the sea x love

roast chicken, kale, and squash soup

This is an older recipe that I don’t even have a photo of for some reason (actually I just found a photo from when I made this soup and know exactly why I don’t have any good photos of it iykyk). Anyways this soup is actually my favorite because it takes forever to make, smells amazing, and is even more delicious when consumed. I really love making long dishes. I love this soup in the winter and sadly haven’t made it since moving to NYC but would make it every season in Boston. It’s super simple and really just rewarding. You could, in theory, use store-bought broth for this but I really urge you not to do this, properly made this soup takes like 2 days to make because you have to make the broth from scratch but it’s fun and easy. This also makes a ton of soup which can freeze and eat at a later date. I have done this and it’s still amazing. Will say that I did read a description of something and that very much influenced the descriptions in the recipe.

Tools:

6-7.5 Quart Dutch Oven

Strainer

baking sheet and mat or foil

fork and knife

Ingredients:

3-5lb of Chicken Backs

Salt and Pepper

Oil, preferably avocado or olive

1 large onion or 2-3 small ones quartered

Garlic 6 cloves

2-3 Celery stalks

1tsp smoked paprika

A dried chili- chef’s choice (I use chilitepin but thats a little difficult to find bc it’s a wild pepper that grows in the southwest but it provides a staccato type of flavor, sharp upfront with a smoky after taste like warmth from an embrace cut too short. Chipotle is a fine substitute, nora or basque chili are also okay but not as hot)

1/2tsp Rancho Gordo Chili Powder

1/2tsp baking soda

~2 tablespoons of herbs de romance (Rosemary, oregano, parsley, tarragon, coriander, bay, mint, lemon verbena, oregano flowers, garlic//if you can find herbs de Provence without lavender you can also sub that here)

1tbsp vinegar

1 spaghetti squash

2 bunches of kale

Chicken (you can do whatever, could be whole pieces could be cubed breasts or thighs really doesn’t matter)

1 more onion sliced into slivers

4 carrots sliced

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 375F.
  2. Mix all the spices and baking soda together in a small bowl
  3. Add chicken back to a large oven-safe pot/Dutch oven and coat them in oil.
  4. Season the chicken with the entirety of the seasoning mix and toss to coat. Add onion, celery, and garlic to the pot and toss again to make sure everything is well mixed (honestly you can add the veg earlier if you want). You should also add salt and pepper.
  5. Roast chicken uncovered for 40min to an hour (until the chicken is brown/roasted). While the chicken is roasting, roast the squash in the oven on the baking sheet (could slice it or roast it whole after poking it with a fork). Cook the squash until it’s soft.
  6. Remove pot from oven and place on stove
  7. Cover the pot with water and add a tablespoon of vinegar. Bring to boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover for honestly like 4-6hrs min but personally I go for the 24hrs. 8hrs is a great sweet spot.
  8. So now you have a wonderful and rich base for your soup. Well, almost you need to strain all of this out and reserve the liquid. You can also remove the excess fat from this by using a metal ladle and bowl of ice water. Dip the ladle in the ice water to drop the temp then skim it over the top of the strained liquid. Repeat until the ladle fails to collect fat.
  9. Soup time. Truly you could stop here and enjoy some very tasty broth but if you want to make my favorite I recommend continuing.
  10. Add the chicken, onion, and carrot (I add them early because I’m allergic to raw carrots so I need them to be thoroughly cooked but you could add them later if you want).
  11. While that’s simmering, shred your squash into strands. When the chicken is nearly done add the squash and kale and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

dairy free vegan alts & subs

If you’re one of the few avid readers of my blog, know me IRL, or follow me on Instagram you know I try to live a dairy lifestyle. This doesn’t always happen and I’ve known to visit the pizza shop near my apartment occasionally but for the most part, I stick with it. Why am I dairy free? Good question. First of all, I’m not really that big on dairy to start so it was pretty easy for me to cut it out for environmental and health reasons. Milk/dairy is kinda gross. It’s cow breast milk, it’s made for baby cows, not humans. I have trouble digesting dairy products so that was another reason I cut it out. I’m also not a huge fan of the texture of some cheeses and cheese products. Conceptually, I think cheese is pretty cool and its history is interesting, but I struggle with eating it. Anyways, I’ve tried a number of dairy-free alternative products over years and I wanted to share a few of my favorites. Do you have a favorite non-dairy alternative?

“Milks”

I have 4 favorite non-dairy milks: Ripple unsweetened plain & their new oat milk, Chobani Extra Creamy Plain Oat Milk, and Notco Not Milk Whole. Ripple and Chobani are my go-tos. I buy these two together. Ripple milk is a perfect sub for milk in everything (but drinking the oat one you can drink straight) and is the most nutritious of the plant milks. You can use this to make buttermilk, blend it for smoothies, or cereal literally anywhere you would use milk you can and should use Ripple. I bake with Ripple and use it in my oatmeal, mac, soups, and waffles/pancakes. Chobani is perfect for drinking I love the flavor and texture is better than dairy milk. It’s like the purest milk flavor without the flavor of the cow. It’s truly neutral and clean in flavor. This is the superior oat milk and I highly recommend you try it. Plus Chobani is immigrant-owned and founded. The Notco Notmilk is flavor-wise the most spot on for dairy milk. If you’re nervous about trying non-dairy milk, this is the milk for you. It’s a great sub for dairy milk in cooking and tastes great on its own (or with cookies).

Cheeses

Moocho Cheese shreds: These are the only shreds I use. They’re funky and delicious in salads, tacos, or chili. They also last longer than violife which is a huge bonus for me, because honestly, I don’t eat a ton of cheese. I’ve tried the Fiesta blend and the mozzarella on pizza both of which met my expectations.

Miyokos pizza cheese: I trekked all the way to the upper west side one day to try this cheese. It was perfect. They really knocked it out of the park with this one. I bought a bottle but I haven’t made a pizza yet with it but hope to soon!

Sheese Bute Feta: Fantastic feta for salads. I brought this and the moocho shreds back with me from Texas because I can’t find them in NYC 💔 which is truly a shame because they’re better than anything I’ve tried up here. I actually bought the violife feta and it’s way too slimy and wet for my liking, the flavor is good but I like my feta drier and crumbled. I want to try other cheese from this company but it’s hard to find even in Texas, but the feta and moocho shreds are available at HEB. I am dying to try caramelized onion cheddar in cheese crackers.

Violife Parm: Big fan, great stable parm that lasts for a while. I love this in pasta. Just as salty and umami as traditional parm. It will last a year in the fridge once opened and kept in a container.

Spero goat & herb spreads: I ADORE Spero’s goat cheese, it’s so great on sandwiches or as the base of dressings or in pasta. I love keeping this on hand even though I have to trek miles to get it. I love the herb cheese on my breakfast sandwich with vegan egg, spring mix, and avocado.

Butter

I only use one plant-based butter Miyokos. It’s exactly like regular butter in terms of flavor and can be used anywhere you use butter. This butter made me understand why people like butter. Huge fan. I keep blocks in my freezer because I always buy it on sale.

Yogurt

There are 3 different brands of yogurt I enjoy all depending on my mood and desires: siggis, culina, and foragers cashew. Siggis is the most like traditional Greek yogurt, even though this is technically supposed to be skyr (which isn’t yogurt but rather cheese 😅). The plant-based siggis isn’t as thick as Skyr and ends up more like Greek yogurt but that’s okay it’s still delicious and protein-rich. Culina is actually thicker and more like skyr, plus it comes in nice little jars that I reuse for spices. I love Culina and it’s a woman-owned business based in Texas. Foragers cashew yogurt is the perfect sour cream sub. I use this in my chickpea salad sandwich mix and tomato soup. I’ll be honest I’ve never tasted this straight but it’s tangy and works well in cooking.

Bonuses! Plant-based Queso

Credo foods: I never tried queso before because liquid cheese really makes me nauseous. Just the visual is gross, those stadium nachos with Ricos I’m sorry to say look and smell absolutely disgusting. I tried it once and 🤮. Yeah, not a fan. I learned about Credo food queso while living in Boston but it’s only available in some markets. It’s another Texas company so I tried it when I went home. Truly game-changing. I really loved this as a snack and accompaniment to whatever Tex-Mex I’m eating at home. I’m not used to eating queso so I don’t always grab it but this was really good. I had the chorizo queso which my parents who are not super open to plant-based alternatives also enjoyed.

Primal Kitchen: This was good. I tried it recently and is a great option if you live in a market that Credo doesn’t serve yet. If I buy some vegan chorizo, I’m definitely mixing them together. The flavor is solid and balanced, the texture is great, and it looks pretty similar to traditional queso.

I hope you all enjoyed these recs. I’ve had few requests for reviews on products I try so I’m going to try to do more posts like this.

dairy free lobster + corn soup

I’ve made this soup or a version of this soup like 5 times since I first time I made it. It’s slowly becoming a staple and there are a million ways to make it with tinned lobster or frozen or even fresh; using vegetable broth as a quicker method, with frozen corn or fresh corn (I’m sure you could even use canned corn if you wanted), using white potatoes or rice instead of dairy-free milk, crab or scallops instead of lobster…the possibilities are endless.

I initially drew inspiration from the classic corn and crab bisque. I think this bisque would be really bomb made with green crabs and honestly I would have made it that way if I had green crabs. That’s actually what I wanted to make with tinned crab but Whole Foods didn’t have tinned crab and I really did not want to be bothered with fresh shellfish, but they did have tinned lobster which isn’t actually dairy free so I would sub with frozen lobster instead. Technically this isn’t a bisque, because the broth isn’t made with the shells of crustaceans, but texturally it’s most similar to bisque. I also I really wanted this to be corny and not so seafoody, so I made a broth base out of frozen corn cobs saved from meals in late summer. I highly recommend going the extra mile and saving the corn cobs over time and making this later in the year.

Standard Ingredients

~2 cups Fresh or frozen corn (I love corn so I put a little too much corn feel free to cut this down a bit)

fresh frozen or tinned lobster (the key is to have it shelled!)

dried green herb blend (here is a good place to use Curio’s Herbs de Romance, but feel free to sub with a blend of parsley, thyme, oregano and tarragon)

smoked paprika (hot or sweet works wells, depending on if you prefer your food with a bit more of kick or more mellow)

vegan butter (again could sub with olive or avocado oil, if you go vegan butter I highly recommend Miyoko’s)

Salt + pepper

1 small shallot

2-3 cloves of garlic

ingredients you need to pick one of

dairy free yogurt (good option is Forager Cashew Yogurt) or 2 small white potatoes or 1 cup of rice (I used brown)

corn cobs (at least 4 but you could do more) or veggie broth (to make this more like a bisque you technically should use crustacean shells but I rarely buy in shell seafood)

Instructions

This is super simple essentially you want to heat up the broth and your creamy element and blend, then add corn and cook, finally and lobster at the very end to heat up.

If starting with corn cobs

  1. Cut the corn cobs into smaller segments about 3-4in length, toss in about 1 tablespoon of oil or melted butter, and roast (either in pot or on a baking sheet) at 400 for 15-20 minutes (alternatively you could char them using your oven’s broiler for about 5 minutes).
  2. If using potatoes cut your potatoes into chunks. In a pot on medium-low, add 2 tablespoons of butter or oil, add potatoes, 1 tablespoon of green herbs, and shallots. Sautee for about 3 -5 minutes.
  3. Remove cobs from oven and add to an 8 cup stock pot along with 1 tablespoon of your herbs, paprika, garlic, and rice if using instead of potatoes; fill with water until there is about an inch of space between the waterline and the top of the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer (there should be little bubbles (~1-2mm) coming to the surface). Simmer for ~1-2 hours or until the water has reduced by half. Don’t rush this.
  4. Remove the cobs from the pot. and blend the potatoes or rice in the broth using your blender. If you’re not using the potatoes you can just remove the cobs.

If starting with veggie broth

  1. In a pot, add 2-3 tablespoons of butter (oil). Add shallot, 2 tablespoons of green herbs, paprika, garlic, and potatoes if using. Sautee on low until fragrant and shallot is soft.
  2. Add broth and rice if using to pot and stir. Cook potatoes or rice until soft and blend.

Soup steps

  1. Add corn to pot of your broth and cook for about 7 minutes.
  2. Turn off stove. Add approx. 1/2 -3/4 c of yogurt and mix (you could add this before you cook your corn and blend it with your immersion blender but I don’t like cooking yogurt). Add frozen lobster if using.
  3. Serve soup in your vessel of choice, with buttered crunchy toast, and top soup with your cooked lobster on top.