Poached Eggs in Tomato Sauce
Eggs poached in tomato sauce is one of those really delicious dishes that you can tell came about at some point because someone was both creative and faced with leftovers that needed using up. However it originally came about, it’s a delicious combination that makes for a super easy meal any time of day that tastes like way more work than it was. I am a particularly big fan of having this for breakfast on weekend mornings or dinner when I get home from work and don’t really want to cook. The proportions I use here are rough and would feed either one very hungry person or two average people with an extra couple hunks of bread. If you want to scale it up you can bake the eggs in a casserole dish with the sauce rather than cooking it on the stove–the end result is just about the same and all methods yield scrumptious results.
Baked Kale Chips
his method of cooking kale is my new favorite. Kale chips made by baking the leaves with a little olive oil and salt results in an almost potato-chip like treat that is genuinely good for you. You can season them with whatever spices you like or keep them simple and plain. There is no easier way to eat green leafy vegetables, or at least no way more genuinely enjoyable (and that’s coming from a true salad lover). Make a batch of these today and you’ll probably make three more before the end of the weekend. Even my dog begs for these chips, and I’m pretty sure I could convince my dad to try one too. These more than make up for the minimal effort involved in making them.
Palak Paneer
I adore Indian food. I don’t cook much of it at home, as even I am intimidated by the ingredients lists sometimes and the time involved so most of the time I’ll just enjoy it in a restaurant. I’ve overcome the fear to learn how to make one of the simplest and in my opinion,tastiest, dishes–Palak Paneer. Palak Paneer is a spinach curry studded with cubes of paneer cheese, a fresh cheese related to ricotta. Unlike my other favorite dishes Palak Paneer is relatively simple and doesn’t have to contain dozens of ingredients. It can be made restaurant-rich or be adapted to be a bit less of a fat bomb and still come out a winner.
Paneer Cheese
Paneer is a fresh cheese used in Indian food. It’s related to ricotta and is super easy to make at home and a lot cheaper than buying it. If you don’t happen to have a well stocked international market or Indian grocery nearby this might also be the only way you can get it for use in your favorite Indian recipes. Fortunately it only takes two ingredients and both are available everywhere. This is also a great way to take advantage if your grocery store marks milk down just before it expires. The cheese is best with super fresh milk, but it’s still pretty amazing made with slightly older milk as well.
Skipping Jack
I don’t have a picture of this take on hoppin’ john as it was gone too quickly. I’d say the recipe makes somewhere between two and four servings depending on the appetites of the people you’re feeding, but either way it will be gone quickly. Hoppin’ john is a combination of rice, black eyed peas and ham hock, but I’ve dubbed mine Skipping Jack as it’s similar in idea but different in ingredients enough to qualify for its own name. This rice and beans dish is flavored with soy chorizo, though you could use real chorizo if you like. I just tend to lean more vegetarian and recently discovered this alternative and I’m quite happy with it–it’s spicy, crumbly and very highly flavored, lending itself well to uses as a flavoring agent or garnish rather than a centerpiece. I used Trader Joe’s brand, but I’ve seen others floating around in other grocery stores so use whatever type you like. It’s also superb cooked into scrambled eggs and tucked into breakfast sandwiches.
Simple Tomato Sauce
It seems as though no one makes tomato sauce at home anymore and that’s a shame. Spaghetti (or any other pasta, really) and tomato sauce is such an easy go-to meal, ready to be doctored in any one of a thousand ways or enjoyed as-is. In that vein, a jar of ragu-style sauce is easy, sometimes too easy, to grab and run with rather than taking the time to make your own. I think part of that is because of the image of a long-simmering pot on the back of the stove that takes hours to cook to perfection. The thing is, that’s just not needed for all tomato sauces.
Easy Blueberry Sauce for Blueberry Topped Treats
This easy blueberry sauce recipe can be used in any of a number of ways–stirred into yogurt, as a topping for pancakes, waffles or ice cream, dribbled over cheesecake, puddled in cottage cheese…the options are endless. I particularly like it over vanilla ice cream on top of a brownie or drizzled over lemon frozen yogurt. Whatever you choose, you’re bound to want to make this sauce over and over again
Blueberry Date Salad
This filling salad includes a variety of fruits and vegetables to create a well rounded meal or a tasty appetizer. Including cauliflower in this salad adds some great nutrition and always tricks me into thinking I added more cheese than I actually did so it is a great way to cut down on the fat.
Wilted Spinach
Wilted spinach is an awkward name for a perfectly lovely dish. Spinach has scared off so many people, but this method of cooking yields a tender but not mushy green flavored with whatever you choose to add to it. It makes an excellent side to all sorts of dishes, but is also good stirred into others to add a pop of color as well as up the nutritional profile a bit. In this version I use a little butter to gild the leaves, but feel free to substitute olive oil or the cooking fat of your choice. It does need just a little fat of some kind to help aid in the absorbtion of nutrients, but it also helps carry the flavor of whatever aromatics you’re using to the rest of the dish. Garlic butter is a classic topping, and one I very much recommend.
Roasted Potatoes
Roasted potatoes can round out nearly any meal for any occasion, from celebretory to weekday dinner. This is a simplified version of my favorite method to make potatoes as a side to nearly any dish, but it goes particularly well with chicken marsala or roasted meats. The little extra punch of flavor from the garlic and broth help take these a little further than your everyday plain potato side dish but not far enough to abandon its supporting role in your meal.
