Dinner Ideas · Salads and Sides

Chicken Salad Chip Dip

Featured Helena HenniganLeave a comment

So the title is a little wonky, t I couldn’t think of what to call it. The salad is similar to cowboy caviar, but still different. And this whole thing got made because of a Costco buy of a fresh bag of spinach. Now I have no idea how much was in their, but I definitely overestimated how much we could eat and would eat spinach; and there are so many green smoothies you can drink and fried spinach for dinner. I already have planned on making some green curry and using a good amount of spinach, but for tonight I wanted something different.

This comes together very quickly since everything is already cooked and you are just chopping and mixing. And the best part is you can easily substitute or mix and match some of the salad ingredients with whatever you have in the fridge.

When I dished this up for my girls, my three year old said that I forgot the forks; when I told her that she was going to get to use chips instead her eyes got wide and she ate a whole bowl full!

Salad Ingredients

  • 2 cups chopped purple cabbage
  • 2 cups chopped green/white cabbage
  • 2-3 cups spinach (optional)
  • 1 can of sweet corn
  • 1 can of beans, (I used black beans)
  • 1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • 2 chicken breasts (optional)

Dressing Ingredients

  • 3-4 Tbspn Olive oil
  • 1 tspn salt, to taste
  • 1/4 cup vinegar
  • 3 Tbspn lemon juice, to taste
  • 1/2 tspn Cajun spice (optional)

Directions

  • Cut chicken breast into bite sized pieces and set aside.
  • Slice the cabbages into thin slices, think coleslaw and place in a large bowl add the spinach.
  • Slice the onion and chop the cilantro and add to the large mixing bowl.
  • Rinse and drain the beans and drain the corn and add those in the mixing bowl.
  • Drizzle the Olive oil over the salad, sprinkle salt and pour the vinegar and lemon juice over the salad and mix with a spoon. Taste to see if more salt or vinegar is needed.
  • If you are unsure about adding the Cajun spice, put some of the salad in a separate bowl and add some spice and taste.
  • Top the salad with the shredded chicken and eat as a salad, or serve it as a dip for with some chips.

Breads · Dessert

Simple Bran Muffins

Featured Helena HenniganLeave a comment

I was looking for a simple recipe for bran muffins. I had followed the recipe on the bed, of the bag, but they turned out dry and flavorless. Other recipes wanted me to have enough batter to make 5 dozen muffins. It was a nice idea, but I didn’t have time to make that many, or do the math for just one or two dozen. So after scrounging around I cobbled together a decent and delicous recipe.

A few tips:

  • I would recommend using a large glass measuring cup, that can handle heat, to put the raisens in. Re-hydrating the raisens ahead of time, or at least while you are getting the rest of the ingredients put together allows the raisens to pre-plump with out pulling moisture from the muffins.
  • If you don’t have flax seed, you can use two eggs instead of one.
  • Another optional ingredient are the shredded carrots, but I highly recommend them. They add some extra moisture and I think bran needs all the help it can get because I really hate dry muffins.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups oat bran
  • 1.5 cups flour
  • 3/4 cup molasses
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tspn vanilla
  • 2 tspn cinnamon
  • 1 tspn black pepper
  • 2 tspn baking powder
  • 1 tspn baking soda
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 1 egg
  • 2 carrots, shredded
  • 1 cup raisens
  • 1/4 cup flax seed

Directions

  • Start some water boiling. Peel and shredd your carrots while the water gets hot. Set the shredded carrots aside for later.
  • Place the raisens in a small bowl, and pour boiling water over the raisens leaving enough room for the raisens to plump, about half an inch.
  • Pour the flax seed into the bowl with the raisens and gently stir.
  • In a big mixing bowl add your dry ingredients; oat bran, flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and black pepper. Whisk gently to remove any clumps and to get everything together.
  • Add the wet ingredients into the dry; molasses, sugar, egg, oil and vanilla, and mix well.
  • Pour out any remaining water from the raisen and flax seed mixture and add to the batter along with the shredded carrots.
  • Mix everything together and fill muffin tins 3/4 full. This makes about 2 dozen regular sized muffins.
  • Bake in a preheated oven at 350° for 20-25 minutes.

Breads · Dessert

Apple Cake

Featured Helena HenniganLeave a comment

My neighbor brought over a most delicious cake last year for Christmas. It was moist and sweet with wonderful spices that was great for breakfast or dessert. I wanted to recreate that cake. I found some recipes, and then added some ingredients and took others out until I found the right blend. My favorite part is that it tastes like a German sweet bread that my mom makes every Christmas, but it is so much easier.

The cake is relatively easy to make, it just has a few bowls to hold the separate ingredients.

I used a mini loaf pan, to share with friends
Marbelized mini loaves

Apple Mix

  • 2 apples, chopped thin
  • 2 Tbspn sugar
  • 2 Tbspn cinnamon

Cinnamon and Spices Topping

  • 1/2 cup butter, melted
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2 Tbspn flour
  • 2 tspn cinnamon
  • 1 tspn ginger
  • 1/2 tspn cloves

Cake Ingredients

  • 3 cups flour
  • 1/2 tspn salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 4 tspn baking powder
  • 1 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tspn vanilla
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick)

Directions

  • Get three mixing bowls, one for the apple mix, one for the cinnamon topping and one for the cake batter.
  • Grease 2 loaf pans and preheat the oven to 350°
  • BOWL #1: Peel and slice the apples, into tiny thin slices and put in a small mixing bowl.
  • Add the sugar and cinnamon and set aside.
  • BOWL #2 In a microwave safe bowl, melt the butter and add the brown sugar and other spices and mix well.
  • Bowl #3 (I used my stand mixer)
  • Add the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder and mix together.
  • Pour the milk, eggs, vanilla and melted butter and start mixing slowly so nothing splashes out.
  • Fold the apple mixture, BOWL #1, gently into the cake batter.
  • Pour the cake batter into the greased loaf pans.
  • Spoon the cinnamon topping, BOWL #2, gently onto the top of the cake batter in the loaf pans.
  • Using a toothpick, draw figure eights and swirls to marbelize the the cinnamon and cake mixture together.
  • Bake for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean – If you are using a mini loaf pan, bake for 25-30 minutes
Dinner Ideas

Oven Roasted Turkey

Featured Helena HenniganLeave a comment
Golden crispy skin

I got a great deal on a turkey after thanksgiving, $0.68 a pound, that is cheaper than chicken! While I love eating brined turkey that my husband cooks on the grill for thanksgiving, I wanted something that was not so time intensive, but still yummy.

I might have been willing to take the time to brine the turkey, but I wanted the turkey for dinner on the same day. When I looked for turkey recipes, there were oodles for brined turkeys, but not whole roasted turkey. I didn’t think it should be that hard to roast a turkey. I would keep it simple, and treat it like a big chicken.

To simplify things, I was going to stuff it and rub it. I stuffed the turkey with some rosemary and thyme and a large onion. I made a simple rub of salt, pepper, garlic, and onions, and patted it all over. 

I squeezed the turkey into my 7.5 quart dutch oven, and I left the lid off. I couldn’t put the lid on without having it touch the turkey, so I left it off. About half way through the cooking time, I covered up the wing tips with some aluminum foil because they were getting too crispy. Having the lid off helped the skin get nice and crispy, and the basting helped to keep the meat tender and juicy.

As the smell slowly wafted through the house, my two year old insisted she was hungry and only wanted “chicken”. When I pulled it of the oven, it looked as good as it smelled, the only thing now was the taste. I was patient enough to let it sit uncovered for 10 minutes and it was well worth it. The skin was crispy, and the meat was tender and juicy. The herbs had infused the meat and it was salted perfectly.

Ingredients

  • Turkey
  • 1 onion
  • 3-4 sprigs of rosemary
  • 3-4 sprigs of thyme
  • 2 cups chicken stock

Rub Ingredients

  • 3 Tbspn dried onion flakes
  • 2 Tbspn dried garlic powder
  • 2 Tbspn salt
  • 3 Tbspn black pepper

Directions

  • Preheat the oven to 350°
  • Take the turkey out and make sure to grab anything that is inside of the turkey and take out. (The innards make an amazing broth, or you can discard them.)
  • Mix dried onion, garlic, salt and pepper in a bowl and rub over the turkey.
  • Pour a cup of the chicken stock into the bottom of the dutch oven and place uncovered (cover the breast) into a preheated oven. 
  • Cook 20 minutes per pound, or until your meat thermometer reads at least 160. 
  • After about an hour of cooking, check on the turkey and add the other cup of chicken stock. Use the stock to baste the turkey an hour before you take it out. 
Dinner Ideas

Citrus Herb Turkey Brine

Helena HenniganLeave a comment

I love turkey in a brine, really any brine. My husband usually is in charge of brining, but the last few years with me staying at home, I have taken over the brining part of Thanksgiving. He is way more technical and follows a recipe to the last grain of salt, I usually eyeball most ingredients for my recipes and the measure everything put the second time o make it so I can share it here.

This time I took pictures first, to make it a little easier to remember all the ingredient measurements the first time. I also wanted something really simple since I know my husband will be smoking it.

I grabbed some limes, a lemon, and some fresh herbs and a few other spices threw it in a large stock pot with some salt and brought everyhing to a boil. The boiling helps dissolve the salt in the water. I tasted my brine and it had the saltiness of pickle juice, but without the tang of the vinegar.

I also added some pop and a can of beer last year and it was amazing. So while I was grocery shopping this year, I purposefully bought a lemon lime pop this year for the brine. I love that the pop adds some sweetness to the brine, so I don’t have to add any extra sugar.

Also make sure that your turkey is completely thawed before you place it in the brine, or the brine won’t work correctly.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup salt
  • 1 head of garlic peeled
  • 1 large onion, quartered
  • 5 sprigs of thyme
  • 3-4 bay leaves
  • 1-2″ fresh ginger
  • 4 sprigs of oregano
  • 1 tspn black peppercorns
  • 1 tspn allspice
  • 1 lemon, halved
  • 2 limes, halved
  • 1 liter of lemon lime pop (7-up or sprite works too)

Directions

  • Fill a large stock pot, with about two gallons of water.
  • Add all the ingredients and bring to a boil. Boil for at least 5 minutes, or until the salt is dissolved.
  • If the turkey is small enough to fit in the pot, place directly in the pot.
  • My turkey weighed 16lbs, and was just a little too big. So I grabbed my water bath, that I use for canning, and placed my turkey in their and poured the brine over the turkey.
  • The turkey has to be completely submerged in the brine. If your turkey is poking out just add some more water until everything is covered.
  • Brine for at least 24 hours before cooking.
Dessert · Salads and Sides

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Helena HenniganLeave a comment

Just in time for Thanksgiving this is a really easy homemade cranberry sauce. So grab yourself some cranberries and get started. A bonus is that you can cook this ahead of time and then have less to do on the big day.

My mom always made her cranberry sauce with an orange, and I normally do too. But this year, I didn’t have an orange only some little Clementine Cuties. So I threw some cranberries into a pan and added two little cuties and a little bit of sugar. As I was looking around my kitchen I saw some rosemary in a vase, so I threw some I as well.

When the cranberries cook down some, I like to throw in another cup or so because then you have some whole cranberries in your spoon along with the “sauce”.

Just getting started

The berries are soft, but haven split yet. The next photo is right after I added the remaining berries and sugar.

Yummy!

Ingredients

  • 3 cups cranberries
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/3 brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup orange juice
  • 1 tspn vanilla
  • 4″ stem rosemary (optional)

Directions

  • Place 2 cups cranberries into a medium-medium high heat. (I had mine on level 6)
  • Add half of the white sugar, all of the brown sugar, and the orange juice in a sauce pan with 2 cups cranberries on medium-medium high heat. Stir constantly, to prevent burning.
  • Cook down until most of the berries have split. About 6-10 minutes.
  • Once the berries split it gets “jammy” very quickly. Quickly add the remaining cranberries, the rest of the white sugar and if you are using rosemary throw the whole stem in and stir everything.
  • Leaving the rosemary on the stem let’s you take the rosemary out a little bit easier so you are not fishing out the little stems.
  • Cook the rest of the berries until they are soft, but not split and quickly take it off the heat.
  • When cool, take out the rosemarey, enjoy.
Dinner Ideas

Green Curry, Thai Style

Helena HenniganLeave a comment

I thought for sure that I had posted this soup/curry already but after quickly looking through my site, I couldn’t find it. This recipe is really easy and super tasty, and the best part is you probably have most of the ingredients in your fridge.

I grabbed some chicken breasts and covered them with some water and put it to boil. While the chicken was boiling, I grabbed the onion, garlic, Serrano pepper, cilantro and this time I had some extra celery in the fridge so I threw that in the blender. The color is amazing! It is so green and vibrant and smelled amazing!

When the chicken breast was done I took it out and let it cool to shred it and then put it back into the chicken broth. The green curry paste was sitting in the blender and it was a little thick, so I added about half the coconut milk to the paste and the rest to the chicken broth. I blended everything again in the blender and then added the paste to the chicken broth.

There were so many veggies in this soup already, but I wanted something else in the spoon besides just the chicken, so I added some fresh chopped green beans. The first time I made this I had some lovely baby bok choy, but this time I had some green beans in the fridge that needed to be used. I waited to bring everything to a boil again before adding the green beans, so they would still have some crunch to them.

Ingredients

  • 2 chicken breasts
  • 1 onion, cut into large chunks,
  • 4-6 garlic cloves, peeled
  • 1 bunch of cilantro
  • 1 Serrano pepper
  • 3-4 stalks of celery (optional)
  • 1 lb green beans, (bok choy is also a really good substitute)
  • 1 can (15oz) coconut milk
  • Salt, to taste
  • 2 Tbspn,Hoisin sauce, to taste
  • 2 Tbspn soy sauce, to taste

Directions

  • Put the chicken breasts in a stock pan and cover with water. Cover the chicken with at least 2″ of water, add the hoisin sauce and soy sauce and bring to a boil. Boil until chicken is done, 10-15 minutes.
  • While the chicken is cooking prep your curry paste. Cut your onion into large chunks, to make it easier on your blender. Peel your garlic and if you don’t want it too spicy, take the seeds out of your Serrano pepper before you add it to the blender.
  • Another tip with the cilantro is to slice it into about 2″ sections, if you leave it whole, the stems have a tendency to wrap around the blades of the blender.
  • In a blender add the chunked onion, garlic and Serrano pepper and about half of the can of coconut milk. Blend a few times before adding the cilantro and celery. Blend until smooth.
  • When the chicken is done, take it out and shred when cool and then place back into the chicken broth. Add the remaing coconut milk. Taste to see if more salt is needed.
  • Add the green curry paste to the chicken broth and bring to a boil.
  • Simmer about 20 minutes before serving, add the green beans to the soup about 10 minutes before serving.
  • Serve over Jasmine rice or enjoy as is.

Dinner Ideas

Easy Philly Cheese steak

Helena HenniganLeave a comment

I remember when I was pregnant with my second, I craved roast beef sandwiches. I didnt want to buy the lunch meat because I knew I wasn’t supposed to eat that when I was pregnant. But then it dawned on my foggy pregnant brain, that if I made a roast, then I could make myself a roast beef sandwich. So now whenever we have extra roast, I like to slice it thin and then use it for Philly Cheese steak sandwiches or other yumminess.

Now if you have some roast beef, I have even used the lunch meat kind, you most likely have everything else on hand. I grabbed an onion, some garlic, a green pepper and some ginger; fried that up. When the onions were all carnelized, I added the sliced up roast beef and a dash of worchestire sauce and soy sauce and simmered until warm.

I didn’t have the traditional hoagie buns, or even sandwich bread. Instead I used a fresh from the oven warm loaf of french bread. I sliced it up and sprinkled some mozzarella cheese (I didn’t have provolone) and then topped it off with the onions and roast beef.

I will put the ingredients with what I used, instead of the more traditional ingredients. The best part is, is that it can be done in 30 minutes or less.

Ingredients

  • 1-2 lbs sliced roast beef (deli roast beef works just fine too)
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic, sliced (optional)
  • 1″ ginger, minced (optional)
  • 1 green pepper, sliced (any color bell pepper will work)
  • 2-3 Tbspn worchestire sauce
  • 1-2 tspn soy sauce – to taste
  • 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 1 loaf fresh French bread

Directions

  • Slice the roast as thin as you can, and place to the side.
  • Put a pan on medium-medium high heat with a little bit of butter, slice the onions and place in your warm pan.
  • While the onions are getting soft, peel and slice the garlic and ginger and place in the pan to add some more flavor.
  • When the onions are just softened add the peppers and turn the pan to medium-medium low.
  • Cook for another 3-5 minutes until peppers are just starting to get soft, and add your sliced roast beef and your worchestire and soy sauce.
  • Let everything simmer together for another 10 minutes or so.
  • While everything is simmering, slice your French bread into one inch slices or so and sprinkle with the shredded mozzarella cheese.
  • When the meat and onions have simmered long enough, top your already made cheesey bread with your meat and onions and enjoy immediately.
Dinner Ideas

Pumpkin Chicken Soup

Helena HenniganLeave a comment

Taking two toddlers to the pumpkin patch is super fun. They get excited over everything, the pumpkins, the little animals, the games, a giant slide -what is not to love. The girls loved every pumpkin they saw , so eventually had to choose one for them, a lovely cinderella pumpkin.

I baked it up, and and pureed it in my blender and put 2 cups into zip lock veggies and froze it to use for later. The cinderella pumpkin is supper sweet and very tender.

The other day I felt like pumpkin soup. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the story I had just read to my girls about pumpkin soup, “A Pipkin of Pepper”. So I grabbed some chicken breasts and some spices and put everything in a pot to boil. When the chicken was done I shredded it, and then added some coconut milk.

The coconut milk made the soup so nice and creamy without the heaviness that normal cream adds I almost didn’t want to put the pumpkin in. I let that simmer for a bit before I added the pumpkin puree. The added depth of flavor was amazing! And while I really thought it was good, I thought it also need a dash of something, and so I added a dash of cayenne pepper – perfect!

Ingredients

  • 2 chicken breasts
  • 4-5 garlic cloves
  • 2″ of ginger
  • 3-4 carrots
  • 1/2 tspn coriander seed
  • 1/2 tspn fennel seed
  • 1/2 tspn anise seed
  • 1 can chicken stock (optional)
  • 1 can coconut milk
  • 4 cups pureed pumpkin (32 oz)
  • 1/2 tspn cayenne pepper -to taste
  • Black pepper -to taste

Directions

  • Peel the ginger and garlic. You are going to fishing these out later, so they can be rough chopped.
  • In a cheese cloth or a tea strainer, place the loose herbs; coriander seed, fennel seed and anise seed.
  • Place the tea strainer with the loos herbs, ginger, garlic and raw chicken breasts into a stock pot and fill with water, enough to cover the chicken by two inches and bring to a boil.
  • Let the chicken boil for at least 10 minutes or until it is thoroughly cooked.
  • Take the chicken out to cool and shred when the chicken is cool to the touch. Place the chicken back into the stock and add the peeled, chopped carrots.
  • Add the can of coconut milk and let it simmer.
  • Add the pumpkin puree and bring to a low boil. Taste to see if more chicken broth is needed.
  • Sprinkle a pinch of black pepper and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Taste to see if more cayenne is needed.
  • Serve over rice, or enjoy as is.
Dessert · Salads and Sides

Old Fashioned Tapioca

Helena HenniganLeave a comment

So I have a yummy recipe for old fashioned tapioca and I realized I hadn’t made it in a long time. It is so quick and easy, I decided to whip some up right after dinner. I grabbed all the ingredients and realized I didn’t have enough milk, but I did have some chai tea. I made a quick substitution of chai tea instead of full milk and oh my goodness, I highly recommend it.

If you don’t like chai, no worries, just use all milk and it still tastes delicious.

Ready to start mixing.

After you have boiled the tapioca for a bit, turn off the heat and whip up the egg whites.

The egg whites are ready to go into the tapioca. Adding the egg whites makes the tapioca pudding so light and fluffy.

  • The chai tea made the tapioca a little bit darker than normal.
  • Look at the difference after folding in a few egg whites.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups milk (If you want to try it with chai tea, use 1 cup chai tea, and 1 cup milk)
  • 1/2 cup tapioca pearls
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 tspn vanilla
  • 1 tspn cinnamon
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 eggs

Directions

  • Pour the milk, tapioca, sugar, vanilla, salt, and cinnamon into a pan.
  • Beat the egg yolks into the liquid and turn on medium heat.
  • Bring to a boil, and boil for 3 minutes then turn off the burner.
  • Beat the egg whites until stiff.
  • Take the tapioca off the heat, and fold the egg whites into the tapioca.
  • The tapioca, should still be hot enough to cook the egg whites.
  • Serve immediately or chill in the refrigerator.
Dinner Ideas

Beef Pho Soup

Helena HenniganLeave a comment

I had some beef bones in the freezer that I had wanted to use when the weather finally got cooler. So the day after we all got our flu shots and were feeling a little bleh, I tough why not pull out those beef bones and make some pho soup.

This soup is the pretty easy to make once you have all the spices, and the spices are key, even forgetting one throws the whole flavor off. Besides the spices and protein, you need an onion, a head of garlic and some ginger, see fairly simple.

I threw the bones in a big soup pot, filled it with water and turned it on high to get it to a boil. While the water was heating, I got together my spices and put them in a reusable tea strainer, and chopped up my onions ginger and garlic. I threw everyhing I and brought it to a boil for about 5-10 minutes, then I let it simmer on medium low for 2-3 hours.

So if you want to make it super simple on yourself that is all you have to do, but if you want to have a really pretty, clear broth a little more effort goes in, but not much. A few recipes I found said to skim the foam off the top after the boil. At first I never did, but one day when I had a little extra time I did it, and I noticed a huge difference in the broth and even flavor.

A few other recipes say to strain the broth and remove the onions, ginger and garlic; sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. When I do strain them out I wait until they are VERY soft, at least a few hours, or right before serving.

If I had to choose between the two, I think I would honestly skim the foam off the top after the boil, and once it it simmering keep skimming every half an hour or so. That made the broth super clear and really tasty.

One more thing that I have changed from the more traditional recipes is the fish sauce. My husband can’t stand it, I have tried every single trick I could find; adding it when the broth is cold, only at the very end, emuslified with I don’t even remember what now, and he still couldn’t get over the smell. So one day I left it out and subbed soy and Hoisin sauce, and the flavor was still really good.

Spice Ingredients

  • 2 star anise
  • 6 cloves
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 cardamom pod
  • 2 tspn fennel seeds
  • 2 tspn coriander seeds

Main Ingredients

  • Beef bones (chicken thighs are really good too)
  • 2″ ginger
  • 1 head of garlic
  • 1 onion
  • Rice noodles ( glass noodles )
  • 2-3 Tbspn soy sauce
  • 2-3 Tbspn Hoisin sauce
  • Salt, to taste

Garnish

  • Cilantro, chopped
  • 2-3 green onions, chopped
  • Serrano pepper, sliced
  • Fresh basil, sliced
  • Bean sprouts

Ingredients

  • Put your beef bones in a soup pot, fill with water, and turn on high.
  • While the water is heating put all your spices in a reusable tea strainer ( or a cheese cloth would work to) and rough chop the ginger, garlic and onion and put in the pot when finished chopping.
  • Let boil for 5-10 minutes. After at least five minutes you should see some foam that you can skim off the top.
  • Let it simmer on medium-low for at least 2-3 hours. Add your soy and Hoisin sauce, taste to see if you need more salt. If you added a lot of water to your pot, you will have to add more salt/ soy accordingly. I like to simmer it until the meat falls off the bones.
  • Skim the top of the soup for any additional foam or fat, every half an hour or so.
  • If you are going to strain out the ginger, garlic, and onions do so after the have become very soft.
  • When ready to serve add the rice noodles to your bowl and pour the simmering broth over the noodles and add your garnishes to taste.

For a long time, if didnt have all of the fresh garnishes, I wouldn’t make the soup. But one day I was really craving it and all I had for the fresh garnish was some cilantro and a green onion in the fridge. Just that little bit of freshness on top of the soup was still amazing.