Comfort Foods and Indulgences

Creamy-Chicken-Noodle-SoupA bit of a cold spell finally hit the Pacific Northwest this past week. The rain was so nice, except it rained while we were harvesting our vineyard, not cool mother nature, not cool. We have had such an unusually hot summer so the rain was a nice change for the most part.

During the rainstorm, all I could think about was making soup. As soon as I had a free moment, I did just that.

Have you ever had creamy chicken noodle as opposed to the clear, broth kind? It's so good. The consistency is not thick like potato soup, but the creamy part adds mouthfeel. With homemade bread, it's amazing. In fact the whole family asked for seconds.

I think if you are not going to make your own stock/broth, creamy is the way to go when it comes to chicken soup. This recipe is really something you can throw together on a weeknight. In fact, the chicken can go into the broth totally frozen. And is fully cooked within 15 minutes. That is the beauty of using tenderloins. Who can beat that for a mid-week dinner? 

You might be looking at this pot of soup and wondering where are the carrots? While I love carrots, the creamy version of chicken noodle tastes so much better with parsnips. They are just as sweet, if not sweeter and my family loves them.

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ImageWith this Hot Artichoke-Spinach Dip, your friends and family will never know they are eating lots of vitamins A and K from fresh dark green spinach leaves and fresh, fragrant basil leaves. They won't know they're adding fiber to their diet. They won't even know they're getting vitamins and nutrients from artichoke hearts.

What they will know for sure is that they love the creamy, garlicky dip that they pick up with crispy chips. And only you will know that those chips have been made with whole wheat pita bread. This dip is so easy to put together, especially if you have a food processor. Just put all the ingredients into a food processor, except the pine nuts. A few pulses and the dip is ready to transfer to a baking dish. Usually less than 20 minutes in the oven is all it takes to become a hot, creamy dip.

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crostini-horizontalThis may well be our favorite appetizer. The combination of the prosciutto with the luscious fig jam is so good and then the creamy goat cheese - well, you just have to make these.  And (shhhh...) they are so easy!

All you need for these little wonders are a good fresh baguette, a jar of fig jam, some salty prosciutto, plain goat cheese and some fresh basil.  The fig jam is an item which is now found in any grocery store.  You just have to know where to look for it.  Some stores carry it with the jams and some carry it with the international foods.  I know Whole Foods has this brand of jam and they always have some tucked in with all the cheeses.

This stuff is incredible - if you've never had it, you'll want to eat it with a spoon.  Or put it on toast.  Or make a sandwich with it.  Or put it on scrambled eggs.  Okay, you get it.  For the prosciutto, make sure you buy a good quality prosciutto - because there are so few ingredients, this appetizer is only good as the quality of your ingredients.

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ImageOr the Uncondensed Title: Green Chile, Parmesan and Black Pepper Buttermilk Biscuits with Chorizo & Chipotle Gravy. Whew!

While I can overeat with the best of them, a Hearty Breakfast Boy I am not. It slows me down and makes me feel sluggish which is why I usually stick to a banana and some peanut butter. Sometimes oatmeal, occasionally an omelette.

These rules change if we’re talking brunch, though. My little peckish early morning hunger turns into a full-fledged giant appetite after I’ve been up for a few hours. Or automatically after 10am.

This recipe is something Adam came up with last Sunday, the first lazy day we’ve had together in quite some time. He just returned from 17 days in Wisconsin, working on a project while freezing his ass off. He had an idea for changing up his biscuits and gravy to which I replied “Oh gosh, I’m not sure about that. I think you’ll have to make it so I can try it.”  Of course I was sure about it, you can’t really mess up biscuits and gravy, can you?

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Chicken-Tenderloin-Parmesan-bakedWeeknight dinners can be daunting if you are working all day or chasing kids around after school. We have been in the middle of basketball season, which means, three nights a week it is chaos at dinnertime. Mostly because the kids are starving by the time they get home. 

Everyone here loves chicken Parmesan, but I don't really have time on a weeknight to pound out chicken breasts, make red sauce and shred several kinds of cheese. As a result, I have come up with an alternative, quick method everyone in my family really enjoys. The best part, I can literally throw this together after a basketball game and it's ready in no time.

The only thing I have to remember is take out a package of tenderloins from the freezer in the morning. I buy them in bulk at Costco.

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