Passover Feast

My parents spent Passover in Hawaii so I was left on my own to cook Passover dinner. I love cooking so it was fun to make a big meal. The menu included chicken soup with matzoh balls, sweet and sour meatballs, baked chicken schnitzel, rosemary roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli, and coffee cake for dessert! I don't mean to toot my own horn , but everything was delicious!

Matzoh ball soup is possibly my favourite of all soups. I don't know why I don't make matzoh balls during the year. The little light and fluffy balls are the best thing to come out of Passover! This year, I made a different meatball recipe. My mom's meatballs are amazing but after 26 years, I was ready for a change. A friend of mine gave me her Passover meatball recipe and they were fabulous! As for the potatoes, I love them roasted. They are the perfect accompaniment to a Passover feast but I wanted to add a little something extra... rosemary salt (which I made myself)! The baked chicken schnitzel was a super easy recipe which was great since there were so many elements to this meal! And the coffee cake... well, we'll save that for another post!

Matzoh Ball Soup

Ingredients
1 chicken carcass or whole chicken
3 carrots, chopped in small pieces
2 stalks celery, chopped in large chunks
1 parsnip, chopped
1 onion, cleaned and chopped in half
1 bunch dill
1/2 cup matzoh meal
2 eggs
2 tbsp canola oil
salt
soup noodles (optional)

Directions
- Clean chicken carcass with boiling water.
- Fill a large pot up with water and boil the chicken carcass.
- Skim the top.
- Once the water comes to a boil, add all the vegetables.
- Turn down to the lowest heat, cover and simmer for 1.5 hours.
- Strain everything from the chicken broth and add the carrots back to the soup.
- Mix the matzoh meal, egg, oil and salt until incorporated and put in the fridge for 15 minutes.
- Bring the soup back to a boil.
- Roll the matzoh meal mix into balls and drop into boiling soup and let cook for 20 minutes.
- While the matzo balls are cooking, boil a little pot of water for soup noodles. Follow directions on package until al dente and add to soup when matzoh balls are done cooking!
- Voila!

Passover Sweet and Sour Meatballs
Recipe from Sarah Benmergui

Ingredients
1 lb ground beef
1 egg
1/8 cup matzoh meal (you can replace with bread crumbs)
1/8 teas garlic powder
salt and pepper
8 oz (300 ml) Tomato sauce with mushrooms
4 oz (150 ml) Jam (plum/blackberry/grape/wildberry)
1 tbsp lemon juice

Directions
- Combine tomato sauce, jam and lemon juice in a pot on low to medium heat
- Mix other ingredients in a bowl by hand and form into 1 inch balls
- Drop meatballs into sauce, one by one as they are made.
- Cook on simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Shake the pot lightly after 10-15 minutes. Mix after 30 minutes.

Rosemary Roasted Potatoes

Ingredients
20 nugget potatoes
4-5 tbsp salt
1 tbsp rosemary
4 tbsp olive oil
pepper


Directions
- Bring a pot of water to a boil.
- Clean the potatoes with a brush under running water.
- Put the potatoes in the boiling water with 3-4 tbsp of salt. Cook the potatoes until they are tender.
- Preheat the oven to 450.
- Make the rosemary salt while the potatoes are cooking. Put 1 tbsp of rosemary and 1 tbsp of salt into a mortar and pestle. Pound the mixture until it becomes very fine.
- After you remove the potatoes from the water, cut them in half if they are too big. Lay them out on a baking sheet, sprinkle with rosemary salt (while they are hot), pepper and olive oil. Make sure everything is coated evenly and in one layer on the baking sheet.
- Roast the potatoes for 30 minutes.


Baked Chicken Schnitzel

Ingredients
chicken fillets
flour
eggs
breadcrumbs
Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Directions
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Place chicken fillets between two pieces of parchment paper. Gently pound the chicken with a meat mallet or rolling pin until it's about 5 mm thick and even all around.
- Put the flour in one bowl, the eggs in another and the breadcrumbs & Parmesan in another. Add salt and pepper to all three bowls.
- Dunk each piece of chicken first in the flour, then the egg mixture, then the breadcrumbs.
- Place the breaded chicken on a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Bake for 20 minutes, turning at 10 minutes. Check to make sure it's white all the way through.

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

The weather hasn't been so great down here these days, and what better way to celebrate the rain than with soup! I love me some soup and I've been craving it a lot lately.

I made this creamy chicken noodle soup for Justin a few nights ago and we both agreed it was a success! Chicken noodle soup is always a great winter staple, and this version is just amped up a little bit!

I originally found this recipe on Let's Dish, and I made a few little tweaks.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter
2 cups chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
6 cups chicken broth
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts- cooked
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 cup milk
8 oz pasta/noodles of your choice

1 tsp poultry seasoning
Salt and pepper, to taste

Preparation:

1. Chop up the celery, carrots and onion and put them in a large soup pot with the butter and saute until tender, about 5 minutes.

2. Add chicken broth, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper and let simmer for a few minutes.

3. Add cream of chicken soup and milk and let the soup cook up.

4. Meanwhile, cook your pasta according to package directions and chop up your chicken breast into small cubes.

5. A few minutes before you're ready to serve, add the cooked pasta and chicken to the soup.

Food for thought:

I found that cooking the pasta a few minutes less than the package said was a good idea because they continue to cook a bit when they get added to the soup. Since it was just Justin and I eating, we ended up with LOTS of leftovers, this recipe makes a lot of soup! I put all the leftovers in the fridge, and by the next day, a lot of the broth was soaked up, so I had to add some chicken broth to the soup when I reheated it. Also, the noodles were a little soggy the next day.

All in all, a great soup for the winter months! Make it soon, Spring is just around the corner!!

Red Velvet Soup

First and foremost, I have to give all the credit to my nanny who has made this soup for me for as long as I can remember. It is my favourite soup. It's healthy and really delicious! When you taste it, you aren't quite sure what it is. The flavours blend together so well that the individual components don't jump out at you. The soup is savory with a little bit of sweetness. It's made with red lentils, carrots, onions and beets. If you aren't into beets, don't worry, it's not beety! Their aren't many and they're only there for the color and a little sweetness. Trust me, this soup is really tasty, healthy (water-based) and great for a cold winter day!

Red Velvet Soup

Ingredients
1 cup red lentils (dry)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion
2 medium carrots
2 beets
5-6 cups water (or stock but you don't need it)
pepper
salt (or Jane's salt if you have)

Directions
- Stab beets with a fork a few times, put them in a bowl in a bit of water and microwave for 5 minutes covered with a paper towel. Let them cool for 10-15 minutes before you peel/cut off the skin (do not use a wood cutting board, they stain!!)
- Wash and drain lentils.
- Heat oil and saute onions for around 10 minutes.
- Cut carrots and beets into chucks.
- Put everything (onions, lentil, carrots and beets) into the water and bring to a boil.
- Simmer for 1 hour (covered)
- Pure soup after cooled

Delicious yummies that have kept me busy (and full)

MEGAN!!!

Wow, you have been eating so well since you got home!!! Ahhh I can't wait to come visit you and you can take me to all these places. I am especially interested in going to that rib/chicken place. That looks to die for!!!

You know how much I love cupcakes. LOVE THEM! Well take a look at these little guys. Katie over at Dashing Dish made these beauties. I really like her blog, she has great low-fat recipes, including these cupcakes. I made them for a party, and they were DELICIOUS! The cupcake was SO easy to make (only three ingredients) and they were super dense and tasty! Katie made hers with a cool whip frosting, but I made a cream cheese frosting for mine. I really loved the pumpkin/cream cheese combo. They tasted like fall, and they fulfilled all my fall fantasies! Make them, they're to die for. (PS, this is Katie's photo, not mine.)

Here's another photo and recipe from Dashing Dish! Another win! I made this cheesy broccoli soup for the fam a few weeks ago and it was a hit. I did make a few changes to the recipe though. I added a little fat free half and half at the end to make it a little more creamy and I added extra cheddar cheese. I loved the addition of the cream, but I must say, I went overboard on the extra cheese. Next time I make it I"ll add less cheese. But seriously, this soup was so easy and really good. It was a great fall soup!

Speaking of soup, I miss our shabu shabu place! Mmmmm, I could really go for a nice warm bowl of Shabs right about now. Man, I miss that place. Oh, the memories it brings back :-) I hope I can make it back to Seoul one day so I can go back there!!

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. I love this dip. LOVE IT! Gina at Skinny Taste created this little gem, and oh ma gosh! I could eat it every day. Notevenkidding! Hot Spinach and Artichoke Dip. My mouth is watering just thinking about it, and I've already made it like THREE TIMES since I got home, that's how good it is!

Can't wait to eat this stuff again. Seriously, make it! The first two times I made it, I added extra cheese, because why not!?!?! And the first time I made it, I forgot the garlic (who does that!?!?!?!) and the second time I made it, I made it with EXTRA garlic, and an onion instead of shallots, and I thought it was better the second time. Every time I make it I've doubled the recipe, and ever time there isn't any left at the end of the party! Make this dip please, you won't regret it!!!