Category Archives: All blog posts

Mothers Day Meal Idea – Chicken and Asparagus in Lemon Sauce

This morning on the Cincinnati Fox Affiliate (Fox19) I shared a “weeknight simple” meal that is special enough for an occasion like Mother’s Day. Let’s face it, in most homes, once her annual breakfast-in-bed is over, Mom is quickly back on duty in the kitchen and she deserves a little inspiration! This dish provides just that. It’s a shining example of what we believe at Nourish – that dinner can be delicious, healthy and simple!  Since asparagus is in season right now, I’ve used it in this dish, but you could also use red peppers, or green peas and mushrooms, or even broccoli florets in place of asparagus. This cooks in one skillet which makes cleanup extra easy. And since it’s Mom’s special day, hopefully someone else will be doing the dishes anyhow…

If you’re new to Nourish, welcome! Please take a look around the site to learn more about what we do – and be sure to subscribe to the blog and to our monthly e-newsletter so we can provide you with ongoing inspiration to feed your well-being.

Update: Here’s a link to the clip from FOX19.

And, here’s the recipe!

Chicken & Asparagus in Lemon Sauce

This dish cooks quickly and all in one skillet. Serve it over whole wheat pasta, brown rice, or quinoa. Add a salad and a glass of mint lemonade and you have a Mother’s-Day-ready meal!

Serves 4

 

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed, cut into 1” pieces

1 lb. fresh asparagus, ends trimmed, cut into 1” pieces

1.5 c. low sodium chicken broth

3 Tbsp. lemon juice (squeezed from ½ lemon)

1 tsp. corn starch

2 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley or thyme

salt and pepper to taste

 

1. Heat olive oil in a large nonstick skillet and add chicken. Saute until golden brown, about 6 minutes. Add asparagus and sauté 2 minutes until bright green and crisp-tender.

2. In a small bowl or cup, combine broth, lemon juice and cornstarch, and whisk to combine.

3. Pour broth mixture into skillet over chicken and asparagus and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cook 3 minutes to allow sauce to thicken.

4. Serve over a cooked whole grain starch of your choice, prepared according to package directions  (e.g. brown rice, quinoa, whole wheat pasta), and garnish with a lemon slice and a sprinkle of fresh parsley or thyme.

This entry was posted in All blog posts, Featured on Home Page, Food, Recipes on by .

Skip the flowers – give Mom Nourish @Home

There is nothing quite like a mother, is there? Personally, I think I have the best mother on the planet, and I’m not sure how I was ever deemed worthy of the blessing.  She is one incredible lady, impossibly devoted to serving others and finding ways to ease life’s burdens for those around her. Finding a way to take care of her isn’t so easy, as she rarely sits still long enough to enjoy it! She’s happiest when she’s bustling around her kitchen, turning out family favorites for a hungry crowd of guests.

Mother’s Day is just around the corner (May 8th this year), and I, for one, will not be giving flowers. I won’t spoil all the Mother’s Day surprises here (C’mon what mother wouldn’t loyally read her daughter’s blog?) but to kick things off, I’ve already told her I’m giving her a week off from kitchen duty via Nourish@Home – we’ll provide meals for her and my dad for a week. I know she’ll love knowing that dinner is taken care of while she is out taking care of others (most often ME and my three munchkins!).

To help you honor your own Mother,  we’re offering a Mothers Day promotion at Nourish@Home. We’re dropping our normal price AND throwing in the groceries – which means for one inclusive price of just $279* you can give Mom an entire week off from kitchen duty! Just think of what she can do with the time she WON’T be spending in the kitchen!

As a reminder of how this service works… Mom simply chooses her menu selections from our online menu, answers a few questions on our client info form, and then puts up her feet! We’ll shop for, prepare, and store enough food for 4-5 amazing family dinners. She doesn’t even have to be home while we cook – in fact, she can use that time to go do something else for herself…or just sip an iced tea and read a book while we buzz around the kitchen.  That’s what putting up your feet is all about, after all.

If you’d like to treat your mother to a week of Nourish@Home,  call us at 513-245-4224 and order a gift certificate. We’ll mail it to you or directly to Mom. When she calls to schedule a date for us to cook, she won’t owe a penny.  And she has a whole year to redeem the certificate, just in case she wants to save that “week off” for a time when she really needs it!

Of course, if you’re the Mom in question, and this blog post were to somehow make its way to your husband’s inbox or a hard copy were to appear in his sock drawer with our phone number highlighted, we’d never tell…

 

 

*$279 includes groceries for a family of up to 4. Larger families of 5-7 will have an incremental $30 grocery fee. Please remember we can only service homes in the Greater Cincinnati area with Nourish@Home.

This entry was posted in All blog posts, Featured on Home Page, Lifestyle on by .

A Healthy Approach to Easter

I hope you’ll indulge me as I “recycle” this post in honor of Earth Day! I wrote it last year and since many of you are new to the Nourish Blog since then, perhaps it will be new to you. Isn’t that what’s so great about recycling, after all? Besides, I’m hopelessly behind this week and recycling this post is one way I can be gentle with myself – I hope you find your own way to do the same so you can find a little breathing room for yourself to enjoy the weekend ahead!

Easter Treats – Make ‘Em Worth It (originally posted 4-3-10)

It’s Easter weekend and for many would-be healthy eaters it’s a test of endurance to survive the seemingly endless parade of Easter treats that arrive in stores at this time of year. Frankly, whether you celebrate Easter or not, I think the retailers make it hard to resist the onslaught of sugar-laden treats with which they fill the aisles. And that’s all BEFORE the family feast scheduled for Easter Sunday!

My philosophy around Easter Treats is pretty simple. Pick the ones that are unequivocally worth it to you and enjoy them without guilt this weekend.

Personally, I treasure the tradition of an Easter dinner eaten among family and friends, and ours includes a host of Eastern European traditional foods: a rich egg bread called “paska”, baked ham, kielbasa (aka Polish sausage), pickled eggs and beets, freshly grated horseradish, and many other family treasures. I look forward to the annual meal and to the tradition its preparation upholds, so I eat it without a trace of guilt!

As for those sweet treats? My personal “worth it” list includes:

1) Cadbury Mini Eggs…not the kind with the yolk centers but those little pastel-candy-coated-solid-chocolate gems…

2) Starburst Jelly Beans…original flavors please – none of the tropical stuff

3) My newest obsession…Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Babka (oh my word)

I can’t wait until Easter morning when I “discover” my basket that holds those chocolate eggs and jelly beans. And, truth be told, we’ve already cut the first loaf of babka since this was the first time I’ve ever made it and I wanted to make sure it was worthy of an Easter Day appearance…believe me…it is. That’s it, pictured at the top of this post. See recipe via the link above.

My advice to those of you trying to get through Easter without derailing your healthy intentions is to figure out which treats are worth it to you …then have them…and skip the rest. Peeps don’t do it for you? Then by all means, leave the Peeps in the store! But hey, if Peeps are your thing, then enjoy their once-a-year appearance and be done with it till next year!

It’s a bit late to offer up this last idea, but I’d also suggest not opening any Easter treats until it’s actually…well…Easter! While retailers would have us believe we should be filling our carts with candy as soon as Valentine’s Day has passed, in truth, it’s probably best to just wait to buy or make Easter treats unitl it’s time for Easter. This makes it much easier to resist the temptation to open and eat entire bags of the stuff before the holiday has even arrived. (And yes, the same advice goes for Halloween!)

Well, I’m off to go color eggs with my little guys…Happy Easter one and all!

This entry was posted in All blog posts, Featured on Home Page, Food, Lifestyle, Recipes on by .