Lobster and Shrimp Ravioli with Vodka Cream Sauce.

A couple of our friends are spending the long weekend in our favorite vacation spot, Sandestin Florida.  That got me thinking about a meal we have each time we are in Sandestin.  The Lobster Ravioli at Grafitti in Sandestin is one of our favorite meals of all time.  It might be the vacation atmosphere or getting to share the meal with our great friends, but something about that place makes it magical every time. 

Since I had the meal on my mind this week I decided to try and re-create a similar dish for us here at home last night.  I had a horrible day yesterday so I knew I needed a great meal and a glass bottle of wine. 

A picture doesn't do this dish any justice. 
If you had a scratch and sniff computer screen, you would be dying for this dish right now!

I created this dish with a little help from the store.  Yes, I've made homemade ravioli before with wonton wrappers that turns out wonderfully.  However, this week when I was at Whole Foods I spotted a box of fresh Shrimp and Lobster Ravioli.   Why go to all that trouble myself with these gems staring at me?  I decided to take the easy route.  Buy the ravioli and make my own sauce to dress it.

Now for the sauce.  Rachel Ray's "You won't be single for long Vodka Cream Sauce" is one of my favorite sauces to make at home.  It tastes like something you would order out at a nice Italian restaurant.  Plus, its super quick to prepare.  I've heard some of my friends comment this sauce does not turn out the same for them when they cook it.  Make sure you take the time to reduce the vodka down as instructed. Cooking out the alcohol and concentrating the flavor is what makes this dish perfect.

If you don't have ravioli, you can follow her instructions for Penne pasta. I've had the sauce over lasagna also instead of a traditional marinara sauce.  DELISH!  The possibilities are endless!
Recipe Link:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/you-wont-be-single-for-long-vodka-cream-pasta-recipe/index.html

Preparing the sauce takes literally 10 minutes, start to finish.  You can boil the raviolis as you make the sauce.  Which makes this a lightning fast meal to prepare.  Perfect for busy week nights.  Here are some of my pics along the cooking process.  As you can see in the end I finished my plate off with a healthy sprinkle of fresh Parmesan Cheese. 

This is the brand I found in Whole Foods, by the fresh cheese section. 
It was full of seafood!  I was skeptical, but these were great.

You'll know fresh ravioli is done cooking when it starts floating around the surface like above.

Cheese Please!

If you want to impress dinner guests or your honey on a date night this is PERFECT! 

Warning, don't make it unless you want people hounding you for more. 

I had plenty of sauce left over so I'm going to turn what's left into a meal for Sunday night.  I'll share with you next week how I made this sauce work a double-shift for me.

Couscous

I don't even need a swanky title for this post.  Saying couscous is fun enough.  I like the word, but I love food it represents even more.  I make regular couscous as a side dish all the time.  Usually just the boxed brand, "Near East".  It is a wonderful, quick side dish that's out of the ordinary. 

A couple of weeks ago I had lunch at the Whole Foods grill where my salmon fillet was served over top of Israeli couscous with peas.  Israeli couscous are larger pearls than regular couscous.  A little smaller than a pea.  It has such an interesting texture.  I've have had the Israeli kind of couscous in restaurants, but I've never made the variety here at home.  Couscous is actually just small pearls of pasta.  If you like pasta, you will adore these fun little pearls too. 

Last night, I made Israeli here at home for the first time.  It was a great addition to my side dish repertoire.  We all struggle to come up with different sides besides potatoes and veggies.  This recipe is a great deviation from the norm!

Israeli Couscous with Peas and Tomatoes

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 1/2 cups vegetable broth (reduced sodium if available), heated to near boiling

1 Box Toasted Israeli Couscous, sometimes just called "toasted couscous"

1 garlic clove crushed with your hand or flat side of a large knife

1/2 can diced tomatoes, drained (no salt added if available)

3/4 cup frozen green peas

Greek Seasoning to taste

Salt and Pepper to taste

This is the box of couscous I found at Whole Foods.  Brand is "Casbah". 

Sorry about the flash glare!

 Let's get cooking...

Start with a tablespoon of olive oil in a medium sized saute pan, over medium heat.  Add in the package of couscous.  Toast the pearls of dry couscous for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally until the pearls are slightly browned and toasty.



Before: You can see the blonde color the couscous starts out with from the package



After: The couscous has browned up and toasted through and is ready to start adding in liquid

Once the couscous had browned, stir in 1/2 cup warmed broth and the crushed garlic clove.  Let this bubble, stirring often until the liquid is soaked into the pasta and pan is nearly dry again. Then add in another 1/2 cup warm broth, following the same stir and absorb method.  Keep adding in 1/2 cup increments of broth once the last addition is absorbed until you have used all the 2 1/2 cups broth. 

Note: This is not the method of cooking on the package, but the way the Whole Foods chef told me to prepare it.  This is actually the way to prepare risotto.  With couscous, it gives the dish a firm, less mushy texture. This is achieved by letting the liquid absorb into the pasta a little at a time; rather than all at once. 

This is after the first two 1/2 cups of broth were added. 
You can see the pasta is starting to puff up some from absorbing the broth.

From start to finish, adding in all the liquid takes about 10-15 minutes.  At the end the pasta should be nearly, if not all the way cooked through.  If the pasta is still too firm at the center, cover the hot pan and remove it from the heat.  Let the pasta sit covered, undisturbed, for 5 minutes to finish cooking through. 
At this point you could add in what ever flavor additions you would like, or none at all.  I love it plain as well. 

Once the pasta was done stir in 1/2 can of drained diced tomatoes and 3/4 cup frozen green peas. 
Also, fish out the garlic clove with a fork, if you can.  (No one wants to bite down on a huge hunk of garlic). 
Stir in the Greek seasoning and salt/pepper to taste. 

Heat the peas and tomatoes up by mixing them through the couscous well.  Serve hot.



Last night I had this side dish along with grilled salmon. Yum-O!

You could really make this "Greek" style by adding in Feta Cheese along with the peas and tomatoes.  I didn't last night because I didn't want to add the additional fat/calories, but it would have been great.
Leftovers are good served the next day as a cold salad.  I'm having my leftovers for lunch today with some fresh spinach mixed in.

Warm Pasta Salad with Shrimp

I like to cook my lunches for the week on Sunday afternoons.  This way, I go into the week with a healthy game plan and I'm not aimlessly searching the fridge and Fast Food Row for lunch. September's Cooking Light Magazine had a great looking pasta salad dish I made for lunch this week.  It turned out awesome and heats up well each day so I had to share with you.

Proceed with caution.  I get a major case of Portion Distortion with pasta so I'm being very careful to mind my serving size with this.  I'm eating each day out of small cereal bowl, not plates.  I measure out less than their 2 cup portion size (which is actually a BIG portion for pasta) to save a little calories if I'm not too hungry. 

Here is a link to the recipe. 
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=2011051
The dish is not "light" tasting at all.  Plus it has loads of fiber from the beans, green goodness from the spinach, and is super satisfying from the shrimp.


I did make a couple of changes to the recipe:

1.  I tripled the spinach it called for to up the nutrition. I also added in a bit of Kale that I had left over and need to use in the fridge.

2.  Only included 1/3 of the shrimp it called for, so I would only get 3-4 shrimp per bowl. 
(Since I'm sans meat during the week and trying to limit my seafood to mainly dinner.) 

3.  The recipe didn't call for whole wheat pasta, which I thought was weird for a Cooking Light recipe.  Kroger didn't have whole wheat bow tie pasta anyway, so I used 1/2 box of Barilla Plus (Best Life Approved) pasta.

Let's get cooking...

Dressing mixture includes chopped garlic (below pic), lemon juice, Dijon mustard, olive oil,

kosher salt, and pepper.

Saute shrimp in a tinsy-winsy bit of Olive Oil. 

Next, add in spinach, cannellini beans, red onion, and capers.

Mix together well while the beans heat through and spinach cooks down a bit.

Toss in hot pasta

Mix in pasta, then add dressing over the whole dish. 

Stirring to make sure dressing coats every-last-morsel of pasta.

I had my fist bowl for dinner Sunday.  Since Sunday's are splurge day around my house, I added a generous sprinkle of fresh grated Parmesan Cheese over the top.  This week I'm having the dish minus the extra fat from the cheese :-(

Does that look YUM-O or what?  If you made this for your family they would never pick this out as a "Light" recipe.  One, 2-Cup serving has 487 Calories, and 16 grams of fat.  That's pretty high for lunch, which is why I go lighter on the portions size. 

But for dinner, this could be an under 500 calorie winner!

 

Meatless Monday

My husband is such a great sport. Even though he teases me every chance he gets about my new pescetarian lifestyle (vegetarian with eating fish a couple times a week) he’s been very forgiving of me at dinner time when I cook my crazy concoctions. I somehow convinced him to do a meatless Monday dinner with me. Of course I promised I would be cooking something so yummy he wouldn’t miss the meat. No pressure, right?


What to cook, what to cook....A few months back I saw a recipe from Giada De Laurentiis on her Food Network show, Everyday Italian and made a note of it in my phone. This last weekend after catching a re-run of the show I knew I had to give this recipe a try.

It did not disappoint! It’s a Vegetable Bolognese sauce and you will not miss one meat morsel out of this pasta feast. It’s so healthy! Loaded with chopped carrots, red pepper and onions with fresh herbs it’s a must try. Trust me this is a dish your family will love. There is about 15 minutes of prep work before you start. You have to get the veggies finely diced with a food processor. But I loved that I didn’t have to do all the chop work in the dish. God Bless the Food Processor!

I did have to change one thing, the porcini mushrooms.  Of course, my Kroger didn't have porcini mushrooms. Boo. So I used 5 oz of Shiitake Mushrooms and about 3oz of Baby Bellas.  Since I didn't have the left over porcini mushroom broth to use, I used the same amount it called for of Vegetable Stock.

Here is a link to the dish:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/rigatoni-with-vegetable-bolognese-recipe/index.html

Some of my pics along the cooking process.

Vegetables, tomato paste, wine, and vegetable stock, cooked down and ready to add the mascarpone cheese.

Starting to mix in the cheese.  It gave the sauce the most gorgeous blush orange color.

Adding in my Rigatoni directly from my pasta pot with a slotted spoon.  Adding some of the pasta water will thin out the sauce a bit.  If the sauce is already the consistency you want it, you can drain off the pasta well before mixing.

Finished product.  Now does this look good or what?

Amanda tested. Husband approved.

In case you were wondering how I arrived at this pescetarian diet over the vegetarian diet lemme explain. 

It was a combo of two things really, feeling a little sluggish from lack of protein and sushi.  I noticed my time at the gym was a struggle on the days where I was strictly vegetarian.  I added in some Salmon and other fish and it fixed the problem.  So I have fish about three-four times a week to supplement the lack of protein. I know there are very creative ways to get protein in your diet without adding the fish, but with out a Whole Foods or at least a Publix around here it's too much of a challenge for me to worry with. 

The other thing that made me go back to fish, my love of SUSHI. I can't quit. Don't ask me to.  But I do try and make sushi choices that contain sustainable fish.  Doin my part, people. Doin my part...

I  know what your thinking. NO, I don't miss meat one bit.  I don't even crave it.  Which is opposite of how I thought I would be. 

That said, this is the weekend we have all been waiting for....FOOTBALL!  Which also brings on, TAILGATE FOOD.  I will be partaking in Nuttin But Wings Hot Wings.  It will be interesting to see how I feel after falling off the veggie wagon. 

I'll be sure and fill you in Monday morning on all the good tailgate food I had over the weekend and how it felt to eat chicken.

One last thing,

Vino Lo Mein

I was undecided about what my taste buds were crying out for until the minute before I went to the grocery yesterday. Thinking ahead that morning, I thawed a chicken breast for my carnivore of a husband.  So I knew I had to do some sort of combo that could incorporate that.  Working on the fly, I created a little dish in my head. It turned out to be one of my tastiest veggie creations yet! Introducing...

Vino Lo Mein

(Vino=white wine in my glass the dish Lo Mein=cooked in my wok)

The steam messed up the photo a little, but you get the picture.

Ingredients:

1/2 box of Whole Wheat Linguini
1 Bundle of fresh Broccoli, washed, crowns cut into bit size pieces
1 Red Pepper cut in the thin ribbons
4-5 carrots, cut into little ribbons with a vegetable peeler
1 jar of Artichoke Hearts, drained
1-2 hand fulls fresh Baby Spinach
1 Tablespoon Cornstarch
1 cup vegetable stock
1 Lemon, zest and juice
1/2 cup-1 cup dry white wine, depending on your consistency
Whatever spices you prefer, I did Salt, Pepper, Red Pepper Flakes, Greek Seasoning, and Oregano

Cook linguini according to package directions. Try to have to done about the same time as your stir fry part is complete.  I started boiling the water when I started washing and chopping vegetables and it was perfect timing.

Get all your veggies chopped before you start stir frying, because it does go quite fast. You can will stress yourself out trying to do both at once.

Start with about a tablespoon of canola oil in the wok, searing hot, and add broccoli and red peppers first.  They have the longest cooking time.  Let it stir fry 3-4 minutes, stirring every minute or so.  Add in the shredded carrots, artichoke hearts, and spinach.  Continue to stir fry another 2-3 minutes all veggies are cooked to your preference.  I like my done, but still with a fresh bite to them. 

In a small bowl, stir together cornstarch and vegetable stock.  Pour the mixture over veggies in wok.  Let it come to a boil while adding in all lemon zest and juice, rest of your seasonings, and white wine.  Start with a 1/2 cup of wine, adding more as needed, making sure there is enough to coat all the linguini.  Let the mixture bubble in wok for 2-3 more minutes to thicken.

Lastly, toss linguini in the pot with the veggies and sauce to combine.  (Taste a bite to make sure you have enough seasoning.) Enjoy!

In case you are wondering how I incorporated my husbands chicken breast in his meal....He grilled his chicken breast with BBQ sauce and had it along side the American Lo Mein.  Here's a pic of his plate, served with his favorite beverage.  His does look quite tasty!

My husband is a great griller! Check out those grill marks.

Side note: I have to skip giving one of the Food Rules today. I let a friend borrow book last night.  I'm trying to spread the food gospel as I see it, one friend at a time :-)
Hopefully I'll have it back before tomorrow's post.

The Splurge

Since I made it all week as a born again Vegetarian (except for a sushi roll Wednesday night, with fish of course) I decided to congratulate myself with an awesome date night spread for the hubbs and I Friday night.  We are crazy for seafood, nearly to a fault.  I infused my favorite Rachel Ray "You won't be single for long Vodka Cream Sauce" with some tasty grilled shrimp and lobster meat.
After a week of eating things that were really good for me, it was funny the amount of guilt I carried around from that 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream in the sauce.  But I have to say, it was worth it.

You're dying right! It was delish

To top off the great date night I also baked a pan of BROWNIES! Fear not, all is not lost. It was a low-fat, and fabulous recipe from Cooking Light.

Here is the link:

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1011262

I did change a couple of things.  Instead of purchasing Instant Coffee, I just brewed a strong cup here at home and used 1/4 cup of it.  I also added about 1/4 cup of Toffee bits into the batter as well as pressing some into the top. 
At the step where you mix it all together, the mixture is so super thick!  I couldn't get it to blend so I added splashes of water, about a tablespoon at a time, until the dry ingredients could incorporate.

They were so gooey and fudgy!  Next time you have a sweet tooth I definitely recommend these little gems.

We now interrupt this perfectly peppy food blog for quick angry gripe:
I received my Southern Living magazine in the mail last Thursday.  You must understand how much I worship Southern Living; I live for the day that it's delivered each month and look forward to the Christmas issue all year!  I live and die for this magazine.  But lately, I've noticed there are fewer recipes than ever in the issues.  It also seems there is more of an emphasis on baking. 
Anyone else notice this?  I've always said it's the bible for southern cooks but lately it seems like they are trying to be more of a travel guide than the quintessential southern lady's handbook.  Humph! (I smirk, with a pouty face and hands of hips)