Broccoli Salad v. 2

Another summery day, another broccoli salad!  This was has some similar ingredients to the first, but it's amazing how just a couple small changes can completely alter the taste!

Broccoli Salad v. 2

12 oz. bag of broccoli slaw
1/2 red onion
1 red delicious apple, sliced and diced
4 slices of bacon
2/3 c. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
approximately 2/3 c. Ken's Low Fat Honey Mustard Dressing

Mix together and serve!  This one actually tastes better if you let it sit overnight in the fridge, but it's still very good the first night.  

So, from version one, I changed out broccoli florets for broccoli slaw, removed the Craisins and the sunflower seeds, added apple, and went a completely different route with honey mustard dressing.  This one is definitely more tangy than the first version, which has a sweeter, creamier dressing.

So far, votes are tied between version one and two.  I personally prefer version one, but enjoy this recipe quite a bit as well.  Guess I'll need to try a third broccoli salad recipe and see if I can top them both!

Nice and refreshing, just like version one, this would make a great lunch or light dinner, but easily works as a side dish as well.

Broccoli Salad v.1

A few months back I started using Caloriecount.com to track my eating.  I had no real idea of how many calories I was consuming in a day, or where I needed to be at to lose some weight.  One of the features I like about the site is that it provides you a nutritional report card based on the foods you eat each day. Because I'm a little bit competitive, even with myself, my goal is to eat in such a way that I'm getting at least an A- on most days.  What I found as I started logging the foods I ate, was that I didn't have enough variety in what I was eating and I wasn't hitting the nutritional guidelines I wanted.  So, in order to try and reach those goals, I've been making an effort to eat a bigger variety of foods, especially fruits and veggies.

I really like salad.  However, eating the same exact spinach salad, with the same veggies, day after day simply gets boring.  So, I've been pinning lots and lots of ideas on my Pinterest boards and trying them out as various fruit/veggies come into season and/or are on sale.

One of the recipes I've found is for a broccoli salad that I've now made about 3 times because it has lots of yummy bits that probably aren't so good for you, but also has a lot of yummy bits that are good for you, so it balances out!

The recipe for this salad is here: Broccoli Salad with Bacon and Cheese  

I've made a few changes to the recipe.  It calls for both cranberries and raisins.  Depending on what I have on hand at the time, I've used Craisins, raisins, and various dried fruits.  So far, all of them have worked out well.  If you know me in real life, then you probably know I have an aversion to mayonnaise that I *know* about in a recipe.  So that means I'm never going to willingly put mayo into anything.  If it sneaks into my food and I don't *know* about it, sometimes I'm ok with it, but as a general rule, ick, yuck, no way.  So for the dressing on this recipe I've tried two different options.  I've made it with plain greek yogurt, and also with a combo of plain greek yogurt and light sour cream.  The version with the light sour cream/greek yogurt is a little tangier, so that's really my preference.  However, both options work out well, and in my opinion are actually a healthier alternative to using mayo.  I'm not sure how much of a difference in taste there would be with using the actual mayo, but I'm not going to try it out, so you're on your own if you go that route!  The other addition I've made to the recipe is to throw in a handful of sunflower seeds.  It goes well with the other flavors in the salad and I like the extra crunch.

Overall, this is a hearty salad, easily filling enough for a lunch or maybe even a light dinner.  I also like that the recipe is versatile in that you can really sub out a lot of the ingredients for things you have on hand without difficulty and still have the salad turn out tasty.  This one definitely makes a regular appearance in my house now!

Summer Obsession - Salads with Fruit!

Dinner Tonight:  Marinated Pork, Spinach Salad, Peas and Potatoes

Today was hectic, so it ended up being one big meal instead of three small ones.  But it was so worth it to have this fantastic dinner!

Salad:

Fresh Spinach
Honeydew
Blackberries
Feta
Honey-Ginger Dressing made from olive oil, fresh ginger, Amish honey, lemon juice, salt and pepper

I've been waiting for months for blackberries to be in season to try this salad and it's definitely going to be in rotation as long as blackberries are around and reasonably priced.  The flavors in this really went well together and it was super tasty!


Pork:

I marinated the pork for about 3 hours with olive oil, juice of one fresh lemon, 2 cloves of garlic, about 1  T. thyme, salt and pepper.  This was good for about two of the boneless pork chops shown above.  A friend had recommended the marinade for tenderloin, but I didn't have any on hand so I substituted the chops I was planning on stuffing.  It worked.

Peas:  Just frozen peas with a little bacon, nothing exciting, but I love peas with my baked potatoes.  I know I just said I was cutting down on white carbs, but maybe I lied.  In any case, white carbs in moderation are fine.

Overall, this was a really summery feeling meal, even though there was more than enough to feed an army.  But hey, it's Memorial Day, so maybe that's appropriate.

The Blackberry salad as well as the pork are both going to be seen again soon!

A New Twist on a Favorite - Southwestern Shepard's Pie

So, I'm pretty much a terrible blogger.  I've been doing plenty of cooking, but not much in the way of posting.  I've got a back load of pics I've taken and I'm going to try to get caught soon with some of the yumminess that's been happening in my kitchen!

Shepard's Pie is one of my favorite comfort food meals, I think I've posted about it before.  I saw a couple recipes for Shepard's Pie with sweet potatoes, and as I'm trying to move away from eating *so* many white carbs, I thought maybe trying a Shepard's Pie with a Southwestern flair might be tasty.

What I did:

I browned about a pound of ground beef with about a half an onion and some garlic.  Drained.  Added some frozen mixed vegetables (probably 2 cups) and a can of drained diced tomatoes.  To this mixture I added what I'd usually use for taco seasoning - chili Powder, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, salt and pepper. (I can't tell you exactly how much because I really just keep adding spices until it tastes "right".)

I put this mixture at the bottom of a deep casserole dish.  On top of the beef/veggie layer I sprinkled about 1.5 cups of sharp cheddar cheese.  On top of this, I spread out a layer of mashed sweet potatoes and sprinkled it with paprika.  I cooked it for about 45 minutes at 350.

It came out fabulous.  The flavors I used in the beef an veggie layer really complimented the sweet potato topping well.  The only complaint I have about the experiment has to do with the mashed sweet potatoes. sweet potatoes seem to hold on to more liquid than regular white potatoes.  So even though I drained most of the liquid before I mashed them (which I just mashed with a little butter and some of the water I used to boil the potatoes), you can see from the picture that there was some extra liquid once it baked and the sweet potatoes were a little watery.  If I try this experiment again I have two ideas - either I'll bake the sweet potatoes first and mash them like you would for twice baked potatoes, or I'll omit *any* additional water when I mash them.  I'm leaning more towards baking the potatoes first, though, I think that will probably give me the desired effect, though I'm open to suggestions!

Pork with Feta Cream Sauce

My husband texted me at 4:30 this afternoon to say that he'd be off work at five and he was starving.   Having settled into a 3rd shift schedule, I had just woken up.  I had found a recipe a while back on Pinterest for Chicken with Feta Cheese Sauce and had wanted to try it, but hadn't really looked over the recipe so assumed it was going to be complicated.  (You know what happens when you assume!)

We didn't have any chicken in the house, but I figured that it would work well with pork and I did have some thawed in the fridge.  The longest part of making this recipe is cooking the pork.  I chose to cook mine in the oven instead of on the stove top as I needed the burners for other things.  For the pork I just brushed it with a little olive oil, and threw on some onion powder, garlic, and basil.  Cooked at 350 for about 30 mins.

Other than that I followed the recipe as written.  I served it with a boxed curried cous-cous mix and some green beans.  My husband, who is often skeptical of anything with feta thought it tasted great and I really liked it as well.  A fine dinner in about 35 minutes from start to finish.  I can't complain about that.

You can find the recipe for this dish here:  Chicken with Feta Cheese Sauce

Pasta with Creamy Bacon and Pea Sauce

It seems like I feature a lot of not so healthy looking recipes in my blog.  In reality, we eat a lot more healthy than not meals, but many of those don't seem exciting or exceptional enough to blog about.  So, mostly I end up posting on the best of the best, which are often of the creamy and or fattening variety.

I found this recipe for Pasta with Creamy Pea Sauce on Pinterest and had been meaning to try it out for a while.  It combines two ingredients that I love - bacon and peas.  It also looked like it would be a quick and easy meal and I wasn't really in the mood to spend hours in the kitchen.  No lie, if you start heating the water for the pasta at the same time you start cooking the bacon, everything will be ready to throw together by the time your pasta is done.  Might not be the healthiest meal on the planet, but it's nice to have a meal that seems "special" without hours of prep time.

The recipe is fairly straightforward, add frozen peas, mint, and a few other ingredients to cooked bacon.  The recipe didn't specify to drain the bacon fat, and so I didn't, but the end result did not seem overly greasy.  I'm sure some substitutions such as turkey bacon and low fat sour cream could bring the calorie count down tremendously, but I don't think there is anything wrong with an occasional indulgence.

Hearty enough for a main dish, but could also be used as a side.  Plenty of flavor and the hubby asked this one to be put into my regular recipe rotation.

The recipe for this can be found at:  Pasta with Creamy Bacon Sauce

Valentine's Pudding for the Hubby

Homemade Banana Pudding

I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping up with my blog, but I have been cooking a lot lately, so I'm going to try to do better about posting.  Life has been hectic, but I'm settling down to a routine now, so I should have more time.

My husband loves banana pudding.  Actually desserts in general, but he has a particular fondness for bananas.  I'll be honest, I've not had a lot of banana pudding myself.  I'm definitely more of a salty kind of gal.  Banana pudding is fairly easy to make, the longest part is probably waiting for it to set.  

I assumed, incorrectly it seems, that banana pudding was banana flavored pudding layers with Nilla wafers and fresh bananas.  I was wrong.  Banana pudding is actually made with alternating layers of a very rich vanilla custard/pudding, bananas, and Nilla wafers.  The end result is a very dense, rich, and flavorful dessert.    The banana flavor seems to kind of meld into the vanilla as it chills and it's really delicious.

Although this was really tasty, I don't think it will be something I make for more than a special occasion.  When I say the vanilla pudding layer is rich, I'm not kidding.  The recipe I used had half and half, sweetened condensed milk, and heavy whipping cream.  So, it's definitely a once in a while treat.  Recipe is really simple, and it passed the husband taste test, so this will probably become my usual recipe for this dish.  The only substitution I made to the recipe was using the entire can of sweetened condensed milk, and subbing half and half for the water. (I can never leave a recipe alone!)  Great recipe when you need a quick dessert that is sure to impress!

The recipe I used can be found here:  Banana Pudding