whee, it’s december! i’m freed from writing about books for awhile and can tawwwwk about anything i want to! NaBloPoMo was fun, but i want to occasionally skip a post every so often. cos i’m crazy like that.so i’m thinking about food. i think about food a lot. (hence my svelte, girlish figure.) and while i can bake like nobody’s business, i am a terrible cook. i mean ::gagging noises:: really not-so-hot. my kids will tell you; my husband won’t for fear of losing life and limb, but i know he’s thinking it every time i try a new recipe out.
i wouldn’t say my kids are picky eaters (especially jools, who loves salmon tikka whenever we take him to indian restaurants), though we do have to find things for them in indian, vietnamese, thai, and other restaurants that at least use recognizable foodstuffs. and no, we don’t eat pork, and we don’t mix milk and meat (though we aren’t kosher by any stretch, either.) jools loves him some veggies. and BC? well, she loves her some fruit.
so here’s my challenge for you good folks out there — it isn’t a meme. but it could be, i suppose. can you share a go-to recipe that even a fool culinarily-challenged person could make? extra points if it’s either vegetarian or poultry-based, though we do eat beef now and again.
and no lasagna or spaghetti recipes, please. i can do pasta really well. that, toast, and anything that requires boiled water. i’m a pro.
i’ll start out after the jump with my latest easy-peasy recipe. it’s for black bean soup, but the kids have now dubbed it poop soup. and admittedly, that’s what it looks like…
from allrecipes.com
and no, no one there calls it poop soup.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
- 1 cup chunky salsa
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 4 tablespoons sour cream
- 2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onion
DIRECTIONS
- In an electric food processor or blender, combine beans, broth, salsa, and cumin. Blend until fairly smooth.
- Heat the bean mixture in a saucepan over medium heat until thoroughly heated.
- Ladle soup into 4 individual bowls, and top each bowl with 1 tablespoon of the sour cream and 1/2 tablespoon green onion.
Wow, that does look easy. I’ll be checking back here for the easy-peasy recipe suggestions as I induce gagging with most of my cooking. (except for E who would eat crap from the soles of your shoes and think it was the best thing ever)
Poop soup..hehehe..I like.
Salmon Filets with Lemon-Scented Fennel-Tomato Ragout
4 salmon filets
sea salt
freshly ground pepper
fresh breadcrumbs (optional)
olive oil
1 bulb fennel, thinly sliced
1 sweet onion, thinly sliced
1 14oz can fire-roasted tomatoes
juice and zest from 1 lemon
1 T. capers, drained
slug of dry sherry
Saute the fennel and onion in olive oil until they begin to caramelize. Season with salt and pepper and add tomatoes, lemon juice and sherry. Turn heat down to medium and simmer gently until tender and liquid is slightly thickened. Add capers and lemon zest.
In a second frying pan large enough to comfortably hold the filets, heat olive oil until very hot. Season filets with salt and pepper, and (if using the breadcrumbs) coat one side of salmon with breadcrumbs, pressing crumbs into fish. Carefully transfer filets to the pan and cook crumb-side down for several minutes. Carefully flip filets and cook another minute or two until just cooked through. Serve filets over tomato-fennel mixture.
You can skip out the onions since some of yours have issues with them…and the breadcrumbs are not necessary, but yummy. You can do this with other fish, or even chicken breasts.
I’m going to send you something off-line – you’ll see why when you get it…
– NDQ
GREAT idea! Here’s my contribution (though I should say, I suck as a cook, too, yea verily):
A couple cans of white beans
Chicken dinner sausage
Kale
Saute sausage with beans. Add kale. Cook until it’s done, and serve with bread and several glasses of wine for the mom.
Not bad, and the kids like it well enough. They pick the kale off everything, but at least I put it in front of them.
Baked Chicken Parmesan
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts or equivalent chicken tenders
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbs Dijon mustard
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/3 cup bread crumbs
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/8 cup dried parsley
Mix together the butter, garlic powder, Dijon, and Worcestershire in a dish.
Mix the bread crumbs, Parmesan, and parsley together in another.
Dip the chicken in the butter, then in the bread crumbs, then place in a buttered or greased 9×9 or so pan. Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes, until done through.
This was super easy and the chicken was sooo tender and yummy – we all loved it!
I served it with a salad, cooked green beans and bread. No other starch and we all enjoyed it. Leftovers were very good too.
i hear you on the not-so-hot cooking. i’ll have to dig up a slow-cooker beef stew recipe i have somewhere around here. cuz i love me some one-pot meals.
thanks everyone! i can’t wait to try these recipes! i really appreciate the time people take to share them :)))
happily shoving the kraft blue box aside,
me 🙂
You are in luck! I just emailed this recipe for my son’s class teacher gift – a class recipe book – so I can cut and paste and send.
I’m like you Sher, a bad cook. DH does all the cooking. But sometimes I can manage to make a salad that serves as dinner. Here it is:
Easy dinner salad; 45 minutes including baking time:
Ingredients
Mixed salad greens – romaine, spring mix, and/or spinach, organic if possible
4 Fresh raw beets – organic
4 Small Purple Potatoes (available at Whole Foods)
Cherry tomatoes – organic
Wedge of parmesiano reggiano, grated 1T
Organic or biodynamic sunflower seeds
1/2 T Organic Pumpkin Seed oil
1 T Organic Olive oil
Directions: Wash beets and cut ends off beets. Wrap beets individually in aluminum foil (If You Care brand, 100% recycled aluminum), and place in baking flat. Slice potatoes thinly (2 cm thick) and brush with olive oil. Place on pan. Bake at 350 degrees for half an hour. When done, peel skin off beets. Place greens and tomatoes in two salad bowls. Add hot beets and potatoes on top, grate cheese over mixture, drizzle sunflower seeds to taste, drizzle olive and pumpkin seed oils as dressing.
Yikes, I just saw that was supposed to be kid-friendly. Well, my son doesn’t eat salad yet, but I think of this as kid-friendly because it’s easy for me to make for us adults while watching two kids. I make something else for the young’uns to eat while we enjoy the salad.
no worries, lynn. my kids actually like salad. well, jools does. and this sounds yummy. i think i’ll fight my way to the Whole Foods tomorrow…
thanks so much!
Crispy Chicken
Get a nice quart size plastic bag (not ziploc). Put in even amounts of cornflake crumbs and wheat germ. Add a some garlic powder, paprika salt and pepper (less salt if using Kosher chicken). Then shake and bake. We always pour the extra mix on top of the chicken.
My kids love it!