Tag: Gluten Free
Veggie-ful Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken
As I’ve alluded to in the past, I’m not really into the hiding-vegetables-in-your-kids’-food trend. In my book, the ideal is for kids to learn to enjoy the veggies themselves, if humanly possible. Hiding vegetables in an unsuspecting child’s dinner puts feels a bit like a sneaky parlor trick, and I’d rather not feel like a con artist when putting dinner on the table. But sometimes a recipe comes along that so effectively incorporates vegetables in an unexpected place that I find it fools even me. This slow cooker salsa chicken does just that. I would not normally put carrots and celery into a salsa-based dish (would you?), so when I first tried this recipe, I was a little wary. Carrots and celery in combination remind me of soups or pot pie, something warm and brothy and probably originally from the East Coast–certainly not anything Mexican. So it’s kind of shocking how seamlessly they blend into this tomato-y, chili-spiced shredded chicken. Makes me wonder where else I could add veggies without them being overpowering (and without them being “hidden” to fool unwitting children).
Another other reason I love this recipe (in addition to how easy it is–did I mention that, too?) is its all-purposeness–it has made appearances in burritos, wraps, nachos, and on salad at our house. I’m even contemplating making a dessert with it–bad idea? It’s pretty much perfect for one of those days you know you want something homemade but can’t be home for very long to get it ready. Give it a try. You won’t be disappointed with its spicy-yummy goodness, and your kids, if you have them, won’t be freaked out by its subtle vegetables (especially if you wrap it up in a tortilla–that’s not too sneaky, right?).
Veggie-ful Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken
(Adapted from Sparkpeople.com)
Ingredients:
2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts or tenderloins
2 Tbsp. taco seasoning (preferably homemade–see here for an easy recipe)
1 c. salsa
1 c. petite diced tomatoes with green chilies (fire-roasted are especially good!)
1 c. onion, diced
1/2 c. celery, diced
1/2 c. carrots, shredded
Directions:
1. Place chicken in the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker. Season on both sides with taco seasoning.
2. Layer salsa, diced tomatoes, onion, celery, and carrots on top of the chicken. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high 3-4 hours.
3. Remove chicken from slow cooker and shred. Return to slow cooker and drain the liquid from the entire mixture with a fine-mesh strainer. Serve with tacos, nachos, tostadas, wraps or in a taco salad!
Serves 8.
Herbed Stuffed Zucchini
What would you call these? Zucchini boats? Zucchini blades? Zucchini toboggans? Every time I make this herbed stuffed zucchini, I want to give it some cute, descriptive name that makes my kids more inclined to eat it. Not that my kids are very picky, I just think a dinner with such a unique shape deserves some fun imagery to go along with it. Often, the foods we eat for dinner come to us with no particular shape, kind of blobby. Don’t get me wrong, some of my favorite foods are blobby. Like mac and cheese, or soup, or ice cream. Blob, blob, blob. As a matter of fact,
There, I said it. Don’t tell my husband.
But, that being said,
I guess basically what I’m saying here is
Like you didn’t know that already.
These uniquely shaped zucchini skis combine savory herbs with ground beef on top of the tender-crisp crunch of the squash underneath. A sprinkle of Parmesan completes the taste profile for a delicious homemade dinner any night of the week. Round it out with a side of potatoes (garlic herb potato wedges, perhaps?) and you’re good to go.
Herbed Stuffed Zucchini
A Love Letter to Food Original
Ingredients:
4 zucchini
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic
3/4 lb. ground beef
1 Tbsp. fresh rosemary, chopped fine
1 Tbsp. fresh thyme, chopped fine
salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 c. fresh-grated Parmesan cheese
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise and scrape out the inside, leaving about a 1/2 inch of flesh on the zucchini skin. Reserve 1 c. of the inner part of the zucchini you just scraped out and chop into 1/2 inch chunks. Set aside.
3. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and sauté for 1-2 minutes, then add the reserved 1 c. of zucchini chunks and cook another 3-4 minutes. Add ground beef and cook until browned, about 7-10 minutes. Sprinkle in fresh rosemary and thyme and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook and stir 1 additional minute to incorporate. Drain beef mixture if liquid is present.
4. Place zucchini halves on a greased baking sheet and stuff with ground beef mixture. (If you have extra of the beef mixture, you can either cook it alongside the zucchini or save it for another use, like shepherd’s pie.) Bake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes.
5. Sprinkle with fresh Parmesan.
Serves 4.
Easy as Apple Pie Baked Oatmeal
In the continual effort to eat healthier, I’m always on the hunt for ways to work in more fruits and vegetables into our family’s daily diet. Try as I might, the one meal that seems to elude me in this quest is breakfast. I’m happy to put berries on a waffle or possibly whip up a smoothie, but my imagination for fruit at breakfast seems to end right about there. So when I realized that baked oatmeal with fruit was a thing, I was pretty stoked. For awhile now I’ve been making this baked apple-cinnamon oatmeal with great approval from both my kids and my husband. It’s basically as easy as baked oatmeal can get–mix all the ingredients in a baking dish and pop it in the oven for 45 minutes. You don’t even need a mixing bowl. Fool-proof! Since I don’t generally have 45 minutes to wait for oatmeal to come out of the oven on any given morning (who am I kidding, I barely have an extra 45 seconds on school days) I like to make it the night before and reheat individual portions in the microwave. So let’s review: easy, unprocessed, filling, and full of fruit? I’ll take that any day!
Easy as Apple Pie Baked Oatmeal
(Adapted from Betty Crocker)
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp. butter
2 2/3 c. old-fashioned oats (gluten-free, if necessary)
4 c. milk
1/3 c. brown sugar
generous 1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
Pinch nutmeg
2 apples, peeled and chopped
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a 2-quart baking dish, melt butter in the microwave. Add all remaining ingredients and mix well.
3. Bake uncovered 40-45 minutes.
Serves 6-8.
Coconut Curry Chicken
I freely admit that I kinda feel like a phony making Indian food. I am about the furthest you can get from Indian. In fact, here is a picture of my family of origin:
More or less. My dad’s family is primarily from Switzerland and my mom’s side is primarily from Germany, and the family trees actually converge if you go far enough back. As in, my parents are fourth cousins. Seriously. (No, I don’t have any genetic abnormalities….that I’m willing to divulge publicly.) Once stateside, my forebears settled in central Illinois and I ended up being raised here in the eastern suburbs of Phoenix. So about the closest I’ve ever come to India is half-heartedly watching Ghandi on Netflix while working on a cross-stitch sampler. Even so, I very much enjoy Indian food. A good chicken tikka masala can bring me to a When Harry Met Sally diner scene level of enjoyment. So I should really find a solid recipe for that. But in the meantime, let me share with you this fantastic coconut curry chicken.
As someone with very little experience with Indian cooking, this recipe makes me feel like a pro…or at least like someone who could tell you that the capitol of India is Mumbai not Mumbai, but rather New Delhi. Or maybe like someone who can pronounce the word “ghee” without sounding like a redneck about to make a romantic advance. With relatively few, non-ethnic grocery store ingredients, the chicken in this dish turns out tender and the stewed sauce of tomatoes and coconut milk amalgamates into a velvety spiced tomato gravy. While it takes some time to reach this apex of deliciousness, the recipe really isn’t labor-intensive and the result is worth the wait. I must warn you, though, that it will make your house smell like curry for 24 hours after cooking it, so if you’re, say, throwing a Cinco de Mayo party or something the next day, just be advised. Otherwise, you’re in the clear to enjoy both the taste and the fragrance of this simple-but-terrific Indian meal.
Coconut Curry Chicken
(Adapted from Allrecipes.com)
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2″ chunks
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 1/2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 Tbsp. curry powder
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
14 oz. light coconut milk
14 oz. petite diced tomatoes
8 oz. tomato sauce
2 1/2 Tbsp. white sugar
Directions:
1. Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper.
2. In a large nonstick skillet, heat vegetable oil and curry powder over medium-low heat. Stir and cook 3 minutes, then increase heat to medium-high and add onion and garlic. Cook 1-2 minutes. Add chicken, tossing to coat with oil and curry, and cook 7-10 minutes or until the pieces are no longer pink in the center.
3. Add coconut milk, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and sugar, stirring to combine. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat 40-45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens to your liking.
Serve over rice.
Serves 4.
Sweet Potato Goat Cheese Galette
Every year I take time before the holidays to plan our White Elephant Christmas party menu as meticulously as time and an Excel spreadsheet will allow. It’s typically a buffet of 7-9 appetizers and sides (plus dessert), and I attempt to include something for everyone: meat-lovers, vegetarians, gluten-free, whatever. As I brainstorm about what constellation of items to serve, I try to think of foods that strike me as interesting and classy. Somehow I always manage to end up with at least one recipe that calls for goat cheese. Maybe I need to get with the times, but any appetizer made with goat cheese just seems fancy to me. (I know, 1999 called. It wants its party food back.) Maybe this is how my grandmothers felt about Jell-O in 1955. Or anything with the word “mousse” in it, like shrimp mousse or the ever-popular “ham mousse ring.” Does that just scream ELEGANCE, or what? I do wonder if in fifty years I’ll look back at my Christmas party menus and cringe. Goat cheese? WHAT was I thinking??
But for now, I do love me some delicious, creamy chèvre, and any appetizer that relies heavily upon it. Like this sweet potato goat cheese galette. (P.S. Can I also earn some fanciness points for making something called a “galette”?) Actually, a galette is just “a food prepared and served in the shape of a flat round cake.” In this case, sweet potatoes are thinly sliced and stacked in layers, alternating with goat cheese, parmesan, and a sautéed shallot-olive-oil-thyme mixture to give the effect of a flat round cake. A delicious, savory cake that pairs well with roasted meats or as a stunner on the Christmas/New Year’s party circuit. I know I’ll be serving it again.
Sweet Potato Goat Cheese Galette
(Adapted from Fine Cooking)
Ingredients:
3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1/4 c. finely chopped shallots
1 1/4 lb. sweet potatoes, peeled (about 3-4 sweet potatoes)
2 tsp. coarsely chopped fresh thyme leaves
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 c. Parmesan cheese
1 c. crumbled goat cheese
Directions:
1. In a small saucepan, combine olive oil and shallots. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce to a low simmer and cook 2 minutes or until shallots are softened but not browned. Remove from heat and let cool.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat the bottom of a 9-inch tart pan (a pie plate will work in a pinch) with cooking spray. If using a tart pan, place it on a baking sheet lined with foil.
3. Slice the sweet potatoes as thinly as possible, about 1/16th inch. In a large bowl, toss the potato slices with the cooled olive oil mixture and fresh thyme until potatoes are well coated.
4. Beginning at the outside edge of the tart pan, cover the bottom of the pan with one layer of sweet potatoes, making slightly overlapping rings. Sprinkle some kosher salt over the whole layer, then a quarter of the Parmesan and a quarter of the goat cheese. Repeat two more times until you have three layers of sweet potatoes, salt, Parmesan, and goat cheese. Top the last layer with any remaining cheese.
5. Bake on the foil-lined baking sheet in the preheated oven 40-45 minutes or until a fork easily pierces potatoes all the way through. (The top layer of goat cheese will brown a bit–this is okay.) Cool 10-15 minutes and slice into wedges.
Serves 4-6 as a side dish.