Welcome to kidscookdinner.com, a website my sister Alex and I (Max) founded several years ago to talk about good food, kids’ cooking, and the fact that so many people are still hungry!  To learn more about why we started the site, and the charities we support, scroll down a couple of posts to About Kids Cook Dinner.  To see what we are cooking tonight…stay right here.

Tonight I had grand plans to make Chicken Tikka Masala in the Insta-pot, accompanied by baked feta cheese with baby broccoli, tomatoes, and lemon.  However, given that it was a school night, and the Tikka Masala recipe looked like it actually was going to take a long time, I decided to try Trader Joe’s Tikka Masala “simmer’ sauce and focus on the sheet-pan baked feta.  This recipe is based on a recipe that was recently published in The New York Times (Yasmin Fahr).  The photo of it looked so delicious and really healthy, so I had to try it.  There is a bit of prep work but it’s otherwise pretty easy.

Baked Feta

Ingredients for the Baked Feta + Veggies are as follows:

• 1 bunch of baby broccoli, thick stalks split lengthwise
• 1 pint grape tomatoes
• 1 small red onion, quartered into 2-inch wedges
• 1 lemon, thinly sliced
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• 2 (6 to 8 ounce) blocks of feta cut into 3/4 inch slices
• 1/2 cup basil (optional)

The first step is to preheat the oven to 400 degrees and prep the vegetables.  The original recipe called for halving the grape tomatoes, but that’s not necessary.  They cook just fine if they are whole.

Then on a sheet pan, spread the baby broccoli, tomatoes, onion, and lemons and toss with the olive oil,  cumin, (red pepper flakes if using), and salt and pepper.   Put the feta slices in with the vegetables.

Cook in the oven for 15 minutes, stirring about halfway through, and then cook another 10 minutes until the broccoli is lightly charred and the tomatoes are starting to burst.

Top with the basil if using.

This can be served with orzo, farro, or rice: I chose rice.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Ingredients for the Tikka Masala are 2-3 pounds of chicken cut up into bite-size pieces and two jars of Tikka Masala sauce (obviously you can half the recipe if you don’t want leftovers, but we always want leftovers.)

This is pretty easy: really the only thing I had to do was cut up the chicken into bite-size pieces.

Then I combined the Tikka Masala simmer sauce with 2 cups of water, added the cut-up chicken, and simmered for 30 minutes.

I served the chicken with rice along with the roasted feta and vegetables.