Shortcut chicken soup

This chicken soup uses a few shortcuts like rotisserie chicken and store-bought broth to speed up the process, but gets extra oomph from plenty of aromatics, a little extra cooking oil, and teeny tiny pasta cooked right in the broth. A poached egg on top adds even more richness and depth.

Take me to the soup!

I originally called this “Quick and rich chicken soup,” but it sounded too much like a country band. However, the moniker still applies because this guy is indeed quite rich and quite quick (for a soup that tastes this good, that is!).

I’m not a huge fan of the chicken broth that comes in a box or a can. I mean, it’s fine as a replacement for water when cooking grains and beans, but for soup? It’s a little thin and bland for me. But, I don’t always have homemade stock in the freezer or the wherewithal to make it. (But if I do, this is my recipe!)

To spice and thicken it up, I use any combination of these:

• Butter: Adding a little extra cooking fat when you start sautéing your aromatics adds richness to the final product.

• Tiny pasta: The teenier the better! Orzo, stelline, ditalini, anilline, or any other pasta that’s about the size of a pencil eraser works perfectly. When cooked in the broth, the starch from the pasta thickens the broth significantly.

• Cheese: Adding some grated cheese at the end is one strategy, but tossing in the leftover rind of any hard cheese adds salt, depth, and richness.

• Salt: This might sound weird because a lot of canned and boxed broths have A LOT of salt in them, but if you use the unsalted or low salt variety, be sure to add enough salt back in.

• Poached egg: When the soup is done, adding a poached egg on top enriches it even more!

In this soup, I used pasta and a poached egg to give it a rich, silky texture. I included a range for the amount of liquid to add depending on how much liquid you like in your soup. Six cups makes the soup very thick, eight cups make it less so.

Shortcut chicken soup

2 Tbsp olive oil 
1 small onion, diced 
1 medium carrot, peeled and diced (heaping ½ cup)
1 small stalk celery, diced (scant ½ cup)
6 large fresh sage leaves 
½ tsp dried thyme
1 bay leaf 
1 tsp kosher salt
Black pepper to taste 
6-8 cups chicken stock
1 cup tiny pasta 
1-2 cups shredded, precooked chicken
Serving sugggestions: 
Poached egg, parmesan cheese, more seasonin to taste

Time: About 45 minutes, mostly active
Yield: About 6-8 cups of soup, depending on how much water and chicken you add

Heat the olive oil in a large, deep pot over medium high heat. Add the minced onion, carrot, and celery and cook, stirring frequently, until the veggies begin to brown and the onions are translucent, about 6-8 minutes. 

Add the sage and thyme and cook until fragrant, about one minute.

Add the bay leaf, salt, pepper, and chicken stock and mix well. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. 

While the soup simmers, shred the chicken and set aside.

Bring back to a boil and add the pasta. Cook according to package directions until al dente. 

Add the shredded chicken and stir. 

Roasted squash and pear salad with cider vinaigrette

This salad is complex enough for the foodies in your life, but filled with ingredients yummy enough for even discerning little ones (maybe paired down to its component parts, but it depends on your kid).

Take me to the salad!

So, I’ve mostly succumbed to my existential dread and begun inhaling the Halloween candy that I SWORE I wouldn’t open until October 31st. Since my snacking has taken a turn and I also feel like it’s not really fall until I post a kale salad with some sort of roasted squash, I’m coming in hot with this baby today.

Lacinto kale (Tuscan/Dinosaur kale) is the base. This is my favorite kale to use in salads because you can dress it way in advance and it’ll stay crisp for days (and no one can complain about soggy lettuce!). It also stands up well against the nuts, seeds, roasted veggies, and tangy dressing here.

I roasted some honeynut squash (above) which looks like a mini butternut, but is oh so much better. I find butternut squash a little too bland and watery and there are so many other varieties with more taste and body like kabocha and koginut. Plus, they’re so puuuurty.

You might be thinking— “What is this woman smoking if she thinks I’m going to roast squash, toast nuts, fry sage and shallots, AND make a dressing mid-day on a Wednesday.” But hear me out. My squash-roasting method is so easy: split the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and place it on a baking sheet cut side down and roast at 425 until fork tender (no peeling or stem trimming required!). Set it and forget it!

The nuts and seeds can be toasted alongside the squash in a separate small pan for like 4-5 minutes without any sort of prep at all (skins still on!).

Finally, the sautéed shallots and sage…well, there’s no way to make them easier. They’re not HARD by any stretch, but they require a little more work than your average salad, I’ll give you that. But they make this salad an EVENT, so if you CAN slow down and make yourself a nice lunch, I guarantee it’ll be worth it. Also, my kid loves fried shallots, so it’s a selling point in his book.

Roasted Squash and Pear Salad with Cider Vinaigrette

Time: 1 hour (about 40 minutes active)
Yield: 2 meal-sized salads or 3 side salads

2-4 small, firm fleshed squash like Delicata, Koginut, or Kabocha
1 bunch Lacinto kale (also called Tuscan or Dinosaur), washed, de-stemmed, and torn
1 Tbsp olive oil
Large pinch of salt
1/4 cup raw hazelnuts
2 Tbsp raw pumpkin seeds
1 Tbsp butter
1 large or 2 small shallots, thinly sliced
5-6 large sage leaves
1/4 cup feta, goat’s cheese, or any other cheese you like
1 large pear, cored and sliced
Large pinch of Allepo pepper (optional)
Cider vinaigrette (recipe below)

For the cider vinaigrette
2 Tbsp olive oil
2-3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp smoked paprika

Preheat the oven to 425. Split the squash down the middle with a sharp knife, scoop out the seeds and stringy bits from the center, and place cut side down on a parchment or foil lined baking sheet. DO NOT trim the ends or the stem off of the squash. Bake until the outer skin and inner flesh is fork tender, about 35-40 minutes depending upon the size and amount of squash (I like to roast a lot at once so I can freeze the extra and use it for future dishes). Let cool. The skin will slip off of the flesh easily.

While the squash is cooking, prep the kale. Wash, tear the leaves off of the tough inner stems, and then rip the leaves into medium pieces. Top with 1 Tbsp of olive oil and massage and squeeze the kale with your hands to make it more tender. Sprinkle with a large pinch of salt.

In a separate pan, place the raw nuts and seeds. Toast in the oven with the squash for 4-5 minutes or until the nuts and seeds begin to toast and smell nutty. Keep a close eye to prevent burning.

In a small saute pan, melt the butter over a medium high flame. Add the shallots and cook, stirring, until they begin to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the sage leaves and cook until they go dark and crispy.

Make the dressing: Combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until well combined. Or use a small jar with a lid and shake until combined.

Top the lettuce with enough of the dressing to coat well. Add the squash, nuts, seeds, fried shallots, fried sage, and cheese. Just before serving, core and slice the pear and add to the salad (to prevent browning). Top with a large pinch of Aleppo pepper or other little bit of heat and more salt if necessary. Top with the rest of the dressing.

SPD: Gnocchi, sausage, and fridge leftovers

Truly clean out your fridge or freezer with this sheet pan dinner that combines textures and flavors to make something much greater than the sum of its ingredients.

Take me to the recipe!

Around the new year, we decided to work on minimizing our food waste because, as any parent of young children can tell you, kids don’t give A SHIT about wasting food. Without resorting to the whole “there are starving children in the world, so you will eat this broccoli” threat that just leads to power struggles, we’re trying to be creative about getting M to eat whatever we make. Especially now that groceries are a little harder to come by (but not that hard, really).

I’ve seen millions of recipes about roasting gnocchi and for some reason, I’ve resisted. Though I feel like gnocchi should really appeal to M, the soft kind leaves him cold. When they’re roasted, however, they get crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, so they’re closer to tater tots or french fries than soft pasta. Let me tell you: Anything french fry-related appeals to my child.

We also included sausages (these are chorizo) because sausage is almost always eaten around here. You could also use hot dogs if that’s something your children will actually eat. Desperate times, people. Desperate times.

I can also confirm that this sheet pan dinner can be made with one hand while holding a baby.

A couple of notes:

• When I started making this sheet pan dinner, I was trying to mimic the flavors of a Portuguese sausage and kale soup, so I used chorizo, Lacinto kale, potato gnocchi, and sundried tomatoes, but as I said above, you can use any kind of sausage that you like, including hot dogs.

• You can also use any veggies in this sheet pan. I initially used just kale, which gets nice and crispy, but ended up using a combination of kale and broccoli or kale and something else that was about to go bad. I like the crispy kale, but for a meal, I feel like you need more textures. But really, use what you have on hand.

• I finish this dish with oil packed sundried tomatoes, but if you only have the dried ones, reconstitute them in boiling water for a few minutes before adding to the sheet pan. I would NOT recommend throwing any fresh tomatoes onto the sheet pan because the water that comes out of the fresh tomatoes will steam the veggies and gnocchi and prevent them from crisping.

SPD: Gnocchi, sausage, and fridge leftovers

Yield: 4 grown up servings
Time: 30-35 minutes, (5 minutes active time, 25-30 minutes waiting time)

2-3 cups roughly chopped kale, broccoli, green beans, brussels sprouts, etc (defrosted first, if frozen)
1 package shelf-stable potato gnocchi
¼ cup olive oil
½ tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
1 lb precooked sausage, cut into large chunks (defrosted, if previously frozen)
¼ cup sundried tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 450.

Toss the gnocchi and roughly chopped veggies with olive oil and salt. Add the sausage.

Cook for 25-30 minutes, or until the veggies are roasted and the gnocchi are golden and crispy.

Remove from the heat and top with sundried tomatoes.

Serve immediately.

Chicken and apple breakfast sausages

These chicken and apple breakfast sausage patties are super quick, packed with flavor, and a great way to add some lean protein to your breakfasts.

Take me to the recipe!

So! It’s been forever since I last posted because, like half of the food bloggers I follow, I’ve been busy cooking something else: A BABY. Normally I have a strong sense of smell, but pregnancy turns me into a bloodhound. Combine that with constant nausea, and you can imagine how I’ve felt about cooking or looking at food photos or being in the kitchen or even opening the refrigerator door.

Luckily, I started working on a homemade version of chicken and apple sausages (a family favorite) WAY before they started making me nauseous, so I know they’re good. Plus, they’re easy to whip up over the weekend and then store or freeze for future breakfasts. OR, if you’re feeling ambitious, you can even make them on a weekday morning if you’re one of those people with your shit together on school days.

I fiddled around a lot with the spice mix so that it would be strong enough to compensate for how little fat is in the recipe. I use a combination of fresh and dried sage but you could certainly opt for a single type. If you like less garlic or just milder flavors generally, cut back on the garlic powder and the patties will still taste great.

A note about the fat we add: It’s only a Tbsp, which may feel like too little or too much depending on where you stand and you may be tempted to add more or leave it out. But I’ve found that 1 Tbsp is enough to keep the meat from drying out without making it taste oily or making the texture crumbly.

And the apple adds a little sweetness and a little moisture.

Chicken and apple breakfast sausages

Time: 15 total (5 prep, 10 cooking)
Yield: 16 patties

1 lb ground chicken, (7-8% fat)  
1 small apple, shredded (about ½ cup of apple)
2 Tbsp olive oil, divided
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp dried sage
1 tsp fennel seeds
½ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp onion powder
1 tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp pepper

Combine the chicken, shredded apple, 1 Tbsp olive oil, and the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl. Mix just until all of the ingredients are combined.

In a large skillet, heat ½-1 Tbsp of oil over a medium flame until hot. (If you’re cooking the sausages in batches, use half of the oil; otherwise, use it all.)

Scoop 2 Tbsp of chicken mixture into balls and place in the hot skillet. Push them down slightly to form round patties. Reduce the flame to medium low and cook until well browned on the bottoms, about 5 minutes.

Flip the patties and cook on the other side until the meat is cooked through, the patties feel firm to the touch, and/or the patties reach 165 on a meat thermometer, about 4 more minutes.