In the Kitchen – Page 10 – Kristin Eldridge

Mar

Zucchini Muffins [In the Kitchen]

This week was full of ups and downs with the weather. It was supposed to pour over the weekend (and it probably still will today!), then it was supposed to be cloudy, then back to pouring rain. None of this would matter, except that I was a little over ambitious and scheduled 20 back to back mini photo sessions for Saturday. I had back-up plans and back-up plans for the back-up plans. 🙂 I prayed all week that God would just push the rain back a day, and He did. Oh, thank God for small favors! The day went off without a hitch. I had an amazing assistant, Bethany, who kept everyone on-schedule and organized. We were perfectly on time, no one had a melt down and not a drop of rain!!

For the next week I’ll be glued to my computer with the 48 gigs of images I downloaded yesterday. So, in the meantime, I wanted to share the zucchini muffins that I made for the kids on St. Paddy’s Day…you know, something green! Every week I make granola bars and some kind of muffins and stick them in the freezer. It makes packing healthy lunches really easy every day.

Right after I had Cooper, my friend Katie brought me dinner and these amazing muffins…with the recipe card. I think she knew I’d ask her for it and saved me a step. They taste rich and almost custard-y. I think it’s because of the 3 eggs. The kids love them and any time kids love something with a vegetable, it’s on current rotation!

It’s one of those recipes where you basically dump everything in a bowl and mix. That’s my style of baking.

Don’t you love the cake stand!? I got it from Melody at the Sweet and Saucy Supply Shop. I have a few and they make my simple muffins look like they live in a bake shop! I did a lot of her product photography for the website, so go check it out…and buy a cake stand!

Here’s the recipe for the muffins…or bread if you prefer.

3 cups zucchini, shredded and tightly packed

3 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil

1 tsp. vanilla

3 tsp. cinnamon

3 tsp. nutmeg

3 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking powder

Mix the first 7 ingredients in a bowl, then add the flour, salt and baking powder. Mix well and pour into muffin tins (or a loaf pan). Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. (makes 2 dozen muffins)

Jan

Cornmeal Crusted Tilapia [In the Kitchen]

Tilapia has to be one of my favorite fish to cook with. I’ve haven’t always loved fish, so the light texture and non-fishy taste is wonderful. One of my friends told me Costco has great frozen tilapia, so I gave it a try and must say it’s so worth the trip to Costco…especially compared at what I’ve bought at the regular market. Anyway, the other day I tried out this new tilapia recipe, and…winner, winner…we’ll be having this again!

I’m not sure what I liked more…the fish or the tomatillo salsa! I would totally make the salsa by itself. It tasted so fresh and had a kick, but not too much that the kids couldn’t eat it.

I couldn’t find canned tomatillos (like the recipe called for) at my regular market, so I bought fresh tomatillos in the produce section and boiled them in water for a few minutes and it worked perfectly. Maybe that’s why it tasted so fresh!

This is a perfect weekday recipe…it was super easy to pull together and I served it with a salad, cilantro rice and some black beans to round things out.

And here’s the recipe…

Salsa:
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
2 serrano chiles, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 (11-ounce) can tomatillos, drained
1 garlic clove, minced
Fish:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon water
1 large egg white
4 (6-ounce) tilapia fillets
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 tablespoon olive oil

To prepare salsa, combine the first 6 ingredients in a blender; process until smooth. Set aside. To prepare fish, combine flour and cornmeal in a shallow dish. Combine 1 tablespoon water and egg white in a shallow dish, stirring well. Sprinkle both sides of fish evenly with salt and chili powder. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Dip fish in egg mixture; dredge in flour mixture. Add fish to pan; cook 2 1/2 minutes on each side or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork or until desired degree of doneness.

Enjoy!

-Kristin

Jan

Parmesan Chicken & Rice [In the Kitchen]

Oh the blogging that gets done when the kids are back to school and my workload backs down a bit! I’m also able to spend more time in the kitchen. I love trying new recipes…it happens just about every week…but I also have favorites. This Parmesan Chicken and Rice is quickly becoming a recurring favorite. It’s one of the those one-pot-wonders that you love on busy nights. I also hate doing dishes, so it’s good for that too!

The recipe calls for sliced mushrooms and I love mushrooms, so it’s perfect. The kids…not so much. My little secret is using kitchen shears. After the dish is cooked, I cut up the chicken and the mushrooms into tiny pieces. When you use kitchen shears it’s really quick, I promise. That way the mushrooms kind of blend in the with the chicken and I can sneak them into the kids’ diet.

You gotta love Trader Joe’s for their ‘2 buck chuck’ (Charles Shaw Chardonnay for those of you who don’t live near a Trader Joes). I also love love love their brown basmati rice. I’m not a huge fan of brown rice, to be honest. I can never get it to cook correctly at home. I usually end up with a starchy mess. But, this basmati rice cooks perfectly and has a really nice earthy flavor.

Clients will sometimes ask when they meet me if I really cook every night for my family (the kind of stuff I post on the blog). The answer…as much as I can. BUT, tonight is a great example of what sometimes happens. Brent had a dinner meeting, so I took the kids to Pizza Hut to collect on their Book-It pizzas and I ate leftover winter vegetable soup. SO not glamorous. I would say that I cook about 5 out of 7 nights. I really like it and if I’m busy I’ll do easy dinners like this or use my crock pot. I’ll share as much as I can, but sometimes I’m cooking too fast to remember to take pictures!

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 (8-ounce) package presliced mushrooms
3/4 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup uncooked instant rice
1 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Preparation

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, garlic, thyme, and mushrooms; sauté 5 minutes or until onion is tender. Add chicken; sauté 4 minutes or until the chicken is lightly browned. Add wine, salt, and pepper; cook 3 minutes or until liquid almost evaporates.

Stir in rice and broth. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Stir in cheese and parsley.

Jan

Winter Vegetable Soup [In the Kitchen]

In effort to start 2011 off on the right foot, I vowed to eat MUCH healthier than the way I ended 2010. So, for me that means detailed menu planning and preparations once a week. That way I can stay on track all week long. Last night I made several dozen granola bars for the kids’ lunches and a batch of nutella biscotti for Brent and I to snack on in the evenings.

I also made plans to try a new soup. I think we had soup every other night between Christmas and New Year. And I should add it wasn’t the soup that led me to this New Year’s resolution…it’s all the peppermint joe-joes and see’s candy and toffee…you get the idea.

Winter Vegetable Soup fit perfectly into the realm of healthy eating, seasonal vegetables and today was rainy, which made it sound even better. I’ll post the recipe at the end, if you don’t feel like clicking on the link.

I should add that I got a late start making this tonight, so all the pictures were taken with VERY LITTLE light. Thank goodness for the high ISO on my Mark ii, but the pictures are a bit on the dark side.

I was really excited about a soup that had dark leafy greens…I’m not great about eating them alone, but when they’re all wilted down and mixed with hearty vegetables…yum!

Have you noticed how much chopping I had to do? This recipe is labor intensive, but it’s the kind of thing you could make for dinner, then have for a few lunches. And it was really good! So, it was worth the effort. Speaking of effort…the hardest part was peeling this acorn squash. I should have googled ‘how to peel an acorn squash’. All the ridges were not conducive to being peeled! So, I had to post a pretty picture of my squash next to it peeled and all the kitchen utensils I had to use to peel it!

And pancetta…I must say I’ve actually never used pancetta, but it was very easy to find (at Trader Joe’s) and it added a lot of flavor to the soup.

Winter Vegetable Soup:

1 teaspoon olive oil
2 ounces pancetta, chopped
1 cup chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups cubed peeled acorn squash
2 cups diced peeled red potato
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped carrot
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes, drained and chopped
2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
4 cups chopped kale
1 (15.5-ounce) can navy beans or other small white beans, rinsed and drained

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add pancetta; sauté 3 minutes. Add onion and garlic; sauté 3 minutes. Add squash and next 6 ingredients (squash through thyme), stirring to combine; cook 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add tomatoes; cook 2 minutes.

Stir in broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 8 minutes. Add kale; simmer 5 minutes. Add beans; simmer 4 minutes or until potato and kale are tender.

This soup was amazing with a nice crusty bread and the kids ate it with a dollop of sour cream on top. I also wanted to add that I included a new category to my list- In the Kitchen. I do love to cook and bake, so it’s fine time these posts have their own category.

Here’s to healthy eating in 2011!