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Roast Chicken with Cilantro Pesto

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Roast Chicken with Cilantro Pesto

Roast Chicken with Cilantro Pes

I make roast chicken a lot for my family. Mainly because it’s easy, and I know everyone will enjoy it. However, because I make it so often, I am always trying to come up with ways to make it differently, ways in which I can add flavor, this pesto does exactly that. It adds a ton of flavor, but requires minimal extra work. You throw all the ingredients in the blender or a food processor, push a button and it’s done! Leftover, pesto, if you have any, can be spread on bread as the condiment to leftover chicken salad sandwiches…talk about yum! If you don’t want to roast an entire chicken, you can scale this down and use just 2 chicken breasts, it doesn’t matter. I find that buying a whole organic chicken is often less expensive than buying just 2 organic chicken breasts. So I always prefer to save money and buy the whole chicken. I reinvent the leftover chicken into tacos, salad, soup or tostadas.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Total time: 55 minutes

Ingredients:
1 whole Organic Nongmo Air-chilled Chicken
2 cloves of garlic
2-3 Tablespoons of Olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of thyme
Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Ingredients for Cilantro Pesto:
2 cups of cilantro
1/2 cup of olive oil
1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup of toasted hazelnuts
Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 425F. Season the chicken generously with sea salt and black pepper, then rub it with the garlic and oil. Line a baking dish with foil, place the chicken on it and place it in the oven and cook for 45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Meanwhile, place all the ingredients for the pesto in a blender or processor, and blend until smooth. Serve the pesto however you’d like, I smear it on the chicken, with an additional spoonful or two, so that I can dip as I go. It’s so delicious!!!! If you haven’t read my blog on How to roast Chicken, Steps to making the perfect roast chicken now would be a great time. My recipe for Roast Chicken with Lemon and Garlic works the pesto as well.

Roast Chicken with Cilantro Pesto

Roast Chicken with Cilantro Pesto

Za’atar Spiced Chicken

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Za'atar Spiced Chicken

Za’atar Spiced Chicken

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile now, then you know that I’m enamored with Mediterranean spices, and food. One of my favorite things to have when I go out for dinner at a middle eastern restaurant is a naan bread with za’atar spices on it. What’s not to like? Piping hot crispy bread with a tangy spice, and hot olive oil…yum! I’m drooling at just the thought, it’s just so yummy. If you’re not familiar with za’atar you’ve been missing out. It’s simply a mixture of thyme, sesame seeds, marjoram, cumin, and sumac. With the exception of the sumac, you probably have all the ingredients to make it in your cabinet right now. You can’t make this without the sumac though, it’s tart and tangy flavor would be missed. The herbaceous smell of this spice is reason enough to use it. It pairs well with many meats, not just chicken, but on chicken it is amazing. I will share my recipe for my own homemade za’atar spice in a future blog, but for this, a store bought version will do. I got a packaged za’atar spice blend at Whole Foods in the spice aisle. While it’s not as good as my homemade version, it’s very close.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Total time: 25 minutes

Ingredients
1 tablespoon of za’atar spice
Juice of half a large lemon
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic grated
5-6 (1lb) boneless skinless chicken thighs
Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 425F. Mix the za’atar, lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil together in a medium bowl. Season the chicken with sea salt and black pepper, then toss in the bowl with the marinade and mix well. Line a baking sheet with foil, then add the chicken, and place in the oven, for 15-20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Remove from the oven, serve and enjoy!

Mint-Chocolate Tofu Pudding

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Peppermint-Chocolate Pudding

Peppermint-Chocolate Pudding

One of the great things about Tofu, is it’s ability to take on flavors. My recipe for Tofu fried chicken is a prime example of that! If you haven’t tried that yet, then you might want to do so, and pair it with this recipe. I love puddings, and Justice De La Torre our staff Nutritionist has taught me many ways to enjoy them without the guilt of added sugars, or ingredients that aren’t so good for me. Like my recipe for Chocolate Avocado pudding—hey don’t knock it until you try it! I’ve yet to serve it to anyone who didn’t convert! Try it! If tofu or avocado are not your ingredients of choice, my recipe for Chocolate pots de Creme will more than suit your taste buds. They’re super creamy and so delicious, the perfect dessert for Valentines day, or any day! My daughters first experience with peppermint was with peppermint bark candy at Christmas. She fell in love with the flavor of peppermint and chocolate. So much so that for a while she referred to plain peppermint candies as peppermint bark. Since Valentines day is tomorrow, I decided to give my love, what she loves, chocolate mint, but in the form of pudding. She loves it. I almost didn’t get a picture to share with you guys, because she couldn’t wait for me to take pictures she wanted to eat it as soon as it was done.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 5 minutes
Total time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:
4 ounces of semi sweet dark organic chocolate (60%) melted or 1/3 cup of powdered chocolate
5 tablespoons of maple syrup or agave
1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 14 oz package of silken or soft Non-GMO organic tofu

Directions:
Melt the chocolate over a pot of water with a double boiler. Drain the tofu and place in a blender and blend until smooth, add in both extracts, your choice of sweetener, and the melted chocolate.
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Blend until smooth, place in a glass bowl and chill for at least 30 minutes. Serve with whipped cream or just enjoy sans whipped cream.

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Greek Marinated Lamb Chops

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Greek Marinated Lamb Chops

Greek Marinated Lamb Chops

The FoodSaver that my husband gave me for Christmas this year has turned out to be one of my favorite kitchen gadgets of all time! I absolutely love it. I can place meat into a container and push a button and 10 minutes later I have marinated meat! And not just meat marinated on the surface, the marinade goes throughout the meat. The process of sucking the air out and pulsing the marinade in, produces tender, delicious, and fully marinaded meat. It’s so awesome that I’m smiling just typing this. I love it when a kitchen gadget does what it’s supposed to do, and I love it more when it saves me time in the kitchen. I’ve been using my new gadget a lot lately and testing out some fun marinades. This lamb marinade is just one of the many, many delicious marinades coming up on the blog for you.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
6 lamb chops
1 teaspoon of fresh rosemary chopped finely
2 teaspoons of lemon juice
1 clove of garlic grated or crushed
1/4 cup of organic Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:
In a medium bowl combine ingredients 2-6. Season the lamb chops with sea salt and black pepper then place them in the marinade and toss. Let marinate for 10-20 minutes. Pre-heat the oven 425F, place the lamb chops on a foil lined cookie sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes, remove from the oven and enjoy!

Parmesan Green beans

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Parmesan Green beans

Hello there my fellow foodies! I feel like I’ve been neglecting you guys and my blog. I’ve been so busy with work and raising my daughter that I have barely had enough time to post all the recipes I have in my cue! This last week in particular has been trying, and I didn’t get around to posting a second recipe, so I’ll try to post 3 this week to make it up to you.

My husband is a big fan of green beans, he would eat them every day of the week if I served them. This is a super quick and delicious way to serve green beans, and we all love green beans this way! Serve these with meatloaf and you have a winning dinner!

Ingredients
1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese grated
1/4 cup of Percorino cheese grated
1lb of fresh organic green beans stems removed
Sea salt an black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Directions:
Pre-heat your oven to 400F. Line a cookie sheet with foil. Place the green beans in a single layer on the cookie sheet. Drizzle the green beans with olive oil, and season with sea salt and black pepper.
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Bake for 10 minutes or until green beans are fork tender, then remove from oven top with grated cheese and bake for 1-2 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven and enjoy!
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Share your favorite green bean recipe. I could use some new ways to enjoy green beans!

Smashed Potatoes

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Smashed Potaoes

Smashed Potaoes

I love potatoes! Love them!!! Any diet that excludes potatoes isn’t a diet I’d ever be on. When my friends even mention going on a low carb diet, I tell them “good luck with that, I’ll be over here with my potatoes and apples! Not going to happen for me, but I wish you the best of luck!” I subscribe to the eat a little of everything and nothing will become a problem diet. The only thing I restrict from my diet are processed foods. If it’s not a real, whole food, then I don’t eat it. This system has worked for me all of my life, so I think I will stick to it. With that said, I love this particular recipe for potatoes, they’re the perfect combination of a fried potato and a baked potato, just delish! I used an Italian dried spice blend, but you can use any spices that you like. I also used multi-color potatoes. Purple, blue and red potatoes are great for you, they have more antioxidants than white potatoes!

Cook time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:
15-20 small organic fingerling potatoes or small Yukon gold potatoes
3-4 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of Sea salt and more to taste
1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning

Directions:
Pre heat your oven to 425F. Line a cookie sheet with foil and set aside. To a medium pot add potatoes, sea salt and enough water to cover the potatoes, bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil the potatoes until they are fork tender about 10 minutes. Drain the water from the potatoes then place them on the foil lined cookie sheet. Smash each potato with the back of a spoon, you want to expose the flesh. Season each potato with sea salt, and Italian seasoning, then drizzle olive oil over each potato.

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Place the cookie sheet in the oven, and cook until the potatoes take on a golden brown color, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven and serve immediately!

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Ranch Chicken Thighs

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Ranch chicken thighs

Ranch chicken thighs

Another great way to use my ranch seasoning is on chicken. Ranch seasoning was made to go on chicken. Chicken and ranch make a perfect pair. This recipe is a great one for a quick fix week night meal, or served to some friends at a Super Bowl party. Just substitute the thighs for wings and you’ll have a game day food everyone will be talking about for days to come.

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Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes

Ingredients
5-6 skinless boneless chicken thighs
2 tablespoons of my ranch seasoning
Sea salt to taste
1 tablespoon of Olive oil

Directions:
Pre heat your oven to 425F. To a bowl add the chicken thighs, olive oil, ranch seasoning and sea salt, and mix well. Place chicken on a foil lined cookie sheet, and bake for 20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Remove from oven, serve and enjoy! This chicken is great with my ranch dip!

Ranch chicken with ranch dip

Homemade Ranch Dry seasoning

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Homemade ranch dry seasoning mix

Homemade ranch dry seasoning mix

One of my favorite condiments is salad dressing. I love making my own salad dressing from scratch. Most salad dressings are filled with way too many preservatives for my taste, not to mention hidden and not so hidden calories. I love simple vinaigrettes, but every now and again, I crave a creamy salad dressing. I resort to making this recipe for ranch, or my Caesar salad dressing. Both are fantastic in their own separate ways. I’ve come up with a recipe for a dry ranch seasoning. This ranch seasoning is extremely versatile, and can be used in a host of recipes, I’ll post 2 more ways to use it in the coming week. But first let me give you the recipe for the ranch seasoning.

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Ingredients:
2.5 tablespoons of dried organic parsley
1.5 teaspoons of dried organic dill weed
2 teaspoons of garlic powder
2.5 teaspoons of onion powder
2 teaspoons of dried onion flakes
1 teaspoon of sea salt
1 teaspoon of pink peppercorns ground ( you can sub black pepper)

Add the ingredients for the dry ranch mix to a mason jar, or a re-sealable bag, and mix well. 1 tablespoon of this mixture is all you need to make my low calorie Ranch yogurt dip/salad dressing.

Citrus Marinaded Chicken Thighs

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Citrus Marinated Chicken Thighs

My husband gave me a food saver for Christmas. Most women would balk at such a gift, but not me, I’ve wanted a Food Saver for a long while now. Among the many great things that a Food Saver does, like resealing opened bags of chips, and preserving veggies for an indefinite amount of time, is marinating meat in under 15 minutes. Who knew that sucking the air out of something would create such great results. You don’t need a food saver to make this, just marinate your chicken the old fashioned way, 30 minutes in this marinade is great, but longer is always better.

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Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Total time: 25 minutes

Ingredients
5-6 skinless boneless chicken thighs
1/4 cup of green onions sliced
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1/4 cup of mandarin juice/ orange juice
1 teaspoon of mandarin or orange zest
3 cloves of garlic grated
1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika
Juice of 1 small lime
1 tablespoon of cilantro finely chopped
2 tablespoon of olive oil
Sea salt to taste

Directions:
In a medium bowl whisk together all the ingredients for the marinade. Add the chicken, mix well, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven 425F. Line a baking sheet with foil, remove the chicken from the marinade, and place it on the foil lined baking sheet. Cook on 425F for 15-20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Top with cilantro and enjoy!

Gourmet Popcorn — Homemade gift giving

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Tis the season to be jolly–and to give until it hurts no more. Giving gifts is supposed to be fun, right? Well if you’re anything like me, waiting in long lines, and inching through crowds of people at a mall, all so that you can get something a loved one may or may not appreciate, just isn’t fun! So this year, I’m giving the gift of food. Everyone young and old appreciates it, and if done right your pocket book will too. One of my favorite gifts to receive when I was a kid was one of those huge tins of popcorn. The tin always contained caramel, plain, and cheese popcorn, all delicious in their own rite. You could go out right now and buy one of those tins, or you could make my version of gourmet popcorn and make a loved one very, very happy! My recipe for Caramel Popcorn with almond and coconut flakes is to die for. It’s so good in fact that my mom told me I should remove the recipe from my blog and sell it on the free market. After tasting it recently, I think she may be right…it is soooooo good! Addicting even! My recipe for coconut kettle corn is equally as good! Trust me if you make these two gourmet pop corns and give them as gifts, your friends and family will thank you and thank you some more!

Caramel Popcorn with Almonds and Coconut Flakes

Ingredients:
1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of Organic non GMO popcorn
3 Tablespoons of Coconut oil
1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of Almonds
1 cup of Organic Sugar
4 Tablespoons of grassfed butter
3 Tablespoons of Organic Corn Syrup
1 teaspoon of Sea salt
1/4 cup of water
1/4 cup of coconut flakes (optional)

Spray a large baking sheet with coconut oil. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
Add popcorn kernels and 3 Tbsp. coconut oil to a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Cover and cook over medium-low heat, shaking frequently. You will start hearing the corn pop after a few minutes—keep cooking until there’s a gap of about 5 seconds or more between pops. Immediately remove the pan from heat and pour the popcorn onto the prepared baking sheet. Add the almonds.
In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, butter, corn syrup, and water. Place over medium heat and cook, without stirring, until the mixture is a light caramel color, about 10 minutes. Add the salt and stir to combine. Pour the caramel over the popcorn and almonds.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and cook until the caramel becomes thin and shiny, about 10 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and with a rubber spatula, fold the popcorn and Almond to coat with the caramel. When the caramel hardens, you’ll know it because the popcorn mixture will be harder to move, return the baking sheet to the oven. Repeat this process as many times as necessary to completely coat the popcorn and Almonds with caramel and until the caramel has darkened to a dark amber color. I did this 5 times checking on the popcorn and tossing it, in 5-7 minute intervals. On my 4th turn and check I added the coconut flakes. I just sprinkled them in and gave good toss.

Once you remove the popcorn, let it cool for 2-3 minutes, then break up the popcorn into bite-size pieces. Let cool completely. It will last two weeks stored in an air-tight container. This makes enough caramel corn to fill 3 treat bags, or 2 good sized tins. If you need more then double or triple the recipe.

Coconut Kettle Corn
Ingredients:
1/4 cup of organic corn kernels
3 tablespoons of  organic coconut oil
1.5 teaspoons of coconut sugar
1/4 teaspoon of sea salt

Directions:
Add all of the ingredients except for the sugar to a pan with a tight lid. Place on high heat until the corn starts popping. Once the popping is active, turn off the heat and allow the corn to pop on residual heat, shaking occasionally. Once the popping stops sprinkle with the coconut sugar, shake to coat and then transfer to a bowl and enjoy!