I made hummus this weekend. Classic chickpea-tahini-lemon-garlic hummus. I even went so far as to soak dried chickpeas the night before and I took the outer skins off the chickpeas before blending. All of those extra little steps lead me to the most sublime, or as Deb Perelman says, ethereally smooth, hummus. Continue reading
The “Healthy Carrot Breakfast Bread” is one of the more popular recipes on my blog. I still make it regularly whenever I have carrots around, tweaking the recipe slightly depending on my on-hand ingredients.
This weekend I turned the bread into muffins for easy snacks to take to my dietetic internship rotation.
I changed the recipe just enough from the original to feel like I should re-post. Continue reading
You know that area right underneath your nostrils? Mine is red and dry because I have been blowing my nose for almost a week now. Yuck. Colds are the worst. I still have energy to go about my usual business, but I’m just a snotty, gross mess.
Alas, chicken soup.
Funny enough, a few days into the snotty sickness that has been permeating my apartment, I received an email from my boyfriend’s mom with a recipe for a fantastic chicken barley soup. Must have been mother’s intuition that we needed comfort.
This “Creamy” Chicken Barley Soup is heartier than the typical clear-broth chicken soup. Blending some of the broth with cooked potato, onion, celery, and garlic lends a creamy texture without any cream. If your favorite kitchen tool is an immersion blender, raise your hand! Makes life so easy.
Adding a little barley to the soup offers a nice contrast, a bite of texture. Barley is a great source of whole grain, it is rich in fiber and protein, and it turns the soup into its own meal.
I used a homemade turkey stock for this soup. It is so easy to freeze a bunch of leftover odds and ends of vegetables and prepare a quick stock. After I made a vegetable stock, I strained it, and then added it back to a pot with the neck and giblets I had in the freezer from my Thanksgiving turkey. There’s some good dark meat on the neck of a turkey, so don’t throw the neck away! Prepare your stock the day before if you want to get ahead.
So I had turkey stock in my chicken soup. No big deal. If you are short on time, you could just use water instead of stock, and add salt. Or buy stock. Either way.
Note that you could buy pre-cooked chicken, but I found it very easy to just toss two breasts (save the bones for stock if you want!) in the oven while I was preparing the rest of my ingredients.
Recipe from Lucy, by way of Jackie
This makes a LOT of soup, about 10 servings (you could freeze extras, bring some to a friend, or halve the recipe)
2 T butter or oil
2 onions, chopped
6-7 celery sticks, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 C russet potatoes, diced
2 large carrots, diced
1/2 C pearl barley
8 -9 C stock (I made my vegetable stock, strained it, and added the neck and giblets that were in my freezer from Thanksgiving and simmered for ~1hour)
2 bay leaves
1/2 C white wine
2 bone-in chicken breasts (or slightly less than 2lbs), pre-cooked and shredded (see below for how to cook)
salt and pepper to taste
First, cook your chicken breasts. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the chicken breasts skin side up on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Rub with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until done (165 degrees F). When the chicken is cool enough to handle, discard the skin and bones (save the bones in your freezer for stock), and shred the meat. Cover and set aside.
Meanwhile, in a large stockpot melt butter (or oil) and saute onions, celery, garlic until soft.
Next, add potatoes, 6 – 7 C chicken stock, and thyme. Cook until potatoes are soft (15- 30 min), then use an immersion blender or transfer 3/4 of the mixture to a blender and blend until smooth.
Return this mixture to the pot, add the carrots, barley and bay leaves. Cook partially covered for 30 minutes. Add more stock for a soupier soup. When barley is tender, add wine and chicken, salt and pepper to taste. Cook for a few more minutes to warm up the chicken.
Over the last year, I have really grown an appreciation for a morning bowl of oats. Maybe because New York City (vs. my old stomping grounds in California) has real seasons, so I crave something hot in the morning during the inescapable winter chill. Even during the beating heat of summer, I ate cold “overnight oats” or “muesli” for breakfast.
Rolled and steel-cut oats my go-to choices, but I have also enjoy a porridge made from farina, millet, amaranth, or barley. When I have an early morning shift at the bakery, I sometimes take along a packet of instant oats for breakfast, but I only buy the original or plain versions where the ingredient list only says “rolled oats” and not much more. No need for those extra fake ingredients when I can simply add my own sweeteners and toppings to plain instant oats.
I used to heat rolled oats in the microwave, which is totally acceptable and tasty, but when I can take the extra few minutes, I now prefer to cook my oats on the stove. I use a mix of milk and water to cook the oats because I like how creamy they get from the milk.
I saw that Cookie and Kate posted these Morning Glory Oats the other day, using coconut milk for some of the cooking liquid. I recently made Split Pea Soup that used only 1/2 cup of coconut milk, and I have been trying to find ways to use up the leftover milk. Perfect.
I modified her recipe, which is a modification of the original recipe from Megan Gordon’s new cookbook, Whole Grain Mornings. This recipe uses steel-cut oats, but you could also make this with rolled oats, quick oats, or another breakfast grain.
Shredded carrot strands and wintry spices make this hot, creamy breakfast feel like dessert. Orange zest adds zing, and a swirl of yogurt at the end cools the oats and adds to the healthy decadence (omit the yogurt and use nuts or nut butter if you want this recipe to remain vegan).
*Rolled or quick oats will cook much faster than steel-cut, anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes.
Figsinmybelly 