chicken pot pie

I'm  not a huge fan of chicken breast, but I always have them leftover from making chicken soup and hate not making something useful out of it.  Chicken pot pie sounds good and looks pretty, and I was always meaning to get around and making it but my heart was never really into it.  I finally bit the bullet last week and cooked me some chicken pot pie and I will never look back.  Seriously, it was amazing.  New favorite dish amazing.  It was rich and creamy while still being bright and fresh, all done without any cream, dairy or otherwise.  We stopped eating it just to make sure we had a decent amount of leftovers for another meal.

smoothies

Breakfast is difficult.  It's an incredibly important meal of the day that people (hint: me) usually forgo or eat, well, wrong.  Let's face it: cold cereal is not a great breakfast.  No one ever abides by the serving size listed on the side of the box. 3/4 cup of frosted flakes is probably about half the amount of what's going into your bowl.  Heavily processed food is not going to start your day off feeling great; it will make you slow and sluggish, and frankly, craving something more substantial or just more sugar.  Eggs are great, hot oatmeal is great, and my mom's pancakes are fantastic (seriously, at 160 calories they're amazing).  But even with all of these options, it's difficult to start cooking in the morning, and most of all to eat something hot.  In comes the smoothie!  With minimal work you can have a frozen breakfast in front of you in a matter of minutes.  The cold fruit is much easier going down in the early hours, takes longer to eat and is seriously filling.  Not to mention, fewer calories than cereal.  I don't add any sugar because the fruit is more than sweet enough on its own.  When I'm running around in the morning it's much easier to drink from a straw and get things done than sit down and eat breakfast (like a normal person).  And really, a smoothie is great for any part of the day.

chicken soup

Chicken soup is the only acceptable Friday Night Soup.  I'm sorry, but it's true (I'm talking to you, Jacqueline!).  Nothing screams "Shabbos!" more than a hot bowl of chicken soup along with Osem's croutons.  Any other soup is just confusing and leaves me wondering whether it's really Shabbos or not.  Split pea soup, your green color has no right to be on my Shabbos table.  Mushroom barley? What is your chewy, hearty goodness doing on Friday night when I'm about to follow the soup course with even more food?  Only the clean, simple yumminess that is chicken soup will cut it. And I will never say no to a matzah ball.

gourmet bagged lunch

Making lunch in the morning when you can barely scarf down your breakfast does not usually lead to inspiration.  This morning Bryan was not going for the same-old Dijon-mustard routine so I started looking through our (pretty empty) fridge for anything to brighten up his plain turkey sandwich.  There was freshly made pesto which he nixed for some odd reason; there was mayo which he wouldn't touch for any small amount of money; and then there was apricot jelly.  It was like a light-bulb had gone off.  The jelly was the chutney to my packaged smoked turkey!  The cranberry sauce to a Thanksgiving roast turkey!