We don’t go too crazy with the Christmas decorations, but we do like to make things festive. This year, Dan made white chili for us to eat while we got started with the decorating. He adapted this recipe from SimplyRecipes.com to make it a little easier to make. Although Dan has perfected his regular chili recipe over the years, this was his first attempt at white chili. It turned out great, and we’ll definitely be adding it to our rotation as a lighter alternative to beef chili. Continue reading “White Chili (and Christmas Decor!)”
Category: Recipes
Lemon Veal
Several years ago, Dan and I were lucky enough to take an amazing trip to Italy with my parents, who were lucky enough to have been there a couple of times prior to our trip, and graciously showed us the ropes. One of my parents’ favorite destinations in Italy (and now our favorite as well) is the Island of Capri. Capri is an amazing place, and we strongly suggest you go there if you get the opportunity. If you do find yourself so fortunate to be on Capri, we highly recommend the restaurant Villa Verde , which provided the inspiration for this dish. We had a version of lemon veal at Villa Verde on our first night in Italy, and it was heaven on a plate. Exhaustion from our travels and giddiness about actually being in Italy may have factored into our fondness for Villa Verde and this dish, but we love our home-cooked version just as much. This year, for the first time ever, we were able to make our Lemon Veal with our own homegrown lemon, which made it even more special. Continue reading “Lemon Veal”
Shrimp Salad (with store-bought shrimp)
With the holidays fast approaching and adding more activities to the usual busy week, these days we are all about easy meals. It doesn’t get much easier than incorporating a leftover protein into a salad, which can become a satisfying meal all on its own. This recipe is one of our favorite weeknight salads. We usually make it with leftover shrimp, but Dan’s spicy garlic shrimp that he made earlier in the week was so good that we didn’t have any leftovers. So, we improvised and bought some pre-cooked shrimp from Whole Foods. Not nearly as good as Dan’s, but still made a pretty delicious (and really easy) salad.
Rice with Roasted Poblano, Spinach and Cheese
As self-proclaimed foodies, we love the show Top Chef, including their “Top Chef Masters” series, in which they pit established chefs against each other. On the first season, a chef named Rick Bayless won. Chef Bayless is widely acclaimed as America’s biggest proponent of authentic Mexican cuisine. He also has two reportedly amazing restaurants in Chicago — Frontera Grill and Topolobampo. I personally wouldn’t be able to speak in detail about how amazing they are, since I have never been (someone forgot to make reservations far enough in advance of our most recent trip to Chicago. His name rhymes with pan). But, pan Dan was lucky enough to go to Topolobampo once with a couple of colleagues during a work trip and says it was exquisite. I guess the rest of us will just have to settle for the homemade version of Chef Bayless’ delicious recipe for “Rice with Roasted Poblano, Spinach and Fresh Cheese.” Continue reading “Rice with Roasted Poblano, Spinach and Cheese”
Shells Stuffed with Thanksgiving Leftovers
You are probably thinking that pasta shells stuffed with Thanksgiving leftovers sounds pretty weird. And that the ingredients (leftovers, mayo, and cream/mozzarella/parmesan cheeses) don’t look very appetizing. We thought the same thing. But, lucky for you, we decided to try it anyway and discovered a delicious and easy way to use up Thanksgiving leftovers. We found the recipe on allrecipes.com, one of our favorite recipe sites. We read a lot of the reviews from people who had tried the recipe and discovered that most of them were excellent, so we figured the recipe was worth trying. We were not disappointed — the recipe is an interesting way to combine our favorite Thanksgiving flavors (gravy, turkey and stuffing) into a somewhat lighter meal that didn’t result in the usual Turkey Day food coma. Continue reading “Shells Stuffed with Thanksgiving Leftovers”
Tex-Mex Turkey Soup (with leftover turkey)
We tried to find some out-of-the-ordinary recipes for our leftover turkey this year. This soup recipe is amazing and definitely different. It’s very similar to a chicken tortilla soup — hearty with tomato and complex flavors, but with diced up turkey instead of chicken. Really good, and something new to try if you get tired of turkey sandwiches. Since we were only cooking for the two of us, we prepared a half recipe. Continue reading “Tex-Mex Turkey Soup (with leftover turkey)”
Baked Chicken Chiles Relleno (with leftover chicken)
We have a little garden at home and this is our second season of attempting to grow some of our own food. Certain “crops” fared better than others, especially this summer when it was so hot. We ended up with quite a few poblano peppers and have been looking for recipes to use them. One of our favorite Tex-Mex places has a really good baked chicken chile relleno, so we decided to attempt to recreate it, using our very own homegrown peppers. We also thought it would be a good use of leftover chicken. Continue reading “Baked Chicken Chiles Relleno (with leftover chicken)”
Simple Roasted Chicken
We don’t roast chicken often enough. It’s a really easy and inexpensive way to get several meals out of one protein. We have tried roasted chicken lots of different ways, but recently found the most simple way yet, that was also the most delicious we have tried so far. Rather than stuffing the cavity with anything, applying a rub to the outer skin, or adding compound butter under the skin (all methods we have tried in the past), we just trussed the chicken, generously seasoned it with dried thyme, salt & pepper and roasted it in a cast-iron skillet in the oven. Seriously simple, and super delicious. Continue reading “Simple Roasted Chicken”
Celery Salad
We recently tried a new side dish from Ina Garten’s latest cookbook “How Easy is That?” We have to say, it was pretty darn easy. And delicious. So good, in fact, that we are going to serve it at Thanksgiving this year. Celery salad is not something we ever would have thought to make, but as Ina recognizes, celery can serve as a starring role and should not always be relegated to tuna salad support. This is definitely a side dish we will keep in the rotation. Continue reading “Celery Salad”
Moo Shoo Pork (with leftover pork)
The other night, Dan grilled 2 GIANT pork chops, and we needed a good recipe for the leftovers. We consulted one of our most-used cookbooks for week-night cooking, “The Best 30 Minute Recipe,” and found a great one. I’ve never tried Moo Shoo Pork from a Chinese restaurant, so I wasn’t quite sure how it would turn out. But the ingredients looked good and we liked that it seemed really easy, so we decided to give it a shot. Plus the name sounds funny.