Chicken Not Pie

This came from the pages of The Runner's World Cookbook. Loaded with vegetables and an absolute winner with the girls, it took but 30 minutes to prepare.

For starters we halved and sliced up 2 sticks of leek.

For five minutes we sauteed them in a little olive oil with salt and pepper.

Then we added 1 glass of white wine, 1 cup of vegetable broth, and

some chopped thyme. While we brought all that to a boil and a few minutes of simmer, we sliced up 2 chicken breasts.

We cooked the chicken for about 6 minutes. That gave us some time to peel and chop up into bite-size chunks 3 yellow potatoes.

Then Lily retrieved the chicken and placed it on the side.

We added the taters and boiled them for about five minutes.

In the meantime we prepared 1 carrot and 1 parsnip, added them for another couple minutes while the sauce was thickening.

Then we prepared 1 handful of sugar snap peas, and 1 bushel of green asparagus and added them, too, for just about three minutes.

To wrap it up we added the chicken, the juice of 1 lemon and some fresh parsley.

Not bad for  fast and furious weekday evening. It sure got our yummy going. Enough to make us polish our forks.

Quinoa Salad with Avocado and Tomatoes (and Mama Pasta)

Liz found the idea for this salad on the blog "My Whole Food Life" prepared and served by Melissa and so we made it. Absolutely delicious.

To make it we tossed all of this together. But first we had to cook the quinoa, 1/2 cup in 1 cup of water. When it was boiling we turned it down to simmer for about ten minutes until all the water was absorbed. We let it cool down and then cut up and added a handful of colorful cherry tomatoes (from a local farm),

1 avocado, a handful of parsley, a handful of lettuce (the recipe called for spinach), half a big red onion, the juice of 1 lemon, and sea salt and pepper to taste.

Lily gave it a good stir.

Voila!

To make a dinner out of it we also prepared our world famous Mama Pasta. The salad was realy yummy. Many thanks and a shout out to Melissa and "My Whole Food Life".

An All Green Orzo Risotto

This was a total winner. Everybody loved it. And best of all it was a 30 minutes of easy cooking.
We started by placing two pots on the stove. One with 1.5 liter of veggie broth and the other with water. While we waited for those to cook we washed and cut up a big bushel of green asparagus, keeping the tips separate. We cut the tips and halved 2 handfuls of green beans, found a small bag of frozen peas, and scavenged for a handful of fresh parsley and mint in our garden.

When the broth was boiling we added 1 pound of orzo pasta and started grating a good pile of Parmesan cheese.
Then we added the beans and asparagus stalks to the boiling water. After about two minutes or so, when they started to slightly soften, we

added the asparagus tips and frozen peas. We let them all warm up for another minute or so, always testing for what seemed to be the perfect point of crunchy softness.

The broth by then had all been absorbed by the pasta. We drained the greens and mixed them with the orzo, a couple good chunks of butter, a good couple handfuls of the cheese and some of the mint and parsley, which we had chopped. A little salt and pepper and we were ready to sharpen our forks.

Everybody fine-tuned their plates with extra cheese, mint, parsley, and seasoning.

Yup - Sauerkraut

Okay. So just to verify that yes, indeed, we come with German heritage to the stove, here now a dish with sauerkraut. And good and tasty it was.

We began this affair with starting a pot of water to boil 1 pound of ziti pasta and cutting up 6 slices of bacon.

We fried up the bacon nice and golden in some olive oil.

Meanwhile we halved one huge onion and sliced it into quarter strips.

We also drained 500 g of store bought sauerkraut.

The onions we added to the bacon and

fried them for another couple of minutes.

When it was all browned we removed it from the pan for later.

With some extra olive oil we fried up the sauerkraut for a few minutes

and then added a pat of butter and 1 tablespoon of sugar and got the sauerkraut browned a bit.

Lastly we added the bacon and onions back in, 100 ml of veggie broth, 200 ml of cream, and brought it all to a boil.

Then we made a mad dash outside to get a bit of parsley from our small garden. 

Just in time to drain the pasta. We added the sauerkraut sauce to the pasta, salt, pepper, and some of the cooking water we had reserved. To serve we added the parsley and caraway seeds. Those caraway seeds added just the perfect touch.

It was absolutely delicious The original recipe for this one we found in a cookbook from the German master Tim Mälzer. Guten Appetit!

Couscous and Stew

This here now is about the most easily prepared stew and it descended on our plates with some attitude!

We prepared one pound of top notch and happy angus beef chunks with a good bit of salt and pepper and revved up the oven to a toasty 350F.

We also rummaged for and cleaned up four carrots, three sticks of celery, a few branches of rosemary, a couple of garlic cloves, one big red onion, half a butternut squash (just because it sounds so good; "butternut squash"), one big can of tomatoes, and two small cans of chick peas.

Then all of it got chopped, sliced, diced, minced, cubed, and otherwise minimized to our liking and then chucked into a big oven ready dish with a lid. We also added about two cups of water and a couple of heaped tablespoons of cumin, ground coriander seeds, and cinnamon, as well as more salt and pepper and some olive oil.

We stuck it in the oven for five hours.

Twenty minutes before dinnertime we got a pot of water going based on the cooking instructions of a quarter pound of couscous. When the water was boiling we took it off the stove, added the couscous for five minutes and then the juice of one lemon, and some chopped parsley. When we got the stew out of the oven we also added the zest of the same lemon and more parsley.

It was just simply dig-in-wipe-the-juice-of-your-chin-drop-dead-delicious. We can only recommend. We found the basis for this recipe, by the by, in a dog-eared and stained Jamie Oliver cooking magazine, translated to German. 

3 Course Holiday Dinner

Since it was a holiday, we had planned for lots to eat, and we had plenty of time. So we decided to prepare all the engredients first. The thought was, it would relax the cooking some. What we didn't realize, that when you do this, you cook your dinner twice. First in your head while chopping. Then in the pot while watching. All along you are increasingly getting hungrier and hungrier.

Here is what we prepared.

For the Parsley Cream Soup:
- butter

- half a big onion, chopped

- 2 big potatoes, peeled and cubed

- 500 ml vegetable broth

- 350 ml milk

- 1 bushel of parsley, leaves plugged

- salt, pepper

- half a nutmeg

- juice from half a lemon

- 250g mushrooms, cut small

- olive oil

- 100 ml whipping cream, whipped stiff

For the Tarragon Chicken:

- olive oil

- about 2 lb of various chicken parts

- 1 carrot, roughly chopped

- 1 stick of celery, chopped

- half a big onion, chopped

- 150g mushrooms, cut small

- white wine

- a handful of thyme, tied up

- 5 bay leaves

- 500 ml vegetable broth
- salt and pepper

- 2 tbls flour

- a chunk of butter

- juice of one lemon

- a small carton of cream and 2 egg yolks stirred together

- a small pile of tarragon, chopped

For the Rice:
- a chunk of butter
- a couple chunks of garlic, cut small
- three cups water
- salt
- one and half cups brown rice

For the Chopped Salad:

- a bunch of different lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, radishes, avocado, all washed and chopped

- olive oil, red wine vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, stirred for the dressing

For the Apple Cakes:

- 2 eggs, 5 tbls sugar, a little salt, 100 ml milk, and 1 cup flour, all mixed up smooth

- 1 tbls sesame seeds

- honey

- 4 apples, cored, peeled, sliced, and sprinkled with the juice of one lemon

- vegetable oil

- vanilla ice cream

For Papa's nerves:

- one cold beer

First Lena fried up the chicken pieces in olive oil - nice and brown - and removed them from the pan.

We wiped out  the pan with a rag and tossed in more oil  and the celery, carrots, and onion.

While they were sauteing,

Lena warmed the chunk of butter for the rice with the minced garlic, added the water,

and when it was boiling, half a table spoon salt and the rice. We let it boil up again and then turned it down to the lowest setting and forgot about it till it was time to eat.

We returned our attention to the vegetables, added the mushrooms, and sauted them five more minutes.

Then Lena poured in a little bit of white wine.

At that point Lucy took over stirring until the wine was a good bit absorbed.

Lena returned the chicken to the pan and

added the thyme, bay leaves, salt, pepper,

and broth. We covered it and let it cook for 45 minutes till the meat was falling off the bones.

Now  there was the time for the soup. We started with the butter, and onions, cooking them for five minutes.

Then we added the potatoes for a few more minutes.

Followed by the broth

and milk.

After about 20 minutes we added the parsley,

lemon juice,

and grated nutmeg. At this point we fried up the mushrooms in a small pan with the oil and some salt and pepper.

Then we whizzed up the soup with a blender.

Before serving we stirred in the whipped cream and whizzed it up one more time. We served the mushrooms and a few parsley leaves separately for everybody to add them to the soup at their will.

To serve the chicken we took it and the veggies out of the broth and juices and kept them warm in a serving dish. Then we melted the butter and added the flour and enough of the reserved broth for a good sauce.

Then we added the lemon juice, the eggs and cream, and the tarragon. Before serving we also added the dressing to the salad.
Now we were were ready for course one and two.

Mhhhhhhhhhhhh. Delicious. There was something for everybody's taste.

After we were sufficiently stuffed, we took a break to clean up the table and the kitchen in order to slowly start considering desert.

When we were ready again for more food, we heated up the sesame seeds

and then the honey to get it nicely warm and runny.

We heated up the oil, ran the apple slices through the dough and fried them  up. We kept them warm in the oven till all were done.

Lily served the apple cakes with vanilla ice cream, drizzled with the sesame honey. Lena and Lily liked them so much they booked marked them for their birthdays. We all had big smiles and happy tummies.