CEiMB: Linguini with Shrimp
If you saw my last post, you saw that two of the recipes Ryan and I chose for our top ten list of the past year’s best recipes came from Ellie Krieger. What I really love about participating in CEiMB is that I am motivated to try recipes I wouldn’t necessarily have picked for myself. Of course, every week’s choice is met with a differing level of enthusiasm. Since we all have very different preferences, some things just don’t sound as good as others to me, but most times I have been pleasantly surprised. In fact, I can only think of a couple recipes that we just really didn’t like. Yet, I still approach some recipes with hesitation. This week’s recipe fit into that category.
I love shrimp, and I love pasta. We were good on that front. The asparagus and cherry tomatoes are where I started to worry. I think I’ve mentioned before that despite my love of almost every variety of tomato product, I do not like fresh tomatoes. In their place I decided to use canned cherry tomatoes from my grandma’s garden. I can’t explain why I like them canned but not fresh; it defies explanation but is true nonetheless. I also decided to omit the asparagus but added an onion instead. The only other change I made was in not adding the pasta water; since the tomatoes I used had juice with them, I didn’t need any more liquid.
Even still, with these substitutions and changes, I just wasn’t sure how this recipe was going to turn out. The picture on Food Network’s site looks awesome, but I was afraid there wouldn’t be enough flavor. As I was mixing mine all together, it smelled great, but I was still unsure. Some people like their pasta with a side of sauce; I prefer my sauce with a side of pasta. How could this turn out well and have enough flavor when I could see all that pasta? Well, despite my conviction that this dish would be boring, it was awesome! We both really enjoyed it, and I love that it came together really quickly. The only thing I would change when making this again would be to skip the parsley. I could not find flat leaf parsley, which is always a problem for me around here, so I used curly parsley. I’m not sure if there is a flavor difference or not, but I found the parsley to be incredibly overpowering. I didn’t even use as much as the recipe called for, and it was too much. I love the pop of green; the presentation is beautiful, but I didn’t enjoy that flavor.
Thanks to Confessions of a Novice Baker for a great selection, and to Ellie, I’m sorry for doubting you.
Linguini with Shrimp
1 13 ounce box of whole wheat linguini
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup white wine
about 2 cups of canned tomatoes in juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the linguini and cook according to the directions on the box. Drain and set aside.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over a medium-high flame. Add the onion and saute until tender. Add garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add the shrimp and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until the shrimp turn pink. Remove the shrimp from the pan and set aside. Add the lemon juice and white wine. Let simmer until the liquid is reduced by about half. Add the tomatoes, and crush lightly using the back of a spoon. Heat through. Return the shrimp to the pan and stir in the parsley. Add the drained linguini to the shrimp mixture, tossing to combine. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
Source: Ellie Krieger’s “The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life”, p. 160
The Not So Skinny Kitchen turns 1!
When I look back to the start of this blog, I realize how much I’ve grown. I had been posting pictures and recipes on Flickr for a few months but wanted a new format, and a blog seemed like the next logical step as well as a good way to share recipes with my friends and family. Even though I was taking pictures of the recipes, trying to get the best shot wasn’t something I really thought about trying to accomplish. I only read a few other blogs at that time so I wasn’t incredibly comfortable with what kind of content to add to my posts either. I like to think that over time my posts have improved in both areas. I am not a professional photographer by any means, but I do actually stop to think about what will look good. Where I used to take one quick photo and hope for the best, it’s not uncommon for there to be 20 pictures of each recipe now. I still struggle with the written part. As I’ve come to know more of my readers from reading their blogs and interacting with them, I feel compelled to share things about my life in my posts instead of just saying, “This was good. That was not good.”
The area where I see most change, however, is in how “brave” Ryan and I are when it comes to facing new foods and flavors. We were enjoying lunch at Panera earlier today; his sandwich had tomatoes and chipotle mayo on it while mine had a tomato ale mustard. Maybe that seems like a small thing, but a year ago I wouldn’t have come within a foot of mustard nor would he have tried anything with any type of mayonnaise or vegetable on it! There we were, trying something totally new and enjoying it. This blog has inspired us to eat and prepare things we never would have before. Mushrooms, mustard, mayonnaise, tofu, tomatoes, feta cheese, curry, Greek yogurt, spinach, zucchini, couscous, meatloaf, kale, avocado, risotto and steak are just a few of the things we’ve tried that we wouldn’t have otherwise. Not all of them have been a success, but most of them were. Of all the new things we tried, all 125+ new recipes I cooked this year, there were less than a handful that we simply would not eat.
This week, as my blog turns a year old, I want to pay homage to those recipes that stood out above the rest. Ryan and I each picked five recipes to create The Not So Skinny Kitchen’s Top 10 Recipes from Year One (in no particular order):
Thai-Style Halibut with Coconut-Curry Broth
Herbed Pork Loin with Apples and Garlic
Apple, Cheddar, and Turkey Meatballs
Can you guess which recipes we each picked? I bet the last one will surprise you.
Hopefully this week I will finally be able to unveil The Not So Skinny Kitchen’s new home, but at this point, we are having some technical difficulties. Given my limited technological abilities, moving the site has been quite an ordeal. In the meantime, tell me, which of the recipes you’ve made this past year has been your favorite? Did you try something you never thought you would like and end up loving it?
The Conclusion of Pumpkin Week
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Of course I had to show off our collection of pumpkins as the finale to Pumpkin Week!
So let’s have a quick recap of the recipes:
Pumpkin Spice No-Bake Cheesecake
Pumpkin Pie Bars
Pumpkin Pie Muffins
And, let’s not forget Pumpkin Bread
If you find that you have room after all the Reese’s cups, caramel apples, lollipops, and whatever other goodies you might bring home, any of these pumpkiny treats would be a great choice. I hope you’ve all enjoyed Pumpkin Week here in The Not So Skinny Kitchen. Some more surprises are in store for this week, but you will just have to wait for their unveiling. Until then, I wish you lots of treats and few tricks. Enjoy the holiday and your extra hour of sleep!
CEiMB: Pumpkin Pie Muffins
The final recipe of Pumpkin Week is also the CEiMB recipe of the week. See how much forethought went into this? I actually planned a week’s worth of recipes around a theme, including the CEiMB recipe. Craziness. I am not typically that structured; enjoy it while it lasts. This week’s recipe was chosen by Oddball Oven Mitt, and I think it’s the perfect timing for pumpkin recipes so I was very excited about making these muffins.
Typically when cooking from a recipe, I will make a few minor changes. I might add some different spices or herbs to better meet our preferences or swap out things we dislike, but when baking, I almost never stray from the recipe. I am not much of a baker and feel like I don’t know enough about baking to really experiment with different things. With dinner, I can pretty much predict what my changes or swaps will do to the overall recipe; in baking, I have no clue what using this kind of flour over that kind of flour will do. So when I tell you that I doctored up this recipe a bit, realize that it took a lot of courage!
This is not the first Ellie recipe that has called for whole grain pastry flour, but I have to find any. In fact, I can’t even find pastry flour of any kind, let alone whole grain. Ryan and I always do the grocery shopping together, and as soon as I tell him we’re looking for the ever-elusive pastry flour he says, “That again?” So, this time I decided to use my Google Fu and find something else to use in place of the impossible to find specialty flour. I cannot remember which site I found the information on, to be fair I checked a few sites to make sure they all suggested the same thing, but I found that using 7/8 cup of whole wheat flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch could be substituted for 1 cup of whole grain pastry flour. Now, obviously I don’t know what they would have been like had I been able to find the pastry flour, but I will say that these muffins were quite light and moist, not dense like I think they would have been had I used only the all-purpose flour.
After reading some of the reviews on Food Network’s page, I decided to double the amount of spices. Many people complained that the recipe was a little bland as written, and there were several reviewers who said they doubled the spices and were happy with the results. I think doubling the spices made them too spicy; in the future I will probably do 1 1/2 times the spices. I could tell when I only added the original that it wouldn’t be spicy enough because I couldn’t smell the spices in the batter the way I think you should be able to do. So I think the answer is definitely somewhere between the original amount and twice as much.
My other change was in regards to the oil. I have seen several of the other CEiMBers swap applesauce for oil in a few of our other baking recipes. I’ve always been nervous about doing this simply because I didn’t know how much to use: is it an equal ratio? Should I swap all the oil? Again, I consulted my BFF, Google, and decided to swap half of the oil for applesauce.
Finally, I also made my own buttermilk. Up until this point, I have always bought a jug of buttermilk whenever a recipe has called for it. Inevitably, I have dumped more than half the jug down the drain every single time. We don’t use buttermilk often enough for it to be worthwhile for us to keep it on hand, and I hate feeling wasteful by throwing so much of it out. I had heard you could make buttermilk on your own using regular milk, but it scared me. Well, since I was feeling so courageous, I decided to try making my own buttermilk. I put 1 tablespoon of lemon juice (you can also use vinegar) into a 1 cup measuring cup, then added milk to just below the 1 cup line. Let it sit for 5 minutes, and wah la! Homemade buttermilk. Then I just poured out about 1/4 cup to yield the 3/4 cup this recipe called for.
By the time I took these out of the oven, I was nervous. Relatively, I made quite a few changes to the recipe, and I just hoped they didn’t turn out like little hockey pucks or something. Before taking them to our friends and my mom, we decided to sample one. It was delicious! The texture was great; they were very moist. As I already mentioned, I think the spices sort of overwhelmed the other flavors, but I do like pumpkin seasonings so it wasn’t a deal-breaker. I dropped some off with my mom on a Saturday, and by Sunday when I showed up with the pie they were gone. So, I would say they were a hit!
Pumpkin Pie Muffins
Cooking spray
1 cup all-purpose flour
7/8 cup whole-grain flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons unsulphered molasses
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
2 large eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup lowfat buttermilk
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Coat a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose and whole-wheat flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg.
In a large bowl, whisk the sugar, molasses, oil and 1 egg until combined. Add the other egg and whisk well. Whisk in the pumpkin and vanilla. Whisk in the flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the buttermilk. Whisk just until combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared muffin pan and sprinkle with the pumpkin seeds. Tap the pan on the counter a few times to remove any air bubbles. Bake for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center of 1 of the muffins comes out clean.
Let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the muffins to loosen them and unmold. Cool completely on the rack.
Source: Ellie Krieger’s “The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life”, p. 21
Pumpkin Pie Bars
I should be in class right now, but my dog had different plans for me. As I was trying to rush out the door (I was rushing because I was already running late), Irving started barfing all over the living room. Yep. Great way to start the day, huh? After cleaning that up, freaking out that he might be dying (he’s 12 1/2 so I freak out any time he does anything even remotely not normal), and looking outside to see that it was pouring down rain, I decided I could miss Calculus today. Of course, I need to stay home and monitor the patient, right? It has nothing to do with the fact that I do not feel like running across campus in a downpour. Perhaps you will remember that I mentioned a while back that we had flooding in the area? Well, campus was shut down for nearly a week because some of the buildings and parking decks were flooded. I’m sure you can infer that means campus does not have a good drainage system, even on days where it doesn’t end up flooding. So, yeah, nothing to do with that at all.
Instead I will sit here and revisit the memory of these Pumpkin Pie Bars. Sadly, they are all gone now which only goes to point out how good they were. Once a month we have a game night with two other couples; typically this is something we all take turns hosting at our respective homes. October was my month, but we decided to all go to a corn maze instead of staying in playing games. Now, one of the reasons I so enjoy my months of hosting is that it gives me the chance to try out new recipes on a larger group of people. I love cooking for people, so I took the opportunity to bring some baked goods to my friends. They thought they were going to be able to escape my food, but they were wrong! I also took a few to my mom as she is a lover of all things pumpkin. And of course Ryan and I had to sample them for ourselves. Ryan and I both liked them, though we did end up throwing some away after forgetting they were in there so I guess they weren’t a total success. I think if that was the only dessert I had made, we would have loved them, but they didn’t stand up to the pie which is the only of the three Pumpkin Week recipes that didn’t see the trash can at some point. My mom LOVED them. She called me shortly after I dropped them off to tell me how amazing they were, and not in the “I’m your mom, I have to be nice” way, in the “These are so good I couldn’t wait to tell you how awesome they are” way. I have to admit, I like getting that kind of feedback.
The only variation I made to the recipe was to omit the walnuts as one of my friends is allergic. If I make these again, I think I will be sure to include the nuts because they would have added a nice texture and crunch to the crust. I also think mixing chocolate chips in with the butterscotch chips would be delicious. I thought about adding both, but honestly, the butterscotch chips were more expensive than I expected so I decided to forego an additional bag of chocolate chips. The butterscotch chips were very rich, and I think cutting them with semi-sweet chocolate would have helped them not be so overwhelming. The crust and crumb topping was delicious! Since I don’t have a pastry cutter and have never had success in using two knives to cut in the butter, I placed the very cold butter, flour, and sugars in the food processor and pulsed until they resembled coarse crumbs. I was disappointed that the crumb topping turned a little soft pretty quickly; I’m not sure how to store these in a way that prevents that.
Pumpkin Pie Bars
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup cold butter
1 cup old-fashioned oats, uncooked
8 oz reduced-fat cream cheese, softened
3 eggs
15 oz pumpkin puree
1 Tbsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons bourbon
a handful of butterscotch chips
HEAT oven to 350°F. Line 13×9-inch pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides; grease foil. Mix flour, 1/4 granulated sugar and brown sugar in medium bowl; cut in butter with pastry blender or 2 knives or use food processor until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in oats.
RESERVE 1 cup oat mixture; press remaining onto bottom of prepared pan. Bake 15 min. Beat cream cheese, remaining sugar, eggs, vanilla, bourbon, pumpkin and spice with mixer until well blended. Pour over crust; sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture and a handful of butterscotch chips.
BAKE 25 min.; cool 10 min. Use foil to transfer dessert from pan to wire rack; cool completely.
Source: Joy the Baker
12 servings
Pumpkin Spice No-Bake Cheesecake
Things have been sorta quiet over here at The Not So Skinny Kitchen. It seems that as the rest of life gets a bit crazy, the kitchen goes unused. I’ve only been cooking sporadically, and it’s never something I would share here. Sandwiches aren’t that exciting, and it seems everything that comes out of the slow cooker looks unappetizing. But, I’m going to make it up to you this week. In honor of the upcoming holidays, I bring you Pumpkin Week. That’s right, every recipe this week will feature one key ingredient: pumpkin. What better way to celebrate Halloween, the holiday of the pumpkin?
Personally, one of the things I love most about Fall is the appearance of all sorts of pumpkiny treats. Pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin ice cream, little pumpkin candies, and the list goes on. If it’s pumpkin, I will try it. Typically, I try to stick to the sweeter representations of pumpkin like muffins, breads, pies, etc., but I have seen some great new recipes lately for things like pumpkin lasagna and pumpkin soup. These are both on my definite to-try list, even though Ryan is none to thrilled about either. So many pumpkin recipes to try, so little time. Why do we restrict all the pumpkiny goodness to Fall, I wonder? I say we start eating pumpkin year-round.
Unfortunately, it seems that this year is not the year to experiment with pumpkin. Have you noticed there is a shortage in your area? At my local grocery store there was only one can left, and it was a giant can. I only needed a cup, but, in light of the Great Pumpkin Shortage of 2009, I couldn’t waste the rest. This, my friends, is how Pumpkin Week was born. Instead of just making one great recipe, I quickly found two others that I just had to try in order to finish off my sought-after can of pumpkin puree. As I’ve said before, I’m not much of a baker, but last Friday I spent nearly the entire day in the kitchen baking, and our apartment smelled like Fall.
Of the three recipes, there was one I was most hesitant about, the Pumpkin Spice No-Bake Cheesecake. Now, I don’t want to call anyone out, especially my family, but… my grandma makes those Jell-O No-Bake cheesecakes pretty often. It’s something I grew up with so while it isn’t my favorite thing, I don’t mind it. The first time Ryan went to meet my grandparents, she offered him a piece of cheesecake. Immediately I knew what she meant, but he was expecting real cheesecake. Anyone who has ever tried this boxed no-bake cheesecake knows it is not a real cheesecake. The texture and consistency are completely different. So, my grandma starts to cut into this pie, then she serves it in a retro bright-pink plastic bowl with a spoon. As soon as she handed it to him, he shot me a look of “What in the world is this??” He took a bite of it and again shot me the same look. He finished it, of course, because he loves sweets, and in the end, while it doesn’t taste just like cheesecake, it is sweet.
My fear was that this no-bake cheesecake would be a similar type of pie with more of a cheesecake-flavored pie filling. As I was making it, I became even more nervous. Mixing the cream cheese into the other ingredients took quite a while, and before it became smooth, it looked pretty gross. It looked like cottage cheese, to be honest. The cream cheese didn’t just smooth out as I had expected, it sort of broke apart but still had little chunks. Luckily, after letting the mixer run for several minutes, it became a smooth mixture. The final product looked pretty good, but even as I was sliding it in the fridge to set, I just wasn’t sure about how it was going to taste.
I served the pie as dessert after making lasagna for my family, and it was a hit. I only took a little sliver of a piece at first because I was still really skeptical, but it was amazing. Don’t get me wrong, it is a pie, not a cheesecake. Do not expect it to have the same firmness that a cheesecake has. If you accept it as a pie, you will not be disappointed! We brought a couple pieces home, and they were gone within 24 hours. Delicious!
The best part about this recipe is how easy it was to make. It would be a great dessert to bring to a potluck or serve at Thanksgiving dinner. No one will suspect how easy it was to make. I will say, as I was folding the Cool-Whip into the cream cheese mixture, all I could think about was those Reddi Whip commercials. “Oil or Cream?” Every time I think about it, I get a little skeeved out, but I love Cool Whip so I’m going to push those negative thoughts out of my mind. If you have any suggestions or substitutions to use in place of Cool Whip, please let me know.
This pie taste a lot better than it looks, especially in this picture. I forgot to take my camera to my parents’ house so Ryan took this iPhone picture which doesn’t do the recipe justice, but I promise you, if you like pumpkin spice, you will love this.
Pumpkin Spice No-Bake Cheesecake
8 oz reduced fat cream cheese
1/2 cup pureed pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup brown sugar
8 oz Cool Whip Light, thawed
9 inch reduced fat graham cracker crust
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, whip cream cheese, pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and brown sugar for a few minutes until fluffy. Add Cool Whip and whip until smooth. Spoon mixture into pie crust and chill for a few hours, until firm.
Source: Gina’s Weight Watcher Recipes
CEiMB: Tuscan Vegetable Soup
I’m not sure what the weather is like where you live, but here in the suburbs of Atlanta, it does not feel like October. We’ve been getting a lot of rain interspersed with some really warm, dare I say hot even, humid days. Last Friday’s high was 85. Eighty-five! In October! There will be those of you who will hear that and be jealous, but, after a long, hot summer, I am ready for Fall! I’m ready to put on a cozy sweater, curl up on the couch with all my boys under a fleece blanket, and drink a warm spicy treat. Unfortunately, that is not to be, at least not for a while.
Soup is another one of those coveted Fall must-haves. Is there anything better than hot soup on a cold evening? I always think of the commercials where a snowman comes inside, sits down at the kitchen table, and starts eating some soup. Then you see the snow dripping off into a pool of melty slush, and it was actually a boy. The idea is that the soup warmed him. It’s true, I feel like soup warms me up from the inside out. Even though I wouldn’t exactly call this soup weather, there is something inherently comforting about a bowl of soup, and thanks to a huge storm rolling through the area, today was a perfect day to partake in some soul-soothing yumminess.
I want to extend my thanks to Pam at Lobster and Fishsticks for picking this week’s CEiMB recipe because it isn’t something I would have chosen myself, and then I would have been missing out on a great recipe. For the most part, I stuck to the recipe as written, and it turned out wonderfully! My apartment smelled awesome, like I had something simmering on the stove all day, but this soup comes together very quickly. The first change I made was in regards to the amount of salt. I decided to only add half the amount of salt called for because I knew I could add more later if necessary. It was more than enough salt for me, especially once I added a bit of Parmesan cheese. Next time, I might omit the salt completely. I also added more garlic and vegetables in general since veggies are a great way to bulk up soup and add bulk without lots of calories. The only other thing I changed was due to an error on my part. I was so sure I had sage, but it was nowhere to be found when I went to add it. A quick Google search told me I could substitute rosemary in its place so that is what I used instead. Overall, I was really happy with this recipe and wouldn’t change a thing.
Tuscan Vegetable Soup
15 ounces low-sodium canellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 cup chopped carrot
2 stalks celery, diced
2 small zucchini, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme leave
1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
32 ounces low-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth
14.5 ounces no salt added diced tomatoes
2 cups baby spinach leaves
In a small bowl mash half of the beans with a masher or the back of a spoon, and set aside.
Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrots, celery, zucchini, garlic, thyme, rosemary, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper, and cook stirring occasionally until the vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes.
Add the broth and tomatoes with the juice and bring to a boil. Add the mashed and whole beans and the spinach leaves and cook until the spinach is wilted, about 3 minutes more.
Serve topped with Parmesan, if desired.
Source: Ellie Krieger’s “The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life”, p. 85
6 servings
Mock Risotto
Risotto is one of those things I enjoy eating but rarely enjoy cooking. The creaminess is appealing; standing over the stove stirring continuously is not. For this reason, it’s not something we eat very often. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve eaten in the past year. So when I found this recipe on Eating Well’s website for a risotto-like dish that wouldn’t take as long and was healthier, I thought it was too good to be true.
I knew I was taking a risk by choosing a recipe whose ingredient list contains half vegetables, but I thought hiding those veggies in a creamy, cheesy sauce would make them more tolerable for those who don’t like green things. Personally, I like the crunch of fresh veggies mixed with the creaminess of the risotto; it’s a nice textural contrast. Unfortunately, that is about all this faux risotto had going for it. The cream cheese gave the brown rice a smoothness and richness, just like traditional risotto. The texture was great, but the flavor was lacking. It wasn’t cheesy tasting and was definitely missing something. Since I didn’t have quick cooking rice on hand, this didn’t even save me any time, but at least I didn’t have to stir it constantly. Even though we didn’t consider this exact recipe a success, I do think I will make this again with some different flavor combinations and will definitely add some herbs or spices to jazz it up a bit.
Mock Risotto
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cups brown rice
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 cup water
1 pound asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
4 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion and cook, stirring often, until soft and just beginning to brown, 4 to 6 minutes. Add rice and garlic and cook until the garlic is fragrant, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Add broth and water and bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 35 minutes.
Remove cover and spread asparagus and bell pepper on top of the simmering rice; do not stir into the rice mixture. Replace cover and continue simmering, adjusting the heat if necessary, until the liquid is almost absorbed and the asparagus is bright green but still crisp, about 5 minutes.
Add peas and cream cheese; stir until the mixture is creamy and the cheese is incorporated. Return to a simmer and continue cooking until the liquid has evaporated and the asparagus is tender, about 5 minutes more. Stir in 1/2 cup Parmesan.
Source: Eating Well
6 servings
CEiMB: Warm Spinach and Artichoke Dip
This week I strayed from the pack a little: while the other CEiMBers were making the Chicken Chop Suey that The Healthy Hostess chose, I made Ellie’s Warm Spinach and Artichoke Dip that was chosen back in February, before I joined the group. I think the Chicken Chop Suey sounds really good, and I can’t wait to read everyone’s posts. Unfortunately, Ryan just didn’t share my thoughts on the recipe. There are a lot of vegetables in chop suey, and I didn’t want to be left with a ton of leftovers that only I would eat. I do hope you’ll check out Ali’s blog because on top of having great taste in dishes (great minds think alike!), she runs a wonderful blog with lots of great, healthy ideas for your next dinner party. Would you expect anything less from The Healthy Hostess? :)
I have lived in the same area of Northwest Atlanta since I was in the fourth grade. When my family first moved here from the suburbs of Chicago, I felt like we lived way out in the country. There was a large discount store, a couple gas stations, and one grocery store off of our exit. A couple exits away was the mall which was surrounded by maybe four restaurants. Now that is all multiplied by ten. At least. Quite the metropolis we have now, but back when the area was still a little town, the one restaurant my family would always go to for special occasions was Olive Garden. In fact, I had my first date at Olive Garden, and when my mom and I went out to Montana for my great-grandmother’s funeral, our extended family took us to Olive Garden. So, as you can see, Olive Garden and I go way back. Many memorable moments have occurred at Olive Garden. Well, at least those two moments anyway.
Their food isn’t exactly haute cuisine or anything, but it is good. In fact, there is one dish they have there that I simply cannot get enough, and that is their spinach and artichoke dip. I crave it. In fact, it is the dip by which all others are measured in my mind. It is that good. Please, don’t tell me how unhealthy it is because I like to pretend it is good for me, you know, with all those veggies that are in it. I am embarrassed to admit this, but, Ryan and I always order the spinach and artichoke dip as an appetizer, he barely eats any, yet the container always looks licked clean.
When I set out to make this healthier, Ellie version of spinach and artichoke dip, I had low expectations. I mean, how could a lightened version taste anything like what I’m used to? I read good reviews from other CEiMBers and the online reviewers at Food Network, but I was still not convinced. All I can say is, that skepticism was misplaced. I should have trusted Ellie because she hasn’t let me down yet! This dip was delicious. Could it have been a little cheesier? Of course. I mean, what couldn’t use a little more cheese?? I think next time I will use a bit of sharp cheese like Parmesan in place of some of the mozzarella just to punch up the flavor a bit, but otherwise, I have no complaints. Just like at Olive Garden, I could not control myself and ended up eating a meal-sized portion instead of a snack.
The recipe was really easy and quick to make and could easily be made ahead of time for a party. The worst, and really only bad part of the whole process, was squeezing out the spinach. I just don’t understand how frozen spinach can hold so much water. Any time I deal with it, it feels like a never-ending process. Since I like things a little spicy, I added a bit of crushed red pepper flakes which gave the dip a tiny kick. I served mine on sliced bread, like at Olive Garden, but this would also be great on tortilla or pita chips. I will definitely be making excuses to make this again, and I can promise you that if you are invited to my house for dinner, this will show up.
Warm Spinach and Artichoke Dip
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic
9 ounces artichoke hearts, defrosted, rinsed and dried
10 ounces frozen chopped spinach, defrosted, excess liquid squeezed out
1/2 cup reduced fat sour cream
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
4 ounces reduced fat cream cheese
2 ounces shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Heat the oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Add onions and cook stirring occasionally, 4 to 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook an additional 3 to 4 minutes, or until onions are light golden but not browned. Remove from heat and cool.
In the bowl of a food processor combine artichoke hearts, spinach, sour cream, mayonnaise, cream cheese, mozzarella, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Process until smooth. Add cooled onion-garlic mixture to the food processor and pulse a few times to combine.
Transfer mixture into an 8-inch glass square baking dish or 9-inch glass pie plate which has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until heated through.
Source: “The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life” by Ellie Krieger, p. 70
Rigatoni with Spinach and Sausage
In my last post, I mentioned that I would like to live closer to Sara from imafoodblog so that I could drop by for dinner. Since that isn’t an option at the moment, I thought the next best thing would be to make one of the recipes I’ve seen on her blog. A few weeks ago she posted a recipe for a pasta dish she found in Bon Appetit magazine that looked and sounded so good that I knew I just had to make it.
When it comes to marinara sauce, I’m a little picky but also lazy. I have made homemade sauce a few different times but have yet to find a recipe that convinced me all that simmering and chopping was worthwhile. If I’ve made a Trader Joe’s run recently, I will use one of their boxes of “starter sauce” with some fresh basil which is almost as easy as just opening a jar and pouring but tastes fresher than any other pre-made sauce I’ve found. More times than not, however, our pasta ends up covered in some sort of jarred sauce.
Have you noticed that there is a huge variety of types and brands of spaghetti sauce? Everything from economy-sized cans to pricey bags of organic sauces. You can get your sauce flavored with meat, cheese, mushroom, garlic, whatever you want! I think, at one time or another, I have tried just about every brand and variation on sauce available. I tend to stick with the traditional ones since anything with meat or meatball or sausage scares me. (Is that stuff really shelf-stable?) Simple tomato and basil is good for me, thanks. Some are thick and sweet, others are thin and bland. Slate did a really interesting taste-testing of store-bought marinara sauces called “Marinara Madness” if you would like to see how your stand-by sauce holds up.
Now, I don’t claim to be the “cleanest” eater by any sense of the imagination, but, I have been making the conscious effort to be more aware of ingredient labels. I am sometimes shocked to turn a product around and find an ingredient list three miles long. I would like to say that this always forces me to put the product down, but, in the fairness of full disclosure, that is not always the case. There are certain foods that, I guess, I’m able to convince myself are OK even though the ingredient list reads like my Chemistry Lab MSDS notebook. Hopefully one day that will change, but, in the mean time, I’m taking baby steps. There are some things that I just can’t justify having a complex ingredient list, however. Marinara sauce is one of those things. It should be tomatoes, onion, garlic, spices. The end. Maybe a little oil or sugar or salt or wine. Sure we all have different preferences, but, I think we can agree that marinara sauce shouldn’t need red dye. I mean, tomatoes are a pretty shade of red, right? Why would tomato sauce need dye??
I find that my general eating and shopping habits are a product of compromise between what I want to eat and make versus what is realistic and affordable. This is why I usually end up with a jar of sauce; coming home after school to make a spaghetti dinner from scratch versus spending two minutes actual in-kitchen time for dried pasta and jarred sauce is not realistically going to happen. At least, it didn’t sound like something that would happen until I came across this recipe.
Yes, there is some chopping involved, even some simmering, but it is still a quick weeknight meal. I don’t mind 30 minutes of simmering since that is when I can catch up on my Google Reader! You can also make the sauce ahead of time to make it even easier if that works better in your schedule, and, trust me, you will want to fit this in your schedule somehow. It was amazing. Ryan isn’t quite as enthusiastic about pasta as I am so anytime I am serving some variation of “spaghetti”, he isn’t at his happiest. I kind of like when he goes into a meal with low expectations though because that means if he does end up liking it, it’s a huge surprise. After he took one bite he looked at me, and I could see the surprise on his face. He was in love. In love with a bowl of pasta. Imagine that. We fought over the leftovers. Seriously. I won, by the way. But don’t feel sorry for him: I had already made him a batch of the Stuffed Zucchini he loved so much so his lunches were covered.
I made a few minor changes to the recipe which is reflected in what I’ve written below. For Sara’s version, please visit her blog.
Rigatoni with Spinach and Sausage
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
4 links of Italian chicken sausage, chopped
1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
13 ounces whole wheat rigatoni
2 cups (packed) fresh spinach, stemmed
1/2 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onion; sauté until translucent, about 4 minutes. Add garlic; stir 1 minute. Add sausage, fennel, and red pepper flakes; cook until browned, about 5 minutes.
Add wine, and crushed tomatoes; increase heat and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer 30 minutes to blend flavors, stirring occasionally. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cool slightly. Refrigerate uncovered until cool, then cover and keep chilled. Rewarm over medium heat before continuing.
Meanwhile, cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain.
Stir pasta, spinach, basil, and oregano into tomato sauce. Simmer until spinach wilts, stirring often, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with Parmesan cheese.
Source: original recipe from Bon Appetit magazine, June 2008; adapted by Sara at imafoodblog.com
