Glamour Living

In the August 2012 Glamour, Daphne Oz shared the most delicious (and perfect for summer) healthy meal. With summer wrapping up - I'm still having trouble grasping that idea - this may be the perfect way to end the season; just fire up the grill and you would be good to go!

Ten Green Salads

{real simple magazine}

Ripped from the pages of Real Simple magazine, these salads almost make this wedding diet bearable. Almost. We tried the herb salad mix with tomatoes, pepper, and Feta which was as delicious as it sounds - I cannot wait to try the others!

Weekend, recap

We had such a good weekend! Friday, we worked to make up time for next Friday when we head down to NASA! We are trying to save as many vacation days as possible for that little thing we call getting married. Speaking of, we made a lot of decisions regarding said nuptials: we ordered the invitations, addressed the Save the Date magnets, finalized addresses, decided on what the ring bearer and flower girls will be carrying, and even started on the Out-of-Town bags. The house got some help too: Huynh worked on the backyard and I even painted a desk. I also managed to whip up some turkey meatloaf - it tasted a lot better than it looked - and pan fried kale. Delish. We also had a side of broccoli, cauliflower, and rice casserole - I made the binding ingredient out of a cheese sauce made with chipotle Gouda and blue cheese. It was amazing (and I never say that about my almost always too starchy cheese sauces).

Sunday, we headed to The Woodlands to see my nieces perform in a ballet recital. My unbiased opinion? They were the cutest girls there! They did such a great job. Today, we are celebrating Memorial Day by shopping. Can it get any better than that?

Cauliflower Soup

Meatless Monday came and went by way of a big bowl of cauliflower soup. I followed the recipe pretty exactly but halved the liquid ingredients - there is no way we could finish a quart of soup between the two of us much less two quarts of soup. I left the veggie quantities alone however which turned this soup into a chunky hunk of yum. All that was missing was the meat - it needed some spicy turkey sausage thrown into the mix. Next time (though preferably not on Monday)!

P.S. I had no idea how dark our house was last night until I saw the pictures this morning. Ooops.

Corn, Avocado, and Tomato Salad

With my favorite food being queso, it probably comes as no surprise that I just like dips in general. We always have a bag of tortilla chips on hand and I have been known to eat them straight out of the bag (I'm sure it has everything to do with the salt) but pair those with a dip and I have been known to make it into a meal. This past weekend I made Paula's Corn, Avocado, and Tomato Salad following the recipe almost exactly - I omitted the zest and used all of the juice from the lime. It was delicious and refreshing and perfect for a complete dinner.

Strawberry-Peach Popsicles

I was craving summer the other day so I whipped up some popsicles that were surprisingly quick to make (minus the whole "waiting for it to freeze"). All it took were some frozen strawberries, frozen peaches, lime juice, ice, and Splenda and I had a low fat, incredibly refreshing, and light dessert that proved to be the perfect accompaniment to my Brothers and Sisters marathon. Now all I need are some more fun molds.

Linguine With Shrimp, Artichokes, and Crispy Bread Crumbs

I'm on a pasta kick this week. I followed this recipe exactly and it turned out absolutely delicious - even down to the bread crumb topping. I'm not sure Huynh was sold on the idea of having pasta with such minimal toppings but after he added an ample amount of Sriracha, he was set. Nothing a little spice couldn't fix.

Spaghetti Sauce

This spaghetti sauce is home to me. Shamelessly stolen from my mom and adapted, the smell of this on the stove transports me back in time when we would come home from church on Sundays and sit at my parent's kitchen table (I always got the head seat) ready to eat together as a family. My mom spoiled me to having spaghetti any other way than meaty and full of flavor not derived from excess tomato sauce. Great for leftovers, we can munch on this all week.

Spaghetti Sauce

adapted from my mom

Ingredients

1/2 cup onion, chopped

1 lb ground beef

1 lb ground turkey

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced

28-oz can diced tomatoes

2 8-oz cans tomato sauce

4-oz can mushrooms, in liquid

1 can marinated artichokes, in liquid

1/4 cup chopped parsley

1-1/2 teaspoons oregano

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon thyme

1 bay leaf

1 cup water

Preparation

1. Brown onion, beef, and turkey with garlic.

2. Add other ingredients.

3. Simmer uncovered for 2 to 2-1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. Remove bay leaf and serve over spaghetti.

White Chicken Chili

I'm momentarily protesting the onset of summer. Granted, I chose to move to Houston where Fall and Spring don't exist but this heat is getting out of hand. I have a love/hate relationship with the constant presence of t-shirts and shorts but even that can't deter me from cooking chili when it's 80+ degrees outside. Apparently we like to sweat.

I bought and followed the recipe on the back of this box plus added a diced onion, hot rotel, and white kidney beans. Topped with cheese and served with chips, this hit the spot (and more than likely, the last time chili will cross these lips until our next 6 weeks of winter in 2013). Ah, never say never.

Kitchen gadgets

I've been posting a lot of recipes lately so I thought now would be a good time to do a round-up of my favorite kitchen tools... though I do love them for other reasons that just for the fact that they are red (apparently).

Le Creuset Batter Bowl I find this to be the best mixing bowl for small jobs. The handle and spout makes it super easy to pour and it is light enough that I can hold it with one hand while scraping out the yummy goodness with the other - versus hollering at Huynh to come and help.

KitchenAid Mixer I have blogged about my love of my mixer before but I still can't get enough. I have already started researching sausage recipes to make my own and have already planned on a cake for a mini-celebration Huynh and I will be having mid-May (we celebrate being awesome). 

Cleaver Granted, we don't have a Wustof cleaver (in my dreams) but I really find myself reaching for the cleaver to do anything from chopping onions to manhandling meat. I don't know why - or how - it got such a bad rap but really, I love it.

Mini Spatulas For a hostess gift, my friend Pam gave us mini-spatulas and I have to say, I find myself reaching for those more than anything. They won't scratch my Calphalon and better yet, they are heat resistant... and oh, so adorable.

Pyrex Covered Bakeware Emphasis on covered. While yes, saran wrap works just fine at covering dishes for leftovers, these lids allow you to stack things on top of them. In the refrigerator. Yes.

Chef'n Garlic Zoom Chopper I have also blogged about this before but let me reiterate: it is amazing. Easy to clean and does such a fantastic job of mincing garlic (we eat a lot of it). In fact, we have been known to go through entire heads of garlic in one week - and just think of all the time we are saving with this tool!

Savory Grilled Cheese Redeux

I was hungry last night. I think it was a combo of being frustrated at work (not with work) and lack of a filling lunch that did me in and brought me to the grocery store with a mad appetite. I know myself well enough to know that it is at these times that I cannot push a cart; no, I have to carry a basket. It limits what I buy down to a more manageable, carry-able amount - and tends to keep it in the realm of one actual meal instead of one meal that really should be about five.

Enter grilled cheese. Welcome home.

Savory Grilled Cheese Redeux

adapted from A Cup of Jo

Ingredients

For sandwich

2 slices of sourdough bread

1-2 pieces of bacon

1/2 avocado

2-3 slices white cheddar cheese

1/2 chicken tenderloin

1/2 sweet yellow onion, diced

1-2 cloves of garlic, finely diced

Siracha, to taste

Unsalted butter

For chicken marinade

Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Chipotle BBQ Sauce

Frankly Delicious

Salt & Pepper

Preparation

1. Marinate the chicken and set aside.

2. Fry the bacon until cooked, but not to crispy. Saute onion and garlic in bacon drippings until translucent. Fight the urge to eat the entire pan.

3. Cook chicken thoroughly. Slice and set aside.

4. Assemble each sandwich with cooked bacon, avocado, cheese, cooked chicken, cooked onions, and cooked garlic. Top with Siracha to taste.

5. Grill until bread is brown and cheese is melty.

I served ours with a side of La Madeleine Reduced Fat Tomato Basil Soup (ohhh delish) which we dined on while watching New Girl (ohhh hilarious). 

Happy Wednesday!!

Salmon and Steamed Vegetables

I go crazy when I walk into Central Market - and it's not from the obscene amount of people who pack that place at any given time during the weekend. No, this crazy has everything to do with their endless produce selection and my endless desire to eat healthier. I walk into that store and transform into a health nut that will try anything and everything at least once and sometimes twice. Blood orange? SURE! Pummelo? Why the heck not. Chicken, spinach, and feta sausage? I will take two, please.

Oh, you know that happened.

This last time, we walked out with a 10-oz salmon filet along with a couple of zucchinis and a yellow squash. I'm reading French Women Don't Get Fat so I have been trying to stay inline with only having 4 to 6-oz of meat at dinner. Surprisingly smaller than one would expect, but the point is made: I get full. Mission accomplished and I'm not rolling myself away from the table. The steamed vegetables were a nice accompaniment to the fish; steamed for 12 minutes or so then tossed with a drizzle of olive oil, garlic - will saute this next time, salt, and pepper. Yum.

Oh and Frankly Delicious? It's an amazing all-purpose seasoning that I pick up at the Brookshire Brothers in Giddings (where the company that manufactures the spice is located). I know that you can find it other places too - some specialty kitchen stores sell it around here. It is my go-to all purpose seasoning that tastes great on fish and chicken ... and pork, steak... vegetables...

Baked Salmon
recipe from me

Ingredients
10-oz salmon filet
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 cloves of garlic, minced
4-5 tablespoons Frankly Delicious

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350degF.
2. In a medium glass bowl, prepare marinade by mixing garlic, olive oil, soy sauce, and Frankly Delicious. Place salmon filet in a medium glass baking dish and cover with marinade.
3. Cover pan with aluminum foil and seal. Bake 30-35 minutes, until easily flaked with a fork.

Enjoy!

Mimi's Brisket

We had some fun friends and family over this past Saturday to watch the basketball games which gave us a good excuse to bust out the big guns and cook Mimi's Brisket - served, of course, with a side of coleslaw, baked beans, and mac and cheese. Yum-o.

Mimi's Brisket

shamelessly stolen from my mom

Ingredients

2 teaspoons Krazy Mixed-Up salt

4 teaspoons celery salt

2 teaspoons garlic salt

4 tablespoons liquid smoke

4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

2 teaspoons onion salt

3 teaspoons pepper 

1 bottle BBQ sauce

3-4 lbs brisket

Preparation

1. Combine all ingredients except for BBQ sauce and spread over meat. Let stand in icebox overnight.

2. Pour BBQ sauce over meat before cooking.

3. Cover and bake for 4.5 hours at 300degF.

Enjoy.

Chicken Spaghetti

Okay, so I made this Tuesday; ate leftovers for lunch Wednesday. We officially made that $6ish chicken into eight different meals that don't all have to be eaten in one week! Whereas the Poppy Seed Chicken had most of the breast meat, this recipe had more of the thigh and wing meat so I upped the calorie count a bit - but still not bad. Huynh went back for seconds which made me proud.

Chicken Spaghetti

adapted from Recipe Girl

Ingredients

7-oz thin spaghetti

1 tablespoon light butter

1 cup sliced portabella mushrooms

1 onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 can Rotel, drained

2 cans cream of mushroom soup, 98% fat free

1 cup lowfat milk

8-oz sharp cheddar cheese

2 cups cooked chicken, shredded

salt and pepper

4-oz pepper jack cheese

Preparation

1. Melt butter in a large, deep skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms, onion, and bell peppers. Cook until onions are translucent, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add Rotel. In a medium bowl, mix soup and milk until smooth. Add this mixture to the vegetables in the pan. Stir in cheddar cheese until cheese has melted and smooth.

2. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Drain pasta and combine with sauce. Add chicken and salt & pepper to taste.

3. Pour mixture into a casserole dish. Sprinkle pepper jack cheese on top.

4. Bake in a 350degF oven for 35 minutes or until the casserole is hot and bubbly.

Again we poured into two 8x8 pans; cooked one, froze the other. We left the cheese topping off the one we froze and will add it on when we are ready to bake. Our serving size ended up being around 1 cup (1/4 of the 8x8 pan - so 8 total servings from the whole batch) which came out to be around 360 calories, 14 grams of fat! The rotel and pepper jack cheese added a slight kick; next time I will probably use hot rotel.

Is it just me or does the sauce look like queso? Yum.

Poppy Seed Chicken

I was at a loss. I boiled a chicken over a week ago and still the meat just sat in the fridge. Call it lazy, call it stumped... but I just had no idea what I wanted to do with it. It's shelf life was quickly running out so I needed to do something with it, and needed to do it fast. Enter Meagan. She recommended we try Poppy Seed Chicken from Southern Living. She pins like its her job (ha!) so I knew it would be good - I just needed to make it a little more waist friendly.

Poppy Seed Chicken
adapted from Southern Living

Ingredients
3 cups chopped cooked skinless chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken soup, 98% fat free
16 oz light sour cream
3 teaspoons poppy seeds
1 pkg frozen broccoli
30 reduced fat round buttery crackers, crushed
1/4 cup light butter

Preparation
1. Combine first five ingredients. Spoon mixture into 11x17* baking dish.
2. Stir together cracker crumbs and melted butter; sprinkle evenly over casserole.
3. Bake at 350deg for 35 to 40 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

*We used 2-8x8 baking dishes; froze one, cooked the other. On the frozen one, we left off the topping until ready to cook... meaning that you probably will want to half the crackers and butter above if you plan on taking this route as to not waste extra topping... like I did. Live and learn.

Our serving size ended up being around 3/4 of a cup (1/4 of the 8x8 pan - so 8 total servings from the whole batch) which came out to 270 calories, 11 grams of fat! The non-light route for the same serving size would have been 344 calories, 23 grams of fat - the main culprit being the sour cream. Ouch. I also would highly recommend adding the broccoli. It helps make it more filling without giving up too many calories. Seven ingredients; a quick healthly meal. Yay for leftovers.

Yum-o

For my birthday, we hit up Max's Wine Dive - my favorite date spot. We got a couple (okay or four) appetizers so for dinner, we split a salad... the Fried Chicken and Champagne Cobb Salad. We inhaled it. We came home and set out to duplicate such delicious-ness and have done so for the past two nights.

And no, lobster and steak is not a regular occurrence. It was a v-day special :). The chicken leg is more how we normally roll.

Champagne Cobb Salad

adapted from Max's Wine Dive

1 bunch of Romaine lettuce

1/2 avocado, sliced

sprinkle of bleu cheese

a couple cherry tomatoes

bacon crumbs (we use Oscar Mayer Real Bacon Bits)

2-3 hard boiled eggs

Champagne Vinaigrette dressing

Combine and eat. Recommend repeating.

We also made Ina Garten's cauliflower gratin (subsituted swiss for guyere and left out the nutmeg - we just plain didn't have any - and sprinkled the top with Tony's). Y'all, it was so good that I debated eating it for breakfast. Then reality hit and I was already late to work so saved it for tonight. Cannot wait.

Light Wheat Pasta

Last night, I made our first batch of homemade pasta using the pasta press. It was a disaster.

Okay, fine, to be fair... it was fine. But it tasted healthy. Then, since we topped it with turkey meatballs and homemade spaghetti sauce, it tasted even healthier. So, I did what any girl would do and wrapped up dinner with a boxmade cookie brownie bar which was delish.

Light Wheat Pasta

from KitchenAid

2-1/2 cups sifted whole wheat flour

1 cup sifted unbleached flour

4 large eggs

2 tbls water

1/2 tsp salt

Combine ingredients in stand mixer bowl. Attach bowl and flat beater. Turn to Speed 2 and mix for 30 seconds. Exchange flat beater for dough hook. Turn to Speed 2 and knead for 2 minutes. Remove dough from bowl and hand knead for 1 to 2 minutes.

Follow manufacturer's directions on extruding and cooking pasta.

Was it worth it? Okay, yes. Next time, I'm trying straight up egg noodles or even semolina pasta... I think I have become addicted. It was so easy to use and in under an hour, we had homemade pasta on the table. Hard to beat that.

P.S. This cutie turned 4 today... Happy Birthday, L! Can't wait to see you this weekend.

For auld lang syne

This weekend was busy (and it's still not over!). Wednesday, we celebrated Christmas with the Miller/Schier family who gave Gatsby a gift in the form of a donut, sprinkle shaped treat. I couldn't get him to sit long enough to even begin to take a picture of him. He also scored two squeaky toys that I did record a video of him playing keep away which I sent to the kids. They obviously loved it, and being responsible for hiding two toys was exhausting for him so it ended up being a win-win. I also set up my brand, spankin' new mixer which I already love, clearly. I randomly walk by it and pet it to the point that Gats is even getting jealous. We headed to Austin for the afternoon Friday where we drank a beerita at hopdoddy and ate a piece of pizza at Home Slice with HP's brothers and a couple of friends. Jealously is allowed. New Year's Eve, I made homemade pesto to top our homemade pizza (along with shallots, asparagus, orange bell pepper, turkey sausage, and mozzarella cheese). Huynh rolled out the dough with a wine bottle; mine was heart shaped :). We toasted 2012 with a Moscow mule courtesy of Oprah. It was as delicious as she raved - and yes, served in a cappuccino cup so no judging. Sunday, we made homemade brioche rolls to eat with pork barbacoa. Yay for resolutions.

That was, of course, served with a side of black eyed peas, in the form of Texas caviar. Yum-to-the-o.

Texas Caviar
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 bunch green onions, chopped
2-3 jalapeno peppers, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 (15-oz) can diced tomatoes, drained
1 (8-oz) bottle zesty Italian dressing
1 (15-oz) can mexi-corn, drained
1 (15-oz) can black-eyed peas, drained
1 (4-oz) can chopped green chilies
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
1-1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 bunch chopped fresh cilantro

In a large bowl, mix together everything, excluding cilantro. Cover and chill in the refrigerator approximately 2 hours. Toss with desired amount of fresh cilantro and serve with tortilla chips.

Oh yea, Huynh finished working on Gats crate - meaning the staining part - and I really cleaned. I mean, really. We also took down the Christmas decor. Is it really January? Happy Monday.

Green Monster

We made our first green monster yesterday morning and it was... surprisingly delicious. Ignoring the toxic color and the "what are you thinking" text from my sister, I drank about half of my cup - it was pretty filling - whereas Huynh finished his whole cup and we have already made another trip to the grocery store for more fruit. 

We went pretty basic in our inaugural batch:

• 1-cup Almond Milk (Vanilla, sweetened)
• 2 handfuls spinach (about 1/4 of the bunch)
• 1 frozen banana
• 1-Tbsp Chocolate Almond Butter - made the difference
• 1-Tbsp Flaxseed

And then got a little crazier and also added:

• 1/2 scoop Vega Complete Whole Food Health Optimizer
• 1/2 scoop Amazing Grass Wheat Grass

I supplemented my breakfast with a thin toasted bagel topped with Nutella - yea, it got crazy up in here - whereas Huynh flew solo and didn't eat again until dinner. Yes, it was that filling. Yes, I would make it again, though next time I am going to go with the highly recommended (and thus sold out of everything but the packets) chocolate.

It was scary at first; I had completely geared up to hate it. I even made Huynh taste it first. But it really was good... the banana masks the spinach entirely, and though it did have a "grainy" taste, we did put a lot of supplements in there so that was to be expected... in a completely unexpected drink.

Other than that, we put of the tree this weekend and wrapped all of the presents. So take that to the bank and cash it. Christmas is coming!