I did my menu plan for the next week and one of the meals is from the August 2011 Rachael Ray magazine. It's called Radiatore with Grilled Chicken and Eggplant.

I made it tonight and hubs and I both liked it and will likely eat it again soon.

It is very simple, light, and healthy.

Here's the ingredients (I halved the recipe for just the 2 of us, so for 4, like the original, double it):

1 large tomato
1 Clove garlic
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
sprigs from a basil leaf
salt & pepper
Tri-Color Radiatore pasta (I used rotini, as I couldn't find radiatore at my store)
1/2 lb chicken
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
torn basil leaves (from the sprigs used earlier


1 eggplant (hubs did a great job of picking out a perfect eggplant!)
-Turn the grill on to medium-high
-Boil the water for the pasta
-grate the tomato and the garlic with a box-grater, put into a bowl
-add olive oil, pieces of basil sprigs, salt and pepper to bowl
-let the bowl of tomato mix sit for 20 minutes
-cook the pasta
-slice the eggplant into 3/4 inch slices
-season the eggplant and the chicken with olive oil, salt and pepper and grill approx 10 min, flipping halfway through
-let the chicken and eggplant cool
-drain the pasta
-cut up the chicken and eggplant into bite size pieces
-using 1/2 cup of the reserved pasta water add to the pasta and also add the tomato mix
-add the chicken, eggplant, red onion and torn basil to the pasta
-serve in shallow bowls
-top with shredded parmesan if desired.

This was tasty - a perfect summer meal!

I took some of the stock and roasted tomatoes from my last post and made Rachael Ray's 3 Bean Minestrone for dinner last night.



I turned out really good. The only thing I would change would be to use Kale rather than chard and to chop it smaller and to cook the green beans a little longer as they weren't as tender as I would have liked them. The soup had a great flavor to it though and was very healthy.

A perfect dinner for this time of year :)

Enjoy!

So, Rachael Ray has a new show called Week in a Day. The premise of the show is to spend one day cooking and have 5 meals to enjoy throughout the week. I'll be honest it is a bit hit & miss in my opinion, some foods seem to be repeated week to week (such as a version of pork over pappardelle). I usually will like at least one dish, but never all 5 so far.

Anyways, the other week there was a pretty good one and I liked most of the meals. This one started with creating 2 'fillers' to be used in a variety of dishes throughout the week. The first was a Parmesan & Herb fortified stock and the second was roasted tomatoes. I made these 2 this weekend and plan on making 2 of the other dishes from that show as well later in the week (no, I didn't make them all ahead like the show intended, haha): Spaghetti Squash with Marinara and 3 Bean Minestrone.

I'll review the other 2 dishes later, today here is the review & recipe links for the stock & tomatoes. I did do them both at the same time since one is in the oven and the other on the stovetop.

For the stock you are to use the rind from a hunk of Parmesan-Reggiano cheese. I buy my parmesan at a healthy/organic type store similar to Whole Foods. They also sell the rinds - so I was able to pick up 3 smaller size rinds in a bundle for just over a dollar.

Let's start with the tomatoes:

Basically you put the tomatoes on a sheet, add some crushed garlic cloves to the sheet and drizzle olive oil on them. I was a bit worried as every time I've tried to roast with olive oil it smokes too much and sets off my smoke alarm. Usually I just end up spraying a bunch of olive oil cooking spray on the food rather than drizzling oil over it.

I googled it first and it said I shouldn't worry about it because even though the oven was going to be 500, well above olive oil's smoke point, the oil wouldn't be heating to that high.

So, I tried it. And my smoke alarm went off.

I think however that if I would have turned on the range vent when I started (rather than when I noticed the smoke) and maybe cracked a window that it might not have happened. So I will have to try that next time. Of course if it happens again I will just go back to using the spray olive oil.

Oh well, you live & learn I guess - and the tomatoes came out fine :)
Here is my play-by-play of the event:
















Now for the stock:

Basically you are taking 1 quart of chicken stock and steeping it (like tea) for an hour or so with herbs and parmesan rinds to add more flavor. You are stretching your dollar with this as you end up with 4 quarts of stock at the end. A healthy additive to many meals. I often use stock when I cook rice and other dishes.




not sure why this picture went sideways on me...





the strained stock

the bits I strained from the stock - which I tossed. I couldn't think of anything to do with them and their flavor had pretty much been leached from them and into the stock.

All in all they went good. The tomatoes looked & smelled wonderful and the stock was simmering away and smelled like I was roasting a chicken with lemon and herbs - delicious.

I kept out enough of both for the 2 dishes I want to make this week and then portioned out the rest and froze them for use later.

Enjoy!

I have been holding on to this recipe for a while meaning to post about it as it was absolutely delicious but haven't had a chance until now.

About 2 months ago or so the store was having a buy one get one free sale on fresh Dungeness crab. I couldn't pass that up!

So I went in search of a recipe to do something with it. I was thinking pasta, hubs was thinking creamy pasta. I didn't want it to be too unhealthy though so I searched and searched until I found something that met both of our needs and I'm glad I did as it turned out really well.

I found this recipe here and modified it a bit for my needs. I didn't take a picture for some reason, and the ones on this link do not do it justice - it tastes so much better than they look.

The first thing I had to do was get all the crab meat out of the shell. I didn't think about this too much in advance and I realized I don't own crab leg crackers or even nut crackers. So I had to get out my needle nose pliers, clean them and then use them - but they got the job done :)

Here's the list of ingredients for the dish:

1/4 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp butter
1 tsp olive oil
1-1/2 cup chicken broth
1 tsp basil
2 TB parsley
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 cup sour cream
2 TB corn starch

Cook the onions & garlic in butter & oil.

Add broth, herbs & spices & cook 5 min. Then thicken with cornstarch & 3 TB water.

Cook pasta, toss with sour cream.

Add crab to seafood sauce & heat through - 5 min.

Then add the crab sauce to the pasta & toss.

Top with parmesan and black pepper.

This is a light, low calorie 'creamy' pasta with tons of flavor.

Enjoy!

(hubs tuna on left, mine on the right)


Hubs and I decided on tuna melts for dinner the other night. He wanted his the traditional way and I wanted to lighten mine up a bit, so I did.

His included the following:
2 slices sourdough
1 slice havarti
1 3oz pouch, drained, of tuna in water
1/8 cup light mayo
2 tsp yellow mustard
2 tablespoons sweet relish
dash pepper

That is about 603 calories. (and technically just a tuna sandwich, not a melt, haha)

For mine I used the following:
1 slice sourdough
1 slice reduced fat swiss
1 3ox pouch, drained, of tuna in water
1 tsp olive oil (I used some fancy garlic & herb flavor olive oil I have)
1/8 cup chopped red pepper
1/8 cup chopped red onion
1 tsp lemon juice
dash pepper

I topped my bread with the tuna and then put the cheese slice on top and melted it in the oven. A total of approx 321 calories - nearly half of our 'traditional' way!
I count that as a win!

*fries not counted in calories totals

(side by side finished sandwich)


(close up of 'mine')

I made pulled pork in the crock pot the other day and today I used the leftover pork and broth to make a pork pesole soup.

It is delicious! I plan on freezing it in individual containers and taking it to work all week! I approximate it into 6 servings and about 200 calories each.

Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp ground cloves
5 oz. Pulled Pork (cooked with 1 onion, 4 cups chicken broth, seasoning (cumin, pepper, sage)
1 15oz can hominy
broth (I used approx 4 cups reserved broth from crockpot + 2 cups chicken broth [99%fat free, low sodium version])
1 small can of diced green chiles
1/2 cup peas (added just for extra veggies)
1/2 cup corn(added just for extra veggies

I did use leftover crockpot pulled pork for this - so I cooked a pork tenderloin for about 8 hours in a crockpot with sliced onion and 4 cups chicken broth and some seasoning. Then I pulled the pork out, shredded it and saved it for this recipe. I also saved all the broth and refrigerated it for today. When I opened it today I skimmed the fat off the top and then poured it into the pan.

Heat the olive oil in a large sauce pan. Add in the onion and garlic and cook until translucent. Then add in the spices and cook for 1 minute. Add in the shredded pork and stir together for 1 minute.

Add in the hominy, broth, chiles and peas & corn (if using).

Then bring it to a simmer, turn the heat down a bit and let simmer for 1-2 hours. The longer it simmers the more the flavors blend together.

That's it - very simple and tasty too!.

Enjoy! :)

Sorry, no pic on this one...

We were sick this weekend so I made us some brothy soup filled with veggies to try and help us get better. I just kind of put stuff together and created my own recipe.

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast, boneless, skinless, chopped into small pieces
2 TB butter, unsalted
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1-1/2 cup brown rice, cooked
1 small bunch leeks, chopped
1/2 bunch kale, chopped
4 cups chicken broth, 99% fat free, low sodium
4 cups water
2 chicken bullion cubes

I cooked the chicken until it was lightly browned. In the mean time I put the butter, celery, carrots, onion and green pepper in a large pot and started cooking it over medium heat. When the chicken was ready I added it, the rice, the leeks, kale, broth, water and bullion and brought to a simmer.

I let it simmer for about a half hour, then served. It needed a touch of salt, but otherwise was great.

I would have used 8 cups of chicken broth, but I didn't have it on hand - so water and bullion cubes worked fine.

This came out to be about 120 calories a serving (8 servings). Very simple, but perfect for getting over a cold.

Enjoy!