June 2011 – Best for the Moment

Beg, Borrow and Meal

June 28, 2011January 2, 2020Posted in RecipesTagged couscous cake, Leftovers, shredded chicken1 Comment

If this succulent roasted chicken was half eaten at the end of your meal, you’d take it home and cook with it, wouldn’t you? No shame in this game!

It’s perfect as shredded chicken for salad, tacos, burritos, soup, etc. I made chicken salad with shredded carrots, orange zest and olive oil.

Also on the menu? Couscous cakes using leftover couscous and a recipe from Everyday Food. Basically, you mix the leftover couscous with an egg, any herbs you like, and fry them in oil on each side until crispy. Dipping sauce is a must!

Making it Work: Turnips

June 24, 2011January 3, 2020Posted in RecipesTagged bacon, linkedin, pasta, peas, risotto, turnip greens, turnipsLeave a comment

5 meals, one main ingredient: turnips, from Farm Fresh to You. Most of the heavy lifting took place Sunday night. Here’s how it went down:

Sunday: made a half portion of Risotto with Turnips and Bacon while cooking remaining pack of bacon in the oven; simultaneously made Peas and Turnips with Bacon and Dill Butter (minus the dill); experimented with soup made from turnip greens (no good)

Monday: made turkey meatballs with fresh squeezed orange juice, breadcrumbs and egg; served with peas side dish

Tuesday: had peas side dish for lunch; BLTs for dinner with leftover bacon

Thursday: made spinach fettuccine to go with leftover meatballs and homemade cream sauce – half a stick of butter, one giant spoonful of risotto, parmesan cheese and lowfat milk all cooked to a simmer in a saucepan.

Who knew turnips could be such an adventure?!

The Beans Knees

June 20, 2011January 2, 2020Posted in RecipesTagged beans and rice, black beans, cannellini beans, lean chicken breasts, light pasta, linkedin, white beansLeave a comment

I’m not the first person to tell you that beans are magical for all their health benefits. But did you ever think of them as a sauce or condiment?

Recently, I made a healthy pasta dish using cannellini beans to add flavor, coating, texture and to help fill me up. Ingredients were pretty simple, but totally satisfying: lean chicken breasts, fresh spinach, rice vermicelli and those pearly white (beans).

Same concept below, this time when I was in need of a home-cooked meal without having a lot of groceries in the fridge. Enter black beans, rice, frozen corn and those same lovely lean chicken breasts that hang out in the freezer. Blend ’em all together and you have a satiating beans-and-rice dish minus the lard. I sprinkled the chicken breasts with a little chili powder to add flavor, but the black beans added the rich “sauce.”

My Week in Food: Kauai Edition

June 7, 2011January 2, 2020Posted in Couple timeTagged grand hyatt poipu, hanalei bay, java kai, kalypso island bar & grill, kauai, linkedin, st. regis princeville resort, stevenson's library, tidepools2 Comments

Saturday: Anniversary dinner at Tidepools at the Grand Hyatt in Poipu, Kauai – last time I ate there it was to celebrate my 21st birthday! Sweet Corn and Crab Meat Soup