Puttanesca

Whenever I hear the word puttanesca, I think of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Particularly the first book, The Bad Beginning. The series is about three orphans who go through a series of unfortunate events. In the first book they are sent to live with someone who is really awful to them, and in one part when he makes them make dinner for his awful friends, the orphans make spaghetti puttanesca. Which struck me as funny because puttanesca is a sauce made with tomatoes, capers, kalamata olives, garlic and anchovy, all things kids would likely not eat. I mean for the past few years even I have recoiled at the thought of eating any of it. I'm really picky when it comes to tomatoes. For some reason I thought capers had something to do with fish eggs, though in recent years I found out that they are actually the pickled flower buds belonging to a Mediterranean plant. Olives are something I have avoided since I tried a bite of one that was a garnish to some calamari, and it was an awful experience.

Recently though, I am willing myself to try new things. Last night I made spaghetti puttanesca, recipe courtesy of Everyday Food. I left out the anchovy, not on purpose, I had forgotten to pick some up at the grocery store. Had I remembered I would have used anchovy paste though, not actual anchovies. I pureed the tomatoes in my mini food processor before adding them to the pot, as I am not a fan of tomato chunks in sauces. I didn't add any salt, and I am surprised that EF does. The olives and capers are both pretty salty, and the dish had a salty taste without adding extra salt.

I enjoyed this. I used fettuccine noodles, the Catelli Smart brand. Catelli Smart claims to be a white pasta with the fibre benefits of whole wheat pasta. I would have used whole wheat pasta but I didn't know how strong the sauce would be and I find that the whole wheat taste can sometimes overpower a light pasta sauce. (For future reference I think whole wheat pasta would be fine with this sauce)

I wouldn't say I loved it, but it would be something I make again. It was a very simple recipe that took very little time and effort to assemble.

Chili/Soup

On a particularly chilly day last week, my mom mentioned that she had made hamburger soup. Hamburger soup is something she would make quite often for us when we were younger. The soup is easy to put together and also falls under my definition of healthy.

Hamburger soup:

1) Brown half of a package of ground beef in a large sauce pan or Dutch oven on med-hi.

2) Add half of an onion, chopped or thinly sliced, and 3 carrots that have been thinly sliced. Cook for about 2 minutes

3) Add a peeled and diced potato

4) Add a 14 oz can of chopped tomatoes (I used chopped tomatoes with Italian seasonings)

5) Add a bay leaf, and a Tbsp of dried oregano

6) Add enough beef broth to cover. About 1.5 cups

Bring to a boil, lower heat, cover and simmer until the potatoes are tender, roughly 30-40 minutes

This made enough for 4 servings. You could also add some diced celery at the same time as the onion and carrots, I had forgotten to pick some up though.

The next night I made a chili. It's a recipe from Ellie Krieger, who has a show on the American Food Network called Healthy Appetite. I like her philosophy about food, which is basically that no food is off limits, but some foods can be eaten everyday, and some should only be eaten every once in a while.

I only made half of the recipe (using my leftover half onion, and half a package of ground beef from the night before). I left out the red bell pepper, because I had forgotten to pick one up. I also used 3 chipotles in adobo (which made it quite spicy so only do that if you like things spicy). Also in her recipe, Ellie adds 2 cups of water to the chili, which I left out.

I'm glad I left out the 2 cups of water, because I feel that the chili was thin enough. I have never used carrots in a chili before, and I don't mind them as an addition. You can serve it as is, or topped with some grated low fat cheddar and tortilla chips. (As seen in the top picture of this post)

This weekend I had some friends come up from Calgary. On Saturday night we had "make your own" pizza night, and Sunday morning I made Eggs Benedict. The pizza left me with chopped onion, red bell pepper, green bell pepper and sliced mushrooms for leftovers. The Eggs Benedict left me with back bacon. To use it all up, last night I made fried rice.

I heated up about 1 tbsp of safflower oil in a large pan, and sauteed the veggies (leftover from pizza night, and a half cup of frozen peas) for about 4 or 5 minutes. I took the veggies out of the pan, added another tbsp of oil and then 1.5 cups of cooked, cold jasmine rice. The rice has to be cold in order for it to fry. Once the rice was glossy (about 2 minutes), I added the veggies back to the rice, and tossed in some chopped back bacon. Then I added a sauce made from combining 1 tbsp of soy sauce, mirin, honey, Chinese cooking wine, rice vinegar, and a tsp of Sriracha sauce.

I think fried rice is the way to go to get rid of leftovers. Just about any veggie or meat will work in it.

Fajitas

I don't know what is wrong with me, but I have had a lot of motivation recently to work out. Yesterday morning I even rolled out of bed at 5:30 am, got dressed and went for a jog. Sure, what actually happened was more like a brisk walk with bursts of jogging, but I at least was moving. I plan to jog, or "jog", before work a few times a week to build up more endurance.

Then I got the crazy idea to go to the gym after work. My gym had been bought by another company a few months ago, and my scan card still said the old name. I very sheepishly handed my card to the desk girl and said "I haven't been here in a while" NO JUDGEMENT.

Anyways, I am really excited that I have the motivation to work hard at getting into shape, and have been trying to cut down on the less healthy foods I eat.

Monday night I made fajitas. I had intended on using skirt or flank steak, but when I was at the grocery store a really beautiful New York striploin caught my eye and I couldn't say no. I used the spice rub that was in this Everyday Food recipe. (I still do not have brown sugar at home, so I omitted it). I used a very small amount of olive oil to coat both sides of the steak, and rubbed in the spice rub. I used a non stick spray on my skillet and cooked the steak 3 minutes per side on medium high heat (for medium rare). I took the steak out of the skillet, and placed it on a plate under foil, to rest for 5 minutes. LET YOUR MEAT REST, PEOPLE! I have said it before, if you let your meat rest for 5 minutes after cooking, it will taste so much better!

In the same skillet I poured a very small amount of olive oil, and added an onion that I had peeled, halved, and sliced thinly. Once the onion had sauteed for about two minutes, I added a sliced red bell pepper and sauteed until just warmed through. When I am eating fajitas I like the peppers and onions to still have a crunch to them. If you like yours overcooked and limp, keep cooking them until they become that way.

I sliced the steak thinly, and removed the excess fat. I took a whole wheat tortilla and topped it with 1/4 of the meat, 1/4 of the red bell pepper (capsicum) and onion mix, some salsa and a sprinkling of low fat cheddar cheese. I ate two of these for dinner, and two for lunch the next day.

They were delicious. The meat was spicy and tasted 100 times better than using a store bought fajita seasoning.

Gluten Free Pasta

My friend K is one of the greatest friends anyone could ask for. The thing I love most about her (and slightly hate at times) is that she is always honest. She will never tell you what you want to hear, she will tell you what you need to hear. I also consider her my blog's biggest fan, in fact this is what she wrote about it (and me) on Facebook.
"Okay, so my best girl Rebek has a blog, for those of you who have never read it you need to. She is amazing, funny, loves cooking and is pretty stinking hot to boot!" All true. Except on a Saturday night when I am home by myself.
Recently K found out she was gluten intolerant. One of the biggest misconceptions I had about gluten intolerance was that it should be easy to stay away from gluten. I mean, really, all you can't have is bread.
Wrong. Gluten is in EVERYTHING. K has to check the labels of everything that she buys. Gluten is found in soy sauce for heaven's sake!
Because K is such a huge supporter of mine (and goes around pimping my blog all the time) I thought I would do a week of gluten free recipes. I really thought this would be simple, but upon realizing how hard it would be I gave up. (Sorry K). When I mentioned this to her, she decided that she would help me out by posting her gluten free recipes on Facebook.
The pasta above is the first recipe that she posted and the link can be found here.
I could have cheated and used a pasta that I had at home, but I decided to go all out and use a gluten free pasta. There was no difference in taste or texture, just the price. Frankly I think it's ridiculous that gluten free product is so expensive, the people who need it can't eat delicious gluten and that is punishment in itself, why add salt to an open wound by overcharging them?
The recipe called for sun dried tomatoes, and I used jarred sun dried tomatoes in oil. The recipe also includes some 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, and I used 1 tbsp of olive oil, and 1 tbsp of the oil from the sun dried tomatoes.
I am always really unhappy with the basil at the grocery store. It costs roughly $2 for a small pack, and most of the time it is wilted. This reminds me that it's almost farmer's market season, and I can't wait to get my hands on some decent fresh basil. In the meantime, Sobeys has come out with refrigerated seasoning pastes. They come in different flavors, and so far I have bought the red chili, and the basil ones. I used the basil paste instead of the fresh basil that the recipe called for.

Overall I really enjoyed the pasta. It would be a great meal in the summer, since it doesn't require turning on the oven, just turning a pot of water on to boil. I didn't use the same amount of olives since I have a slight aversion to them, but I didn't mind the small amount that I used.
K had to say this about the pasta, "I was a little nervous about this one, I had never tried sun dried tomatoes before and was not sure that I would like them, however it was very very good, I froze the rest for lunches, and I am sure it will be even better once I re-heat and all the feta melts into yummy melty goodness!"

My Big Fat Not Greek Pizza

I don't know how many of you have seen Chef at Home, but it is one of my favorite cooking shows. If you are American, chances are you haven't seen it as it is a Canadian show. Chef Michael Smith sets out to make food without using a recipe. I have one of his cookbooks, Chef at Home, and the ingredients are listed as "a handful of this" or a "big scoop of that", without there being an actual recipe with set amounts. He also provides hints of things you can use to swap if you don't like an ingredient.

In Chef at Home, he generally picks a theme of what he wants to make and then just runs with his idea. For instance, in season 1 he picks vanilla as his theme. In the episode he made vanilla chicken, panna cotta, and a salad with vanilla in the dressing. Or he will decide to make a southwestern menu and make a meal using southwestern ingredients.

Chef Michael Smith could say to himself "I'm going to make a Greek pizza", and succeed. I could say to myself "I'm going to make a Greek pizza" and end up with something not even close.

I started with the dough. I used C's Pizza Dough:

Ingredients:
3 cups flour, separated
2 tsp quick rising (instant) yeast
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups hot (120 F) water
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1) Mix together 2 3/4 cup flour with yeast and salt
2) Gradually add water and oil until dough forms
3) Knead dough adding remaining flour 1 tbsp at a time until dough is smooth & elastic

4) Place in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise for an hour at room temperature.

5) After an hour, punch down the dough, and roll out to a 14 inch crust.

Because I am such a healthy person now, I substituted 1.5 cups of all purpose flour for 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour. I also added about a Tbsp of dried oregano to the dough (for added Greekness) before kneading it. And by kneading it, I mean placed in my stand mixer to knead.

The inspiration behind my Greek pizza, was a Greek salad. My Greek salad contains cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion, red or green bell pepper, feta, extra virgin olive oil, lemon and dried oregano. Obviously, I wasn't going to put cucumber on my pizza, or lemon for that matter.

When I set the dough aside to rise, I thinly sliced three tomatoes and a red onion and placed them on a foiled baking sheet. I drizzled extra virgin olive oil on top, and sprinkled with salt and pepper. I placed the sheet in the oven @ 400 F for about 40 minutes.

After rolling out the dough (which smelled heavenly by the way), I spread a thin layer of pizza sauce on top. I then topped the pizza with the sliced roasted tomatoes, and red onion. Then I remembered that sometimes when I microwave leftovers that had red onion in them, the red onion turns this hideous shade of grayish blue and I refuse to eat it. So I picked off the red onion, chopped up a white onion I had in my pantry and topped the pizza with the white onion. I also topped it with a diced green bell pepper, and 1/3 cup of crumbled low fat Feta. I had some pizza pepperoni in the fridge, and I didn't want it to go to waste so I put some on the pizza as well. Then I sprinkled about 1/2 cup of grated mozzarella cheese on top.

I placed it in the oven @ 425 F for 25 minutes.

I can't really call it a Greek pizza, but I can call it delicious.

Mini Meatloaves

Almost every day I check my blog stats to see how many readers I have, and where they are from. Not surprisingly, most of them are in Calgary or Edmonton. (Thank you, my friends and family) Recently I noticed that someone from New York was reading my blog regularly. I was really excited to have a reader I don't know, until I remembered my aunt, Tante, was visiting New York. Thank you Tante for checking this so regularly.

Pictured above is the Mini Meatloaves I made last week, well one of them. The recipe is courtesy of Everyday Food. As always, I tweaked the recipe a little. EF calls for adding cheese in the meat mix, and topping the mini loaves with more cheese. I omitted the cheese because I don't feel that it adds enough taste to justify the added calories.

I went to make the honey mustard ketchup topping, and noticed I was out of mustard. So I figured I would use a ketchup and brown sugar mix, only I was out of brown sugar. So I searched my fridge and found a VH Thai Market Sweet Chili Sauce and spooned that on top of the mini loaves.

Turns out, it was delicious. I have also made these before with the honey mustard mix in the recipe and that was also delicious.

I served it alongside some frozen corn, which I thawed in a strainer by running it under cold water, and then warmed it up in a sauce pan with a small amount of margarine. I also served it with a potato dish of my mom's called Hot Potato Salad.

To make it, you take some potatoes, peel them and chop them into large chunks. Place in a pot with whole eggs and set to boil. The eggs are removed once the water has boiled for 10 minutes. (The eggs should now be hard boiled) When the potatoes are fork tender, drain them. Place the potatoes back in the pot. Shell the eggs and place them back in the pot. Mash. Add some Miracle Whip and pepper. Mix.

I used two potatoes. I wanted to use two eggs, but one was stuck in the carton and as I applied force to remove it, I cracked it open. I used maybe a 1/4 cup of Miracle Whip. To make more, I would keep the potato to egg ratio at 1:1. Add the Miracle Whip to taste. Delicious. As a kid I grossed out my entire family by pouring Kraft's Catalina dressing on top. I swear it tastes ridiculously good.

Health Nut

If anyone who knows me was asked to describe me in two words or less, I believe their answer would be health nut. *this may or may not be a gross exaggeration* A while back I wrote about how I was going to start working out more, and I have been doing a fairly good job of sticking with it. Currently I am unable to walk normally, due to Jillian Michael's No More Trouble Zones.

Now that spring is around the corner, and summer isn't too far behind, I am having nightmares about shorts, dresses, skirts and bathing suits. So for the next while, I am really going to try and attempt a more balanced eating lifestyle. This does not mean I'm going to eat steamed chicken or fish with a salad every night. I am still looking for really good food, that's tasty and satisfying, but borderlines on the description healthy.

Yesterday I had a flat tire on my car, I took it to the shop, and by the time my car was ready to go it was 6:30 pm. I still had to go to the grocery store, so I had to make something quick or I wouldn't be eating until 9 or 10. I went with Everyday Food's Orecchiette with Bacon and Tomato Sauce. Those of you thinking that I am crazy if I think this is healthy... it's not so bad. The sauce is comprised of canned whole tomatoes, red onion, garlic and 4 strips of bacon. The recipe serves 4 people, so that is roughly only one piece of bacon in a ton of produce per person. I also only used 3 strips of bacon, and even that small amount created a lot of flavor in the sauce.

Since the sauce has so little ingredients, you want to use a good brand of canned tomatoes. Look for Italian whole plum tomatoes. Every time I have bought them they were in a can with a yellow label. I used tri-colored bowtie pasta, since that's what I had on hand, but to make the pasta even healthier I would have preferred to use a whole wheat pasta. Finally, it was topped with Parmesan cheese, which also isn't so bad because it doesn't take a lot of cheese to get a lot of flavor out of it.

This was very good, and it was ready, start to finish, in under a half hour.

I did follow up this meal by making Peanut Butter Brownies. Even though that's what they are called, they are more of a blondie. (Brownies are made with cocoa powder, blondies are made with brown sugar) Those of you thinking that I will never be able to follow a healthy diet, let me show you something using my awesome Paint and awesome Internet skills. I bet there isn't many of you who click on the recipe link so I took a little screen shot of the recipe to show you how healthy this bad boy is:

Unfortunately my zoom skills are lacking, so if you can't read that it says "2 cups white whole wheat flour". Ok, so making a sugar laden baked good with whole wheat flour doesn't make it entirely virtuous, but it tasted really good!