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Healthy and Delicious Quick Veggies

2 Jul

I love food.  WAY too much for my waistline.  I find it hard to eat healthy since I always feel like I’m missing out on food.  I try to make good decisions (whole grains rather than white starches, portion control, avoiding fried foods and being aware of the hidden calories in things like juice and salad dressing) but usually I don’t want to have to trade my hearty, rich, favorite meals for anything else. 

When I come home from a good workout at the gym, however, it’s usually late and I don’t want to eat too heavy or totally kill my hard work on the treadmill.  Tonight I wanted something with good flavors that would leave me satisfied, though I wasn’t overly hungry.  I planned to sautee some zucchini in olive oil, garlic, and shallots (if you don’t cook with shallots, start now), however, upon entering the supermarket and seeing a lovely rack of grape tomatoes, I decided it couldn’t be that hard to make blistered tomatoes (I hoped).  Turned out there are few things easier.  It turned out absolutely delicious and my calculations tell me the recipe is only about 300 calories (and I could only eat half! That’s less than 20 minutes on the treadmill!). 

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Sauteed Zucchini and Blistered Tomatoes

  • Slice zucchini into halved 1/8 inch slices, small mince 2 shallots, wash tomatoes, and mince garlic (or substitute with garlic powder) to prep
  • Heat olive oil over medium heat in a skillet
  • Add garlic to pan and cook until tender but not brown
  • Place sliced pieces of zucchini in pan and let cook for 2-3 minutes
  • Place shallots into pan and mix with zucchini
  • Add tomatoes to pan and cook until tomatoes begin to blister, about 6 minutes
  • Salt to taste

Happy Nomming!

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Brats, Sweet Potato Caserole, and Asparagus

26 Jun

A trip to the Grand Central Market with my favorite foodie, Noa, included a trip to her favorite place for sausages: Koglin Royal Hams.  I bought the Frankonian Veal Bratwurst at her recommendation and Mike and I decided to pair it with a sweet potato caserole and asparagus in a a balsamic sauce.  These sweet potatoes were incredible, but they tasted WAY too good to be anything close to healthy.  I probably would have added nutmeg or more cinnamon to the potatoes themselves but the topping tasted like a moist pecan pie.  We made a few mistakes on the recipes, however, everything still remained delicious.

Mistake #1: Baking the potatoes takes too long.  We wound up microwaving them to get them soft enough to mash.  In the past I’ve boiled them and they tasted just as good.

Mistake #2: Peel potatoes before cooking!  We followed the recipe exactly and the peeling was one of the most laughably difficult things we’ve done

Mistake #3: Bratwurst needs to be boiled very specifically… you have to bring the water to a boil then TURN IT OFF and put the sausages in, then let them cook for ~8-12 minutes.  I made the mistake of keeping the heat on and they exploded.  Still full of flavor, they surely did NOT look pretty.



For dessert I was craving berries and schlag (aka whipped cream).  I used the leftover heavy cream to whip up some schlag and added some Bristol Cream Sherry to give it an adult kick.


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Gourmet Sweet Potato Classic

(recipe was found here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Gourmet-Sweet-Potato-Classic/Detail.aspx)

Ingredients

  • 5 sweet potatoes
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 2 tablespoons heavy cream
  • 1/4 cup butter, softened
  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9×13 inch baking dish.
  2. Bake sweet potatoes 35 minutes on a pan in the preheated oven, or until they begin to soften. Cool slightly, peel, and mash. (Refer to note above: I recommend peeling then boiling)
  3. In a large bowl, mix the mashed sweet potatoes, salt, 1/4 cup butter, eggs, vanilla extract, cinnamon, sugar, and heavy cream. Transfer to the prepared baking dish.
  4. In a medium bowl, combine 1/4 cup butter, flour, brown sugar, and chopped pecans. Mix with a pastry blender or your fingers to the consistency of course meal. Sprinkle over the sweet potato mixture.
  5. Bake 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until topping is crisp and lightly browned.

Happy Nomming!

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Market Fresh Cooking

26 Jun

I love Markets.  Farmer’s Markets are my favorite and I’ve always loved Chelsea Market.  I like walking into a place having no idea what I’ll cook and selecting my dinner based on what looks the best that day.  The only problem I have with NYC markets is that they’re crowded and it can sometimes be very annoying to have to push through everyone.  Nothing in Union Square Market was calling out to me, especially not enough to go through the crowd any more, so Mike and I made our way to Chelsea Market for the fish at The Lobster Place.

I felt overwhelmed at the fish counter, however, I wound up selecting the Turbot.  Why? I have no idea.  It just called out to me (and perhaps had the word “buttery” on the description) and was something I had never tried.  The sign also mentioned that it resembled halibut, so when struggling to find a yummy sounding turbot recipe, we looked into how to cook halibut and found an easy butter/shallot sauce that sounded good (so much for eating healthy with fish)!  We added the homemade pasta bought from the Italian market and made our favorite brussel sprouts recipe once again.  The scallops also looked great, and are always a favorite, so we cooked some of those up for an app (just a touch of egg, then flour, then pan seared).  It was a hearty and rich meal that we thoroughly enjoyed.  We also picked up some of my favorite Fat Witch brownies for dessert.  YUM!


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Shallot Butter Sauce

·         Pound Butter — softened

·         2 Shallots — chopped

·         1 Cup White Wine

·         1/2 Cup White Wine Vinegar

·         1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice (we went without)

·         Salt And Pepper — to taste

Directions 

Saute shallots with the wine & vinegar. Reduce the liquid for 10 minutes until the pan is dry, and only shallots remain. Whisk in butter. After butter is totally melted, add remaining ingredients, bring to boil. Remove from heat, keep warm. 

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