Kale and Vegetable Chopped Salad With Chicken

It's almost New Year's, and you know what that means...all those well-meaning resolutions like exercising and eating healthy.  Yes, I'd love to lose a few (or more) pounds myself, and eating healthy is a lot easier than resolving to exercise more, which I hate to do!  This is a salad that I whipped up today, and it turned out to be really delicious in addition to super healthy.  I found this bag of Lacinato Tuscan kale at Safeway this week and had to try it.  Lately, I've been seeing a lot of leafy greens made more available in the stores, and that is great to see!  I sometimes buy a big bag of baby kale at Costco, but there is so much in the bag that I always end up throwing some away.  Safeway now has smaller bags of different kind of greens- I saw collards, mustard greens, and chard in addition to the kale.  I will be trying the others soon, but decided to start with the kale since I am familiar with it.

This is a good "clean out the crisper" salad- you can use whatever veggies you have available.  I used what I had, which included broccoli, zucchini, bell pepper, onion, carrots and radishes, but just about any veggie that you would eat raw would be good here.  I actually grilled the onions and zucchini, since I was grilling the chicken anyway, but they'd be fine in the salad uncooked.  You can use chicken that is left over from last night's dinner, or even canned chicken or tuna instead of grilled chicken, but I like to grill a few chicken breasts to use in salad for the next few days.

Here's to eating healthy in the New Year!

Kale and Vegetable Chopped Salad With Chicken

4 cups greens (kale, spinach, chard, etc.), washed and roughly chopped
About 3 cups chopped vegetables of your choice.  I used: carrots, radishes, zucchini, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, green onions, and orange bell pepper.  I chopped mine to about 1/2 pieces.
1 cup or so of diced cooked chicken (lightly marinated in Italian salad dressing for about 10 minutes prior to grilling)
About 3-4 tbsp light/low-cal salad dressing (I used Newman's Own Light Balsamic Vinegar dressing)
2 tbsp crumbled feta cheese

Combine greens, vegetables, and chicken.  Drizzle on dressing and toss well to incorporate.  Sprinkle with feta cheese.

This salad can be made ahead when you use hardy greens like kale or chard, because they stand up well to the dressing and don't wilt like lettuce does.  Just make sure to use a variety of kale that is tender- some, like the standard curly variety that can be found in the bulk greens section of the grocery store, are a bit tough for salads.  Baby kale or lacinato are crisp but still tender.

Serves: About 4 large or 6 small servings

Pureed Roasted Vegetable Soup

Two posts in a week- well, since I've been absent for the last 7 months, it's the least I can do!  I mentioned in my last post that I had a lot of veggies to use up, and had made two pans of roasted vegetables with some of them. I love roasted veggies- roasting brings out their flavor in a way that no other cooking method does, really concentrates it, and seems to make it richer somehow.  Believe it or not, roasted broccoli is one of my 12 year old daughter's favorite foods- yes, no joke!  It is so easy to roast vegetables too...just toss in oil, spread in a single layer on a baking sheet, and roast at a high temperature until barely tender and beginning to brown. They are so versatile too- they can be eaten as-is for a side dish, tossed in salads, or, as is the case with this recipe,made into a lovely pureed soup.

I wish that I could take credit for this soup, or even the idea for it, but I can't.  I belong to a wonderful community of working mothers, and one of my friends there posted this on the cooking forum there a few years ago.  It's not really a specific recipe, but more of a guide.  Roasted vegetables are simmered in broth until tender, then pureed and seasoned, and voila- soup!  It really is that simple- however, as I have found, the vegetables used do matter in the end product.  Pureeing vegetables does not necessarily produce an attractive result- the more green vegetables used, the more muddy and putrid the color of the soup, and however delicious the taste, it may not be so appealing to eat.  So keep that in mind when roasting your veggies, if you are doing so with a mind to use the leftovers for this soup.  Another thing I have found is that it is absolutely necessary to have tomatoes in the mix.  Fortunately I did this time- I had purchased some baby heirlooms at Trader Joe's a couple weeks back and needed to use them up, and they were a delicious addition.  Good tomatoes are not that plentiful this time of year though, so if you can't find good fresh ones, use some canned diced or stewed tomatoes, drained of course.  Add them to the broth with the roasted veggies, and they will provide a tangy zing that you wouldn't get otherwise in the soup.  One last thing- beans!  In this soup, I included some leftover roasted garbanzo beans that I had in the fridge, but you can use whatever you have- they provide protein and fiber, not to mention a nice creamy consistency.  I also like to throw in a couple of cloves or garlic.  The flavor mellows when it's simmered in the soup, but provides a nice flavor in the final product.  Salt and pepper are really the only seasoning necessary, but feel free to add fresh herbs of your choice for additional flavor.

For my soup, my roasted veggies consisted of: broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onions, asparagus, brussels sprouts, and baby heirloom tomatoes.  I went heavier on the carrots and cauliflower than the green veggies, so that the color would not be unappealing.  Use vegetables that will roast well together- you don't necessarily want to use something like zucchini here, as it will cook much faster than the rest of the veggies.  For serving, I like to make homemade croutons with thin slices of french baguette brushed with a little olive oil, broiled until just toasted, and then add some fresh grated parmigiano reggiano and broil until just melted.  Serve the soup with a couple of croutons and extra bread for mopping up the last dregs in the bowl.  It is THAT good.

Pureed Roasted Vegetable Soup
Serves 4-6

4 cups roasted vegetables
4 cups chicken broth
1-2 cups water
3 cloves garlic, crushed
Salt/pepper to taste

Parmesan croutons:

French baguette slices
Olive oil
Grated fresh Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

1.  In a large pot, combine veggies, broth, water and garlic.  Bring to a boil, then simmer until vegetables are tender enough to puree.

2.  Using a stick blender, or in batches in a food processor, puree soup until smooth.

3.  For croutons, brush baguette slices with olive oil and broil until they barely begin to brown.

4.  Top with cheese and and broil about 1 minute longer until cheese melts and begins to brown.

5.  Serve soup with croutons.

Finally Back! Shaved Root Vegetable Salad With Scallions

I'm back- yes, it has been a long time since I last posted in August!  The only excuse/explanation I have is that life got busy with kids gearing up to start school, then the holidays, and the next thing I know, here we are, 7 months later and halfway through the school year!  I know I never did finish my 3-part series on zucchini, and it's just as well- there I got tired of it myself, and besides that, I already posted my favorites here.  So, I am trying to get back on the bandwagon.  Cooking, yes, and documenting.  Call it a late New Year's resolution.

So, it's March, and this part of the world is only just beginning to wake up from the dead of winter.  I was out for a walk yesterday, and the promise of spring is out there- buds on trees, bulb shoots sprouting from the cold ground, and warmer (if only slightly) temperatures.  Here in Oregon, it will be another month at least until spring can be declared officially arrived, and it will be awhile yet after that before we see the results of that on the grocery store shelves.  Whatever faint signs we see of spring now, we are still deep in winter when it comes to available produce.  This last month has been difficult, as prices for most foods have increased sharply, and I have felt it the hardest in the produce department.  Broccoli, which I usually buy for between $1.79 and $1.99 per pound, is up to $2.79 per pound.  Even celery, usually a good, cheap staple, was twice as much last time I was at the store than it usually is!  Don't even get me started on lettuce....no way can I fathom paying $2.59 for a skinny head of romaine lettuce.  As such, salads are NOT happening much at my house these days!  Well, not green salads, anyway.  I have a nice winter salad to share today that is all at once seasonal, tasty, and economical, as well as a little bit different.

 

 

This salad is adapted from this Shaved Rutabega and Turnip Salad with Scallions from Fine Cooking magazine, posted on the Bitten Word blog a few weeks ago.  I love these guys!  They cook recipes they find in cooking magazines and then blog about them, giving honest reviews and occasionally suggestions on how to make them better.  After seeing that blog post, I picked up a turnip on impulse one day at the grocery store, but nixed the rutabega because, well, I don't know why.  Except maybe because turnips are prettier.  They taste fairly similar to me, and I didn't want a glut of them, so just got the one turnip.  And there it sat in my fridge, until clean-out day came this past weekend.  I had gone to Costco and the grocery store and loaded up on goodies, so took out all of my produce and spread it out on the counter to see what needed to be used most urgently before it went bad.  That'll teach me to shop more carefully- turns out that I had a TON of broccoli!  I bought ahead, fearing another price hike, then hit a big sale where it was actually back down to its regular price, so bought more at that price, and ended up with way too much.  So I made a broccoli soup and two pans of roasted veggies, some of which I used in a nice couscous salad.  But I digress. There was this turnip, staring me in the face as if to say "you've had me for nearly a month- when is it going to be MY TURN???"  Remembering the salad from the BW blog, I set about to make a similar salad with what I had.  I found a largeish carrot and a handful of big radishes, and figured I'd make a take-off of the Fine Cooking recipe.  I used a vegetable peeler to shave paper-thin slices of the turnip and carrot, and a regular knife to slice the radishes as thinly as possible.  The rest of the salad came together very easily: a simple dressing of mustard, rice wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of chopped scallions.  The result is a delicately crunchy raw vegetable salad with a bright, tangy flavor, a nice departure from the typical heavier taste of braised or roasted vegetables.

The only thing I would do differently again is to do a better job measuring my ingredients.  I tend to eyeball things, and as such, sometimes get it wrong.  I substituted stone-ground mustard for the dijon that the recipe called for, and that was fine...but I used too much.  I also added too much of the chopped scallions, which were very  strong to begin with. The delicate flavors of the root vegetables were a bit overpowered by both the mustard and scallions.  I still enjoyed this salad, but now that I know what a delicate balance it is between the vegetables and dressing, I will more carefully measure next time.

 

 

Shaved Root Vegetable Salad With Scallions

Adapted from Fine Cooking, via the Bitten Word Blog

1 medium turnip, peeled
1 large carrot, peeled
About 6-8 large radishes
2 medium scallions, thinly sliced
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1/2 tsp stone ground mustard
3 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

1.  Slice turnip in half.  Use vegetable peeler or mandoline to shave paper-thin slices from the cut ends.  When you reach the point when you can't shave any more without also shaving off your fingertips, place the turnip piece on the cut edge on a cutting board and continue to shave slices off until you have sliced as much of the turnip as possible.  Use a knife to thinly slice the remainder.

2.  Shave thin strips from the carrot in about 2 inch sections.

3.  Slice radishes in half and then slice as thinly as possible with a knife.

4.  Combine shaved vegetables in a large bowl.

5.  Whisk together vinegar, mustard, olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Pour over vegetables.  Add sliced scallions and toss to incorporate well.

6.  Serve at room temperature or refrigerate and serve cold.

Slow-Cooker Turkey and Vegetable Lasagna

As I learned from one of my favorite authors, Susan Mallery awhile back, you can make lasagna in the Crock Pot!  Well, who knew??  Not me- until I saw the recipe on Susan's blog.  I have made her recipe a few times, and it is fantastic!  This weekend, while pondering the contents of my refrigerator, seeing all of the veggies that were about to go bad unless they were used NOW, I devised a plan for a vegetable lasagna, based on my experience with making Susan's recipe.  I had a package of ground turkey breast too, so decided to use that as well.  The result is a very robust, yet light, healthy lasagna that takes just a few hours in the slow cooker.  Disclaimer: yes, it does take some prep time.  You do have to sautee the turkey and vegetables, but after that it is very easy to put together, and then you can forget about it until dinner time!

I used the veggies that were hanging around in my fridge at the time, but you can use whatever you have on hand.  The important thing is that you sautee them really well, because any water that they retain is going to stay in the slow cooker when they are cooking in there.  No one likes a watery lasagna!  I would stick to veggies that sautee well, and stay away from the hardy winter veggies like turnips and the like.  I used broccoli, carrots, onions, asparagus, zucchini, mushrooms, and spinach in mine, and  I used a 6-quart oval slow cooker for this dish.

Turkey and Vegetable Lasagna
Serves: At least 8.  This is a dish you can make for a crowd, or in anticipation of leftovers

1 package (1.25 lbs) ground turkey breast
1/2 of a large onion, diced
3  tbsp olive oil, divided
Chopped vegetables- about 3-4 cups total, chopped small and uniform in size (I used carrots, broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, and mushrooms
1 bag baby spinach, chopped
2 jars store-bought spagetti sauce
10 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded
About 1 lb ricotta cheese
1/2  box no-boil lasagna noodles

1.  Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and add onion.  Stir and cook until tender, then add turkey.  Cook, breaking up meat with a spatula, until cooked through.  Drain and set aside.

2. Clean out pan and heat the other 1.5 tbsp olive oil over medium heat.  Add carrots, sautee for 3 minutes, then add broccoli and asparagus and sautee 3 more minutes or until barely tender.  Add zucchini and mushrooms and sautee 3 more minutes.  Add spinach and sautee 1 minute until spinach has wilted and most of the liquid has evaporated.  Set aside.  Note: cooking times approximate.  Use your own judgement when sauteeing the vegggies!

3.  In slow cooker, spread about 1/4 cup spagetti sauce in the bottom of the crock.  Add lasgna noodles, breaking up to fill in uncovered spots.  Spread with more sauce to cover.

4.  Add 1/2 of the turkey and onions, then 1/2 of the vegetables, distributing evenly.  Spoon 1/2 of the ricotta cheese onto the vegetable mixture, spreading over the vegetables as you go.  Sprinkle with 1/3 of the shredded mozzarella cheese.

5.  Place another layer of lasagna noodles over cheese and repeat with sauce, the rest of the turkey, vegetables, ricotta, and 1/3 of the mozzarella.

6.  Top with final layer of noodles and the rest of the sauce.  Place lid and cook on LOW for about 4 hours or until noodles are cooked through and sauce is bubbly.

7.  Sprinkle remaining 1/3 of the mozzarella cheese on top, replace lid and cook 20 minutes more.

8.  Allow to sit for 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Curried Couscous Salad

Ever have one of those weeks (or two, or three) that is just non-stop activity, where you barely have time to breathe, much less cook?  That's how it has been around my house for the past couple of weeks.  The closer we get to the end of the school year, the more we seem to have going on.  This past week was absolutely crazy!  I did not cook a single family meal all week, unless you count the one night I scrambled a few eggs for my son on his way out the door to youth group and reheated leftover spagetti sauce for my daughter.  I will admit to having those weeks when we rely on take-out, even though it is expensive and pretty unhealthy.

Today, I have had a little time to breathe (and cook), so have spent a couple of hours in the kitchen prepping some foods for the coming week and cooking a few things for lunches.  I have sliced some lean pork for stir-fry, and mixed up some ground chicken for kefta meatballs, along with tzatziki.  I decided to make a salad to go along side the meatballs, and dug a recipe out of my file for Curried Couscous and Garbanzo Bean Salad, which I found on Epicurious a couple of years ago.  The first time I made it, I did according to the recipe, however, this time I made some of my own modifications.  The original recipe calls for cooking the vegetables in curry-spiced water, but I decided to roast mine instead.  I added the curry powder to the dressing, which makes for a lighter, less intense curry flavor, but still very tasty.  If I were to do this again, I would probably toast the curry powder in a pan before adding it to the dressing.  The original recipe calls for this, and I meant to do it myself, but forgot.  I did not have any fresh ginger, so used powdered ginger instead.  Finally, instead of the white wine vinegar that the recipe calls for, I used a mixture apple cider vinegar and lemon juice.  It works just fine, but feel free to use white wine vinegar if you want.

Curried Couscous Salad
Adapted from Bon Appetit, June 2004 via Epicurious.com
Makes about 6 servings

6 cups vegetables, cut into bite sized pieces (I used carrots, cauliflower, asparagus, and onions)
1 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
1 10 oz box plain couscous, prepared according to package directions
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
4-5 green onions, thinly sliced
1 cup crumbled feta cheese

Dressing:
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
 2 tbsp curry powder
1/4 tsp ground ginger
Salt and pepper to taste

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Spread vegetables on a baking sheet and drizzle with oil.  Mix to coat vegetables.  Roast 10 mintues, stir, and roast another 5 minutes or until vegetables are just tender.

2.   Toast curry powder in a pan over medium heat for a minute or so, or until fragrant.  Place in a bowl and add vinegar, lemon juice, ginger, and olive oil.  Whisk or stir to incorporate.

3.  Place cooked couscous in a large bowl and fluff with a fork to separate and break up any clumps.  Add vegetables and garbanzo beans and toss toss gently.

4.  Drizzle dressing over salad, add salt and pepper to taste and toss gently to incorporate.  Cool to room temperature.  Add green onions and feta cheese and toss.

Serve either at room temperature or chilled.  The flavors will meld and become a little more intense with time in the refrigerator.

Spring Scramble

I know that technically spring started last month, but here in the Pacific Northwest, it doesn't *really* start until early to mid-April.  We still get a lot of weather waffling- one day will be in the 60s, and the next we have a high of 45 degrees.  I am happy to report that spring seems to finally be here, although still a bit tentatively.  The temperature varies, but everything is in bloom, promising that one of these days soon, we can finally put away our coats and boots!

My and my husband's wedding anniversary was this week- on Monday the 9th, to be exact.  It was 18 years for us- seems like such a long time, but at the same time, it seems like just last week!  We usually try to take a weekend away together for our annivesrary- it was a tradition we started on our very first anniversary, which we spent in Coos Bay, Oregon, back in 1995.  We vowed then to always take a trip, however short, to force ourselves to take time out to appreciate our marriage and each other.  It has worked out well, and we have enjoyed some very nice and memorable weekends together doing just that.  Last year was really special- we went to Manzanita, a small town on the north Oregon coast just south of Cannon Beach.  Manzanita is a very small, quaint town, and just perfect for celebrating a low-key occasion.

On our last day there, we had breakfast at a local bakery called Bread and Ocean, which was just up the road from the hotel where we stayed.  They had incredible baked goods, and also sandwiches and select breakfast specials.  I ordered their egg special of the day, an egg scramble with spring vegetables.  It was a simple dish with complex flavors, and I was blown away.  Eggs were scrambled with tender asparagus, peas, and fresh herbs, and served over a bed of baby arugula, with a touch of cheese.  The proportions were such that there were more veggies than eggs, which made the dish feel completely guilt-free!  The dish was fantastic no matter what- it was the perfect balance of soft egg, tender spring vegetables, and tangy cheese.  It stayed with me for weeks, and I vowed to make something similar at home.  Of course, life intervened, and I never got the chance before summer arrived.  Now, however, here we are in April again, and since our anniversary just passed, I began thinking again of those delicious green spring vegetables mixed with delicate eggs.  Time to finally, FINALLY re-create that experience at home.

I made this dish using what I already had at home, which meant substituting fresh spinach for the arugula.  I think either works in this dish, however, I do think the arugula holds up to the heat a bit better, as it is a hardier green.  The spinach did wilt on me a bit- and that is ok- but when I had this dish in Manzanita, I enjoyed the fact that the arugula stood up to the heat of the eggs when served with them hot out of the pan.  As with the original, I used asparagus and peas (frozen), and I decided to add some mushrooms since they were in the fridge.  I do not recall what kind of cheese was used by Bread and Ocean, but I used Gruyere, as I think that goes so nicely with asparagus.  For herbs, I added chopped chives from my garden, since that is all that is sprouting at the moment (apart from the rosemary, which has taken over my herb garden and needs to be trimmed, but I digress.)  The result is a very nice light, fresh, springy dish that is also healthy and delicious.

Spring Scramble

Servings: 2

Ingredients:

2 tsp vegetable oil or butter
3-4 stalks asparagus, bottoms trimmed, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
4-5 mushrooms, sliced
4 large eggs, beaten
1/2 cup peas (thawed if frozen)
1/3 cup grated cheese (gruyere, parmesan, etc)
1 cup fresh baby spinach or arugula
salt/pepper to taste
chopped herbs for garnish

1.  Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  When hot, add asparagus.  Cook and stir 1-2 minutes.

2.  Add mushrooms.  Let stand in skillet 2 minutes, then stir and cook 1 minute more.  Reduce heat to low-medium.

3.  Add eggs and stir gently.  Do not allow eggs to brown- keep stirring so that they slowly congeal.

4.  When eggs are about halfway cooked, add peas, 1/2 of the cheese, and salt and pepper, and stir into eggs.  Cook about 1 minute more.

5.  When eggs are just done, remove pan from heat.  Add spinach or arugula to pan and toss with eggs to just barely warm.  Add salt/pepper as necessary.  Add remaining cheese on top.  Garnish with chopped herbs before serving.

Recipe Make-Over: Better Than Schwan's Green Bean Fries

My daughter is the one who challenges me the most with cooking.  My son is much more flexible with what he will eat, and he likes many more healthy foods than my daughter.  She would happily live on sugar and fried foods if left to her own devices.  Yecchh!  One of the things she loves is the green bean fries from the Schwan's guy.  Schwan's is a frozen food company- they come by with their giant refrigerated truck once every other week, and I get suckered into buying breakfast sausage, waffles, ice cream or popsicles, or the infamous green bean fries. On the surface, they don't sound so bad: breaded green beans.  How bad could that be?  Well, let me tell you: partially hydrogenated palm, cottonseed, and soybean oil, monosodium glutamate (MSG), and a whopping 200 calories, 11 grams of fat, and 490 mg of sodium per serving- which is only 10 pieces.  Yikes!!  There has to be a better way...right??

It can't be that hard.  It's green beans, breaded, and cooked until crispy.  Frying is not the healthiest cooking method in the world, so if we're trying to make over this recipe, we'll have to try something else.  Years ago, Oprah's chef, Rosie, had a very successful cookbook, and one of the best recipes in it was "Unfried Chicken"- breaded chicken, cooked on an oiled baking sheet at a high temperature until crispy.  That could work.  Chicken is already pretty moist and tender though.  Green beans- not so much.  What to do?

Research on green bean fries yielded many similar results.  Blanch the green beans until just tender, then bread and then cook.  Since we are avoiding frying in oil, that leaves oven baking as the preferred cooking method.  Blanching is easy, but the green beans need to dry completely in order to hold any breading.  The same technique used to bread chicken (such as in the chicken schnitzel) would probably work here, and my experiments confirmed this.  Coating in flour, then egg, and then bread crumbs produced a nice, substantial breading.

The first step is to wash and trim the green beans- cut both ends off.  Blanch in hot water for 4-5 minutes until just barely tender, then remove from the water and shock with cold water, to stop the cooking process.  Drain, then dry beans.  I laid mine out on a few layers of paper towels and blotted dry with additional paper towels.  I added flavor to the beans by seasoning both the flour and bread crumbs.  I use panko bread crumbs to bread the green beans for the crispiest green bean "fries".  The results are definitely crispy and fresh.  The breading is not as dense as Schwan's, but I like that about them.  At least I know I am not going to have a MSG headache an hour after dinner!  Meredith is not necessarily convinced that these are better...someday she will believe me!
Oven Baked Green Bean Fries

@ 1 pound of fresh green beans, washed and trimmed
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
2 eggs
1.5 cups  panko bread crumbs
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
salt/pepper to taste
3 tbsp olive oil for pan

1.  Blanch green beans.  Heat water in a medium pan until boiling, then add green beans.  Cook about 4 minutes until just barely tender.  Drain and bathe green beans in cold water to stop cooking.  Drain and set aside, allowing to dry.

2.  In a shallow dish, combine flour and seasonings.

3.  In a separate dish, beat eggs.

4.  In a third dish, combine panko crumbs and seasoning.

5.  When green beans are dry, toss in flour mixture.  Remove a few at a time and dip in egg mixture, then into panko crumbs, coating completely.

6.  Rub oil over the surface of a baking sheet.  Add breaded green beans, separating so that they do not touch one antother.

7.  Heat oven to 425 degrees.  Bake green beans about 5 minutes, then toss with a spatula and continue baking 5-7 minutes more until crispy and browned.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Serve while hot.