Category: Tasty Recipes

Chicken Spätzle Soup

Spätzle SoupChicken Spätzle Soup

Take your favorite homemade chicken noodle soup and give it a hearty twist: substitute spätzle (little German dumplings) for packaged noodles.

Spätzle is fun to make, although it’s a little bit messy. It is certainly more work than dumping a bag of egg noodles into boiling water, but the end result is definitely worth the time and energy.

Made from wholesome ingredients including eggs, milk, and flour; you probably have everything on hand to make spätzle right now. The only thing missing would be a spätzle maker, an inexpensive gadget that cuts the batter into small knobs. Don’t fret though, you could easily use a colander with large holes and press the dough through with a spatula.

How To Make Spätzle

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Perfect Soup for the New Year

Chicken Soup with Lima Beans

Chicken Soup with Lima Beans

Whether one has over-indulged over the holidays or not, Chicken Soup with Lima Beans is perfect for the New Year. The soup is light and lemony, but definitely rich enough to satisfy. It’s chock-full of vegetables and protein, plus it is lower in carbs and higher in fiber than traditional chicken noodle soup.

The secret to its greatness is creamy-buttery large white lima beans from Rancho Gordo that cook up beautifully smooth and tender. They taste more like fresh vegetables than other beans.

Bean Lover’s Gift Box

I’m looking forward to sharing many more bean recipes this year on Taste With The Eyes! My gift box included Black Eyed Peas (recipe here), Christmas Limas, White Limas, Yellow Eye, Pozole, and Classic Cassoulet Beans plus a wonderful book, French Beans by Georgeanne Brennan.

Rancho Gordo Lima Beans

Chicken Soup with Lima Beans Recipe

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What Are You Eating New Year’s Day?

Black-Eyed Peas With Ham Hock and CollardsWhat Are You Eating New Year’s Day?

Maybe it’s much too early in the game
Oh, but I thought I’d ask you just the same
What are you eating New Year’s? New Year’s Day?

Maybe I’m crazy to suppose
BLACK-EYED PEAS be the one you chose
Out of a thousand recipes
You received

Oh, but in case they stand one little chance
Here comes the JACKPOT question in advance
What are you eating New Year’s? New Year’s Day?

Eat BLACK-EYED PEAS for luck and COLLARD GREENS for money. Add CORNBREAD for gold and PORK because pigs have long been a symbol of wealth and gluttony. Their forward rooting motion is a symbol of positivity. So here’s to a happy, healthy, delicious, and super lucky new year!

Black-Eyed Peas With Ham Hock and Collards Recipe

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Custardy Cornbread with Honey Butter

Custardy Cornbread with Honey Butter

Custardy Cornbread with Honey Butter

I awoke to another zillion emails, but one really caught my eye. It was for New Year’s Day Cornbread from Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo, a specialty food company known for their glorious Heirloom Beans.

Sando wrote, “This recipe comes from my pal Taylor Boetticher of the Fatted Calf Charcuterie. If you’re in the Bay Area, try making your Black Eyed Peas with their bacon or other pork treats. The recipe is true Texas cornbread and it’s perfect with your pot of good fortune. A huge thanks to Taylor’s mother, Star Boetticher, for sharing the recipe and keeping good conditions alive.”

I headed off to the kitchen to preheat the oven. Baking with available ingredients, it turns out that I had to replace the whole milk with 1% milk, and swapped low fat plain Kefir for buttermilk …hoping it would work. And it did! This Cornbread is perfect even with my substitutions, no need to look for any other cornbread recipe, ever.

The cornbread was served with room-temperature salted butter that was blended with honey…and a pot of coffee. ‘Twas a delightful December breakfast. The custard layer is simply genius. For good fortune, I will make it again on New Year’s Day to be served with Black Eyed Peas and Collard Greens (recipe now posted here).

Black Eyed Peas are eaten for luck, Collard Greens are symbolic of dollar bills, and Cornbread is symbolic of gold. And we will add a Glazed Spiral Cut Ham to the menu because pigs have long been a symbol of wealth and gluttony. Sounds delicious and lucky, can’t beat that. Here’s to a Prosperous New Year!

Boetticher Family Cornbread Recipe

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Kimchi Potato Latkes

Kimchi Potato Latkes

Kimchi Potato Latkes and Happy Hanukkah!

A jug of olive oil, which held enough oil to last for one day, burned for eight when the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was rededicated.

We eat foods fried in olive oil to commemorate that ancient miracle from the second century BCE and potato pancakes are almost everyone’s favorite symbolic food. This year my latkes have a daring twist. 5779 is the year of the Kimchi Potato Latke!

Adults who adore kimchi’s complex spicy, salty, sweet, sour, bitter, umami, fermented flavors will fall hard for this pancake. Kids, unfortunately, not so much…the younger set should probably stick to traditional style potato latkes with that wonderful combination of sweet apples and sour cream, like this one.

The recipe is a marriage between my kimchi jeon (mind-blowing kimchi pancake batter) and my standard recipe for potato latkes. The combination is amazing pancake synergy.

Kimchi Potato Latkes Recipe

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Rockfish Tostadas (fresh, local, sustainable fish)

Rockfish Tostadas

Panko Crusted Pacific Rockfish Tostadas
with
Corn Tortillas, Avocado, Shredded Cabbage, Chile, Radish
Mexican Onion, Cilantro, Baja White Sauce, Lime

Rockfish are a wonderful clean-tasting fish with a firm texture and nice flakes when cooked. This fish stands up to many methods of cooking, but it is especially great when coated with panko breadcrumbs and sautéed to get that golden brown crispy crust with a steaming hot inside that is mild and flaky and muy delicioso.

Over 70 members of the rockfish family populate the Pacific Ocean from Alaska to Mexico with many species caught right here off the coast of California.

Pacific rockfish are sustainable and affordable at around $10 per pound compared to halibut at over $25 per pound!

Rockfish Tostadas Recipe

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French Bistro Trout Amandine

French Bistro Trout Amandine

French Bistro Trout Amandine with Haricots Verts
Almonds, Dried Currants, Capers, Lemon, Browned Butter, Parsley

The back story for this dish started last summer when I received an email from Mon Ami Gabi Restaurant in Las Vegas regarding their Summer Scratch Off event. I wasn’t particularly interested in the event, but the image of the trout with fresh green beans really caught my eye. It looked so balanced and tasty, I saved it to my computer.

The restaurant describes itself as honoring classic French cuisine, serving traditional French gastronomy in a quaint Parisian bistro, devising fresh takes on classic fare.

On a recent a trip to Vegas, we had to have lunch at our favorite al fresco restaurant. Who can resist sitting outside on The Strip, watching the spectacular choreographed Bellagio water fountains accompanied by Andrea Bocelli & Sarah Brightman singing Con Te Partiro? Not us, not ever. It is a rare visit to Vegas indeed, when we do not have breakfast or lunch at Mon Ami Gabi at Paris Las Vegas. On one trip a while back, I even purchased a set of their plates for my collection.

Bellagio Fountains
Fountains of Bellagio seen from Mon Ami Gabi
French Bistro Trout Amandine

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