onions

Instant Pot Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

Thanks to the Instant Pot pressure cooker, this easy chicken with wild rice soup is rich, creamy (without any added cream), and fast to make, and it tastes even better the next day, making it a great addition to your meal prep plans. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, not to worry, I’m sharing my stove top directions as well.

It’s soup week!

This week I’m sharing a few of my favorite soups, old and new. And a good thing too, because when my daughter came home from school and looked at me with a red-ringed nose and her eyes at half-staff and announced her “throat was sooooooo sore”, as she breezed past me and coughed, wheezed, and hacked her way down the hall and into her room to flop onto her bed like a left-behind Raggedy Ann doll, I knew we were in for the night.

Good thing I had this soup prepped and ready for cookin’.

Creamy chicken and rice soup. Pure comfort and totally right for all that feels wrong.continue to the recipe… about Instant Pot Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

How to Make Caramelized Onions

Caramelized onions add a whole lot of flavor with very few ingredients and even less effort, so long as you know the secrets. Here’s how to do it.

Chopped onion is the foundation to oh-so many recipes. But as everyone knows, raw and sometimes even sautéed onions can be intense or overpowering.

But when sliced onions are cooked low and slow in a bit of butter and oil, they become savory bites of sweet candy that are nearly jam-like, transforming everything from burgers to pizza to pastas, and definitely chips in dips, with their deep, rich, and nutty sweetness.

Don’t even get me started on soup. French Onion Soup without caramelized onions would simply be tepid broth, and who’s craving that?

continue to the recipe… about How to Make Caramelized Onions

Classic Shrimp Macaroni Salad Recipe

A simple mayonnaise dressing lightly coats the classic ingredients of homemade macaroni salad, fancied up with bay shrimp for an easy side dish made perfect for every barbecue, picnic, or potluck.

Updated: This recipe one of my main go-tos for nearly every summer BBQ dinner I host or bring something to. So after re-visiting this recipe so many times this summer and looking at the old photos, I knew it needed a refresh. I hope you’ll enjoy the new look of one of my favorite salads, too.

Isn’t it funny how so many favorite recipes come from the kitchens of cooks who don’t consider themselves anything other than average? They aren’t culinary trained, they haven’t worked behind the line at fine restaurants and have never fathomed the thought of authoring a cookbook. Or even a food bloggity blog.

But those cooks, they all have at least one recipe they can rock in the kitchen.

That’s the secret to this Shrimp Macaroni Salad Recipe. Years of experience and good, old-fashioned, home cooking.

continue to the recipe… about Classic Shrimp Macaroni Salad Recipe

Outrageous Herbacious Mediterranean Chickpea Salad

This easy Mediterranean garbanzo bean salad is infused with flavor thanks to a heaping helping of fresh herbs with a garlicky lemon dressing that ups the crunch from red bell pepper, celery and red onion for a simple side dish or topping for greens.

Are you sick of me repeating myself yet?

I’ve said it before and I’ll likely say it 9,349 more times again: Salads are my favorite.

I’m far more tempted by a plate with a sampling of four varieties of salads than a plate of four desserts.

That’s why this salad, in all of it’s understated simplicity, is proof positive that eating real, whole foods doesn’t have to be a complicated affair when simplicity radiates from the whole ingredients its made with.continue to the recipe… about Outrageous Herbacious Mediterranean Chickpea Salad

Rosemary Flatbread with Baked Goat Cheese

Store-bought naan is the shortcut for perfect flatbread and easy dipping in this savory, creamy goat cheese appetizer with roasted vegetables.

Sure, I like to cook. What would a food blogger be who didn’t?

But, like any good cook I also like to eat out, and besides my tried and true family favorites, that’s where I find a lot of my recipe-creating inspiration. It’s where pro chefs test out their culinary chops and people like us get to reap the benefits. And steal a few ideas too.

This flatbread recipe is a riff on a menu item at one of Salt Lake City’s most popular, tried and true restaurants, Café Trio. It’s a popular spot for ladies who lunch (and drink wine), bridal parties and baby showers, just like the virtual bridal shower we’re having today to celebrate the soon to be first baby toes arrival for the lovely Joanne of the food blog Fifteen Spatulas.

Café Trio is what you’d find listed in restaurant directories as “casual fine dining.” Pastas, salads, thin crust pizzas and sandwiches all with an upscale twist.

The restaurant has been around for over 20 years and this flatbread appetizer has never left the menu. After eating it over and over lo’ these many years, it’s obvious why.

continue to the recipe… about Rosemary Flatbread with Baked Goat Cheese

Heirloom Tomato, Zucchini, Caramelized Onion and Feta Galette

Caramelized onions and a spread of Dijon mustard make this rustic summer vegetable pie a favorite for an easy lunch, a light dinner or impressive appetizer.

Welcome, lazy dog days of summer. I’ve been waiting for you to show up.

The time of year I wish I was one of my favorite four-legged furry friends so that it would be perfectly acceptable to lie about the house and languish in the long shadows of the evening as the air conditioner kicks on and off before I wander down the hall to have someone else prepare my dinner, feed me and even get a little scratch on the old belly. And of course since I wouldn’t have thumbs, how could I possibly be expected to do the dishes?

It sounds pretty good. Except I wouldn’t want to eat dog food. No. Not at all. But rustic tarts loaded with summer veggies? That I will do. And friends, it is a FAR cry from dog food.

continue to the recipe… about Heirloom Tomato, Zucchini, Caramelized Onion and Feta Galette

Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Pizza

This easy to make flatbread pizza features ribbons of sweet potato and a tangle of caramelized onions overtop a bed of ricotta cheese, and gets finished with fresh herbs and feta. Enjoy as an appetizer or a main meal.

Some people (meat loving carnivores) get hung up on the illusion there must be a meat protein in a meal to make it “real”. I’m looking at you, husband.

This pizza just bunked that notion.

It also bunked the notion that a pizza has to be round. Or that it needs a sauce. No, no, no, it doesn’t. Your taste buds can’t tell what free-form shape delivery system of food starts as and with so many layers of flavor you’ll never miss a messy sauce.

Shortcuts like store-bought naan and caramelized onions that are made before hand take the work out of cooking this meal.

Welcome to Monday pizza night ala Meatless Monday that comes together in a hurry. And greetings to loving every minute of it.continue to the recipe… about Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Pizza

Blackened Seafood Pasta

This is one of those dishes that originated in one of our favorite restaurants—actually the restaurant where my husband and I met—and made it’s way to our at-home dinner table.

It’s one that is so good, you figure out what that special thing is that makes it so craveable and it becomes part of your family foodie vernacular.

Blackened Seafood Pasta. It’s what’s for dinner.

continue to the recipe… about Blackened Seafood Pasta

French Onion Cheese Bread

Onions. You either love ‘em or leave ‘em. I’ve always been a fan of melty, gooey cheese with a side of soup so of course my French Onion Soup recipe is my downright, most craveable shhhlurp.

So when I was assigned with coming up with a craveable appetizer recipe, I set my sights on an alteration of caramelized onions, cheese and bread.

They are the three main food groups, right?

While I clearly have a love for the hearty broth that my caramelly onions usually swim in, this time around I left the idea of soup to its own devices in my favorite tortellini soup recipe.

This time, the onions topped crusty halved pieces of melty white cheese topped french bread. The melted cheese pulled from nose to nose ala Lady and the Tramp, with plenty of crunching in between.

continue to the recipe… about French Onion Cheese Bread

Slow Cooker Balsamic Chicken

When I received an S.O.S. comment on Facebook from one of my favorite readers, Maribel, I put on my thinking cap and went straight into action.

With Christmas Eve approaching in just a wink of an eye, Maribel commented that she was in need of a recipe that had enough style to impress at the holiday dinner table.

But there was one condition. The main dish had to be cooked in a slow cooker.

See Maribel doesn’t have an oven. No, I don’t know why—I’m fantasizing it’s because she’s either in the midst of an amazing kitchen remodel or lives in a teepee fashioned with an es long extension chord to a chugging generator or possibly just doesn’t believe in the clutter an oven adds to her kitchen?

continue to the recipe… about Slow Cooker Balsamic Chicken

Beer Bratwurst and Onions Recipe Plus 7 Oktoberfest Dishes

Hello, my name is Heidi. Classic German name right? I even fit the demo: blue eyes and blonde hair—thanks more to my colorist than my genes as I’ve gotten older—but I can still claim it, right? Please say yes. Please.

You might think I was named after the classic children’s book, or maybe an ancestor who traipsed about the countryside, blonde braids wrapped about her bobbing head as she delivered steins of brew to very happy citizens.

Well, that’s about half right.

Yes, it’s a pretty German name and my German immigrant grandmother was pleased with the choice, but my naming was also influenced by another Heidi, a family friend who did indeed deliver beer. Back in the day she and her husband owned the oldest bar in Utah complete with a stuffed head of a St. Bernard on one wall and dollar bills pinned to the ceiling. Heidi was gorgeous, blonde and the funnest person in the one-room joint. Let’s just say that legend has it that the top of the bar saw the bottom of her heels more than once. Am I like her? Buy me a drink sometime and maybe you’ll find out for yourself.continue to the recipe… about Beer Bratwurst and Onions Recipe Plus 7 Oktoberfest Dishes

Craving > Spicy Hominy and Chicken Soup for SoupaPalooza

It’s been one sorry, sorry, SORRY winter for snow. Usually by this time of year I’ve had my snow shovel out at least 8 times and have created at least 4 snowmen. But this year I haven’t even dusted off my snow boots. And that bums me out because they’re cute. And warm. And I love ’em.

So just when I’ve finished all my kvetching about no snow and finally weaned myself from the longing for a big old fashioned winter dump, what happens? It snows this morning. Really? Really you swarmy groundhog Punxsutawney Phil? I was finally dreaming of blossoming cherry trees, swimming pools and lemonade and here we go, more winter. I wonder if the Leap Year had anything to do with it. Hmmm, a metaphysical diabolical scheme.

Luckily, I had a quick and easy winter soup recipe at the ready. continue to the recipe… about Craving > Spicy Hominy and Chicken Soup for SoupaPalooza

Swordfish Skewers and a Skewer Recipe Round-up

Pool side. Sunshine. Beers before it’s 5 o’clock somewhere. Yup, it’s Labor Day.

I’m taking advantage of one of the last official days of summer to put my grill to the test with the assignment of cooking up some delicious, charbroiled vittles.

What’s on the menu? Chermoula Swordfish Skewers, a recipe I covet from a dog-eared 2007 issue of one of my undying foodie mag loves, the UK’s Delicious magazine.

Get the Chermoula Swordfish Kebabs recipe from Delicious mag and get skewered this weekend. And don’t forget the sunscreen.

Looking for more ways to bob your kebab? Here they are. Enjoy.

I am a big, big fan of Satay thanks to several visits to Thailand, where its served straight from the chargrill on the streets streaming with speeding Tuk Tuks and homeless dogs lurking about for a dropped morsel. Jen’s adaptation of Taste of Home‘s Thai Style Chicken Satay’s combines chiles and lemongrass for the sweet, tart heat that’s the dish’s Thai signature.\

The talented creative force behind the scenes of the online foodie magazine Maché (a.k.a. food porn deliciousness) Adam & Joanne’s obsession with the spiced up heat of one of my fav condimnets led them to creating Inspired Taste‘s Sriracha Beef Skewers in all it’s caramelized honeyed goodness.

When not on her bike burning all of the cupcake calories she might enjoy, Lisa is busy creating healthy recipes like Bike Bake Blog‘s Herbed Vegetable and Haloumi Kebabs. Haven’t yet tried this high melting point cheese that is oh-so good when grilled? Do yourself a favor and DO SO NOW!

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