.oh hi.

Well hello friends.

What's been happening? Over here it's been, well, mostly just life. Moving, and babies, and surviving. All that fun stuff.

For awhile now, however, I have felt that something has been a bit lacking. Me. I have been a bit lacking. So, I'm not saying I'm back, I'm not saying I'm not back, but I am saying I know I need to kind of kick start myself back into..... Sara.

Not wife Sara. Not mama Sara. Not friend Sara. Just Sara.

Now, that being said, we have been in a new state, Georgia, for a little over 6 months now. We're still figuring things out. Still finding good people. Still looking for a niche. But in the meantime, a girl has gotta eat lunch. As do her babies, who are 2 and 4 now, so not so much babies!

I asked the Peanut to help me meal prep for this week. I let her pick lunches. On the list are green smoothies, crackers and cheese, sandwich kabobs, tuna salad and......

Grilled cheese with tomato soup!

Now, I won't lie. I definitely considered just buying a canned tomato soup and calling it a day. But then I remembered how much I have been missing the creativity and pride of cooking something amazing and sharing it with y'all. I thought, was a great, simple recipe to whip up and blog about. So, a plan started forming.

One thing to note at this point: I hate tomato soup. There I said it! I hate it! I always have, ever since childhood. But once upon a time I had an amazing bowl of tomato soup. It was in South Dakota, in 2008, at the Prairie Berry Winery (which also has frickin' amazing wines, if you're ever in the Black Hills, find a way to stop in!). And no, I can't tell you why I ordered tomato soup, when I know I hate tomato soup, but I just did. And it was worth it. Maybe God spoke to me and told me to order the soup. Je ne sais quoi. So, when I was trying to decide how to make my soup, the Prairie Berry concoction is immediately what came to mind.

I mean, come on y'all. Come on! Tell me you don't want to lick your screen right now. It was an amazing bowl of soup.

Creamy, tomato-ey, with a nice hint of basil. The soup was better than the grilled cheese. Which is bread and cheese, and therefore pretty hard to beat. I set to recreating something similar.

And failed. Miserably. My soup tasted nothing like the soup I remembered. And in fact I absolutely hated it. I'm sure that's a big surprise. My girls loved it, so I'm guessing it just tasted like typical tomato soup. Since I hated it so much though, I'm not going to post the recipe. It's basically just a giant pot of tomatoes with some spices anyway. Nothing too ground breaking.

I will say though, I did add a secret ingredient. I thought this was going to really change the taste of the soup to something I would prefer. My super top secret ingredient? Canned coconut milk. I put that shit on everything.

And by everything I mean, you know, stuff that needs cream.... like soup. And.... yeah, pretty much just soup. Nah, I use it in my coffee, in curries and even with berries for desert. I absolutely love adding a little coconut milk when applicable. And even some times when not applicable. No shame. Coconut milk is the new put a bird on it. Just do it.

Sadly for my taste buds, however, even my secret ingredient didn't really make this soup shine for me. So I'm basically just saying hello and I will have to work on something that's actually recipe worthy this week. I'll see what I can do!

XO

.chicken marengo.

Tonight's dinner was inspired by a little dish posted on the Whole Foods website, here. I made their recipe a few months ago and the Man and I devoured it. It's savory, rich, hearty and delicious.

While trying to decide what to make with my thawed chicken breasts tonight I thought back to this meal. I made some adjustments based on what I had in the pantry and what came out of it was a healthy, filling, super tasty meal.

Sara's Chicken Marengo serves 6
1.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup flour
1 large onion, diced
1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (15-ounce) can black beans (I used low sodium)
1 cup chicken broth (again, I used low sodium)
1 package button mushrooms, thinly sliced
Salt, pepper, garlic salt and red pepper flakes to taste

Heat 1/4 of the oil in a large pot or saute pan over medium heat. Mix the flour and desired seasonings together. Dredge the chicken in the flour and add half of the chicken to the pan. You can do all of the chicken if you have a big enough pan, just use 1/2 of the oil. Stir occasionally until browned. Remove and place on a plate.

Add 1/4 of the oil to the pan. Saute the onion until softened. Add the tomatoes, black beans, chicken broth and browned chicken to the pan. Simmer, covered, for 45 minutes.

While this is simmering saute the mushrooms in a separate pan with the remaining 1/4 of the oil until they are golden brown. After the 45 minutes is up add the mushrooms to the other pan.

This dish is great served by itself but we put it over brown rice tonight (with a glass of red wine!) and it was so good.

XO

.so easy.

Tonight's dinner was quite possibly one of the easiest things ever. It always amazes me when I make something that requires so little effort but then tastes so delicious. In college I avoided cooking meat and fish because I was terrified I would mess it up. Under cook it, over cook it, season it wrong, etc. I wish I had known back then how easy it is to make a superb meal out of very few ingredients.

The ingredients tonight were a steam fresh bag of broccoli, quinoa with diced tomatoes and the show-stealer: Baked salmon with a spicy mustard.

Which is exactly what it sounds like.

Baked Salmon with Spicy Mustard serves 2
2 salmon fillets
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon spicy mustard (I used mustard with horseradish in it)
Salt

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Place the salmon on a baking dish or sheet, skin side down. Sprinkle with salt and olive oil. Add the mustard and spread evenly on top of the fillet. You can use more or less mustard, depending on your taste.

Cook for 30-35 minutes, or until cooked all the way through, and enjoy an awesome piece of fish.

XO

.a little help from pre-made.

So, I like to cook things from scratch. I like to involve sauces of my own making. I dig that kind of stuff.

Sometimes though, it's nice to have things that you can just throw into a pot and make a delicious meal with. Sometimes I don't want to spend an extra 20 minutes making pesto.

This recipe is great for those times. My aunt made it for me once and gave me the recipe and tonight is a perfect night to use it. I'm still kind of on vacay mode. Plus, my cute little basil plant, that my awesome mother-in-law gave to me, is kind of... um.... dying a little bit..... Sorry Chris! My green thumb needs a lot of work.... and by that I mean probably a brand new green thumb cause I don't have one at all. Is there such thing as basil cpr?



Pesto Ravioli with Chicken serves 4
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 zucchini
1 red bell pepper
5 button mushrooms
1-2 cups chicken broth
9 ounces frozen ravioli
4 ounces pesto (basil or sun-dried tomato)

Heat oil in a large saute pan. Add chicken, cook for 4 minutes. Add zucchini, red bell pepper and mushrooms, cook for another 4 minutes. Remove from the skillet. Place ravioli and chicken broth in skillet, bring to boil then simmer for 4 minutes. Add chicken and vegetables back to skillet for 3 minutes. Remove from heat, mix with pesto.

I think I just love anything with pesto but this dish is super flavorful. Another really good thing about it is the fact that it's a one dish meal, with an added bowl to hold the cooked chicken and veggies.

Cook on!

.eggplant-licious.

That's what dinner was tonight.

I've been eyeing Alton Brown's Eggplant Pasta recipe for quite some time and decided that today was the day. I made a few adaptations based on some things I had that I needed to use up, like some mushrooms, and just plain forgot an ingredient, the cheese. Despite this the dish was super tasty and I paired it with some quick and easy meatballs.

The recipe itself is labeled as "expert" on the Food Network website, but really I thought it was pretty easy, although a little time consuming. I'm going to give you guys my recipe adaptation, as well as the recipe for these meatballs. 

Eggplant Pasta serves 2

1 medium to large eggplant

1 cup cherry tomatoes

2 large button mushrooms

1/4 cup onion

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tsp chili powder

2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 cup milk

salt for purging

The first step is to peel and slice the eggplant length wise into thin, flat strips. Lay these out on a rack over a baking sheet and evenly coat them with salt. Let them sit for 30 minutes. While they are purging get the other ingredients ready by cutting the mushrooms, tomatoes, onion and garlic. You should also be starting the meatballs now. When the eggplant slices have a few minutes of purging left heat the olive oil in a large saute pan and add the other vegetables. Thoroughly rinse the eggplant, dry between paper towels, then slice into pasta sized strips. Add this to the saute pan, with the chili powder and red pepper flakes. You shouldn't need salt because there will still be some in the eggplant. After about 10 minutes the eggplant should look fairly cooked and be darker in color, add the milk and let this simmer for another 5 minutes or so. Mix with the meatballs and serve. 

Meatballs makes 8 meatballs

1/2 pound lean ground beef

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp garlic salt

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp chili powder

3 tbsp bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix all ingredients together with your hands, shape into 1 inch meatballs. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Enjoy!

Cook on!