broccoli Archives - Mamma's Cooking

Marinated Roasted Teriyaki Chicken

The best meals are delicious and easy to put together when you need to get dinner on the table fast. Sometimes that means doing some prep the day before or morning of. This is one of those great meals. It takes a little time to make the marinade, but that is the most effort you will need to exert.

Marinated Roasted Teriyaki Chicken

Ingredients

2 to 3 pounds of chicken thighs

½ cup of vegetable oil

½ teaspoon sesame oil

½ cup of soy sauce

½ cup of rice vinegar

½ cup of honey

3 Tablespoons of brown sugar

1 Tablespoon of minced ginger

1 Tablespoon of onion powder

1 clove of garlic, minced

Juice of 1 lime

1 ½ cups of water

¾ cup Wegman’s Organic Teriyaki sauce (gluten and lactose free), plus more reserved for after cooking.

sesame seeds, optional

Directions

Mix together vegetable oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar, honey, brown sugar, ginger, onion powder, garlic, lime and water. Marinate chicken in mixture for 4 hours to overnight. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Discard marinade, rinse chicken and then pat dry. Spray roasting pan with non-stick spray. Pour 3/4 of a cup of teriyaki sauce into a shallow bowl. Coat each piece of chicken with sauce and plan in pan. Cover pan with foil and cook for 20 minutes. Uncover, turn heat up to 400 degrees and cook for another 25 minutes. Use a meat thermometer to ensure each piece of chicken is cooked through. If you want crispy skin on the chicken, place under broiler for 2 minutes.

Serve with rice and broccoli.

You never have enough chicken recipes in your repertoire!

Quinoa Risotto

Risotto is a decadent, delicious and extremely versatile side or main dish. You can make a quick version in your rice cooker or put the kids in front of a movie and make this slow version. The slow version is much, much better. Forty minutes of cooking in peace is also much better 🙂 You can choose to make it vegetarian, vegan or full of meat. It is naturally gluten free. Here is my basic recipe:

Quinoa Risotto

Ingredients

32 ounces of chicken or vegetable stock

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary

1 teaspoon of chopped fresh sage

½ cup of sweet onion, diced finely

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 cup quinoa

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

In a large measuring cup, like this Pyrex one, mix stock, garlic, rosemary and sage. In a medium soup pot brown the onions in olive oil. Add the quinoa and stir for a couple of minutes. Add about 1 cup of the flavored stock and stir until it soaks in. Then repeat, until the quinoa is cooked and creamy. Taste and add more salt or pepper if needed. Then you can either serve as is or add in some cooked chicken and acorn squash or just the squash or roasted mushrooms, cooked peas, whatever you like.

You can make it more decadent by adding 1/2 cup of your favorite cheese. For example, cheddar and some broccoli or mozzarella and tomatoes, or just Parmesan.

To make risotto in your rice cooker, start the same way, heat the oil and onions in the rice cooker, then add the risotto. Add as much of the seasoned stock as your rice cooker will allow. Stir, cover and let cook. Then about 15 minutes later open the lid and stir again, adding more of the stock. Repeat until the risotto is the consistency you like and then add the meat, vegetables or cheese.

This could be a great side dish or main meal for a romantic dinner or for an elegant holiday meal. You can even wow your co-workers with this and bring it to a potluck. Keep it warm in a rice cooker or crock pot. I made it with cheddar and broccoli the other night and served it along side one of my cooking bucket list items: poached salmon. It was delicious! You’ll have to wait for that recipe 🙂

3 Easy 10 Minute Meals

The election is now behind us and whoever you voted for, we can all agree its time to move forward! Now we can occupy our brains with the holidays instead! Which unfortunately for many can be just as stressful, especially when you cannot rely on take out. I, like many of you have a endless list of things to do: keep the children alive and fed, go to school meetings, do laundry, clean, pay bills, juggle all the activities, work and do more laundry, so I completely understand that dinner needs to be done in 10 minutes time most nights. Especially with the holidays coming, our time is even more limited. These are three of my go to super fast recipes for when dinner needs to be on the table ASAP and hopefully help keep your stress levels down!

Kielbasa and Peppers with Mashed Sweet Potatoes

kielbasa-and-sweet-potato-10-minute-meal

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

1 Turkey kielbasa (make sure it is GF if you need it to be), diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 package of already made mashed sweet potatoes (I like Wegman’s) or a couple of large sweet potatoes

Directions

Heat your cast iron skillet (or sauté pan) over medium heat with the olive oil in it. Once hot, add kielbasa and peppers, stirring occasionally. Cook for about 5-7 minutes. While that is cooking follow the instructions on your mashed sweet potatoes (or just microwave a couple of sweet potatoes-remember to poke holes with a fork!- and serve with a little butter, salt and pepper). You can either leave out the kielbasa for a vegetarian meal or substitute leftover turkey, chicken, steak or your favorite already cooked sausage.

Asian noodles are always a hit in my house and are a great option for an easy weeknight meal. Healthy, tasty and a great alternative to take-out.

Asian noodles with shrimp and broccoli

asian-noodles-10-minute-meal

Ingredients

1 package of Maifun Rice Sticks or your favorite noodles (GF if you need them to be)

1 pound of shrimp (frozen or fresh, even faster if already cooked!)

1 head of broccoli, roughly chopped

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/3 cup rice vinegar

¼ teaspoon fish sauce, optional

¼ teaspoon sesame oil

2 teaspoons of ginger (either this stir-in paste from Gourmet Garden or minced fresh)

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon onion powder

3 Tablespoons lime juice

4 Tablespoons brown sugar

Directions

Cook noodles according to package. Add the broccoli to noodles with 3 minutes left in cook time. Drain all. Mix the soy sauce, vinegar and rest of the ingredients in a large bowl. Toss noodles and broccoli with sauce. Toss in cooked, peeled shrimp and its ready to serve. I serve it with fresh cilantro, chopped peanuts and a couple splashes of siracha. A squeeze of lime juice is also a great way to finish the dish.

If shrimp are fresh or thawed and not cooked, this can still be a quick meal, as long as they are cleaned and deveined! Here is a quick delicious way to cook them. Mix 1/8 cup vegetable oil, splash of sesame oil, 4 cloves of garlic – minced and juice of ½ a lime. Toss with the shrimp and cook for 3 to 4 minutes each side in a 400 degree oven. Cool, peel and toss with noodles.

This dish is extremely versatile. It would also be great with, zoodles (zucchini noodles), rice or cauliflower rice in place of the noodles. You can easily substitute tofu, scrambled egg, leftover chicken, steak or even turkey from Thanksgiving. It is good hot, room temperature and cold.

Having these jack-of-all trade meals in your back pocket will make dinner easier to make with what you have on hand.

Pasta with Pink Sauce

pasta-with-pink-sauce-10-minute-meal

Ingredients

1-16 once package of spaghetti or your favorite pasta (gluten free of course if you need it to be)

1 jar of pasta sauce (or one 15 ounce can of tomato sauce)

4 ounces (1/2 block) of cream cheese

Directions

Cook pasta according to package. While water is boiling, pour pasta sauce into sauce pan and heat on medium. Add cream cheese and stir until combined. It will be clumpy. While pasta is cooking pour pink sauce into a large serving bowl and then add drained pasta. Stir and serve.

This is a great base to add whatever cooked vegetables, leftover turkey, chicken or shrimp if you like. I recently made this and served steamed green beans on the side. Stop and Shop steam in the bag green beans. My husband liked them more than when I buy green beans, clean them and steam or roast. Lesson learned! I don’t need to exert the energy!

These three easy dinners will hopefully make your busy nights less stressful and your holiday leftovers easier to finish and disguise! What are your favorite ways to use leftover holiday food? Comment and let us know! I am working on creating Pins for Pinterest for these recipes, so for now just follow me on Pinterest or follow this page and you will be the first to know when you can save these recipes!

I’m still here and still cooking

Hello everyone! I am still here, grilling, spending time with the family and working. I’m hoping to kick the blog up again this fall!

As we head in to the end of summer, I pledge to write again. I have been cooking and taking photos, so watch for fun school lunches, easy dinners, easy entertaining meals, breakfasts and more! I will finish my cooking bucket list, even though I haven’t started it yet! I will enter new worlds (for me) of technology like instagram and ramp up my presence on Facebook and Twitter. So stay with me! If there is anything you would like me to write about or try to cook for you all, send me a an email, mammascooking@gmail.com or like me on Facebook and tell me there!

The picture above is a pork sirloin roast marinated in an Asian-style sauce and basted each time I turned it on the grill. I served it with cooked spaghetti, extra sauce (not used to marinade) and steamed broccoli. The Asian-style sauce is a version of one of my go to sauces, but with a minced garlic clove added and a little extra brown sugar to caramelize on the outside. Make sure you keep some of the marinade aside to use for basting and for tossing with the noodles.

Getting kids into the kitchen

Finding time to blog is proving to be harder than finding time to cook lately. Whether its dealing with sick kids, sick Mamma or Daddy, long mornings playing outside, working and getting all of our chores done, there always seems to be something more to do. I am trying more and more to get the kids involved in the kitchen, so I can have time to be in there myself. Here are some ideas for how to get your kids to help you cook when you don’t want to kick them out of the kitchen and be on your own 🙂 I tell my kids there is one rule to cooking with Mamma in the kitchen and if they don’t follow it, they don’t get to help – “Listen and do exactly what I say.” This has been surprisingly effective. Karina was kicked out of the kitchen on 2 different occasions and now does exactly what I say, in the kitchen at least.

1. Let them stand next to you and watch. This way while you are cooking, as you are about to do something think about whether or not they can try it and let them try. Even my 2 and half year olds can add a pinch of salt or sprinkle a seasoning that comes out slowly. Break an egg into a dish and let them pour it in. If you need to add water, let them fill the cup and pour it in. It does take a little longer but gives them a great sense of accomplishment.

2. Let them mix. Slowly, slowly, slowly 🙂 Then Mamma has a turn and goes fast, fast, fast. Then its their turn, slowly, slowly, slowly. Mamma’s turn, fast, fast, fast. You get the idea.

3. Let them shake. If you need to coat something, like chicken or vegetables with seasoning, put it in a plastic bag, close it and let them shake it.

4. Let them have a task all to themselves. This can be as easy as have them get their plates (non breakable ones), cutlery, napkins, cups, etc. ready. If they can use the sink without flooding the room, have them wash the vegetables, scrub potatoes or just press the spinner on the salad spinner.

5. Let them press buttons. When using the coffee grinder, blender or food processor let them press the button. Whenever I make smoothies, they know as soon as the mini food processor comes out and clamor all over me to get to press the button. Hold them up and tell them what numbers to press on the microwave.

Use your imagination or just think of things you don’t like doing and realize that now you have someone who will probably love doing it 🙂 Its not always foolproof but, if they have a hand in making it, they are more likely to eat it.

Here is a recipe for my kids’ new favorite lunch or easy dinner:

Corn pancakes, hot dogs and broccoli with peas:

Ingredients
1 package Jiffy cornbread mix
1 Egg
2 Tbsp of shortening, melted (I used melted butter, since that was all I had in the house)
3/4 cup Milk
Handful of Shredded carrot (or zucchini or broccoli, whatever vegetable you like or just leave it out)
Hot dogs (I use all beef hot dogs, use whatever you like)
Broccoli florets (fresh or frozen, whatever you have. Use any vegetable you like or think your kids might eat)
Peas

Make pancake mix on side according to box (or use your own favorite corn pancake recipe). You can let the kids mix it. Then add in the shredded vegetables if you are using them. Turn your griddle on or whatever you use to make pancakes and spray with cooking spray. Pour about 1/4 cup of mix for each pancake onto the griddle once its hot. Cook the hot dogs however you like to, on the grill, boiled in water, sauteed in pan. Steam vegetables or roast in oven. I like to roast the broccoli for 10-15 minutes after its been tossed in a little olive oil, salt and pepper. This even works with frozen broccoli.

I have been working on some cooking contests, trying to cook some of my Pinterest pins and fine tuning my meal planning. I’ll post more about those in the next couple of months and hopefully will get further along on my bucket list. Enjoy the start of spring!