Salads and Berry Shortcake

For my sister's last night in town we had a girls night at my mom's house. We'd originally planned to go out to dinner, but all I wanted was something light after eating way too much pizza, ice cream and gingerbread at Santa's Village over the weekend.

Laura and I walked to the nearby farm for salad fixings while my mom went to the grocery store for some other provisions. When we got home we washed all of the fruits and veggies and set up an assembly line for making our individual salads (I vetoed making a large salad that we'd serve ourselves from because I think half the fun of a big salad is making it...and I might be a bit of a control freak and like to make my own).

My salad - lettuce, arugula, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, avocado, cucumber and almond slices. Drizzled with some dark balsamic vinegar and some white balsamic vinegar.

My mom's salad - same as mine, without the almonds.

Laura's salad - left out the blueberries and almonds and made a dressing using dark balsamic vinegar, olive oil, grainy mustard, and minced garlic.

We shared a bottle of Gravina Botromagno - an Italian white wine. The wine was light and fruity - it accompanied the salads very nicely.

For dessert we made berry shortcakes. I picked up a recipe from the Farmer's Market in Nashua a couple weeks ago, so I used that as the starting point for the shortcakes - but changed a few things to make it a lot healthier. I warned my mom and Laura that the shortcakes may flop, and if they did we could just eat berries for dessert.

The recipe advised that the berries would be juicier is you crush a few before sugaring and let them sit for an hour before using. I took about a cup of strawberries (stems removed and sliced in half) and mashed them in a bowl with a fork. I added some blueberry honey (about 1 tbsp) to the mashed strawberries and let them sit for a little under 2 hours.

To make the shortcake, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

Stir in applesauce with a rubber spatula.

Stir in egg white and milk.

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and separate the dough into five evenly-sized rounds. 

Bake for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown.

To serve the dessert I sliced the shortcakes in half and added the strawberries marinated in honey, then a layer of strawberries and blueberries, and a dollop of yogurt on top.

Healthified Berry Shortcake

Recipe adapted from Old-Fashioned Strawberry Shortcake Recipe at Nashua Farmer's Market

Serves 5

Ingredients

For the filling - 

• 3 cups fresh strawberries, divided
• 2 cups fresh blueberries
• 1 tbsp honey
• nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt

For the shortcake -

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 egg white
• 2/3 cup skim milk

Directions

1. Mash 1 cup strawberries in a bowl with a fork. Add honey and stir to combine. Set aside for 1 hour. Wash and prepare remaining strawberries and blueberries and set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
3. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add applesauce and incorporate using a rubber spatula. Stir in egg white and milk.
4. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and separate the dough into five evenly-sized rounds. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown.
5. Slice the shortcakes in half and add the strawberries marinated in honey, then a layer of strawberries and blueberries, and a dollop of yogurt on top.

I liked these shortcakes - they weren't light and flaky like your typical shortcake, but that's because there wasn't any butter (or any fat at all). They were a little bit heavy, but soaked up the honey-infused strawberry juice quite well. My mom suggested that using buttermilk might improve this recipe (you can make your own buttermilk by adding a little bit of vinegar to regular milk). Overall, I think this was a good alternative to traditional shortcake and would definitely make it again.

My Favorite Sandwich: Pesto, Tomato, Mozzarella

This is my favorite sandwich - a fresh baguette slathered with pesto and topped with basil leaves and thick slices of mozzarella cheese and tomatoes. The first time I had a variation of this sandwich was with Katie when we took the train into Harvard Square and got the sandwiches at Au Bon Pain. It became a ritual of sorts, and every time we went to Harvard Square we'd get the sandwiches. Now every time I eat one of these I think of her. 

Even better is making the sandwiches at home, when you can use homemade pesto and pick the freshest ingredients to fill the sandwich. This is exactly what I was in the mood for this weekend - a big sandwich to fill the bottomless pit of my belly (no matter what I eat, it always seems like I'm hungry all day long after I've finished a big run. Saturday was no exception after my 12 mile run).

To make these sandwiches you'll need the following:

• baguette
• pesto
• mozzarella cheese
• tomatoes
• fresh basil (optional but strongly recommended)

Once you have all of your ingredients, the assembly is quite simple.

Cut sections of your bread and slice down the middle.

Slather both sides of bread with pesto.

Add slices of mozzarella.

Add slices of tomato and sprinkle with salt and pepper, if desired.

Add fresh basil leaves.

Close your sandwich and enjoy!

This sandwich really hit the spot! Sometimes I'll make an open-faced sandwich, but I was hungry enough to eat a full one - and a little more pesto is never a bad thing. This is also the first "meal" I ever made for Pat on my own. It was probably five years ago at this point - one day I bought all of the ingredients and surprised him. He'd never had it before and loved it - and I was so excited to have made something for him that he liked (since he's always been the food expert). I made him one on Saturday, too.

Speaking of the bottomless pit of my belly...I pack a snack to have on the ride home from work (since its over an hour drive). Usually I pack some baby carrots and/or an apple, but I still find that when I walk in the door I'm starving and ready to devour everything in sight (which is especially inconvenient if I'm going to the gym). I realized that these snacks weren't really enough to tide me over from lunch until dinner, so I've been making baggies of assorted snacks that combine a little fat, fiber and protein. The snack I made today was my favorite so far:

Peanut Butter Puffins cereal (if you haven't tried this yet, you must), raw almonds, and unsweetened dried apple rings.

This keeps me full a lot longer and prevents me from tearing apart the kitchen when I get home (or at least delays it for a while!).

What's your favorite snack? What do you eat before working out?

Crock Pot Chicken Cacciatore

Pat and I had some family over for linner (lunch/dinner) on Sunday and I made chicken cacciatore in the crock pot. I'd made this in a skillet before, but this was my first time using a crock pot - as expected it was quite easy and came out very well!

Pat called his dad for this recipe, and I made a few changes to the process and ingredients.

Crock Pot Chicken Cacciatore

(serves 10 with a lot of leftovers)

Ingredients

• 5 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
• 2 tsp dried basil
• fresh basil
• 2 cans (28 ounces) Pastene "Kitchen Ready" crushed tomatoes
• 12 ounces mushrooms, cut into thirds
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 red and 2 green bell peppers, chopped
• 1 cup red wine
• 1/2 cup fat free reduced sodium chicken broth
• 1/4 cup corn starch
• 2 boxes pasta, cooked and drained
• fresh Parmesan and Romano cheese, grated

Prepare your chicken and vegetables.

(I recently read that lighting a candle will stop you from crying when cutting onion - this didn't work for me!)

Put chicken, vegetables, garlic, Italian seasoning, dried basil, wine, and 1.5 cans tomatoes in the crock pot (reserve the remaining 1/2 can of crushed tomatoes to toss the pasta when cooked). Mix until everything is well coated.

Cook on low/high for 4-8 hours (this depends on the amount of food in your crock pot and how long you have before you need to serve it - my crock pot was completely full, so I cooked it on high for about 6 hours).

About 30 minutes before serving I added fresh basil to the crock pot. Wash, tear, and add.

 

Then in a small bowl, stir together chicken broth and corn starch until smooth. Add mixture to crock pot, stir in, and cook on high for another 10-15 minutes or until sauce thickens.

 

Linner is served!

 

(This picture was taken before I added some of the fresh Parmesan and Romano cheese on top - definitely do this because its the perfect finishing touch!)

Everyone said that they really liked this dish, and several people went back for seconds. So either it was a big hit or I just have very polite guests!

Dinner: A Circus of Citrus

My dinner last night was inspired by citrus fruits. Sunday was about 42 degrees and Monday was 40 degrees. Considering the winter we've had, that felt like spring to me. Rather than making another hot, hearty meal, this little bit of warmth deserved a warm-weather inspired meal.

I used the above fruits to make a salad, broil fish, and squeeze onto dessert.

The meal-

Salad: baby spinach, sections of orange, sections of grapefruit, cucumbers, green and yellow peppers - drizzled with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. (I also roasted some pecans to throw on top but forgot to add them - that would have been good though!)

Fish: trout broiled at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, flipped halfway through. Spray pan with cooking spray and squeeze juice of half of lemon onto fish before cooking. Also add fresh ground pepper, garlic powder, and any other spices you feel like. I also sauteed some plum tomatoes and garlic to add on top of the fish when it was done.

Dessert: slices of mango covered in lime juice and sprinkled with cayenne pepper.

Here's the before and after shots of my fish:

I spayed a small skillet with cooking spray and sauteed a sliced plum tomato and one clove of garlic for a few minutes until hot and wilted.

As the fish broiled, I made the salad, sauteed the tomatoes, and sliced my mango.

This whole dinner came together in about 20 minutes, and the colors and taste almost tricked me into thinking winter was over. Almost.

The salad was light and refreshing.

The fish was nice and flaky, and the flavor combination of the lemon, tomato and garlic was delicious.

The mango with lime juice and cayenne pepper was very good - although I think I overestimated my tolerance for spice. Just this amount was very spicy - so next time I'll probably put about half as much as I used here. My brother went to college in New Mexico, and this is a popular treat there (although there they serve the entire mango on a stick and there's much more cayenne added!).

The "spring"-like weather did not last long. I woke up this morning to several inches of fresh snow covering my car. Temperatures are supposed to drop way down the rest of the week, so I guess spring isn't coming quite yet.

This morning I tried another variation of Overnight Oats - I'm calling it Apple Crisp A La Mode!

Last night I put the following in my big mug:

-1/3 cup oats

-1/2 cup water

-several large spoonfuls of unsweetened applesauce

-1 tsp cinnamon

This morning I added a large scoop of 0% vanilla Greek yogurt, some more cinnamon, and some chopped walnuts. Delicious!

Big Night

At about noon yesterday I realized something quite exciting...that night was the first night I didn't have plans, have to study or work on essays in weeks! I had absolutely nothing to do! Sometimes when you feel like you're constantly running from one thing to another (I feel this way often) it is so nice to have a night with absolutely nothing planned. But of course, being the type-A that I am, I immediately started planning my night. Pat would be gone until late evening because he had several meetings, I was out of work at 3:30 because I'd gotten in so early, so that left hours of time to myself. How will I entertain myself? A couple years ago the answer to that question would have been Thirsty Thursday! But now, all I wanted to do was cook! I had my appetizer, entree and dessert planned by the time I left work. I made it back to Nashua in record time, stopped at Trader Joe's to stock up on some ingredients, and then hit the gym for a six mile run. 

I got home at 6:45 energized, starving, and sweaty. After showering, I got to work in the kitchen.

Tonight's Menu:

Appetizer: Broccoli Hummus with Baked Pita Chips and Carrots

Entree: Tofu and Mushroom Marsala

Dessert: Salted Oatmeal Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yes, that's a lot of food to make for myself and eat myself, but I'd managed to work up quite the appetite on the ride home and treadmill.

Broccoli Hummus

I've been meaning to make hummus for a while now that I have a food processor, but hadn't gotten around to it. For this I used all of the typical ingredients of hummus, but added broccoli, halved the oil, and didn't use tahini (Trader's didn't have any and I didn't feel like going on a quest for it). Pat and I are a little bit obsessed with broccoli and have it almost every night with dinner. I thought that adding broccoli to my hummus would be a fun new way to incorporate it into a meal.

This is so easy to make - just throw all of your ingredients into the food processor and continue to process until it reaches the desired consistency (several minutes).

Ingredients:

• 2 cups raw broccoli
• 15 ounce can garbanzo beans (chick peas)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• salt and pepper to taste (I didn't use any, didn't think it needed it)

I also made some whole wheat pita chips to have with the hummus.  This came out to be so delicious! The garlic and lemon add a lot to the taste of this dip - it was a wonderful snack to have as I made dinner, and good for you, too! I can't wait to use this in a sandwich this weekend.

Tofu and Mushroom Marsala

I've never made Marsala before, but Pat has made me chicken Marsala several times and I've always loved it. When I saw a recipe for tofu Marsala I couldn't wait to try it! This meal came together very quickly but tasted as though someone had spent hours in the kitchen (well I did, but this dish only took about 30 minutes from start to finish!).

In a large pan heated on medium, saute minced garlic in olive oil until fragrant.

Add bell pepper, oregano and salt. Saute for about 5 minutes.

Turn the heat to high and add Marsala and tofu, cook for 4 minutes (I wanted the wine to reduce more so it would be less liquidy, so I cooked about 5-6 minutes).

Turn heat to medium-high and add mushrooms and tomatoes. Cook 5 minutes.

Turn off the heat and stir in basil.

Serve in bowls with freshly grated Parmesan on top, and crusty bread on the side (I bought Ciabbata rolls from Trader Joe's that were perfect for this).

This was so good - definitely one of the best tofu dishes I've made. I love the basil and Parmesan cheese with the tofu, and all of the flavors blended really well together. As I said, I wouldn't have thought to make tofu in a Marsala dish, but it worked so well!

Recipe

This is from Serious Eats - their recipe serves 4 but I cut mine down to serve 2.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup Marsala cooking wine
• 1/2 package firm light tofu, pressed and cut into strips
• (1/2) 15 ounce can diced tomatoes (I used Trader Joe's fire roasted tomatoes for some spice)
• 5 ounces button mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 cup chopped basil
• Parmesan cheese (to grate on top)
• Crusty bread or pasta to serve with

Directions:

1. In a large pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add garlic and saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add bell pepper, oregano, and salt. Saute 5 minutes.
2. Turn heat up to high. Add Marsala and tofu and cook 4 minutes, so wine reduces a little (I cooked 5-6 minutes so it reduced more).
3. Turn heat to medium-high. Add mushrooms and tomatoes. Cook 5 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in basil. Serve in bowls with crusty bread or pasta.

Salted Oatmeal Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love anything that combines salty and sweet, so I had a good feeling about these cookies. They did not disappoint! Though they look more like little dough balls than cookies, the taste is outstanding...and its impossible to eat just one. I also love that this recipe uses whole wheat flour instead of white...and that there's oats in them!

In a medium bowl, mix oats, flour, and baking powder.

In a smaller bowl, mix butter, brown sugar, and syrup.

Add egg and vanilla - mix thoroughly.

Combine dry and wet ingredients.

Roll dough into balls. Place on baking sheet covered in parchment paper and sprinkle with sea salt (don't be shy about the salt!). Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes.

I wish I'd flattened these a bit before cooking because they maintained their ball shape. I'd forgotten the difference between brown and white sugar - the white sugar allows the cookies to spread, whereas brown sugar usually maintains the original shape. So though the shape isn't perfect, the taste was!! These go so well with a cold glass of milk. For you nut lovers out there - definitely include nuts if you have them. The added crunch is great!

Recipe (from Nutrition Nut on the Run)

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1/4-1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I used 1/4 cup because I only added to half the batter, use 1/2 a cup if adding to all of batter)
• sea salt

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, mix oats, flour, and baking powder. 
2. In a smaller bowl, mix butter, brown sugar, and syrup. Add egg and vanilla - mix thoroughly.
3. Combine wet and dry ingredients.
4. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts.
5. Roll dough into balls. Place on baking sheet covered in parchment paper and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes.