pasta

As I was sitting down to compose this post, I realized that the majority of my posts are about main dishes. I owe a sincere apology to the side dish, which I seldom mention except in passing. I promise that I will be better about trying to give side dishes their due and some attention of their own. After all, no meal is complete without a quality side dish or two.

It's really funny how, even many years later, if you look at how you put meals together, you can see the influence of your childhood. I grew up in a house where a meal was not complete if it did not include some form of vegetable - most often a green one. Now that I am an adult and in charge of putting meals for my family together, I see this influence - if there is not something green on the plate, the meal just does not feel complete. I guess there could be worse remnants of my childhood than the need to have veggies with dinner :-)

I have also found that just a pile of plain veggies on the plate, however, doesn't really appeal to me. I need interest and variety. Of late, we have been having brown rice with some veggie in it (broccoli, peas, mixed veggies). I owe this to my dear friend Connie, who taught me this trick - Trader Joe's (or whatever store you find it in) precooked brown rice (3 mins in the micro) and a bag of steamfresh veggies (4 or 5 mins) - pour both in the same bowl and mix with a little sea salt and butter and yum! Sometimes, I will stand in front of the fridge or pantry (or both) and look at what I have on hand and say to myself, "What can I do with this?" Often, this happens when I am faced with a bit of several things that I need to use before they go bad. Today turned out to be one of those challenge days. Not because I have things about to go off, but because I had something I am not particularly fond of...

While I was shopping today, I picked up some asparagus for my hubby. He loves asparagus, I could take it or leave it. I was planning to serve it with salt and a little lemon juice - nice and simple (hubby isn't as picky as I am) - and have enough left over for him to take to work for lunch tomorrow. But when I opened my pantry, I was greeted by a package of garlic basil linguine we got from TJ's on Sunday. The wheels of my brain started turning and I decided that this pasta would be delicious with steamed asparagus, mushrooms and a little dusting of parmesano-reggiano. The only problem was the lack of mushrooms. What I DID find in the pantry, however, was a can of peas. I thought that this might make a nice side dish that would definitely make leftover chicken and pork chops more interesting. Once I mixed it all together in the bowl, this hypothesis was proven to be correct - it was delicious! I don't really even like asparagus and I loved it. Proving yet again that pretty much ANYTHING is better with cheese :-)

So here is the end result of garlic-basil linguine, steamed asparagus, a can of peas, grated parmesano-reggiano and some olive oil:

tuna salad

Do you ever find yourself asking, "Whatever will I do with this leftover seared Ahi tuna?" You know that if you reheat it, it will cook a little more, no longer be "seared" and maybe not taste as good. After all, when it comes to Ahi, my opinion is that the closer to raw it is, the better...raw being the best state for serving it. But that's just my opinion.

I was faced with this conundrum this week. On Sunday, hubby marinated some sushi grade Ahi in basil pesto (thank the fine gentlemen at PBS's BBQ University for this idea) and grilled it:
That's the tuna there on the left, grilling away.

Hubby ate 1 piece and left the other for me. I knew that I didn't want to heat it up since that would cook it more, so I tried to think of the best way to serve it cold. Sushi is an option, but for many reasons, I didn't like this choice. 1 - I REALLY don't feel like making the rice; 2 - I would have to go out and get the rolling mat and seaweed and 3 - in sushi, I prefer my tuna raw. Then, I thought about a sandwich, but I thought this tuna was too good to become a measly little sandwich.

When it comes to cold foods, I realized that the most obvious option is salad, especially when it comes to lunch. So that's what I decided on. I always have salad supplies on hand since I do eat a considerably number of salads. I got out the Romaine, sundried tomato crumbled feta, balsamic and olive oil and filled the bowl. Then, I shredded up the tuna and sprinkled it on top. All I can say is Oh. My. God. I can't wait to go back to Trader Joe's (or the 17th St. Market for my friends in Tucson) to get some more of this tuna. Yum, yum, yummy!!!

And, yes, that is a 10-cup mixing bowl that I ate my salad out of. I didn't have enough lettuce to fill the 12 cup one...

Rotisserie!!!

Recently, we have been eating a lot of rotisserie chicken...a lot! $4.99 at the grocery, bring it home and dinner is practically ready, not a bad deal. One day not too long ago, hubby said, "I would like to have a rotisserie." Me, being the good wife that I am, when hubby says he wants something, it usually miraculously appears in our house as a present for the next holiday or, if no holiday is near, simply an "I love you" gift. Conveniently, we had received a gift card to Bed, Bath and Beyond as a belated wedding gift. So the very next day after hubby made his wish, I trotted down to BBB...ok, i actually drove but, whatevs...and searched high and low to no avail. But, if you ask the right people... A very kind gentleman in the bridal registry area sat me down at his computer and, lo and behold, there was a beautiful matte stainless Cuisinart rotisserie...so I ordered it. It was a little more than I wanted to spend but the gift card took half the cost. I realized that I had a 20% off coupon at home (good place for it when I am at the store buying things) AND then they were charging me for shipping (the free shipping if you order from the store is apparently only applicable if it is something they normally carry in the store but are out of - this is a good thing to know). I had already had a convo with the guy about the coupon and he said I could come back with it and they would price adjust and refund the difference. Then I said "I thought there was no shipping if you order it from the store," to which the gentleman replied with the previously mentioned rule. BUT, he was nice and put a mysterious 20% coupon into the system, so I got the % off anyways. I did have to pay $15 for shipping, but that still meant I got $25 off the rotisserie. And, anyone who knows me knows that I get REALLY excited about saving money. Even after tax, I still saved a little bit. And some is better than none to the girl who doesn't like to pay retail for anything.

Anyhoo, I love love love my rotisserie. And I am getting pretty good at trussing a chicken. I don't know if I am doing it quite right, but the wings and legs do stay in their place and don't flop all over while the chicken is spinning. And it does look oh so pretty when I take it out (before I dissect it). I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves rotisserie chicken like we do. We also made scallops in it. The scallops on skewers was an utter rotisserie FAIL but if you make them in the basket, they are YUMMY! Next up is a leg of lamb.

who says healthy has to be boring?

You all have probably already figured out that one of my passions is finding healthy yet yummy meals that satisfy my cravings for things that are definitely not as healthy and, as I am finding, probably not even as yummy. This is part of the reason that I am so supportive of Jamie Oliver and his whole "Food Revolution" and why I get so angry at the people on the show who are fighting him. Yes, healthy can be more expensive. Yes, healthy can take a little longer to prepare. But these are not necessarily always true and, who cares if they are. The benefits of healthy eating far outweigh the costs of time and/or money.

To hubby and I, it seems like the prettier the food is, the better it tastes. We are all about proper (and sometimes creative) plating. Even though I have been a little delinquent in photographing many of my meals recently, there are still those that make me pause before eating and saying "Wait! We need to take a picture." Maybe one of these days, I will decide to sit down and take a picture of every meal I have for a year. But maybe that will get boring since we do eat a lot of leftovers. I'll think on this. Anyway, here are a couple of recent meals that I found particularly attractive:

Leftovers (rotisserie chicken,broccoli, sweet potato and a tomato)
The sauce on the veggies is a vinaigrette from Rocco DiSpirito's new cookbook "now eat this!" - which is seriously recommend getting. it is a winner! It is a really awesome salad dressing, but hubby got experimental and put it on his veggies - which turned out to be a success.







Hubby's Grilled Chicken Salad (Spring mix lettuce, grape tomatoes, olives and grilled chicken breast, olive oil & balsamic vinegar dressing)










Taco Salad (a bastardized version of Rocco's Roasted Chicken Burritos w/ Corn & Black Beans)
Again from "Now Eat This!" - I'm telling you, you really need this cookbook!
This recipe is supposed to be burritos, but since hubby is low-carbing it right now, I decided to turn it into a taco salad. This was easily better than any taco salad I have ever had at any restaurant. The recipe called for Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. I wanted a little bit more of the sour cream feeling, so we added lemon juice to the yogurt. I think it was a success. It really gave a little bit of the tang of sour cream that made me feel like I was eating something sinful.

Until next time, happy eating!

Breakfast!!!!

I love food! That is a fact that is well established. What I don't love is gaining weight (or being overweight). What started me on this journey to discovering my love of cooking was when I started trying to lose an extra 50 lbs I had gained since graduating high school (trust me on this one folks. some of you knew me before Weight Watchers. for those of you who didn't know me then, I will be more than happy to share the pics with you). In Jan 2007, I joined Weight Watchers. For someone who loves to eat, trying to lose weight can be HARD. I quickly learned that the only way this weight loss would happen was if I found a way to replace the food I love with healthier equivalents. I had to satisfy my cravings. So I started experimenting and getting adventurous. I discovered a lot of things that I never knew I liked. One of those things is the vegetarian alternatives to may favorite breakfast foods. You would think veggie sausage wouldn't be any good, but you would be wrong. I have been making a lot of omelettes lately. This past weekend, I decided that we needed to have sausage & cheese omelettes and bacon for breakfast on Sunday. This is why I love the veggie sausage and fakin' bacon.

You can reproduce breakfast at Denny's for a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the calories and fat. The omelette is Egg Beaters, veggie sausage (Light Life Gimme Lean sausage), & 2% cheddar cheese. The bacon is Morningstar Farms. I had a little sausage left over, so I decided to top the omelette with it just to make things a little prettier.

20 min gourmet

Yes, I know I have been delinquent in my updates. I have a camera card FULL of food pictures but I have been very negligent about getting them on here. I apologize profusely...and I promise to try to be better about getting the info from my head and camera to this blog.

Anyhow, one of my recent favorite activities for the end of the week (after most of what was bought at the grocery has been cooked and/or eaten) has been to open the fridge, look at what is in there and try to figure out what to make. Kind of like a mini Iron Chef, only without the timer, secret ingredients and people yelling at me. And the fact that my hubby pretty much loves anything I make helps. Last week, I opened the fridge and was greeted by a package of grape tomatoes whose expiration time was quickly approaching. Since I hate wasting good food, I had to do something with them. And since I am not a fan of raw grape tomatoes, it couldn't be something as simple as salad. I had a vague memory of watching a Rachael Ray make a tomato sauce recently where she put the tomatoes in a pan till the burst & then smashed them with a potato masher. I couldn't remember any other parts of the recipe so I figured I would challenge myself to make something palatable all on my own. Sometimes, I surprise myself.

What came out was a very versatile sauce that can be used as a topping for fish (as I did the 1st time,), mixed with shrimp for a main dish (as we had last night) or a pasta sauce (which we haven't had yet since we a low carbing it right now but i surmise that it would be AWESOME on a nice cheese ravioli). If you will be using this as a pasta or fish topping (I tried it with pollock - yummy!), put the fish or pasta in to cook before starting the sauce since this is a fast cooking sauce. If having with shrimp, get the cooked, shelled shrimp, remove the tails and set aside til you are ready to add them to the sauce. If you want to get really adventurous, you can also use this as a topping for an omelette.

Ok, I have yapped long enough, here is the recipe.

Ingredients
1 package grape tomatoes
3 cloves (or to taste) of garlic finely chopped or pressed (i like using the garlic press since I am lazy)
splash of chicken broth (you can use more or less depending on how loose you want your sauce)
oregano to taste
basil to taste
1tbsp olive oil

Directions
Find a pan with a tight fitting lid
Coat said pan with olive oil and heat over med heat
Add garlic and saute till it softens (about 1 or 2 min)
Add chicken broth to cover bottom of pan, tomatoes, oregano & basil (add broth BEFORE tomatoes to prevent oil splatter and arm pain...trust me on this one)
Cover and walk away for a couple of minutes. If you have a glass top pan, all the better so that you can keep an eye on the tomatoes without lifting the lid. If you have to lift the lid to check the sauce, it's ok too though.
Once tomatoes have burst (yes, you can tell), gently smash them with a potato masher. Leave some larger pieces (you are making a crushed sauce, after all, not puree)
Alternate endings:
if serving as a fish or pasta topping, remove sauce from heat, you are done.
if mixing with shrimp, reduce heat to med-low, pour in shrimp, mix and heat for 2 min (or til shrimp is warm).

Unfortunately, when I went to add the pictures of this, I found that I had not taken any. Guess that means I will have to make this again... But trust me when I tell you that, especially the fish or omelette topping, this looks like something in a gourmet restaurant.

Still kicking myself for not taking pictures...