Month: January 2019

Slow Cooker Chicken Cordon Bleu

- Kathleen

Slow Cooker Chicken Cordon Bleu

In the spirit of make-ahead meals for the busy work week, add this chicken cordon bleu recipe to your favorites.  It’s super easy to make and everyone loves it, kids and grown-ups alike.  There’s nothing like coming home from work after a busy day and smell a delicious dinner, ready to be eaten.  Mmmm….  I like to make this with a little extra cream of mushroom soup and milk so that it’s very wet and saucy and then you use the sauce as a kind of gravy over some white rice.  You could also use this is a gravy over biscuits, making this a sort of France meets the South fusion dish.  If you’d like to do that, just double the amount of soup and milk.  It will make your chicken kind of soupy when it’s ready.  If you prefer a thicker sauce, keep the recipe as-is.  It’s delightful both ways. Read more

Quick Lemony Orzo with Shrimp

- Kathleen

Quick Lemony Orzo with Shrimp

This quick lemony orzo with shrimp recipe is a really great weeknight dinner.  Super easy to make, fast, healthy, and not a lot of clean-up.  You can add any veggies you want to the orzo, like frozen peas, lima beans, green beans, whatever floats your boat.  Or, leave out the veggies and make a quick veggie side dish like sauteed spinach.  Easy peasy.  Dinner is done. Read more

New England Clam Chowder

- Kathleen

Growing up in New York, one of my favorite comfort foods was New England clam chowder.  The smell of little neck clams steaming open, the wafting aroma of a roux made with freshly cut bacon fat and flour.  Sigh.  Now that I live in the middle of the desert, I can still cook the same delicious foods, with a little bit of adaptation.  Gone are the freshly cut bacon slabs (my dad was a butcher) and fresh clams just brought to the docks.  But I have to say, quality packaged bacon and frozen clam meat have saved the day!  

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Oatmeal Raisin Cookies with Walnuts

- Kathleen

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies with Walnuts

This oatmeal raisin cookies with walnuts recipe is almost identical to the recipe you find under the lid for Quaker oats.  No matter how much I mess with it, I think it’s the best.  The only slight changes I make are adding a little more cinnamon, soaking the raisins beforehand, and adding the chopped walnuts.  These cookies are super easy to make and they stay fresher longer than most cookies.   Not sure why but they do.  Not like they are going to last very long around the house.  They are too delicious to let them sit around.   Read more

Mongolian Beef in the Slow Cooker

- Kathleen

Mongolian Beef in the Slow Cooker

Slow cooked Mongolian beef is an easy weeknight dinner that you can prep the night before or in the morning before you head out the door.  When I make this, I prep it all the night before, including measuring and putting the rice into the rice cooker.  I measure and set the water for the rice aside so I can just throw it in and turn on the rice cooker when I walk through the door. Read more

Mahi Mahi with Aioli

- Kathleen

Mahi Mahi is the Hawaiian word for “strong strong”.  It’s a beautiful dolphin fish but referred to by its Hawaiian name so as not to confuse North Americans into thinking they are eating a dolphin.  Nope, Flipper is safe.  The taste of mahi mahi is flavorful and mild and it’s a very easy fish to cook and it’s perfect for an easy weeknight dinner. Green beans and grape tomatoes are a quick and easy vegetable side dish. 

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Italian Sausage with Kale

- Kathleen

When I was a kid, my dad had a friend who made his own sausages.  We called him Mr. Pete.  This guy made all sorts of combinations of delicious goodness.  My absolute favorite is when he’d add cheese inside the sausage.  There’s nothing like that gooey, creamy surprise when you bite into one of those.  Mr. Pete is long gone and it’s hard to find any traditional type of butcher in today’s mass-market grocery chains.  I shop a lot at Sprouts, which is a farmer’s market type of store.  I call it the poor man’s Whole Foods.  Last week they ran a special on Italian sausages made with pork and low and behold, some had cheese inside!  

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