Savory Smoked Salmon and Potato Chip Brunch Muffins

I love breakfast foods. There is something comforting and great about a giant stack of pancakes, whether they are eaten at 6 in the morning or 6 at night. Breakfast also always reminds me of my mother. Growing up weekday mornings where always rushed, but weekend breakfast were perfect. My mother would cook, we would talk and everything seemed right in the world regardless of what was going on outside of our family unit. Now as an adult I try to carry on this tradition with my own family. One of my family's favorite breakfast foods is smoked salmon, they love it with eggs, omelets, you name it. Today I tried a new recipe for Savory Smoked Salmon and Potato Chip Brunch Muffins from the April 2014 issue of Better Homes and Gardens Magazine.

This recipe has 12 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes, 25 minutes of which is active, and makes 12 servings. I only made a few changes to the original recipe. Since I was making this for my family and not myself I used regular all-purpose flour. I chose to use parchment to line the muffins as suggested by the magazine and I found that my muffins took 25 minutes at 350. I turned down the heat to make sure they browned without overcooking.

Since I couldn't eat this recipe I called in my guinea pigs/family for their opinions. My husband really loved these muffins. He said that the taste of the dill and salmon worked well together and they were a nice size to grab out of the fridge for a snack. My oldest son is a huge smoked salmon fan and was very pleased with these muffins as an after school snack. I am a fan of any recipe that uses a muffin pan, I love my muffin pan. Baking and cooking in a muffin pan is a great way to have portion control and makes for easy snacks for kids to be able to grab without help.

For the recipe go to Savory Smoked Salmon and Potato Chip Brunch Muffins.

Buttermilk Roast Chicken

My oldest son is in a food phase. When he was little he was very easy to please. So much so that he loved spicy foods and I once caught him eating a whole jalapeno out of the fridge (and he loved it!). That all changed when he started school last year. Gone was my easy going child, replaced by a child that whined and complained about literally everything I made. Well, with one exception cookies. Since cookies all the time aren't so great, it has been a struggle figuring out what he will and won't eat. Luckily I have learned that his wants fall into three categories: chicken, pork and shrimp. If a meal has one of those meats clearly viable he will eat it. However, always to be one to keep mommy on her toes I learned last week that if you put a green cilantro sauce (which was delicious) on top of the roasted chicken he will complain the whole meal and refuse to eat his serving. Dinner time has turned into a stare down between the two of use. I will give the kid that he still asks to be excused, so at least his great manners haven't been completely eroded by his peers. So if you have noticed a lot of chicken, pork and shrimp on my blog lately you now know the culprit. Last month I tried a new recipe for Buttermilk Roast Chicken from Everyday Food, which looked simple and perfect for my very vocal six-year-old.

This recipe has 6 ingredients. It takes 35 minutes of total time, 10 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I have horrible luck finding fresh herbs in my area and had to go to two separate stores to find fresh dill. I really wish that the neighborhood animals wouldn't destroy any outdoor herb garden I have ever tried to start. My indoor cats have eaten every attempt at growing them indoors also, so it seems to be a trend. I let my chicken sit in the fridge 24 hours before cooking. I like a long marinade time on my meats, I think the flavor lends better that way. Make sure to pat the chicken fully before placing it in the oven to roast. If you miss this important step your chicken will not have that great crispy skin that most people love, but instead be soggy and unappetizing. I found that I had to cook my thighs a little longer than the 25 minutes suggested by the recipe in order to be at the appropriate temp. If you don't have a great thermometer to temp meat, put it on your Christmas list. I had to force myself to spend a hundred dollars on the one that I have and it was the best kitchen gadget I have bought in a long time. It makes making any type of meat so much easier and prevents over-cooking, which can have a great deal of impact on the taste of your food. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

If you are looking for a simple roasted chicken dish with a great herb flavor this recipe is perfect. It isn't fancy, it's just an easy weekday meal. Everyone in my family (including my picky son) enjoyed this recipe. My husband isn't a fan of chicken skin (I on the other hand love it!), so he picked his skin off and thought that the meat was very moist from the marinade. This recipe would be great with rice or couscous infused with olive oil and fresh dill. The dill in the rice and the chicken would work well together. Green beans with butter and dill would be another delicious option.

For the recipe go to Buttermilk Roasted Chicken. 

Sicilian Cauliflower Pasta

My oldest son has become quite infatuated with gardening. It all started when the first flowers started appearing at stores in our area and he got the idea into his head that mommy needed to actually plant something this year. Now I always have the best intentions with my gardening, I have a garden bed and great pots for my porch. The first three years after I had my oldest son I always had a great garden and my flowers were always beautiful. Then I had my second son and all my gardening seemed to fly out the window. I grew up with a mother who seemed to be able to grow anything she touched. We had the most beautiful lilac trees that people would ask permission to pick from every year and her tomatoes were always juicy, big and delicious. I have somewhat inherited this green thumb. When I actually get around to planting my garden for the year, it always looks fabulous. Emphasis here is on actually planting the garden. So this year, I actually went out and bought soil, plants and with the help of my three and six-year-old I planted a very nice garden and flower pots are spilling over my porch. They do look very nice and my oldest son is so proud of himself. So much so that today when we drove to the farmer's market in Charleston my son came home with more flowers that he had personally picked out for the porch. In addition to all the gardening supplies we additionally brought home a great bunch of new vegetables, dried beans and spices that I am never able to find in my city. I love shopping at farmer's markets and my two kids have grown to love them also. Cauliflower is one of my kids favorite vegetables to buy and cook from the farmer's market and grocery store, so I was eager to try the recipe for Sicilian Cauliflower Pasta in the March issue of the Food Network Magazine.

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It takes 30 minutes of total time, 20 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store and I made no ingredient modifications. I allowed my cauliflower to cook much longer than the four minutes suggested by the recipe in order to be sufficiently browned. Additionally, I allowed the pasta to cook with the dill mixture for approximately 5 minutes in order for the pasta water to fully absorb and the flavors to be enhanced. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I try to keep my reviews as realistic as possible and this recipe I am sad to say did not live up to expectations. The flavor was bland and the whole wheat pasta when combined with the parsley was way too gritty. So here are my suggestions to save this dish. First and foremost use regular pasta instead of whole wheat. The whole wheat pasta, while better for you does not work with the cauliflower and dill in this recipe. The combination of textures is way too gritty. Second, I would suggest roasting the entire head of cauliflower in the oven at approximately 400 degrees until well browned (about 20-30 minutes). Then chop the roasted cauliflower instead of grating and pan frying like the recipe. Finally, I would eliminate the parsley completely and add capers for flavor. I would also increase the amount of cheese to a 1/4 of a cup and double the amount of golden raisins. I think with these changes this recipe can be significantly better and has the potential to be a great dish.

For the recipe go to Sicilian Cauliflower Pasta.

Matzo Ball Soup

If you've read my blog for any amount of time you know that I love soup. I'm not one of those soup lovers that only enjoy soup in the fall and winter, I absolutely love soup year round. However, it wasn't always that way. Growing up my mom's idea of soup came from a can and was almost always condensed chicken noodle. Don't get me wrong there is something comforting about canned chicken noodle soup, but it pales in comparison to homemade. When I moved out on my own in college I ate a lot of soup, and I mean a lot. My favorites were cream of asparagus and cream of broccoli. Soup was cheap and I had very little money after paying my tuition, rent, and household expenses. I think I probably ate soup at least twice a week for four years. After meeting my husband in graduate school I still ate a lot of canned soup. This didn't change until approximately six years ago when my oldest was born. I decided that I needed to start cooking from scratch after my mother passed away from cancer nine days after my son was born. Given that my grandmother also passed away from cancer I decided to take my future into my own hands and completely change my diet. I basically taught myself to cook through cookbooks, the internet and the knowledge that my mom had given me growing up. And I feel in love with soup. Over the last six years I have made a large amount of homemade soup and gotten very adept at it. As I was looking through the April issue of the Food Network Magazine I came across a recipe for Matzo Ball Soup, which looked delicious and full of fresh herbs and flavor.

This recipe has 11 ingredients in the broth and 9 in the matzo balls. It takes 4 hours and 20 minutes of total time, 35 minutes of which is active and makes 6 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store. I did forget to buy coriander seeds, so I left them out of the broth completely. I would suggest making the broth the night before. I let my broth cool in the fridge for 3 hours and while a large amount of fat congealed on the surface there was still a large amount that could still use the extra cooling time and another skim. Additionally, I would recommend straining the broth to further reduce the fat. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My two boys loved this soup, so much so that my oldest son drank all of it out of his bowl and then moved onto his younger brothers. I thought the flavor of the broth was delicious. It had a more distinct flavor than regular chicken broth and made a great base for the matzo balls. The matzo balls themselves needed a little more salt, but other than that were delicious. I liked the addition of the ginger and onion, it really made the taste more distinct. Overall, a flavorful soup recipe that makes lots of delicious leftovers!

For the recipe go to Matzo Ball Soup.

Chicken Pot Pie

I love comfort food! There is something so satisfying about eating a casserole or fried chicken on a Sunday afternoon. For a number of years when my husband and I first got married I stopped making any type of comfort food. I am lucky that my mother-in-law makes a delicious broccoli casserole and there seems to be a Cracker Barrel at every exit in this area. So whenever I got a craving for chicken and dumplings I could easily find them somewhere else other than my own kitchen. Slowly though I got tired of only having comfort food at restaurants and other people's houses and started making my own recipes at home. I fell in love with chicken pot pie made from scratch and started making it at least once a month. Even though I have a number of pot pie recipes that I love I was interested when Woman's Day magazine had a recipe for Chicken Pot Pie using the slow-cooker and a puff pastry topping.

This recipe has 12 ingredients. It takes 7 hours and 15 minutes, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. All the ingredients were easy to find at my local grocery store and I made no ingredient modifications. The only changes I made to the recipe was in regards to the puff pastry. My puff pastry took less than the 20-25 minutes suggested. I would say that my puff pastry was full browned at approximately 15 minutes. Additionally, I made my chicken pieces smaller than 2-inches, probably closer to an inch. I felt the smaller pieces were better for my two kids. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

With the leftover puff pastry I made dessert puffs with nuts and honey for my two boys. They were very popular with my two boys and made a great sweet ending to the meal. The chicken pot pie turned out delicious. I love that it uses the slow-cooker and that the puff pastry is added at the plate. The puff pastry makes a great flaky topping and the flavor from the dill was great. I would suggest cutting down on the amount of dill if you aren't a big fan of the taste of fresh dill. The dill definitely has a definitive flavor, so if dill isn't one of your favorite herbs I would suggest cutting the total amount in half. Overall, another great slow-cooker recipe that has all the flavor of a traditional chicken pot pie recipe with very little effort.

For the recipe go to Chicken Pot Pie.

Lentil Soup with Peas and Ham

My husband and two boys have an obsession with meat. I have talked many times about the endless amounts of bacon and bacon flavored products that they seem to be able to consume. Luckily, I have slowly begun to have them realize that there are other foods in the universe which can be healthy and delicious. Beans and lentils have been a pleasant surprise. I thought that when I started adding more beans and lentils into our diets that I would be meet with a lot of resistance and complaining. Instead I was pleased when my oldest son explained to me that he loved beans and ever since gets excited when he learns that beans will be included with dinner. My husband was a little more resistant, but after his stomach accustomed to the increase in legumes, he now likes them to the point that he prefers my lentil burgers to many meat equivalents. Of course he still adds bacon to his veggie burgers, but he's a work in progress. Soup is a major way that I have learned to add more legumes into my family's diet. Both of my sons absolutely love soup and lentil soup is one of my favorite soup varieties. Therefore, I was excited when the May issue of the Food Network Magazine had a recipe for Lentil Soup with Peas and Ham, which looked delicious and full of protein.

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes of total time, 30 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. Luckily I already had red lentils from a previous recipe. For whatever reason the only store in my area that feels the need to have any type of lentils other than brown is the Lebanese market near my house. That market is great and I have found many hard to find items, plus it's always great to support neighborhood stores! For the onion I used a vidalia sweet onion. I love vidalia onions and I was excited to see that the first shipment was available at my local grocery store. They are great to cook with when they are in season. I was very pleased to find that all the cooking times in this recipe were very accurate. Oftentimes I find that recipes can be off by a very large margin, but I followed this recipe as written and had no problems.

My family really enjoyed this soup. The only thing that I would change would be the peas. I have never actually seen fresh peas in my area, so I had to use frozen. I'm not a big fan of frozen peas, especially in cooking and this soup would be great without them. With the peas the soup almost felt off, so I would suggest omitting them completely. The dill taste is delicious and creates a nice fresh taste to the soup. The best part is that the recipe has 28 grams of protein and only 7 grams of fat per serving. A great way to provide a low-fat flavorful soup recipe to your diet.

For the recipe go to Lentil Soup with Peas and Ham.

Food Network Magazine Roasted Carrots

Sorry I have been so absent on-line. Currently, I am on day four of no internet at home. On a positive note the phone company is coming to install DSL on Friday! Having no Internet has been weird for me since I grew up in Seattle and had Internet before anyone I knew. I never knew how wired I was until I didn't have access! I am going to try to still do some short posts this week so I don't lose all my followers, so here goes!

In the last couple of weeks I have been experimenting with new vegetable side dishes. My youngest is obsessed with spicy foods, but has decided that he currently doesn't like vegetables. In order to combat this new trend I have been trying as many different ways to prepare fresh vegetables as I can. The January/February issue of The Food Network Magazine had a number of great side dish recipes including one for Roasted Carrots.

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes approximately 30 minutes to prep and cook and makes 4 servings. All the ingredients are basic and I either had in my pantry cupboard or were easy to find at my local grocery store. I did find that the carrots were too crunchy for my tastes when roasted for 20 minutes, I suggest leaving them in the oven for closer to 30 minutes. Instead of walnut oil, which I have never been able to find in my area, I substituted canola oil. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My husband really liked these carrots. He normally isn't a large carrot fan, but he loved the combination of the raisin, walnuts and roasted carrots together. I am happy to report that both of my sons also ate this dish without complaints and even snacked on the leftovers the next day. Overall, a very easy recipe that takes little prep work and was well received by my whole family.

For the recipe go to Roasted Carrots.

Recipe.com Dilled Pot Roast

I have a slight obsession with my slow-cooker. I love everything about it, the fact that it saves me time, that it can transform bad cuts of meat into a delicious meal and most importantly that it is very easy! Growing up my mom never really used her slow-cooker except for the once or twice a year she would cook a meal using it and then put it away until the following year. When I got married I quickly learned from my mother-in-law that the slow-cooker was awesome. It took a little trail and error of adding to much or not enough liquid to perfect my slow-cooker technique, but after a couple of years I started branching out and trying any recipe I could find using the crockpot. One of my favorite slow-cooker dishes is pot roast and I was excited when I ran across a recipe for Dilled Pot Roast on Recipe.com using fresh dill.

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes 20 minutes of prep and 6 hours of cooking time on high, and makes 6-8 servings. All the ingredients are basic and I had no problems finding any of them at my local grocery store. I cooked my roast on high due to the fact that I started it too late to cook on low. Normally I like to cook on low in my slow-cooker, I think the flavor is more favorable. I chose to Greek yogurt instead of plain yogurt, I prefer the flavor and thickness. Finally, I used kosher salt instead of regular salt, I find the flavor preferable in cooking and baking. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I love the amount of time and effort that cooking in my slow-cooker provides. This recipe was no exception, the meat turned out moist and delicious. I chose to serve the roast over noodles as suggested, but honestly the taste of the roast was good enough to be served alone. The fresh dill really made this dish and created a great flavor for the roast. Overall, an easy and delicious slow-cooker recipe.

For the recipe go to Dilled Pot Roast.

Martha Stewart Living Barley, Mushroom and Dill Salad

In the last year I have been trying to introduce as many grains to my family as possible. I have been lucky in that the organic section at my local grocery store has a number of variety of grains and beans to chose from, so at least once every couple of weeks I have been purchasing something new. Some grains have gone over better than others. Oatmeal is always a big hit in my house and my two boys will eat multiple servings. However, other grains such as quinoa, have taken multiple offerings, before my  household took to its taste. I was intrigued when the September issue of Martha Stewart Living had a recipe for Barley, Mushroom, and Dill Salad, which looked like a great way to introduce more barley into my family's diet.

This recipe has 11 ingredients, including salt and pepper. The total prep time is 1 hour and 15 minutes, with 15 minutes being active. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store, the pearl barley was even available generic in the bean aisle. The longest part of the recipe is the time for the barley to cook, the remainder of the recipe goes together quickly. I followed the recipe as stated, with no modifications.

I wasn't sure how this recipe would go over with my family, so I served it with a chicken dish that I figured they would eat. I was very surprised when my 5-year-old went straight for the barley salad and ignored the chicken completely. He absolutely loved the salad and ate a second serving as a bed time snack. I was pleased by how well the leftovers held up, my husband was able to take them to work the next day. My husband did comment that after sitting in the fridge the salad could use a bit more salt. This recipe is a great way to introduce more grains and was a big hit with my children.

This recipe is currently not available on-line, but can be found in the September issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine.