Mexican chicken thighs

I have been in a bit of a food rut for the past 3 days, we have been picking at this and that, and the kids have really been pesky about their meals. I made homemade chicken tenders the other day, we ate pasta one day and I think they ate ramen soup another day.

Today was a new day and I bought some boneless, skinless, chicken thighs. They are healthy and very fast. I made a box of the knorr Spanish rice, and made the chicken.

It was very easy and the kids liked it.

Here's the recipe:

Preheat oven to 500. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and place the chicken thighs on the sheet. Sprinkle the chicken with Adobo seasoning, a little garlic salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Because the thighs are skinless and boneless, they have about 20 more calories than a chicken breast, but a ton more flavor and they almost never dry out.

Bake the chicken for about 17 minutes. They don't even need to be turned. After about 15 minutes, turn the oven to broil and cook for another 1-2 minutes. We served this with some salad and the kids ate it up! I was planning to serve it with black beans, but we were out.

I am going to make French Onion soup tomorrow night for dinner with sauteed green beans.

Also, I am going to do WTNH on Saturday- if anyone has any cooking questions, please feel free to email me on my website www.timetoeat.info and click on the Ask Nicole button on the homepage.

Ciao!

Chili on the ritz!

Ok, so it's a reach. I reheated the chili to have for dinner tonight and the kids put up a fuss, it must be something in the air. Abby ate all of the beans out of hers and a little meat, and Emma ate a couple bites, then got herself some grapefruit sections, shredded cheese and turkey pepperoni slices. Again, not a bad choice. The 2 times she hasn't liked dinner, she has made pretty good, healthy alternative choices.

Abby pulled out a sleeve of Ritz crackers and proceeded to make little "chili sandwiches" as she aptly named them. This got almost all of the chili eaten and she was quite proud of her new recipe.

Emma is having a friend over for dinner tomorrow night, so I will make hamburgers and baked fries with sliced veggies. No recipes to add for tomorrow. I'll look for another recipe to post.

Hoping to get out of this food rut with the kids.

(Almost) 15 Minute Chili

Here is a new photo that is going to the website www.timetoeat,info

The "big" snow never happened last night and we were lucky if we got an inch!

I happily sent 2 unhappy kids off to school today and had a lovely day.

I made chili tonight in what seemed like record time.

Heated a high sided pan with a lid on high heat. Added a tbs. of olive oil and 1 thinly sliced onion. Sauteed for 3 minutes, added a handful of pre-sliced mushrooms and cooked an additional 2 minutes. While those were cooking I opened- BUT DID NOT ADD- 2 cans of kidney beans, drained and rinsed them, and 2 cans of diced tomatoes with Italian herbs.

I added to the pan about 1 lb, of 90% lean ground beef and broke it up with a wooden spoon until there were no big chunks. I cooked the beef for about 6 minutes or until there was no visible pink. Then I added in the rinsed beans and diced tomatoes with their juice.

I added in a 1/2 packet of leftover taco seasoning, a pinch of salt and a good shake of cumin. I let all of this come for a boil, then reduced the heat to medium low, covered and let cook for another 20 minutes.

The girls ate their dinner without incidence tonight, and I had the leftover hoisin beef stir fry from last night.

I am working on the new series of cooking classes set to begin in Mid- March. There will be a new food and wine series which should be a great one!

If you are not on my email list, please email me via the website or leave me a note here and I will send you an email when the schedule is finalized.

Hoisin glazed steak stir fry

The threat of snow is before us, and everyone was at the market today!

I bought some steak for stir fry, (which is just thinly sliced steak), sliced mushrooms, onion, and some ingredients for chili and salad. I also bought some oxtails to make soup.

I will quickly tell you the oxtail soup, which I normally love, turned out flavorless and dull- so I threw it out!

I made a stir fry by adding a little oil to a hot pan. I sliced a 1/2 an onion thinly and added that to the pan and let it cook for 2-3 minutes. I added in the sliced mushrooms and a handful of julienned bamboo shoots ( I had a can laying around the pantry) which I cooked for another minute. Before removing those from the pan, I added a little soy sauce.

I removed the veggies from the pan, and added in the sliced steak and 2-3 tbs. of hoisin sauce. I cooked the steak for about 3 minutes. The steak cooks really quickly and once it was cooked through, I added it to the plate of stir fry.

The kids HATED it!!! I made them each try a bite, which they did with scrunched up faces and noises too.

Emma said she was making her own dinner. I said fine, what was she planning to make? She made thinly sliced toast, washed a peach and had a little peanut butter.

I guess the upshot from tonight is that my kids were crafty about coming up with their own plan for dinner.

Vietnamese food in NYC

Went into New York today and it was R-A-I-N-Y!!

I was in Soho and stumbled upon one of my most favorite types of food in the whole world- Vietnamese/Thai food. It's called BUN, and it's on 143 Grand Street. I went for a late lunch and had a delicious spring roll with shrimp, carrots, fresh mint and basil, and a peanut sauce.

It was so yummy that I got a bun to take home. Bun is the name for a noodle dish they serve with a variety of different toppings. It starts with thin cellophane noodles with shredded lettuce, carrot, scallions and fresh basil and mint leaves. The toppings I got were grilled shrimp, pork and lamb meatballs. It is served with a sweet and vinegary dressing that you pour on when you're ready to eat.

I brought this home on the train and took the girls to Elvira's, our local deli. One got cheese pizza, the other got a hamburger patty and fries.

By the way, they each tried a bite of the fish, and Emma even asked for another bite, which totally surprised me! The philosophy really does work of having your kids try little bites of everything.

A while ago they ordered the Betty Crocker Cake decorator which they had been seeing commercials for on TV. I told them they could use their allowance to order it, and they did. It arrived today and they were so excited! There is nothing like using your own money to buy something and the anticipation of waiting for its arrival!

Broiled cod with fennel and corn

I have high hopes for tonight's dinner. I KNOW my husband and I will like the meal, but I'm not sure about the kids. For those of you who know my philosophy about dinner, ONE MEAL & ONE TABLE, everyone can find some part of it they will eat.

This is what you'll need for the fish:
6 oz. of a firm fleshed white fish (cod, scrod or haddock are all good)
2 tbs. olive oil
pinch of kosher salt and pepper
1 lemon for zesting
2 tbs. butter
1/4 C. white wine or chicken stock

Preheat oven to broil. Move rack to top 1/3 of oven. while the oven heats, line a cookie sheet with foil and rub a little olive oil on the foil.

Place the cod on the foil, drizzle with a little olive oil, add a good pinch of kosher salt and pepper and the zest from a lemon. Broil in the oven for 8-10 minutes or until cod begins to look flaky and is no longer iridescent.

To make a quick beurre blanc sauce, melt butter in a small sauce pan, when it has melted add in wine or chicken stock and let boil for 2-3 minutes or until it has reduced by half.


What you'll need for the roasted fennel and corn:
1 head of fennel
2 C. frozen roasted corn kernels (regular frozen corn kernels are fine too)
2 tbs. olive oil
pinch of salt and pepper

** I will tell you that I was never a big fan of fennel. I love black licorice, just not in my meal. I had roasted fennel in a vegetable burrito a while ago and fell in love with it's sweet and mild flavor.

This mixture can be made earlier in the day.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees and line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil or a Silpat mat if you have one.

Remove the green part of the fennel, and trim the bottom of the white bulb. Quarter the fennel then thinly slice. Add the sliced fennel to a bowl with the frozen corn. Drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper to bowl and stir to combine.

Lay the mixture on the cookie sheet so it does not overlap. Roast for 10 minutes, stir the mixture around, then roast for another 8 or so minutes until it's nicely browned. Remove, and place in a bowl until ready to use.

Before serving, add roasted vegetable mixture to top of fish and ladle sauce over fish and vegetables.

We are going to serve this with couscous. Although there is a good chance the kids might only eat couscous for dinner, they will at least try the fish and veg!

Smoked Gouda, prosciutto and zucchini pizza

I bought pizza dough at the market today, some smoked Gouda cheese, and a couple of zucchini.

I let the dough rise tonight and made 1/4 of the pizza with plain cheese, 1/4 of the pizza with turkey pepperoni- if you've never had these, they are amazing and my kids love them.

The other 1/2 of the pizza, I spread a little tomato sauce, added 3 slices of prosciutto, grated some smoked Gouda cheese, which was added next, and grated a zucchini which I added to the top of the sauce. I sprinkled a little black pepper on the grated zucchini and baked in a preheated 500 degree oven for 12 minutes.

I usually just spray the back of a cookie sheet with Pam and spread the dough out on the back. The pizza slides off easily and it's easy to clean.

I had a little left over grated zucchini which I sauteed in a little olive oil and frozen garlic cubes. It was delicious as a veg. side dish.

We also had steamed green beans which everyone ate happily!