With a fridge full of beautiful ears of bi-sweet corn, I am on a bit of a corn kick. I am always in search of meals that I think can be made the night ahead and eaten for lunch the next day, and this one fit the bill. I modified the original recipe for this Crab Corn and Tomato Salad (from Cooking Light of course) to work as a lunch meal.
Ingredients:
Grated lemon rind from 2 lemons
Lemon juice from 2 lemons
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon honey
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup fresh corn kernels (about 1 ears)
2 tablespoons thinly sliced basil leaves
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon finely chopped red onion
1/2 pound lump crab meat, shell pieces removed
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
To make the dressing, combine the zest, lemon juice, olive oil, honey, and Dijon mustard. Season with salt and pepper. Stir well with a whisk until the olive oil is incorporated. To make the Crab Corn and Tomato Salad, add the corn, basil, bell pepper, red onion, crab meat, and tomatoes to the dressing. Toss gently to coat.
I love citrus with any kind of seafood. Lemon brightens the dish overall and works so well with the crab and tomatoes. Because I let it sit overnight, the citrus flavor really had time to soak in. This is really a great make-ahead meal!
Have you ever started creating a recipe, and thought to yourself “Wow! This is going to be awesome! Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?” Well, probably because they have. And you just didn’t know it. That is what happened to me this weekend. I was so proud of how my “Quinoa Salad” turned out, but then my boyfriend kindly pointed out that is was a take on Tabbouleh, without the mint. Whoops. Anyways, here is my mint-less Tabbouleh.
Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups chicken broth
1 large cucumber, or 3 small cucumbers, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
Most quinoa you’ll find in the supermarket has already been soaked and rinsed. But another rise won’t hurt it if you prefer to do so. Measure out 1 cup quinoa and put it in a mesh strainer. Rinse under cool water allowing to drain out the bottom. This helps to remove the coating on quinoa, called saponin, that can taste soapy. Again, most quinoa is already pre-rinsed.
Begin by cooking the quinoa. Add the quinoa and chicken broth to a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer over low heat or until the liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and let cool.
While the quinoa is cooking and cooling, chop your cucumber and tomatoes.
Prepare your onion and garlic.
Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute until the onion begins to soften, about 5 minutes.
Remove the garlic cloves. Allow the onions to cool. Combine the quinoa, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and the chopped parsley. Zest the lemon over the mixture and squeeze lemon juice over the dish.
Serve cold. Garnish with additional parsley, optional.
This was a light-tasting but filling dish, perfect for a hot summer lunch or dinner. I feel kind of silly for essentially making a pretty common dish, but at least I’m beginning to understand which ingredients work well together!
I swear, every single recipe I’ve come across in the past week has included avocado. I am somewhat blaming one of my coworkers, who manages to consume at least 1/2 an avocado a day, every day. So this recipe choice is very much influenced by her avocado obsession. My CSA share’s inclusion of corn this week made this a must try. I adapted this from Cooking Light‘s August Issue.
Ingredients:
2 ripe avocados, divided
1 1/2 cups water
The juice of 1 lemon
The juice of 2 limes
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
A pinch of ground red pepper
1/4 rotisserie chicken, shredded
Corn kernels from 3 ears of corn (or 1.5 cups of defrosted corn kernels)
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/3 cup chopped scallions
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Peel and chop 1 avocado and put into a blender.
Add the water, lemon and lime juice, honey, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, and pinch of red pepper. (Add more red pepper if desired) Blend until smooth.
Place in the freezer for 15 minutes. During this time, chop your red bell pepper, scallions, and cilantro, and peel and dice your remaining avocado. Shred the chicken as finely as you choose.
Combine the diced avocado, bell pepper, corn and scallions and pour the avocado puree over the mixture. Mix to combine. Spoon into four bowls and top with chicken and cilantro.
This meal is too easy to not try. Using frozen corn kernels and rotisserie chicken makes this a 20 minute meal. I made this the night before in the hopes of having it for lunch the next day. I was a bit worried that it might oxidize overnight and turn an unappealing color, but the citrus from the lemon and lime kept that from happening. The original recipe uses orange juice instead, but that didn’t sound all that appealing to me. I also substituted rotisserie chicken for grilling my own chicken because I had bought 1/2 a rotisserie chicken to make another dish from Cooking Light also.
I loved that the citrus came through in the dish, but could have used a bit more red pepper flakes. This is a very chunky chowder, which makes it feel like a real meal versus a too smooth soup. My coworker even tried a bite, and she approved. I will be making this for lunch again in the near future!
I really try to make an effort to bring my lunch to work each day. My office is absolutely freezing, so I tend to gravitate towards warm lunches. Because of this, I am always looking for new pasta and rice recipes that sound like they would reheat well and still taste good. As usual, Cooking Light came to the rescue with the August issue’s Fried Rice with Sweet Soy Saucerecipe. I made all four servings so that I could have a batch for dinner, and get a few lunches out of it.
Ingredients for Fried Rice:
3 tablespoons peanut oil, divided
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 finely chopped shallots
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 serrano chile, seeded and chopped
4 cups cooked rice
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 thinly sliced daikon radish
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced
1/3 cup fresh mint leaves
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 lime wedges
Ingredients for sweet soy sauce:
1/4 cup lower-sodium soy sauce (or coconut aminos to make gluten free)
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar (The original recipe used dark brown sugar. I didn’t have any. Oh well)
Begin by cooking your rice. You can just cook the rice in water because the soy sauce will add plenty of taste, no need to waste your chicken broth.
While your rice is cooking. prepare your shallots, garlic and chile. I am a wimp about heat and serraro chile can really be hot, so I removed all seeds before chopping. If you like spicy food, keep the seeds in.
Slice your daikon radish. I used a mandoline slicer.
Prepare your herbs.
To make the sweet soy sauce, combine the soy sauce and brown sugar in a saucepan. Heat over medium heat. Simmer for 2 minutes or until the brown sugar is incorporated into the soy sauce. Set aside.
Add 4 eggs to a bowl and lightly beat.
Add 1 tablespoon peanut oil to a large saute pan over medium-high heat, swirling to coat the bottom of the pan. Pour eggs into the pan and cook for 2 minutes or until they set. Remove and set aside.
Increase the heat to high and add 2 tablespoons peanut oil to the pan. Add your shallots, garlic and chile and saute for 1 minute.
Add the cooked rice and cook for 3 minutes or until lightly browned.
Add cooked eggs and soy sauce mixture.
Season with salt and pepper and mix to coat. Add to bowls and top with radish and herbs. Serve with a lime wedge.
This meal was really tasty, not only the first time around but also when reheated. The serrano pepper gave a subtle heat to the whole dish which counteracted the sweetness of the soy sauce, great combination! When I packed it for lunch, I kept the rice mixture in one container and a few radish slices,herbs , and a lime wedge in another container. I heated the rice in the microwave and topped them with the radish slices and herbs, then squeezed the lime juice over the whole dish. Perfect!
Tacos are one of my favorite “quick dinners.” For the most part, it all comes down to assembly. I tend to make tacos more as a way to clean my fridge of various vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, corn, avocados, etc.) but this recipe from the August issue of Cooking Light sounded so tasty I couldn’t wait for a fridge-cleaning day, went out, and bought these ingredients.
Preheat your broiler. Place the corn on a pan and broil the corn for 18 minutes, rotating every 6 minutes to allow for an even char. If you are using frozen corn kernels, allow them to thaw. No cooking/broiling needed — you can skip down to combining the kernels with the tomatoes.
While the corn is cooking, quarter the tomatoes. Shred your chicken.
Cut the kernels from the corn.
Place the kernels in a bowl and mix in the tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Heat the tortillas. Divide the chicken evenly among the tortillas.
Top each with 1/4 cup of the corn mixture and 2 avocado slices. Serve with lime wedges.
I loved the flavors in this dish. However, I don’t feel like the flavor of the corn had the chance to shine through, so I’d suggest using defrosted corn kernels to speed up the process. The colors of this are so pretty too! Heirloom tomatoes add extra pizazz, but using plain old cherry or grape tomatoes would get the job done.
Earlier this week, I wrote a post reviewing Cooking Light’s new App. I have been playing around with the app for about a week and kept coming back to this Mango Shrimp Kebab recipe. The colors are amazing, and it sounded so delicious! I cut the recipe in half (makes 2 servings) but kept the original recipe mostly intact.
Ingredients:
3/4 pounds large peeled and deveined shrimp
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 large red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 mango, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 small red onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
Juice and zest of 1 lime, cut into wedges
Cooking spray
Preheat your grill to medium-high heat. Prepare your mango, pepper, and onion.
Thread shrimp, bell pepper, mango, and onion alternately onto 4 skewers. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and lime zest. Note: the original recipe did not include zest. But I thought it might be an easy addition to the flavors, you’re using a lime anyways!
Coat the grill with cooking spray. Place the skewers on the grill rack and cook for 2 minutes on each side, or until shrimp are cooked (Mine took closer to 3-4 minutes per side, I blame my little indoor grill. If using a normal grill, 2 minutes on each side should be plenty.)
Serve with lime wedges. Squeeze the wedges over kebabs before eating.
Before I go on, I want to give special thanks to my “Sous Chef” and friend Ericka for helping me out. I am pretty darn scared of knives and cutting slippery fruit stresses me out quite a bit, so I am forever grateful to Ericka for her amazing mango-chopping skills.
We made this along with the Corn with Lime and Chipotle, also suggested by the app. And I couldn’t be happier with the results. The pairing was perfect! We actually ended up using some of the leftover chipotle butter mix on some of the shrimp, just to try it out.
shrimp with chipotle butter
Ericka thought maybe marinating the shrimp in a jerk marinade before adding to the skewers would really bump this recipe up a notch and I agree. However, the original recipe is delicious on its own, and quite simple and fast to make. Look out for my post on the Corn, these two really should be eaten together!
The ingredients were wonderful together, sweet, tangy and fresh. Ericka kept referring to getting a piece of each ingredient in one bite “the perfect bite” and I have to agree with her.
Do not forget to squeeze the lime over the skewers before enjoying. The citrus adds a whole new dimension to this already delicious dish.
Wow. I haven’t used chicken in a recipe in over a month. I think it is time to finally give poultry it’s time in the limelight. I received fennel in my CSA share and thought this recipe for Sauteed Chicken Breasts with Fennel and Rosemary from Food & Wine sounded like a perfect use of the ingredient.
As a plus, I had all of the ingredients already in my kitchen, with the exception of the chicken.
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 large fennel bulbs, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, plus more for garnish
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup canned low-sodium chicken broth or homemade stock. divided
I love making sausage and peppers. It is such a simple meal to make and is always well received. Sausage and peppers are a hearty meal and work well in both hot summer months as a sandwich, and also during the fall and winter as a chunky stew or over pasta. I purchased sweet Italian sausage to make a soup (which I have yet to actually make) that only required one sausage. I also had some peppers from my CSA share this week so this was a great option for dinner without having to purchase a bunch of new ingredients.
Ingredients:
4 sausages (I used sweet Italian. feel free to use hot sausages instead)
2 green peppers, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 cups crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 rolls
1 teaspoon fresh parsley, chopped (optional)
1 teaspoon grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to a saute pan over medium-high heat. When heated, add the sausages and cook until browned, turning the sausages so they cook evenly.
While the sausages are cooking (about 10 minutes), chop your garlic, onion, and peppers.
Remove the sausages from the pan and set aside.
Using the same saute pan, lower the hear to medium. Add the garlic, onions, and peppers to the pan and cook until fragrant, about 5 minutes.
Add the 1.5 cups of crushed tomatoes. Feel free to add a bit more if you’d prefer yours a little more “saucy.” Add in the tomato paste, basil, dried parsley, and dried oregano.
Stir to combine. Bring to a simmer and add in the sausages. Season with salt and pepper.
Cook for 3-5 more minutes or until the sausages are warm. Cut the rolls almost in half, but not fully. You want the sauce to be able to settle at the bottom of the bun.
To serve, add 1 sausage to each bun. Spoon the onions, peppers, and tomato mixture over the sausage. Add some Parmesan cheese and/or parsley if you prefer.
If you have an outdoor grill, you can alter this recipe to grill the sausages and add to the pan at the end. This recipe can also be used over pasta, just chop up the sausage into bit sized pieces. This is a pretty messy meal so be sure to have plenty of napkins on hand. Enjoy!
There is a restaurant in Philadelphia called Zahav that serves modern Israeli food. I went there for my birthday last December, and am still thinking about their tasty hummus and absolutely fantastic salatim, a selection of 8 little salads that you scoop up with their house baked laffa. All of the salads were really delicious, but the pureed beet salad was by far the happiest surprise offered. So when my CSA share came with beets this time around, I knew exactly what I was going to make… or try to make at least. I basically made a hummus, substituting in roasted beets for the chickpeas. My version is probably not all that close, to the one served as Zahav but I’m still happy with the results.
Ingredients:
1 bunch of beets (mine came with 5)
2 tablespoons tahini
The juice and zest of 2 lemons
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
Walnuts, for topping
To roast the beets, preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Remove the tops, wash to remove all dirt, and arrange on a baking sheet. Drizzle with the olive oil and add a generous amount of salt.
Cook for 40 minutes or until you can easily stick them with a fork. My beets were on the smaller side, so you may need to up the time to 1 hour.
Allow to cool completely. Remove the skin of the beets by rubbing them with a paper towel. This is surprisingly easy, I promise.
Roughly chop the beets.
Add the beets, tahini, lemon juice, lemon zest, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper to a food processor.
Process until smooth.
Transfer to a serving dish and top with chopped walnuts. Serve with cucumbers, pita, broccoli, cauliflower, or anything else you’d like to dip in this lovely little dish.
If you’d prefer, you can add in a can of rinsed chickpeas to make a beet hummus. Another alternative would be to add some Green yogurt, to taste, to make a creamier version of this dish. Enjoy!
Pea tendrils (or pea shoots) are the leaves from a snow pea plant. They have a bit of a spinach-pea taste, delicate and very tasty. Before receiving them in my CSA share, I just thought they were used in a stir fry or as a topping. But these little guys are really delicious in a simple saute.
Ingredients:
Pea tendrils
1 teaspoon olive oil
3 garlic cloves, smashed and cut in half
Salt, to taste
Heat the olive oil in a saute pan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic cloves and cook for 2 minutes, until sizzling but not browned.
You can either remove the garlic, or keep it in there to add more garlicky flavor. Add the pea tendrils and salt to taste.
Saute for 1-2 minutes until slightly wilted but still maintaining its shape. That’s it! So simple, so yummy.
I can never have enough hummus, it is one of my favorite snacks (although I tend to eat so much of it, it’s not really a snack!) I’ve had hummus on the brain for a while now. Be Well Philly must have read my mind, because they posted this great Cilantro Lime hummus recipe that I just had to try. As a plus, cilantro came in my CSA share this week!
I think I’m on a hummus kick. Or maybe I’m feeling particularly lazy dinner-wise this week, and hummus is a quick and easy thing to make. Whatever the reason, it is hummus overload on this website. I have a good feeling no one is complaining though. One of the most appealing things about hummus is how versatile it is. Here is my version of roasted red pepper hummus.
Ingredients:
1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas, drained
1/3 cup tahini
The juice and zest of 1 lemon juice
1 jar of roasted red peppers (about 3 peppers)
1 garlic scape, chopped (or 2 garlic cloves)
1/4 teaspoon cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
For dipping:
Grape tomatoes
Pita bread
Cucumber
First, prepare your red peppers. Remove the peppers from the jar. Take two of the peppers and roughly chop. You will use these in the actual hummus. Finely chop the remaining red pepper as a topping for the hummus. Set the finely chopped red pepper aside.
Combine everything (chickpeas to salt and pepper) in a food processor.
Blend until smooth.
Top with some of the remaining red pepper. Serve with pita, cucumber slices, or tomatoes.
Roasted red pepper hummus is one of my favorite. It always ends up tasting so smooth and creamy, it makes me so happy. The tiny addition of cumin gives a light heat to the hummus which I really enjoy. If you’re not a fan, feel free to omit the cumin. I loved the scapes in this hummus. Raw minced garlic can sometimes be overbearing in hummus, so the subtlety of the scapes was perfect.
I was so excited to receive red potatoes in my CSA share this week. I love roasted red potatoes with fresh herbs, but I had a little bit of white truffle oil left that I wanted to use. I found this recipe for Truffled Roasted Potatoes from Cooking Light which sounded delicious.
Ingredients:
1 small container of red potatoes, washed and quartered
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic scapes, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon white truffle oil
1 teaspoon each of chopped fresh thyme leaves, sage leaves, and rosemary
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Wash your red potatoes thoroughly, but gently. (The skin of red potatoes is fragile). I used a little brush to lightly buff off the dirt under warm running water.
before
after
Cut the potatoes into wedges: quarters for the larger potatoes, and halves for the smaller potatoes, and arrange on a cookie sheet.
Drizzle olive oil over the potatoes and sprinkle with garlic scapes, salt and pepper.
Bake at 450 degrees for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are brown and slightly wrinkled.
While the potatoes are cooking, chop your thyme, sage, and rosemary. Combine.
Remove the potatoes from the oven, drizzle with truffle oil, and sprinkle with the herb mixture.
This was fantastic. I honestly couldn’t stop eating the potatoes. Truffle oil is such a great ingredient, although it is a bit of a splurge. Truffle oil is usually added at the end of a dish, the oil is too delicate to be subjected to high heat. A little bit of truffle oil goes a long way though so do not overpour! When I make this recipe in the future, I plan on using normal minced garlic (2-3 cloves), the garlic scapes were quite burnt from the oven so I didn’t get any of the garlic taste from them. Boo.
I wanted to challenge myself this weekend, so I decided to try to make paella. I don’t own a paella pan, and I honestly have no idea how to cook paella, so this should be quite the experience. I used a mixture of a recipe from Tyler Florence and one from Cooking Light, keeping my personal taste in mind.
Ingredients:
2 Spanish chorizo sausages, thickly sliced
1 Spanish onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons parsley (fresh if you have it)
1 (15-ounce) can whole tomatoes, drained and roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon paprika
2 cups rice, whatever you have (long, short, doesn’t matter)
2 quarts plus 2 cups water
1/3 cup flour
1 cup dry white wine
2 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon saffron threads
1 (8-ounce) bottles clam juice
1 dozen littleneck clams, scrubbed
2 pounds mussels, debearded and scrubbed
Olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup sweet peas, frozen and thawed (optional)
Lemon wedges, for serving (optional)
Begin by cleaning and de-bearding the mussels. I couldn’t handle doing this, so thankfully my boyfriend was willing to help.
That wiry-looking thing on the right side of the mussel, that’s the beard. To remove, pull towards the hinge part of the mussel and tug.
yuck
The beards won’t hurt you if you eat them, but they don’t look particularly appetizing. Scrub the mussels to remove any gook that might be left on them. Discard any mussels that are open or cracked. Do the same with the clams. Put the clams and mussels in a mixture of 2 quarts water and 1/3 cup flour for 20 minutes. This helps to remove any sand that may still be in the mussels and clams.
Add the chicken broth, 2 cups water, 1 cup white wine, clam juice and saffron to a pot over medium heat. Simmer, without boiling, then reduce to low to keep warm.
Heat a tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat. Place the cut chorizo in the pan and cook until browned. Remove and set aside.
Reduce the heat to medium and add the chopped onions, garlic and parsley. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and paprika and cook for 5-10 minutes until fragrant.
Add the rice, stirring to coat the rice.
Pour in the saffron broth, simmering for 10 minutes.
Add chorizo, clams and mussels, tucking the clams and mussels into the rice.
Cook for 15 minutes without stirring, until the rice is fluffy and you can smell the rice at the bottom beginning to toast. (This is known as socarrat… paella is supposed to have a toasted bottom.)
Remove from heat and allow to rest for 5 minutes (it will be really, really hot). Serve with lemon wedges and peas if desired. Season with salt and pepper if needed.
I have to give myself a little pat on the back for this one (as well as my boyfriend for his wonderful de-bearding skills). Although I was craving a bit more saffron taste, this dish really turned out well overall. It is quite a bit of work, but it produces a whole lot of food, at least 8 servings. As always, don’t eat any clams or mussels that don’t open. A bunch of my clams didn’t open, kind of a bummer. I also think the next time I make this, I would reserve the liquid from the tomatoes and add that in as well for a little extra flavor.
For Father’s Day, I wanted to make my dad a somewhat traditional sangria. He is a man who has nothing and wants nothing (which is probably a result of having two daughters and a wife who want everything), but he does love a good sangria. I hope he likes it!
Ingredients:
1 bottle of Rioja wine
1/2 cup brandy
1/4 cup triple sec
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup cranberry juice
3 table spoons simple syrup
1 apple, cored
1 orange, cut into thin slices
1 lemon, cut into thin slices
1 lime, cut into thin slices
1 peach/nectarine, pitted and cut into wedges
Ginger ale, to taste
Combine the wine, brandy, triple sec, orange juice, cranberry juice and simple syrup. Stir.
Prepare all of your fruit.
Add the fruit to the wine mixture and refrigerate for about 1 hour.
When ready to serve, pour sangria into a glass and top with the ginger ale to taste.
I took only one sip of this, so my dad will have to be the true judge of this recipe. It seemed to taste good to me: not too sweet and still a hint of actual wine. You can make a bunch of substitutes for this recipe. If you don’t have the time to make simple syrup, just use 3 tablespoons sugar and stir until it dissolves in the wine mixture. Feel free to substitute or eliminate some of the fruit choices: blackberries would also be a nice addition in the sangria.
