A Life in Food by real-life Chef Cheryl Bennett
Orange ginger dressing is light and zingy. It’s perfect for your green salads, but also great for dressing grain salads. Made with only a handful of ingredients, this dressing is quick and simple.
Salad dressings, like sherry lime vinaigrette, are easily made at home and are much less expensive than store-bought.
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…Colorful fall panzanella salad is full of autumn vegetables like roasted butternut squash and Brussels sprouts. Fresh apples, pecans, and pumpkin seeds give it an extra bit of crunch.
Fall salads are some of my favorites. They get earthier, heartier and sometimes, a bit more interesting than their warm weather counterparts.
This one is no exception. There is a ton of flavor going on in this bowl and each bite is better than the one before.
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…Sheet pan chicken and vegetables cooks together on one pan for a super easy dinner with minimal cleanup. Meals like this are a lifesaver during hectic evenings when you need to get dinner on the table without a lot of effort. Plus, one pan meals are a great way to use up what you already have.
Also known as “clean out the fridge dinners” around here. Onions, potatoes and tomatoes are usually on hand, so you are halfway there. If you have a bell pepper sitting in the fridge, or a few carrots that are starting to look like they’ve seen better days, don’t waste them.
All of those miscellaneous bits of veggies can be chopped up and used for this simple pan roasted chicken and vegetables.
If you don’t eat meat, or if it’s a “meatless Monday”, you’re done. Otherwise, a couple of chicken breasts thrown on with the veggies and some seasoning makes this a slam dunk in record time.
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…This Instant Pot beef and beer chili recipe is one of our favorites. It’s a crowd pleaser for a reason and it just got even better. With the addition of a good dark beer, it’s magical. If you prefer to leave out the beer, don’t worry, it’ll still be delicious! It’s chili that tastes like it lazily simmered away half of the afternoon in 30 minutes.
We are big fans of chili in our house. This simple turkey chili is one we make at least a few times a year, along with this turkey pumpkin chili made in the slow cooker.
My original intention with this chili was bison instead of ground beef, however I didn’t embrace the idea of a $12 serving of chili. I’m used to paying a little more for food, but the price of bison has gone up quite a bit since the last time I purchased it. Once I regained my composure and wiped away my tears, I set off toward the ground beef.
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Coconut Rum Balls are like a taste of the tropics in an easy, no-bake treat for adults. The flavor gets even better overnight, making rum balls a perfect make ahead recipe. This version features toasted coconut and coconut rum. Every year, we make this easy rum balls recipe for the holidays. Recently, I made a batch of pumpkin rum balls for something different and they were a big hit.
This coconut rum ball recipe is made without condensed milk to keep it dairy-free.
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This easy lentil soup recipe will have dinner on the table with little effort. If you are a soup lover like me, you’ll want to save this easy recipe for those evenings when a bowl of soup makes the perfect supper.
Lentil soup is a classic for a reason. It is an easy soup to make, it requires a bit of chopping and not much else. It’s full of vegetables and it is delicious. This soup is filling and satisfying, but does not leave you feeling heavy.
Are you a fellow soup lover? You can find more soup recipes here.
Soba noodles with stir-fried vegetables is a quick, easy and delicious healthy option for meatless Monday, or any day of the week. Soba noodles cook in a only a few minutes, the veggies get a quick sauté and dinner is done. From fridge to fork in less than 20 minutes – faster if you prep vegetable the night before.
It’s another New Year and once again, after the gluttony that was Thanksgiving and Christmas overindulgence, it’s time to rein it back in. One way that we have decided to do that around here is sticking to a “meatless Monday”.
While we were whooping it up in Vancouver a few months ago, we had a warm soba noodle appetizer at our favorite sushi restaurant. It was loaded with seafood and unbelievably delicious. I wanted to have something reminiscent of that salad, but suitable for a vegetarian dinner. The only restriction I gave myself (aside from the seafood) was that I had to use what I had in the kitchen. It wasn’t like there was a “rule” in play… I just didn’t feel like going to store. Out of sheer laziness, deliciousness was born!
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Pickled banana peppers are quick and easy, plus they are a tasty addition to sandwiches, pizza or just as a snack. Another quick and easy pickle is my curtido recipe.
My banana pepper plants have been rather prolific and for this I am grateful. As most of you who are regular visitors to this little space already know, I went a little overboard in planting. I have a tendency to overdo things and this was no exception.
Spending so many years living in an apartment with zero outdoor space, I may have gone a little crazy when I realized that I could grow some of my own food. This had been a goal of mine for a very long time (growing food, not going crazy… that ship has sailed).
I am fascinated by the entire process of planting a seed, taking care of it and watching it grow into something that will actually feed you.
The very first time I had a banana pepper was on a pizza, my Freshman year in college. A small group of us had descended on the pizza place next to campus. We were there under the pretense of “studying” I’m sure.
There were pool tables, dart boards (which I became quite skillful at playing), air hockey tables; all the things one thinks of when looking for an appropriate place to “study”.
Anyhow, there we were and one of the guys went to order our pizza and when the waitress came to the table and set it down in front of us, I noticed that it had peppers on it. Not wanting to draw any attention to myself, I dug right in but in my head was this little voice shouting “are you nuts?!”.
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