A Week Full of New (Simple) Recipes: Lemon Oregano Chicken

For weeks the farmers market has been promising free range chickens and I've checked eagerly each week waiting for them to arrive. In the meantime, we've eaten lots of vegetarian as well as most of our supply of meat in the freezer. This week, the promised free-range birds were finally available. I must admit, I was a little sad to see they were all about 2.5-3lbs, but I eagerly took home two and decided I'd find something special to do with them.

While trying to find something for dinner Saturday night, I found this incredible recipe for Roasted Lemon Oregano Chicken. I followed the recipe almost exactly, but I did substitute dried oregano for fresh.

I felt like such a chef rubbing the marinade underneath the skin of the chicken. David didn't share my enthusiasm when I called him in to take a look. I believe a direct quote would be, "Gross honey, it looks like you're wearing a chicken glove." Ah well, I knew he'd appreciate it when it was all cooked!

The Finished Product

To say we both devoured the 2.5lb chicken might be an understatement. The skin was so crispy, the meat so juicy and flavorful. I sauteed up some local asparagus to go with it and it was perfect.

When I went to pick the bones for soup pieces I was only able to get a small handful of chicken. So today, I processed it up with some peas and fed it to Caleb for lunch. He loved it!

Yum

Caleb Signing "More"

This was such a big hit, I think it will be a while before I make chicken any other way. Tonight I'm boiling the bones to make broth. Yum!

A Week Full of New (Simple) Recipes: Tex Mex Mac and Cheese

Although I make it my goal to attempt a new recipe each week, there are seasons of life where we eat a lot of the same things over and over. I can always tell when we've been doing this because suddenly, making a grocery list is hard. Nothing I've been eating sounds good any more. I don't feel like cooking. In short, I'm in a rut.

It's easy to blame these ruts on sticking to the budget or having too little time. However, if I were to be honest, there are plenty of frugal and simple meals beyond tacos and spaghetti...they just involve me getting out of my comfort zone. And I dearly love my comfort zone, especially in the kitchen. Which is why I typically only try one new recipe each week. It's enough to inspire me, without overwhelming me. This week however, I plan to try 3 new recipes, which I thought I'd share.

Saturday night, realizing I hadn't planned for dinner, I found a delicious sounding recipe for Lemon Oregano Roasted Chicken. However, it required marinating time, so I decided to try the recipe the following day and take my time with our first free-range chicken of the season.

That left me with nothing for dinner however so it was back to the drawing board. I needed something quick, vegetarian (since I had no meat defrosted) and requiring only the ingredients I had on hand. A quick look at food.com led me to a tex-mex mac and cheese recipe that looked intriguing but used Velveta. I decided to adapt it to my usual mac and cheese recipe and it was a big hit with David. Here's what I did:

Tex Mex Mac and Cheese

Boil ½ box of macaroni noodles, drain and pour into 1.5qt. casserole dish

Combine over med. heat, stirring until mixture is melted and bubbling slightly
2 tblspn corn starch
2 tblspn butter
1 tspn taco seasoning

then add
2.5cups milk

Bring to boil over med/high heat stirring constantly. Let boil 1 min.

Stir in
1.5 cup cheddar cheese
.5 cup pepper jack

Stir until cheese is melted
then add .5 cup of salsa

Stir until combined

Pour cheese mixture over noodles, stir until all noodles are coated.

Sprinkle top with cheddar cheese and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

I served it with a side of oven-baked sweet potato wedges and we were both stuffed! Next time, I plan to cook up some taco meat and add that to the mix as well. As usual, I forgot to get a photo and we devoured the left-overs at lunch today.

The Lemon Oregano chicken is marinating in the fridge as I type...but that's another post.

Friday Favorite: Cheesy Beef Bake

Today Caleb is 8 months old, so it's no surprise I'm reminiscing about those early weeks after we brought him home from the hospital. During her visit to meet her new grandson, my mother-in-law threw this dish together from my (woefully) understocked pantry. Since then, it's become a household favorite. It's also a good opportunity for everyone to see that despite my high ideals, I still use some convenience foods!

Cheesy Beef Bake

Ingredients:
1lb(ish) ground beef
1 green bell pepper
½ of a medium/large red onion
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 ½ cups of shred cheddar
1 ½ cups of brown rice
2 cups of water
breadcrumbs

Directions:
Dice pepper and onion
Brown beef in skillet until halfway cooked, drain.
add pepper and onion until beef is fully browned, set aside
In a seperate bowl mix water, rice, soup, and cheese
Add beef/veggie mixture and stir
pour into 13x9 pan and bake at 375 for 45 mins
remove from oven, sprinkle bread crumbs over the top
bake an additional 10 minutes

There are two swaps that would make this a much healthier dish. If you are feeling adventurous you could try making your own cream of mushroom soup. Basic recipe here and/or for a less time consuming substitute you could make your own bread crumbs. Recipe here.

I haven't tried either yet, but I'm really excited about the bread crumb recipe- finally a use for the butt-end of the bread!

I love this recipe because it takes no time to throw together, it really stretches a pound of meat and it sneaks a decent number of veggies in there. If presentation is important to you, I wouldn't recommend serving this to company since it kind of comes out looking tan colored and uninteresting, but it's a great comfort-food dish.

Friday Favorites

I get tired of cooking and eating the same things over and over and am always excited to find a new recipe, especially if it's tasty, frugal and healthy. Bonus points if it does all those things while remaining vegetarian. Finding meatless recipes my husband gets excited about is one of my most challenging goals- fortunately he's a good sport about my sometimes less-than-stellar attempts : )

I can't guarantee my Friday recipes will live up to such a high calling, but I will try. In return, if you read this, I'd love for you to leave a comment with a favorite of yours or a link up to a recipe on your blog (again, don't feel like it has to fit all the categories above.)

I look forward to reading your recipes!

This week's favorite comes from a website I turn to for inspiration quite often:

black bean burritos

This recipe can be put together in less than 20 minutes and is frugal, healthy and vegetarian. Oh, and did I mention it tastes so good my husband looks forward to it?

My tweaks:

I use frozen corn and saute it up with the zucchini. This recipe is really flexible about what you can add/omit. I rarely have red peppers on hand so I've never used them in the recipe. I also don't take the time to fry the tortilla's, but I bet that would be yummy.

I also recently learned that making my own beans is as simple adding 1 cup of dry beans to 4 cups of water and putting it all in the crock pot on high for 3 hours. I tried it this week and it worked great. Next time I will double the batch so I have some left to freeze.

And in the interest of full disclosure, we add sour cream to ours. It makes them even more delicious, if slightly less healthy!

From Scratch

One of my goals for this year is to eat more whole foods and fewer "food like substances" (for more on this topic, I highly recommend Michael Pollan's book: In Defense of Food). This means there will be more cooking from scratch.

I love to make food from scratch. It always tastes better and I enjoy the process of cooking it more. However, like everyone else, my time is finite so sometimes I compromise. I've often wondered how difficult it would really be to eat whole foods for an entire month. When we get back to PA and I have access to a good farmers market again, I plan to take that challenge.

For now, small changes. This week I tried two new things (new things intimidate me, so two in one week is a big deal!)

I've been making my own chicken broth for a while (aka freezing what's left in the crockpot after cooking a whole chicken) but I'd yet to do anything with it. There were weird floating bits of carrot and potato that I didn't necessarily want flavoring my tortilla soup!

Recently, however, I purchased a very sophisticated, expensive piece of kitchen equipment that allows me to deal with this: a strainer (also known as a metal colander). It was about $3. I originally purchased it to strain Caleb's baby food (which it does nicely in combination with a rubber spatula and some pressure. But I'm also finding lots of other little uses for it like steaming veggies and of course, straining weird bits out of my broth! I love multi-purpose items.

So this week, I used my nicely strained broth to make a big pot of tortilla soup. Since I have a nice case of the sore throat/ sniffles right now (hence the increased couch time and # of blog posts) it really hit the spot.

My next adventure was one I've also been meaning to try for sometime: making my own salad dressing. Most store dressings are full of things I don't really want to be eating, but what actually drove me to make my own was the fact I couldn't stand the idea of buying a special flavor of dressing for one salad (being cheap frugal often drives my efforts to eat healthier...)

Strawberries are in season here in Florida so I decided to make strawberry salad (spinach, red onions, strawberries and feta). I usually pour a poppy seed dressing or balsamic vinaigrette over this. Since I wasn't feeling creative enough to try the poppy seed, I went with the balsamic dressing.

My basic recipe was:

1/2 cup Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Honey

Adjust measurements to taste
Shake well in tupperware

It turned our great. Even David thought it was a winner. I'm looking forward to trying other combinations!

Warm Thoughts

I wish this title was: Warm thoughts for a cold day. However, as the expected high today is 73, I'll just have to give up on being witty and share the thoughts that are warming my heart this morning:

-There is nothing better than hearing my husband say, "I have to say, I'm really excited about dinner tonight. You make the best omelets!" This would be wonderful to hear regardless, but you have to understand A.) I make things a lot more time consuming than omelets that don't receive this kind of compliment and B.) My omelets may taste good, but they are UGLY. Fortunately, men don't seem to care about aesthetics when it comes to food!

-If toe wrangling (aka clipping baby's nails) was an Olympic sport, I think I could compete. Getting all 10 of those tootsies clipped at one sitting always makes me feel like supermom.

-The livingroom is clean. I have to be sure to type this in the morning because by the afternoon it won't be true.

-Caleb is pushing himself into crawl position and using his upper body strength to move in a semi circle. I'm not sure if this is heart warming or terrifying...

And perhaps most importantly...

-This morning I realized I can't do it all. Which was what I told David when I asked if we could take time to pray over and write a family mission statement. I said, "We have limited time and almost infinite opportunities for how to spend it. I want to pray for God's direction on where our family should focus our energy." And while those may have been the words coming out of my mouth. My heart was saying, "And maybe, just maybe, we will discover the secret to actually doing it all instead!"

So as I was cooking my messy, but "delicious" omelet this morning from the left over ingredients, looking at my cluttered counter tops and wishing the kitchen looked as nice as the living room. I felt God reminding me that there truly isn't time to "do it all". We will need His wisdom about where to direct our time and energy. And, if He isn't our first love, all the other good things we could fill our time with will become idols to try and fill that void.

My prayer for the new year is that God would show me the good things I love too much, and that he would become my first desire.