Last Week's Recipes

Curried Chicken Salad

I use this Epicurious recipe, but I modify it as follows:

• 0.75 lbs chicken (in place of 1.5 lbs)
• 2 Tbsp curry powder (in place of 5 tsp curry powder)
• 2 Tbsp finely diced onion (in place of 1 cup onion - GAH - how gross would that be?)
• 1.5 cups sliced grapes (in place of 1 cup grapes)
• Sometimes I used frozen cubed mango in place of fresh mango

Veggie Lasagna

My veggie lasagna is always an evolving thing. Here is how this particular batch was made. This recipe is a little labor intensive so I usually make it on weekends when I can
force
get Husband to help me. I like to make two small lasagnas rather than one big one so that I can cook them up separately. These can go directly into the freezer - just thaw in fridge before cooking or add some cooking time if you want to put it in the oven straight from the freezer.

Ingredients:
26 oz quality pasta sauce or I made the sauce portion of this Food Network recipe
6 oz tub Parmesan cheese
2 cups/8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
15 oz tub low fat cottage cheese or ricotta cheese
Assorted vegetables, sliced (I used two small zucchini, 1 medium yellow squash, 1 container mushrooms)
1 Tbsp olive oil
No-boil lasagna noodles

If you are making your own sauce, start with that step. Sauce all ready? Good, let's proceed. Put a medium sized pot on a burner over medium-high heat. Add olive oil to pot and force yourself to wait a minute. Add sliced vegetables and give it a good stir. Put the lid on the pot so that things get nice & steamy. Let vegetables cook, stirring every few minutes or so until they are nice and tender - almost mushy). I don't remember how long this takes - maybe 10-15 minutes? Maybe it's only 5 minutes. Eh, you'll know when they are ready.

Now we are ready to put the lasagna together. First, put aside 1/2 cup sauce and 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese right away - this is going to be for the very top layer. The very first layer of the lasagna will be a small amount of sauce in the bottom of dish, followed by noodles. Do not be obsessive about the noodles lining up perfectly - it doesn't matter. Now just start layering the other ingredients. I think we did a layer of half the cottage cheese, followed by half the veggies, followed by mozz & parmesan cheese, more sauce, noodles, remainder of cottage cheese, remainder of veggies, mozz & parmesan, and one last layer of noodles, remaining sauce and remaining cheese. Something like that. Again, doesn't really matter and don't drive yourself crazy trying to get that cottage/ricotta cheese to spread evenly. Cover lasagna with foil and bake for 60-70 minutes at 375°. Remove foil and bake an additional 5 minutes to get the top looking purdy. It's done when you can easily stick a fork in the middle. Now exercise patience and let it sit for 10 minutes before diving in.

Goat Cheese, Red Pepper & Artichoke Heart Stuffed Chicken Breasts
over Greens with a Lemon Vinaigrette

My friend Susan brought me this meal shortly after Bella was born and I fell in lurve with it.

Ingredients:
1 lb chicken breast
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
1 can artichoke hearts, diced (get the most expensive can...they are much more tender)
4 oz goat cheese
1/2 cup Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil
Mixed baby greens
Salt & Pepper to taste

Pound chicken breasts to ~1/4 inch thickness between sheets of waxed paper. Mix red pepper, artichoke hearts, goat cheese, and breadcrumbs in a bowl. Spread pepper/artichoke/goat cheese mixture on top of each chicken breast and roll 'em up (there will be a decent bit of pepper/artichoke/goat cheese mixture remaining). Place stuffed chicken breasts in baking dish. Put remainder of pepper/artichoke/cheese mixture in separate baking dish (you can put the chicken & other stuff in one dish, but it will take FOREVER to bake). Bake both dishes for ~30 minutes at 350° or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 160° (Food Safety Dietitian Laura highly recommends a meat thermometer). While chicken is cooking, mix 2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice with 1 Tbsp olive oil and salt & pepper to taste. When chicken is done cooking, let it rest for 5 minutes before cutting it on a slight angle. To serve, generously spread greens on a plate and top with chicken and remaining pepper/artichoke/cheese mixture. Put dressing on top. Fin!

Bean & Rice Burritos

Ingredients
6-10 taco- or burrito-sized tortillas (depends on how robust you want your burritos to be...)
8 oz shredded cheese
Spanish rice mix, prepared (I use Zataran's)
Can black beans
Can fat free refried beans
1/2 packet of taco seasoning
Jar fresh salsa like Salsa Lisa

Heat both beans with 1/2 packet of taco seasoning. Now spread out a tortilla and fill it up with beans, spanish rice, cheese, and salsa. Roll and stick in freezer bag. Easy peasy. And pleasy. The dietitian in me feels compelled to tell you that this recipe is especially high in sodium given it's use of processed & canned foods. But you can choose to ignore that information and eat them anyway. That's what I do.

Seasoned Quinoa, Soy-Honey Glazed Marlin, and Mashed Horseradish Edamame

Seasoned Quinoa
Quinoa is cooked just like rice. Don't be scared. Husband would also like for you to know that it is a complete protein. And for the record, I think the sage flavor was weird with this meal, but Husband wanted it that way and marriage is about compromise.

Ingredients:
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp dried sage or other spice
1/2 tsp salt

Add salt to water and bring to a boil over high heat. Once boiling add remaining ingredients (quinoa, butter, sage) and return it to a boil. Then cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20-25 minutes and then remove from heat. Let it sit an additional 5 minutes.

Honey-Soy Glazed Fish
Mix 2 Tbsp cup soy sauce, 1 Tbsp sugar, and 1 Tbsp honey. Ideally I think it would be good to marinate the fish, but we just covered the fish with the sauce before putting it on the grill. Since this particular fish was sashimi-grade and we bought it from a reputable fishmonger (haha, again with the fishmonger) we only cooked it for 2 minutes on each side.

Mashed Horseradish Edamame (a.k.a. Mashed Soy-tatoes)
*We got ourselves another complete protein here, people. It turns out this meal was a protein-palooza.

1/2 lb frozen shelled edamame beans
1 lemon - zested & juiced
1 Tbsp (or more if you like it spicy, which we do) prepared Horseradish sauce
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp black pepper

Thaw edamame under warm running water for a few minutes. This will be boring. Then boil thawed edamame for 5 minutes to soften. Drain and reserve 1/3 cup of this cooking water. Place edamame and all other ingredients in a food processor. Puree, slowly adding the reserved liquid.

Shrimp Cocktail

This one is easy: Ina Garten's Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce