easy dinner – In Good Taste

Asian-Style Capellini with Ginger and Vegetables

Maris Callahan — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 22:34:43 +0000

I miss summer. I miss summer for all of the reasons I like summer, but I also feel like a saner person during the summer. From June through September this year, I did a great job at eating healthy, working out almost every day and doing all of the things you’re supposed to do when you have about 60 pounds to lose. Then, like clockwork, October rolled around and I completely lost my momentum. I’ve maintained a 20 pound weight loss (only 44 more to go!) but for whatever reason, the changing seasons completely zaps any motivation that I have to get to the gym regularly, cook more at home instead of resorting to ordering food delivery every other night and eating foods that make me feel good instead of foods that make me say “why did I eat that?” That is why the world needs more healthy, hearty pasta dishes. This capellini pasta recipe is an adaptation of a recipe from a Weight Watchers cookbook and is one of three that I shared this morning on a CBS Chicago segment about healthy swaps to make in your favorite pasta dishes. There are a lot of ingredients I love in the […]

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10 Slow Cooker Recipes to Make on Sunday for the Week

Maris Callahan — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 13:00:32 +0000

In years past, I’ve been just as excited for fall as every other white girl who likes to wear leggings as pants and sip the annual pumpkin spice latte. Summer is hot and sticky and you sweat just standing outside, and there was a time in my life that I looked forward to sweaters. At some point in the past few years I’ve grown to appreciate, well — maybe cult-like worship is a better term — summer: weekend days by the pool, after-work happy hours on rooftop terrace restaurants, and the sunlight that takes the sting out of the miserable winter and spring we have in the Midwest. The one thing that I am really looking forward to though is using my slow cooker more often. It seems unnatural to be making soup, stew and chili when it’s 90 degrees outside and we have access to a grill, but the idea of “set-it-and-forget-it” meals is growing increasingly attractive the busier I get. As long as we’re on the subject, I want to talk about my slow-cooker for a few minutes. I have the KitchenAid Multi-Cooker, which comes with a 2-in-1 reversible steam basket and roasting rack. It has 10 cooking settings […]

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Crock Pot Salsa Chicken Tacos

Maris Callahan — Sun, 13 May 2018 17:00:55 +0000

Taco night is the best. It’s one of my very favorite dinner party themes because there are so many ways to do it. And unlike pizza night, which involves a level of dough precision that I have never quite been able to master, taco night is relatively foolproof. Last weekend, Brad and I managed to squeeze two taco nights into one weekend. We also ordered takeout empanadas twice, but that’s beside the point. Friday night, our friends Alison and Kyle had us over for dinner to see their brand new apartment. On the menu was fresh guacamole, grilled steak tacos, spicy pork tacos and all of the taco fixings you could imagine. Even though they offered to send us home with leftovers and we politely declined as all good guests usually do. On Saturday, I deeply regretted that decision. So it only made sense to do what any rational human would do: double down on taco night. After a brief taco hiatus on Saturday night, we made tacos on Sunday night with our neighbors, Amanda and Tim. One of the other very best things about taco night is that it can be as nutritious as you choose to make it. […]

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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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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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