Zesty Roasted Chickpeas

This a delicious snack food that is easy and economical to make at home. When the chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans) are roasted for a long period of time, they take on a wonderful crunchy texture. Many different spice mixes can be applied to these. They'd be great with just salt and pepper! However, I am a lover of all things garlicky and oniony so I present these delicious (and addictive) roasted chickpeas. Serves 2 (or 1, really).

Dill Potato Salad

For our 4th of July festivities this year I made my new favorite potato salad. Potato salad and I have had a difficult relationship in the past. I do not like pickles (although I love the taste of dill), eggs, or liberal use of yellow mustard in my potato salads—all of which dominate at most family gatherings. This recipe is perfect for those that like the scrumptious flavors of dill and sour cream. Enjoy! This serves 6 to 8 people.

Chicken Saute with Asparagus and Cherry Tomatoes

Delicious food in 30 minutes with minimal effort is my goal these days with a seven-month-old baby, so I was pleased to discover this recipe today at Central Market in Poulsbo. This has big flavor with in-season ingredients and was a definite crowd-pleaser in my house this evening. Serves 4.

Slow Cooker Indian Butter Chicken

Good Indian food in a slow-cooker? Yep, that's exactly what this is. Also, inexpensive and completely from the pantry? Again, yes, unbelievably. When I want something tasty, inexpensive and done by dinner, this is my new go-to recipe. It's completely hands-free when I make brown rice in my rice cooker. At that point, it's basically take-out because you can eat at any time you'd like. This meal is awesome especially because I've got a new baby in the house!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

First of all, sorry for the lack of a picture. I could take a picture of the empty stockpot, but that would do us no good. Yes, this disappeared as quickly as it was made, if that's any testament to just how good this version of Mexican tortilla soup is. Forget any sorry excuses of this soup you've had in the past—this is where it's at. Serves 6-8

Pan-Roasted Chicken Breast with Red Potatoes and Baby Carrots

This is, amazingly, a 30 minute meal. It hails from America's Test Kitchen Best 30-Minute Recipe cookbook. That book was a wonderful find. We all have those (week)days when we feel uninspired and have no desire to cook, well, this book helped me over that hump.

Lemon Risotto With Broccoli

Today is a day for experimenting and one of those dishes I've been meaning to try is risotto. I picked up the basis for this recipe from Central Market a couple months ago. It is an understatement to say this dish was the perfect use for some extra broccoli. It was delicious, fresh, and ethereal! You must try this!

Broccoli Cheese Soup

This is a lovely recipe adapted from America's Test Kitchen. You'll notice the unusal addition of baking soda to this soup. The baking soda helps break down the broccoli—without it, the brocoli would have to cook for a good hour to be soft enough for our purposes. This hearty soup serves 6 to 8. I think this would also be really good over potatoes—baked or boiled or on grilled chicken.

Chicken Braised in Soy Sauce and Lemon

I've been making this affordable dish since college. Serve the chicken with a little of the sauce over brown rice or rice pilaf.

Every spring when the asparagus is cheap, this recipe seems to be a natural pairing. I make a little asparagus drizzle sauce by shaking together 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp lemon juice, salt, and lots of pepper.

Glazed Carrot Soup

Another delicious recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Before this recipe, I'd started to give up on ever coming across a truly delicious creamy vegetable soup. This soup completely blew me away. It needs no accompaniment...it's just that delicious. Although, serving with some french bread is lovely.

Roasted Beet and Beef Borscht

I have fallen head-over-heels in love with Mark Bittman's cookbooks: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and How to Cook Everything. This recipe comes from his vegetarian cookbook and I modified it to have lovely tender chunks of beef and potatoes. This is health food at its most elegant and tasty. Unfortunately, no photos are available this time due to technical difficulties, but trust me, this soup is a beautiful magenta colour.

Turkey Chili with Kidney Beans

This chili is absolutely fabulous either on it's own or over a baked potato with sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, and chives. The flavor of the chili improves with age. Try to make it a day or two before serving. It can also be frozen for a month.

Tikka Masala

I know I haven't written in awhile and I apologize for that. However, I recently have found inspiration in a new cookbook called How to Cook Indian by Sanjeev Kapoor. The flavors are huge and comforting and the texture is absolutely luscious. I served this with some homemade garlic naan and spiced brown rice. You can easily make your own spiced brown rice by adding 5 whole cardamom pods, 5 whole cloves, and 2 cinnamon sticks to your pot of rice—the result smells like dessert! It would probably make a lovely rice pudding as well.

Black Bean, Corn, and Edamame Salad

This recipe is originally from Central Market, but it is so amazing, I absolutely must feature it! Packed with protein and fiber, this salad is a healthy and delicious alternative to the usual, fatty summer salads that show up at barbeques. Here, I have paired it with my oven-fried chicken which makes a fabulous cold lunch for the next day.

Potato and Chickpea Curry

It's been awhile since I made any sort of Indian cuisine. I was inspired while eating Tasty Bite's Bombay Potatoes. It's a pretty simple, vegetarian, and delicious entreé that can be customized in a number of ways. To the vegetables, you could add cauliflower, peas, or fresh diced tomatoes—whatever your heart desires, really.

Carrot-Ginger Soup

I first had this soup at an Italian grocery and sandwich shop in Pike's Place. I had no idea the flavors of carrot and ginger could work so well together, so, of course, I had to duplicate it at home. For making a smoothly blended soup, an immersion blender is essential. Although, if you do not have one, the soup may be blended in a blender after it has cooled (if you put the hot soup in a blender, the gases inside will force the top of the blender off and the hot soup splatter will hurt you!)

Roasted Chicken and Root Vegetables

This weekend was the beginning of Farmer's Market season and we stocked up. I took the opportunity to try a few root vegetables I hadn't tried before. In the freezer I had a whole chicken I'd bought quite a while ago and it needed to be cooked. So, in a dutch oven I made a bed of chopped root vegetables for the chicken to cook on. The sweet and spicy, yet savory smell of this cooking is truly mouthwatering and not to be missed. For our dinner, I served some roasted asparagus on the side.

Sunchokes (or Jerusalem artichokes), if you have never tried them, are the tuber of a variety of sunflower. The taste is rather like a nutty artichoke and the texture is that of a water chestnut. When boiled, they become mushy like a potato.

Parsnips are pale root vegetables related to carrots. They have a sweet and spicy flavor—perhaps butterscotch-y flavor.

Cream of Broccoli Soup

Recently, I had a wisdom tooth pulled. The perfect solution to not being able to chew was a creamy, filling soup. So, I developed this delicious and unique cream of broccoli.

Veggie Omelet

This veggie omelet was made with my Full-Circle produce. I swear this has a good day's worth of veggies in it, and most of those are dark, leafy greens. This could serve two people or one ravenously hungry me.

Thrifty Food Tip: Beans

This week we find ourselves down to the bone, money-wise. So, desperately looking around my kitchen for cheap food options, I stumbled on my forgotten dried bean collection. Whenever I need beans for a recipe, I eyeball the dried beans and think about how frickin' long it takes to cook them into a usable state. Then I go to the store to pay about a dollar a can. No more, I say! All it takes is a little time, stovetop space, and Ziploc bags to have yourself a rather large store of recipe-ready frozen beans. In a short afternoon, from a few small bags of dollar Walmart beans, I have made the equivalent of 15 cans of beans! Not too shabby. If you're curious about the things wrapped in foil, consider them a preview of the amazing breakfast burrito recipe premiering tomorrow! I've included a how-to after the break.