Roast Veggies

Produce from the farmers market yesterday:
Baby eggplant
Carrots
Vine ripe tomatoes
Sweet potatoes

Toss is olive oil, a few cracks of sea salt, freshly ground black pepper. Also added some freshly chopped rosemary to the sweet potatoes.

Lay everything out on a baking sheet in a single layer.

Roast in the oven at: 400 degrees
Time: after 20 mins remove the pan and flip over the sweet potatoes and carrots. Put back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes.

Going into the oven

Done!

Chix Soup +++

Chicken soup is still my panacea. 

So even though yesterday's weather seemed more like summer rather than winter, (which by the way, is the season we are still technically in) I thought I'd post about a soup I recently made.  I took a basic chicken soup recipe and turned it into chix soup plus, because, why not make it a bit more nutritious?

It's quick and easy, and you don't need to make your own chicken stock, which I often dread.

chix soup +++

serves 6 to 8

Ingredients:

1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts

2.5 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium-sized onion

3-4 cloves garlic, diced

3 celery stalks, chopped

1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped

3 cups kale, roughly chopped

10 grape tomatoes, halved

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

3 cups low-sodium chicken broth

3 cups water

Sea salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper.  In soup pot, heat olive oil over medium-high heat and cook chicken through about 4 minutes per side until golden brown.  Remove chicken and set aside for later.

2. Add celery, garlic, and onion to the pot and cook until tender, about 7-8 minutes.

3. Pour in the apple cider vinegar and then add the sweet potatoes, kale, tomatoes, chicken broth, and water.  Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer for 20 minutes.

4. Tear chicken with hands for a pulled effect.  Stir chicken into the pot to heat it for a few minutes.

5. Serve and enjoy :)

The Other White Meat: Pork Chops

I admit it, I cook a lot of chicken.  It's easy, inexpensive, and nutritious.  However, it's good to switch things up and eat a variety of foods, even your proteins, so you can meet all of your vitamin and mineral needs.  And so you don't go crazy eating the same thing every day.  While both chicken and pork are excellent lean meat choices, they offer a different set of nutrients.

Pork is an excellent source of one of our essential B vitamins, thiamine.  It's recommended that we consume around 1.1 - 1.2 mg of thiamine a day.  It forms part of a coenzyme that is used in our body for metabolism.

Pork just might be the leading food source of thiamine.  A lean pork chop (3 ounces of meat) provides almost 1 mg all on its own.  Chicken, on the other hand, only offers a tenth of the thiamine that pork does, with .1 mg in 3 ounces.

I found a recipe in an old Real Simple magazine for a weeknight meal that includes roast pork chops and butternut squash with kale.  I subbed out the butternut squash for sweet potatoes, since I already had some in the house.

It was all pretty easy and didn't take too much time, maybe 30 minutes of prep and an hour total.

• Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  

• Peel and chop up sweet potatoes and toss with fresh sage, olive oil, and a touch of salt + pepper.  Place on baking sheet and cook for 35 to 40 mins.

• After the sweet potatoes have cooked for 25 mins, heat some olive oil in a large skillet over high heat.  Lightly season a couple of bone-in pork chops (around 1 inch thick) with salt + pepper.  Cook until browned, around 3 - 5 mins per side.

• Place the pork chops onto the same baking sheet as the sweet potatoes and roast for about 7 - 8 mins more.

• While those two are in the oven, get going on the kale.  Heat a little bit more olive oil in the same skillet with some thin garlic slices.  Add the kale and 1/4 cup water.  Use a wooden spoon to toss the kale around until tender, around 5 - 7 mins later.

• Plate everything and enjoy.

Looks just like the picture from the magazine!

p.s. There was no way I could eat all of that... 2 meals for the price (and time) of 1

Peach Crisp

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I love summer produce.

Peaches are overflowing at the farmers markets, so I picked up a some beauties and decided to make a peach crisp.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Ingredients:
4-5 large fresh peaches
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup butter (one stick) not softened!

Slice up the peaches (I always use yellow, though, I'm sure the white peaches would be great too).
Spread them all out on the bottom of a 9" X 9" glass pan, or a similar dimension pan.

In bowl, combine the flour, sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon.  Mix 'em all up.
You could add a dash of salt if you want to as well.

Cut up the butter into small pieces; you should be able to handle it quite well since the butter is cold.  Add the cut up butter to the bowl, work it in a little bit, and ensure everything is mixed up evenly.

Crumble the mixture over the top of the peaches and scatter it all around.

Put in the oven for 45 minutes.

When you take it out, let it sit and set for a few minutes before serving.  Goes excellently with vanilla ice cream, or my personal favorite, fresh whipped cream.

I will say that it's best the first day you make it.  There is no way around it getting a bit soggy as it sits in the refrigerator.  If reheating leftovers the next day, I usually put it in the oven under the broiler for 5-10 mins so it can crisp back up, but watch out for the "crisp" burning.

Pan-fried Artichokes

12 baby artichokes for $2.99 at Whole Foods

Mix up 1 egg, milk, parmesan cheese, flour, salt, pepper, and fresh pressed garlic

Wash artichokes

Peel back the layers until the flesh is softer and yellow-green

 

Cut the tips off and the bottom stems

Slice the artichokes into 3's or 4's depending on size

Heat up a skillet with canola oil while you finish prepping the artichokes

Dunk the artichoke slice in the egg-flour mixture to cover both sides

Place it into the hot skillet (med-high heat)

Flip them over after a couple minutes to cook the other side too

Both sides should be golden brown

Take 'em out of the skillet and place on paper towels

I usually have about 2 - 3 batches to cook from the 12 baby artichokes

Best if served fresh and warm, but they can be refrigerated and served cold too

Easy Roasted Artichokes

12 Baby Artichokes
1/4 Lemon
2-3 tablespoons Olive Oil
2-3 cloves Garlic

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Wash artichokes in cold water.  Peel back the first couple layers of the baby artichokes so it's soft flesh and with some slightly yellow-green hues.  Cut them in half and put them in a glass baking dish.

Add a few tablespoons of olive oil (I'm partial to Newman's Own organic extra virgin) and toss the artichokes around.  Slice up a couple of garlic cloves and add them to the mix as well as some sliced lemon, about 3 wheels cut in half.

Bake for 45 minutes.

I have found that covering the pan with tinfoil for half of the time helps make the artichokes softer and then removing it for the second half helps then brown and roast.

I served them around the perimeter of the plate with some store-bought artichoke ravioli (Trader Joe's) with pesto, tomatoes, and roasted eggplant.