Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Dinner Tonight

What's for dinner tonight? We did a quick and easy one, with lots of fresh veggies that are starting to hit our local produce aisle.

Raspberry Chipotle BBQ Salmon
Corn on the Cob
Sautéed Zuchini
Salad

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Creamy Tomato-Chard Pasta

This is an easy vegetarian (though not vegan) recipe. It's nice and light and fresh-tasting and perfect for summer. You can sub any green leafy for the chard; just remember, the "woodier" the green (like chard or kale) the longer it will need cooking. Delicate leafies like spinach don't take long at all, so start the onions in advance with those. Substitute fresh tomatoes if you have high quality ones available to you.

Creamy Tomato-Chard Pasta

Ingredients

About 1 pound of pasta, cooked al dente per package instructions
1 T. oil
1 package (or bunch) chard, washed, de-stemmed, and chopped
1/4 large onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can diced tomatoes, semi-drained (the tomatoes don't have to be bone dry, just not swimming in juice)
1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese
1/2 c. plain yogurt
1/2 t. dried basil
salt and pepper

While your pasta is cooking, add the oil to a large pan. Add the onion and saute a minute or two, then add the chard and garlic. Saute until the chard is tender, maybe 7-9 minutes. This will take a lot longer if you didn't get all the stems out. Add the tomatoes, basil and cheese, stir, and cook until heated through. Remove from heat and stir in the yogurt. Salt and pepper to taste, then mix in the pasta.


Thanks to food.com for the inspiration for this recipe.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps

So I'm still on the springtime slough and I had Mother's Day on the horizon. Eeps, what's a girl to do? I needed to save some calories for cupcakes and champagne, so I found this super yummy recipe on Skinny Taste. It was good. The Buffalo flavor was very mild; if I was making it at home for just my family I think I would add a bit more buffalo sauce. The best thing about it was it was sooooo easy--just toss everything in the crockpot in the morning, no fussing over food on Mother's Day. Yay! I tweaked the recipe just a bit, mostly to accomodate a crowd. I also didn't offer blue cheese or blue cheese dressing--again, priorities! I wanted a cupcake BAD. If you read the recipe, you can see why.

Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Ingredients:
6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 celery stalk
1/2 onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
salt and pepper
about 2 c. chicken stock/broth
1 c. Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Sauce (or Buffalo sauce of your choosing)

1 bag baby carrots
4 stalks celery
1 head lettuce

Spray some Pam around your crockpot and add the chicken. Lightly salt and pepper it, then cover with broth. Add the onion, garlic, and celery stalk and cook on high for four hours.

Remove the chicken from the crockpot and shred with two forks. Keep about 1 cup of the liquid in the crockpot and return the chicken to it (don't throw the rest away--use it to make an amazing soup later in the week or freeze it for later. I'm doing crock pot chicken and dumplings with mine).

Add the Buffalo sauce and return the lid to the pot, cook an additional 30 minutes.

Run the carrots and celery through the food processor grater (or grate by hand if you prefer, but mind your knuckles). Remove lettuce leaves as best as you can to keep them big. To serve, have guests choose their leaves, top with chicken and with the carrot/celery mix. Enjoy!




Apricot-Blueberry Champagne Cocktail

I made these for Mother's Day this year, too. Less sweet than a mimosa but still light enough for brunch. Champagne is a funny alcohol; when you mix it, you add mixers first and the champagne second. Weird. But delicious.

Apricot-Blueberry Champagne Cocktail

Ingredients:
Apricot nectar (I used Santa Cruz Organics brand, from the natural foods section)
Blueberries, thawed from frozen or fresh
Dry champagne

In a champagne flute, put 3-4 blueberries (if using wild blueberries, add a few more as they are quite petite) in the bottom of the glass. Add apricot nectar to about 3/4" up from the bottom. Muddle the berries a bit in the nectar, then fill the glass the rest of the way with champagne. Enjoy!


Whenever I hear the word 'champagne' I think of the movie Wayne's World. Anybody else?

Lemon Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream

For Mother's Day this year, I made these yummy cupcakes. My mom and I are big lemon fans (make that superfans), and the rest of the family just had to suffer along. These are pretty tasty; my only beef is that the cupcakes were a tad TOO lemony (did I just write that?). The recipe calls for an entire lemon's worth of zest and juice, and my lemon was pretty epic. When I make these again, I think I will use either a smaller lemon or just half a large lemon's worth.

Lemon Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream

Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
1 c. white sugar
1/2 c. butter (1 stick), softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 t. vanilla
1 1/2 c. flour
1 3/4 t. baking powder
1/2 c. milk
1 lemon, zest and juice

Buttercream:
1 c. butter, softened
1 t. vanilla
1/4 t. sea salt
4 c. powdered sugar
1/2 c. (or more, to taste) seedless blackberry jam

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin cups with paper liners

Cream sugar and a stick of butter in the bowl of a stand mixer until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla. Mix well.

Add flour and baking powder and stir until combined. Add milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest and mix well. The lemon may make the mixture separate a bit, but the batter should shape up fine.

Put batter into the cups, 2/3-3/4 full (these cupcakes are on the denser side, so you shouldn't have to worry about runaway cakes). Bake 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely.

Beat the remaining two sticks of butter with the 1 t. of vanilla and salt (start with a little salt and add to taste), until smooth and creamy. Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time. If it starts to get a little thick, you can thin it with a tablespoon or so of milk. Beat in the blackberry jam.