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Archive for the ‘Everyday Food’ Category

Tasty Tidbits Tuesday- A Day Late BUT then again…

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 18, 2011| 1 Comment »

A very dear and old friend of mine poked me and cheered me on and up about my blog.  So this one’s for her, Susan Celtic Lady!

This side dish is perfect for  a quick meal.  Well in NYC, you know it’s pretty easy to order in and also very easy to buy a Roasted Chicken;   Seems like all the grocery markets have them as well as little chicken shops.  I know the phrase little chicken shops sounds funny to anybody outside of the City, but we really do have little storefront shops that cook and serve chicken, mainly grilled or whole roasted AND they deliver.   So a couple of Sunday nights ago, I had the roasted chicken and needed a quick and healthy (always)  side dish to go with it.

Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes

1/4 cup olive oil

4  small shallots, thinly sliced

1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes

2 bunches (1  1/2 lb)  spinach (trimmed and washed) – I used two bags

coarse salt and ground pepper

grated Pecorino Romano cheese

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high.  Add 4 shallots and cook stirring often until soft and starting to brown, about 4 minutes.

Add  cherry or grape  tomatoes and cook until tomato skins are split and shallots are golden brown, from 2-4 minutes.

Gradually add the spinach, season with coarse salt and ground pepper, and cook until tender, 3 minutes or until all is in skillet and wilted. 

To serve, sprinkle with the grated or shredded cheese.

Recipe from Martha Stewart, Every Day Food

spinach

"I eats me spinach"

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Tasty Tidbits Tuesday on Wednesday-Omelettes in a Bag

Posted in Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

A breakfast.

Breakfast for a Crowd

Weekend guests?  Here’s a great way to simplify breakfast and let everyone make their own choices.  Have your guests write their names on quart-size plastic freezer bags with permanent magic marker.

Crack two eggs into the bag (not more than two); shake to combine them.  Put out a variety of ingredients such as cheeses, ham, onion, green pepper, tomato, hash browns, salsa, etc.  Each guest adds prepared ingredients of choice to his or her bag and shakes.  Make sure to get the air out and close it.  Place the bags in rolling boiling water for exactly 13 minutes.  You usually cook six to eight bags in a large pot.

Open the bags, and the mixture will roll out easily.  Be prepared for everyone to be amazed.  Nice to serve with fresh fruit and coffee cake;  everyone gets involved in the process, and it’s a great conversation piece.

These bags can be prepared the night before and really speed up breakfast preparation.

Source: Heloise Hints

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Chicken Thighs with Green Sauce

Posted in Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , on April 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

TASTY TIDBITS TUESDAY

chicken thighs in green sauce

Italian parsley

This is an economical and tasty dinner entree, tasty too!  Tonight’s meal will be Chicken Thighs with Green Sauce, Quinoa, and sauteed Broccoli.

8 thighs, skinned**

1/2 cup olive oil

3 (or more) cloves of garlic, peeled and cut in half

30 sprigs of Italian parsley

8 whole scallions

Salt and pepper

Arrange chicken in skillet, pour olive oil over them. Scatter garlic pieces around, lay parsley and scallions over top as to “smother” chicken while cooking Lightly   salt and pepper to taste.

Cover skillet and cook on very low for about an hour.

Uncover skillet, using a fork remove the parsley, garlic and scallions and put into blender and puree for a few seconds.  With blender still running, add the juices from the pan and puree until a smooth green sauce is obtained.  Remove chicken pieces to platter and pour sauce over them evenly and serve.

** if using thigh cutlets, cut cooking time in half or less until thighs are cooked through.

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A Very Simple Weekday Dinner

Posted in Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , on April 6, 2011| 5 Comments »

Tasty Tidbits Tuesday

zucchini, carrots, snap peas, wax beans, string beans, celery, asparagus

Fresh Vegetable Medley

So many of  my Tuesday recipes are actual tried and true recipes and most often not original.  However, tonight I worked until 7:40 pm and needed to make a quick and healthy meal.  I have to admit that I had planned ahead for a couple of late evenings by purchasing an assortment of washed and trimmed and bagged fresh vegetables (Wegman’s) and a good size package of grilled chicken strips (Costco).

All you need is a boneless skin-less chicken breast or you can cheat and short cut your prepping the way I did.  And a variety of fresh veggies.

I put some olive oil in a large skillet, added a couple of garlic cloves (chopped) and turned up the heat to medium high.  Then I tossed in my chicken strips and a small bowl full of  cut up vegetables.  Tonight I used wax beans, string beans, asparagus, red onion, carrots and celery, baby zucchini squash, and snap peas.

I seasoned the mixture with sea salt and ground pepper, threw in some fresh tarragon, Italian parsley and fresh thyme.  Then, I squeezed a quarter of a lemon over all.

I stirred it occasionally for about 6 minutes and then covered the pan so everything could pan steam till vegetables were tender.

A glass of red wine and a tossed salad rounded out the meal.

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Red Pepper & Pine Nuts Quinoa – Side Dish

Posted in Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , on March 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Cooked Quinoa (C. quinoa) seeds

Cooked Quinoa

TASTY TIDBITS  TUESDAY

First I had to learn how to pronounce it, then how to cook it and then I found a LOT of Quinoa recipes.  This delicious, heart-healthy, natural starch is gaining in popularity.  Quite frankly, I don’t know why I’ve never made it before.  It’s on this diet I’m trying to follow and so I decided to buy some and see what would come of it. Just in case you don’t know what I didn’t know, it’s pronounced Keen-Wah.

Although not a common item in most kitchens today, quinoa is an amino acid-rich (protein) seed that has a fluffy, creamy, slightly crunchy texture and a somewhat nutty flavor when cooked. .

Most commonly considered a grain, quinoa is actually a relative of leafy green vegetables like spinach and Swiss chard. It is a recently rediscovered ancient “grain” once considered “the gold of the Incas.”

Food Chart

2 1/2  cups cooked quinoa

1/2 cup pine nuts

1 red pepper, chopped

1/2 red onion, chopped

1 cup black beans (optional)

2 TBS fresh parsley

1 TBS olive oil

Juice of 2 lemons

Zest of one lemon

4-6 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

4 oz crumbled feta (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toast pine nuts for 4 minutes

Combine cooked quinoa, red pepper, red onion, black beans (if using), and parsley and pine nuts.

In a small bowl combine minced garlic, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, pepper and red pepper.  Stir in olive oil.  Toss dressing with quinoa mixture.  Top with feta cheese.  Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Recipe from Savvy Vegetarian

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Heart Healthy! Lemon-Tarragon Salmon over Asparagus

Posted in Marthaspeak, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , on March 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Red onions, lemon, and tarragon come together as a tangy topping for salmon and asparagus.

20 asparagus spears, trimmed to 6″ and halved lengthwise

2 large radishes, very thinly sliced

4 boneless, skinless salmon fillets 5 oz each, 1″ thick

coarse salt and pepper

1 small red onion thinly sliced

1/4 cup plus 1 TBS thinly sliced lemon zest strips, plus 1 TBS  plus 1 tsp fresh lemon juice

3 TBS fresh tarragon

1 TBS plus 1 tsp olive oil

Preheat oven 400 degrees.  Cut out four 12″ by 17″ sheets of parchment paper, fold each in half crosswise to form a crease

Divide asparagus and radishes evenly among parchment pieces, arranging mixture on 1 side of each crease.  Lay 1 salmon fillet on top of each pile. Season with salt and pepper.

Toss together onion, zest and juice, tarragon, 2 tsp oil, and 1/2 tsp salt; divide among salmon, spooning over tops.  Fold parchment over ingredients; make overlapping pleats to seal.

Bake on 2 baking sheets for 11-12 minutes for medium-rare, or 13 minutes for medium.  Unwrap; drizzle with remaining 2 tsp oil.

I’ve often avoided cooking fish because I think it’s either going to smell in the house or it will come out dry.  WELL, neither happens with this delicious dish.  Heart Healthy!

heart healthy fish, salmon, tarragon, lemon zest, red onion

Salmon is Heart Healthy

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Chicken Cutlets with Caper Sauce

Posted in Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , on March 1, 2011| 1 Comment »

TASTY TIDBITS TUESDAY

Today’s recipe is tomorrow night’s dinner.

2 TBS olive oil, divided

2 chicken breast halves, pounded very thin, and then cut in half so you have 4 thin cutlets

1 lg shallot, minced, about 2 TBS

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup white wine or chicken stock

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 TBS capers, drained

2-3 cups arugula, torn into bite size pieces

1/2 fennel bulb, shaved thin

16-24 paper thin shavings of Parmesan cheese

Heat 1 TBS olive oil in a non-stick saute pan over medium-high heat until almost smoking, about 1-2 minutes.  Sprinkle salt over the pounded chicken breasts and sear them for 2-3 minutes per side in the hot pan, working in batches so that you do not crowd the pan.  Remove the chicken breasts and cover with foil to keep them warm.

Add the other tablespoon of olive oil to the pan.  Add the shallots and cook 1 minute, stirring often.  Do not let them burn, and if they begin to brown rapidly, turn the heat down.  Add the garlic and cook another 45 seconds to 1 minute, stirring often.

Add the white wine and scrape an browned bits off the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon.  Ad the capers and red pepper flakes and oil until the wine is almost gone, about 2-4 minutes.

To serve, mix the arugula and shaved fennel and put some on each plate . Arrange some shaved parmesan over them.  Lay a piece of chicken on each salad, then top with a little of the sauce. Serve hot.

Recipe from Simply Recipes courtesy of Gail

capers, chicken cutlets, Simply Recipes, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday

Chicken Cutlets with Caper Sauce

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Cold February Means HOT CHOCOLATE

Posted in Everyday Food, Marthaspeak, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The word "chocolate" originates in M...

Hot Cocoa

If you’ve been faithfully reading this blog, then you know that I’ve been all about February being the month of RED, as in American Heart Month and Valentine’s Day.  Ahhhh but of course February is also all about  CHOCOLATE.

Here in New York City, Maury Rubin’s City Bakery celebrates HOT CHOCOLATE like nobody else. They hold an Annual Hot Chocolate Festival every February;  each day City Bakery offers a special Hot Chocolate such as Bourbon Hot Chocolate,  Banana Hot Chocolate, Malted Milk Hot Chocolate and on and on and on.  I used to try to get there at least once during February to experience the world’s greatest hot chocolate.  Unfortunately, most of February is usually spent bemoaning my weight which has been enhanced over the holidays OR it’s Lent and I, in the spirit of sacrifice (read dieting lol) decide to give up chocolate!  This year with only a handful of days left in the month, I’m committed to a 17 day diet and even if I fasted for two days, I think the caloric intake of one cup of Maury’s hot chocolate would put me over the calorie count edge 😦 THEY MAKE IT OUT OF MELTED CHOCOLATE !!!!  Below is a link to City Bakery’s web site – http://www.thecitybakery.com/hot-chocolate.html

But if you don’t live in New York City, try these two delicious make-at-home Hot Cocoa treats.

Milk Chocolate and Peanut Butter Hot Cocoa

2 cups whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

5 oz milk chocolate chopped (1 cup)

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

Warm milk and cream in a medium saucepan overa medium-low hear.  Add chocolate, and whisk until melted and combined.  Continue to warm mixture until thick, about 5 minutes.  Whisk in peanut butter until smooth.

Dark Chocolate Hot Cocoa

2 cups whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

5 oz bittersweet chocolate chopped (1 cup)

2 TBS light-brown sugar

1/4 tsp grated fresh nutmeg (probably use ground)

Warm milk and cream in a medium saucepan over a medium-low heat.  Add chocolate.  Whisk until melted and combined.  Add sugar and whisk until dissolved.  Continue to warm mixture until thick, about 5 minutes.  Whisk in nutmeg.

Recipes from Martha Stewart Living

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Roasted Red Onion and Squash Pasta

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes) on February 15, 2011| 6 Comments »

Cover of "The Top One Hundred Pasta Sauce...

Cover of The Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces

TASTY TIDBITS TUESDAY

I love pasta! Hands down, other than ice cream I love pasta best.  Growing up, I never ate pasta; No-we ate macaroni and gravy, spaghetti and meatballs.  Macaroni was/is pasta or rather pasta is macaroni.  Some people think other than spaghetti and linguine all those other shapes are not pasta – what would they be?  My own husband thinks the only pasta is linguine and I keep telling him, it’s not the correct macaroni for every sauce.  When you are reading a recipe in an Italian cookbook or at an Italian restaurant and the dish description specifies a pasta such as shells, or rigatoni or mezzani – there’s a good reason why so.  Some sauce require a thicker, chewier pasta or one with lines so the sauce can cling to pieces.  Ahhhh once again I have digressed a bit.

What I really wanted to say was how much I enjoy preparing vegetarian pasta dishes.  There are so many possibilities and as you can probably deduce from previous posts, most of the pasta recipes I post are vegetarian.

I remember once asking my Grandfather about whether or not when he was young and still living in Italy, how did his mother prepare macaroni.  I wanted to know about meatballs, Bolognese sauce, sausages and spare ribs…well he quickly set me straight and told me that “IF” they were lucky there was meat in the pasta once a week, most likely on Sunday.  You know about Sunday Sauce don’t you?  Well another post at another time.  Growing up in my Italian-American household, I don’t remember ever eating pasta with anything other than meat or seafood EXCEPT on Fridays when we would have Linguine Aglio e Olio, which is linguine prepared with olive oil and garlic.  So as an adult I decided to explore the world of pasta without meat and a whole new world opened up for me.  I highly recommend the cookbook, The Top One Hundred PASTA SAUCES by Diane Seed.  It is replete with great pasta recipes with vegetables as well as a few meat and fish sauces.

Roasted Red Onion and Squash Pasta

2 medium red onions, cut into 6 wedges, layers separated

1 medium butternut squash, peeled, cut into 3/4″ pieces (I buy already prepped)

1 TBS coarsely chopped fresh sage leaves ( I used 2-3)

1TBS olive oil

coarse salt and pepper

1/2 # short ribbed pasta such as rigatoni

1/4 cup grated Fontina cheese (2 oz)

Preheat oven 450 degrees

On rimmed baking sheet, toss onions, squash, sage leaves with oil.  Season with salt and pepper.  Arrange in single layer and roast until tender, about 25 minutes, rotating sheet and tossing  vegetables, halfway through.

Meanwhile, in large pot, cook pasta till tender to preference.  Reserve 1 cup of pasta water;  drain pasta and return to pot.  Add vegetables and cheese and toss to combine, adding enough pasta water to create a thin sauce that coats pasta.

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Linguine with Asparagus and Pine Nuts

Posted in Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes), tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 8, 2011| 1 Comment »

Tasty Tidbits Tuesday

Tonight I’m making a delicious, light and heart-healthy vegetarian meal.  We both love pasta and I especially am happy when I can make a pasta dish with veggies and is easy to toss together – it makes me feel so much more Italian 🙂  My grandfather who was born in Italy always used to say that having meat in your macaroni or spaghetti (there is a redundancy here but that’s how Americans speak) was a special occasion or a Sunday dinner.

So here’s my Tasty Tidbits Tuesday recipe:

12 oz (3/4 box) linguine

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4  cup pignoli (pine nuts)

4 cloves of garlic sliced

2 lb. asparagus trimmed and cut into 1″ pieces

1 cup (3 oz) shaved Parmesan cheese

Cook pasta, reserve a 1/2 cup pasta water, drain and return to pot.

Meanwhile, heat oil in medium skillet over MEDIUM HIGH heat.  Add pine nuts and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until golden, 1-2 minutes.  Add the asparagus and cook, tossing occasionally, until just tender, 2-3 minutes.

Add the asparagus mixture to the pasta along with a 1 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp pepper and toss to combine. *if pasta seems too dry, add a little pasta water to form thin sauce). Sprinkle with shaved Parmesan before serving.

Recipe from Real Simple magazine

Real Simple recipe, heart healthy, pasta with veggies, asparagus, Parmensan, linguine

Heart Healthy Linguine with Asparagus

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