It’s time for another cozy, yummy comfort food that will make your tummy feel like it’s wrapped in a warm blanket of love and deliciousness! Say hello to Creamy Potato Soup with Bacon and Fresh Thyme!
I’ll never turn down a bowl of hearty soup. It’s one of my favorite food categories ever, right up there with nachos, caprese salads, and anything containing unsweetened raw cacao. So even though the weather here in Metro-Detroit has been absolutely stunning the past week, with multiple blue-skied, sunny days, temperatures in the upper 50s and 60s(!), and spring feels despite it being February, I’m still digging this filling, traditionally cold-weather soup. It’s hard not to with its rich cream base, savory bacon bits, plentiful potato chunks, and plethora of spices including fresh thyme, which is pretty much one of my favorite things right now on account of it’s so lovely.
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I find comfort foods are critical during these chilly, gloomy winter months in boosting my morale – but so are fresh fruits and vegetables. They remind me that sunnier days are coming! That’s why I love this Fennel, Cranberry, and Mint Kale Salad with Orange Honey Vinaigrette recipe!
This dish feels like the quintessential winter salad to me. It contains hearty, seasonal elements: fennel, cranberries, oranges. It’s brightly colored and full of vibrant flavor, helping to ease the winter blahs. And the mint adds a freshness that makes spring feel THAT much closer.
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Today I have a recipe that’s going to up the cozy factor in your life. Say hello to Spicy Sausage, Barley, and Veggie Soup!
February is most definitely a time for ultra coziness here in Michigan. We are deep in the throes of winter and weeks and weeks of gray and gloom, so I’ll take all of the warm-fuzzies I can get!
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Hello, all! I’m all about promoting healthy eating, but sometimes, we need a treat, right? That’s why I’m sharing this recipe for Chicken, Sweet Potato, and Pine Nut Risotto with Fresh Sage with you today!
Really, this recipe is quite healthful in the scheme of things because it incorporates whole ingredients, instead of baddie processed ones. I am huge on the philosophy of whole-foods-based eating (eating meals that incorporate ingredients with natural sources, rather than processed ingredients). I believe it’s much more important than eating low-calorie. So while this risotto probably isn’t exactly low-calorie, it’s clean. Yeah, clean eats!
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Hi guys! Happy Monday!!!!
OK, I know Mondays aren’t especially happy for many of us. I hear you! But you know what will make your Monday so, SO much better? A whole chicken just out of the oven, all golden and crispy-skinned, on a bed of potatoes and onions tender-roasted in the drippings – YUMMMMM.
There are few things better in life, in my opinion, than fresh-roasted chicken. I stand over it at the stove, ripping pieces off of the still piping-hot bird, burning my fingers, dipping the pieces in the buttery pan drippings . . . THE BEST.
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OK, can you BELIEVE that we are already into the THIRD week of the new year? Craziness!
What’s not craziness: this Arugula Quinoa Salad with Baked Pears and Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette! It is just plain lovely. But first, I can’t help but muse about the passage of time, and habits, and goals, because they are on my mind a lot lately during this quickly-ensuing January. Maybe they’ve been on your mind, too.
Time really does fly so quickly. The freshness of a new year eventually wears off. New year’s resolutions become less shiny and exciting – and consequently, less enticing to follow. The daily grind wears us down, tempts us to flake out on our goals.
We are all human, and we all slip up on our goals sometimes. I’ve realized that it’s important to remind myself that this is normal. As a recovering perfectionist who was once flat-out rigid in her self-discipline, I have learned the beauty of self-compassion, of giving myself grace when I slip up with habits and goals. The key to overall maintaining challenging endeavors, I have learned, is to remember:
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Because I couldn’t stop with last week’s Cheesy Cauliflower Spinach Quinoa Pesto Bake, today we have: another quinoa casserole!
I’ve deferred from using the word “casserole” in these recipe titles because of the connotations it has for me. It conjures up images of garish 1950s-era concoctions or dishes swimming in cream-of-chicken soup. OK, cream-based-soups have their place in my heart – I did come of age in the ’90s in the Midwest – but you won’t be seeing them as an ingredient here. We value freshness and the use of whole ingredients here at A Cookable Feast! My philosophy is to include processed foods not as a staple of my diet, but as a sporadic indulgence (I do have a fondness for Cheetos, for instance, but I don’t keep them in the house. However, I’ll gobble them at every barbeque and birthday party they’re set out at).
The Postwar era was a cray-cray time for food here in the U.S., with home-cooked meals often relying heavily on then-newfangled processed ingredients and oft-zany brand-sanctioned recipes (Google “Crazy 1950s recipes,” and you’ll see what I mean – an excellent diversion when you’re rendered useless by post-lunch drowsiness at work). But I’ll take one lesson from that time: as long as a not-repulsive combination of ingredients is used, the casserole is an excellent format for a quick and easy meal.
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Today on the blog we have a dish that combines the healthful (nutrient-packed cauliflower, spinach, and quinoa) with the decadent (homemade pesto). Say hello to Cheesy Cauliflower Spinach Quinoa Pesto Bake!
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Hello, all! Happy New Year!!! I hope you had a safe and abundant holiday season full of relaxation, physical and mental recharging, and hopefully lots of cooking and eating of good food.
I’m glad to be back to writing on this blog after an unplanned month-long holiday break. December was a lovely time of connecting with oft-too-little-seen family and friends, enjoying decadent food and drink, and spending more time than usual in my beloved fleece sweatpants. All of the rest, relaxation, and socializing has been great. But I’m ready to get back into the game and give 2017 all that I’ve got!
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Gilmore Girls, guys.
I know everyone has been talking about Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life online lately. What they are saying, I’m not sure, as I’ve been intentionally avoiding any feedback on the recently-released four-part miniseries because I haven’t finished it yet. I’ve only watched the first two episodes so far. But I’ll be watching the other two tonight!
I became obsessed with the show my junior year of college, when two friends of mine who were Gilmore Girls‘ junkies lent me their DVDs so I could catch up. Between the two of them, they had all six seasons that were released at that time, so I was able to watch the seventh and final season as it aired on TV. Every Tuesday after a long day of class, I would scoot over to one friend’s house near campus to watch it with her and her roommate, who was equally as obsessed as we were. We would sit there enthralled for the hour, then go to one of our favorite bars, The Cabin, for drinks and pizza and post-episode discussion. This was where my friend introduced me to the magical pizza combination of tomato, onion, and feta, for which I’ll be forever grateful!
Tomato, Onion, and Feta Pizza – oh, how I adore thee! Seriously, this pizza is BOMB. The acidity from the tomato, the savoriness of the onion, and the tangy bite of the feta go so well together. Savoring this delightful pizza makes the fact that I pretty much abhorred these first two new episodes of GG go down a little easier.
