Smoky Baba Ganoush is one of those appetizers that basically any time I see it on a menu, I feel the need to order it. The eggplant-based appetizer, originating from Lebanon, uses grilled eggplant, tahini, olive oil, and lemon juice to make a smoky dip that is perfect for outdoor eating.
It’s also a great way to use up a bunch of eggplant if you happen to have a few on hand. There are a bunch of recipes out there for oven roasting the eggplant, but there really is no substitute for the flavor added to the dish by grilling.
Ingredients (serves 4 as an appetizer):
2 pounds Italian eggplants (~2-4 eggplants, depending on size)
Note: I was sent a sample of Bear Mountain Gourmet Blend BBQ Wood Pellets in order to write this post. Opinions are mine alone.
I absolutely love grilling, and love to grill anything I can get my hands on. I do not have much experience with smoking foods on my grill though. So when Bear Mountain contacted me about trying some of their wood pellets, I couldn’t wait to get started!
source: bearmountainbbq.com
Smoking adds an additional layer of flavor to your grilled foods that can completely change the taste of a dish. If you’re new to smoking your food, wood pellets are a great “intro” option – you don’t have to soak them ahead of time and they can be used on any normal grill. Bear Mountain offers a bunch of different blends to pair with poultry, seafood, lamb, pork, beef and vegetables. Their wood pellets don’t use any fillers, binders, or bark so their premium all-natural wood pellets deliver a perfect, clean smoke – every time. They’ve also refined the pellet-making process, creating the perfect pellet structure with only 5% moisture. This means that Bear Mountain pellets grant the perfect burn, infusing mouth-watering flavor with little ash to clean up.
source: bearmountainbbq.com
I was looking through Bear Mountain’s recipes for a little inspiration and was intrigued when I cam across a recipe for potato salad that smoked the potatoes on the grill before tossing them in a yummy sriracha mayo.
I decided to add some bacon to further highlight the rich, smoky flavor of the pellets. The result is this amazing Smoked Potato Salad with Bacon and Sriracha Mayo!
I am very much on the pressure cooker bandwagon. It’s awesome for tough cuts of meat, cooking beans, and other processes that can take forever, but my favorite use is speeding up recipes just enough to make them weeknight friendly!
We don’t actively follow the Mediterranean Diet, but following it can help reduce inflammation, avoid disease, and lose weight, making it popular for anyone looking to live a healthier lifestyle. The Everything Mediterranean Instant Pot Cookbook shows you how to recreate classic Mediterranean meals in under an hour using the much-loved multi-cooker, the Instant Pot. With more than 300 recipes for delicious meals, snacks, and even desserts, you’ll have everything you need to create healthy, fresh, and fast meals every day of the week!
As I mentioned, I’ve already made a few recipes in here, but I wanted to share this recipe for Lemon Orzo with Crab and Herbs, which I’ve slightly adapted from the original in the cookbook.
Ingredients (serves 2):
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium shallot, minced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 fresh parsley, chopped, plus more for garnish
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped, plus more for garnish
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
2 cups water (or chicken broth for more flavor)
8 oz orzo
8 oz jumbo lump crab meat
the juice and zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus more for garnish
Comfort food can take on many forms, but generally, comfort food seems to always have a bit of nostalgia attached to it. Foods from my childhood have become some of my favorite adult comfort foods, like Creamy Chicken Paprikash Over Buttered Egg Noodles. Chicken Paprikash is a Hungarian dish of chicken, cooked in a creamy paprika-flavored sauce. My mom used to make this Creamy Chicken Paprikash for us on cold winter nights, and always spooned it over egg noodles to make the most of the yummy sauce.
Now that it’s February, I think it’s the perfect time to share this childhood favorite recipe! Cold winter months are the perfect time to enjoy old comfort food favorites or to try new ones, like my take on Creamy Chicken Paprikash.
Ingredients:
3 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
salt and pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1 large yellow onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons paprika, sweet or hot (I’d suggest using a combo, maybe 1/2 of each for a subtle spice)
Note: I was sent a Flying Fish Can Variety Pack in order to write this post. Opinions are mine alone.
There are some recipes that almost instantly become a go-to comfort food. One of those recipes for me is arroz con pollo. It has a ton of flavor, an assortment of different vegetables, and is wonderfully filling. Plus, it can be made ahead of time and reheated. What more could you ask for?
My husband has recently taken a liking to quinoa, so I thought making a quinoa version of arroz con pollo, or Quinoa con Pollo, would be an awesome spin. Flying Fish’s Can Variety Pack features five different beers including their OnShore Lager. One sip, and I knew it would be the perfect ingredient in (and accompaniment to) my quinoa spin!
If you follow me on Instagram, you have probably seen a couple of posts / stories about the variety pack. The outdoor themed variety pack truly has something for everyone, including two IPAs (Hopfish and Outside IPA), a Pale Ale (XPA), a Session Sour (Salt and Sea), and a Lager (Onshore Lager). The Hopfish is awesome with spicy food, and the outside IPA has been my go-to when I’m relaxing in my hammock, or hanging out with friends on my roof deck. The XPA is Flying Fish’s original beer, and continues to be a staple for a reason; it goes great with everything! The Salt and Sea was the perfect complement to our friend’s crab feast and barbecue. And the Onshore Lager has a crisp, clean finish making it perfect for both cooking with and drinking.
So let me show off that lager!
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (or olive oil to make dairy free)
6 boneless skinless chicken thighs (about 2 lbs)
1 medium onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
2 bell peppers, sliced
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 (12 oz) can lager (I used Flying Fish Onshore Lager)
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce (omit to make gluten free)
Note: I received a box of produce from Misfits Market in order to write this post. Opinions are mine alone.
I really like stuffed artichokes, but the idea of making them has always kind of intimidated me. I finally got up the courage to try them out when I received a box from Misfits Market with four lovely artichokes inside.
If you’ve never heard of Misfits Market, it was born from a mission to bring delicious, fresh, and affordable misfit produce to people everywhere and reduce food waste at a scale that creates positive and lasting impact.
Every box of Misfits produce benefits farmers, helps prevent food waste, and ultimately helps save the environment. Misfits is Philadelphia and New Jersey based but is rapidly expanding. The company rescues produce from regional farms and distributes it throughout the Northeast in three business days or less.
Misfits Market has two sizes of boxes: the Mischief and the Madness with a variety of fruits and veggies in each one. You can learn more about them here.
You’ll see more posts from me showing how I used my box, but let’s get back to the artichokes! My mother-in-law makes a batch of stuffed artichokes around Christmas and I am always amazed with the amount of work they can take! So this version for Baked Stuffed Artichokes is a bit of a cheat. Cutting them in half and baking them takes some of the “stuffing” work out, but not all of it.
Ingredients:
4 artichokes
3 lemons, juiced
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 large shallot, minced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 cups Italian breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped, plus more to taste
Note: I was sent a ZOS wine saver for review. All opinions are mine alone.
Using wine in recipes both adds and enhances flavor. I love cooking with both red and white wine, but I really only drink red wine. Which means I keep a re-corked bottled of white wine in my fridge, which over time, begins to oxidize and change taste (and not for the better!)
So when I was contacted to try ZOS wine saver, I was intrigued. The ZOS wine saver is a solution that eliminates 100% of the oxygen from an opened bottle of wine, which can preserve the bottle for weeks or months. The ZOS wine stopper has an oxygen-absorbing cartridge that allows you to use a small amount of wine and still maintain its flavor for future use.
Source: zos.wine
The ZOS wine saver is made of an oxygen barrier stopper attached to a replaceable cartridge. You just insert the ZOS stopper into an open bottle of wine and the cartridge absorbs all of the oxygen in the bottle. Each cartridge lasts 5 to 15 bottles and is easily replaceable. The ZOS wine saver (paid link) can be purchased on Amazon.
With the weather warming up, I wanted to make a yummy seafood recipe that’s hearty but light. Cioppino is a fish stew originally from San Francisco, utilizing whatever was caught that day at sea. This recipe for Cioppino (Seafood Stew) includes making a broth and then making the actual soup. The broth can be made a couple of days ahead of time. Both parts of the recipe use white wine, so this recipe is the perfect test for the ZOS wine saver.
Ingredients:
Broth:
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 cup dry white wine
1 28-oz. can whole peeled tomatoes
2 8-oz. bottles clam juice
4 sprigs parsley
2 dried bay leaves
salt and pepper, to taste
Soup:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium shallot, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 lbs mussels, scrubbed and debearded
1 lb clams, scrubbed
¼ cup dry white wine
1 lb sea bass, skin removed and cut into 1” pieces
1 lb shrimp, peeled, deveined, tails on
¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter, cut into cubes (or margarine for dairy free)
The end of April can mean only one thing, Flavors on the Avenue is almost here! Held the last Sunday of every April, Flavors on the Avenue is one of my favorite annual events. The food festival is held on E Passyunk Ave from Broad St to Dickinson St this Sunday, April 28 from 11am to 5pm.
Over two dozen of the region’s best restaurants will fire up street food, small plates, and signature dishes along the Avenue, ranging on average from $3.00 to $6.00 and will be pay-as-you-go. Craft beef, wine, and seasonal sips will also be available, sold by select restaurants, plus a Founders Brewing Co. Tasting Tent. Restaurants participating include:
Barcelona Wine Bar
Bing Bing Dim Sum
Brigantessa
Cantina Los Caballitos
Chhaya Cafe
El Sarape Restaurant
Essen Bakery
Fond
Fuel
ITV Philly
Izumi
Le Virtù
Mamma Maria Ristorante
Manatawny Still Works
Noir Philadelphia
Paradiso Restaurant
Pistola’s Del Sur
Plenty Café
P’unk Burger
Redcrest Fried Chicken
Saté Kampar
Stogie Joe’s Tavern
The Bottle Shop
Teas n’ Mi
Tre Scalini
Vanilya Bakery
In addition to all of the yummy food options, look for live music and entertainment throughout the festival, plus bring the kids for free family fun activities in kid zones up and down the avenue.
Source: EPABID
Retail, family, and fashion shops along the avenue will also be participating; look for shopping, sidewalk sales, special events, workshops, and much more!
Source: EPABID
This is an event that I’ve been attending since it first began as Flavors of the Avenue, under a tent. In 2017, the event moved along the avenue itself and has become the largest event on E Passyunk.
Source: EPABID
To read some of my past posts highlighting this event, check out:
This year, I wanted to highlight one of the many vegetarian options that will be offered on Sunday: Eggplant Meatballs from Brigantessa! I attended a media event for Flavors this year and was struck with how many delicious meatless options will be offered this year.
Every Sunday is pasta night in my house, so we went for a meatless Sunday, substituting in these yummy Eggplant Meatballs for our usual Meatballs in Tomato Sauce.
Ingredients:
1 large eggplant
1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 small onion, finely chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced (or use a garlic press)
2 (28 oz) cans tomato puree
1 bay leaf
4 tablespoons chopped basil, divided, plus more for serving
salt and pepper, to taste
2.5 cups bread crumbs (I used Italian bread crumbs)
2 large eggs
1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese, plus more for serving
Harira is a wonderfully filling and hearty soup originally from Morocco. It can be made with many different ingredients (and can be made vegetarian), but it’s typically made with lamb, chicken, or beef, lentils, and chickpeas in a lightly spicy tomato broth.
This dish is a staple during Ramadan to break the daily fast, and also makes for an awesome dinner on chilly nights!
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 lb lamb chunks
1 large onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced (or if you’re like me and don’t like the texture of celery, keep large so you can remove later)
3 carrots, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ to 1 teaspoon harissa paste, depending on your heat tolerance
1 (28oz can) crushed tomatoes
½ cup parsley, chopped, plus more for garnish
¼ cup cilantro, chopped, plus more for garnish
1 cup brown lentils, rinsed
1 cup red lentils, rinsed
1 (15 oz can) chickpeas, drained
6 cups chicken broth
4 oz vermicelli, broken into smaller, 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (or 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch to make gluten free)
I thoroughly dislike rainy, cold weather. The only perk of this crummy weather is the awesome comfort food that typically emerges from it! Dublin Coddle is one of those dishes.
This slowly simmered dish uses all of the traditional Irish fixin’s — bacon, sausage, and potatoes. Dating back to the 1700’s Dublin Coddle makes use of leftover rashers (bacon), bangers (sausage) and potatoes and turns them into a wonderful winter comfort food dinner.
This dish is a great Saturday dish… it takes while to cook but is well worth the wait!
When I first began learning to cook, Coq Au Vin was one of the first recipes I attempted to make. And boy, did I fail miserably. So I’ve stayed away from the recipe since — I haven’t tried to make it in over a decade!
I figured it was time to finally try making it again, and use my trusty multi-cooker to make it fail-proof!
This one-pot-wonder for Pressure Cooker Coq au Vin takes about 80 minutes to prepare, so I’d suggest saving this for a weekend. I made this on a Sunday and saved it to eat during the week.
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more if needed
4 ounces pancetta, diced
2.5 lbs chicken, assorted pieces (I used bone-in and boneless chicken thighs and legs)
salt and pepper
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
For whatever reason, I do not cook with broccoli. In fact, the last recipe I posted on my blog that included broccoli was in 2012!
I don’t exactly love broccoli, but I started feeling bad about my lack of broccoli in my cooking. So. Here’s a simple but delicious pasta recipe that comes together fast enough for busy weeknights!
Note: I was sent a sample of Speck Alto Adige PGI in order to write this post. All opinions are mine alone. #sponsored
During the winter, I cannot get enough comfort food recipes. To me, Italian food is the ultimate comfort food — usually quite simple to make, with a few high quality ingredients that make the meal good enough to share with company.
I wanted to highlight an ingredient that you may not have heard about before: Speck Alto Adige PGI. From the Alto Adige region of Italy, Speck Alto Adige PGI is ham that has been air cured and lightly smoked. It can be used in recipes that call for bacon or prosciutto, and add a nice smoky, herby flavor to the dish. When buying, look for the PGI certification. The PGI certification of Speck Alto Adige means “protected geographical indication” and ensures that you are buying an authentic product made in its area of origin under strict guidelines.
To highlight the uncommon but delicious flavor of Speck Alto Adige PGI, I decided to make a speck and anchovy pasta topped with garlic breadcrumbs.
This recipe for Speck and Anchovy Pasta with Garlic Breadcrumbs is based off an Epicurious recipe and delivers great flavor without a lot of effort. It just so happens to mostly use ingredients that I tend to have around my house, so that was a nice perk too!
I’m trying to do more food prep on weekends for busy weekdays. Breakfasts are relatively easy; I make a batch of muffins and freeze the extras for future weeks, or make overnight oats or chia seed pudding in individual jars. For dinner, I tend to make something in my slow cooker and/or pressure cooker and then buy ingredients for short weeknight-friendly meals for the rest of the week. But lunch can be a bit of a challenge. We make salads from time to time, but I wanted to branch out a bit and make something we could add to a sandwich – shredded chicken salad.
I made this from scratch using my Pressure Cooker, but you could also use shredded rotisserie chicken.
Ingredients (makes 4 servings):
Chicken:
3 pound whole chicken
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup chicken broth
Chicken Salad:
if not making your own chicken: 1 (3 lb) rotisserie chicken
This recipe actually builds from the two previous, with some minor changes. For simplicity, the entire recipe from start to finish is below so you don’t have to go to multiple posts to make it. The multi-pot shortens the time of making a solid chicken soup, but it is still a labor of love. Total time to cook is roughly 3 hours.
It freezes well, so it’s a great recipe to make now to have on hand for sick days!
Ingredients: (serves 8)
Chicken:
1(3 to 4 pound)whole chicken – I used a 3 pound chicken
