Spinach Pesto

I love basil pesto. It is hands-down one of my favorite foods. That being said, sometimes a girl kills her basil plant and has a 1 lb. bag of wilting baby spinach at the same time. Serendipity, or something.

So I improvised this spinach pesto using what I had on hand. It turned out to be delicious.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. baby spinach (about 10 cups)

2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil*

1/2 cup fat free, low sodium chicken broth

2 cloves garlic

1 small shallot

1/4 cup walnuts

1/4 cup Parmigiano Reggiano

Lemon juice, to taste

Salt and pepper, to taste

Blend walnuts, shallot, and garlic in food processor. Add baby spinach in batches, pulsing after each addition. Blend in oil, chicken broth, and cheese. (*I only used 2 Tablespoons olive oil, but a more traditional pesto ratio would call for up to 1/3-cup. The chicken broth adds some flavor and helps with consistency when you decrease the oil.) Add salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste.

I made this with Barilla Plus rotini. If you aren't a huge fan of whole wheat pasta, this is a great alternative. It tastes much more like "regular" pasta and has a very similar nutritional profile to whole wheat pasta (calorically identical, slightly less fiber, but slightly more protein). Mine had 10g protein per 2 oz serving. Not bad! I served with baked tilapia, which tasted great with the spinach pesto.

P.S. I just realized that this is almost identical to a cilantro pesto recipe I improvised and jotted down weeks ago (but failed to post). Did I mention I love pesto?

My Version of Panera Bread Broccoli Cheese Soup

I love Panera Bread soups. I could eat them for every meal for days and be perfectly content (I think - I've never actually tried it). Broccoli cheese soup has always been one of my favorite soups.

In this recipe, I think I've successfully imitated Panera Bread's broccoli cheese soup. And despite the fact that this soup is, by nature, not the healthiest, I've tried to lighten it up at least a little bit.

Yield: 12-16 servings (The recipe is easily halved, but I like to make extra and freeze some.)

Ingredients:

• Canola oil spray
• 1 lb. broccoli, finely chopped
• 2 cups julienned carrots
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1/2-cup Smart Balance
• 1/2-cup flour
• 2 cups skim milk
• 2 cups fat free/low-sodium chicken broth (vegetable broth works fine)
• 16 oz. grated reduced-fat cheddar cheese
• 1/4-tsp nutmeg
• 2 Tablespoons spicy brown mustard
• 1/2-tsp garlic powder
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Heat a large soup pot over medium-low heat. Spray with cooking oil and saute onions until tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer onions to small bowl and set aside.
2. In same pot, melt Smart Balance (butter works fine, but has significantly more saturated fat and cholesterol). Once butter substitute is melted, add flour, whisking constantly for about 4 minutes.
3. To butter-flour mixture, gradually add milk, whisking constantly.
4. Stir in chicken broth and then bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 20 minutes. DON'T walk away from it, because it will burn on the bottom and your soup will taste like carcinogens. Just make sure you give it a good stir, making sure you hit the bottom of the pot, every couple minutes.
5. Turn heat to low, and add onions, broccoli, and carrots. Cook (stirring every few minutes) for another 20 minutes (until vegetables are soft).
6. Add cheese and seasonings, including mustard. Stir until cheese is melted and spices are combined. Adjust seasonings to taste.

No pictures this time! You'll just have to trust me that it looks great (and tastes even better)!

Turkey Shepherd's Pie

This week is a week of comfort food. I still have left over white bean turkey chili, four meals of pasta with marinara sauce (made yesterday), and today I made turkey shepherd's pie. Basically, I don't need to cook anything until next weekend, which is exactly the way that I like it.

This was one of those meals I made by throwing together lots of leftovers. No grocery shopping, no exact measurements. So I was a little surprised when it turned out amazingly. Here's (what I think approximates) the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3/4-lb. ground turkey
• At least 10 baby bella mushrooms (though white mushrooms would work; according to Wikipedia, they're the same species, just harvested at different stages of maturation), sliced
• 1 onion, diced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 bag frozen vegetable mix (can use fresh, of course)
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• Worcestershire sauce
• Rosemary, thyme, oregano, chili powder and/or seasonings of choice
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 Tbs. flour
• 1 cup fat free chicken broth
• 3-4 large russet potatoes
• about 1/3-cup milk
• garlic powder
• Paprika

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375-degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Use russet potatoes to make mashed potatoes. Add milk, garlic powder, and salt when mashing. Set aside.
3. Cook frozen vegetables and set aside. I cooked mine about halfway (just enough to get the excess water out, but it'll work no matter how you do it).
4. Heat oil in large pan. Add onions, garlic, and mushrooms. Saute until mushrooms start to shrink.
5. Add turkey, salt, pepper, spices, and about 3-4 shakes of Worcestershire sauce. Stir and cook until turkey is cooked through (at least 5 minutes).
6. Drain turkey mixture. Return to stove and add flour. Mix until incorporated. Add chicken broth. Stir and cook about 2 minutes.
7. Transfer turkey mixture to a medium-sized baking dish (same size or smaller than a 9x13-inch casserole). Add vegetables to turkey mixture and stir to combine.
8. Spread mashed potatoes on top of turkey and vegetable mixture. Sprinkle with paprika.
9. Bake at 375-degrees for 30 minutes, or until tops of potatoes are starting to brown/crisp. I put my casserole on top of baking sheet, in case the gravy bubbled over.

Easy Marinara

I love tomatoes. I love tomato sauce. I love garlic and onions and celery and green peppers and carrots and basically all the ingredients that I use to make my easy marinara sauce. In my oh-so-humble opinion, it is way better than what you can buy in a jar and it's not even a little bit difficult, which makes it a no-brainer for weeks like this one (when I'm behind with my grading and working two jobs and going to credentialing class and will probably have to do laundry if I want to have any clean underwear...and I do want them).

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, finely diced**
• 1/2 green pepper, minced
• 2 ribs celery, minced
• 1 large carrot, minced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups fat free chicken broth
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 Tbs Italian seasoning (or combination of rosemary, thyme, oregano, and basil, minimum)
• Additional seasonings, listed above
• Salt and pepper
• 2 Tbs sugar
• 2 (28 oz) cans crushed tomatoes
• 2 cups fat-free half-and-half (optional)

Method:

1. Add olive oil to a sauce pan. Heat over medium heat.
2. When oil is hot, add diced/minced** ingredients (onions, green pepper, celery, carrot, and garlic). Add salt and pepper and Italian seasoning. Saute until tender, about 5 minutes.
3. Add chicken broth and turn heat to medium-high. Bring to a simmer/soft boil and leave the broth to reduce (at least 20 minutes).
4. Add tomatoes and sugar. Stir, let cook a few minutes, and taste.
5. This is a key step. Adjust seasonings. Don't be afraid to go a little wild. Add some more rosemary, thyme, and oregano. Add some more salt. Add a bay leaf if you have some time. Maybe add some red chili flakes. Man, I'm not an expert. Just do what you want here, as long as it tastes good. Also, this is a good time to test for acidity. If the sauce is too acidic, add some more sugar.
6. Let whole thing simmer for about 30 minutes. Technically, it's ready to go as soon as it's warm enough, but you want to give all those flavors time to get to know one another and share their final regrets and say goodbye or whatever before you eat them.
7. Add half-and-half, if you're using it. I like it because I'm a sucker for dairy proteins that human beings aren't meant to digest, but I've always been one to make bad decisions that just taste so good. Stir.

So that's that! Yum. Now I am going to eat.

**Mincing and dicing are technically different. When you dice something, you are cutting it into uniformly-shaped pieces that are at least 1/4-inch in size. Mincing is much smaller, about 1/8-inch or less in size, and since the pieces are so small, it doesn't matter if they are uniform or not; they will cook in the same amount of time, regardless. For this recipe, I definitely minced all my veggies, except for *maybe* the onions. It really doesn't matter except that I like my basic marinara to be smoother. Chunky sauce is delicious, but if I were making chunky sauce, I'd go balls-to-the-wall and add mushrooms, zucchini, etc.

Just an idea of how I *minced* my ingredients and the ratio of onion to everything else.

Weight Watchers Cornbread

This recipe is an exact copy of the Weight Watchers recipe (found here) except for the final preparation steps. The original recipe calls for baking in an 8x8-inch dish, but Shannon and I poured the batter into muffin tins, thereby reducing the points per serving (1 muffin vs. 1/8 of total dish) from 3 points to 2 (well, 1.75) points.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked corn meal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 15 oz. can cream-style corn
• 1/2 cup buttermilk (*we substituted by mixing 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar)
• 2 large egg whites
• 2 tsp corn oil (*we substituted vegetable oil)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (Fahrenheit...duh). Coat a muffin tin with cooking spray.
2. Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl. Mix well, then make a well in the center. Set aside.
3. Combine creamed corn, buttermilk*, egg whites, and oil in a medium bowl. Mix until blended. Fold mixture into dry ingredients until well-blended. Pour batter into prepared muffin tins, filling about 3/4-way.
4. Bake until a toothpick/knife-tip comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for a couple minutes, then use the edge of a knife to loosen and remove.

White Bean Turkey Chili

Big ups to Gina at Skinny Taste for developing SO many delicious, health-conscious recipes. I'd been wanting to make this one for a long time and it turned out great!

I've been on a soup kick lately. I like the way that sounds. It sounds healthy. Or it sounds like I've been walking around kicking soup, but that doesn't make as much sense. (i really want to make a joke about how the only thing I've been kicking is bad habits! or something...but, yeah...no.)

As it were, for the past few weeks, I've been making black bean soup and tomato soup and butternut squash soup. LOTS of butternut squash soup. Like, if I were a baby, I'd do that thing where I turn orange. Also, on a side note, every time I brought butternut squash soup to work for lunch, my colleagues would comment about how "that curry smells good!" I just kept saying "thank you" and never explained what I was actually eating. I don't know if this means that my soup really smelled like curry (there was cumin in it), or if people I work with are not very curry-aware. There are worse sins, I suppose.

Anyway, my roommate Shannon and I hosted our very first book club meeting this past week. We deliberated - err, I deliberated and Shannon patiently listened and advised - about what to serve at the meeting for a couple weeks. Finally we settled on a white bean turkey chili.

I fully intended to make this once before the Big Night, because who wants to serve something awful to a bunch of strangers? But I didn't. That is, I didn't make it once before and I didn't serve something awful. Some people just walk in the light, you know? Recipe as follows:

YIELD: About 14 1-cup servings

INGREDIENTS:

• cooking spray
  
• 2 small onions, chopped
• 5 garlic cloves
• 2 tsp chili powder, to your taste
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tbsp cumin
• 1/2 tbsp oregano
• 2 tsp red pepper flakes (to taste)
  
• 3 lbs 99% lean ground turkey
• 4 16 oz cans of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 cups of fat free chicken broth
• 1/2 cup of fat free sour cream
  
• salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

1. Heat a large pot over medium heat. When hot, spray with cooking oil. Add and saute the onions and garlic (about 5 minutes).
2. Add the turkey and cook, breaking it up. Cook until until all turkey is white, about 7 minutes.
3. Add seasonings: salt, chili powder, cumin, oregano, bay leaf, and red pepper flakes. Cook for about 2 minutes.
4. Add beans and broth and turn up the heat to medium-high. Let cook, uncovered, for about 10 minutes.
5. Bring the soup to a simmer and lower the heat. Cover and let simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring as needed.
6. Add sour cream and cook for about 5 more minutes.
7. Adjust seasonings to taste and serve!

We served this with toppings on the side ("toppings on the side" is making me crazy, but whatever): chopped red onion, cilantro, and fat free sour cream.

My Notes: I made this recipe exactly as listed except I substituted one can of regular white beans for one can white kidney beans (a nutritionally identical substitute). However, please note that the recipe as written is what I consider meat-heavy. If I made it again, I would probably decrease the meat and up the beans; this would, of course, change the nutritional values listed below.

Weight Watchers Points: 1-cup serving = 4 points (toppings would be extra), 212 calories, 22.5g protein, 8.4g fiber, 5.4g fat.

Chicken Tikka Masala

I sometimes play that game where you ponder what foods you could live on forever. Not nutritionally, of course, because that one's a clear winner: hard-boiled egg, shell included. Nope, I just like to think about foods that I could eat for the longest period of time without getting sick of.

Chicken tikka masala is at the top of that list. Rich, tomatoey sauce, dense, smothered cardamom seeds, tender chunks of broiled chicken all on top of fragrant coriander basmati rice.

I only tried to make tikka masala once before, and it was a total disaster. This time, it turned out great.

I'm not going to re-type the whole recipe here, since I just followed this one pretty much exactly. But here are a few tips and photos:

1. Buy almonds pre-blanched (skinned). While blanching almonds is not difficult, it adds time to an already time-consuming dish.
2. Garam masala: go easy on it. Better to add some later than too much to begin with. It is overpowering.
3. Note 2 on garam masala: the cheapest I could find was at Whole Foods. Surprise! Same thing for ground cardamom.
4. Use whole cardamom seeds/pods in the mix. They are so wonderful to bite into.
5. Don't be afraid to add more tomatoes. I doubled the amount for this recipe and didn't regret it even a little bit.

Toasted almonds! Yummm...

Broiled "tikka" chicken.

And the whole delicious dish.