easy dinner recipe – In Good Taste

Bacon Wrapped Chicken Parmesan

Maris Callahan — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 03:57:35 +0000

I’m almost certain that the first meal I ever learned to cook on my own, start to finish, was chicken Parmesan. Or chicken parmigiana if we’re doing that. It’s simple, classic comfort food and the first thing I’ll order at a red and white checkered tablecloth Italian restaurant (seriously, try it at Club Lago. It’s the bee’s’ knees). When Jewel-Osco challenged me to use several of their Signature products to develop a recipe that’s “me” on a plate, I was tempted to take the cheeky route and develop a recipe that included coffee, bread, bagels, pizza, French fries, every kind of cheese and wine and oh! chocolate. Definitely some chocolate. Then I realized that nobody, even I, would want to eat that, and I decided to call back to the first recipe I ever perfected: chicken Parmesan. Now you all know me well enough to know that I like to take everything to the next level, whether it’s adding a special (read: more than $12) bottle of wine to pair with a simple dinner for Brad and I on a Tuesday night or a decorative piñata and fresh fruit purees for margaritas at a Saturday night taco party (I bet […]

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Baked Pasta with Spinach, Lemon, and Cheese

Maris Callahan — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 01:42:07 +0000

Last week, Brad and I ditched the frigid cold and hearty baked pasta dishes of Chicago (well, it hasn’t actually been that cold but for storytelling purposes, the winter has been long and arduous) and traded it for a week in Arizona for warm weather and delicious fish tacos alongside prickly pair margaritas. We had some really wonderful meals (there will be more on that later), but one thing they all had in common was fresh, local ingredients. Because Arizona isn’t a dark, gray, cloudy cave of depression from January until usually sometime in mid-May, they actually produce all kinds of good stuff there, from beef to citrus to olive oil. One of the best dishes we had was the first night we arrived, a simple plate of prosciutto topped with blood orange and grapefruit segments and a dusting of what I think was fried thyme. So simple and so good. I am really looking forward to spring when there is an abundance of fresh produce from the farms in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana. We live right around the corner from the farmer’s market in Wicker Park and even though Brad and I affectionately refer to Sundays as “fat kid day” […]

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Garlicky Black Pepper Salmon with Teriyaki Rice Noodles

Maris Callahan — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 18:00:33 +0000

Garlicky Black Pepper Salmon is served on top of a bed of rice noodles in a homemade Teriyaki sauce for the perfect quick weeknight dinner. When Brad and I moved in together I knew that a lot of things would change after nine years of living alone. No more leaving bras on the kitchen table, no more hitting snooze seven times in the morning and it’s only a matter of time before I’ll need to retire my pink, floral throw pillows. I also knew that cohabitation would be a great excuse to step up my dinner game. Now, I’ve long said that there is no reason someone should subsist on fast food simply because they live alone or are cooking for one, and I firmly believe in that. Even so, there are some real benefits to cooking for more than one person: there’s someone to eat your leftovers, you can try new recipes and get another person’s honest feedback, and also, it’s really nice to have a live in dinner buddy who happens to be your significant other. Neither Brad nor I are necessarily what you’d call picky eaters, but I’m very particular about quality seafood and he prefers shellfish over white […]

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How-To Roast Chicken Perfectly, Every Time

Maris Callahan — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 05:00:21 +0000

Few things are as simple and versatile as a roast chicken. It’s a great go-to weekend dinner that if you’re cooking for one or two two people, will yield you leftovers for chicken salad, avgolemono chicken soup, or other quick meals all week long. It’s also hard to go wrong with the basic method that is as quick and hands off as comfort food gets without being delivered by your friendly neighborhood Chinese restaurant. Roasting a chicken is about as domestic as you can get without actually becoming a stay-at-home housewife, right? Roast chicken is tasty, comforting and really, quite simple, especially if you choose a smaller bird that requires less cooking time than the big kahuna you get for Thanksgiving dinner — 3 or 4 pounds is usually the perfect size for 2-4 people. I like to make roast chicken year round and it’s a great standby meal for real dinner parties and Before you start, you’ll need something to actually cook the chicken in, like a roasting pan with a rack. I somehow inherited one at some point during the past eight years since I’ve been food blogging and I keep it in its original box in my shoe closet because I use […]

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Buffalo Chicken Burgers

Maris Callahan — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 05:00:54 +0000

Lean and spicy, buffalo chicken burgers made with lean ground chicken, hot wing sauce, blue cheese and red onion is the perfect answer to buffalo wings: without the grease and mess! From the moment I started telling people that Brad and I planned to move in together, I heard some variation of: “wow, what a big step” or “wow, that’s a big change!” It’s been about a month and a half and so far, the biggest change is that the amount of sports and sports media I consume has at least tripled, and the number of Grey’s Anatomy reruns I watch on a weekly basis has quickly plummeted to zero. A lifelong Chicago Cubs fan and a die-hard Buckeye, my boyfriend takes his sports very seriously. As for me, I’ve never been much of a sports fan. When I was around 10 years old, I discovered that if I feigned an interest, my dad would let me stay up later with him to watch the Yankees, so I learned a good deal about baseball during my early adolescent years. As a result, I’m far more active a participant in watching Chicago Cubs games than I am during Ohio State football. Football is synonymous with […]

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