Weeknight Quickies

Gingery Chicken and Rice Noodle Soup with Crispy Garlic

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Chicken Ginger Noodle Soup

Take chicken soup, and give it a healthy thump of warming ginger, caramelized shallots, hoisin and lime. Gingery chicken and rice noodle soup is like a big hug from an old friend.

Swedish Cucumber Salad with Red Onion and Dill

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Swedish Cucumber and Red Onion Salad with Dill

Swedish Cucumber with Dill is fresh, light and full of sweet, tart flavor. We added quick pickled red onions to ours for color and flavor. Make it alongside Swedish meatballs, or anytime you need a quick, delicious salad.

Cucumbers are one of our favorite vegetables and we make some form of quick pickles at least once a week, if not more. I love them Asian-style, with rice vinegar and toasted sesame oil, especially along with Vietnamese-style Baked Chicken or any roasted meat.

When we decided to make Swedish Meatballs, I knew we had to also make the traditional side dish, a sweet and sour quick-pickled Swedish cucumber salad flavored with dill. We added red onions, because they add great flavor and color to the dish. If onions are not your thing, feel free to leave them out and just serve the cucumbers on their own.

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Sticky Gochujang-Honey Chicken

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Sticky Gochujang Honey Chicken

Sticky Gochujang Honey Chicken

What happens when you marinate chicken in gochujang (spicy Korean chili paste), honey, ginger and garlic? Deliciousness, that’s what. Sticky Gochujang-Honey Chicken is our newest weeknight favorite: a little sweet, a lot spicy and just plain tasty. 

Hey, remember us? Nerds with Knives? The cheeky duo (plus dog) with a pantry full of spice and a devil-may-care attitude to food blogging? It’s been a minute since we’ve had a chance to blog a new recipe but we’re back, and we’re ready to mumble. (I think that’s the correct saying, anyway.)

It may not strictly be the New Year any more, but since this is our first post of 2020, we’re going to pretend that it is. And we wanted to start the year’s posts off with a bang. And when we think “bang”, we think “gochujang”.

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Red Curry Chicken Meatballs

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Red Curry Chicken Meatballs

Red Curry Chicken Meatballs

This Thai-influenced dish delivers big flavor for very little work. Tender oven-baked chicken or turkey meatballs, simmered in a delicious coconut milk-based red curry sauce. Packed with ginger and garlic and showered with fresh herbs, this is a guaranteed crowd pleaser.

It’s been made clear to us that we don’t talk enough about balls on this blog. This must be rectified. Because there’s nothing quite like the culinary experience of shaping a firm ball, baking it to meaty perfection and then slathering it with lashings of hot creamy sauce. And if you think we started with that sentence just to titillate and excite you, as well as improve our search engine rankings, you couldn’t be further from the truth, although those are two very good reasons. The fact is, we’ve only assembled four meatball recipes in the last six years of Nerds with Knives, and we felt that it was time to give those balls another gentle squeeze and/or spin. So here we go.

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Tofu and Charred Broccoli Bowls with Kimchi–Miso Dressing

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Our version of a Buddha Bowl showcases two main ingredients — charred broccoli and spicy baked tofu. For crunch we add shredded carrots and red cabbage, then we top it off with the creamiest vegan kimchi–miso dressing. Add rice or your favorite grain and dinner is done!