WE ARE BACK! 10 year reunion

Life recap over the last 10 years:

Ten years ago we started this blog as a way to practice our cooking skills to better feed our family and friends.  A lot has happened since our first post and (dare I say) we have made some improvement! Our lives over the last 10 years have included major changes such as:

• Kristen and Shawn got married
• We lost our mom to Scleroderma
• Megan adopted 2 dogs, Auggie and Lilly
• We both bought houses
• Kristen and Shawn opened a coffee shop/cafe with their business partners (where Kristen leads the kitchen team. See cooking improvements at work! :))
• Megan married Steven (and with him came a 3rd dog, Zeus)
• Kristen and Shawn welcomed their son, Parker!

We thought this was the perfect time to bring the blog back! We will continue to try out new recipes on each other (and our additional critics: Shawn, Steven, and Parker) on a monthly basis. We will of course post our failures along with our successes.

For this first dinner, we did a whole30 approved meal (Megan and Steven were on day 27 of their whole30 and Kristen and Shawn are supportive siblings).  Megan made a Roasted Butternut squash soup and Kristen made a Chinese Chicken salad.

Roasted Butternut squash soup by Megan:

After we decided to do our first sister supper in ten years, I looked around my kitchen for inspiration. I had a large butternut squash on my counter and decided to google whole30 approved butternut squash soups. I came across this recipe by Tastes Lovely and had to try it out! (https://www.tasteslovely.com/paleo-roasted-butternut-squash-soup/)

It was incredibly easy to make as all of the vegetables take minimal prep (no chopping and peeling and possibly injuring myself). I asked Alexa to “play soup music” as I worked and she put on a “Mellow Folk” playlist on Amazon Music (very inspiring). I did have Steven help me cut the butternut squash in half because that took a little bit of muscle but I promise I did the rest by myself. All of the other fruits and vegetables were simply cut in half and put on a baking sheet then drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.

I threw the whole baking sheet of veggies in the oven at 425. The veggies all had different cook times so I set 20 minute timers and took them out as indicated in the recipe. As they came out they were put right into the blender. Now, I am not sure how other blenders would do but I was fortunate to be gifted a used VitaMix from our cousin and it has been awesome! I added some chicken broth to the vegetables and they blended up nice and silky smooth. Highly recommend it! 

I did have to blend the soup in two batches because it would not fit into the blender all at once but it worked out well. After blending I transferred to a soup pot and added more chicken broth to get to my desired soup thickness. The soup then warmed on the stove until we were ready to eat it!

One other reason I chose the recipe that I did was because of the garnish! Bacon and roasted butternut squash seeds (think pumpkin seeds).  I roasted both with some cinnamon and they came out great. It added a nice crunchy bite to the smooth soup texture. 

The feedback from the group was all positive and even Parker enjoyed the soup! All in all I would recommend this soup recipe for a cold day (add mellow folk music for ambiance).

Chinese Chicken salad by Kristen:

Soup and salad - match made in Heaven, right? ;) For this recipe I did a quick Pinterest search for Whole30 salads. If you know me, you know I like salads like I like my ice cream: with LOTS of toppings. So I wanted to find something that would be filling + satisfying while also being Whole30 compliant. This was a WIN! https://whatgreatgrandmaate.com/whole30-chinese-chicken-salad/

Thanks to Trader Joe’s, compiling the salad was a super easy task! I just bought their pre-chopped romaine, cabbage and carrot  mix, and slivered almonds. I also picked up some dates and green onions (which I needed to chop, but that took all of 60 seconds haha). 

The “hardest” part of the recipe was making the dressing. But even that was super easy! I just put  all  ingredients in a Vitamix and blended until creamy. (Note: I forgot to soak the dates before blending, but that would make it easier to blend until  smooth, especially if you don’t have a high speed blender. There are chopped dates in the salad, so some little chunks in the dressing are not noticeable however. ;))

The recipe called  for “cooked chicken” without any instructions on seasoning or how it should be cooked, so I just chopped 4 chicken breats into 1” cubes then tossed in my go-to marinade  (½ cup olive oil, 1 tsp garlic powder, ½ tsp salt, juice from  ½ lemon) and let it sit for 1 hr. Then I cooked it in a saute pan.  This made more chicken than needed, you probably only need 2  chicken breasts and half the amount of  marinade.

Once the chicken is cooked,  just toss everything with the dressing and top with sesame  seeds. (Note: I did add some extra chopped dates because two didn’t feel like enough for such a big salad.)  Like I said, all around a win and I would definitely make this again. Honestly we will probably have it again this week because I have some leftover ingredients!