Made this stir-fry tonight in our new wok we got for Christmas. I think this was my first-ever stir-fry and mmm, mmm it was good! Here’s the recipe (I added broccoli).
Do you have good stir fry combos? Do share! My taste buds will thank you.
Ryan’s parents were in town for the weekend, and we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off, seeing the sites and sampling all the food that DC has to offer. By the time Sunday night rolled around, we were all ready to relax, so we invited them over for some football, 60 Minutes and soup.
The great thing about this soup, like all soups, is that it’s so easy and no stress. You really can’t mess it up. I served it with a side of cornbread and sliced chicken for the Healy men – Ryan and his dad, Jack – to add into their bowls; it was a big hit.
If you haven’t noticed, my cooking style is to take a bunch of ingredients, throw them into a pot and let the flavors meld. Nowhere is that better suited than a warm Winter soup. This one is healthy too so you don’t have to feel bad when you ladle yourself a second helping.
Healthy Winter Soup
Adapted from my Mother.
Ingredients
1 large can of chicken broth + 1 regular-sized can
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
2 medium onions, peeled and diced
2 cans small white beans
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 tsp whole peppercorns
1 tbsp dried herbs like basil and oregano
1/2 bag of fresh spinach, chopped
To Serve
Shredded Parmesan or Romano
Extra virgin olive oil
Preparation Instructions
Combine all ingredients except for the spinach in a large pot, adding more liquid as necessary. Bring to a boil and simmer on med-low until potatoes are cooked (about 35-45 minutes). When potatoes are tender, add chopped spinach and stir until spinach is just tender.
Ladle into bowls and add a bit of cheese and drizzle some olive oil on top. Serve.
See! Easy peasy. What is your favorite Winter soup recipe? Do share in the comments.
Here’s one that I’ve made a few times. The original recipe calls for you to roast the tomatoes in the oven, cool the tomatoes and cool the couscous – but I don’t have the patience for all that. So I just pan-fry the tomatoes and mix things up when it’s still warm. Since I haven’t roasted the tomatoes I can’t tell you if it’s any better, but I can tell you that my version is pretty darn good.
Meat-lovers can add sliced and fried chicken, but as usual, I prefer the dish without meat.
Pearl Couscous with Olives and Roasted Tomatoes
Adapted from Gourmet, September 2002.
Makes 6 servings
For tomatoes and dressing
2 pt red grape or cherry tomatoes (1 1/2 lb)
3 large garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup warm water
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon chili pepper flakes
For couscous
2 3/4 cups chicken broth
2 1/4 cups pearl (Israeli) couscous
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup Kalamata or other brine-cured black olives, pitted and chopped
1/3 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
Prepare tomatoes and make dressing:
Pour a few tablespoons of olive oil into a frying pan. Add garlic. Halve tomatoes through stem ends and cook in the pan until the tomato skins is just slightly shriveled.
Puree remaining oil, water, lemon juice, salt, pepper, chili pepper flakes, and 1/2 cup roasted tomatoes in a blender until dressing is very smooth.
Make couscous:
Bring broth to a boil in a 3-quart heavy saucepan and stir in couscous, then simmer, uncovered, 6 minutes. Cover pan and remove from heat. Let stand 10 minutes.
Transfer couscous to a large bowl and stir in remaining ingredients, dressing, pan-fried tomatoes, and salt and pepper to taste. Try not to eat entire bowl at once.
I made this dish just as Ryan and I were starting to feel better and oh man, did it do our bellies good. It’s a deliciously tasty dish that will wrap you in Fall aromatics as you cook.
The original recipe didn’t call for sausage, but since Ryan won’t eat a meal without meat, I chose a sweet sausage to accompany the dish. I think I would have preferred it without the sausage (it was pretty rich with it), but the beauty of risotto is you can add and subtract what you will.
Risotto with Butternut Squash, Gorgonzola and Toasted Pecans
(and Maybe Sausage)
Adapted from Oprah.com.
Ingredients
Preparation Instructions
On a side burner, bring the chicken stock to a boil and then reduce the heat. Keep it on low.
In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium-high flame, heat the olive oil. Add the onion. Sauté for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the rice; stir until well coated, about 1 minute. Add the garlic and squash and continue to stir another 30 seconds. Lower the heat to medium and ladle in a 1/2 cup hot stock. With a wooden spoon, stir until the liquid is absorbed but the rice isn’t sticking to the pan.
Continue adding 1/2 cup stock and stirring until the stock is absorbed, about 20 to 25 minutes, or until the rice is tender. (Note: I think I overcooked the risotto a tad since I was trying to get the squash to cook. So, make sure you cut your squash small enough, or cook it a bit before you add the arborio rice.)
While the risotto cooks, add the sausage to a frying pan with a few tablespoons of water. Bring to a boil and cover, simmering for 6 to 7 minutes. Drain any excess water and fry to a golden brown color. Slice the sausage and put aside.
Remove risotto from heat; add the sage, butter, and salt. Season with pepper. Stir to combine. Place risotto in a serving bowl and top with Gorgonzola, pecans, and sausage. You only need a bit of the Gorgonzola and pecans to dress this dish up to be absolutely mouth-watering. Do you have any good recipes for butternut squash? Enjoy!
Did you see? Brazen introduced Network Roulette today! I’m seriously a Network Roulette addict and not just because of my disclosed relationship with the company. I’ve been to a ton of real-life networking events – heck, my last job was to create those events – and Network Roulette truly mimics those experiences. I love helping people and Roulette makes that super easy to do.
Speaking of help, Ryan and I have discussed getting a live-in masseuse. Some people have butlers, but we would like a masseuse. Especially when we’ve been sick like the past week and a half. Ryan went to the doctor on Monday and actually has bronchitis. I haven’t been, but whatever I have has been holding on for a good ten days now. Ugh.
My only solace has been cooking (when I actually feel like eating), and I’ve been making a lot of comfort food, what with the change in weather and the constant coughing, sneezing and dragging. I stooped to ramen a few days ago, but I thought I’d share a recipe with a bit more substance.
Stuffed cabbage is some of the best comfort food and the batch that you see above was as delectable as cabbage can be. The beauty of stuffed cabbage is that you can use any of the leftover veggies you have in your fridge. I happened to have carrots, green pepper and celery in mine, but you can try others (potatoes would work well, for instance).
It looks like a lot of work, but it’s all quite cathartic – especially when your cute little cabbage packages go into the pot.
Stuffed Cabbage
Adapted from Martha Stewart.
Ingredients
To Serve on the Side
Preparation Instructions
- Using a paring knife, cut around the center core of the cabbage to remove it. Boil water in a large put, preferably not aluminum which reacts badly with cabbage. Add cabbage and as the outer leaves become bright and slightly tender, remove them with a wooden and fork. Repeat brief cooking and removal of leaves until all leaves are cooked. Reserve 2 cups of the cabbage cooking water. Trim thick center vein from bottom of each leaf (watch the video to see how). Reserve four large outer leaves to line bottom of pan.
- In a medium skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion, celery and garlic, and cook until golden and tender, about 8 minutes. In a large bowl, combine onion mixture, rice, beef, pork, salt, pepper, parsley and oregano flakes, green pepper, and carrots. Stir to combine.
- Add about 1/3 cup rice filling to one cabbage leaf. Fold sides of cabbage over filling, and, starting with the stem end, roll the cabbage up. Repeat with remaining leaves and filling. Aren’t they adorable? Told you so.
- Line a 5-quart Dutch oven or extra large pot (I just used a big pot) with reserved outside leaves. Transfer stuffed cabbage leaves to the pot.
- In a large bowl, combine tomato puree/paste and the reserved 2 cups of cabbage cooking water. Pour some of the tomato sauce over cabbage to almost cover. Sprinkle apple and a few tablespoons of sauerkraut over top of cabbage leaves. Add the bacon slices on top. Bring to a boil and immediately reduce to a gentle simmer; cover. Cook for 1 hour or until cabbage is very tender, adding additional tomato sauce as needed.
- While your cabbage packages are cooking, cook egg noodles according to package. Add the sliced onions to a pan with a tablespoon of unsalted butter and a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the caraway seeds and the rest of the sauerkraut. When pasta is cooked, drain and stir in the onions, caraway seeds and sauerkraut mixture.
- Place sour cream in a small bowl, and ladle in about 3/4 cup of tomato sauce from the cooked stuffed cabbage rolls. Whisk to combine. Add sour cream mixture back to Dutch oven, and stir to combine. Serve with egg noodles and additional sour cream.
Enjoy, these are like little food hugs. And this is a good one to invite your favorite friends over for – otherwise, you’ll be eating cabbage for days!
Tomatoes are by far one of my favorite foods, and lately cherry or grape tomatoes, which I cut up and put into all sorts of everything.
Try one of our favorite dishes for these little guys. While your favorite pasta is cooking (linguine is good and I like DaVinci’s Flowers a lot), fry up some grape or cherry tomatoes, then add your cooked pasta, a jar of pesto, handfuls off fresh spinach and top it off with cheese. When Ryan and I cook it together, chicken is also thrown in, but I’m partial to the dish without any meat myself.
Served with a sprinkling of salt and ground pepper is also recommended.
What are you doing for the labor day weekend? Ryan and I are going to have a staycation for once since we’ve been doing so much traveling and have more to come this month. I’m really looking forward to kicking back and cozying up with a good book. If you’ll be running around, here’s a good pasta salad to take with you.
Zuchinni & Almond Pasta Salad
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen.
Ingredients
Preparation Instructions
Toss zucchini slices with one teaspoon salt in a large colander set over a bowl or in sink. Let drain 20 minutes. If they taste too salty to you, rinse and drain them again (I didn’t have this problem and actually added more salt). Boil the water for the pasta and while you wait, place the almonds on a pan in a 300 degree oven for 8 minutes to toast. Whisk together olive oil and lemon juice, seasoning generously with one teaspoon red pepper flakes, black pepper and salt to taste. Add the red onion and basil to marinate.
When your pasta is cooked, drain and toss it together with zucchini, feta, almonds, and dressing. You can eat it while it’s still warm or cold as a pasta salad the next day. If you’re Ryan, add some pan-fried chicken.
I am not sure what’s better and more deluding to your health than a delicious bagel sandwich.
Gotham Bagels in my neighborhood are New York style, and if you’re in the city, you should defniitely give them a visit. This particular beauty, called the “V”, is scallion cream cheese, roasted poblano peppers, tomato, arugula and avocado on a bagel. Ryan picked it up and hand-delivered it to me a few weeks ago. Have I mentioned I’m a lucky girl?
You must start this meal (Ryan would call it an appetizer, I will call it a meal) with a delicious extra virgin olive oil, the kind you wouldn’t mind dipping your finger into just to taste…. this variety came to me from Sicily via Alice. You can see how much I’ve used already and the bottle only recently arrived at my doorstep. Ah, Sicily!
Now that you’ve found a quality olive oil, here is the rest of the recipe:
Broiled Bread w/ Zucchini, Goat Cheese & Basil
Adapted from The Dabble.
Ingredients
Preparation Instructions
Drizzle your olive oil over slices of french bread. Pop the slices under the broiler while you fry up some thin slices of zucchini, in more olive oil, and ground some salt and pepper to taste. In a bowl, mix a healthy handful of basil, red pepper flakes and even more olive oil. Add your thinly sliced fried zucchini when they’re lightly browned and tender. Mix ’em up, then take out your lightly broiled bread, add the zucchini mixture and top it off with your favorite goat cheese (try garlic and herbs – divine!).
It will seem like a simple dish.
I am going to get to why you should wear red, but I first want to tell you that Ryan has been exercising and eating right like a madman lately. I blame it on his ex-roommate who obsessed his way into a completely new body. Ryan is well on his way. I keep telling him to stop counting calories and he keeps telling me that my metabolism is too high to comment. So, okay.
When I offered this delectable treat to him at first, he gave a face. This is a man who believes that going without meat for one meal is bad. Very, very bad. Even when on a diet. But I had faith he would really like my simple treat. So I foisted it upon him. And guess what? Now, when goes to buy his lean pork chops and ground turkey, he picks up some blueberries and yogurt as well. The non-fat kind of course.
Blueberry Yogurt Snack & Dessert
Ingredients
Preparation Instructions
The vanilla yogurt is key to this treat as well as the quart-sized containers, which match up well with the blueberry’s containers and will last you the week. I also suggest cute ramekins. Red is a good color. In fact, when women wear red, men pay more attention and think they’re more attractive. So it stands to reason that putting healthy food in red ramekins has to be a smart move as well.
Place spoonfuls of yogurt into a red ramekin all the way to the edge. Dip your spoon in. Add blueberries until they start to overflow over the top. Enjoy the creamy, fruity goodness.
I recently got the craving for quesadillas from an article describing how sad the state of food was now that we are elevating the plain and humble quesadilla. Which only made my insensitive taste buds salivate at the thought of delicious melted cheese. Ohh, cheesy cheese!
Mainly quesadillas, with some of your favorite flavors, are easy to make as a quick dinner on a Monday summer night.
Just take some corn tortillas – stay away from flour, please. Corn tortillas have so much more flavor and are usually smaller which means you can experiment with different fillings in one session. Plus, they’re better for you. Which is good because we’re going to add a lot of cheese next.
A lot of goat cheese, to be exact. You can grab all the cheeses from your drawer however, and try each variety one after the other.
Your choice of mushrooms from your local grower. We’ve got some crimini and oyster mushrooms here.
And finally, some fresh spinach for strength.
Look at ’em frying up all cute just for us.
Mushroom, Spinach & Goat Cheese Quesadillas
Ingredients
Preparation Instructions
After you’ve chopped the mushrooms and given them a quick warming up, fry the tortilla with some goat cheese spread all over. Peek underneath, and when it starts to show a light crunch, add a small handful of spinach. Remember, spinach shrinks when you cook it, so add a couple more leaves than will seemingly fit. Add a small drizzle of olive oil, and fold the tortilla over.
Fry the quesadilla on both sides (if you have a non-stick pan, no oil necessary), open it up and then add your cooked mushrooms. Fold it back over and transfer to a plate for scrumptious eating.
If tomatoes are in season, chopped with salt and pepper is all you’ll need on the side as a salsa.
Be sure to try different cheeses and variations on fillings as that’s half the fun of quesadillas. Cheddar, artichoke hearts, and broiled red peppers would all be good in our lowly quesadilla as well.
I’ve been eating a lot of potato chips lately, and while carrots are a good replacement for the crunch, I still want something salty! When I saw this recipe, I was anxious to try it even though I don’t think I’ve ever had kale before (maybe just in soup).
I was skeptical until it started smelling really good halfway through the baking time… then when they were finished, I popped one in my mouth, and delicious! You don’t need too much salt or oil to make it yummy.
Baked Kale Chips
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen.
1 bunch (about 6 ounces) kale
1 tablespoon olive oil
Sea salt, to taste
Preheat oven to 300°F. Rinse and dry the kale, then remove the stems and tough center ribs. Cut into large pieces, toss with a small amount of olive oil in a bowl then sprinkle with a little salt. Arrange leaves in a single layer on a large baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, or until crisp. Place baking sheet on a rack to cool. Best when eaten warm.
