Oh hi, stereotypical summer meal!
I’ve been cooking more low carb meals recently, and a struggle I have is finding meals that feel like a whole meal, not like there SHOULD have been mashed potatoes on the side of this steak, you know?
This is that. It’s the most perfectly light but complete low carb/gluten free meal, and it’s full of huge flavor to boot.
…Oh hi, summer.
My basil plant is doing GREAT this year, in a new sunny spot from years past, so prepare yourself for a gazillion “but it’s seasonal” basil-using recipes. You’ll get no apologies from me on that one.
I’ve been playing around with broiled chicken more, and after a few tries I’m definitely liking the method for a few reasons. It’s super quick and doesn’t smell up the house OR require walking outside to get to the grill, two things that can be a deterrent for me sometimes. This particular broiled lemon chicken is broiled on just one side because the pieces of chicken are super thin. If you don’t feel like cutting the chicken pieces in half (or buying thin-cut chicken) you don’t have to, just flip the chicken and broil on the second side.
This entire meal is done in half an hour or even less if you make the basil sauce another day as part of meal prep. Let’s do it!
…It’s a toddler food post. Because! Beck loves zoodles. She likes them raw, not at any particular meal time (this makes them a vegetable), and with nothing on them. 
Riddle me that. …
It’s FREEZING here. 
No, but really. Multiple nights under 30 degrees F this week = the natives are LOSING it. We live in South Carolina, after all. The south. Warm. Stuffy. No fall. Lots of summer. Sweat. Humidity. You get it.
So when it’s this cold (and, yes, I know some of you have way colder lives than this, I understand how different climates work), and dark at 4pm, and we’re decorating for Christmas between snuggling with our newborn and battling our toddler, we totally completely absolutely for sure need a perfect soup to get us through the winter.
This is definitely that. It’s similar in flavor to the sausage rice casserole from Jay’s youth, but with a broth base and just a little bit of cream and cornstarch to thicken things up. We use real wild rice for that chewy whole grain texture, and the added bonus of simmering the soup for long enough to cook the rice (about an hour) is that the house smells GREAT while this is cooking. I use local sausage, but you can use any kind you like or even ground chicken to keep this super light.
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What do you do for your Thanksgiving re: green things or health considerations? 
Some people are all balance every day and some are more just casseroles is fine, thanks. We fall somewhere in the middle with a lot of “we do this every year” and me trying to shove new things into the mix. One thing that is normal for us is that my dad always does a “plain” green veg. Something free of bacon or cheese or condensed xx of yy soup, and it works so well with some of the heavier flavors we have on Thanksgiving.
This is that! A super simple, mostly pure veg. Lemon juice and olive oil and salt go so well with asparagus, and you can broil this right at the end of your meal prep right after you carve the turkey – seriously last minute stuff, even after the casseroles are reheated. The result is a charred lemon flavor that adds a ton to the asparagus without overpowering it, and the health benefits of, you know, anything green.
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