Tag Archives: Easy Recipes

Herb + Garlic + Lemon Baked Chicken

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When I first started cooking meat back in January, I definitely did not know what I was doing. I didn’t think there would be any way that I’d be coming up with my own recipes any time soon, but after lots of time in the kitchen, this chicken recipe came to be and is one of our new favorite things that I’ve made.

It’s so easy to make and is so incredibly tasty – all that you do is rub the chicken with salt, pepper and a little homemade rub, and then bake it until cooked through.

The rub
The rub is a mixture of fresh herbs – basil, sage and rosemary – fresh lemon juice and zest, fresh garlic and just a bit of oil. You could definitely mix up the herb mixture depending on what you like/have, but this combination is just so delicious. And a note on the lemon – the end result of this recipe is not overly lemony, but if you aren’t a huge lemon fan, you could definitely use less. I use avocado oil in this but I think that most oils would work just fine.

The chicken
I have been getting all of our chicken locally, and I buy whatever is available that day. Usually, it’s a whole chicken, chicken quarters, or like in these photos, chicken legs – always skin on. You can definitely use any type of chicken that you like, using the same rub and method and just adjusting the cooking time depending on what you’re baking. The amount of rub that this recipe makes is enough for about 6-8 average servings of chicken, no matter the cut. While this recipe is very easily modified depending on what you have, made as is, the flavor and texture of the chicken is just so delicious.

One other note – the side dish that is shown in these photos is worth mentioning – it’s something that Greg and I make all of the time and is so delicious. It’s collard greens and kale, cooked in butter with fresh garlic, salt, pepper and lots of fresh lemon juice. For this batch, we added fresh Romanesco cauliflower because we had some that needed to be used.  I will think about sharing the recipe at some point :).







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Herb + Garlic + Lemon Baked Chicken

Ingredients

  • 4 large garlic cloves minced
  • 1 bunch fresh basil chopped
  • 1 bunch fresh sage chopped
  • 1 bunch fresh rosemary chopped
  • Zest from one lemon
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons avocado oil
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • 6-8 servings chicken, about 3-4 pounds

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

  2. In a small bowl, combine minced garlic, chopped herbs, lemon zest, lemon juice and avocado oil. Stir well to combine.

  3. In a large bowl, toss the chicken with salt and pepper. I usually use about 1/4 teaspoon of both salt and pepper per serving of chicken. Add garlic, herb and lemon mixture and toss to completely coat the chicken.

  4. Arrange chicken on a baking sheet and cook until internal temperature reads 165 degrees, about 20-30 minutes.

Summer Steak and Egg Salad with Honey Dijon Dressing

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It feels a bit weird to be posting this recipe after being a plant-based blog for so many years. I know I haven’t talked much on here about incorporating meat back into what I eat, but this is what most dinners look like for Greg and I these days. Animal protein, lots of veggies, all whole foods and little to no grains. This exact meal is so, so good, but is also very easily modified. Let’s talk about it:

Greens:
Use any type of salad greens here that you’d like: spinach, mixed greens, any type of lettuce, kale, arugula, etc. Anything would be good!

Toppings:
For this version we used: cucumber, thinly sliced red onion and sunflower seeds. I don’t usually like raw red onion, but when sliced thin enough, it adds amazing flavor to this salad. For the sunflower seeds – I like to have something with a crunch on my salads. You could also use any kind of nut here. We used cucumber because we have a ton of garden cucumbers right now, but any other veggie addition would be wonderful in this. I highly recommend avocado – we just didn’t have any the night we took photos of this.

Dressing:
Homemade dressing is the way to go! This is a super basic, super easy to make homemade honey Dijon dressing. You just add a few ingredients to a jar, and shake it all together. It is so, so good and so much better than store bought.

Protein:
You could really use any protein on this salad that you’d like, but the combination that we used – hard boiled eggs and steak is so, so good. I used two small flat iron steaks, seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked for a few minutes on each side, until they reached 140 degrees. I let them rest 10 minutes before slicing and they were just right.

Assembly:
This makes a big difference to me when it comes to salads – rather than topping all the salad ingredients with dressing, I like to add most of my salad ingredients into a big bowl, then toss well with the dressing so that everything is coated in dressing. For this salad, I tossed the spinach, red onion, cucumber and sunflower seeds with the dressing and then topped each serving with the steak and eggs.

I’m going to type up more of a recipe below, but for me, the key to salads is just having a variety of ingredients and textures, with everything tossed together with a homemade dressing. Meals like this taste amazing and make me feel amazing, so I hope that this inspires you to make something like this, too.



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Summer Steak and Egg Salad with Honey Dijon Dressing

Servings 2

Ingredients

  • Greens (could be spinach, kale, lettuce, etc.)
  • Cucumber
  • Red onion
  • 1/3 cup Sunflower seeds
  • Hard boiled eggs
  • 2 flat iron steaks

For the dressing:

  • 1/4 cup avocado oil (or other mild-flavored oil)
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Instructions

  1. Prep your vegetables: slice cucumber and thinly slice red onion.

  2. Make the salad dressing: combine all ingredients in a jar and shake well until combined.

  3. For the steak: Let steaks come to room temperature. Season each side well with salt and pepper. Cook over medium high heat, about 3-4 minutes each side, until internal temperature reads 140 degrees. Remove from heat, let rest 10 minutes. Slice for salad.

  4. To assemble the salad: In a bowl, toss together greens, cucumber, red onion, sunflower seeds and dressing. Place on plates and top with hard boiled eggs and steak.

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

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The meal I’m sharing today is definitely not the prettiest meal, but it was the tastiest new meal that we’ve made in a while. And, it’s super simple, healthy, satisfying and is definitely going to be added to our weeknight meal rotation. There are three parts to this meal: the sweet potato, the protein and the toppings (guac!). Here are the details:

Sweet potatoes:
I roast sweet potatoes weekly and here’s how I do it: wash the sweet potatoes, prick them all over with a fork, wrap tightly in aluminum foil, place in the oven (450°) and bake until soft – usually 45 minutes to an hour, depending on their size. 

Protein:
For this particular meal, I used ground pork (that I buy locally!). I cooked it in a skillet with the green chile sauce pictured below. The flavor of the pork on its own was actually kind of subtle – it did just a have bit of spice to it – but was excellent in the dish as a whole. You could really use any protein you wanted in this recipe – meat or plant-based. I think almost anything would work!

Guacamole:
I love making gauc and usually do it the same every time. For this batch, I used three avocados, the juice of two limes, and a generous pinch of salt and pepper. I blend everything together until very smooth in my Ninja.

Tomatoes:
I mixed cherry tomatoes with a touch of avocado oil, fresh cilantro, salt and pepper. Simple and delicious.

Putting the meal together is so simple: Split open the sweet potato and fill with your protein of choice. Top with lots (and lots) of guacamole, tomatoes and a sprinkle of fresh cilantro, and enjoy!

This meal was not photogenic, so I didn’t include many photos, but it was oh so nourishing and tasty.

*Note about the green chile sauce I use in this recipe – I am all about making things from scratch, but there are a few things that I will buy already made – things like the green chile sauce I used in this recipe. I am super picky about buying packaged goods, and the green chile sauce that I bought from Wegman’s passed my test. It was made with minimal ingredients and they were all whole, real ingredients that I would have used at home.

Summer Cooking Inspiration – Herbed Zucchini Noodles with Grilled Shrimp and Tomatoes

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In an effort to share more of what we love and what we cook, here is the first in hopefully a little series of summer cooking inspiration posts.

These posts will serve as just that – inspiration. I won’t have exact recipes of what we made – I will just share photos of the process and notes of what we did in hopes that it inspires you to cook something that makes you happy.

This one was a perfect summertime meal – zucchini noodles with grilled shrimp and tomatoes. We cooked this meal on our charcoal grill and enjoyed every moment of a perfect not-quite-summer evening.

Here’s what we did:

Zucchini noodles:
We spiralized 3 large zucchinis and tossed them generously with olive oil, salt and pepper. We actually cooked these on the grill, in our vegetable grate, and it worked so well. We cooked them, tossing often, for about ten minutes. Right before we pulled them off the grill, we added minced garlic and freshly chopped herbs. We used herbs from our garden – basil and rosemary. Once off the grill, we mixed in fresh lemon juice.

Shrimp and tomatoes:
We skewered the shrimp and tomatoes separately. To season, we mixed minced garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil and a ton of fresh lemon zest. We brushed this on both the tomatoes and shrimp before going onto the grill, and then again once we flipped them on the grill. We cooked the tomatoes until the were slightly blistered, and they were just perfect in this dish.

The dinner:
For putting the meal together, we just topped the zucchini noodles with the grilled shrimp and tomatoes. We didn’t do this, but thought that it would also be great topped with a bit of fresh Parmesan cheese.

One thing we would change next time is adding a bit more seasoning to the zucchini noodles. We’d probably add more salt, pepper and herbs, lemon juice and maybe a pinch of red pepper flakes. 

Our favorite part of the meal was the marinade/seasoning mix we made for the shrimp and tomatoes. The combo of olive oil, minced garlic, lemon zest, salt and pepper was so, so delicious and the flavor really came through nicely in the dish. We will be making that again to put on many things. I think the key was using a lot of lemon zest – I used the zest from one large and thoroughly zested lemon.

Take a look:

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Spinach + Feta Braid

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I’ve made something for you.

words

And if I could, I would serve it to you, too.

all

mixed

I’ve always liked the idea of entertaining guests.

dough

braid

 

I think it dates back to high school. My house was always a place where friends came to hang out. I loved having friends over. Once I really got into cooking and baking, I loved making them food. I remember cheesecake being a must-have at get-togethers for a long time. No get-together was complete without a big cozy welcome and a table full of food to snack on all night long. 

braid3

I remember having my mom and dad come over to my new college apartment a few years back for cinnamon rolls I had just prepared. I could not wait to have them over to serve them these warm cinnamon rolls in my tiny one-bedroom. It didn’t matter that I saw them almost every day, I just wanted someone to entertain. 

braid1

In Greg’s last tiny apartment, where I lived with him this summer, we had guests several times. When we did though, we spent as little time at the apartment as possible. When we did spend time there, one person could sit in a recliner, one on a kitchen chair, one on the desk chair and the other on the bed. Not so great for spending an entire evening. 

braid6

Now that we have our new apartment, with space and a kitchen and a lovely and large dining table, I have such an urge to entertain. I’ve been thinking about it and imagining it. I imagine having people over, lighting some candles, playing some music, opening some wine and enjoying some beer. I imagine cooking and serving good food that will fill bellies. I imagine having nights full of good conversation.

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There will be more than enough food to go around. It’s better to have more than you need than not enough. 

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I imagine serving this spinach and feta braid to my guests. Perhaps as an appetizer. I’ll pull it fresh from the oven, cut it up and serve it with dipping sauce. It will be enjoyed and followed by more food. By more wine and beer. By more conversation. 

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Our hunger will last long into the night, just as long as our stamina. With full bellies, we’ll all be ready for bed.

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Whether you are entertaining guests or not, this dish will please. It’s full of flavor, easy to prepare and can be great to make for a crowd, or just two!

Spinach + Feta Braid
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Ingredients
  1. *This could make one or two braids, depending on how full you make them
  2. 1 or 2 sheets rolled out cresent dough
  3. 4 cups fresh spinach
  4. 1 cup feta cheese
  5. 2 garlic cloves
  6. 1 egg + 1 egg white
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400*.
  2. In a food processor, combine the spinach, feta, garlic and one egg.
  3. Process until smooth.
  4. Roll out the cresent dough onto one or two parchment-lined baking sheets.
  5. Using a pizza cutter or knife, make 2 inch cuts down each vertical side of the cresent dough (see photo above).
  6. Spread the spinach feta mixture down the middle of the cresent dough.
  7. Braid the cresent dough around the spinach feta mixture (see photo above).
  8. Once braided, brush the top of the dough with egg white.
  9. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.
  10. Enjoy!
Notes
  1. -Like I said above, this can make one or two braids, depending on how stuffed you make them. I made one, with a little filling leftover. It could make two, they just wouldn't be as stuffed.
The Dreaming Foodie https://www.thedreamingfoodie.com/