Red Quinoa & Lentil Pilaf 2/28

So... I'm just catching up on my food blog, but I took all of the photos, so I figured it was worth sharing!  Back at the end of February I made a Red Quinoa and Lentil Pilaf with a recipe from Food and Wine.  It's a Vegan dish, which often has people wary - if there is no meat, will I be full?  But I will say, this dish was MORE than filling!  And the leftovers were amazing as well!

I was out of Cauliflower, so I just used Chickpeas to fill up the dish.  The fresh parsley and marcona almonds complimented the dish nicely, while the lentils and chickpeas gave it a very hearty texture.  We will definitely be making this one again!

Chicken Barley Stew w/Lemon & Tarragon 2/22

Another Food & Wine recipe that is an incredibly hearty winter recipe, but had a little citrus kick that made it almost light and flavorful is the Chicken and Barley Stew recipe I found.  I've been trying more and more to incorporate different kinds of grains and other things into my cooking, and this offered an easy way to try out a barley recipe.

It was pretty easy to throw together, and the leftovers ended up so thick and rich that they were great to have for lunch or dinner!

You can see I actually squeezed in the lemon, but then added the entire half of it for the last 10 minutes of cooking to give it some extra zing.

Sausage Cauliflower & Kale Pot Pie 2/21

The magazines were big into Cauliflower this month, and I cannot say I minded.  I found a recipe for Sausage Cauliflower and Kale Pot Pie in the Real Simple Magazine, and it looked simple and easy to make, so I grabbed the ingredients for another Cauliflowerfest!  I followed the recipe pretty exactly, with the exception of substituting chicken sausage, and it definitely came out really good.

Salmon Cakes and Turmeric Cauliflower 2/20

I saw a recipe for Salmon cakes in my Food & Wine magazine.  It used fresh salmon and for some reason I was intrigued.  I usually buy my salmon at BJs since it is a way better price and you get a huge piece for ~$18.  I usually cook half and freeze half.  I also saw this beautiful Turmeric Ginger Cauliflower, and figured I would give it a try.  Served it all with some quick coconut jasmine rice, and it was a very flavorful and interesting dish!

The salmon cakes also reheated well, though the cauliflower was better when it was a bit crisper.  If you have a family that doesn't like cauliflower, this may be the way to get them to eat it!! Excellent flavors, and fairly healthy too!

Tagliatelle with Peas, Panchetta & Ricotta 2/16

So my best friend from college - Angie - called up and said she was going to be in town for a night!!  We of course had to get together, and by the time she got in and we would get home, I figured we could throw a quick dinner together.  The weekend before, I bought a big bag of dried tagliatelle, some fresh shelled peas, some thick cut bacon and ricotta to toss together a quick pasta.

We cooked up the thick pasta in hot salted water. Eric chopped up the bacon into small chunks and I sauteed it quickly in a hot pan.  I tossed in the peas and cooked for a couple of minutes.  I then strained the pasta (reserving a little water).  I threw some ricotta and fresh mozzerella over the pasta and tossed a little ricotta in with the peas & bacon.  I scooped some peas and bacon over the pasta and drizzled a little of the reserved pasta water to make a "sauce".  Overall the sauce wasn't the prettiest dish I have made, but there was plenty of flavor!  I wish I could have found panchetta, but the only stuff they had was sliced procchuito thin, so it wouldnt have worked so well.

A great fast and very filling meal!

Pressure Cooker Braised Lamb Shanks 2/15

So after the first attempt at the pressure cooker, I thought we could give it another shot.  I bought Lamb Shanks from Whole Foods (they had to go in the back to find some for me!).  Turns out Lamb Shanks are actually fairly cheap in comparison to most lamb meat, but when cooked right can be just as good.  I found this recipe for Braised Lamb Shanks online and decided to give it a try.  Becca came over to help out and with some red wine we quickly had a great meal together!

The meal was simple to throw together and incredibly flavorful.  The lamb came out very tender and serving it over couscous made for a fast meal.  Less than 20 minutes cooking time, and it tasted like it had been in a slow cooker all day!

Becca liked it!! And she brought over some funfetti oreos for us to use up for dessert.  I had some chocolate cakes I made for valentines day, so we drizzled them with chocolate, crumbled some oreos and added sprinkles - wala!

Puttanesca Hake & Potatoes 2/13

Awesome Awesome recipe!! It looks beautiful and tasted nearly as good!!  Another magazine recipe from Bon Appetit for Roasted Potatoes and Haddock Puttanesca.  When I stopped by Whole Foods, they had haddock, but the filets were small and had skin on, and were somewhat expensive, so I went for the Hake since it was on sale and is a similar flavor (closer to Cod, but still would do fine with the Puttanesca).

I started the shallots and potatoes first, I didnt have fingerling, so I took some baby potatoes and cut them in half.  They actually unfortunately baked a little dry, I think I would have not put them on the rack, added some more olive oil and cooked them whole if I did this recipe again.

While those were baking, I started the puttanesca sauce, which was actually deceptively simple for sooo much flavor! Garlic, Anchovies, Olive Oil, black olives and canned tomatoes and wala!  And I definitely recommend finding the non-canned variety of pitted black olives, they added a huge amount of flavor to the dish that I think would have been lost by canned ones.

Add the hake to the same pan you are baking the potatoes on and plate the dish!  Fairly fast, the longest part was cooking the potatoes.

Flavor was excellent!  With some work on the potatoes, definitely work doing again!  And I may even use the puttanesca sauce recipe just for pasta!  And I think mine came out better than the picture ;-)

Pressure Cooker Boneless Pork Chops 2/11

Eric felt like pork chops tonight and I wanted to use up some of the veggies I had in the fridge.  For some reason I got the bright idea that we should try out the pressure cooker for the first time!

Prepare your pressure cooker per the directions, but leave the lid off. Start by heating some olive oil on high heat in the base of the pressure cooker pan.  Season the pork chops with salt and pepper and sear quickly on both sides until browned (should be ~30sec per side). Remove from the pan and place to the side. Add an additional tablespoon of oil. Quarter 6-8 baby potatoes, chop 1 medium sweet onion, and chop 4 carrots into 2" slices. Toss into the pressure cooker and brown for ~5 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes.  Ad 4 sprigs of fresh oregano and 2 bay leaves about half way through. Season with Salt & Pepper. Place the pork chops on top of the veggies and add 1 cup of liquid (I did 1/3 wine, 2/3 chicken stock).  Seal the pressure cooker and cook per the directions.


 (This is Eric being "safe" around the pressure cooker.  I told him it was dangerous and that we needed to "respect it"... so he put on his safety glasses and oven mits!)

Its likely to only take 10 minutes once the pressure has built up.  And just that quick, dinner is done! I strained the liquid and served with just some salt and pepper. Though it probably just as easily could have been served like a stew.

While it wasn't the most flavorful dish we have had in a long time, everything came out incredibly tender, and I am definitely sold on how amazingly fast it cooks everything!! Expect to see more pressure cooker recipes coming soon!

Cauliflower Pasta 2/7

We almost ordered out... but I had this huge head of cauliflower in the fridge that needed to get used up, so I decided to make myself cook!  Eric really wanted pasta of some sort, and I figured I wasnt really feeling the plain old marinara sauce, so I quickly searched the web and hit a few like this Cauliflower Pasta Recipe.  Though even that sounded a little boring, so of course I added my own twists!

First I tossed the Cauliflower in the Oven on a baking sheet at 400 with some olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder.  I also started the pasta water, and cooked the pasta per the directions.  We had a half a box of penne and half a box of rigatoni, so I just threw them together :)

While that cooked, I tossed some capers into a pan and sauteed them for 2 minutes.  Once the water started to cook out of them, I added some harrisa olive oil (Thanks Cynette & Tom!) and tossed in the garlic. I sauteed that for another 2-3 minutes until the garlic started to brown.  Then I added a few tablespoons of sundried tomatoes and a tablespoon of the oil from the sundried tomatoes. Sauteed that for a few more minutes.

I then added about 1 cup of panko bread crumbs to the pan and tossed and sauteed all of that until the bread crumbs began to brown, and then turned off the heat.

To assemble the dish, I put about a cup of pasta on the plate, I then put about 4 Tablespoons of Ricotta cheese in lumps over it.  I poured a few tablespoons of reserved pasta water over the ricotta and then topped that with the cauliflower.  I put about 1/4cup of the breadcrumb mixture over the top of that, and sprinkled it with 1 Tbsp parmesan cheese and some fresh parsley.

Awesome dish that was incredibly flavorful.  I could have made a thicker ricotta sauce if it was needed, but for a light and fast meal, this definitely worked and brought out the flavors of the cauliflower nicely!

Verdict - Worth doing again!!

Moroccan Chicken and Butternut Squash Soup 2/6

We weren't sure we really wanted to cook on Monday when we got home, but we mustered up the drive and threw together this soup!  The Moroccan Chicken and Butternut Squash Soup Recipe is yet another Cooking Light Recipe and it was Excellent!!

I followed the majority of the recipe, except after adding the tomato paste it wasnt as vibrant as I wanted, so I added a can of V8 juice. And most of my basil had gone bad, so I only had 4-5 leaves, so I supplemented it with a 1/4 chopped fresh cilantro.  The cilantro and orange zest really made this dish, but all of the flavors blended so well and just made every bite an experience!!  (It was so good/I was so hungry I burned my tongue on it!!)

Verdict? Definitely going to make this one again!! Incredibly flavorful and filling, and I loved the texture the couscous gave to the soup itself! YUM!

Lamb Tagine and Wild Mushroom Salad 2/1

In perusing my magazines for recipes I found a Lamb Apricot Olive Tagine Recipe in Real Simple that sounded really good.  Upon examination, even better - it was a slow cooker recipe!  I've been cutting down on the starches, especially when I eat late at night, so I thought perhaps I would pair it with a salad instead of the couscous.  I found a hearty salad in Bobby Flay's Bar American that was a Wild Mushroom Salad with Quinoa Goat Cheese and Caramelized Shallots.

The Slow cooker recipe was incredibly simple.  I bought stew lamb so it was precut and it was then just a matter of chopping some veggies and throwing it all together with some spices and setting the slow cooker to cook while we were gone for the day.  There was a fair amount of flavor to the dish... though I can't say I really caught the apricot part, the spices & veggies were good.  The lamb turned out a tad tough, I imagine it could have used some stirring or a bit more liquid throughout the day.

The Salad was a bit more labor intensive, but also had some really impressive flavors.  I ended up placing a bunch of the shallots over the greens and the mushrooms on top of that.  I somehow forgot to buy the goat cheese, but I did have a humbolt fog (an ash striped goat cheese) so I used that instead.

Eric also found a trick for reviving "stale" baguettes - wrap it in a wet paper towel and then in tin foil and place it in the oven at around 250 for 10 minutes or so.  Check after 10 minutes, the bread should soften right up!

Anyways, the salad was impressive, and actually could/should have stood on its own.

Verdict? Individually the recipes were good!  I loved the salad and might make it again.  It was a bit labor intensive for the result, but the flavors were awesome.  The lamb dish was good, I think I would try something else before doing this again though.  And ultimately, I'm sad to say the two dishes did not compliment eachother well.  I think I got a little too exotic in my ideas and with each having such strong flavor, it really needed to be beside something more bland.  Oh well!

Truffled Mac 'n Cheese 1/31

This is going to sound odd, but I am not certain I have ever actually made home made macaroni and cheese.  I've had plenty from others that were absolutely amazing, but I don't believe I have ever made my own... so it was time for an adventure!  Being me, regular macaroni and cheese was not enough... I saw a recipe for Truffled Macaroni and Cheese in Cooking Light and decided to amp it up a notch.

I started by sauteing up a bunch of wild mushrooms and some of the onion - I just a mushroom blend from Wegmans.

While that cooked I heated the milk mixture for the cheese sauce and boiled the pasta.  (Not sure why this image is sideways!)

Once the cheese sauce was made, I just tossed the pasta with the mushrooms and the sauce and drizzled with some extra truffle oil (I only had black truffle oil, not white) and the breadcrumb mixture and threw it under the broiler.  I apparently need to learn to use my gas broiler as the heat obviously was a bit uneven! oops!

The finished product was awesome!! So filling and delicious.  I probably could have done a little more cheese sauce (I had more pasta than the original recipe), though it is supposed to be a "light" recipe.

Verdict - definitely a great recipe, I would do this one again, or perhaps get a bit more adventurous next time!!  The best part is that it was actually a fairly fast recipe.  It didnt take an hour of baking, just about 10 minutes under the broiler and it was done!

Coconut Tilapia, Orange Brussel Sprouts 1/30

I wanted to do a white fish dish this week and there was some Tilapia on sale at wegmans so I picked it up.  I hadn't done something tropical in a while so I figured I could put together a coconut fish.  I had to finish up the brussel sprouts, so I figured something citrusy would go best, and I had some Golden Jewel blend rice mix from Wegmans.  The meal was amazing!!

Coconut Tilapia
Dip a piece of tilapia in an egg wash.  Mix together 1/2 cup panko crumbs, 1/2 cup of very lightly packed coconut flakes.  Dip the Tilapia into the mixture and pat some extra mixture into spots that didnt get coated. Place the Tilapia on a baking sheet and bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes.
While it is cooking, in a food processor mix together 1/8 cup of coconut cream, 1/4 cup pinapple chunks, 1/8 cup greek yogurt.  Remove fish from oven and spoon the sauce over the fish.

Orange Brussels Sprouts
I started with the idea from this recipe. However I have gotten addicted to roasting vegetables lately so I twisted it a little.  Cut brussels sprouts in half and spread on a cookie sheet.  Drizzle a little sunflower oil over them, crack some fresh salt and pepper.  Zest an entire clementine over the brussels sprouts, then cut it in half and squeeze the juice over the sprouts.  Cook at 400 for 15 minutes, then toss them and sprinkle with hazelnuts.  Cook for another 15 minutes until done.  While they are cooking, you will make a sauce.  Finely dice a shallot and cook it over medium heat in 2 Tsps sunflower oil. Add in 1/2 cup of orange juice and allow it to cook down until slightly thickened (~7minutes).  Remove from heat and add in 3 Tbsp of Citrus Champagne vinegar.  Spoon the sauce over the Roasted Brussels Sprouts.

Golden Jewel Blend
Wegmans had an interesting rice mixture that I thought I would try.  Unfortunately it boiled over very quickly and we lost some of the water to the bubbling.  It came out a bit chewy - a tad too al dente, and could have used a bit more water/time.  I toasted some sesame seeds and chopped up some parsley and mixed it into the rice.  It added some decent flavor, but the texture just needed to be a bit better to really be able to tell if it went well.

Overall an excellent meal.  The Fish was such a perfect tenderness with the nice crunchy panko and coconut, and the sauce tasted like a creamy pina colada poured over it!  And the Brussels sprouts were near perfection.  The tang of the orange with the zip of the vinegar and richness from the roasting really made this side pop.  Mmmmmm another full belly!

Chipotle Pork, Black Eyed Peas & Roasted Broccoli

I've had a big hunk of BJs pork in the freezer for a little while now, so I decided it was time to cook it before the freezerburn took it over.  I also have had some Black Eyed Peas in my pantry that I've been figuring I could find something to do with one of these days.  Add that to a giant bag of BJs broccoli that needed to get used up and you have tonight's meal!!

Chipotle Pork with Bourbon-Ancho Sauce
I had a chipotle rub that my dad had given me for christmas so I rubbed the pork with that this morning.  An hour before I started cooking, I mixed a little of the rub with some brown sugar and patted that on the fat side so that it would crisp up the fat nicely.

We put it on the rotisserie and cooked it to 145.  Unfortunately, my timing was a bit off with the other dishes, so we stopped it at 135, let it sit, and then turned it back on again just before everything was ready to finish it at 145.

I figured the pork could use some sort of sauce, so I pulled out my Bobby Flay books, and found a good one in Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook.  I figured the Bourbon Ancho Sauce would compliment the Chipotle rub on the pork.  I halved the recipe, and didn't have apple juice concentrate so I used apple cider instead.  I also used chipotle chili in adobo instead of ancho chilis.  It definitely heated up the sauce a lot, and I probably could have done with a touch less, but hey, sometimes some heat is fun!  You can see me pouring it over a slice of pork to the right.

Baked Black Eyed Peas
My next Recipe is a modification of Bobby Flay's Bar Americain Recipe for Barbecue Baked Beans.  I started by cooking up some crispy maple bacon. I added diced carrot and onion to the bacon fat to cook down.  Then 4 cloves of garlic minced, and stir that in.  I added about 3/4 cup of Dark Rum and let that cook for about 5 minutes until evaporated.  I had cooked up 1/2lb dried black eyed peas (follow the packaged direction) and put them in a baking dish.  I crumbled the bacon over the BEPs and added the rum cooked veggies, 1/4 cup cilantro, 3Tbsp honey and 1/4 cup brown sugar.  The original recipe called for molasses, which I thought I had, but I didn't, so I just used brown sugar instead.  The molasses would have given it a nice richness, but this did in a pinch.  I added a cup of chicken broth and tossed it in the oven for 30 minutes.

Roasted Broccoli
The next recipe is from another of my favorite Food Network stars... Ina Garten.  I wanted to dress up my broccoli a little more, and found her recipe for Roasted Broccoli.  I omitted the pine nuts and basil as there was already going to be plenty richness to my other dishes.  The lemon and parmesan added plenty of flavor, and the tangy citrus helped offset the sweetness and heat of the other two dishes nicely.  Definitely a recipe I will use again!


Overall an incredibly tasty meal.  I would have done a few things differently as mentioned, but for just kind of playing in the kitchen and trying to "use up" some ingredients I had on hand, it was definitely a tasty meal!

Mango Lassi 1/28

We've been lazy all week, between me being sick and both of us busy with work, we've had a lot of "nights out".  I seem to go in phases, I will cook for over a week straight, and then get lazy for a week :)

Anyways, last night we decided to get Indian from our favorite restaurant in Framingham: Welcome Indian Cuisine!  Its a tiny place that you probably wouldn't think much of when you drive by it, but its the best Indian food anywhere in the area, possibly in Boston!  The first time we went there, Eric ordered his food "hot", and they asked him if he was sure... he said of course, and when we got home, the food made him more than sweat!!  I can barely stand medium, but the food there has so much flavor that sometimes you don't even need the heat.

So last night I ordered medium, Eric ordered hot.  I figured we would both be in need of some heat quenching, so I decided to try and make a mango lassi.  I had a big thing of greek yogurt in the fridge, and some mango juice.  I found this recipe online and decided to modify it a bit.

My Mango Lassi
1 cup greek yogurt
1 cup mango juice
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 Tsp cardamom


So I hadn't ever used cardamom in a dessert/drink like this before, and it turns out it was WAY too much.  It basically ended up tasting like a cardamom lassi.  Which in all, wasnt terrible, as it went well with the Indian food, but it was overwhelming and would have been nice to balance it with the mango flavor.  Next time I will only use a dash or two!  And I think the real mango makes a difference as the mango flavor was much more subtle.  Not bad for a few things I had in the fridge though :)

Cinnamon Swirl Pancakes 1/28

On weekends we are home and don't have a ton to do, I like to try out new pancake recipes.  This morning, for whatever reason, I was thinking Cinnamon Raisin Pancakes might be fun.  I think it was because I saw the Raisins in the pantry.  As I started to think about it, it reminded me of the cinnamon rolls with the raisins folded in, and I wondered if somehow I could capture that in a pancake.  I jumped online and came up with several similar recipes that basically came down to this Cinnamon Swirl Pancake Recipe.

So I started digging in my pantry and fridge, and started gathering ingredients.  I was missing a few things, and decided on a few changes so here goes...

First off I halved the recipe.  It was just for Eric and I and I didn't want a million leftovers.  I also decided to try and use my half whole wheat flour, half bisquick recipe, which basically means 1 cup bisquick, 1 cup whole wheat flour, a tsp of baking powder and tsp baking soda.  I also added in a tsp of cinnamon and a tsp of nutmeg.

I mixed the cinnamon swirl ingredients per the recipe, and poured out the pancakes, adding in a few raisins to each one.  I only had golden raisins so I hoped those would do!

They definitely look great when you first drizzle in the mixture.  Though the pan and the spatula get instantly sticky after the first batch, so you definitely need a nonstick pan, and will want to wash the spatula between each use.  After flipping the pancakes the cinnamon sugar cooks into the pan and spreads out leaving some sweet looking swirls into the pancake.  I liked the look, but almost wished I had figured out a way to make it more batter consistency so it didnt run out of the pancake into the pan as much.

The next part was tackling the cream cheese icing.  Unfortunately I didnt have cream cheese, but I read that you could mix cottage cheese & yogurt and puree it really fine to essentially make cream cheese.  I tried it and it seemed to work, but when I mixed in the rest of the ingredients, the mixture seemed to get a little lumpy.  It worked out though, because when I spread it on the hot pancakes it melted in and didn't look quite as lumpy anymore.  And the taste was still good!

The verdict?? Decent!  I'd like to try these again and not use the whole wheat flour this time.  I'd also make sure to have all the ingredients on hand so I could really make the frosting and use dark raisins.  Overall they were fun and something interesting.

Potstickers and Stir fried Veggies 1/27

Another Wegmans Inspired meal!  I bought the Potstickers and snow peas at Wegmans with the intent of doing something like the Recipe in the Wemgans Magazine.  I had some leftover purple cabbage in the fridge to use up, so I figured I could do a stir fry of sorts.

I bought the Wegmans Chicken Potstickers, and Eric cooked those per the directions on the package.

We chopped up some carrot, onion and sweet potato for the base of the stir fry.  I used a little sesame oil, and cooked up the onions.  I then tossed in the carrots and sweet potatoes and cooked down for at least 5 minutes. I threw on the cabbage and put the lid over the pan to let it steam cook down.  Another 5 minutes or so until the cabbage was wilted a little.  I then tossed in 1/8cup of ginger plum sauce and a tablespoon of oyster sauce and stirred the veggies.  I threw the snow peas on top and covered for another 3 minutes and turned off the heat and tossed the veggies again.

The result was this beautiful array of colorful vegetables!  I definitely liked the veggies.  They had perfect texture from the softness of the carrot and sweet potato to the super crunchy peas, I definitely nailed the textures.  The Potstickers turned out to be really salty, and I don't think I would buy that kind again.  I checked the sodium on the package, and it didnt seem to be through the rough, but I definitely wasn't in love with those.

Spinach and Lentil Soup 1/22

So the night of the big Patriots game, I decided to throw together this soup.  I was just starting to get sick that night, so I was glad to have a hearty soup to coat my throat.  The Spinach and Lentil Soup with Cheese and Basil was yet another Cooking Light Recipe.

For starters, I didnt have pancetta.  I think when I was shopping, for some reason I was thinking I could use prosciutto, since I had some I wanted to use up, but I ended up using that all on the pizza and forgot to save some for this recipe.  I had some turkey bacon in the freezer, but I wasn't sure I would get enough flavor for that, so as I thawed that I realized I had some bacon fat I had saved and could use to add the flavor.  I'm normally a health nut in my cooking, but I've started to learn that a little bit of bacon fat or oils can go a long way in really amping up the flavor of a dish without adding much in the way of fat/calories.

The next change I made was that I had some yellow lentils to use up, so I didnt buy brown lentils.  This meant that I actually could skip the puree step as the way the split yellow lentils cooked down, the soup was more than soft enough and came out creamier than the photo in the recipe.  The rest of the soup was made per the recipe instructions.

The other thing I decided to make was a little chicken and cheese biscuit.  I just used the Bisquick Biscuits recipe and flattened out a small patty in my hand, smooshed some shredded chicken into it and topped it with a piece of sharp cheddar cheese, then patted on some more biscuit dough.  I baked them for a little longer than the package direction since they were a bit larger and stuffed.

Serve it along with a Patriots victory and it tastes oh so good!

Chicken Udon Soup 1/21

I was completely intrigued by this healthy soup with "fancy" mushrooms.  It looked simple, but had some ingredients I had never used before... like star anise, and while I have certainly eaten udon noodles, I'm not sure I had ever actually cooked with them.  Don't quote me on that one, but it may be true!  I was a little nervous when I opened the spice bottle of the star anise because it reeked of black licorice, which is one of the few things in the world that I won't eat, but I decided it was worth a try in this broth.

I followed the Cooking Light Recipe almost to a T this time.  Let me tell you, the broth that this creates is out of this world good.  So incredibly rich and flavorful it does not seem like a water based broth. I did make a slight modification to the recipe in that I wanted more veggies incorporated so I added in a good handful of baby spinach leaves on top of the udon noodles before pouring the broth and chicken in.


The other fun part about this was when I was wrapping up the leftovers, I decided to use one of those tall round chinese food containers, and when I put this in, it looked just like a takeout soup you might get from a real chinese place with the udon noodles, chicken and spinach all piled in there.

Another recipe I would definitely recommend!

Maple Mustard Chicken 1/18

Another Cooking Light Recipe that looked simple but good.  I don't often do recipes with chicken, as to me it is the "boring" meat and its sort of my fall back when I am bored or lazy.  But this time I decided it was time to try out a recipe.  This one had a ton of flavor and was rather simple to cook.  The cleanup was a little sticky, but well worth it!  Check out the Maple Mustard Chicken.  I'm in love with the full seed Dijon mustards these days, so this was perfect!

As mentioned in a previous blog, I got into BJs vegetables, and had bought a huge bag of brussels sprouts.  I love roasting them, but decided I wanted something that went along with the chicken, but stood as a side dish and didnt overpower the chicken.  So I chopped up some thick slices of carrot to go with them and tossed it all on a cookie sheet with olive oil, salt & pepper and some herb de provence. Yet another mention of Sandy & Sarah, as they first turned me onto this herb blend when they brought me back a grinder of it from Paris many years ago.  Since then, it has completely replaced Italian seasoning as my herb blend of choice.  Roasted them for probably 20-30 minutes at 400.

Lastly for something quick, I threw together a lemon raisin couscous.  A cup of chicken broth, two tablespoons of lemon juice, tablespoon of olive oil, a quarter cup of raisins and bring to a boil.  Once at a boil, remove from the heat and add a cup of couscous.  Cover and let sit for 5 minutes, fluff with a fork and serve!

By the way, the leftovers for this meal were equally amazing! It held up well for a couple days!

Farrotto 1/17

So the Cooking Light magazine this month had a ton of recipes that looked great.  I found a recipe for a "Farrotto" with Butternut, Gruyere, and Hazelnuts. I had never cooked with Farro before, so I thought it would be fun to try something with this healthy whole grain.

The recipe was certainly easy, though it is a little bit labor intensive as you pour and stir, pour and stir, etc etc.  But it was well worth it, as this was probably one of my favorite meals, and we will definitely make it again!

I pretty much followed their recipe exactly, except that I didn't buy fresh sage since I had a ton of it that had been dried from Sandy & Sarah's garden from this past summer.  I just used that in place of the fresh sage, and everything else was per their instructions.

You should definitely try this one if you get some time!  Wegmans and Whole foods definitely sell Farro, not sure if regular grocery stores typically stock it, but its worth digging up.