Healthy, Easy Dinner Salad

We haven't had summer squash or zucchini since the zucchini cakes about a month ago, but I saw this recipe from Clean Eating and had to try it. The local zucchini/summer squash season is pretty much over, but I was lucky to find a few at my favorite farmers market. I added mushrooms and substituted the champagne vinegar for rice vinegar and fresh mozzarella for the feta, because I forgot to pick up feta at the farmers market. The feta would only make this dish even better than it was.

http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/recipes/downloads/ce32_harvest_salad.pdf

enjoy and eat real!

Too Much Zucchini - Make Zucchini Cakes

Yes, you read that right, Zucchini Cakes. This is the time of year where all of my garden growing friends are trying to pawn of their summer squash and zucchini on me. I'm pretty sure we have has some sort of squash every night this week.. I'm a little tired of it (coming from someone who barely makes the same thing twice) and have been trying to come up with something creative to do with all the squash.
Don't get me wrong, I like zucchini and pretty every other squash. It's versatile and easy to cook. So in an attempt to do something different, I came up with these. The cakes kind of tasted like potato cakes.  They were a touch on the mushy side. Zucchini has a high water content and normally I would have pressed the water out, but I wanted to see what they came out like this way.

This is what I did:

Shredded 2 good sized, but not baseball bat size zucchini (in the food processor)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/4 cup quinoa flour
1/2 cup cooked quinoa (substitute with rice or couscous, I happen to have quinoa left over
1/4 teaspoon tabasco
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
salt
pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, mashed

1. Mix all ingredients together except olive oil and garlic. Form into patties
2. Heat olive oil and mashed garlic
3. Place patties into heated pan, cook for 4-5 minutes on each side, until golden brown
4. remove from pan, sprinkle a touch more parmesan cheese

I served this with a little arugula, chopped tomatoes, and roasted cumin scented chickpeas.

Dinner Ideas: What We Are Eating This Week - part two

So what else are we eating besides Turkey and Black Bean Soup?

Tonight we are having Salmon w/ Pepita Lime Butter, and Curried Squash. The Salmon is from Eating Well http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/salmon_with_pepita_lime_butter_for_two.html and the Curried Squash is from Clean Eating Magazine. It has brown basmati rice, acorn squash (although I'm going to use butternut squash) and baby spinach in it. I thought the combination of the flavors of Mexico/Latin America and India might be fun to try. We'll see how everyone else likes it.

Rustic Genovese Basil Pesto Pasta:  Again this is from Clean Eating Magazine. This is pasta (multigrain) with  basil pesto,  1 russet potato, cherry tomatoes and green beans. I'm going to add parsely to my basil pesto because I don't have enough fresh basil to make pesto. Of course you can buy pesto too and just add the other ingredients. 

I'll also be serving a huge salad with this too. Probably mixed field greens and cucumbers and who knows what else. I always do something different!

Black Bean and Feta Quesadillas:  I'm planning to make this on the weekend. It's quick, easy and really good.  I saute a little onion, add a 15oz can of tomatoes, one 15oz can of black beans and mash it together so that it becomes a really rough paste.  Add a little salt and pepper, about one teaspoon of chili powder and a tablespoon of chopped parsely. Mix altogether and add to whole wheat tortillas. You can cook them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or put them in a saute pan with a tiny bit of oil heat them that way.

Enjoy and I hope you try something new.

Dinner Ideas: What We Are Eating This Week

The holidays are over and we are getting back to our regular schedule. As I do every year, I endeavor to seek different things to try. This week is no different, most of what I'm cooking this week, I have never made before. I have chosen pretty simple meals during the week and a couple of more time consuming recipes this weekend. So, this is what we are eating:

Minestrone Soup with Quinoa: I found this in January issue of Clean Eating Magazine and it was amazing. It took a total of 30 minutes and even Brian who is rather particular went back for seconds. The recipe included tomatoes, carrots, cannelli beans, spinach, and of course the Quinoa (pronouced KEENwah) I added chicken broth and celery.

Stuffed Butternut Squash: Around Thanksgiving we saw an article about stuffed pumpkins and what to put in them. I have been planning to do something similar since then, but hadn't gotten to it. Tonight I stuffed butternut squash with wheatberries, sausage from one of the local farms, brown rice, leeks (I had these left over from something I made a couple days ago) dried cranberries, a couple mushrooms and chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper. I cut the squash in half, scooped out seeds and a little of the middle and spooned the wheatberry and rice mixture over. This was perfect tonight. It has been so cold and this warmed us all.

Chicken Pot Pie with a Twist: I'll be making this during the weekend. You can forget the standard peas and carrots here. This is a recipe from an old issue of Bon Appetite and has roasted red peppers, shitake mushrooms, and green beans. I bought a whole chicken so I'll probably make two and freeze one pie.

Coq Au Vin: Last weekend Garth and I watched Julie and Julia. Watching Meryl Streep as Julia Child inspired me to give one of Julia Child's recipes a try. I have never made coq au vin, which is a chicken stew made with red wine. I googled Julia's recipe and will be making this over the weekend too.  Here is the link to the recipe I will be making http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/recipe?id=7113750

Happy Cooking!!