It’s high time we had a new chili recipe on A Cookable Feast, and today we do: Spicy Turkey Chili is in the house, people!
It’s Halloween as I post this, a spooky day, indeed! Chili has become associated with Halloween here in the U.S., and for good reason: it’s warming and hearty, making it the perfect pre-trick-or-treating meal for kids and their parents heading out into their oft-chilly neighborhoods.
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Prosciutto, Pear, and Fontina Arugula Salad with Roasted Squash and Spicy Pecans is LIFE, people!
This is one of those recipes where I had to include pretty much every ingredient in the title because I liked them all so much. I’m OBSESSED with this salad with its chunks of ripe, juicy pear, savory acorn squash, salty prosciutto, creamy fontina, cayenne-kissed toasted pecans, and sweet maple vinaigrette dressing. And arugula! Arugula is my soulmate, true-love green. I’m enamored with its peppery, delicate fronds and how it seems to go well with everything.
This rich, flavorful, filling, very fall-ish salad was inspired by a dish that has lingered in my memory since I had it earlier this year at a Detroit restaurant called Dime Store (I did a post on my brunch visit to that establishment on my other blog, 100 Places in the D).
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Soup weather is officially back! And to kick it off, I’m rolling out my Creamy Roasted Red Pepper Potato Soup with Chicken recipe with its rich flavors and delightful Southwestern flair. Heck yes, soup season!!!
Every year, the end of summer always bums me out at first, because I heart that fair season with its shimmering heat waves and long, sunlight-laden days.
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I’m so, so excited by today’s recipe because it is inspired by a bomb meal I had this summer at KouZina, a restaurant here in the Detroit area. Say hello to Greek Bowls with Chicken and Spicy Roasted Red Pepper Feta Sauce!
I liken KouZina to a Greek Chipotle: you order at the counter, and one of the options is to create your own bowl. You select your rice (white or brown), your meat (chicken, gyro beef, or gyro lamb – or all three), your veggies, cheese, and sauce and plop down to eat the hell out of that glorious goodness! Visiting KouZina for the first time was a magical day for me (one that I highlighted on my other blog, 100 Places in the D).
After that day, as I was pleasantly haunted by the memory of how frickin’ delicious that meal was, I became intrigued with the idea of attempting to recreate the spicy feta sauce that my Greek bowl was doused with at Kouzina. For me it was the crowning jewel of the whole thing.
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Summer is HERE!!!!!! And what says summer quite like this colorful Asian Chicken Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing?
OK, according to the calendar, it’s not officially summer yet; it’s still 11 days away – but the weather doesn’t know that. Here in the Detroit area, the day I’m typing this is the epitome of a gorgeous summer day as far as I’m concerned. The sky is a bright blue, the grass, a vibrant lush green, and I got sunburned last weekend sitting outside on a rooftop patio eating pizza and drinking blueberry beer and then attending a baseball game – that equals summer to me. And I’m THRILLED. May through October is definitely my favorite chunk of the year hands-down, and I’m so happy to be right in the thick of it wearing sandals and cheerfully sweating my butt off.
I hope if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere like me that you’re experiencing beautiful summery weather and shenanigans that make you hungry – hungry for this Asian Chicken Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing! And if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere and gearing up for winter with its chilliness and waning daylight hours, well, if you’re anything like me and not a fan of that time of year, you could use this Asian Chicken Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing for the cheer of its vibrant colors alone. You can pretend you’re at a beach party eating it while you’re really holed up in your house hiding from the frigid temps in your flannel jammies – and then whip out this recipe the next time it IS summer and you ARE invited to a beach barbecue. That’s probably what I’ll be doing the next time it’s winter for me.
But for now, it’s summer where I live, so I’m extolling the virtues of this Asian Chicken Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing as a warm-weather salad.
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Hello, all! It’s May, and it’s maybe almost summer here in Michigan, and summer means fresh, healthful salads like this Arugula and Quinoa Salad with Feta, Blueberries, and Pecans!
It’s been two weeks since I’ve last posted, and I’m glad to be back in the game! Life has been a little crazy lately, but when is it not in this day and age for most of us, really? I let myself fall out of the habit of recipe creation and felt The Resistance – that dreaded force that plagues so many of us creatives – looming larger and larger. The longer I waited to try a draft of a recipe, the more daunting a task it felt.
Last night, I finally coaxed myself into trying a first draft of a vegan dessert recipe I’ve wanted to attempt for weeks. The result: a resounding FAIL. Draft 2 would require some prep work; I’d need at least a day or two to get back at it. I was discouraged.
Finally I decided this morning that if I wanted to get a post up, anything would do, really. That’s the kind of thing I have to tell myself as a recovering perfectionist. Perfect is the enemy of the good, right? (Any recovering perfectionists with me on that?) So I got up early and dragged myself to the grocery store, intending to pick up a few things for a granola recipe I had in mind – until a more tantalizing idea hit.
What about a salad, with fresh blueberries . . . and pecans . . . and arugula – of course arugula. And some quinoa. And my lemon vinaigrette.
OK, NOW we’re talking!
Arugula and Quinoa Salad with Feta, Blueberries, and Pecans was born.
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Spring is here, and springtime means ASPARAGUS! I’ve been enjoying it since it came into season over the last month and was eager to incorporate it into a recipe. A creamy, lemony risotto seemed like the perfect fit. Parmesan cheese and lemon are two of the very best complements to asparagus that I can think of, so it’s a total match-made-in-heaven situation. And also, I pretty much look for every excuse to make risotto that I can think of.
Why do I adore making risotto so much? I love that while it requires vigilance and a little bit of time, I also find it to be a relaxed, easeful, almost ritualistic endeavor. As I stand watch over the risotto, intuiting when it’s time to ladle in more stock, to stir, I’m given an opportunity to slow down and truly be present to a beautiful culinary moment. And it doesn’t hurt that this beautiful culinary moment is slow enough in unfurling that I also have time to savor a glass of wine and catch up on DVR’ed shows – most recently, the latest two episodes of Girls! – while it’s doing it’s thing.
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Spicy Avocado Turkey Burgers with Sweet Potato Fries, you are my new favorite! XOXOXO
Have you ever found yourself in a love affair with a food that you were previously all like “meh” about? That pretty much sums up my relationship with ground turkey. I once scoffed at it as a subpar substitute for ground beef and all its flavorful, red-meaty, fat-saturated goodness. Because I love to eat clean, but red meat and I are like this! My loyalty to it is fierce. We are bonded together in a Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque pact.
I could seriously be on the vegan+red-meat diet, if that were a thing. Just me, fruits, veggies, and a ribeye steak from an ethically-raised cow – YUMMM. Ground turkey wouldn’t have been invited to our island before my recent revelation.
Then I visited Detroit restaurant Central Kitchen and Bar (an experience highlighted in this post on my other blog, 100 Places in the D), where its blackened turkey burger invoked me. I mean, a turkey burger coated in blackening seasoning and topped with avocado, sweet peppers, and muenster cheese was not your typical humdrum turkey burger. I needed to keep an open mind and give ground turkey another try, right?
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TGIF, all! To celebrate the glorious forthcoming weekend, I’ve got this Spicy Chickpea Tacos recipe for ya!!!
I know Taco Tuesdays are all the rage – and for good reason. Tacos are AWESOME, and Tuesdays deserve to be spiced up. I mean, “Party Animal” wasn’t the moniker that immediately came to mind for me around that day of the week before Taco Tuesday became a thing, but now I’m all like, “Tuesdays, you’re so crazy!” Still, I like the idea of tacos being a Friday food, because in my mind they are a celebratory food, and Friday is a celebratory day for me on account of it means a two-day break from my cube-rat corporate day-job existence (who feels me???). So I hereby denote these Spicy Chickpea Tacos an Honorary Friday Food. [Cue the confetti!!!]
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Happy Monday, all! Today we have another recipe for a simple, flavorful salad. Drumroll please for: Strawberry Arugula Salad with Blood Orange Vinaigrette!
OK, so this salad sounds sups fancy because it has ingredients much more exotic than the stereotypical wah-wah iceburg salad with its watery leaves and cucumber and tomatoes and croutons and ranch. I mean, for one, it’s got a dressing that contains the juice of blood oranges.
