Recipes

Easy Like Sunday Morning

categories: Breakfast, Posts, Recipes

I don’t agree that Sunday mornings are necessarily easy. Actually, I remember when I was younger Sunday was the worst day of the week – the day before school. And let me tell you, school in middle school was endless.

This Sunday morning falls into the “easy” category. Now that I’m out of school, done with college, finished up my Master’s degree, and am working full time in the field of my dreams, my Sunday anxieties have subsided. I can now enjoy Sunday mornings.

 

 

I was craving a low-fat egg sandwich, with my regular cup of morning coffee. That’s easy … easy like Sunday morning.

 

 

Single Sunny Side Up Egg Sandwich

Ingredients

1 Egg
Mustard
Low Fat Cheese
Cooking Spray
Sandwich Thins 
 

Directions

Grease the skillet with cooking spray. 
Crack the egg into the skillet, cook until the yolk is set (the edges will get crispy).
Spread mustard onto sandwich thins, add sunny side up egg, top with cheese.
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Shrimp Bow Tie Pasta

categories: Pasta, Posts, Recipes

 

I was so tired last night that I forgot to post my Bow Tie Pasta with Shrimp in a Lemon Butter Sauce recipe. It’s basically a super easy pasta dish that really doesn’t take more than 30 minutes. Honestly, you won’t believe it until you see it. While I should be staying away from anything and everything pasta, bread and rice, it was a perfect first day back to work after a three-day weekend dinner. I fell asleep shortly after rinsing out my bowl.

 

Shrimp Bow Tie Pasta with Lemon Butter Sauce

Ingredients

2 cups Frozen Cooked Shrimp
2 cups Bow Tie Pasta
Dried Rosemary, to taste
Dried Oregano, to taste
¼ cup I can’t Believe it’s Not Butter Light
Lemon Pepper, to taste (I usually use a lot)
 

Directions

Boil pasta as directed
In a medium saucepan heat shrimp, add lemon pepper
Then melt in the I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter Light
Add rosemary and oregano, to taste
Drain pasta, mix together shrimp/sauce and pasta. 

Bridal Shower Rose Cake

categories: Posts, Recipes

A very dear friend of mine is getting married soon. As you know, it’s almost impossible to have a wedding without some sort of girls only event like a bridal shower or bachelorette party. For her bridal shower, I wanted to replicate this beautiful cake I had seen on Apron of Grace.

The theme was so fun, a tea party. Since experiencing afternoon tea in London last year, I’ve had an affinity for high tea. There’s something special about dressing up to sip from carefully crafted tea cups and nibbling on delectable scones, cakes, and finger sandwiches. In London, it’s a three-course affair and highly unlikely that you spend less than an hour, at least, chatting, sipping and eating.

I dressed the part – when you have the opportunity to dress up, why not! I’m talking big hat, heels and a shimmery suit.

 

 

Since the colors were white and purple, I thought I’d create a delightful little surprise by having the outside be white, and making the vanilla-flavored insides purple. The cake was a success! I didn’t realize it was going to be the center of attention.

 

 

 

I admit, I used boxed ingredients – but that’s because I didn’t want to change too many variables.

 

Purple Almond Rose Cake with Vanilla Frosting

Ingredients

2 packages White Cake Mix
6 Egg Whites
2/3 cup Vegetable Oil
2 ½ cups Water
2x Food coloring: 24 Red+16 Blue
2 teaspoons Almond Extract
2  packages Vanilla Frosting
 

Directions

Mix together cake mix, egg whites, oil and water.
Add almond extract, mix well
Add food coloring, mix well
Pour into 3 eight-inch pans
Bake at 350 for 19-23 minutes
Allow to cool for 30 minutes
 

Frost with vanilla icing. Then decorate as shown in the following video

Buttercream Cupcake Rose

 

There will be extra batter and icing – I used the rest for cupcakes.

 

 

Dinner Party

categories: Posts, Recipes

We had some people over Saturday night for dinner. Everything turned out great, and I even received some compliments on my cooking.

On an easiness scale, this dinner was on the easier end of the spectrum. I’m not sure if that’s because we only had two guests, or if the easiness should be attributed to the dishes I made. Either way, prep, execution and cleanup went very smoothly.

The most difficult part of the cooking process was roasting the chicken. Let’s take a moment to discuss the almost disaster I had with my chicken. First thing in the morning, I took it out of the freezer and placed it in the fridge to defrost. The chicken had been in there for a good 8 hours before I took it out to prepare. It was still frozen on the inside, at which point I almost had a meltdown because I was unable to remove the bag of gizzards from the inside of the chicken. I did not have a backup plan. After defrosting in the microwave for a few minutes, I took a corer to the chicken. Then, I started talking to it – yes, talking to it. I finally – after fighting with the chicken – removed the insides and washed the heck out of the chicken. From there, I faced another minor challenge. Basting the chicken every 15 minutes. On the first try, I recruited someone to help. They held the roasting pan while I basted. After that, I decided to attempt a balancing act holding the sauce in one hand, and pulling the roasting pan out ever so slowly with the oven rack trying as hard as possible not to break anything.

I can happily say that I succeeded. The chicken turned out moist and delicious despite the behind-the-scenes issues. I’m happy to share a couple of my dinner recipes. You’ll have to stay tuned for the rest of them.

 

Menu

Appetizer: Hummus with small pita rounds and pita chips

Salad: Spinach Couscous Salad

Main: Freekeh with Roast Chicken

Side: Roast Mushroom Asparagus

Dessert: Store bought Chocolate Cake and Purple Almond Cupcakes.

 

 

Hummus Recipe 

Ingredients

1 Can Hummus
1 Lemon, squeezed for juice
Salt
2-4 tablespoons Tahini
½ cup Water
1-2 cloves Garlic, smashed
 

Directions

In a large bowl, add tahini, garlic, salt, and squeezed lemon juice
Mix well.
Add hummus, mix again.
Then add water.
Mix until you have a thick consistency. Add more tahini if the consistency is too runny.
 


 

Freekeh Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups Freekeh
3 cups Low Sodium Chicken Broth
 

Directions

Wash the freekeh very well with water until the water is clear.
Soak the freekeh in water for about an hour, then Drain
Add freekeh in a pot
Cover freekeh with chicken broth
Once it boils, turn down the heat to medium-low
Cover and simmer until it is tender and soft and all the broth has been absorbed for about 20-30 minutes.
Serve in a platter, topped with fried almonds.
Serve with plain yogurt or fresh green salad
 
 

 

Julia Child’s Roast Chicken Recipe  (From Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

Ingredients

3 lbs roasting chickens or 3 lbs frying chicken
3/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons softened butter
1 small sliced carrot
1 small sliced onion
1 tablespoon good cooking oil
 

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Sprinkle the inside of the chicken with 1/4 teaspoons salt and 1 Tb. butter.
Truss the chicken and dry it thoroughly. 
Rub the skin with 1 Tb. butter.
In a small saucepan melt 2 tb. butter, and 1 tb. cooking oil. Set aside for basting.
Place the chicken, breast up, in a shallow roasting pan. Strew the vegetables around it and set it on the rack in the middle of a preheated oven.
Allow the chicken to brown lightly for 15 minutes, turning it on the left side after 5 minutes, and the right side for the remaining 5 minutes. Baste after each turn with the butter and oil mixture.
Reduce oven to 350 degrees.
Leave the chicken on its side and baste every 8 to 10 minutes using the fat in the roasting pan when the butter and oil are exhausted.
Halfway through estimated roasting time (about 40 minutes in) salt the chicken with 1/4 teaspoons of salt and turn it on its other side. Continue basting.
Fifteen minutes before the end of estimated roasting time (about 1 hour and 5 minutes in) salt again and turn the chicken breast up. Continue basting.
When done, discard trussing strings and set on a hot platter. Chicken should sit at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes before being carved so the juices are absorbed by the meat. Chicken is done when it registers between 175 and 190 degrees, depending on your preferred doneness.
While the chicken is sitting, remove all but two tablespoons of fat from the pan.
 

For help trussing a chicken, I found this very useful: How To Truss a Chicken

 

 

Mushroom Asparagus Roast Recipe

Ingredients

1 pound asparagus, woody stalk ends trimmed
8 ounces sliced mushrooms or whole if small
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper
 

Directions

Heat oven to 425°.
Toss the asparagus and mushrooms in a Ziplock bag with the olive oil and garlic until well coated. Spread the out in a large baking dish. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender and lightly browned.
Serves 4.
 


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Chicken Noodle Soup for the Sick of Being Sick Soul

categories: Posts, Recipes, Soups

All year, I work to try to avoid this very thing – getting sick. And I’m not talking cough, sniffle, sneeze sick, I’m talking shivers, trouble swallowing, ear aching, nose won’t stop running even though you blew it dry, sick.  Let me tell you, it sucks.

I felt it coming on late Monday, after I spent my whole day (starting at 6:45am) on site at a client conference.  Then, bam! Tuesday morning I woke up with half a sore throat, an aching ear and an inability to swallow anything with a consistency more solid than mashed potatoes.

Blame it on the change in weather – which by the way, is amazing at the moment but I can’t enjoy it because I’m home, sick as a dog, working while laying on the couch with the TV off. What frustrates me is that I can’t do anything about it. After seeing my doctor. Pure luck that I scheduled an appointment for yesterday. She broke the news to me. “It looks like you have a virus.” Dum dum dum. My world came crashing down. A virus? How in the world did that happen? I wash my hands, eat well, make sure I stay away from sick people, and yet … I have been diagnosed by the professional. The only good news is that she put me on a Z-Pak, a five-day antibiotic treatment whose powers are so great that hopefully it will have me feeling better before the long weekend rolls around.

Between email and projects, I’ve managed to create a giant pile of Kleenex and also make myself some really easy chicken noodle soup.

Why chicken noodle soup? You might ask. Well, a handful of scientific studies show that chicken soup really could have medicinal value. A study published in 2000 in the medical journal Chest by Dr. Stephen Rennard of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha found that chicken noodle soup helps reduce upper respiratory cold symptoms by inhibiting the migration neutrophils, infection-fighting cells.

Dr. Rennard conducted lab tests to determine why chicken soup might help colds, starting with his wife’s homemade recipe. The recipe was handed down by her Lithuanian grandmother. Using blood samples from volunteers, he showed that the soup inhibited the movement of neutrophils, the most common type of white blood cell that defends against infection.  To find out more about Dr. Rennard’s findings, visit http://www.unmc.edu/chickensoup/index.htm

So here’s my chicken noodle soup recipe. Mostly made of food I had in my fridge (not much really).

 

 

Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe

Ingredients

2 Chicken Breasts
2 large Carrots
1 Medium Onion, chopped
2 Red Potatoes, chopped
1 box Low Sodium Chicken Broth
1  ½ cups Thin Spaghetti, broken in half
Olive Oil
Salt to taste
Oregano to taste
 
 

Directions

Boil chicken breasts for 20 minutes, drain water.
Cut chicken into small squares, or shreds
Sauté onion with 1 tablespoon (I used 2 swirls) olive oil until translucent
Add carrots and potatoes, sauté for 2 minutes.
Add chicken broth
Add noodles
Add chicken
Stir carefully as not to break the noodles.
Let boil once it boils, add salt and oregano to taste
Allow the soup to continue boiling on low-medium for another 20 minutes.
 

Serve with a box of Kleenex and a warm blanket.

Long Day Lentil Soup

categories: Posts, Recipes, Soups

Staffing a 6:45am conference on a Monday, preceded by staffing the first night of the conference on Sunday night, is not my idea of a perfect start to the week. That’s not to say I’m not a positive person. However, leaving before the sun rises puts a little bit of a damper on even my positive attitude.

For those who care to know, the conference went well. There were lots of attendees, I helped promote my firm (the one I work for – you know, my day job), and I met some very interesting professionals. As the afternoon came to a close, the only thing I wanted to do was get home, get into my sweats and have warm soup. Once I turned on Bravo and watched 10 minutes of The Real Housewives of New Jersey – don’t judge me, you secretly watch mindless, trashy television too – I was ready to get my soup on. Long Day Lentil Soup, or at least that’s what I’m calling it today. Disclaimer I might not have gotten it 100% right the way she does it, I made a few modifications. The Long Day Lentil Soup, however, hit the spot. It was just what I needed to unwind. I squeezed some lemon juice, and sprinkled some Stacy’s Pita Chips on top. Yum.

 

 

 

Long Day Lentil Soup Recipe 

Ingredients

1 Onion, chopped
2 cups Red Lentils
1-2 teaspoons Cumin
1/4 teaspoons Turmeric
Diced Baby Carrots
Salt to taste
Vegetable Oil
 
 

Directions

Check lentils for stones, removing the stones.
Wash the lentils in water 3-4 times (add water, drain, add water, drain, etc.)
Fry 1 onion in vegetable oil until golden
Add lentils, stir
Add water covering the lentils over an inch
Add 1-2 teaspoons cumin and 1/4 tsp turmeric
Add diced carrots baby and Salt
Once it boils, turn to medium heat- keep stirring. If the mixture is thick, add water.
After simmering for 15 minutes,  remove from heat and puree in blender. To keep the thickness of the soup, only puree for a couple seconds. 
 

Serve with squeezed lemon juice.