Roasting chicken has become my latest Sunday tradition. Ever since I made one with lemon and za’atar a few weeks ago, I’ve been hooked! Unfortunatly, while I love the whole chicken/starch/vegetable meal the first night I don’t really love it as leftovers. Salads get boring, so I’ve been trying to come up with new ways to use leftover roast chicken. (Although it is tempting to just make flautas every. single. time.)

I’ve been meaning to make stuffed shells with cream sauce for a while now… I think I saw a picture when I was flipping through an issue of Everyday Food back in February, and I haven’t been able to get the idea out of my head. Well, I finally got around to making them and all I can say is oh my God, these are delicious!

The flavor is light and fresh, and although the feta cream sauce seems indulgent, it isn’t a heavy meal at all. I love, love, love the flavor of the roast chicken combined with cream – it’s so luxurious!

This dish ia little more time-intensive than most thing’s I make on weeknights (not only do you have to wait for pasta to boil, but you also need to bake it) but it’s worth every second. You can also make a big batch but throw half of it into the freezer to bake another time… I have some in my freezer now.

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Lipman Produce recently asked eleven bloggers to create a recipe for their new consumer web site, Lipman Kitchen. Lipman is a family-owned company that’s been around since the 1930′s but, until now, their tomatoes never had a “brand” associated with them. They’re actually North America’s largest growers of field tomatoes, so there’s a good chance that you’ve eaten their tomatoes without knowing it!

It’s funny, but other than looking to see if produce at the grocery store is local or not, I’ve never really considered where it comes from or who grew it. It never occurred to me that all of the tomatoes on the shelf might not have come from the same place (unlike say, in the meat section where I know the pork all comes from the same major producer unless the label indicates otherwise). Now, with their consumer launch, Lipman tomatoes in the Northeast and in South Florida will be identified with signs, stickers, and packaging. While I’m not sure how I feel about branding produce, I like that it made me think about where it comes from.

I actually had a really hard time coming up with a recipe idea that put tomatoes in the spotlight. I initially thought a tomato jam might be nice (it’s one of the first things I remember making when I was a kid, but I have’t made it in ages), but someone else had already claimed that idea for herself. Same with the fresh Bloody Mary and the tomato tart that I pitched Lipman. We ended up settling on this light and fresh pasta dish that’s perfect for a busy weeknight. It’s a nice deviation from more traditional Italian pasta recipes, and I love the way the sweet tomatoes contrasted with briny feta and kalamata olives.Topped with marinated and grilled shrimp, it made a great summertime dinner and I enjoyed the leftovers as a chilled salad the next day.

Click on over to Lipman’s site to get the recipe for Greek Pasta with Feta and Shrimp and check out the recipes that the other bloggers came up with.

I was provided with tomatoes and was compensated by Lipman Produce for creating this original recipe. All opinions are my own.

For this month, I was paired with Kimberly from Rhubarb and Honey for Secret Recipe Club. I was really excited when I saw that she had a recipe for cochinita pibil – it’s one of my favorite things to order when we go out for Mexican, and I’ve been meaning to learn how to make it for ages. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find one of the key ingredients (achiote paste) and had to improvise. Although the recipe didn’t come out exactly like the restaurant’s (which has a thicker sauce with a stronger, more acidic flavor), it was absolutely delicious.

This isn’t your typical Tex-Mex type of food at all. While it’s strongly seasoned with warm spices like cinnamon, it isn’t hot and spicy at all. Even if you don’t normally like Mexican food, you should give it a try!

The recipe makes a ton so I’ve been having fun trying different ways to eat it. First, I had it with yellow rice, then I rolled it in tortillas with pickled onions and avocados. But my absolute favorite has been to eat it on a sandwich (torta) with crusty bread, a thin smear of garlic and herb goat cheese, lettuce, cilantro, pickled jalapeños, and more pickled onions. It’s a hearty sandwich – it would be great to bring along on a picnic after a hike – and it’s one of the best that I’ve had in a while.

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I’ve hinted at it here and said it without saying it there, but since the beginning of the year I’ve been working on a lot of fun, recipe related projects. The biggest one is that I’ve been working with General Mills as the newest blogger for their healthy recipe site, Eat Better America. Since January, I’ve been sending them about one new recipe a week. Then I sit back and wait, and wait, and wait fo them to be published. The have a pretty intense editorial calendar and I knew going into it that there would be a long delay before my recipes went up – I was making “spring” themed recipes in February – but it was still hard to be patient.

Well, my first post is finally up – a green smoothie just in time for Earth Week! This isn’t your typical green smoothie though. I left the spinach and kale in my salads where they belong, and added an avocado instead. It makes the smoothie thick and creamy like a milkshake – it’s hard to believe it’s dairy free!  The avocado also adds a really subtle, complex flavor (no, it doesn’t taste like guacamole. I promise!)

As much as I love the original recipe, I also love to play around with it to add new flavors. For something sweeter and less green, swap out the banana for frozen mixed berries and add a teaspoon of unsweetened cocoa powder. You’d never even know there was avocado in it – think of it as an avocado smoothie with training wheels.

I’m also working on a new feature here on Healthy. Delicious. that will help you save and organize your favorite recipes. A “save” button will now sit at the top of each recipe I post, right next to the print button. If you create a free account with ZipList, you’ll be able to save any recipe you choose to a virtual recipe box. You’ll be able to tag, sort and search the recipes that you’ve saved and make grocery lists based off of them! I’ve added two new links to my navigation bar that will help get you started – “Recipe Box” will bring you to your personalized recipe box and “Shopping List” will allow you to add and delete recipes and ingredients from your shopping list.

The best part is that lots of other sites I love (Simply Recipes, Bell’alimento, Whats Gaby Cooking, and Savvy Eats, to name a few) use the same service, and the recipes you save from them will go right into the same box (ie. your recipe box isn’t limited to just my recipes). Fun, right? I’m kind of a spaz when it comes to organizing recipes that I see online and want to make so I really love this idea. I hope you do too!

So far, I’ve added the save button to all of the recipes I posted in 2012. I’m working on adding it to the archives too – hopefully within the next few weeks you’ll be able to save any recipe I’ve ever posted.

The man who works in the parking garage near my office was in a particularly bad mood this morning. I can’t say that I blamed him. Saturday’s warm sun had gone away, and cold rain settled in. The air was heavy and damp and everything looked gloomy. As he watched person after person head into their toasty warm offices filled with friendly colleagues, he was stuck sitting alone in his little booth (that is, until he had to come out in the rain to deal with my permit issues). On top of all that, it was Monday. I wished that had some of this hearty sausage and kale risotto to share with him – with it’s stick-to-your-ribs warmth, it would have been sure to cheer him up. I could have used some myself.

I have a ton of risotto recipes – a quick search shows that I’ve shared well over two dozen variations over the last few years – and I’ve always contended that, while it requires a half hour of near constant stirring, it really isn’t difficult to make. (It isn’t.) Most of the time, I actually enjoy standing over the stove, coaxing the rice into a creamy porridge. But sometimes, well, I just don’t feel like stirring the damn risotto.

I first heard of baked risotto a few years ago, but I never bothered trying it out. Like I said, I actually like stirring risotto. It makes me feel good, like I’m earning my keep in the kitchen. Last week though, a long day at work (in very cute but verrry uncomfortable shoes) made standing over the stove the last thing I wanted to do when I got home.  As I transferred the pot of rice from the stove to the oven, I imagined a thousand Italian grandmothers rolling over in their graves.

But you know what? It worked. Really, really well. It wasn’t quite as creamy as risotto made on the stove I don’t think I would have known the difference had someone else served it to me. And the combination of sausage on the risottto and  in the risotto, too? Wife of the year award, right there. Not bad, considering it cooked itself while I put my feet up.

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I recently finished reading the book Beaten, Seared and Sauced. Have you heard of it? It’s about a guy a decade or so older than I am who decides to upend his career and enroll in the Culinary Institute of America. The book wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be (I couldn’t relate to the narrator at all; he was kind of lame and he complained too much… which, funnily enough, sounds just like me) but it was still an enjoyable read and had some interesting insights into the life of a culinary student.

Mostly though, it left me craving roast chicken.

There’s a passage about three quarters of the way though the book where the author explains that many chefs cite roast chicken as their favorite meal. It surprised me – I figured they’d prefer something a little more adventurous or luxurious. Game, or truffles, or foie gras. But then he described the crisp, salty skin and tender meat that falls of the bone, and I was sold. He went on to explain his roasting method: blasting the bird with hot air to crisp the skin, elevating it on balls of foil so that the air circulates better, tipping out the accumulated juices to see if they ran clear. I reread that passage about 5 times, letting it soak soak in. The next thing I knew, I was at the store buying a chicken.

(The passage was beautiful and I wish I could post it here, but I didn’t think to copy it before the book went back to the library.)

Although Dixon’s method was now ingrained in my memory, I couldn’t help but put my own spin on it – my method is a mash-up of his and the Zuni method, which involves flipping the chicken onto its breast while it roasts so that the juices flow into it and keep it moist. For good measure, I slipped a few slices of lemon under the skin and seasoned it generously with za’atar. The result? A perfect roast chicken with skin that crackled with the slightest touch and succulent meat that was like butter under my knife.  Made in under an hour.

It was easy to see why it would be so many chefs’ favorite meal.

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I made these salads with the leftover chicken breast, and they were the best salads I’ve had in ages. I topped sweet mesclun with roast chicken, red seedless grapes, camembert, and small cubes of crusty bread, then drizzled it with a vinaigrette made from walnut oil, tarragon vinegar, dijon mustard, salt, and pepper. I think I could eat the salad every day!

Sometimes I come up with ridiculously complicated recipes with ingredient lists a mile long. I know, it’s incredibly annoying. Other times, I get into the mood for simple food. As long as you use good, quality ingredients, you really don’t need to use a million spices and seasonings to make things taste good. Lately, I’ve been in a simple kind of mood.

I’m taking a class about food blogging right now, and this afternoon I listened to an interview with Molly from Orangette. She commented that as she became more interested in food and cooking, she became less and less interested in fancy ingredients and food trends and focused more on the simply joy of eating something like cheese and crackers. That comment really made me pause and think about my own cooking. Back in the day if you asked your mother or grandmother for a copy of a favorite recipe, you’d get it written on an index card. It might have taken up both sides, but it probably wouldn’t compare to today’s recipes, which could easily fill an entire printed page.

Last night, I made a roast chicken that was so good that I almost cried. It was a simple dinner, but I used great ingredients and solid technique and that really showed in the final product.

I was nervous when I made these shrimp and grits a few weeks ago – it didn’t seem like I was putting enough in them, and I was worried that they’d be bland. In the end, I shouldn’t have worried. This isn’t a pretty dish and the ingredients and preparation are simple, but it has ton of flavor and it was exactly the kind of comfort food that we were in the mood for. If your handwriting is small, you might even get the recipe to fit on an index card.

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One of the first things I made was this bitter chocolate and blood orange cake. The idea for it had popped into my head while I had been dreaming about birthday cakes the week before, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

While this cake didn’t look exactly how I pictured it would – the center fell, which could have been because the batter is so heavy or could have been because my baking powder has been expired for three months (oops!) – it was exactly what I wanted. Everything abut this cake is intense. It’s sinfully rich with an almost brownie-like texture and a complex, bittersweet flavor that lingers in your mouth for what seems like forever.

This isn’t a celebratory kind of cake and it’s not something that kids are likely to enjoy but, served with some whipped cream, it was the perfect post-yoga pick-me-up.

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