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Long time, no see! The holidays always leave me feeling like I have to play catch-up with everything for weeks afterward, and, unfortunately, finding new meals to make tends to take a back seat!

Anyway, over Christmas break we took the girls to a local Las Vegas restaurant called Anime Ramen, and being the teen and pre-teens that they are, they absolutely loved it. The food was good, too, and we decided that once things calmed down we were going to try playing with some homemade Japanese food ourselves. So last week we ordered soba noodles on Amazon and I got to work.

This recipe for Soba with Sesame Sauce originally came from AllRecipes, but I’ve adapted it a bit below.

The original recipe called for raw broccoli, but not everyone likes it raw, so I blanched it first: put it in a pot of boiling water for just a couple of minutes and then dunk it in ice water to stop the cooking. It gets rid of the rawness without losing all of the crunch. You can also use a bag of frozen broccoli, boiled for just a few minutes. I scooped the broccoli out with a spider so I could use the same boiling water for the noodles.

I also added chicken breast to make it a bit more substantial for dinner. Make sure you cook it all the way through since it’s not going back into the heat (unlike a stir-fry, for example). If you want to make this vegetarian, just leave out the chicken.

We were a little wary about eating it at room temperature (it felt like it should be piping hot!) but it was good, and this will be perfect for summer!

Soba with Sesame Sauce
serves 5

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/3 cup toasted sesame seeds
1 package (9.5 oz) dried soba noodles
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons white sugar
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons dark sesame oil
8 green onions, chopped
3 cups broccoli florets, blanched

Cut chicken breasts in one-inch strips and saute in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until cooked through. Set aside.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the noodles and cook them for 4 minutes, or until just tender. Drain and rinse with cold water, and drain them again.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil, green onions, and chicken. Add the noodles, and the toasted sesame seeds. Toss well and stir in the broccoli. Let the dish sit for 30 minutes at room temperature before serving.

Our cool evenings are coming to an end so I’m trying to squeeze in as many cold-night dinners as I can. A family favorite is this chicken noodle soup — with dumplings! It may seem like overkill to have both noodles and dumplings, but it’s delicious. You can easily leave out one or the other if you like.

This is very versatile as well. You can easily substitute the raw chicken for cooked leftovers (roast chicken works perfectly).

Or you can make the soup in the crockpot, and do the dumplings separately on the stove: Pour about an inch of chicken broth into a shallow pan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to simmer, and drop your dumplings in, and cover. Let cook for a few minutes and then serve with the chicken soup out of the crockpot.

I have made dumplings in the crockpot, but it took forever. Doing it separately on the stove is much faster.

Chicken Noodle Soup with Dumplings

1 lb chicken, cut into 1/2 to 1 inch cubes
1 Tb oil
2 Tb butter
1 potato, peeled and diced into small pieces
2 carrots, peeled and diced into small pieces
1 onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 tsp poultry seasoning
2 Tb flour
6 cups chicken broth

2 cups egg noodles
1 cup frozen peas

2 cups biscuit mix
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp dried parsley

Add oil and butter to large pot over medium heat. Add potatoes, carrots, onion and bay leaf and cook for five minutes, stirring often. Season with salt and pepper, and add poultry seasoning. Add flour and cook for two minutes, and then stir in broth and bring to a boil. Add chicken and stir, cooking for about five minutes. Add egg noodles and stir.

Combine biscuit mix with salt, garlic powder and parsley, and add about 1 cup of warm water (you don’t want it too wet or too dry, so you may need to adjust with a little more mix or a little more water). Using two large tablespoons, scoop out a spoonful and drop gently into the pot. I usually get about six dumplings. Cover the pot and reduce heat to simmer, steaming the dumplings for about 10 minutes. Remove the lid, remove the pan from the heat and add the peas.

I would usually serve soup with a yummy homemade bread, but there are enough carbs in this soup on its own!

For all my love of chili, I have to admit that I’ve never had a white bean chili. There’s really no good reason for it other than I’ve just never gotten around to it.

So while I was writing up my dinner and grocery lists last week, I was looking around for a few new ideas to try and came across this white bean chicken chili recipe. I had pretty much everything on-hand already except for the beans and chicken, and I always love a recipe that makes use of the crockpot.

Except that I forgot it was a crockpot dinner and didn’t start it until late afternoon. I’m impatient and didn’t want to wait until the next day to try it, so I just made it on the stove and let it simmer for 90 minutes instead. It worked perfectly. Read More