Tuesday, April 10, 2012

dinners lately

spatchcocked chicken with roasted chickpeas
I have a bunch of recent dinners to share with you. I find it so uplifting to prepare a healthy meal for the family (in truth, I only cook like this three nights a week, down from four. Shameful, I know. But I fully intend to improve this summer when I'm not working and the days are long).

I've been super inspired by the Everyday Food videos on YouTube. They are so well done. Rainer loves to watch them with me, and a few times we have made the meal. The spatchcocked chicken above turned out fantastic. It's unbelievable how such a simple recipe with so few ingredients can turn into something so delicious. The only change I made: my chicken did not seem to be releasing its chickeny juices (perhaps I trimmed it too much), so when it was time to add the chickpeas I drizzled some olive oil over them. Pure deliciosity. I served this with some green beans and homemade coleslaw.

chicken parm
The chicken parm also turned out incredibly good. This is the first time I've been really happy with any breaded/fried chicken I've tried. I served it with a green salad and some plain pasta, much to the boys' delight.

chicken parm and salad
Another view of the chicken parm. What I loved about this recipe (video) is that it specifically instructs you on how to make thin chicken cutlets and that made all the difference.

lentils with spinach and a poached egg
I was also inspired by the videos for this meal, although I didn't follow the recipe. I wanted to cook my own lentils from scratch. This is a simple meal of lentils with carrots and spinach with a poached egg on top. (Video inspiration here).

cauliflower soup and homemade bread
This is the cauliflower-curry soup from issue 1 or 2 of Everyday Food--back when I had a print subscription. I love this recipe because it calls for roasting the cauliflower first, so you are starting with something delicious and roasty. I served this with the homemade bread we've been making lately.

brown sugar glazed salmon with oven-baked risotto and broccoli
Brown sugar glazed salmon served with oven baked risotto and broccoli.

quick fish tacos
These fish tacos were inspired by the samples being handed out at Trader Joe's. It uses their fish nuggets, corn and wheat tortillas, and is topped with homemade coleslaw and cilantro. This was a big hit with the family and such an easy "cheater" dinner.

What have you been making lately??

3 comments:

Sarah said...

I am so hungry now!

Rain said...

Thanks for the food inspiration. I will check out the videos too.
Blessings!
p.s. I love your salad servers.

Anonymous said...

Those all look like great meals. I need to look into those videos since I am in need of some cooking inspiration. Yum!

Annie