A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Pavia's Poached Egg Soup

Another recipe from Ciao Italia:  Five Ingredient Favorites--can you tell I REALLY like this cookbook?  Gene and I both loved this soup.  It's sooooooooo simple but so comforting and rich without being terrible for you.

I made two different versions. The recipe calls for chicken or beef broth.  I used chicken broth left over from a roasted chicken (so much better than canned!) and beef broth leftover from a Sunday roast where I'd taken the leftover drippings, onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes and whizzed them in the blender before freezing. This made for a thick gravy type broth. I'd not been sure what I was going to do with it but it's a perfect liquid for this soup.

I think of this as a "Sunday night, OMG, I don't want to cook" kind of soup. Hearty enough to be satisfying without being junky food or labor intensive.

And that, my friends, is the last recipe I'm going to post. Go buy this book. You'll be glad you did (like I'm glad someone gave it to me as a birthday gift!)

Fennel, Carrot, and Apple Salad

 

Another recipe I made from the Ciao Italia: Five Ingredient Favorites from the other night that was somewhat a hit at our house.  The salad is great. The dressing was simple and fantastic. The only problem was me. Fennel is one of those vegetables I try really hard to like but I just don't care for the taste of licorice so it's not the recipe's fault.  I will make the salad again except I'll probably substitute jicama or chopped celery or maybe even cabbage but still use the carrots, apple, and the dressing.

New Cookbook: Ciao Italia, Five Ingredient Favorites

 
Ciao Italia: Five Ingredient Favorites by Mary Ann Esposito, Host of PBS show "Ciao Italia"

I received a copy of this cookbook around my birthday and have been wanting to try a couple of things since it hit my hands. Although I enjoy cooking, and love cooking the long way around with multi-step, long prep recipes, there are times when I like to throw dinner together in an easier manner and with fewer ingredients, like on my sleep days after working all night.   Sometimes less really can be more.

The basic premise of the book, as a matter of fact, is that less can be more with a rule of five. Five basic pantry items like olive oil, dried pasta, canned tomatoes, onions, and red wine, or five refrigerator basics that include high quality cheese.  From basic items you can create simple but satisfying meals.

Yesterday was my test run. I'd worked the night before in Pediatrics and was worn out even after sleeping seven hours. (You think one cranky sick six month old is harrowing, try multiplying that by a half dozen at one time. grin. ) But even with a draggy butt, I was determined to continue my quest this year for wholesome food and not give in to the convenience of the drive thru.  Did making pasta scare me considering I'm trying to eat healthier and lose weight?  No, because my goal this year is to teach myself to eat good wholesome NORMAL food but to do it in a smart way. With pasta, it's about the ingredients and the portion size.  So many formal diets make pasta and fruit out to be evil.  NO, carbs are not evil. If anything can be pointed a finger at it's the ginormous restaurant portions that we've come to think of as normal. 

Already having the five ingredients in my pantry and fridge, in under 30 minutes last night I was able to prepare:  Coal Miner's Spaghetti (Carbonara) and the Fennel, Apple, and Carrot Salad, then I added a side of steamed squash that needed to be used and we ate divinely while hopping from other shows back over to the Super Bowl trying to espy the new commercials.  Was it just us or were they sadly lacking this year?

A note about the Carbonara.  I don't know if this is true everywhere but here in the Ozarks, Pasta Carbonara is on every Italian restaurant's menu but I've never seen a true carbonara. It's usually just fettuccine or spaghetti alfredo with some bacon thrown in.  True carbonara, like this recipe, has no cream or butter, eggs make the "sauce", and for that reason it's almost much healthier so I've included nutrition counts (and comparison alfredo counts) following the recipe.

How to describe our enjoyment of this dish. Let me see...How about like this?  I measured out my one cup of pasta and wanted more but made myself simply savor every bite.  Gene ate the rest.  I think I need to teach him how to make this!

Look For This: VitaTops

 
In my commitment for healthier, fresher eating, I've had to give up a lot of processed foods we take for granted, like cereals, granola bars, and other pre-packaged, pre-processed foods. Seriously, read the labels. I'm realizing there are a lot of edible products in the grocery store but not necessarily that much nutrition unless you stick to that sage piece of dieting advice to only grocery shop along the outer walls without venturing much into the aisles for boxed goods.

However, I have found one exception to that rule that I need to share with my fellow dieters and it's in the freezer section. At my Price Cutter, it's in the organice freezer section:  Vitalicious products.  Auntie Miranda and I didn't know you could even buy these in our local groceries for a while so our first introduction came by way of a splitting a mail order box.   The reason why you find them in the freezer section, and why online orders come with a packing slip that instructs you to freeze the muffins within a day or so, is because these muffins, muffin tops, brownies, etc don't have the normal laundry list of preservatives in them that most processed bars and treats do.  Each Vita Top is 100 calories, 4-5 grams protein, and 4-5 grams fiber made from whole wheat, nuts, and dried fruits (depending on the flavor, of course).  Since they're frozen, you can microwave them, toast them, or pop them into the toaster oven to warm up in just a couple of minutes.  Actually, because they only have a gram of fat, even if they're thawed to room temp, heating them up brings out their best side.  Not home-made but about as close as we're going to get inside a plastic wrapper.

At this point I'm addicted. I really love these nummies!  My personal favorites are the banana walnut, apple berry, and even though I'm not a big chocolate eater, I really like the deep chocolate flavor.  I'll be honest, I'm still committed to cooking from scratch including my own baking BUT these are a nice shortcut to have on hand that I can feel good about eating, knowing I'm sticking with my wholesome foods goal.  They're great to take to work, perfect for a quick breakfast, and a great choice for a late night snack attack that just will not go away. 

www.vitalicious.com

 

Support Your Local Merchants: The Amish Country Store

I came in tonight from a girls' weekend in St. Louis and found a package waiting for me that said "Merry Christmas!" written in green Sharpie on the outside.  Hmmmm....I thought "Well, I have ordered a couple of Christmas gifts but someone from Amazon is certainly overrun with the holiday spirit!" Wrong, the sender was definitely packing holiday spirit but the box wasn't from Amazon, it was from another of my favorite stores:  The Amish Country Store in Branson.  The punchline is I hadn't ordered anything from them lately.  As Alice would say "curiouser and curiouser."  Opening the box, I found a lovely note from Matt Hayes thanking me for supporting them as local merchants and a sleigh full of goodies! 

OMG, I am so touched! Thanks Matt, your thoughtfulness really means the world to me. Completely unnecessary but beyond appreciated!  I am so happy that your family and mine have crossed each others paths in life.

On top of the goodies, that I am trying to decide whether to share with family at the family Christmas dinner or just be selfish and save for Gene and I (oh, I'll probably share! They're all much to good to hoard for just us), there was a lovely cookbook ATaste of Ozark Mountain Christmas by Jan McCracken filled with recipes from her Branson Bed & Breakfast. Matt also mentioned in his note that he'd shared my blog addy with Jan and that she enjoys reading me.  After flipping through the book and her web site www.janmccracken.com listing all of her books and tales of her B&B, I can say it's a mutual admiration society--way to go, Jan!  I have to tell you that the first recipe I turned to was for eggnog fudge. My family members are not big chocolate fans so we're huge fans of non-chocolate fudges like peanut butter, maple, and opera but we ALL love eggnog so guess which recipe will be the first I try?  THANK  YOU!  I have a feeling that one is going to become an instant family tradition.

You know, the world is full of wonderful people. I am so blessed to have been befriended by so many of them in life.

Look For This: FishEx Alaska Seafoods for fantastic Paula Deen Crab Cakes Recipe

Kayla, from Fish Ex, sent down a pound of King Crab legs and a 12 oz reindeer sausage from Alaska today. Let me tell you, that's a fun Fed Ex package to receive. Even the driver was excited. "Is this really seafood from Alaska?"  "Yep."  "Wow, you're so cool!"  Well, good heavens, now I have to order more just so I can feel all cool and full of myself to the Fed Ex drivers! 

Shipped on dry ice, it arrives like it came from next door...and when they read this, I bet the Rileys will wish it had been delivered next door by mistake.

You know, I could go on and on about how nice the crab was and how fun the reindeer sausage tasted but let me just put it this way: It's 7:30pm and I've already made those crab cakes, ate those crab cakes, tasted that reindeer sausage, and placed another order with Fish Ex to be shipped in this Thursday for dry scallops, shrimp, King Crab bisque, and another sausage for the family Halloween party. 

Do I really need to say much more?  Well, you know me.  I will anyway.  After you've checked out the rest of my pics, the Paula Deen recipe I used for the crab cakes, plus my own recipe for Jalapeno Lemon Aioli to top it with, go check out their website for more of the particulars:  www.fishex.com 

As for the order I just placed, the dry scallops are particularly appealing to me because I have thought, for years, that I was a scallop idiot.  I love jumbo scallops in restaurants but each time I've tried my hand at them at home they've always turned out soggy and rubbery.  I thought it was me.  Show of hands--anybody else had that problem? 

It's not us.  It's the scallops. Apparently the restaurant grade scallops are "dry" and the ones sold in the groceries are "wet" with sodium tripolyphosphate (STP) which binds to the protein fibers making the scallops slimey but preserves them so they last days longer in the seafood counter.  Feels like a terrible joke played on the consumer, doesn't it? 

The scallops available through Fish Ex are dry, meaning no chemicals added.  You can read more about it on their web site and there is also a great article in this month's Cooking Illustrated about the difference and how to overcome the STP by brining them in salty lemon water to mask, not remove, the STP.  I'll order the dry, thank you, and avoid the whole chemical quandary.

Now back to the crab....

New Yogurt on My Block: Stonyfield Farms

 

Found a new product to look for: Stonyfield Farms yogurts and ice cream.  They generously sent me some coupons for free product and I've been going back for more since I've used those up and have been paying for the product myself. Stonyfield contains live bacterial cultures which is what got my attention from the start.  I've long been a big Activia fan because I have a cranky little digestive system and I've noticed that the Activia or acidopholus supplements help keep me under control.  Jamie Lee Curtis is not lying to you in those commercials; I'm living proof.

What made me switch lines is that Stonyfield comes in so many more products that I use, namely the small versions of fat free plain yogurt, that although I pictured a sweet smoothy in my pics, I use the plain fat free yogurt as a sour cream substitute even more frequently than I make smoothies. For example a couple of weeks ago I turned a pot roast into stroganoff and the yogurt lightens that heavy winter meal up by quite a bit. The Stonyfield worked well in that venue, staying nice and creamy without all the fat and heaviness of sour cream. When I do want the heavier texture, I love that Stonyfield makes Greek yogurt in smaller containers which I've had a hard time finding in Springfield MO and Activia doesn't make that I know of. The large containers are great but since we're a two person family, the larger containers put more pressure on us to use it up quickly once it's opened.  The smaller containers are greatly appreciated!

I've also found that both Gene and I like the soy yogurt as much as the regular milk yogurt. We don't even notice which one we're pulling out of the fridge especially after you top it with fruit and/or nuts.

I do have one little dish I'd love to try that I don't have the ingredients for yet but when I do...you'll see it. I got an email newsletter from someone I don't remember but the article was about kid-friendly breakfasts. Not that we're kids but in our hearts...you know.  The breakfast idea was a step up of yogurt and fruit called Banana Split Breakfast.  It was a healthy banana split with yogurt (I'll use Stonyfield's Greek yogurt) replacing the ice cream and then no sauces: yogurt, fruit, and nuts. It looked both delicious and good for you.

Next time you're buying yogurt, I'd really recommend giving Stonyfield a look-see.  At my grocery, they're in the organic section rather than the normal yogurt section.

 

FYI--New Search Widget for My Blog

Hi y'all,

Several people have dropped me emails looking for certain recipes of mine that they couldn't readily find. I hear that.  Even when you find the right category you might have wade through pages and pages of posts looking for that one recipe you remember in the back of your mind.  I've installed a search widget called "Ligit". I'm now "legit on ligit".  :-)  It doesn't specifically say it but the navy blue search box is for my blog content only so if you get stuck for a dinner recipe and want to check out how I make it...please help yourself to the search bar. 

Thanks to those of you who mentioned your frustration--I'm flattered and happy for the attention!

Absinthe: The Green Fairy

I went to a party Friday night where a friend brought a bottle of Absinthe. I've always wanted to try it, more from the romantic writers' & painters notion, than loving licorice flavor. I don't.  However, it was very good which says something since I'm not a  big licorice fan.

 

To serve, you pour a jigger and a half into a glass, place the spoon with a sugar cube over the glass and pour cold water over the top.  The color changes from darker clear green to milky white pale green and smells/tastes of, but not overpoweringly, of licorice.

Absinthe was particularly popular in the 1800's with writers and artists in France but was banned in Europe and the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century becuase it was thought to be highly addictive and psychoactive, which later proved to be myth. Personally, I think the absinthe "fans" should have been taken into account on that one.  Any food or beverage you feed to crazy people won't take the crazy away, it will just make the beverage take the blame.

Europe lifted the ban in 2005, followed by the U.S. in 2007.

For more info, check out Wikipedia.

Photo Diet Diary: Pretty Pineapple Parfait

 

Super easy to put together, you can go the easy route and buy Greek yogurt or you can be like me and go the hard route:  buy Activia yogurt and strain it to get the same thick, rich texture. It was a matter of convenience. I can buy Greek yogurt in Springfield now but I would have had to go to a different store to do it so the work of straining it won.  The photo left shows how: simply cover the bottom of a colander with a layer or two of paper towel, put the colander over an empty bowl, dump the yogurt in the lined colander, and throw the whole thing into the fridge overnight. Voila: thick yogurt.  

For the parfait, I simply layered the yogurt with fresh pineapple, walnuts, and a tbsp drizzle of Melissa's Raspberry Dessert Sauce.  A word of warning though. I was surprised after I bought the sauce and then read the ingredients. From Melissa's, a brand name I trust for good wholesome foods in the produce department, I expected at least regular sugar, but nope, the first ingredient was high fructose corn syrup. Damn!  Oh well. I'll be using that sparingly for a very long time. The flavor is great but I expected real sugar and less of it from that brand name. My mistake.  I didn't see the ingredients of the other flavors but there was also chocolate, white chocolate, and caramel sauce.  I admit, though, the bottle and storage is very convenient.

I had gotten up late so I had the parfait as a combination breakfast/lunch, and then snacked on a couple of dates and a few walnuts before going to dinner with Auntie Miranda and Ann.  There I had this tuna, spinach, apple, & walnut salad...

 

...I'm lying.  Aunti ate this beautiful salad. I, being a creamsaucecrackwhore, ordered this:

Not quite at all good for me but it was very yummy. The only thing I have to say in my defense is that I only ate half and I didn't take the other half home. Sometimes wasting the leftovers by NOT taking them home is the best favor you can do yourself.

The rest of my day's imbibing was one 12 oz Coke, 3 glasses of water, and 3 tall glasses of iced tea with lemon.

Oh. And the one martini I had in the bar while waiting for Aunti and Ann to arrive where I learned something from a young prospective employee who came in to fill out a bartender application to the restaurant. This is sage advice:  DO NOT write "chick magnet" under the "special skills" section of the application.  The potential boss doesn't find it nearly as engaging and amusing as you do. (geesh, what a dumbass. :-))