Wedding treats

Where did time go?  I can't believe I haven't shared any of my good eats since Wednesday! That just means I have a lot to blab about this week.  I have to tell you about the sweetest treat I took home from a Bridesmaids Luncheon on Friday.

Our friends Jake and Mary got married over the weekend.  It was a truly magical day for the couple with wedding that deserves to be in the pages of the coveted "Southern Living Weddings" issue itself.  The beautiful bride, Mary was the picture of southern elegance and grace. While the groom, Jake, looked as handsome as ever.

Friday, I attended Mary's Bridesmaids Luncheon that was also full of southern charm.  JoCarole, the bride's sister was one of the hosts of the luncheon.  Knowing the great cooks involved, I had been looking forward to the luncheon all week.  The menu included a delicious bowl of Butternut Squash soup, salad, rolls, and fruited iced tea.  All quite yummy. 

But, it's what we brought home that I want to brag about to you... 

The wedding cake pop!

JoCarole made these cake pops and I shouldn't be a bit surprised by how good they were.  These Mobely girls are some of the best bakers I know!

I've gotten little cookies and treats from bridesmaid lunches or receptions before.  Sadly, they end up sitting on my kitchen counter until the "wedding cake hangover" is over.  Leaving me to toss out my gift from being stale and rock hard.  Not this time!   

I tore into this sweet treat that same afternoon, but not before I took a couple of pics to share with you.

The cake inside was still insanely moist.  I believe there was some cake icing mixed in to keep it more of a "cake ball" consistency.  I had never had a cake pop that looked this pretty and was still very tasty on the inside. 

I loved the attention to detail with the "Tie the Knot" tag on the lollipop stick.  It was the small details like this that made the wedding truly unforgettable.

Congrats Jake and Mary!

You  might also like to know that JoCarole has a wonderfully booming business called "Apronstrings".  She, along with her with her equally as talented business partner Tiffany, do custom cooking parties for kids and other special event planning. 

The CUTEST party for the kiddos!  Don't take my word for it, check out the great notes from parents and party pics on their facebook page...

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Winchester-TN/apronstrings-parties/114089071937094?ref=ts

 

Fall has fell

How refreshing is the weather this morning?  To be one of the first to welcome fall, I made a hearty and healthy soup for lunch this week.  I found this recipe off one of the thousands of blogs I read, but I can't for the life of me remember which one to give them credit.  What they don't know, can't hurt 'em, right?

I've been trying to "get out of the box" lately and try flavor combos that I've never done before.  This week's experiment is sweet potato and black beans.  This combo is pretty common on restaurant menus, but I've always passed it up for something else.  I made the soup last night and tried it out.  It is the perfect way to welcome in stick to you ribs fall dishes!  Even my husband liked it.  He described it as chili without the meat...I'd like to think it's a little more culinary advanced than that.  But from my chili-worshiping husband it was a big vote of confidence in this soup.

The soup is meatless of course, but has tons of fiber and protein from the black beans, along with vitamins and minerals from the sweet potatoes.  Be careful when adding in additional salt.  You might not even need to with the sodium already in the cans of Rotel tomatoes, and some in the vegetable broth.  Taste it before you toss any extra in.

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1 roasted red pepper, chopped (you can use jarred)
2 cans low sodium vegetable broth (15 oz. size)
2 cups water
3 cans low sodium black beans, rinsed and drained
3 cans diced tomatoes with green chiles
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons cumin
Dash of red pepper flakes
1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:
1. In a large soup pot, heat the olive oil. Add in the onion and cook until tender. Add in the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes.

2. Stir in the sweet potato and roasted red pepper. Cook for 5 minutes.

Make sure all the sweet potatoes are cubed the same size. 
Its important so they all cook in the same amount of time.

3. Add in the broth, water, black beans, and tomatoes. Stir well.

4. Add the chili powder, cumin, and red pepper flakes. Stir and toss in the cilantro. Stir again. Let the soup simmer on medium low for 30 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are soft.



I pluck the leaves from the cilantro and use kitchen shears to snip the leaves to the desired dice.

5. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.

You can top this soup a thousand different ways as you would any other southwestern soup.  Crushed tortilla chips, cheese, avocado slices, and sour cream (or Greek yogurt or us healthy eaters) are all great add-ins.  If you are watching your calories like me just be mindful to watch the amount of add-ins, you also add in additional fat and calories with each.

Who wouldn't want this hearty, warm bowl on a cool fall day?  Enjoy!

Quin-what???

Monday night, I wanted to make a side dish my husband had never tried.  When I want to sneak new food on his plate make sure I make one of his favorites to create a diversion.  This way he doesn't automatically shut me down on new stuff with any pre-conceived notions.  To is credit, he is a great sport and really supportive of my kitchen creativity.  Just to be on the safe side, I made his favorite salmon Monday to go along with this new Quinoa I wanted to cook.

I've had Quinoa out at restaurants and Whole Foods several times but had never made it at home.  I concocted a recipe in my mind of wild mushrooms, garlic, red onions and red pepper and finally gave it a try here at home. 

Quinoa, pronounced “KEEN-wah“, has a taste and texture of brown rice crossed with oatmeal. It’s fluffy, creamy, crunchy and somewhat nutty, all rolled into one.  It can be prepared many different ways, making it extremely versatile. 
Though Quinoa is commonly thought of as a grain, probably because of how we use it, however it’s actually a seed.  If you love your carbs, but would really like to find a healthier option to plain old white pasta or rice, quinoa is a great substitute for those higher-carb foods.

Benefits of Quinoa include:

1. Complete source of protein-quinoa provides the full spectrum of nine essential amino acids. (Great choice, particularly if you’re a vegetarian or vegan.)
2. Great for cardiovascular health
3. Provides antioxidant support
4. Reduces the risk of gallstones
5. Gluten-free

I purchased one cup of Quinoa at Whole Foods on my last trip there out of the bulk bins, but I have seen it in the organic section of Kroger.  It's quickly becoming more of a mainstream food, even "round these parts" (*in my southern belle voice*) of Tennessee. I'm sure it can be found at most any grocery store.

Wild Mushroom Quinoa

Ingredients:
1 Cups Quinoa
2 Cups low sodium vegetable stock (chicken or beef stock can be used as well)
4 to 6 oz Exotic, Gourmet, Wild blend mushrooms (or whatever your favorite mushrooms are)
1/2 small red onion chopped
1/2 red pepper chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
Kosher Salt, to taste
Black pepper to taste
2 Tablespoons (or so) Worcestershire sauce

To begin, combine 1 cup quinoa with 2 cups stock in saucepan over high heat.  Bring to a boil. 

Once this comes to a boil, turn heat down to Medium Low and let simmer, covered, for about 10-15 minutes (or until all the liquid is absorbed).  Give it a stir occasionally.

While the quinoa is working, add just enough Extra Virgin Olive Oil to a saute pan to coat the bottom.  It's important to add just enough EVOO to save on fat and calories where we can.

Heat pan to between Medium-Medium High heat and add in chopped garlic, onions, mushrooms, and red pepper.  Season the mixture with a little kosher salt and pepper. 

Saute until cooked through, about 5-10 minutes.  Keep pan warm until quinoa is done.



This was the blend of mushrooms I found in my grocery.

Once the liquid in quinoa is absorbed add in the mixture from the saute pan.  Season with a little extra salt and pepper if needed, and add in the slashes of Worcestershire Sauce. 

Mix together well to combine.

Done! My husband and I both loved this recipe. 

It went really well with the salmon and veggies that night. 

Oh, about that Salmon, I cooked it a little different this time.  I used a broiler pan.  

We both decided this was the best way we've prepared salmon thus far.

Line the bottom of the broiler pan with foil for easy clean up. 

Preheat oven to broil and position the rack about 4-5 inches from the top element. 

Place Salmon over the slots on top pan so that the juices can fall through the slits. 

Season with whatever your favorite combos are. 

Ours right now is "Slap your Mama" Cajun seasoning and little extra black pepper.

 

Let Salmon broil in oven until cooked through.  (About 10, for mine) 

Cooking it at a high temp leaves it extremely moist inside.  Delish!



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!

 

Move over Southern Living

While perusing the isles in Sam's Club over the weekend I found a great new-to-me magazine.  I have a self-professed addiction to cooking magazines and I am not seeking help for my problem. 

Move over Southern Living, Clean Eating is my new favorite magazine! 

Okay, it doesn't have the nostalgia Southern Living does for me yet, but I'm optimistic Clean Eating and I are going to make some great food memories over this year's subscription.

Clean Eating is the concept of consuming food in its most natural state-or as close as possible to it.  It's not a diet; it's a lifestyle approach to food and its preparation, leading to health, well-being, and a lean look.

(per the magazine)

The magazine has tons of content and not too much advertising.  Articles are on the cutting edge of what's making news in healthy eating.  Most recipes are not vegetarian but can easily be adapted. 

The dishes look wonderful, with tons of flavor.  The recipes use maximun fresh ingredients and produce and minimal processed and canned foods.  Isn't that something we all need more of? 

You will not be disspointed by picking this one up.  Even if you are not into healthy eating per se, it's still worthy of reading for great food alone. 

Here's a link to their website.  You can subscribe from here, and get a sneak peek into some of the recipes.  Even download many of the recipes to your computer.  You're welcome!

http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/minisite/ce_index.htm

Party in the city where the heat is on

I am having a crazy busy Friday so I will keep today's post short and sweet.  I was going to tell you about my healthy breakfast food I've been trying out this week....buuuut you will just have to tune in again Monday for that one. (Disappointed? Oh, don't act like you were going to eat healthy over the weekend anyway. Wink, wink.)

For weekend game day snack sake I thought I would share with you my pick for the best quick snack. You can pick up right in the regular grocery too.  Hummus is an amazing, healthy snack that is also very filling.  I've been munching on it all week with Kashi 7 grain Crackers.  Funny thing is, some brands of hummus I hate, some I can tolerate, and ONE BRAND I LOVE.  Lemme tell you about that one...

I titled this post "Party in the city where the heat is on" because I was first introduced to this name brand of hummus when I was in Miami for a friends bachelorette party (Party in the city where the heat is on, from Will Smith's song, Miami).  I've been addicted every since.  I barely even liked hummus before trying this, so to LOVE this as much as I do means it's THAT good.  The brand name is Sabra.  I've only had this "Supremely Spicy" flavor because I love it; and I can't fathom straying to another flavor.  If you try another flavor let me know what you think.

Defiantly pick some up this weekend for an alternative to those heavy cheese and Mexican dips we all binge on.  Don't even waste you time on a cheaper version, this brand is worth the spurge. 

(Do I sound like and Sabra infomercial or what?)

Thank you Erin for introducing me to this hummus yumminess! 

Super quick AND healthy!

So what have I been eating this week?  Plenty of vegetable and grains. Why is of interest to you? There are a couple quick cooking items I have used in this weeks meals that you might want to look for on your next trip to the store.  I love things that save on time and dish clean up.  I have two pre-packaged rice items to share that fit the bill!

Monday night I cooked Salmon the way the chef at Whole Foods prepared it (see Presentation is Everything post).  I did everything as he instructed and it was perfectly crisp on the outside, moist inside.  We had a pre-packaged Quinoa/Rice pack and veggies along side.  The hubbs and I both love this rice pack. It is much better for you than any of those "Uncle Ben's" packs because it has more whole grains.  I'm not sure if my husband knows I buy that brand because its healthier. Sometimes ignorance is bliss anyway.



I seasoned the Salmon with Blackening Seasoning and Pepper.  Makes a great crust!



Lunch?

This week I shut down my soup kitchen to make room for my make-shift hibachi grill (better known as my non-stick skillet).  After three weeks of soup I knew it was time to mix it up a bit or I would be sick of soup all together.  Stir fry to the rescue!  It's a great way to get in a ton of vegetables.  My veggies of choice are kale (yes, it's that versatile!), broccoli, mushrooms and onions. 

After cutting all the veggies into nice bite size pieces, stir fry in a non-stick pan with a tinsy-winsy drop of Canola oil.  Don't be afraid of higher heat when you are stir frying.  If you don't have heat at least medium-high, the veggies steam instead of becoming tender/crisp.  I used to make this mistake all the time until a Food Network show corrected my method.  Steamed is not the texture you are looking for in your stir fry. Keep the pan temp high and keep the veggies moving for the best stir fry! 





Kale cooks down to near nothing, like Spinach.  This looks like I chopped up enough for an army, but you can see in the pan below it wilts down.

 For a little starch and grain to go along with my stir fry I found a gem of a rice packet over in the Organic section.  This Sticky Brown Rice pack is amazing.  Most importantly for our health, it has an impressively short ingredients list and everything on it a 3rd grader could pronounce. It has the taste and textrure of good sticky sushi rice.  I microwave one dish and divide it among two days of stir fry.  It's a perfect half cup serving.

Here's the finished product.  Because I have BIG problems with portion control I use the SMALLEST plates I own at lunch time so my plate looks full, but is still keeps my portions under control.

Playing with FIRE:  For the sauce that makes my veggies Asian stir fry, I use about 1/2 Tablespoon of Low Sodium Soy Sauce, 1/2 Tablespoon of Asian Garlic Chili Sauce (cause I love it spicy), 1/2 Tablespoon of Rice Wine Vinegar and a tiny baby squirt of Agave Nectar to balance out the spice.  Mix all of that together in a little bowl and add it in at the last second before it hits your plate. 

BE CAREFUL with all these Asian sauces, they are a sodium bomb.  Watch your ratios carefully.  The sodium content in this dish can get out of hand very fast.

I'm going to save the craziest thing I've eaten this week for tomorrow's post.  I've been experimenting with something for breakfast this week that I bet most of you have seen on the selves and wondered "who buys that?" or "what the heck is it?".  I bought it, and I'll tell you all about my good (and bad) breakfasts with it this week.