pine nuts

Work from home chicken wrap

/ Erica / 1 Comment

Happy Covid-19 Shelter in Place day 14 from San Francisco, CA! Many of us are slowly adjusting to the new world of working at home; video conference calls, shopping at Safeway at 6am to find chicken, washing your hands 45 times a day, and juggling work with home-schooling little ones. In these times, shopping and cooking adds more stress to our already anxiety-filled days. Finding easy and fun things to brighten your day is essential for keeping your spirits up. 

To help in any way that I can, I created an easy, healthy lunch that is easy to put together and can be made in bulk for the week. This recipe combines my mom’s chicken recipe with my own twist. My mom is the author of Life as it Should Be, and she focuses her life on ways to simplify your life in order to free up time to do what’s really important to you.

I’ve also included alternative ingredients below for those of us who are missing ingredients at your local grocery stores.

During these times, I wish you all the most heartfelt “be well”, which also includes wellness in your spiritual and emotional world. Take care of yourselves and let’s get cooking!

Yummy chicken, greens, vinaigrette, pine nuts and gluten free spinach wrap

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts

Olive oil

Bay seasoning

1/2 small shallot, minced*

2 cloves garlic, minced*

Juice of 1/2 lemon

2 tbs parsley (optional)

1 tsp vinegar

1 handful greens (spinach or mixed greens)

1/4 avocado, sliced

Sprinkling of pine nuts

Gluten-free spinach wrap (or any wrap you can get your hands on)

*For mincing, I cheat here and use this mincer from Sur La Table

Directions

Make chicken: note- this chicken makes 8 servings for this wrap. I make the chicken in bulk as it can be used for many meals, including tacos, salads, spaghetti, etc. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash and pat chicken dry and cover with about 2tbs of olive oil. Sprinkle generously with Old Bay Seasoning (you’ll want the chicken almost completely covered). Bake chicken for 10 minutes, then flip and bake 15 minutes or until juices run clear.

Make vinaigrette: In a small bowl, add juice of lemon, garlic, shallot, parsley, vinegar. While whisking, slowly add in about 1/2c olive oil. Season with salt & pepper. Taste vinaigrette and adjust as needed. Too sour? Add olive oil. No taste? Add salt. Tastes like olive oil? Add in vinegar or more lemon.

Alternate ingredients for a richer vinaigrette: sub vinegar for 2 tsp ground mustard or 1 egg yolk

Assembly: Toss spinach, avocado, shredded chicken, vinaigrette and pine nuts. Toast wrap or heat in the oven gently. You want it warm, but not crispy. I usually watch mine and make sure to grab it out as brown spots start appearing. DO NOT microwave. This will result in a soggy wrap that will fall apart immediately. Wrap up your delicious lunch and enjoy!

Other options where ingredients are not available:

No chicken? I used canned chicken for a bit and heated it in the microwave. Believe it or not, I found it at Walgreen’s

No tortillas? Make it a salad with quinoa or Cous-Cous

No greens? Add thinly sliced zucchini, or find a pre-mixed salad, using their vinaigrette. I used a Caesar salad kit for mine when my spinach was out and it was delicious 

None of the ingredients available? Shop at Safeway on Sunday RIGHT as it opens (6am for us) or just give in and have Cup Noodles until you can get what you need. 🙂

In closing, may you be well during these times. Be good to yourselves, be good to others, stay safe. And as we’re saying more than we ever have: We’re all in this together.

Yummy vinaigrette that can be used for lots of meals!
No wrap! No problem! Eat it as a salad and add quinoa or cous-cous

Shrimp and Zucchini “Zoodles” with Hummus Sauce

/ Erica / Leave a comment

Shrimp and Zucchini “Zoodles” with Hummus Sauce

Zoodles! Time to get on the Spiralizer train – this zoodle recipe is HOT. And oh so incredibly easy! Don’t own a Spiralizer yet? Get this one on Amazon. It’s on Prime. It gets to your door in 2 days. It’ll probably get there before you get your ingredients from Safeway. It’s probably on your doorstop right now. So go ahead and order your Spiralizer now. I’ll wait.

Got it? Great. Now let’s talk about what this thing does. The Spiralizer slices veggies in a spiral shape, which makes those thinly sliced veggies ideal for salads, noodle substitutes, and curly veggie fries. While the Spiralizer has many uses, I mostly use it to make Zoodles. They are “noodles” made of spiraled zucchini that can be used as a spaghetti noodle substitute. They’re ideal as a substitute for gluten-free, guilt-free and paleo-friendly recipes. And they’re shockingly delicious. So let’s get to Spiralizing!

Shrimp and Zucchini “Zoodles” with Hummus Sauce

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Simple ingredients for a healthy meal (and wine for anti-anxiety)

This recipe uses a Spiralizer to make “Zoodles” and hummus to make a quick “sauce” in a recipe I call “delicious” (air quotes not necessary).

First, a few things I’ve learned about cooking Noodles:

  1. While you can boil these noodles in water for about 1-2 minutes, I’ve found better results from cooking them for about 3-4 minutes in a pan with the sauce
  2. They put off quite a bit of water when you sauté them, so use them with more concentrated sauces
  3.  Zoodles cook down quite a bit, so whatever looks like a lot of zoodles, double it. Each regular sized zucchini will yield the right amount of cooked zoodles for two people
  4. They are also great uncooked in salads, so I will spiralize more than I need, cook what I want, and save the rest for tomorrow’s salad
  5. If you want to spiralize hard veggies like sweet potatoes, don’t believe the online claims from the Spiralizer (or competitor brands). They just can’t do it without breaking your arm or the Spiralizer trying to get through those hard veggies. Instead, get this attachment for your KitchenAid to do hard veggies

Ingredients
1/3c pine nuts
3 sprigs parsley, leaves chopped coarsely (discard stems)
6 jumbo shrimp, peeled (I get mine from The Sea 2 U at our farmer’s market)
1/3c your favorite hummus or spread (I use Hummus Heaven Garlic Cayanne Pepper Hummus)
1tbs + 1 tsp olive oil
1tbs water
1 large zuchinni

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Shrimp from The Sea 2 U

Directions
To toast the pine nuts, heat a non-stick pan on medium high (do not add oils) and add nuts. Watch closely and stir until pine nuts are fragrant and light brown. Be very careful as nuts burn quickly. Set aside for garnish.

In a small bowl, add 1 tbs of olive oil, hummus and water and whisk until combined. Use some of the hummus mix to marinate the shrimp.

In a non-stick pan over medium high heat, add 1 tsp olive oil until shimmering. Sauté shrimp until browned and crispy on the outside and until the white parts on the middle are opaque. Set shrimp aside in a warm place.

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Perfectly cooked shrimp: browned on the outside and white parts no longer transulcent

In the same pan used to cook the shrimp, lower the heat to medium. Add hummus “sauce” and cook just until warmed and more liquid in viscosity. Add zucchini noodles and cook until completely coated in sauce and the noodles are el dente (about 2 minutes). Note: the zucchini noodles will let off water and should create a more liquid sauce. Add back shrimp to pan to coat.

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Sauce will start a little thicker (see here), but turn saucier as water from noodles is drawn out

Serve in a bowl and top with chopped parsley and toasted pine nuts. Eat and feel good about (a) how fast Amazon ships and (b) how healthy you are!