Tag Archives: dinner ideas

Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Rosemary

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Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Rosemary

Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Rosemary

 

Do you like sweet potatoes?  I love them!  My husband–not so much!  Enter this recipe and he is a convert!  I just love a recipe that can convert someone, don’t you? The best part of this recipe? Three ingredients AND it’s super easy!

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

3 cups of cubed organic sweet potato

1 tablespoon of fresh or dried rosemary

2 tablespoons of coconut or olive oil

sea salt to taste

Directions: Pre-heat your oven to 425F.  In a large bowl toss together the sweet potato cubes, rosemary, sea salt, and oil–making sure that all of the potatoes get coated in oil.

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Add the potatoes to a foil lined bake sheet and cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until potatoes take on some color.  Remove from the oven, serve and enjoy!

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Sous Vide Chicken Thighs with Thyme and Garlic

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Sous Vide Chicken Thighs With Thyme and Garlic

Sous Vide Chicken Thighs With Thyme and Garlic

OMG! When I tell you, that this preparation of chicken is the best that I’ve eaten in years, believe me! My husband ordered me the new Anova immersion circulator through a Kickstarter campaign back in May. I waited patiently, and it arrived last week. My first thought when it finally arrived was to make these chicken thighs. I had watched this you-tube video , (there are 3 parts watch them all part2, part 3), of Michael Voltaggio making these chicken thighs sometime ago.  I was just in the early stages of learning about sous vide cooking, which means under vacuum cooking.  All of the things that I had read about sous vide had seemed so complex–holding temperatures, the right temperatures for different meats, cooking times–but Michael made it seem so simple, and it was! Sous vide cooking is the ultimate in lazy girl cooking.  It involves less effort than most slow cooker recipes, and the results are amazing!  This particular recipe literally involved 8 minutes of active cooking time.  If you add in the 5 minutes it took for me to salt, and bag the chicken for cooking, then it’s 13 whole minutes of your time.  So super easy! Sous vide cooking is the future of  the slow cooking movement.  After using my immersion circulator, it’s not hard for me to see why.  Unlike in conventional stove top and slow cooker cooking, in which flavor and nutrients cook out into the air, with sous vide cooking all of the flavor and nutrients stay in the food.  Every single bite that I took of this chicken was infused with the flavor of thyme, the nuttiness of the butter and garlic, and the umami flavor of the truffle salt that I used.  It was like eating  the juiciest and most flavorful  piece of fried chicken that I’ve ever eaten, only this chicken wasn’t fried. It was cooked slowly in a water bath at a low temperature.  The best thing about immersion circulators is that they can free you from weekday cooking.  You can cook these on Sunday with your immersion circulator, put them in an ice bath, and then refrigerate and “cook” or crisp the skin  3 or 4 days later.  As a side note, if you’re wary about cooking foods in plastic, like I was, there are plenty of safe BPA and Phathalate free options for out there to assist you.  Most food grade vacuum bags are both BPA and Phathalate free.  Foodsaver is one brand, even ziplock bags are-yes you can even sous vide in a Ziploc , see how here–but it has to be Ziploc not an off brand.  I use Vacmaster. Here is an article all about plastics and sous vide cooking.  If you are still wary, here is a silicone option, or you can use mason jars to sous vide in–just note that cooking in a mason jar will require additional cook time.

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 1.5 hours

Ingredients:

3 chicken thighs skin on

6 sprigs of fresh thyme

1 teaspoon of grassfed butter cut 3 ways

sea salt to taste — I used a truffle salt

3 cloves of garlic smashed

3- tablespoons of a high heat oil

Directions:  Season the chicken with sea salt

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Place chicken- flat- into a food saver type bag–must be food grade-and hopefully bpa free–Food Savers are.  Top each piece of chicken with one clove of garlic, and a tab of butter. Lastly add the thyme, then vacuum and seal, using a edge sealer like a food saver, or if you have a vacuum chamber sealer as I do, vacuum it for 25-30 seconds with a 1.6 second seal.

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To a stock pot add enough water to fill half of your pot, or above the minimum water level of your immersion circulator.  Turn on the circulator, and adjust the temperature to 149F.

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Once your circulator has reached temperature, add the sealed bag and cook for 1.5 hours.

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Make sure that your chicken is fully immersed.image

At the 1 hr and 20 minute mark, prepare an ice bath DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP, it’s a matter of food safety when cooking foods at low temps in an air free environment!–fill a bowl with ice and a little bit of water about 4 cups of ice to 1 cup of water–I added some frozen lime cubes as a weight. When the chicken has cooked for 1.5 hours turn off your circulator, and remove the bagged chicken from the water–be careful the water is hot–immediately immerse the bagged chicken into the ice bath and let sit for 1 hour undisturbed.  After the 1 hour ice bath, place it in the refrigerator, until you’re ready to cook..

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Once you’re ready to brown the skin, cut open the bag, and remove the chicken. It won’t look like it has been cooked, but it is fully cooked at this point–except for the skin.  Discard the garlic and thyme.

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Add the oil to a skillet/frying pan, and bring to temperature.  Once the oil is hot, add the chicken, skin side down, lower the heat to medium, and cook until skin is nice and crispy–about 6 minutes, flip the chicken over and cook on the other side for 1- 2 minutes.  Remove from the pan and enjoy!!!!! This looks as amazing as it tastes!

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White Bean Salad with Lemon Cumin Vinaigrette

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White Bean Salad With Lemon Cumin Dressing

White Bean Salad With Lemon Cumin Dressing

This salad represents all that this blog is about.  It’s lazy in every sense of the word lazy and it’s fresh and vibrantly flavorful.  I was talking to a girl friend  of mine the other day about food and little ones.  She was in need of some advice about healthy choices for her little one. We went through the list of what she currently feeds her little one.  On her list was a simple salad of canned white beans drizzled with lemon juice and olive oil.  I thought it sounded delish, and I set out to make my own version of that salad.  I make a lentil salad that is similar to this, but I think this one is much better.  Pair this salad with a crusty piece of sourdough rubbed with a little garlic and grass-fed butter and you’ve got a rustic and delicious meal,which didn’t require you to turn on the stove.  Lazy–yes, absolutely! But it tastes anything but lazy–that counts right?;-)

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Ingredients:

15 ounce can of Organic White beans (drained and rinsed)

1/2 cup of feta cheese crumbled

1/2 cup of organic rainbow radish diced

1/2 cup of cherry tomatoes quartered

1/2  cup persian cucumbers diced

1/2 cup of red bell pepper diced

1 Tablespoon of fresh organic Thyme leaves

Sea salt and black pepper to taste

 

Vinaigrette

5 Tablespoons of fresh lemon juice

3 Tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 teaspoon of cumin

1 medium clove of garlic finely chopped

Sea salt to taste

Directions: Add all of the ingredients except for the sea salt to a large bowl and toss well.

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Add all the ingredients for the vinaigrette to a mason jar cover and shake until well combined.  If you don’t have a mason jar, just whisk together all the ingredients for the vinaigrette in a bowl, and set aside. Salt the salad ingredients just before serving, this will prevent the tomatoes and cucumbers from becoming soggy, toss, then drizzle with a generous amount of the vinaigrette, toss  again to combine, serve and enjoy!

Grilled Steak Salad with Spicy Mustard Vinaigrette

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Grilled Steak Salad With Spicy Mustard Vinaigrette

Grilled Steak Salad With Spicy Mustard Vinaigrette

Boy has it been hot here! For the past 2 weeks temperatures here have stayed above 100 degrees and that’s in the shade. When it gets this hot, the last thing I want to do is move, let alone cook. The grill has definitely been a life saver for us these past few weeks. It allows me to push all the work of cooking onto my husband. He loves grilling–thank The Lord! Since he is so happy to cook on the grill, I thought I’d make a steak salad, which requires little effort from me other than cutting veggies, and marinating the steak in my FoodSaver. Oh and making a vinaigrette to go on the salad. All easy, peasy, lemon queasy;-)

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Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 5-7 minutes

Total time: 17 minutes

Ingredients:

1lb of flank or skirt steak

3 cloves of garlic pasted

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Sea salt and black pepper to taste

5 cups of mixed organic salad greens

1/2 cup of  organic cucumber cubed

1/2 cup of organic orange bell pepper sliced

2 small organic  heirloom tomatoes sliced and quartered

1/4 cup of radish sliced thinly

Ingredients for  Spicy mustard vinaigrette

1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

1 tablespoon of sherry vinegar (or red wine vinegar)

1 small clove of grated garlic

4 tablespoons of olive oil

1/8 teaspoon of Worcester sauce (optional)

1/2 teaspoon of maple sugar (can sub with maple syrup, agave, or honey)

Sea salt to taste

Directions: in a small bowl whisk all the ingredients for the vinaigrette together and set aside.  In a large bowl toss together the mixed greens, cucumbers, bell peppers, and tomatoes and set aside. In another bowl Mix together the pasted garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil. Season the steak generously with sea salt and black pepper, then pour the lemon and garlic marinade over both sides of the steak. Grill the steak for 5-8 minutes on each side, let it rest for 5-7 minutes, then slice on a bias, and serve over the salad. Top with a few spoonfuls of mustard vinaigrette and enjoy.

 

Moroccan Spiced Grilled Lamb Kabobs

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Moroccan Spiced Lamb Kabobs

Moroccan Spiced Lamb Kabobs

I don’t know where you live, but for the last week or so it’s been in the high 90’s here in Southern California.  When it’s hot like this, I resort to making my husband cook on the grill.  No one wants to cook in this kind of heat, but we must eat, so grilling it is. I love grilled meat period, but lamb was made to be grilled.  I remember several years back introducing my southern family to lamb grilled on the barbecue. I had invited them over for a cook out, and in addition to grilled chicken, I was serving grilled lamb.  When they found out that chicken and lamb were their only meat options, I had a family mutiny on my hands.  “Lamb?!!! We don’t eat lamb! You just wasted your money!” “Where is the real food? What happened to the ribs?!” Haha! I still laugh thinking about that day, because, after a bit of convincing, I got one of them to try it, and they all quickly fell in line! Ten seconds into them all trying it, they were fighting over who was going to get the last piece!  Now when we have a barbecue, lamb is on the menu, and I’m not the one bringing it, they are!  I’ve also converted several friends of mine who aren’t  fans of lamb into eating lamb by serving it to them grilled. I personally love lamb anyway you serve it. But there is just something about grilled lamb that speaks to everyone’s taste buds.

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Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 15 minutes

Total time: 25 minutes

 

 

Ingredients:

1 pound of lamb loin cubed

1/2 teaspoon of cumin

1/2 teaspoon of coriander

1 teaspoon of garlic paste

2 Tablespoons of lemon juice

1 Tablespoon of finely chopped mint

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

sea salt and black pepper to taste

 

Directions:

In a  small bowl mix the cumin, coriander, lemon juice, mint and olive oil together.

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Season lamb meat generously with sea salt and black pepper. Pour the marinade over the lamb and mix well.

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Add the seasoned lamb to skewers, then grill for 5-7 minutes on each side, or until the lamb reaches your desired level of doneness–about 15 minutes for medium.  Serve with veggie skewers or this cucumber and tomato salad,  or this Cucumber with Lemon Basil Vinaigrette and  this Lemon Cauliflower Rice and enjoy!

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Cucumber Salad with Lemon Basil Vinaigrette

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Lemon and basil Cucumber Salad

Lemon and basil Cucumber Salad

I have a confession to make, sometimes I make salad when I don’t want to cook a side—okay maybe I do that more than sometimes, I do it a lot. There is a reason I named this blog lazy girl dinners.  This salad is a result of me being lazy and needing to use the ingredients I had on hand.  It was a hit with both my husband and my daughter.  It was the first time I got her to eat cucumber without chewing it up and spitting it out. Slicing them with my spiral vegetable slicer had everything to do with that because when it comes to getting her to eat something, it always comes down to texture.

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Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: none

Total time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large cucumbers sliced thinly

4 tablespoons of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon of fresh basil, finely chopped

Sea Salt to taste

Directions:

Add the lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt, and basil to a small bowl and whisk together. Spoon as much of the viniagrette as you’d like over a serving of the cucumbers and enjoy!Note: If you are serving this at a dinner party–yes it’s lazy but it’s elegant and very delicious–then be sure to spoon the vinaigrette over the salad just before serving, otherwise the cucumbers will loose their crunch and get soggy.

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