In My Kitchen August 2017

Aug7

We only have a few things in our home kitchen this month. We left to fly to Newfoundland on August 5th, but there is a little peak into our Newfoundland kitchen as well. We have been updating our Instagram page regularly while on vacation, if you want to see more you can check that out.

Bruschetta

Flatbreads, you may have seen this on our Instagram page

A Big Mary

I went cod jigging with my Dad

We caught a few and are having fish and chips for dinner tonight

Even got close to some feeding humpbacks

Always need some chocolate in the kitchen

The “In My Kitchen” monthly theme host is Sherry, from sherryspickings.blogspot.ie If you would like to know what is happening in other kitchens or join IMK head over to Sherry’s blog and check out all the other IMK participants and join in.

Sherrys Pickings

Chicken pesto flatbreads with arugula salad

Jul24

This looks fancy but really is very easy, fast and delicious. Perfect for busy summer days!

I used prepared flatbreads and brushed with olive oil, add small dallops of pesto all over, added cut up cooked chicken breast (vegetarian option-leave out chicken) and topped with crumbled goat cheese. Then bake this in 425 degree Fahrenheit oven for 5 minutes.

Take out and top with arugula (dressed with balsamic vinaigrette) top with a few cherry or grape tomato halves. Drizzle with balsamic glaze. That’s it, quick, fancy and delicious. Just pop open a nice bottle of wine et voila!

Madras Chicken Soup

Oct9

I found this recipe in an old Chatelaine magazine. I put it aside years ago and decided to actually make it. It is fall and that brings soup weather. It was very tastyand smelled wonderful.

I didn’t have any brown rice so I used basmati. Also, I didn’t have frozen peas, I used a mixture of peas and corn.

This is the point when the smell gets amazing!

This is the point where I forgot to take pictures, but you just add the stuff to the pot, so there wasn’t anything to exciting that you missed.

Season to taste with salt and pepper if needed.

Lemony Chicken Skewers

May14

Food Revolution Day is May 15, 2015, it was started by Jamie Oliver a few years ago, following in the spirit of his Food Revolution cookbook, which I have and use often. I highly recommend it as it is a great book. It is all about making your own, good, healthy real food. Making your own food doesn’t have to be complicated, some of the best meals are very simple. This recipe is one of those. I found the original recipe in a magazine and have tweaked it to be quicker and easier, but it is healthy and full of flavour.

This is a great summer recipe, very tasty and perfect on the grill, but good in the oven too. Especially nice because you can throw everything in a zip top back to marinade all day and then grill in the evening.

I will spare you the photos of cutting up raw chicken. The chicken should be cut in chunks big enough to be threaded onto a bamboo skewer, maybe an inch or two.

Place chicken in a zip top bag along with 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2tbsp olive oil, 2 tsp minced garlic, 1&1/2 tsp dried oregano, and 1/2 tsp salt. Shake around to coat chicken and place in refrigerator all day (or at least a an hour).

Thread onto bamboo skewers that have been pre-soaked in water for a couple of hours (so they don’t catch fire), or you can use metal skewers if you have them. Grill until cooked through.

These skewers are good served with greek pita that has been warmed on the grill , tzatziki (i know that is spelled wrong) and a nice salad. We made Jamie Oliver’s chopped salad from his Food Revolution book, it is really good.

Easy Peasy “Butter Chicken”

Feb28

This picture is not exactly as it should look. This was one of those time when, at the end, I forgot to take pictures. This was Evie’s plate so there was less sauce and very little spinach. The adult plates had lots of sauce and spinach pieces, which looked more reminiscent of butter chicken.

This recipe is not quite authentic, but it is a good weeknight meal. And a bonus, one pot easy clean up! You can make it spicier by the addition of more chilies or less spicy if you have children who do not like too much spice. I forgot to buy fresh chilies and was desperate so I used a few pinches of dried chilli flakes until I got the heat that I wanted. I would not really recommend this, but if you are stuck it will do. It turned out great. This recipe is also a good way to sneak spinach into a meal.

Ingredients:

6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces.

1/4 cup butter

1tbsp ground cumin

2-3 hot chilli peppers, finely chopped (should equal 2-3 tbsp)

1tbsp grated fresh ginger

3/4 cup chopped coriander/cilantro

1 cup whipping cream

14oz can tomato sauce 1/2 tsp salt

5 cups baby spinach (regular is good too, just chop into smaller pieces).

Cook chicken in 2 batches,

cook half of the chicken in 2 tbsp of the butter, sprinkle with half of the cumin and cook until no longer pink, then repeat with remaining pieces and 2 more tbsp of butter and rest of the cumin. If your pan is large enough so the chicken isn’t crowded you can combine this into one step.

Remove chicken to a bowl.

Add cream to the pan and deglaze

Stir to scrape up bits from pan

Add tomato sauce and stir

Add grated ginger, finely chopped peppers and salt

Add chicken and juices back to pan and stir. Bring to boil and then simmer about 10 minutes until chicken is heated through.

Add chopped coriander/cilantro

Add spinach and let cook until spinach wilts down.

Serve with basmati rice and naan bread.

Source: unsure, original recipe from either a 2004-2005 issue Canadian Living or Chatelaine magazine, adapted by me.

Easy Thai Green Curry

Feb21

We found a product that we really liked. This is not an advertisement, just my opinion. I do not have any affiliates and I do not get paid or compensated to say anything here. If something is on my blog it is because I really use it and like it. If I try something and like it I want to share it.

Saha Thai Green Curry

We tried this curry and the meal was awesome. We made two meals out of this little jar. Then we wanted to make it again and went back to the little store where we got the paste and they do not have it anymore. I found the website on the jar and we can order it from there, I think. I did get a lead from the lady in the store where I may be able to find it so I will have to check that out.

We followed the recipe on the jar and made a few adjustments, the addition of boiled potato chunks (great if you have leftover potatoes) and carrot. Equally as good without. I like those added because I have had that at a restaurant and thought it a good idea to add a few veg.

Saute carrot in a pan and cook with a little oil until tender crisp.

Add chicken and cook until no longer pink. Then add the amount of curry listed on the jar, I think it was either 1/2 or 1/4 cup. Stir and cook a few minutes longer.

Add a can of coconut milk.

Stir and heat through.

Add in the prepared potatoes and sliced red pepper and heat until those are just warmed through.

Serve with jasmine rice.

This picture looks a little brothy, the picture above this one looks more creamy. The first time we made it we used a different brand coconut milk (the brand that we preferred in this recipe was Aroy-D), that made it creamy and I preferred that one. They were both good and the flavour was still the same.

It was really very good. We made it twice in one week and now we are out of the curry.

If you can find this curry I really recommend that you give it a try. It is an easy weeknight meal.

Here is the website in case anyone would like to check it out and they have recipes (www.sahacuisine.com), they also have some other products I would like to try too.

Soba Noodle Salad with Garlic Ginger Dressing

Dec30

This is one tasty salad. It is a nice salad to use up leftover chicken or turkey, which many people have around this time of year. It is also a good one for summer picnics or potlucks as it can be left out at room temperature for awhile as there is no mayo to spoil.

This recipe can easily be adapted to be gluten free (make sure noodles and soy sauce are gluten free), vegetarian or vegan (leave out protein and for vegan make sure other ingredients are safe). I am also thinking that this would be good using the cooked tofu from our Broccoli Tofu Stir Fry recipe. I would have put a link to that here, but I forget how to do it.

First for the dressing:

whisk together 1/4 cup of gluten free soy sauce, Tamari or I use Kikkoman, 2 Tbsp rice vinegar, 1Tbsp veg oil, 1 tsp sugar, 1 clove garlic (minced) and 1 tsp ginger root peeled and finely grated. Set aside.

These are the noodles we use since we can easily find them. You can use any Soba Noodle (Japanese Buckwheat Noodles) that you would prefer. Make sure it says gluten free if you can’t have gluten. Boil 3/4 lbs of noodles according to the package directions, drain and rinse with cold water.

Toss with the dressing.

Add about 1 lb of cooked cubed or shredded chicken (or leftover turkey if it is the holidays).

I also add a few thinly sliced scallions (I use just the green onion tops) and about a cup or so of chopped sweet bell peppers. For the peppers I use whatever colours I have on hand, about a full pepper or two small ones.

Toss all of this together with the sauce and noodles and serve warm or cover and chill to serve later.

Best served the day of prepping as the noodles will soak up the dressing and it will be a little dryer. However, all of the flavour is still there, just give it a little toss to recoat everything.

The original source was an Everyday Food magazine from many years ago, 2008 or 2009. I adapted the recipe to our liking, aka Evie’s liking. I believe the original used a head of thinly shredded purple or red cabbage, which would add more colour and crunch. We didn’t like that as much and the shredded cabbage was a little harder for Evie to eat. She was only about a year old when we started making this. She loved it and would eat it up, with all the cabbage picked out, so I stopped adding the cabbage and added more peppers since she liked them.

Now that I have posted this I have to go finish cleaning out the cupboards. We did the food cupboards yesterday. Now I have a few very stuffed cupboard of spices and teas that is in desperate need of a good cull and clean. I shouldn’t procrastinate on that any longer.

Frugal Faux Pesto…aka basil pesto

Sep10

I cannot really call this pesto as there are no pine nuts, or anything replacing them. We really like pesto, but got used to making it without one of the main ingredients when Evie was in daycare, there was a child there with a severe pine nut allergy. Of course we couldn’t substitute walnuts because like most schools/daycares there is a no nut policy due to allergies. Now we still make it this way, which we are ok with, because pine nuts are expensive.

We went to the local farmer’s market to get some nice fresh basil and we got a big bunch for the same price we would have paid for a little sprig at the grocery store. It smelled soooo good. We also got some local garlic braided with pretty dried flowers. Evie can’t stop picking at it.

Pick off the leaves, wash and dry, need about 2-3 cups

4 cloves minced garlic

about half cup grated parmesan

Blitz all of this in a food processor a few times, then blend more, while pouring in a constant stream of olive oil. I used somewhere between half cup and a cup of olive oil. Sprinkle in salt and pepper to taste.

We kept some pesto for our supper sandwiches and Evie took some to school to dip her bread in for lunch.

The rest we will freeze to use later. Probably for a dressing for pasta salad for a school lunch. To freeze pesto I place a sheet of cling wrap over a mini muffin tin and fill the cups with the pesto. The plastic wrap will make it easier to remove from the tins then wrap individually and place in a container or zip top bag. That way you can pull one out at a time.

For supper we made sandwiches on one of our favorite breads, foccacia would also be good.

grilled chicken, avocado and a tomato from our garden. You can omit the chicken for a veggie version

cookswithevie

our adventures cooking … and other fun stuff

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