quick and easy – zezoo cooks

Noodles with Chicken and Mushrooms

asian, chicken, chinese, chinese new year, dairy free, dinner, eggless, lunch, main, savory, weeknight, whole grain

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An easy and flexible weeknight recipe for noodles involving ground chicken, mushrooms and a quick sauce that comes together from pantry/fridge ingredients. Add more vegetables if you have them, make it as spicy as you’d like, it’s all good!

Off late I’ve found ground chicken to be so convenient, to put together quick and delicious meals in so little time! No chopping and dicing and browning required, and it gives the recipe some heft without weighing you down. It’s a perfect ingredient for busy weeknights, as you’ll see with this recipe adapted from Bon Appetit magazine!

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Blistered Garlicky Green Beans

appetizer, asian, chinese, chinese new year, dairy free, dinner, eggless, gluten free, grain free, lunch, main, savory, sides, themed, vegan, vegetarian, weeknight

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Growing up, my sister and I ate all our veggies. With my mom, there was no other option – the rule was to finish everything served on the plate whether or not we like it; if we didn’t like something, the only available option was to not have seconds. As a grown up, I haven’t necessarily been “eating all my veggies”. It’s not like I will let them go to waste (there are always stews and gratins and quesadillas to make the boring veggies disappear), but I can admit that I sometimes conveniently “forget” to buy those vegetables when I’m shopping.

My husband frequently bugs me about having “favorites” when it comes to vegetables (hello, potatoes! goodbye, spinach), and now that we have a baby, he warns me that I may not have the necessary moral high ground to make our kid eat all his veggies. Reminds me of an episode of The Big Bang Theory I recently watched where Howard (Simon Helberg) finds out they are expecting a baby, and he is totally freaking out, and tells the guys “I shouldn’t be raising a kid. I don’t even eat my own vegetables.”. Green beans were probably near the top of the list of vegetables I didn’t really care for, until I made these.

These blistered green beans from the Bon Appetit magazine are the best green beans I’ve ever had, and I don’t say such things lightly. Granted I picked this recipe only to get through the mountain of green beans we had languishing in the fridge, because someone (me) didn’t want to eat them (forget about cooking them), but I’m so very glad I did!

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Tiranga Shrikhand Bars (frozen yogurt bars)

celebration, dessert, eggless, freezer friendly, gluten free, grain free, indian, maharashtrian, snack, sweet, themed, tricolor | tiranga, vegetarian

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Ever since my friend Shruti told me how to make shortcut Shrikhand (a sweet and creamy dessert from my home state of Maharashtra in India, made with hung yogurt, sugar, ground cardamom and saffron) using Labneh, I must have made it dozens of times. It comes together in no time – whisk together Labneh (extra thick middle-eastern yogurt cheese aka yogurt that is the consistency of cream cheese) and sugar with a pinch of ground cardamom and saffron, and chill in the fridge for a bit. That’s it!

I make it quite frequently to go with elaborate Indian meals – meals that have 7 or 8 other components as it is. So making the shortcut version is an easy win, especially if you make the mango version of it, called Amrakhand (Aam = mango), with mango pureé subbing for half the sugar. I’ve had this idea of converting Shrikhand to a bite-size, easy to freeze format, so that its easy to get a quick taste of it occasionally without investing any time/effort. I thought it would be a great idea to try a “Tiranga” (Indian tricolor) version of it to celebrate the upcoming Indian Republic Day (January 26th).

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[for young chefs] Kheer in a jiffy

celebration, dessert, dinner, indian, kids, kids who bake, kids who cook, lunch, maharashtrian, sweet, vegetarian, weeknight

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Kheer is a classic Indian sweet pudding, made with all sorts of things, from vermicelli to rice, to wheat berries, to tapioca pearls – the flavors are as diverse as the different states of India that make it!

Vermicelli Kheer (shevai or semiya kheer) is one of those quick desserts that we make to celebrate things big and small: the traditional recipe involves cooking vermicelli (previously sautéed low and slow in ghee, or clarified butter) in warm milk, perfumed with cardamom, until the milk reduces to about half its original volume. Raisins are plumped up in more ghee, cashews fried in some more, and finally the entire saga of it all is topped with saffron (bloomed in a teaspoon or so of warm milk).

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[for young chefs] Jam Tartlets

american, baking, dessert, kids, kids who bake, snack, sweet, vegetarian, weeknight

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Super easy and fun Jam Tartlets that come together with just 2 ingredients – 1 puff pastry sheet and half a cup of jam. Easy and fun to make for tiny hands (with a bit of help from mom or dad, of course!)

Just roll out a sheet of thawed puff pastry, cut into 9 or 16 squares (you could also use a round cookie cutter or a glass to make circles instead of squares!), add a dollop of your favorite jam (you could mix and match with different jams!), and bake!

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Duo of Hot Chocolate

american, celebration, chocolate, christmas, dessert, drinks, fall, general announcements, holidays, sweet, winter

Quick and simple recipes to make really decadent White Hot Chocolate and regular Hot Chocolate! Follow along.

The past few months have been exceedingly busy – what with bringing this li’l guy into the world and everything – I haven’t had a whole lot of time to cook, let alone shoot and write up a post! We’ve been making lots of simple meals though, mostly of the hearty, one-pot variety, and given the constant time crunch, I’m learning so much about shortcuts and cooking in small bursts (hello, nap time!), I definitely have the desire to share more in this space.

So, I have made an executive decision to override pre-baby Zezoo, and from here on out, I’ll be sharing whatever I have! I may not have the prettiest pictures, or everything decked out in each one of my 11 identical pinch bowls, or the bandwidth to write cutesy backstories (who is reading those, anyway?), but I will allow myself to share less-than-perfect but still delicious fare!

Starting with these 2 hot chocolate recipes that I make around the holidays – I particularly love the white chocolate one because it is feels more festive to me than regular old hot chocolate. But don’t sleep on this regular hot chocolate below – the addition of cocoa powder and chopped bittersweet chocolate, especially with a pinch of sea salt, makes it totally drool-worthy! Bring on the marshmallows!

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