Day 305: Super Soup

Dinner tonight was homemade chicken barley soup and some raw veggies dipped in Trader Joe's white bean hummus.

This is an easy soup but it does take awhile to make, so try it next time you're stuck at home due to weather, sick kids, or a seemingly endless wait for the cable guy.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, cut up into 8 parts

5 quarts (20 cups!!) of water

4 carrots, peeled and cut in half (or thirds if they are large)

4 stalks of celery, cut in half (or thirds if they are large)

3 onions, peeled and quartered

4 large cloves of garlic, peeled

6 sprigs each of dill and parsley

1 cup barley

S&P

Bring water to a boil and add chicken, continuing to boil the soup for 10 minutes.  Add carrots through garlic plus 1 heaping T of salt and reduce heat to low.  Partially cover the pot and simmer for 1.5 hours.  

Remove chicken from pot and set aside.  Remove vegetables and discard.  Continue to simmer the broth for another hour to reduce it and further concentrate the flavor.  

Taste the broth and decide whether it needs more salt (it probably will) and add to meet your desired saltiness.  Add the barley, dill, and parsley and cook the soup uncovered for another 45 minutes or until the barley is tender.  Discard the herbs.

Like most soups, this doesn't need to be made the day of consumption.  In fact, you can make it over the weekend and enjoy it throughout the week, making it well worth the time and effort!

Day 304: Rivers of Cheese

Is there such a thing as too much cheese.  I think not!  

Tonight I made enchiladas using leftover chicken from a soup I made over the weekend.  I shredded the meat and mixed it with 1/2 of a finely minced and sauteed onion and a can of black beans (rinsed).

I heated a can of enchilada sauce over low flame and added a couple of dashes of cayenne pepper to up the spiciness.  Once it was warm, I dipped a corn tortilla in the sauce and then placed some of the chicken mixture across the middle of it.  I sprinkled some shredded cheddar cheese on top of the filling and rolled the tortilla as tightly as I could without tearing it.  I then laid the enchilada, flap side down, into a baking dish that I had coated with some of the enchilada sauce.

After repeating this exercise with five more tortillas, my dish was packed full.  I sprinkled some more cheese over the top, then poured the remaining enchilada sauce over everything, and then sprinkled what was left of the cheese on top of that.

The dish was baked for 20 minutes at 350 degrees and when I pulled it out of the oven, beautiful rivers of cheese flowed between each enchilada, the tortillas were softened, and the filling was warm.  Perfecto!

One of my favorite things about this dish is that it can be made with any filling and cheese you like.  You can also adjust the spice level by buying milder or hotter sauces or by adding cayenne pepper.  It's a great way to use leftovers you have on hand and it's easy to make and comes together quickly.  And...there are the rivers of cheese to consider!!

Day 303: Fueled for the Week

If fish is brain food, then I'm fueled up for the week!  Last night I had grilled salmon at Capannina and tonight I made roasted halibut with tomatoes and roasted asparagus.

Asparagus is in season right now and it's more delicious to me than ever this year.  I've been gobbling it up at every opportunity.  Tonight, I mixed it with 2 cloves of minced garlic, about 1 tsp olive oil, and S&P and roasted it in a glass baking dish at 450 degrees for about 10 minutes, mixing it once midpoint.

The fish was just as easy.  I chopped up some "Greek style roasted tomatoes" that I had purchased at our local grocery store.  After seasoning the fish with S&P, I placed them in a baking dish and covered the top of them with the chopped tomatoes.  Then I drizzled olive oil over the top and roasted the fish for 15 minutes at 450 degrees.

This was such a healthful and tasty meal.  A great start to the week!

Day 302: I Will Steal This Plating Idea!

When I ordered the grilled salmon with roasted eggplant raviolini tonight at Capannina, I expected to get some little mini raviolis.  Instead, I got one large ravioli, which served as the cushion for my fish.  Genius!

If you've been following this blog awhile, you know that plating is not my strong point.  So, anytime I encounter interesting ideas like this, I file them away in my mental cookbook.

It goes without saying that this meal, like all that I have had at Capannina, was not only visually impressive but delicious as well.  That's what keeps up coming back!

I should note that I started the meal with the soup special:  puree of asparagus and artichoke with polenta croutons.  I tried this soup for the first time a few weeks ago and it was to die for and another visual stunner.  Click here to see it for yourself.

Day 301: Little Bit of This, Little Bit of That

One reason I love Isa is that no matter what you're craving, they can deliver it.  The plates there are smaller and are meant to be shared so you can have a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

There are a couple of items that we order 100% of the time:  baked goat cheese with tomatoes, basil, and pine nuts and sea scallops with asparagus (or brussels sprouts, depending on the season) and mashed potatoes.  From there, we choose another couple of things to suit our mood.

Tonight I had a mild craving for carbs, so we had a bowl of spaghetti with truffles and cheese.  We rarely order the pasta at Isa so this was a nice change and a great treat.  We also had spicy tuna tartar with avocado and roasted duck with braised cabbage.  Like I said...a little bit of this, a little bit of that.  And all of it delicious!