Here is a look back at a Sicilian recipe I posted a few years ago that is one of my all-time favorite pasta dishes. While it might seem too hot right now for a heavy cream sauce, I crave pistachio pasta all year long. It’s so simple and quick, the sauce will be finished by the time your pasta is cooked. Pair it with a crisp salad and I think it’s a great way to end a long summer day.
Farfalle with Pistachio Cream Sauce Recipe
I love grilled beef. I especially love grilled flank steak. Today I’m introducing you to one of my favorite food bloggers, Terry from Blue Kitchen, and his recipe for Spice-Rubbed Flank Steak. The meat is slow-marinated in a mixture of coriander, cumin, cinnamon, fresh ginger, and garlic before it meets the grill. Yes, it smells and tastes just as fantastic as it sounds. Continue reading →
This is a quick lunch I threw together from what I could find in my fridge and pantry today. I wanted something to go with the leftover grilled steak and chicken I brought home from a family barbecue the other night and this delicious brown rice salad really fit the bill.
The salad works well as either a side dish or a light vegetarian main course for lunch. Top with thinly sliced grilled chicken, steak, or tempeh and you have a hearty and delicious summer meal. Feel free to play with ingredient amounts to suit your own taste. I think it would be great topped with some sliced avocado and roasted pepitas.
When I first read about Phoo-D’s Edamame Soup with Wasabi Cream, I knew I had to make it. For one thing, I’ve had a bag of shelled edamame hanging out in my freezer for quite a while, but what really caught my attention was the combination of flavors she incorporated into her soup. You just can’t go wrong with garlic, ginger, and toasted sesame oil – not to mention the horseradish cream on top. Perfect.
I had planned on following the recipe. Really, that was my intention. It wasn’t until I noticed that my bag of frozen edamame was of insufficient size that I knew I would have to improvise. My first change was to use frozen peas to shore up my meager soybean supply. Once I started thinking about peas, I remembered the fresh dill and mint in my refrigerator that, though still clinging to life, really needed to be used up sooner than later. When I started thinking about dill and mint, of course I wanted to incorporate some lemon. All of a sudden, the soup had changed quite a bit! Continue reading →
Who says comforting food has to be unhealthy? This hearty stew is both nutritious and satisfying, and the bright, warm Moroccan flavors will be a welcome surprise to taste buds exhausted by holiday overindulgence.
It’s time for another virtual lunch date with my pals on twitter, and today we’re eating hearty stews. As I mulled over some stew ideas, my first thought was to create something with beef and butternut squash. I knew I had a squash on the counter and some tri-tip in fridge and the combination sounded like a great one for stew. But when my coffee-addled brain realized that I had already cut the tri-tip into steaks and thrown them in some marinade, I decided I’d better rethink my plan. It was then I realized that I didn’t have a butternut squash sitting on the counter either.
Yes, I think I am going crazy.
Since I liked the idea of a stew featuring butternut squash, I picked one up at the store yesterday. I decided against buying more beef, figuring it would be more fun (and inexpensive) to create a stew using ingredients I had on hand. After surveying the contents of my pantry, I grabbed a can of chickpeas, some canned tomatoes and a half-empty bag of Israeli couscous I found stuffed way in the back. My hearty stew was coming together nicely. Continue reading →
Like many of you out there I have made a serious commitment to eat better and get in shape in 2010. However, there’s always room for a little indulgence, so I have decided to share this amazing bacon and caramelized onion quiche we ate on New Year’s morning. Healthy? Perhaps not. But there will be times this year when a little splurging is both necessary and deserved. So hop on your treadmills, bikes, and elliptical machines, drink lots of water, eat lots of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains—but please, I’m begging you, don’t forget to eat a slice of quiche every once in a while. Continue reading →
Remember I told you I had butterflied a chicken and was planning on grilling it under a brick? Well now I’ll show you how I did it.
As I mentioned the other day, Pollo al Mattone, or Chicken Under a Brick is a Tuscan style of grilling chicken. The chicken cooks quickly since it is flattened under the weight of the brick and you end up with crispy delicious skin and juicy, perfectly cooked meat. What more could one want from a chicken? Continue reading →
Oatmeal. It’s not the most glamorous subject, is it?
I grew up eating oatmeal for breakfast on a fairly regular basis. My Dad would often make it for us on cold, winter mornings before school. Sometimes it would be plain and I would eat it with butter and a bit of brown sugar. That wasn’t so bad. Some mornings, he would add chopped dried apricots, my favorite way to eat oatmeal. But more often than not, he would cook it with raisins. Plump, rehydrated raisins. Yuck! While I now look back on those mornings with a certain fondness, I certainly wasn’t in love with oatmeal at the time! Continue reading →
