. Then, two weekends ago, my husband and I had an outstanding dinner at The Farmhouse at Veritas in Virginia and one of the dishes we had was a golden beet soup, which got me thinking: what if I changed the consistency and appearance of the beets? Would that make a difference? …
