Grilled Cumin Spiced Chicken Kabobs

Grilled Cumin Spiced Chicken Kabobs

I made these chicken kabobs over the fourth of July weekend, and everyone loved them.  They were super easy to make and didn't require a lot of time or effort to marinate. They're a perfect quick fix dinner item, so I'm giving you the recipe.  My husband is still raving about these.  It just goes to show that a great meal doesn't require a lot of time or ingredients.

Prep time:10 minutes

Cook time:15 minutes

Total time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

1lb of boneless skinless organic chicken thighs--cubed

1 teaspoon of cumin

1 teaspoon of paprika

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/4 cup of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

Sea salt to taste

Directions:  In a large bowl mix the ingredients for the chicken kabobs together,

Then place the chicken on skewers:

Grill chicken on a hot grill until cooked through, about 10-15 minutes 

 Serve and enjoy!

Chicken Enchilada's with Salsa Verde

Easy Chicken Enchiladas with Salsa Verde Sauce

Chicken enchilada's are so easy to make. You can throw almost anything in enchiladas and not mess them up and they're done in less than 30 minutes. A friend gave me some homemade salsa verde, and the moment I tasted it, I knew that it would make these enchiladas sing!  For the chicken in these I just threw a chopped onion and 1 pound of chicken thighs in my pressure cooker with enough water to cover, and cooked the chicken for 20 minutes--easy peasy.  But if you have leftover chicken you can use that.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15-20 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:
1 lb of cooked chicken (shredded)
2 cups of cheddar cheese (grated)
2 cups of salsa verde
1/2 cup of black olives, sliced
10-12 corn tortilla's

Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 375F. Lightly greese a 9x11 baking dish, then line the bottom of  the baking dish with corn tortillas.  Top the tortillas with the shredded chicken, top the chicken with salsa verde, top the salsa verde with cheese, and  finally add a layer of  black olives.  Cover the olives with one more layer of corn tortillas, add a  layer of salsa verde, a layer of cheese and the last of the olives.

 Place in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the cheese has melted, remove from the oven, serve and enjoy!

White Bean Salad with Lemon Cumin Vinaigrette

White Bean Salad with Lemon Cumin Dressing

This salad represents all that this blog is about.  It's lazy in every sense of the word lazy and at the same time it's fresh and vibrantly flavorful.  I was talking to a girl friend  of mine  the other day about food and little ones.  She was in need of some advice about healthy choices for her little one. We went through the list of what she currently feeds her little one.  On her list was a simple salad of canned white beans drizzled with lemon juice and olive oil.  I thought it sounded delish, and I set out to make my own version of that salad.  Pair this salad with a crusty piece of sourdough rubbed with a little garlic and grass-fed butter and you've got a rustic and delicious meal that didn't require you to turn on the stove.  Lazy--yes, absolutely! But it tastes anything but lazy--that counts right?;-)

Ingredients:

15 ounce can of Organic White beans (drained and rinsed)

1/2 cup of feta cheese crumbled

1/2 cup of organic rainbow radish diced

1/2 cup of cherry tomatoes quartered

1/2  cup persian cucumbers diced

1/2 cup of red bell pepper diced

1 Tablespoon of fresh organic Thyme leaves

Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Vinaigrette

5 Tablespoons of fresh lemon juice

3 Tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 teaspoon of cumin

1 medium clove of garlic finely chopped

Sea salt to taste

Directions: Add all of the ingredients except for the sea salt to a large bowl and toss well.  

Add all the ingredients for the vinaigrette to a mason jar cover and shake until well combined.  If you don't have a mason jar, just whisk together all the ingredients for the vinaigrette in a bowl, and set aside. Salt the salad ingredients just before serving, this will prevent the tomatoes and cucumbers from becoming soggy.

 Drizzle with a generous amount of the vinaigrette, toss  again to combine, serve and enjoy!

Cucumber Tomato and Feta Salad with Balsalmic Vinaigrette

Cucumber Tomato and Feta Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

Salads are my go to lazy girl side.  They require minimum effort and absolutely no cooking.  It doesn't get much better than that in my book, and salads are good for you.  Salads also go with practically everything.  My husband is a big fan of salads in general, he's one of those people who has to have a meal anchored by vegetables or he doesn't feel like he has gotten a complete meal.  I'm like that too.  When we traveled to Puerto Rico several years ago, we were both impressed with the food: steak, chicken, rice and beans, peppers, plantains. However, the food was always missing that anchor of vegetables, which we are both accustom to.  We always asked if there was a vegetable dish that we could order to round out our meal. We never found a vegetable dish, but they always had a basic salad.  

Prep time: 7-10 minutes

Cook time: none

Total time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

1 medium cucumber sliced thinly or cubed

1/2 cup of organic cherry tomatoes sliced in half

1/4 cup of crumbled feta cheese

Ingredients Balsamic vinaigrette:

Sea salt to taste

Black pepper to taste

4 tablespoons of Balsamic vinegar

1 small clove of garlic chopped finely

3 tablespoons of olive oil

Directions: Add the cucumber and tomatoes to a medium sized bowl, top with feta and set aside. In a small bowl whisk the ingredient for the vinaigrette, spoon over the cucumber salad and enjoy!

Cucumber Salad with Lemon Basil Vinaigrette

Cucumber Salad with Lemon Basil Vinaigrette

I have a confession to make, sometimes I make salad when I don't want to cook a side---okay maybe I do that more than sometimes, I do it a lot. There is a reason I named this blog lazy girl dinners.  This salad is a result of me being lazy and needing to use the ingredients I had on hand.  It was a hit with both my husband and my daughter.  It was the first time I got her to eat cucumber without chewing it up and spitting it out. Slicing them with my spiral vegetable slicer had everything to do with that because when it comes to getting her to eat something, it always comes down to texture.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: none
Total time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:
2 large cucumbers sliced thinly
4 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of fresh basil, finely chopped
Sea Salt to taste

Directions:
Add the lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt, and basil to a small bowl and whisk together. Spoon as much of the vinaigrette as you'd like over a serving of the cucumbers and enjoy!Note: If you are serving this at a dinner party--yes it's lazy but it's elegant and very delicious--then be sure to spoon the vinaigrette over the salad just before serving, otherwise the cucumbers will loose their crunch and get soggy.

Grilled Rib-eye with Spicy Dry-Rub

Grilled Rib-eye Steak with Spicy Dry-Rub

Now that it's warm again I can cutout a bit of my cooking by having my husband grill for us. He loves rib-eye steaks and it's fun for me to find different ways to spice them up. I love making marinades for steaks but sometimes it's fun just to mix a few dry spices together and see what happens. That is exactly what I did here. This do it yourself dry rub is definitely going into our menu line up again, it is so yummy.  The only problem with allowing my husband to grill the steak, was that he was not as gentle with the steak as I would have been, so I didn't get great pictures, but trust me when I say you will love this dry rub.



Prep Time: 2 minutes
Cook Time: 10-15 minutes
Total Time: 17 minutes
 Note: this is enough seasoning for a 1 pound steak, double or triple the amounts if you are grilling more steaks.

Ingredients Dry-Rub:
1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon of onion powder
1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
Sea salt to taste

Directions: Add the dry spices to a small bowl and mix them together until combined:

Season the both sides of the steak with sea salt, then rub both sides generously with the dry spice mixture.

Place on the grill and let cook  for 7-8 minutes on each side, remove from grill let sit for 5-7 minutes before enjoying.

 How easy was that?  I love it when my husband grills;-) Okay share your favorite dry rub seasoning?  I always buy one, this is the first time that I've made my own.

Mussels in White Wine Sauce

Mussels in White Wine Sauce

This week I decided to switch things up a bit with a few sea food recipes.  My husband isn't a big fan of mussels unless they're drenched in cream, but I prefer them a little more on the light side---although I agree a great cream sauce never hurt a mussel. My daughter isn't a fan of eating sea food just yet, but she loved playing with the mussel shells. Mussels are  great for those of us who are budget minded, they cost just a few dollars a pound, and a pound is more than enough for 2 people. A few things worth noting about mussels, as with most seafood the fresher they are, the better tasting they are. Discard any mussels that are not closed and tightly sealed, remove the hairy beards before cooking, and clean them thoroughly by scrubbing each mussel shell and then soaking them, with 1-2 tablespoons of flour added to a large bowl of water, for 10-15 minutes before cooking in order to expell any remaining sand.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
1 lb of Mussels
1/4 cup of shallot minced
1/2 cup of white wine Sauvignon Blanc works amazingly
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1/4 cup of finely chopped parsley
1 teaspoon of bonito flakes (optional)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Directions: Heat olive oil, add garlic and shallot to a sauce pan, and sauté until shallots are translucent, add in the bonito flakes if you're using them and mix for 10-20 seconds. Add in the wine, and bring to a simmer, add in the mussels and cover the pot, cook for 8-10 minutes then turn off the fire. Remove the cover, the mussels should be open, and cooked fully, sprinkle with lemon juice, and parsley transfer to a bowl and enjoy!

Basil Chicken

Basil Chicken Recipe

So everyone has that one friend whom they idolize, you know the one who is super intelligent, charismatic, gorgeous, and the kind of mother to her children you only wish you could be. Well that person for me is my friend Jennifer. She has the energy of the energizer bunny--actually I think she could out last that bunny 3 times over, She's a great friend, reliable without fault, and on top of all that, she is a great cook. One of her signature dishes is basil Chicken.  It's beyond delicious, the sweet notes of basil mixed with the Unami flavors imparted by the soy sauce in this dish make it heaven on a plate.  She makes hers with the whole parts of chicken, usually legs, or drummetts. I decided to try it using ground chicken, because who couldn't use another way to use ground meat?  I'm so glad I did, it is equally as delicious as using chicken with bones, but much less time consuming, because there aren't any bones.

Prep time: 5-7 minutes
Cook time : 15 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
1 pound of ground chicken
3/4 cups of fresh basil chopped
1 small brown onion or shallot chopped
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
2 large cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil/ghee
1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
Sea salt to taste

Directions: heat oil in skillet, add garlic, sauté for 30 seconds, then add the onion, and cook until translucent. Add the ground chicken and brown. Add in the soy sauce, basil and red pepper flakes, cook for 2 minutes then turn off the fire. Serve over brown rice, or in lettuce cups.

Kale and White Bean Soup

Kale and White Bean Soup

I feel like I haven't shared enough vegetarian recipes with you guys, at least not as a full meal. My daughter is just beginning to appreciate veggies the way my husband and I do...thank God, I was beginning to worry she would be one of those kids who would refuse everything green. But somehow, and by the grace of god she has taken to eating veggies. While I was making this she kept reaching up to steal pieces of carrots! It made my heart leap with every bite she took! She loves this soup, and I love that she loves it, because it's nothing but veggies!

Prep time: 10-15 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Total time: 35-40 minutes

Ingredients:
1 bushel of organic kale, sliced thinly
1 cup of shallots, chopped
1 cup of carrots, cubed
1 cup of celery, cubed
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
3/4 cup of white wine Sauvignon Blanc
4 cups of vegetable stock
1.5 tablespoons of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon of thyme
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons of olive oil
15 oz can of Organic white beans, drained and rinsed

Directions: Heat the oil on medium heat, add garlic, shallots, celery, and carrots, cook until tender,

add in thyme and kale, sauté for 5 minutes.

Add in the wine, vegetable stock and beans, bring to a boil and cook until greens are tender about 15 minutes. Add in lemon juice,  adjust the seasoning with sea salt and black pepper, serve and enjoy

Charbroiled Sardines with Parsley and Thyme.

Charbroiled Sardines with Parsley and Thyme

It's not often here that I can walk up to my local Whole Foods Market fish counter and get fresh sardines. So when the opportunity to do so  occurred, I jumped at it.  I am a huge fan of small sustainable fish, like sardines, and smelt.  I'll even go out on a limb and say that I like smelt fish more than sardines, but smelt fish are even harder to come by than fresh sardines.  If you've never made fresh sardines before, then you have been missing out! They're so easy to make, and so delicious!

Prep Time: 7 minutes

Cook Time: 7-10 minutes

1 pound of fresh Sardines split down the middle

1/2 cup of parsley

1/4 cup thyme

1 clove of garlic

3 tablespoons of lemon juice

1 tablespoon of olive oil

Sea salt and Black pepper to taste

Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 400F.  Line a bake sheet with parchment or foil. Pulse all the ingredients with the exception of the sardines in a small blender or processor. You can skip the processor and opt to chop all the herbs finely and then mix with the oil and lemon. Place the sardines on the lined bake sheet, add the herb mixture to the inside of each sardine. Season with sea salt and black pepper then place in the oven and cook for 7-10 minutes, or until sardines are cooked through and have charred on top a bit. Remove from the oven, serve and enjoy!

Makeover Chicken Taco's

Leftover Makeover Chicken Taco's

One of my favorite things to do is reinvent a dinner out of something we ate the night before. Let's face it, leftovers are nice, but a freshly made dinner is better. While buying a whole chicken works out great for our budget, we are always left with leftover chicken. This recipe is result of me and more importantly my husband not wanting to eat the same roast chicken I served the night before. It's super simple to make, and very delicious.


Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time 10 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
2.5 cups of Pre cooked chopped chicken
2 small cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/2 cup of  diced onion
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of freshly chopped cilantro
6 large organic corn taco shells
Sea salt to taste



Directions:
Heat the oil on a cast iron skillet, add the garlic and onion and cook for 3 minutes. Add in the chicken, cumin, garlic powder, paprika, sea salt and toss well. Cook for another 5-7 minutes. Add in the cilantro, remove from heat, and serve inside corn tortillas, with your choice of toppings.

Roast Chicken with Cilantro Pesto

Roast Chicken With Cilantro Pesto

I make roast chicken a lot for my family. Mainly because it's easy, and I know everyone will enjoy it. However, because I make it so often, I am always trying to come up with ways to make it differently, ways in which I can add flavor, this pesto does exactly that. It adds a ton of flavor, but requires minimal extra work. You throw all the ingredients in the blender or a food processor, push a button and it's done! Leftover, pesto, if you have any, can be spread on bread as the condiment to leftover chicken salad sandwiches...talk about yum! If you don't want to roast an entire chicken, you can scale this down and use just 2 chicken breasts, it doesn't matter. I find that buying a whole organic chicken is often less expensive than buying just 2 organic chicken breasts. So I always prefer to save money and buy the whole chicken. I reinvent the leftover chicken into tacos, salad, soup or tostadas.


Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Total time: 55 minutes

Ingredients:
1 whole Organic Nongmo Air-chilled Chicken
2 cloves of garlic
2-3 Tablespoons of Olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of thyme
Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Ingredients for Cilantro Pesto:
2 cups of cilantro
1/2 cup of olive oil
1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup of  toasted hazelnuts
Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 425F. Season the chicken generously with sea salt and black pepper, then rub it with the garlic and oil. Line a baking dish with foil, place the chicken on it and place it in the oven and cook for 45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Meanwhile, place all the ingredients for the pesto in a blender or processor, and blend until smooth.  Serve the pesto however you'd like, I smear it on the chicken, with an additional spoonful or two, so that I can dip as I go. It's so delicious!!!! If you haven't read my blog on  How to roast Chicken, Steps to making the perfect roast chicken  now would be a great time. My recipe for  Roast Chicken with Lemon and Garlic works the pesto as well.

Greek Marinated Lamb chops

 Greek Lamb Chops

The FoodSaver that my husband gave me for Christmas this year has turned out to be one of my favorite kitchen gadgets of all time! I absolutely love it. I can place meat into a container and push a button and 10 minutes later I have marinated meat! And not just meat marinated on the surface, the marinade goes throughout the meat. The process of sucking the air out and pulsing the marinade in, produces tender, delicious, and fully marinaded meat. It's so awesome that I'm smiling just typing this. I love it when a kitchen gadget does what it's supposed to do, and I love it more when it saves me time in the kitchen. I've been using my new gadget a lot lately and testing out some fun marinades. This lamb marinade is just one of the many, many delicious marinades coming up on the blog for you.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes


Ingredients:
6 lamb chops
1 teaspoon of fresh rosemary chopped finely
2 teaspoons of lemon juice
1 clove of garlic grated or crushed
1/4 cup of organic Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:
In a medium bowl combine ingredients 2-6. Season the lamb chops with sea salt and black pepper then place them in the marinade and toss. Let marinate for 10-20 minutes. Pre-heat the oven 425F, place the lamb chops on a foil lined cookie sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes, remove from the oven and enjoy!