Tasty Tuesday!

The holidays are upon us (or at least me!), which means that I'm not making anything super fancy or hard right now because ... I just don't have the time. That said, I'm also trying to cook extra healthy at home because I know what happens when I head out to restaurants or parties. I need to make up for my indulgences somewhere.

That said, there aren't a ton of veggies that are in season right now - it being freezing cold winter in Chicago and all. Fortunately, I'm still finding some pretty good winter greens in the stores, and I've been making a lot of kale. Lucky for me, the wee ones like it, too - especially when I make the crispy baked kale.

But for something a little more fun, we made Asian Kale earlier this week. It was super easy and really tasty. We paired it with my Miso Glazed Chicken and rice, and it was a perfect winter meal. The wee ones loved it, too.

Asian Kale

Ingredients:
6 cups kale (about a bunch and a half)
2 t sesame oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 inch ginger, fresh grated
1 c chicken stock
1 t soy sauce
pepper to taste

Directions:
Wash your kale just before cooking. Fold the leave in half vertically so that the stem is on one side and leaves are on the other. Cut off the stem and toss, saving the leaves. Cut the leaves into bite sized pieces.

Sautee the onion in a pan with the sesame oil at medium high heat. After a minute, add the garlic and sautee for another minute.

Add the kale, ginger, and chicken stock, and cook for about two minutes. You'll want to see the kale starting to wilt (and shrink) but don't want to overcook it. Add the soy sauce and stir to coat.

Remove from the heat and add pepper, stirring again. Serve immediately. And ummm because I did so, and then it disappeared, I ended up with no pictures. Sorry! I'll make it again soon though, and hopefully I'll have pictures then. This does go really well with my miso glazed chicken or chicken satay with peanut sauce. Yum!

Enjoy this and more at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday with Blessed With Grace!

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Tasty Tuesday - Miso Glazed Chicken

Last night, I made one of my favorite dinners. In fact, it's one of the wee ones' favorite dinners, too. Unfortunately, I haven't made if for a couple months, so when the wee ones saw it, they refused to eat it.

But Moooooooooom, it has sauce on it.

Mommy, I don't like it.

Mommy, I don't like this dinner.

I want something else, Mommy.

And no, they hadn't tried it yet. This wasn't shaping up well. But it's a favorite. So I give you my Miso Glazed Chicken.

Miso Glazed Chicken

Ingredients:
1/2 cup white or yellow miso paste (or a mix of the two)
1/4 cup sugar (scant)
1 T soy sauce
1/4 c chicken stock
3 T oil
1 T ginger, grated
4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts.



This is a super easy one. Put all the marinade ingredients into a bag, and squish the bag until it's all nicely combined. Then add chicken!



I prefer to let it marinate overnight in the fridge and cook it for dinner the next day. This time I marinated it only for three or so hours, and the flavors hadn't quite penetrated the way I wanted, but it was still yummy!

After you've marinated it, pray that it's warm outside and you can grill!

Or if you live in Chicago, pull out that grill pan and heat it up to medium/medium high. Once it's fully heated, plop that chicken on down.



Cook until it has nice grill marks on one side, then flip to the other. Cook until it's done all the way through. Let it rest for about five minutes before you serve it.

I like to slice it against the grain and serve it with some quinoa. Yum!



For more yummy stuff, check out this week's Tempt My Tummy Tuesday with Blessed With Grace!

Oh, and twenty minutes into the meal, the wee ones finally tried their food. Below is Mister Man's review. Little Miss helped out in the background, which also explains the shaking camera at the end, since she was hanging off my arm.



Enjoy!

Anyone Hungry?

Really, that was just a rhetorical question. I'm not sharing. Well, actually, I am sharing, but not the food pictured below. That food is what I won from Parking At Home's Pay It Forward contest! It arrived yesterday, and I'm so excited!

I'll admit that there are a few items that I'm a little unsure of what they are, but I've sent the images to a friend of mine who's mom will know and can give me cooking instructions that aren't in a language that doesn't share characters with English. Were I not headed to Cirque du Soleil tonight and then out to dinner with some friends, I'd be eating one of these tonight!

It looks like the Mother Lode, doesn't it?

When I spread it all out on the floor (with Meow's help, of course), I realized that it really is the Mother Lode. And yes, I'm anal retentive enough to unpack it and organize it. It didn't do this just for the picture. I'm aware that I have isues.

This is some roasted corn tea and some green tea with roasted brown rice. I've never tried either (green tea, yes, but not with the roasted brown rice). The friend I sent the pictures to said the corn tea tastes vaguely like popcorn. Basically, I'm all in on that one!


Next came the Cups of Instant Rice Noodle Soup. I'm imagining it like the Lipton Cup 'o Soups, but man these are huge! Two meals at least, I'm thinking!

This is the first of my mystery items. There is no English translation anywhere on this, although it appears to my untrained eye to be some sort of breakfast item. If I figure out how to cook it.

We move on to my lifetime supply of nori! The good news is that nori never goes bad. If you've had it for awhile and it gets a little soft, just pop it in the microwave, and it'll crisp right up. These are the whole sheets great for making all kinds of sushi (and snacking).

The lifetime supply also comes in mini-snacking size. This is 24 packages of precut nori. I think I need to have a sushi party someday soon!

This is another soup, anchovy flavored. And yes, I do like anchovies. Salty, but yummy. The cooking may be a slight challenge, but I'll figure it out. This is a front runner for dinner tomorrow.

More mystery items with no English translation. They appear to by ramen noodles, however. I just have to figure out how to cook these, too!



And lastly, who can complete a meal without some candy? Really.... I'm still trying to figure out how I have yet to dive into these. My only excuse is that I was exhausted last night when I got home after work and the wake and watching my friends' kids (we brought them home from the wake because they were SO done -- including the younger one jumping up to grab his grandpa's beard) that I forgot I had them and just went to bed.


So now that I have my treasured Mother Lode, it's my turn to run another Pay It Forward contest. This one starts once the post goes up. I'll run it until Wednesday around 4pm (CST) next week and post the winner that night, the 23rd I think.

My prize is again a mystery, but hopefully it will be somewhere in the league of the Mother Lode, although I don't think I can be quite that cool.

Rules:

1) If you are entering, that means you are committing to run a Pay It Forward contest on your own blog once you receive your prize. Don't disappoint me!

2) To enter, comment below between now and Wednesday July 24 at 4pm CST. Your comment should include guesses on what my mystery items are and how I should cook and eat them. Hopefully I'll have the real answer from my friend's mom by then!

3) Enter only once, and please have a blog so that you can carry on the torch.

4) I'll use a random number generator on Wednesday to pick the winner and post. I'll also email the winner, so be sure you reply by Saturday the 26th so I can get your prize out to you.

Good luck! And THANK YOU again to Parking At Home!