The Feastie Blog

Chicken may be one of the most versatile, straightforward proteins there is - but it doesn't have to be boring. If you do eat poultry, chances are you have some form of chicken somewhere in your fridge or freezer. Chicken is just so easy to work with - poach, broil, grill, fry, bake - there are endless ways to enjoy this protein. But if you're relying on one or two favorite chicken recipes, chances are you may be bored with it - it's an easy thing to "overdose" on. Add a new recipe to your weekly rotation - try something new, something different, and get out of a boring chicken rut. We've rounded up the top 5 chicken recipes on the web this week to get you started. So go for it - chicken out! And check out our poultry, beef, and pork Pinterest board for more fun recipes. 

Chicken Pasta with Garlic Gravy from A Duck's Oven
Photo from A Duck's Oven

I use hyperbole often - "best" this, "crispiest" that, etc. But this is the easiest cranberry sauce ever. The Mr. and I spent Thanksgiving with our friends (and their family), who cooked up an epic feast for 20 people. An hour or so before the other guests were scheduled to arrive, we realized we did not have cranberry sauce. To say the stovetop was full would be an understatement - there was a pan bubbling or simmering on every available burner. What to do? Make the easiest cranberry sauce ever. NO POT REQUIRED. I know it sounds sacrilege, making cranberry sauce in the microwave, but trust me on this. This is the cranberry sauce I grew up on - this made an appearance at every holiday dinner (even Passover!) at my grandmother's house. But we don't restrict this to just holidays - it's incredible on "Thanksgiving sandwiches", in a panini, on ice cream - this is a year-round cranberry sauce (because it's that damn easy). So although the holiday season has come to a close, there's no reason you can't party on and enjoy some cranberry sauce anyway!

Happy  New Year's Eve everyone! 2012 was a great year - The Mr. and I moved to a new city/state, made new friends, found new interests, celebrated a new job, explored our new city - we've had a wonderful year. But I have a feeling 2013 is going to be even better. We at Feastie want to wish you a Happy New Year as well! We hope 2013 is a happy, fulfilling, and delicious year for you all. 

These short winter days are killing me. I've been making dinner around 3pm just so I can take photos of it with the last of the natural daylight! The only perk here is that on the days I go horseback riding, usually 3 times a week, dinner is ready and waiting for The Mr. when he gets home (usually an hour or two before me). He usually waits for me so we can have dinner together, but some nights he just can't wait - so my 3pm dinners come in handy, as all he has to do is reheat and eat. So I've been looking for dinners that reheat well - of course there are the usual standards like soups, chili, and baked pastas, but I wanted something new to throw into the rotation. Something easy, relatively healthy, and good for leftovers. This vegetarian mushroom black bean tortilla casserole from Everyday Food totally fit the bill - it reheated well and leftovers were great. Kind of like really lazy, really easy enchiladas. Great for Meatless Monday and great for a weeknight dinner - this is going in the rotation! Top with sour cream (or Greek yogurt), avocado, and hot sauce with a squeeze of lime, and you have a delish dinner. 

For food lovers, the holiday season can be both a blessing and a curse. Spending time with loved ones and enjoying festive meals is one of the great joys in life. It's the time of year where you bake your grandma's famous apple pie, or induldge in Christmas candy and eggnog - and all those Christmas cookies! The endless cookies! Unfortunately all of the rich, heavy, decadent food can take a toll on your body after a while - at some point your body is screaming out for a pile of vegetables (hold the butter). So go ahead and pile on the veggies - now is the perfect time to get back on track with healthy meals and nutritious food. Start the new year with a healthy outlook, and try some new recipes to add to your weekly rotation for 2013. We've rounded up the top 5 healthy post-holiday recipes to get you back on track and excited about healthful eating. And don't think healthy means plates of bland salad greens without dressing - think high fiber vegetarian burgers, stir frys, even crispy kale chips! 

Spicy Black Bean Burgers from Diet, Dessert, and Dogs
Photo from Diet, Dessert, and Dogs

2012 has been an amazing year for food and food bloggers! We've seen the rise of Pinterest and the demise of Hostess. Food blogging continues to grow in popularity with more new blogs started every month and more relative newcomers rising in popularity quicker than ever. We've put together a list of the ten food blogs that were most influential via social media this past year. We looked at our index of over one thousand blogs (the largest of it's kind) to find the ten blogs whose recipes were consistently the most liked, tweeted, and especially, pinned during 2012. We've also included each blog's most popular recipe from 2012. Congrats to each of the following ten blogs!

10. My Baking Addiction www.mybakingaddiction.com Recipe: No Bake Nutella Cheesecakes
Photo from My Baking Addiction

Admittedly I did make this for our Christmas dinner dessert - but if you have any leftover cranberries and apples floating around like I do, you need to make this apple cranberry crisp from Two Peas & Their Pod. It's the perfect way to use up any leftover fruit you have laying around, and the rest of the ingredients are pantry staples. Warm apple cranberry crisp to go with your leftover turkey sandwiches - does it get any better? The first thing I thought as I bit into this crisp was, "This tastes like CHRISTMAS." The tart cranberries just scream "CHRISTMAS!!!" Mixed with the sweet apples and spiced crisp topping, the cranberries really make this dessert. I served it warm, without ice cream, but that was only because I forgot to buy it when I was doing our holiday food shopping. Oops. I highly suggest serving it warm and topped with vanilla ice cream, as suggested by Maria of Two Peas & Their Pod. However you eat it, cold, room temp, or warm, this dessert tastes like the holidays and it will definitely be on our table again next year - it's too good not to make a repeat appearance. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with their loved ones yesterday! Our Chrismukkah dinner was wonderful, now I'm looking forward to planning New Years Eve! 

It's Christmas Eve! Did you know the entire day is actually called "Christmas Eve"? So it's not even Christmas Eve day, it's just Christmas Eve - all day. In any case, now's the time to cross your t's and dot your...lowercase j's (extra points to anyone who can tell me what movie that's from) before your big holiday dinner. But even before that - what are you serving for breakfast on Christmas morning? This is JUST THE THING. You make it tonight in 5 minutes, stick it in the fridge overnight, and then bake it in the oven while everyone is waking up on Christmas morning and VOILA. Perfect Christmas breakfast (or brunch).

I love hosting brunch at our house - breakfast is by far my favorite meal of the day, and there's something special about a huge breakfast-type meal shared with friends and family that just makes me really, really happy. BUT! Hosting brunch and then proceeding to spend the entire morning/duration of the meal in the kitchen flipping pancakes or french toast is a huge bummer - especially on a holiday. We've all been there - french toast for a crowd! We can do it! And then you stand at the stove flipping pancake after pancake or bread slice after bread slice and run back and forth to the table (or tree!) to attempt to enjoy the meal with your family while not burning your next batch of toast - it's just not fun. My solution is to make everything ahead of time - the night before, if possible - and then spend the entire time with my loved ones. This overnight baked french toast has become a favorite with our friends - they've even been known to request it for brunches, baby showers, bridal showers, sleepovers, etc. It's so easy it practically makes itself, and it's all done the night before - all you do the morning-of is stick it in the oven and while it bakes, mix up a pitcher of mimosas (or hot cocoa, for the little ones) and slice some fruit and you're done. By the time you're done arranging the fruit plate and pouring the drinks, your family will awake to the most amazing smell of this thing baking - trust me, it will make your entire house smell unbelievably good. Once it's out of the oven your kitchen duties are over - and you can spend the rest of the morning enjoying delish food with your family. Win-win.

If you're interested in a more holiday-esque version of this dish, try my overnight baked pumpkin french toast. 

Four days till Christmas - what are you cooking this year? We'll keep it short and sweet - there are far too many Christmas recipes out there to squish into one post, so we're rounding up the top 10 recipes for your Christmas festivities this year. Breakfasts, brunches, main dishes, sides, desserts - a little bit of everything. Whether you like a traditional feast or a vegan spread, check out the thousands of recipes at Feastie. Did you know you can search by holiday and course? You can! You can even filter by dietary restriction - so if you need to find that perfect vegan Christmas main course, we've got you covered. Simply enter your search term in the box and use the little boxes on the right to filter your results. Voila! 

Prime Rib Roast With Miso Au Jus Recipe from Steamy Kitchen
Photo from Steamy Kitchen

Okay so this recipe is waaaaaaay late - this is from this summer when I threw a baby shower for a girlfriend of mine. It's just one of those things - it got buried in my unpublished posts - so here it is now. I think it's worthy of a blog post, so I'll share it - better late than never!

This is yet another baby shower recipe - more quiche! As delicious as I'm sure the quiche Lorraine was, I didn't get to try it (bacon!), so I wanted something that I could enjoy (as well as any vegetarians at the party). And you can't go wrong with goat cheese and sauteed leeks - if there was ever a match made in heaven, that's it. I adapted the recipe from Whole Foods, and it did not disappoint - it was delish. The original recipe suggests using a frozen or prepared pie crust, but I used my favorite pie crust recipe - I highly recommend making your own pie crust, if you have the time (but then again I'm all about the crust). This is a quick and easy dish that would be perfect with a salad for a light dinner, and equally wonderful for brunch. Really, you can't go wrong with goat cheese and leeks - hot or cold, breakfast or dinner, it's a yummy combination!

Just in case you're not overloaded on pumpkin already, here's another pumpkin recipe! WOOHOO! I've been on a homemade granola kick lately, trying to find a healthy version of "something crunchy to put on yogurt", as The  Mr. would refer to it. I've found a few healthy brands of granola at the natural foods store near me, but I almost dropped the bag when I read the price - $8 for a TINY bag of granola! WHAT?! When you make it at home, it's damn near free! That'd better be one EXPENSIVE plastic bag they're packing it in (or maybe it was a bag made of gold, or cashmere, I forget - that would explain the price). And before you say, "But the ingredients are organic!" I can guaran-freaking-tee you that even using all organic ingredients here at home I won't spend anywhere near that price for a teensy bag of granola. In fact I can make an entire gallon-sized ziploc bag FULL of delish, crunchy, golden homemade granola for a fraction of that. I didn't price it out this time, because everything I needed was already in my pantry or fridge (so, uh, I guess it would be free?), but that should give you a good enough indication that you don't need to be paying $8/bag for great granola. So not only is it cheaper - it's fresher, it's healthier, and it makes your house smell incredible while it's baking. This pumpkin pecan granola is free of refined sugars, dairy, or any other animal products - it's vegan and can be made gluten-free (just buy gluten-free oats). Granola is by nature somewhat high in calories, but at least the calories here are from organic rolled oats, nuts, and healthy virgin coconut oil. This stuff is amazing sprinkled on yogurt, it's great eaten as cereal with your choice of milk, but mostly I just eat it by the handfuls for a snack. Did I mention that your house will smell unbelievably good while this is in your oven? It's true. I have another batch in the oven right now and it smells like spicy sweet pumpkin pie wafting through my house. Ahhhh.