I started eating meat again earlier this year after almost 14 full years of being vegetarian (or 10 years, if you don't want to count the fact that I was technically a pescatarian for the past four.) Swedish meatballs have since become one of my go-to dinners. It is a quick and easy to make dish that is delicious when served over egg noodles with lingonberry jam.
If you don't have some on-hand already, you'll want to buy a jar of lingonberry jam to serve with. Similar to eating cranberries with Thanksgiving turkey and gravy, the jam adds a nice, sweet-tart flavor to compliment the rich sour cream gravy that goes with the meatballs.
Fair warning: Don't try to substitute strawberry or raspberry jam. It won't be the same. If you're worried about having leftover jam sitting in your fridge for all eternity, don't worry -- you'll want to make this dish again (we make it a few times a month, it's that good) and there are plenty of other uses for it, too.
Shortly after I started eating meat more regularly, I saw Ina Garten make curried chicken salad on an episode of her show, Barefoot Contessa. My immediate thought was that it looked good (and, duh, her food always looks amazing) and sounded different, but I didn't immediately put it at the top of my "recipes to try" list, and here's why.
I took a big pause at the idea of curry and chutney mixed together, really skeptical about how two strong-tasting ingredients like that would taste when mixed together. Also, I was never a big fan of traditional chicken salad. Growing up, my dad and I would go out for sandwiches for lunch on a regular basis. Whenever I ordered chicken salad from a nearby deli or restaurant, it often tasted bland and mushy, with tiny pieces of chicken and not enough crunch from celery and onion to make up for the amount of mayo put in the salad.
Knowing that Ina has rarely led me astray, I gave the recipe a try and was soon obsessed. For a while I made this salad at least once a week, without fail, to bring to work for lunch. It has a totally unexpected flavor on account of the chutney and curry, which do taste good together after all. It's creamy without tasting like eating a spoonful of mayo, and super-crunchy from the celery and cashews, one of my favorite nuts.
Ina's Curried Chicken Salad has become a pantry staple recipe; I keep the ingredients on-hand for whenever I'm in the mood to make a quick dinner or lunch for work. Using the original recipe as a guide, here are a few things that I like to adjust when I make it.
For me, 2015 was a big year of canning. I made countless batches of jams and jellies, fermented pickles, fresh-pack tomatoes in their own juices, a few batches of applesauce, and other things that are happily at-home in my basement pantry.
So, what I guess I just revealed to you is this: If the zombie apocalypse comes and in the event that anything happens to me (i.e., let's hope Darryl rescues me from a zombie hoard and we ride off into the sunset together on his motorcycle), my house is a good location to raid for food.
Anyway...
I give away a lot of my canned goods as gifts to friends and family. One of my favorites that I selfishly held on to was a batch of bourbon and black pepper orange marmalade. I had a craving to do something that involved more than just spreading the marmalade on toasted English muffins with butter—which is amazing, by the way. Chinese food came to mind, so I thought a savory application, orange chicken with some steamed vegetables, would be good to try.
Hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday!
Mine was both productive and relaxing. Steve and I worked in the garden, weeding and spreading top soil, and I continued sorting and throwing away old stuff from the basement, trying to get moving-ready for when the time comes. The day in the city on Saturday with my mom to see Jersey Boys was fantastic, too.
Speaking of the garden, my first purple bell pepper is growing nicely! It was about the size of a kumquat, but it got much bigger just in the past week or two. We also have quite a few blooms on our Japanese eggplant and cucumber plants, sunflowers shooting up and zinnias starting to sprout (two of my favorite flowers), and healthy herb plants. Exciting!
I also managed to knock-off one of my foodie goals for this year during dinner on Sunday (grilled Dundore & Heister hamburgers and hot dogs from Easton Public Market, veggie burgers, and Greek tatzki pasta salad.) I made homemade aioli to go with the burgers, and all-in-all it was a good first attempt. I hit some roadblocks when it came to the flavor, though, but as far as the process? That was a cinch.
If you took a day off from work today (like me) to get a jump-start on your holiday weekend plans, then I hope you're not battling too much traffic right now to get where you need to be. Better yet, maybe you've already arrived or opted to skip the crowds and stay home, and with a drink in hand are currently catching up on a good book or TV series. Either way, I hope you enjoy. :)
I certainly hope to have a relaxing extended weekend, myself. My plans for the actual holiday will likely include throwing something on the grill and kicking back with a few cocktails, but tomorrow I'm looking forward to a day in the city with my mom. We have tickets for a matinee performance of Jersey Boys and are planning to go for dinner after the show. (P.S., if you have any suggestions for me on where to eat in NYC, I'd love some new ideas. Let me know in a comment or DM me on Twitter @fromannakitchen.)
If you're planning a big bash to celebrate the holiday, check out these red, white, and blue food and entertaining ideas curated from Pinterest and have a safe and happy holiday weekend!
Last year, I took a long weekend and drove down to Maryland to see my friend. At one point during the visit, we were eating dinner and I saw her open up a curious, brightly colored orange drink. It wasn't a soda, but made a similar "fizzy" noise every time the cap was taken on and off.
The drink, as it turns out, was kombucha, a beverage made by fermenting tea and other flavorings with a bacteria and yeast starter called a scoby. The smell was sour and fruity, like oranges or lemons. I took a sip and wasn't turned off, but my first taste left something to be desired.
Earlier this year, I came across a whole shelf of kombucha varieties in the organic section of Wegmans. I was determined to try it again to see if I could develop a taste for what was supposed to be an incredibly nutritious drink and a source of natural probiotics.
A few weeks ago, Steve and I went on an impromptu strawberry-picking adventure to Grim's Orchard and Family Farms in Breinigsville, PA. We visited the farm last year for pick-your-own apples and pumpkins, which was a lot of fun, and decided that we would go back for strawberry-picking as soon as the season came around.
Steve picked strawberries when he was younger, so he was an ol' pro at it. We ended up hauling home a whopping 10 lbs of strawberries for about $25 -- not bad at all for some of the sweetest, ripest strawberries I think I've ever put in my mouth.
Of course, Steve was tasked with the all-important job of carrying our harvest, too. ;)
I had a total of 10 quarts of berries on-hand after I included the ones that I picked up from the farmer's market earlier in the week before this adventure. Those berries were leftover from the strawberry-rhubarb preserves that I made and have been eating with my morning breakfast ever since because it's that damn delicious.
It may sound like a lot, but I assure you: Not a single strawberry went to waste. A small batch of strawberry-balsamic jam was up first followed by strawberries packed in syrup, using up every single berry that didn't otherwise end up in my mouth during the washing and chopping process.
I had a total of 10 quarts of berries on-hand after I included the ones that I picked up from the farmer's market earlier in the week before this adventure. Those berries were leftover from the strawberry-rhubarb preserves that I made and have been eating with my morning breakfast ever since because it's that damn delicious.
It may sound like a lot, but I assure you: Not a single strawberry went to waste. A small batch of strawberry-balsamic jam was up first followed by strawberries packed in syrup, using up every single berry that didn't otherwise end up in my mouth during the washing and chopping process.
