I’m always looking for breakfast recipes that incorporate veggies – especially greens because they’re my favorite and super healthy.
This recipe comes from Giada De Laurentiis’s book, Feel Good Food, which I totally love and have been cooking from a lot lately.
For this recipe you can use any type of whole grain tortilla you like. I found some low-carb whole grain roll-ups at Costco (Damascus brand) that are perfect for this. Continue reading
I am digging this recipe out of the archives because it’s one of my favorites and I make it all the time as soon as the weather dips a little. It’s super simple, hearty, and when served with some crusty garlic bread, makes a perfect meal.
An unexpected heat wave in Boston led me to ditch my plans for oven-roasted chicken to something lighter on the grill. I love summer (and summer foods), but enough is enough already. I CANNOT wait to make soups and roasted foods again and omg CHILI with all the fixins? Yes, please. Summer, I’m all set with you. But, for now, temps in the 80s and 90s are where we’re at and this dish is perfect for a hot summer night.
I am yanking this one from the archives and re-posting with some upgraded pictures. From time to time I think of what a shame it is that some of these particularly yummy recipes I post are stuck in blog archives that will probably never get seen. This soup is just too good for that.
Today we had a lovely 70-degree humidity free day in Boston. This got me wanting to dust off my dutch oven, which during colder months is in heavy rotation, but is basically abandoned come May. I’ve been under the weather with one thing after the next over the last week+, so I went looking through my old posts for some comforting, yet light, old standbys.
Reading through the old post, I was reminded that the recipe is from the Sopranos Cookbook that someone had given me as a gift many years ago. Since James Gandolfini’s death (sniff sniff), Brian and I have been re-watching the series from the beginning and loving it. Although i am having a lot of mob-related dreams and I think I actually briefly considered blackmail as a solution to a real-life problem. Might need to cut back on The Sopranos.
I’ve really been enjoying quinoa lately – sometimes as a salad for lunch, sometimes as a side. This side-dish recipe was was quick, healthy, and yummy.
I would like to start this whole shebang by saying this type of dish is my favorite kind. One, it’s loosely inspired by a recipe, but really much more based on ingredients you already have in the fridge that you didn’t have a plan for. Two, it comes together in about 20 minutes. Three, it’s freaking delicious. And finally, it’s healthy! Made with flavorful andouille chicken sausage (Trader Joe’s), a bunch of chopped kale, and some other pantry staples, this is a weeknight winner.
This dish is perfect to start the year off on a flavorful note. Serve with pasta or some crusty bread for mopping up the yummy sauce.
*Content and photos updated July 2012*
This was first inspired by a salad made for a BBQ by a new addition at my team at my former place of work. Follow that? No need, really. All you need to know that this salad is yummy, travels well, and I’ve made it a half a dozen times for cook-outs and the like. Both the simple and bold flavors make it a perfect summer party salad.
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Make ahead frozen breakfast burritos are one of our favorite weekday breakfast options. Every couple of weeks I’ll make a big batch of burritos with varying ingredients (usually some sort of reduced fat meat product like chicken sausage with peppers and onions), but I just loved the idea of adding kale and sweet potatoes for a nice nutrient punch in the morning.
I am OBSESSED with this salad. Obsessed. To be fair, I love kale, but I’m convinced someone not familiar with kale would love this too. This is the first time I’ve ever tried kale raw, and now I would like to eat a gallon of this salad every day. Dressed simply with a lemon and garlic dressing, this salad is a perfect side dish for summer as it requires virtually zero cooking.
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This recipe was inspired by two things: a pizza seen on a newly discovered (to me) blog, Healthy Food For Living, and my favorite pasta dishes at a restaurant that I love outside of Boston called Tre Monte. I love the flavors of broccoli rabe and sausage together, and I learned tonight that it doesn’t have to involve pasta for it to be awesome. Enter the weeknight pizza. A rich pesto made out of blanched broccoli rabe, pistachio nuts, pecorino and ricotta cheeses, spread atop whole wheat pizza dough and covered in browned chicken sausage and shredded cheese. I learned from Lauren at Healthy Food for Living that the frozen whole wheat pizza at whole foods is the bomb. It really is. I may never make pizza dough myself ever again. Hooray for that!
Since my last post was a yummy weekend breakfast treat, I thought I’d share what I typically have for breakfast during the week. Well, sometimes I’ll definitely have an egg or two with some black beans or a slice of sprouted grain toast instead and save the protein shake for after a workout, but lately this has been my morning choice. Maybe because I’ve been hitting the gym more than usual lately, but my body definitely enjoys the protein blast. Anyway, this shake is really tasty (I promise) and definitely keeps me full for several hours. And I love squeezing some greens in at breakfast time :).
I’m a big fan of a veggie (and usually sausage) filled soup — especially for a weekend lunch. Make a big batch on Saturday or Sunday and then have the leftovers in the fridge when you need a little snack or an impromptu lunch to bring to work. This soup is creamy and oh-so-healthy.
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This salad is DELICIOUS. I love how I feel after I eat a ton of dark leafy greens — like you just did something good for yourself. It doesn’t hurt when they’re tossed in a flavorful, creamy vinaigrette using greek yogurt, maple syrup, red wine vinegar, and grainy mustard, either. Oh, and toss it all with some teeny tiny potatoes and bacon. Eat your greens!
I had purchased some big fatty scallops on a whim since Brian has been hinting at a craving for, like, forever. I was a little disappointed when I couldn’t find anything interesting to do with the scallops after a quick search online (i.e. anything besides pan-searing them). I ended up finding this recipe on marthastewart.com, a resource that is quickly becoming one of my favorites. The recipe seemed to be lacking a little something, so I threw in a chopped bunch of arugula to spice it up a bit. Next time I might even add a second bunch because of the wilt factor, along with a healthy pinch of crushed red pepper flakes. Overall, this pasta dish really let the flavors of the scallops shine, and for this, Brian was grateful.
Update: I made this again because it was so yummy and I wilted in a couple of big handfuls of baby spinach. Even tastier!
Now this is one we will be eating probably once a week from here on out. It’s so easy, made with ingredients we almost always have on hand, and is totally delicious. We used a spinach, fontina, and roasted garlic chicken sausage from Trader Joe’s (so good), but any ol’ pre-cooked sausage would probably be great too. Next time I might mix in some baby spinach at the end for extra veg factor.
This dish was inspired by a recipe I yanked out of Brian’s Men’s Health mag (i love this mag, too). It was written as a sandwich, but we decided to cut out the roll. I have to say, this was so good and so easy! It’s nice to not over-complicate dinner every once in a while. 🙂
This recipe is from one of my all-time favorite restaurants in the Boston area — Hungry Mother. After eating and loving their catfish dish more than once, I was over the moon to find that the recipe was shared online! I actually found this recipe about a year ago and ever since have been looking for Creole mustard. Literally, every.single.grocery trip I stopped to survey the mustard selections and could never find it. Well, folks, this weekend I found it. Waaaay too excited to find mustard, let me just tell you. On the way to a friend’s house, we stopped for espresso and stumbled upon a fantastic gourmet food store called The Cook Shop. Along with the Creole mustard (yay), I grabbed some whole wheat cavatappi (also an impossible find), a rockin’ Microplane pizza wheel, and a few other fun kitchen gadgets and food stuffs.
I’m so glad I finally found this mustard. I’m sure I could have easily substituted another mustard, but because I was trying to replicate a restaurant dish, I really wanted to try to make it as authentic as possible. This dish was amazing, and well worth the search.
I did something weird the other day. I actually used one of the groupons that I purchased.
This is big. I have a bad habit of snatching up these deals only to let them wither and expire. Last spring I bought 1 groupon for a cooking class at Eurostoves in Beverly, MA. Foolishly I only bought one, and taking a cooking class solo is just not very fun. Thankfully, I was able to convince my mom to sign up as well (at full price, nonetheless…). I think she thought it would be more like the classes we take each year at Stonewall Kitchen where you sit in a comfy seat and a nice lady cooks, whilst explaining her methods, and then nice people bring you a plate of food and some wine to go with while you learn. This was a liiiiitle different, in that 5 of us were given 12 greek recipes and 2 hours and were told to work it out. I gotta say, I love to cook, but I think i prefer the Stonewall way.
This is one of the recipes we “learned” at this class. I liked that the recipe called to take several layers of filo and stack them up, as opposed to brushing each individual piece with butter, which has always put filo dough in the ‘daunting’ category for me. These make a great appetizer — I made them on the bigger end…you can make them smaller if you have more patience 🙂
I love a good stuffed chicken breast, but I love even more when I have all the ingredients I need on hand when a particular craving strikes. Since my list of recipes-to-try grows more ad more each week, I also love knocking one off the list from time to time. I ripped this out of RR’s Everyday Magazine because it looked like an easy, healthy weeknight recipe. I served it with English Peas (recipe soon!) and my standby cous cous.
