RECIPES: Heather's Roasted Creamer Potatoes

I was craving a traditional Sunday dinner meal the other day. You know-- the kind that includes mashed potatoes and maybe some roasted veggies and gravy? I came across some creamer potatoes at the farmer's market, and I decided they would do...

Heather's Roasted Creamer Potatoes

Creamer potatoes (or small red new potatoes)
Onions, slivered
Olive oil
Coarse sea salt
Fresh ground pepper

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 
• Put creamer potatoes in a roasting pan with onions. Cut up larger potatoes into bite-size chunks. Drizzle with EVO. Sprinkle liberally with sea salt and ground pepper.
• Roast until done (I don't remember how long it took.)

Very easy, and very good! And very good with caramelized onion salmon.

RECIPE: Heather's Citrus Orange Roughy

I recently needed to use up a piece of orange roughy that I had in the freezer, and I debated on what to do with it. I intended to do a Lemon-Orange Roughy I saw on the web (made with lemon and orange juices and lemon pepper), but I didn't have OJ or lemon pepper and only bottled lemon juice. So I had to make due. It went something like this:

Heather's Citrus Orange Roughy

1 orange roughy filet
Seasoned pepper
Bottled lemon juice
Bottled lime juice
Dried orange peel
Olive oil

Heat olive oil in pan. Sprinkle roughy liberally with seasoned pepper on both sides and place in pan. Saute for a minute. Squirt lemon and lime juices over fish. Sprinkle with a pinch of orange peel. Saute for about 5 minutes on each side.

Very simple way to prepare this fish, and a nice light flavor. It turned out quite well!

RECIPE: Heather's Mexican Rice

I needed a Mexican-type side dish the other day, and I came up with this.

Heather's Mexican Rice

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup green pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic
3 scallions, sliced
1 cup long-grain rice
2 cups water or vegetable broth
1/2 chopped tomato
1/2 small can tomato sauce
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin
Cilantro

1. Saute pepper in EVO for a few minutes. 
2. Add scallions and garlic and saute a minute. 
3. Add rice and toast until turning brown.
4. Add water/broth and tomato. Cover and simmer 20 minutes.
5. Stir in tomato sauce and season with chili powder, salt and cumin.
6. Sprinkle with fresh cilantro and serve.

Actually you should do the tomato sauce to suit you. I think I'll go a little easier on the sauce next time, as it was a little too tomato-ey for me. Otherwise it was a nice little dish.

RECIPE: Heather's Breakfast Burrito

I made the best breakfast burrito yesterday, and it was so easy to make! Here's what I did:

Breakfast Burrito
Makes 2 small burritos

1 tbs butter
1/4 cup onion, chopped small
1/4 cup roasted red pepper, chopped small
1/8 cup tomato, chopped small
2 eggs
Almond milk
Salt and Pepper
Cheese
2 flour tortillas

1. Melt butter in pan over medium-high heat. Saute onion until it begins to caramelize.
2. Add in pepper and tomato and saute a couple of minutes until heated through.
3. Meanwhile combine eggs and a little milk (I use almond milk) in a small bowl and beat to combine well. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Add eggs to veggies. Scramble eggs until done. Top with cheese to melt. (I used a Swiss slice this time, torn into pieces).
5. Remove egg mixture from pan (reserve in a small bowl), and warm tortillas in saute pan. Assemble egg mixture in tortilla and roll up to serve.

RECIPE: Heather's Banana-Blueberry Breakfast Protein Shake

Since trying to lose weight through exercise and better eating, I've gotten into making shakes for breakfast many mornings. This is one I made the other day that was really good:

Banana-Blueberry Breakfast Protein Shake

8 oz almond milk
2 scoops Curves vanilla protein shake powder
1 scoop vanilla Instant pudding mix
1/2 banana
1/2 cup blueberries


Directions:

Combine ingredients in blender and process until smooth. Makes 2 servings.

RECIPE: Heather's Shrimp with Pasta and Lemon-Butter Sauce

Last night I decided to try a different twist on a pasta dish I've made in the past.

Shrimp and Pasta in Lemon-Butter Sauce

1 lb of spaghetti (Smart Taste enriched with vitamins and fiber)
4 tbs butter
1 tbs garlic (I used roasted garlic this time)
1/2 cup white wine
2 lemons
1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
Salt and pepper
Dried rubbed sage
Crushed red pepper flakes
Grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

• Set a pot of water to boiling. Add spaghetti and remove from heat just before al dente. (If you work quickly enough, you may be able to simply spoon the pasta directly from the water after a few minutes, but I wound up using tongs to remove it to a colander to drain excess water first.)

• Melt 1 tbs of butter in skillet over medium-high heat and add roasted garlic. Cook for a couple of minutes.

•  Add white wine. Cook until reduced by half. Then add juice from one lemon, and cook until reduced by half.

• Add remaining 3 tbs of butter, 1 tbs at a time, until melted and well-mixed. Add about 1/2-1 tbs of rubbed sage, salt and pepper. Add shrimp and cook about 2-3 minutes on one side and then flip and cook on other side for another couple of minutes.

• Add pasta to frying pan and toss to coat. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over the top and toss some more.
• Serve on plates with bread. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Yummy! The only drawback is that there was too much pasta for the sauce, if you like the pasta really coated. So you could make more sauce or use less pasta, or leave it as-is if you are looking for a lighter meal (more sauce would make for a greasier meal, due to all of the butter).

Now the big "oops": This was supposed to have my homemade roasted tomatoes in it, but I totally forgot! So they are still sitting in the frig, and I need to find another use for them! Grrrrrr...

RECIPE: Heather's Sauteed veggies over steamed rice and chili beans

We made a trip to the Green Market this weekend, where I have been picking up my weekly local produce (for the most part. Not all is locally grown, but most of it is). So Saturday night I threw together a quick and easy meal.

First I had Woodrow throw together one of his favorites that he makes for himself quite often- steamed rice and chili beans.

Then I sauteed up some cubanello (frying peppers), and onion, and corn from a few ears. I sauteed it all up in olive oil, and seasoned it with a little cumin and Lawry's seasoned pepper and salt. Then served it over the rice and chili beans.

Nice, easy and flavorful dinner! I've done a similar thing with other sauteed veggies in the past. Quick and easy!

RECIPE: Heather's Sweet Corn Chowder and Grilled Tilapia

Tonight I decided to make some corn chowder and grilled fish. Here's how it went:

Sweet Corn Chowder

• 4 ears of sweet corn, cleaned of husks
• 3-4 cups water
• 1/2 onion, finely diced
• 1 medium potato, diced
• Thyme
• Salt and Pepper
• Chipotle Pepper
• 1 cup of fat-free half and half

First cut the corn from the cob, and scrape the cobs to get out the excess "milk".

Break the corn cobs in 2-3 pieces, and add to the water in a saucepan. Bring to boil, and then simmer for 20 mins.

While corn stock is simmering, saute the onion in butter until translucent (about 5 mins).

Remove corn cobs from stock. Add the onions, potato, corn cut from cob and seasoning. I added a pinch of chipotle pepper.

Bring to boil, and then partially cover and simmer for about 30 mins. I cooked mine on too low of a heat (without bringing it to boil first), so I found the potato still undercooked after 30 mins. At that point, I had to bring it to boil, and then simmer it for about another 10 minutes.

While the chowder was simmering, I saute some tilapia in olive oil and seasoned it simply with a little Lawry's seasoning salt.

Once cooked thoroughly, I added a can of creamed corn, as the chowder wasn't thick enough for me. Let it heat through. After the chowder is ready, stir in the half and half, and then just heat through. Don't boil it. Just simmer it until heated through.

Once heated through, I ran about a third of the chowder through a blender. Ideally I would have used a hand blender on the chowder to thicken it, but I don't yet have one. So I pureed part of the chowder, and then stirred it back in to the remaining chowder.

To plate the meal, I drained out a ladle of the chowder and poured the chowder onto the plate...

...and topped that with the tilapia, and then ladled a little more chowder over the top of the fish.

Add a sprinkle of chipotle powder on top of the bowl full of the chowder.

And there you go! Yummy!

RECIPE: Heather's Buttery Sage Spaghetti

Tonight Woodrow decided quite suddenly that he wanted pasta, using just what we had on hand. So I had to quickly come up with a sauce using only what I had in my frig and pantry. This is what I came up with...

Buttery Sage Spaghetti

• Spaghetti, prepared as directed (we did about a half box)
• Half stick of butter (plus I added a dollop of margarine from a tub)
• Garlic
• Sage
• Lemon juice
• Crushed red pepper
• Salt and Pepper
• Parmesan, grated

While the spaghetti is cooking (just after the noodles are added to the boiling water), melt the butter in a skillet. I then added about a half-teaspoon of roasted garlic (from a jar), and cooked it until the butter was beginning to get lightly browned. Then I added probably about a tablespoon of crushed sage, a bit of bottled lemon juice (probably a few tablespoons or so-- maybe a 1/4 cup). I mixed it all together, and sprinkled in a few crushed red pepper seeds, and some salt and fresh ground pepper. I let this simmer while the spaghetti finished.

Once the noodles finished, we drained them, poured them into the skillet and tossed them to coat with the butter sauce. Then used tongs to dish the pasta out onto plates, and topped with grated parmesan. A sprinkling of parsley across the top would have been nice.

Quick, easy, cheap, and tasty-- like me! :) Woodrow was a big fan of this, and it could be served so many ways. The seasonings and such can be changed around, add in grilled zucchini or roasted tomatoes or steamed broccoli. There are so many ways to go with this recipe, and it fits nicely into my vegetarian/pescatarian diet. It's a keeper!

RECIPE: Heather's Mexican Chicken with Cubanelle Peppers

The other night I needed to find a way to use the Cubanelle peppers that I bought the other day at the produce market, since I'm getting set to go out of town.


I've never had Cubanelle peppers before, but heard that they are similar to other red peppers-- a little sweet and good for frying. So I decided to do just that-- fry them. I also have become a fan of cumin over the last few years (check out my cuminy Zucchini-Corn Saute), and have recently become quite fond of chipotle as well. So this is what I wound up with when looking to create something with Cubanelles:

First I sliced the peppers into strips, along with a sweet onion.


I tossed these into a pan with a little olive oil and minced garlic.


Then I pounded two chicken breasts down so that they were a more even thickness. (By the way, I bought this chicken at Target as part of the JustBare Chicken line. They allow you to track the chicken back to the farm where it was raised, and is hormone and antibiotic and cage free. I think I'm gonna start doing most of my shopping at Target!)

I tossed the chicken in the pan and seasoned it with a little cumin, some dried chipotle pepper and a sprinkle of my house seaoning (salt, pepper, garlic powder).


When it was nearly complete, I sprinkled the chicken with a little Mexican cheese and let it melt.


I served the chicken up with the fried Cubanelles and onions and with some Mexican rice (Uncle Ben's, I think).




Mmmmm good!

And another good thing...

herChristianHome.com is giving away a $25 gift certificate for Spice Cubed. They have a wonderfully clever idea to attach magnetic strips to the little tins of spice, and store them on your frig. Do you have any idea how much room this would save me??? I have two shelves in a cabinet devoted to spices! Let me at 'em! Go here to enter for the $25 gift certificate!

A new twist on an old favorite...

Last night I tried a recipe out of Quick & Fresh (September 2009) for a new twist on grilled cheese sandwiches. The recipe combines caramelized onions with fresh tomato, and gets a bit of a kick from pepper jack cheese.

Sweet and Spicy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Serves 4

2 tsp canola oil
1 large red onion, finely diced (about 2 cups)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 oz sharp cheddar cheese, thinly sliced
8 slices whole-wheat bread
3 oz pepper Jack cheese, thinly sliced
1 large or 2 medium ripe beefsteak or hothouse tomatoes, sliced
Cooking spray

• Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat.
  
  Add the onion and cook, stirring, until golden and the edges are browned, 10-12 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
• Divide the cheddar cheese between 4 slices of the bread. Spread 1 tbs of the caramelized onions on top of the cheddar, then top with the pepper Jack.
  
  Place 1 large or 2 medium slices of tomato and the other slice of bread on top.
• Clean and dry the skillet, then coat with cooking spray and heat over medium-high heat until hot. Place one of the sandwiches in the skillet and weigh down with a heavy skillet or plate. (I cooked three sandwiches at once instead of one-at-a-time, and weighed them down with a plate.)
  
  
  Lower heat to medium-low and grill until the underside is a deep brown but not burnt and the cheese is partially melted, 5-6 minutes. Flip the sandwich and grill the other side until it's nicely colored, another 4-5 minutes. Slice in half and serve hot. Repeat with any remaining sandwiches.
  

(Per serving in one sandwich: 350 calories, 18g fat, 8g saturate fat, 16g protein, 33g carbohydrates, 5g fiber, 45mg cholesterol, 560mg sodium)

This was very good! I will definitely be doing this again. Woodrow even liked it. I'm not sure whether kids would like this or not, since it seems that a lot of kids don't like spicy foods, and this has just a hint of heat to it. But the caramelized onion adds some really nice flavor. Yum!

RECIPE: Heather's Grilled Strawberry-Lemon Sandwiches

I was reading the book Of Bees and Mist recently (I have an Advanced Reader's Edition that I am reviewing), and in it a girl mentioned strawberry sandwiches. This got my mind going as I thought of the different ways you could create a strawberry sandwich. After playing this out in my head for a few days, I finally decided to give it a try. Last night I came up with this recipe, although I would make a few changes. I made two different sandwiches two different ways, and this recipe is for the one that I liked the best, utilizing the methods I used for that one sandwich:

Grilled Strawberry-Lemon Sandwiches

9 oz cream cheese, softened
Packet of lemon pudding mix
3/4-1 cup milk
1 pound cake or butter loaf cake, cut into 1/2 inch thick slices
Sliced strawberries
Melted butter

Mix together cream cheese, pudding mix and milk in a medium bowl. I'm unsure how much milk should be used. I only used 6 oz cream cheese and probably 1/2-3/4 milk, and it came out too gooey and sticky. I think that more cream cheese and more milk would be better. Beat with a mixer. Create a thick, spreadable mixture.


Spread lemon pudding mixture on two slices of cake. Top one slice with sliced strawberries. Assemble the other sandwich by topping it with the other slice, putting lemon sides together.

Brush both outsides of the sandwich with melted butter.

Grill the sandwich in a hot frying pan until golden brown on each side.


Yum! That was pretty good! I ate one half for breakfast this morning. I tried spreading softened butter onto both sides of the cake slices and then grilling both sides before assembling the sandwiches, but I found I preferred the one that was assembled first, brushed with melted butter, and then grilled for a couple of minutes. I believe the one on the right in the image above was the one that was brushed with melted butter, and it came out with a crisper and more evenly browned "crust".

Tonight I used the leftovers to make another dessert.


Jeez that picture makes it look huge, but please allow me to point out that is only a small saucer that it is filling, not a big dinner plate!

So how is my diet going?

RECIPE: Heather's Black Bean Soup

A couple of years ago, I was hankering for some black bean soup. I hadn't found a good recipe to try, so I decided to create my own.

It's been awhile since I made this soup, and I'd forgotten how good it is! Served with some corn muffins with a little sugar tossed in to sweeten them-- ooooh, mama!

Heather's Black Bean Soup
Serves 4-6

Olive oil
1 Green Pepper, chopped
1 Onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3 cans of black beans, 1 undrained
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2-1 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1. Heat olive oil in a soup pot.
2. Saute green pepper, onion and garlic
3. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to boil, then simmer 15-20 minutes.
   
4. Puree 1/3 of the soup in a blender. Stir puree back into soup.

NOTE: Serve with dollops of sour cream and sliced green onions, if desired.



Ooh, was it good!

RECIP: Heather's Sausage, Potatoes and Pepper Stir-Fry

This is one of Woodrow's favorite quick dinners. He can't get enough of it:

Sausage, Potatoes and Pepper Stir-Fry


1/2 Polska sausage (you could use a different sausage, but this is my favorite)
1 sweet onion
1-2 peppers (green, red or yellow)
Maybe 4 medium potatoes
House seasoning (recipe elsewhere on this blog)

Slice sausage into 1/2 inch slices. You could use a whole Polska, but it makes this dish too greasy for me.

Slice onions, peppers and potatoes.



Toss everything in a frying pan. Season with house seasoning.



Saute sausage and veggies until desired doneness. I like mine well-done, and getting a little brown and crispy.