Rotisserie Chicken Ramen, Savory French Toast, Rainbow Smoothies, and More!

here are some recent faves from my kitchen

This month’s meal inspiration post doesn’t really have a theme other than “I’ve really enjoyed making and eating these lately!” 😅 I hope you enjoy them, too.

Savory French Toast

It’s so simple, but I had never thought to make it until recently after seeing savory French toast on a menu, and it immediately became a family favorite. Buy some good bread from a local bakery and make French toast the way you normally would, but instead of adding sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla to your eggs-and-milk mixture, add salt, pepper, herbs, and maybe garlic and even Parmesan. Soak the bread in the mixture, and fry on both sides (buttering the pan a bit each time.)

Then you’re done! I am drooling so much as I type this 😅
Sam Sifton recommends adding basil and cooking up cherry tomatoes to go with the dish if you want to add some extra oomph!

Rainbow Smoothie

This is a good one to do with friends over! The result is beautiful, fun, and healthy, but it takes a bit of work, depending on how many different colors you want.

Simply blend fruits of different colors in the blender with yogurt or milk, one color at a time. (Tip: Start with lighter fruits, then go to dark, and you might not have to rinse your blender between uses.)

We used mostly frozen fruits because they’re cheaper and you don’t have to wash them. Pour them into bowls and keep in the fridge or freezer as you make each batch. (Another tip: you can use somewhat-defrosted fruit if you don’t have a super-strong blender!)

Make sure you invite your kids to help with this! They’ll learn a lot about color mixing, too; for example, a handful of dark cherries, for example, to change the hue of your peach smoothie.

Then spoon the layers into a glass and enjoy!

Rotisserie Chicken Ramen

If you want to make ramen a bit healthier and richer in taste than Instant, all you need for the basics is a rotisserie chicken, soy sauce, and some noodles! I really like Pro Home Chef’s ramen video and I felt inspired by Epicurious’s use of a rotisserie chicken. Here are my simple modifications. I do steps 1 and 2 on the first day, and the remaining on a second day.

1. Take the meat off a rotisserie chicken and set aside. You can use most of it for another meal (shredded BBQ chicken, a salad, etc.) Optional: save some of the skin and fry it up in a pan with grated ginger to use as a garnish.

2. Put the chicken carcass in a pot of water and boil for like an hour. Strain into a container and boom, you’ve got some gorgeous, rich broth. Here’s a recent batch ⬇️

1. When ready to make the ramen, start heating up the chicken broth (mixed with water to your taste.) An essential element of ramen is tare, the concentrated flavoring agent that you add to the broth. Here is a helpful video for an authentic shoyu tare, but if you’re in a hurry or short on ingredients you can just add some soy sauce to your chicken broth and it’ll still taste really good 😉 (Adding ginger and garlic really helps, too, and possibly some sriracha.)

2. If you’re cooking other vegetables that might take awhile (bok choy, carrots, etc.) add them to the broth. This method makes the tastiest carrots I’ve ever had. This might also be a good time to add some pieces of chicken from the rotisserie.

3. If you’re soft-boiling eggs, start that now on a different burner. I aim for 6-7 minutes. When your eggs are done, put them in a bowl of ice water.

4. Boil some ramen or udon noodles in your broth! Instant ramen cooks so quickly because the noodles are deep-fried, but you can buy dry ramen that cooks in 5-7 mins like spaghetti noodles and only has a few ingredients.

5. Prepare your bowls of ramen and add toppings to each. Ramen really is an art, and it’s enjoyable to arrange. A scattering of shallots and sesame seeds (and fried pieces of chicken skin, if you made them) go a long way. Enjoy!

Prosciutto-Wrapped Asapargus

This classy food was suggested as part of the cheese board for the “Café” for the Pretend Art Museum activity. Asparagus has a bad reputation, but when it’s cooked like this, you just might fall in love. All you have to do is wrap stalks of asparagus in prosciutto—a package is $3.99 at Trader Joe’s—and cook it with salt and pepper. It is so flavorful.

If baking, drizzle with olive oil and cook at 400 F for about 10 mins. I used my George Foreman indoor grill and these turned out perfect. (See the bottom of this post for a George Foreman experiment that did not turn out great 😛)

Easter Dessert: Resurrection Rolls

Family Scripts is written for people of all beliefs, but I’m personally a Christian and I know many of you are too. This simple treat helps kids feel feel surprised like the women who discovered an empty tomb.

Simply invite your kids to take refrigerated dough (you could use Crescent rolls, though we used cinnamon rolls here) and stuff them with a marshmallow and a little cinnamon and sugar. Bake according to package directions, and serve.

Watch your kids be amazed at what they see: the marshmallow has disappeared! It’s nowhere to be found. Even though we’ve done this tradition before, our kids were shocked! It’s a great time to tell them about Jesus.

I hope you enjoy these recipes!

Also, since we’re all trying to cut back on screen time, I would love to try Tiktok or Instagram recipes and hacks so that you don’t have to and you can feel free to delete the app 😉 Send me some that look interesting and I’ll plan to post the best outcomes next month!

Warmly,

Hope from Family Scripts

P.S. I got a George Foreman recently and I’ve had so much fun experimenting with it. However, grilled pot roast leftovers weren’t amazing 😅