Matzo Ball Soup

adapted from Budget Bytes

INGREDIENTS
1 lb chicken, cut into strips or bite-sized pieces
4 carrots, cut into thin rounds
4 ribs celery, halved lengthwise and diced
1 yellow onion, diced small
2 cloves garlic, ready to press or minced
8 cups chicken broth
sprigs of dill
olive oil
salt & pepper

3/4 cup matzo meal
3 T oil
3 large eggs
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
pepper

DIRECTIONS
Prep all your ingredients then start your matzo ball mix.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together eggs and oil. Then add meal, salt & baking soda. Combine to create consistent dough. Refrigerate for 25 minutes.

In a large soup pot, heat olive oil and add carrots, celery, onion & pressed or minced garlic. Saute for 5 or so minutes until the onion is translucent and soft. Season with salt & pepper.

Add a couple sprigs of dill and the chicken broth and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Once the 20 minutes are up, add your chicken strips to the soup and increase heat to medium. As the soup comes to temperature, make your matzo balls by rolling pinches of dough in your hands. They should be no larger than ping-pong ball sized. Keep in mind, they will expand as they cook! I like mine to be about 1.25 inches in diameter.

Once the soup is simmering, add in the matzo balls. Depending on their size, they will require about 15-20 minutes to cook which should give the chicken ample time to cook thoroughly as well without making it rubbery.

Add a sprig or two of dill to serve and ENJOY! Deeeeeelish.

Greek Dressing

Delicious Greek dressing. A keeper for sure!

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
  • juice of one lemon
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 1 tbsp dried oregano leaves
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper

Directions

Add oil, vinegar and lemon juice to jar. Press 4 cloves into the jar. Add oregano, salt, black pepper. Shake vigorously to emulsify.

Chicken Lettuce Wraps Chopped Salad

2016-06-16 11.56.16Sorry this isn’t the best photo. I will try to replace it later with something more glamorous. But as a big part of this blog is to catalog the recipes that the family has deemed favorites, I want to get this UP.

To be perfectly honest, only the adult members of the family are gaga over this recipe, but both kids like it well enough. Tabby prefers to eat the chicken and dressing separate from the salad and add ranch or ceasar dressing (her faves) and Ben mostly just likes the chicken, but I think as they get a little older, they’ll come to love it like we do.

The original recipe comes from Skinny Taste and we make very few tweaks.

Ingredients:

SALAD DRESSING

  • 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons grapeseed or canola oil
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/8 tsp kosher 
salt and pepper

CHICKEN

  • 1/2 cup hoisin sauce
  • 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
  • 4 teaspoons Sriracha sauce (or more!)
  • 
4 tablespoons less sodium soy sauce
  • 
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
  • 2 pounds ground chicken
  • (2) 8 ounce cans water chestnuts, drained and diced
  • 1/4 cup chopped unsalted peanuts

SALAD

  • 6-8 cups of mixed lettuce, chopped
  • grated carrots (optional)
  • random additions like snow peas or chinese noodles (optional)

 

Directions

In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, oils, honey, ginger, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste to make dressing. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the hoisin, vinegar, Sriracha, soy sauce, and ginger. Set aside. Heat a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Spray with cooking spray then add the chicken and cook until browned and cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the water chestnuts and peanuts to the pan. Pour the reserved hoisin mixture on top and cook for 1 to 2 minutes to heat through.

Remove from the heat and set aside. We like this very well when the chicken is fresh from the stove and even better when it’s been chilled in the fridge – very refreshing!

To serve, combine lettuces, carrots and any other additions. Top salad with chicken mixture and drizzle with dressing and toss.

Peanut Sesame Sweet Potato Noodles

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I’ve had a spiralizer for maybe a year now. I was pretty excited by it when I first got it but I rapidly figured out that while I love zoodles (zucchini noodles), the rest of my household does not. I should have been pulling it out regularly to make myself zoodles for lunch, but I think I was kind of bummed.

Luckily, I spotted Organic Dietician’s recipe for Sesame Sweet Potato Noodles and I decided to give it a whirl. Who doesn’t love sesame noodles? It was a success, but it needed just a little tweaking to be perfect for me. Added bonus, Matt loves them too.

Ingredients

  • 2 medium to large sweet potatoes, peeled & spiralized
  • 1 T olive oil
  • 2 T no-sugar-added peanut butter
  • 1 T sesame oil
  • 2 T apple cider vinegar
  • pinch salt
  • 1 T sesame seeds
  • sliced green onion (for serving)
  • sriracha (for serving)

Directions

Place spiralized sweet potato in a microwave-safe bowl and drizzle about 1 T water in the bottom of the dish. Microwave 8-12 minutes depending on how cooked you’d like your sweet potato. I like mine with just a hint of crunch and so I go about 10 minutes.

Heat olive oil in a skillet and add noodles. Saute for about 5 minutes. This removes some excess water and makes them a bit more noodle like.

Meanwhile, whisk together peanut butter, sesame oil, vinegar and salt.

When noodles are cooked as desired, toss with dressing and top with sesame seeds and green onion & sriracha if desired.

These are great warm, but I like them even a bit better cold the next day.

Overnight Oats

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If you look at anything food related, particularly clean/healthy food related on the internets, you can’t help but have seen a post (or 100) about overnight oats. And it’s obvious why – they’re great. They allow you to make really quality food very quickly, so long as you do it early, and they are really really tasty. I’ve tried many, but here are my favorites, adapted from Marin Mama Cooks.

Ingredients

  • 1/4 C steel cut oats
  • 3/4 C almond milk (unsweetened)
  • 2 T chia seeds
  • 1/2 T maple syrup
  • pinch salt
  • 1/2 t vanilla extract
  • fresh fruit, cut in bite-sized pieces

Directions

Place oats, milk, chia seeds, maple syrup, salt and vanilla extract in a container with a lid. I use the wide-mouth pint mason jars. They’re cheap and sturdy. Give the the mixture a quick stir and top with the fresh fruit. I’ve done berries of all type, cherries and apples. They’ve all been delicious. Then place the jar in the fridge overnight.

Grab the jar the next morning on your way out the door and enjoy! You can also pop the jar in the microwave and heat for about 90 seconds for a warm breakfast.

And that’s it. Couldn’t be simpler!

Easy Korean BBQ Beef with Broccoli

2015-02-02 18.12.46I fully realize I’ve been rather terrible about posting new recipes. But really, maybe it’s just that I’ve been more selective. I’ve wanted to make sure that we really really LOVE something and it’s truly ingrained in our family dinner repertoire before I post it. But I have to say I was a little surprised I hadn’t already posted this. We make it very frequently. At least once a month. And for us, that’s huge.

The original recipe came from Damn Delicious, a favorite recipe blog. And her’s is amazing, so it was the foundation for this, but I always need to soup things up a bit, usually with VEGGIES and this was no exception. I also moved the heat out of the dish so adults could add it to taste later with some Sriracha and nixed some fat and sugar.

Ingredients

  • 2 lbs 93% lean ground beef
  • 6 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
  • 1 T sesame oil
  • 1/2 C brown sugar
  • 1/2 C soy sauce
  • 1/2 t ground ginger
  • 2 packages frozen broccoli (I like the kind that steams in the bag)
  • Sriracha for serving (optional)
  • rice for serving

Directions

Note: If you’re going to have rice with this, you probably need to get going on that before you ever start the beef because this is quick.

Start by browning the ground beef, breaking it into small pieces as you go. As that’s heating up, toss in your sesame oil and garlic cloves (I just push these through the press so I don’t have to fuss with them before I start). As the ground beef browns (you’ll have to stir it occasionally as you work), steam your broccoli in the microwave. Then combine the brown sugar, soy sauce and ginger in a small bowl. Whisk together.

As soon as the ground beef is brown, add the sauce and broccoli and stir to thoroughly combine. Allow to simmer for a couple of minutes and serve on top of your rice with as much or as little Siracha as you can handle.

 

2015-02-02 18.06.35This is by far one of the easiest things I cook. I can get it on the table in probably about 20 minutes. This is partially due to the fact that we love minute rice and that can cook alongside it in about the same time. Everyone in the family LOVES this.

Sriracha Salmon with Summer Squash Hash

2014-10-20 18.28.39

I like anything I can get on the table for my family in under 30 minutes that is healthy, real food. Salmon almost always fits that bill because it cooks quickly and needs very little adornment to make it special. This dish is no exception and is a really great addition to any week night warrior’s repertoire. Add my summer squash hash and it’s a full, healthy, very yummy meal with leftovers for lunch the next day.

Ingredients

For the salmon:

  • 2 pounds salmon cut into 4-6 oz pieces
  • 1 lime
  • 1 T Sriracha hot sauce
  • 2 T brown sugar
  • 1 t sea salt
  • 2-3 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish

For the Summer Squash Hash:

  • 2 cups cooked rice (brown is our fave)
  • 3-4 summer squash (zucchini or yellow squash) cut small or julienned
  • 1 T butter
  • S&P or salt and lemon pepper or garlic salt or … ?

Directions

Heat oven to 425. Start your rice cooking. Heat water on the stove or turn on the rice cooker and get it going. Then prep your summer squash. We use the mandoline on the fine grate setting and turn over 4 squash in just a few minutes. This is a good time to slice the green onions as well.

Next, cover a baking sheet with parchment or foil and place the salmon pieces on top. Zest the lime over it. Then combine the lime juice, Sriracha, brown sugar and sea salt together in a small bowl. Drizzle over the salmon and place in the oven for 16 minutes. We found this is the perfect cook time for us, but if you have very thin salmon or like it more rare, you should probably check after 10 minutes.

Now, use the next 16 minutes to cook your summer squash and finish up your rice. Heat 1 T butter in a fry pan and add the summer squash. Saute for 8-10 minutes until a bit soft. Don’t move it around too much, you want to move some moisture and start to get it a little brown if you can. Season with your desired spices and combine with the rice.

Sprinkle green onions over salmon and serve atop your delicious hash. Enjoy!

 

2014-10-20 18.31.22Notes: we do not find this to be a particularly spicy dish, despite containing Sriracha. The fattiness of the salmon seems to cut it nicely. Also, hash is equally delicious deconstructed (with rice and squash not touching) if you happen to have picky eaters.

 

Coconut Curry Lobster Bisque


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This is a recipe I’m posting at least half for my own record keeping as anything else. I still have some lingering questions about the recipe and I don’t have great photos, but I’ll share what I’ve got and try to update the next time we make it. But man, it’s too good to lose!

Backstory: Last week we went to Sweet Tomatoes as an atta-boy for Ben who had been struggling a bit with behavior at school and is now happily doing amazingly well, literally OFF-THE-CHARTS. Sweet Tomatoes (this is a salad, soup, pasta buffet with some baked goods and soft-serve ice cream thrown in) is a perennial favorite restaurant of the kids and Matt and I like it, but in a sort of we’ll put up with it for your sake kind of way. It’s generally not too innovative or interesting, but everyone can find something they like and it’s reasonably healthy if you’re careful with how much and what you pick.

So we got our salads and ate those and then Ben begged to go get mac ‘n’ cheese and I accompanied him, served his pasta for him and sent him back to the table. Then I wandered over to the soup bar where they had the usual array of 6 soups. They always have a bunch of the same ol’ but then have some seasonal offering … and this time, it was Lobster Curry Bisque. The seasonal soups are very largely hit or miss, but I almost always try them and this one was … OMG. Amazing. It was all I could do not to go back for seconds, thirds, fourths and bribe the people to send me home with the absurdly large vat of the stuff.

It was all the yummy stuff about regular lobster bisque but with coconut and curry flavors and just so so so good. It was kind of like a mixture between Tom Kha (a thai soup with a lovely coconut base) and regular ol’ lobster bisque. Awesome. I was already planning a return trip for this week when I realized that we were on the LAST DAY of the soup special. Disaster. Only if the soup is a huge hit do you ever see it again and even then, it could be easily a full year!

So I did what any sensible person would do. I googled. And I came up with the delightful recipe for Coconut Curry Lobster Bisque by a Ms. Natalie Paramore. I’d never been to her site before, but she showed a pretty good method and so I decided I’d give it a whirl. And just a couple of days later, I stuck it on the menu for Sunday night … along with another tried and tested soup (Beef Barley with Mushrooms) just in case.

Acquiring the ingredients was a bit more hassle than normal and included a trip to an Asian grocery store. But happily, an H-Mart has just cropped up on one of my more frequently traveled paths and Ben in tow, we were able to get lemon grass, lemon thyme, coconut milk and coconut cream powder (as well as some other Asian grocery store treats) while Tabby was testing for her orange belt on Saturday.

So Sunday was the regular crazy Nichols affair. We had a swim birthday party in the morning that we followed up with lunch with friends and then we met up with other friends back at our house shortly after that to do a little crafting (they wanted to make a CO pallet flag as well). They’d offered to bring dinner (after I’d already menu planned and done most of the shopping) but since I had something in the works, I said I’d just go ahead with that.

So while the wife was working with Matt on the pallet flag, I was in the kitchen cooking it up … and watching some football. I basically followed the original recipe with some modifications:

Ingredients

  • 4 Lobster tails (I forgot to see what weight I used, but they were small and I’m betting they totaled in the 3.5 lb range)
  • 6 cups water
  • kosher salt
  • 4 cups chicken stock
  • 2 stalks lemon grass
  • 2 sprigs lemon thyme
  • 1 T peppercorns
  • 3 teeny onions
  • 9 cloves garlic
  • 3 T red curry paste
  • 1 can coconut milk
  • 1/4 C coconut cream powder
  • 1 lime
  • cilantro for garnish

Directions 

As I said, this was all a bit on the experimental side. To my knowledge, I’d never even cooked lobster before, but what the heck! I’ll try anything.

So first step was to steam the lobster. I placed them in my soup pot with the water and about 2 tsp of kosher salt. Then, as the recipe directed, I brought them to a boil and covered to steam for 12 minutes. While that was in the works, as suggested, I chopped up the veggies. Lemon grass is no joke! It was crazy hard to cut and I ended up more or less sawing it with my serrated bread knife. Since the recipe said we’d be blending these things up, I just did the rough chop.

After the 12 minutes had elapsed, I removed the lobsters to a plate to let them cool. Once they were cool enough to handle, I dug out all the meat. I did this over the plate to capture the juices and dumped the juices and meat back into the soup pot. Then I added the chicken stock, lemon grass, lemon thyme, peppercorns, onions and garlic back to the pot and set it to boil for 45 minutes to make the stock.

Though this step was obviously not difficult, it is what would keep me from making this on a weeknight. In this case it worked out beautifully because I could prep everything for my other soup while the stock formed.

Once the stock was done, I strained it back into another pot as the recipe called for and here’s where it got a bit jinky. The author said to remove the whole ingredients and the lobster tail shells, but then it clearly showed those things being blended up and had referenced this fact before. Not wanting to lose out on any flavor, I opted to just remove the lobster tail shells and blend with my immersion blender. That technique works wonderfully on many of the soups I make, but the crazy lemon grass was really resistant and it was clear that ingredient would not blend nicely into soupiness. It just more or less ground it up. Therefore, I decided to run it back through the strainer once more. I was very happy with this move because it was clear that this fiborous stuff did not belong in there. I ended up squeezing it out to get all the liquid back out.

From there, the finish was easy. Stir in some curry paste (I just did a bit over half the jar, an estimated 3 T) and the can of coconut milk. The author had suggested that coconut cream was preferable but even at the Asian grocery store, there was none to be had. So I picked up the powder. The directions said to make it by putting the whole packet in a cup of water. But rather than do that, I stirred in about a 1/4 cup into the soup for just a little extra creamy. Next time I’d like to order the coconut cream off Amazon to see what difference it makes. Then I stirred in the lobster and squeezed lime over the whole thing and served it up!

 

All 10 of our guests (my dad and sister had joined us by this point) agreed – it was amazing. The kids all gamely tried it and ate at least half of their bowls. Any leftovers the adults were glad to bat clean-up on.

Work wise, this was honestly very manageable. I would guestimate that my hands-on time was around 1 hour and then add in the cook time around 1 hour. As I said, the only hard part was the uncertainty in straining the soup. I think I would be much quicker making it next time around, probably cutting my hands-on time to 30-40 min.

One might wonder though, how it compares to its Sweet Tomatoes inspiration. The answer is … quite a bit different, but possibly even better. The main difference was the texture. Sweet Tomatoes’ was much more thick creamy and this was definitely thinner, but still creamy. This had more the consistency of a thai coconut soup (Tom Kha). The flavors in this were a bit more subtle as well. You tasted everything, all at once, and nothing overpowered anything else. Lobster, coconut, curry, citrus.

To top it all off, the Broncos won, Payton captured the TD pass record, our friends have their very own CO pallet flag and we all had a very lovely evening.

 

Mexican Sweet Potatoes

2014-09-09 17.23.15I had to post this recipe, because this is another one of those that has reached the vaunted “family favorite” status. I know, from the photo, it kind of looks like a hot mess, and even when I reveal the ingredients, you’ll probably think we’re nuts, but seriously, TRY IT. It hits all the right notes and when I serve this, EVERYONE licks their plate clean.

The original idea for this came from Iowa Girl’s Smothered Sweet Potato Fries and that recipe is AWESOME in its own right (it’s even got a great trick about stretching ground beef with mushrooms). But we like the health of the plain ol’ sweet potatoes and we so often have regular ol’ taco meat left over, I just usually use that.

Ingredients

  • 1 lb lean ground beef (soy crumbles? you decide)
  • 4 sweet potatoes
  • 1/2 C shredded cheddar
  • 2 avocados
  • taco seasoning (we use garlic salt, cumin and chili powder)
  • guacamole seasoning (garlic salt + cayenne pepper for us!)

Directions

Bake the sweet potatoes however you do … partial time in the microwave? Use your crockpot? Whatever works. We usually just shove them in a 350 oven on a cookie sheet lined with foil (they leak sweet potato juice, yo) for about an hour. They need to be tender.

Towards the end of sweet potato baking, brown the ground beef and season with the taco seasoning. Then halve the avocados, pull out their flesh and mash it in a bowl. We actually  have a mini-sized masher just for this job. It works swell. Season it as you do any old guacamole. We are very basic with the garlic salt and cayenne but I know lots of folks who do lime juice, onions, tomatoes, salsa, siracha, and on and on.

Once the potatoes are baked, halve them and mash on a plate to form a nice bed of sweet potato. Top with taco meat, cheddar cheese and let it melt a bit (you can nuke it if you don’t have enough residual heat from meat/potato). Then serve with the guacamole.

It’s filling, satisfying and pretty darn good for ya!

Buffalo Shrimp Po’ Boys

buffaloshrimppoboyThese po’ boys originally came to me via Mother Thyme. Buffalo?! Shrimp?!? Sandwich?!? Yep, you got me. I had to bite.

I have no idea what the original recipe says. When I went to find the link, I didn’t even bother to look, because it’s now in my brain the way I make it and that’s what I’m sharing with you.

Ingredients

  • shrimp! peeled and defrosted – however many your family will eat and/or will provide adequate leftovers
  • buffalo sauce – maybe a cup or so? you need it for basting on the grill and drizzling on the sandwich – WE USE (and love!) FRANK’S
  • blue cheese crumbles
  • baby arugula
  • bread! You can use what you like, but in my opinion, crusty is good. Ciabatta has been really good for this, but you could use french bread, possibly bollio, or something else you prefer
  • butter
  • garlic salt
  • onion powder

Directions

Heat grill to medium. Prepare shrimp by peeling and defrosting as necessary. Thread on to skewers and brush with buffalo sauce. Prepare bread by splitting in the middle and cutting into sandwich size pieces if necessary. Then spread/brush with butter and sprinkle with garlic salt and onion powder.

Bring prepared shrimp skewers and bread to the grill. Grill shrimp skewers until they have changed color properly, about 2-3 min per side. Depending on the configuration of your grill, you can grill the bread at the same time, or you can do it once the shrimp are done. Go buttered side down and about 5 min if it’s on an upper rack (this is what we use) or only a minute or so if it’s on the main grilling surface.

To assemble, layer arugula and a skewer and a half or so of shrimp on top of the grilled bread. Sprinkle with blue cheese crumbles and drizzle on more buffalo sauce, then add the top bread.

 

We’ve made these two or three times now and they are almost universally a big hit, at least with adults. The kids are wary of the spicy buffalo, so we leave that off for them and just give the shrimp a little S&P. They come together VERY quickly and I like that you don’t have to heat up the oven or stove to make them. They are a great picnic food and we’ve served them with our apple/cucumber slaw.