WW Baked Turkey and Jack Cheese Chimichangas

The other night I actually (gasp!) had a couple of minutes to make a normal people dinner, and I tried out WW’s recipe for Turkey & Jack Cheese Chimichangas.  I thought that a chimichanga was deep fried, and these were more like baked burritos.  But these were really good and healthy, and took less than an hour to make, so tomato/tamatah who care what they’re called, they are good!

The filling cooking in the saucepan.

1 chimichanga was only 6 WW PointsPlus.  They are flavorful, extremely filling, and don’t taste “diet” at all.  I think the trick is that WW calls for less meat and cheese and lots of beans, so the dish has less of the fatty things and more of the high fiber, filling things.

Ready to go in the oven!

Garnish with some avocado slices, and here’s dinner! Steamed broccoli is a HUGE favorite in our house.  I don’t know why people say that kids don’t like broccoli, because our kid could eat her weight in broccoli.  I don’t think we ever have leftovers of steamed broccoli, we eat an entire head in a meal. It’s ridiculous.  Although I suppose there are much worse things we could be gorging ourselves on.

Reds, yellows, and greens

We participate in a farmshare. This is the 4th year we’ve done it.  The first three years, we did the full share from early spring all the way through November.  We took the year off last year, and when we re-joined this year, we opted instead for the share that does not start until June.  The first half of the full-season share is greens and greens and more greens and even more greens, it’s not until June that you start to get much variety in the offerings, anyway.  We’ve got two messy birds that love to chomp on leaves, and I could always blanch and freeze the greens, but both of those things take some preparation time that I never seem to have.  With the later-starting share, there are still a lot of greens, but at least I don’t feel like they are taking over my life.

So last night we had 3 bags of swiss chard in the fridge (not to mention the spinach and lettuce), and more chard on the way today.  I was in the mood for a veggie snack, so I decided to clear out two of those bags of chard with Food Network’s incredibly easy and incredibly good Sauteed Swiss Chard recipe.

It’s so easy, you don’t really need a recipe for it.  All you do is wash the chard, and chop the stems off from the leaves.  Put about 2 tbsp of butter in a large pan, and as it melts, toss in the stems.  Cook for a few minutes, then throw in the leaves.  Cook until they are wilted and tender (but remove from heat before they get completely goopy).  Add some salt and pepper, and a little balsamic vinegar, and voila! Delicious swiss chard!

I also use chard in stir frys and in vegetable soups.  What are your favorite uses for leafy cooking greens?

Grilled Veggies, Yummy Yummy

I LOVE the summer because it means it’s time for GRILLING! When Mr. Beez and I first bought our house, we had a charcoal grill. We had no money, and a charcoal grill was cheaper. We had never owned a gas grill, so we didn’t know what we were missing. Then Mr. Beez’ parents bought us a gas grill as a gift. Yes, there are some charcoal purists who prefer the taste of charcoal grilled food (when I’m at a charcoal grill, though, most of the food ends up tasting like lighter fluid), but it takes forever to heat up and cool down the grill. For us, a gas grill has meant fast, easy, and healthy summertime dinners.

Although I eat meat now, I was a vegetarian for over 10 years (I started eating meat again when I was pregnant with Baby Beez, and had unending cravings for Uncle Sam’s subs). Winter time can be tough for vegetarians, because comfort food is so often full of meat. In the summer time, grilling means easy veggie friendly recipes. And if you want something more substantial than veggies, grilled tofu or seitan is delicious. (Check out The Veganomicon for a cheap, easy, and excellent seitan recipe.)

Especially when our farmshare deliveries are in full swing, grilled veggies are a meal staple. In the morning, I’ll slice up some veggies and throw together a marinade, let it all marinate in the fridge during the day, and when I get home, I just toss the veggies on the grill, and voila! Dinner!  This weekend, I even managed to make dessert on the grill! Just spritz your favorite fruit with a small amount of olive oil and toss it on the grill. We had grilled mango. YUM.

I have a super secret marinade recipe. It’s so secret, even I don’t know it. Ok, the secret is that isn’t really a recipe, I just mix up everything in the fridge and cabinet that seems appropriate for a marinade. Usually the marinade has olive oil, one or more different kinds of vinegars, garlic and onion, whatever oil-based dressings I have in the fridge, sometimes other spices and herbs, and whatever else I see that looks good. It hasn’t turned out badly yet.

YUM grilled mango!

Risotto with Red Wine and Morels

Remember those dried morels I bought 497967 years ago? Well, I still hadn’t used them.  I finally decided enough was enough.  I wasn’t going to get around to doing something fancy with shrimp. It’s best to stick with what I know.  I know risotto.  It turned out wonderfully.

I started with the morels. Ta da.

In an episode of The Splendid Table, a guy was talking about how he reconstituted dried morels using either milk or white wine, and it gave them a better flavor than reconstituting them with water.  I didn’t want to open a bottle of white wine just for the morels, but I had a bottle of red already open.  It worked great.

This picture of wine is here for my own reference, so I can remember to pick more of this stuff up. It was good.

I think I actually bought that bottle as a present for Mr. Beez. But I wanted wine, so I drank it. He was not upset with me. He shook his head, and was not surprised.

So here are the morels in their wine bath. I need to get me one of those.

I let the morels hang out in the wine for a while.  A long while. Like, we went to the park in the meantime, while.

When we got back from the park, I started sauteeing (?) up some onions and garlic and baby bella mushrooms in olive oil.  The ? is there because I’m not 100% on my cooking technique vocabulary.  It wasn’t a lot of oil, so I don’t think it’s frying. I could look it up, but nah.

Next, I tossed in arborio rice.  That photo is a lie, because I used more like a cup and a half.

I added in the morels and the wine they were soaking in, and let it all cook until the edges of the rice started to get translucent.

Next I started in adding stock.  I used chicken stock because it’s what I had handy. You can use any stock. Risotto turns out best if you add in stock steadily and patiently.  The whole process doesn’t take THAT long, but the longer you can draw it out, the better.  You add in a little stock and stir and wait until it’s mostly absorbed, then add a little more, and stir and wait until it’s mostly absorbed, and repeat repeat repeat.

After a bunch of waiting and reading a couple magazine articles, the whole thing was done! Ta da!

The morels had a neat texture, and tasted mushroomy, but they weren’t anything extraordinary.  I enjoyed trying out a new ingredient.  Using the morels makes you look sophisticated, so this is a great dish to make if you are entertaining and want to impress your guests, but don’t have the time or skill to actually cook super fancy.  It’s a great entree, or would make a filling side alongside almost any meat dish.

Baby Beez loved the risotto, too!

Incredibly Easy Kiwi Strawberry Sorbet

In an overzealous fit of healthy eating, I bought a huge box of kiwi at Costco last week.

I made it through about half of them, but then I just COULD NOT eat any more.

I’m Italian and Jewish, so someone leaving my home hungry is the only thing I fear more than food going to waste.

Lucky for me, the internets supplied me with an incredibly easy recipe for kiwi sorbet.

First, I cut off the fuzzy skins and cut the kiwi into chunks.

I froze the kiwi for a few hours while I ran errands.

I also had leftover frozen strawberries, which would nicely offset the tartness of the kiwi (and that’s why there is kiwi-strawberry flavored everything).

I threw the frozen fruit into the food processor, added 1/2 cup of superfine sugar, and gave it a whirl until it reached a pasty kind of consistency. Then I added a little cold water and mixed it up until the consistency became more creamy and sorbet-like.

Confession: That picture is a total fake.  There is way too much fruit in there for the processor to function.  I did try to process all of this for like a second, and since it didn’t work, I took all the kiwi out and processed up the strawberries first.  Then I dumped the strawberries into a bowl, and processed up the kiwi.  I put about 1/2 a cup of sugar in each batch, so the total amount of sugar used was about 1 cup of superfine sugar.

Because the strawberries and kiwi were processed separately, the result was a neat blended coloring.

I then returned the sorbet to the freezer until it was time for dessert.

The result was surprisingly good, and I would imagine you could do this with any fruit..  Because I didn’t use an ice cream machine, I expected the texture to be a flop, but it was not.  It was truly like sorbet, was perfectly sweet (without being overly so), and was delicious and flavorful.

5 minute dinner

I feel like we’ve been eating too much meat and too many starches lately.  For years I was a vegetarian, but I started eating meat again when I was pregnant with Baby Beez (because I wanted cheesesteaks all day, every day).  I haven’t gone back to being a vegetarian because being a healthy vegetarian means cooking a lot (unless you want to eat pasta non-stop), and I haven’t been able to get my ducks in a row to do that.  I am, however, trying to make fast and healthy vegetarian meals whenever possible. Because I am always rushed for preparing dinner, it’s so frequently grilled cheese, pasta, or canned soup.  I might as well eat a block of salt for dinner.

Last night I made a vegetable and bean saute that I worried had the potential to be a total disaster, but actually turned out really well.  I thew olive oil, a bunch of garlic, frozen spinach, a bag of frozen broccoli stir fry, half a bag of frozen pepper strips and onions, and a can of navy beans into a pan and cooked them up.  Right at the end, I tossed in some balsamic vinegar, and also put a small bit of shaved parmesan cheese on top (real parmesan cheese, not that sawdusty stuff in a can).  It turned out very nicely.  I didn’t realize the broccoli stir fry had water chestnuts in it, so water chestnuts with balsamic vinegar was a little strange, but not bad.  It wasn’t loaded with salt, and was much better than a can of Chef Boyardee.

The whole dinner took only a few minutes to cook.  I, of course, ate way more than I should.  The whole time I thought “it’s healthy, I can eat more!!!!”  However, when you eat too many vegetables, they expand in your stomach, and then you feel like you ate 50 times more than you really did. Ugh.

Baby Beez did like the veggies, but she got bored of eating altogether after about 3 bites, and decided instead to destroy the dining room.

I am Baby Beez and I approve of this message!

Couponing- Third Time’s the Charm

The reason why there is a picture of penguins in a post about couponing is because i typed “coupon” into google image search, and this is one of the pictures that came up, and it is ADORABLE.

I didn’t get the paper last Sunday and didn’t do any grocery shopping last week, either.  We had plenty of stuff stocked up for the week, and only had to make a stop at the grocery store to pick up more milk for Baby Beez.  This of course put a hole in my coupon reserves, but oh well.

This week’s newspaper didn’t have as many coupons, and I’ve gotten a better hang of clipping, sorting, and writing up my list.  I think this week it only took me about an hour (and about 5 minutes of scolding Baby Beez for trying to shut my laptop on my hands over and over and over.)

So after my second week of couponing, I decided to swear off Walgreens, because I was mad that they didn’t take my BOGO coupon, and their store makes me mad because they never have the current sales tags up, which results in me having to wander around with the circular and make sure I’ve got everything right. Annoying.  I still had $11 in store bucks left, which meant that I wanted to take one more trip there to use them up.  So today was my last trip to that store, and I went out with a BANG!

I bought– 4 boxes Kraft Mac & Cheese, 4 cans Progresso soup, 2 frozen Red Baron Pizzas, 1 bottle of Neutrogena shampoo, and 1 package of Neutrogena facial cleansing and makeup removal wipes (I LOVE those things. If you haven’t tried them, you NEED TO.  They are a little pricy, but with coupons and sale watching, you can often get them at a very good price.)  The pre-sale, pre-coupon total was $$40.53.  After $3.25 in sales, $11.76 in Walgreens coupons, and $15.50 in other coupons (including $11 in store bucks), I walked out with paying only $10.02.  YESSS.   Couponing success!

If you were to just look at my bank account, you wouldn’t see much movement in the grocery bill.  However, there has been real savings there.  This week, I paid $147.11, and saved $33.42 on store specials, and $15.95 on coupons, which I think comes out to savings of around 25%.  We’ve been coming home with more food for our money, but we’ve also been saving a ton of money by not getting take-out.  I’ve paid $0 for take out this month, whereas I frequently toss out $30-50 a week on that.  Sure, canned soup and pasta are full of sodium and not the greatest, but neither is Chinese Chicken and Broccoli…and the latter is a much bigger portion, and costs a lot more.  I wish I had the time and energy to make healthy dinners every night, but I just don’t.  I do it whenever I can, but it’s certainly not every night.  Thank goodness for frozen veggies, because at least I can toss those in the microwave and make sure we are eating green things every night.

Even if the coupons themselves haven’t made a huge difference, they have gotten me to be a lot more deliberate in shopping, which means there’s a lot more food in the house, I’m not dumping money into take out, and we’re not scrambling to figure out what to eat every night.  That has been a huge help.

Pittsburgh Speakers Series: Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan is an excellent resource for anyone who is a beginner in the food politics/obesity/food issues discussion, and is equally entertaining and engaging for those who have more knowledge about the topic.  I haven’t read any of his books, but it is clear that he is well educated on his topics.  He is also keenly aware of the limitations of his knowledge, and doesn’t try to draw conclusions where he doesn’t have the factual foundation.  He’ll refer to scientific studies and surveys, but also acknowledges the high rate of error in such things in the field of nutrition.

Pollan’s books are concerned with the culture of food, the American food landscape, and political and industry issues surrounding food.    Pollan strives to make these topics navigable to the general public, and tries to equip his audience with basic tools to make good nutritional decisions.  Pollan’s mantra is: Eat Food.  Not too much.  Mostly plaints.  Pollan tries to distill the incredibly complicated topic of nutrition into simple and straightforward principles, and is surprisingly successful at it.

Pollan was a great speaker, and this is no criticism of him, but I’m burnt out on the “Food Wars” topic.  Obesity and food issues were my “hot button” topics in law school, I did a significant amount of reading and a fair amount of writing on these topics at the time.  I dashed to the theater as soon as Super Size Me came out, Food Politics was my bible, and I was outraged.

My outrage has given way to defeat.  I feel like these issues (and they’re not one issue, they are many and intertwined) are so much bigger than I am, and when I’m putting all my energy into getting through life with a busy job, a busy family, and a busy social life, I can’t tackle the problem of our nation’s simultaneous growing waistlines and nutritional deficit.

Pollan made an incredible point tonight– the availability of processed convenience foods blossomed when households transitioned from mothers staying at home to households of two working parents, or single parent households.  During the time where families faced the question of “who is responsible for the cooking, when both parents are at work?”  the food industry stepped in and said “we’ll take care of it, don’t worry!”  And then it gave us frozen ravioli, and instant mashed potatoes, and Chef Boyardee, and frozen pizza.

Pollan emphasized tonight that one of the easiest ways to take control of your diet is to cook as much as possible.  When I was in law school (and on my food kick) this was simple– I baked bread, I made massive casseroles and stews and froze them, it was easy to do all the things that lead to better nutrition. Now, I’m in the grown up world.  My time is often not my own, or at least not easily within my control.  Throwing things in the slow cooker might only take 10 minutes, but the number of “just 10 minutes” tasks that pile up daily is overwhelming.   Adding a new 10 minute task chips away at another. I only have so many 10 minute increments.   I do the best I can.  That’s all I can do right now.

The beginner’s guide to roasting a chicken

A roast whole chicken looks so impressive when you serve it to guests, but it’s so ridiculously easy to make! Leftovers are also amazingly versatile.  I roast a chicken the exact same way I roast a turkey…it’s all the same idea, just with different sized birds (my parrots, however, prefer that I don’t roast any bird).

You’ll need a whole chicken, a lot of peeled garlic (it’s super cheap at Costco), butter, an onion cut into large chunks, and some spices.  I picked up a packet of fresh sage, rosemary, and thyme at the grocery store, but I frequently use dried.  Other herbs that I sometimes include are basil, parsley, savory, marjoram…whatever I see that seems like it would work ok.  It’s a highly unscientific process.  Also, one time I already had the bird in the pan and I was in the process of preparing and learned we inexplicably were completely out of butter.  You can easily substitute margarine or even crisco for the butter, and it works just as well (actually, I think the crisco may even work better).

While you’re preparing the chicken, preheat the oven to 350.  You’ll want to pull all the giblets and the neck out of the bird.  A better cook than I would use them for gravy or fried chicken livers or something, but I just throw them out.  You then loosen the skin from the chicken, and stuff butter and herbs and salt and pepper underneath the skin.

Fill the cavity with the onion, some of the herbs, salt and pepper, and the garlic.  You should use a lot of garlic.

Seriously. A lot of garlic.

I don’t usually bother to tie the feet of the bird back, but the garlic kept spilling out of the cavity, so I had to tie the feet in order to keep it all contained.

We had a big package of Baby Bella mushrooms that I hadn’t yet used, so I filled up the roasting pan with them and cut up onion.  You can use any roastable vegetables you have handy– carrots, potatoes, winter squash, brussels sprouts, etc.

I purposely roasted the chicken breast-side-down, so that the fat would drip downward and keep the breast meat juicy.  You will want to cover the chicken with foil, and roast it until it’s 170 degrees.  For a 5 lb chicken that’s about an hour and a half to two hours.  I took the foil off of the chicken for the last 15 to 20 minutes, so that the skin would brown.

Voila! Here it is, all nice and done! It turned out deliciously.  We ate this at my in-laws, and I didn’t bother to do anything fancy in terms of presentation.  If you are entertaining, I suggest serving the chicken on a platter, and serving the mushrooms separately.  That way, you can splash some balsamic vinegar over the mushrooms.  Roasted mushrooms are delicious, but roasted mushrooms with balsamic vinegar are heavenly.

Bon appetit!

Cookin’ with Coolio, Coolio (2009)

I joined a Cookbook Club– it’s like a book club, except each meeting focuses around a cookbook instead of a novel.  Everyone makes a dish from the book, and we have a delicious dinner and discuss!

This month’s book was Cookin’ with Coolio: 5 Star Meals at a 1 Star Price

Like a fool, I brought my camera with me to Cookbook Club, but forgot to take any pictures.  The food was all pretty good! I thought this book was a joke, but when I got my hands on it, I delightfully discovered that it’s no such thing.  Coolio even has a YouTube channel about cooking!

The recipes were simple and hearty.  I made the Night-Night Chicken, which is a chicken and vegetable stew.  As written, the recipe is decent.  With a few small tweaks, the recipe would be really great (throwing in some extra spices and cooking the dish in a crock pot).  Most of the recipes are like that–as written, they’re solid, but with a few adjustments they’re even better.

It’s a great book for someone with a sense of humor who is just starting out with cooking.  There are sections on chicken, steak, desserts, all kinds of things.  The techniques are simple, and the recipes don’t call for exotic or complicated ingredients.  My brother is in the process of buying his first house, and I’m going to send him my copy.  He’ll use it to break in his new kitchen, and have a good laugh.