My favorite salad right now

This dish is so quick and easy, I've made it two nights in a row this week and have no plans of stopping.  I think anyone knows how unbelievably healthy spinach is for you. Basically this vegetable can do no wrong. It's tasty raw, great cooked, and is one of the most common vegetables available at the market. Do note that it's one of the Dirty Dozen so buy organic spinach if possible. There are several different types, most common is baby spinach, especially for salads. Curly leaf spinach is popular to cook with, but not great in salads. As far as vitamins go, spinach has it all: Vitamin K, C, A, B12 and B6. Its got calcium, potassium, magenese, and folate. You can click on the link above to get more info, but spinach is always a good choice nutritionally speaking.

This dish was one I discovered on my birthday at an AWESOME tapas restaurant in town, called Curate. It has a lot of traditional spanish dishes, and we did our best to try them all. I will likely be blogging several spanish recipes soon because I can't stop thinking about that delicious meal.
What appealed to me about this salad was how quick you can prepare it, and how the sweetness of the fruit helps balance the overpowering flavor of cooked spinach. As I've stated I have a hard time eating cooked leafy greens, such as kale, spinach and collards, but this dish slid down my gullet like butter. This is a great way to use a ton of spinach, especially if it's close to going bad. So make this as soon as you can, it may become your new favorite salad too!

Spinach, Catalan-Style

Not the best picture, but trust me this Salad is AMAZING. 

In the picture above I slightly overcooked the spinach, so be VERY careful when cooking your spinach. It really only takes 1-2 minutes to wilt, and do not stop stirring once the spinach it added. Be sure ALL your ingredients are prepped and ready because once you start the dish it only takes about 5 minutes to cook. The key to getting this salad right is timing, so move quickly. Seconds make a different in this salad. 
The Goods: Serves 3-4 as a side dish
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 golden delicious apple, peeled, cored and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup golden raisins
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt, more to taste
10 ounces baby spinach

The Deal: 
1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add garlic and saute. Once oil is very hot, add apples and cook until lightly browned, 1-2 minutes. Add pine nuts and cook until browned, 20-30 seconds. Stir constantly during this process to prevent burning. Add the raisins and salt and combine ingredients throughly. Immediately add the spinach, mix and saute quickly until it starts to wilt, 1-2 minutes tops. The spinach will continue to wilt off heat, so take it off heat JUST as it begins to wilt. Taste and add salt if needed. Serve immediately.

Goat Cheese with Garlic and Chives and Spinach Pesto

Does anything NOT go with goat cheese

Last minute dishes stress me out. Try as I may to be cool as the healthy cucumber, I still get my apron in a knot when I need to prepare something on the fly for a large group.

Healthy boyfriend had a housewarming party and I only had an hour to shop and prepare a dish for an unknown number of people. The converstaion went something like:
Healthy Boyfriend(HB): Yeah, so people are coming over around 7:30
Me: Ok, how many people?
HB: Ummmm, yeah no idea. Some, maybe...Maybe a lot.
Me: What kinda food are people bringing?
HB: The kind you eat. I dont know, food.
After that I got off the phone because I knew I was cooking blind. Healthy boyfriend rarely cares about the details of his food, his attention for detail stops at the nutritional information.

So while often no guidelines can be exciting for creativity, I like knowing a LITTLE about the type of food I am suppose to bring. At the same time, food is about showing your love and you can't do that if you let the stress eat at you, pun INtended. Perhaps silly, but for me potlucks provide the opportunity spread some love in the world. A chance to give a best friend or a total stranger a moment of bliss.

So I let my brain kick around things that I love eating no matter what, and of course dishes that could be prepared in 20 minutes or less. I had to have time to shop and since I spend my days running around, I needed to at least have a few minutes to change out of my gross clothes.

I did not want to make something that was expensive or complicated because if no one came to the party, I would be grumpy about it. Never set yourself up for disappointment, an important lesson in cooking. Oh yeah, and life too.

 I wanted something that I could reuse, in case there was leftovers. I hate hate HATE throwing away food. Of course it happens, but it shouldn't. Food may not be as precious as air to many of us, but the vast majority of people in this world will never know a full belly, and to waste food seems cruel and ungrateful. Maybe thats dramatic, but I feel its part of the gratitude we should all feel for the food that is so readily available to many of us.

So all this pondering lead me to my two dishes. I will post them both, but I did not get a picture of the pesto, I was in a rush as I said, so totally forgot. The pesto I have already done, though this time I added arugula, because I had some on hand, and it was a real treat. The arugula added a nice peppery spice to the overall flavors of the dish.

Fresh and simple ingredients

The goat cheese could not have been easier or more delicious. Then I used whole wheat pita triangles, lightly toasted, for my dippers. I wish I got a picture of my two dishes together, because they were soooooo cute! I even wrote what they were on masking tape and placed the tape in front of the bowls so people knew what they were. These days I lean on the adventure side of eating, but for many years if I didn't know it, I didn't eat it. Its a good idea to find a neat, cute way to label your food if you are having a potluck. Now I was mocked a bit, being one of the only people that made something for the party and definitely the only one who labeled it, but I took any mocking as a compliment. I bring class where I go, jealously is bound to follow. :)

Fyi, when I list chives I mean the herb and not green onions or scallions. I used to confuse the two, but chives is a herb, scallions are a type onion. You could also use dill or basil, if you have fresh herbs, use them. I had some sesame seeds so I threw them in, get creative!

Goat Cheese with Garlic and Chives and Spinach Pesto

Looks boring, tastes DELICIOUS!!

The Goods:

Goat Cheese Dip: makes about 2 cups
2-3 large cloves of garlic, pressed or minced
1 10. 5 ounce tube of goat cheese, softened
1/3 cup fresh chives, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon sesame seeds(optional)

Spinach Arugula Pesto(not pictured): makes 3 cups
1 1/2 cups fresh spinach
1/2 cup fresh Arugula
1 cup basil
3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste


6 whole wheat pita pockets, cut into triangles; Each pita pocket cut into 12ths


The Deal: 
1. First make your goat cheese. If your goat cheese is not softened, place it in the microwave for about 10 seconds, just enough to barely soften it. Add garlic, chives and sesame seeds and mix until combined. Place in refrigerator and let sit for as long as you have. 
2. Then make your pesto. Place pine nuts, garlic, spinach, arugula, and basil in a food processor until it forms a rough paste. With the food processor running, slowly drizzle the olive oil until it forms a smooth paste. Place pesto in a bowl and stir in parmesan and lemon juice. Add salt and pepper to taste. 
3. At the party, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly warm your pita triangles right before serving the dips. A light toast makes a noticeable difference.
Be ready to recieve praise. Grab a pita and dip into yo dip!!

Pita Sandwich with Spinach, Hummus, Carrots, and Sprouts

Finding a fun healthy lunch every week is a real struggle for me. Not only does it need to transport easy, but it needs to have simple assembly, be nutrutious, and most importantly I need to WANT to eat it.

Salads are great, but I get bored with them easily. Though my love for salads has grown over the years, they are just not what I crave. Healthy boyfriend on the other hand makes the best salads on the planet. He has little patience in the kitchen and often does not care too much about presentation, but all that changes when he is making a salad. Watching him dart around the kitchen, looking for nuts, berries, seeds, anything and everything he can put on his salad to make it healthy, is a sight to see. He arranges them as if he is serving it to a guest, playing with color and design, always making sure the salad looks fit for a king. Its painfully adorable. Oh how I wish I had this trait!
I on the other hand will slave away cooking cookies or casseroles for hours, but when it comes to salad I cannot muster any patience. I use to call salads rabbit food, which in my head I think it still is. Salad is what I have to eat, so I can eat what I REALLY want, pizza, bagels, or simply bread and cheese.
Reflecting on this, I got the idea to put my salad in a pita pocket. Not a food revolution by any means, but I was excited by the idea of it. I literally said, "AHA!" outloud, it was a nice moment.  I was delighted to see that a pack of whole wheat pita bread was only $1.50! Also the ingredient list was shorter than most whole wheat breads, which means less chemicals and junk in my body. Im telling yall, pita bread is my new favorite bread. I use half of one whole pita, which only adds about 75 calories to my meal, but also adds fiber, and good carbs to keeps me fuller longer.

What I did is prepare enough ingredients for a large salad, and put about half the salad in the pita pocket and then eat the other half of the salad as a side dish. I plan to try several variations on this idea, so the vegetables below are a guide, but as I often say, use what you like and know you will eat. Of course be careful not to get stuck eating the same 5 vegetables every week. When you find a vegetable you love, high fives all around, but never forget variation is the spice of life, and nutritionally speaking variation is essential to whole body health.

These ingredients went marviously together, and I really enjoyed having the tangy flavor of the goddess dressing with the earthy flavor of the hummus. Im on a goddess dressing kick, but any healthy, preferably organic, dressing will do.

Hope yall enjoy my Pita sandwich/salad!

Pita Sandwich with Spinach, Hummus, Carrots, and Sprouts

a bit messy, but it makes up for it in flavor!

The Goods: Serves two

1 whole wheat pita pocket, cut in half
1 scallion, thinly sliced
5 cups of baby spinach
1 large carrot, shaved and thinly sliced
1 cup of sprouts(broccoli, alfalfa, etc)
2 tablespoons sunflower seeds, raw
2 tablespoons hummus, plain or garlic
1/2-1 tablespoon Annies Goddess Dressing


The Deal: 
1. Place sprouts, scallions, carrots, sunflower seeds and spinach in a large bowl and toss with Goddess Dressing, making sure dressing is evenly distributed.

2. With a knife spread 1 tablespoon of hummus in each pita pocket, spreading evenly.

3. Fill each pita pocket with half of the spinach mixture, and place any additonal spinach salad on the side to enjoy as a salad.

Crispy Gnocchi with Spinach Pesto

Saturday night and its time to get my COOKIN on. Been a while since I posted a new recipe, been busy as a bee, but I have a delicious recipe that I hope yall will love.
First I LOVE pesto. Fresh pesto is SO easy to make and is just incredible. I recently discovered spinach pesto which Im crazy about. Its better for you, but you dont have to sacrifice flavor. In fact traditional pestos are all basil, but I used mostly spinach and I think it tasted great and basil was still the predominate flavor.

I really enjoyed the crunch of the toasted gnocchi, while my boyfriend missed the softness of a traditional gnocchi. I would say try toasting it, if you desire a change, but the standard boiling of gnocchi is quicker and delicious.

Note: A quick way to freshly grate parmesan cheese. Cut it into pieces and place in a food processor. Pulse until grated, less than a minute:

Note: Toasting pine nuts is easy and much better than buying them already toasted. Simply place in a dry skillet over medium heat. Shake the skillet frequently to ensure even browning—the pine nuts are small  and will burn quickly if you don't watch them carefully. When the nuts are fragrant and browned, take the pan off the heat. Transfer the pine nuts to a plate to cool. 


Toasted Gnocchi with Spinach Pesto






The Goods: makes 1 cup of pesto, enough for 2 servings
1 package plain gnocchi
1 1/2 cups fresh spinach
1/2 cup basil
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted(see note)
2 small garlic cloves, chopped
1/3 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese(see note)
dash of freshly squeezed lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste







The Deal: 

1.This is an optional step. If you dont want your gnocchi toasted, just follow the instructions on the package to cook your gnocchi. If you want to toast it, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the gnocchi in a single layer and toss to coat with the oil. Let them cook until they are golden brown on the bottoms and then use a metal spatula to flip the gnocchi. Cook until they are golden all over. Salt, transfer to a plate and set aside.


2. While gnocchi is cooking, place pine nuts, garlic, basil, and spinach in food processor with fitted steel blade. Blend until a rough paste forms. Then begin to drizzle olive oil while continuing to blend ingredients. Blend until forms a smooth paste(picture at top of blog).


3. Place pesto in a bowl and stir in parmesan cheese, lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. 


4. Once you gnocchi is ready, place in a bowl and scoop pesto on top. Now get ready to eat your greens and love every minute!


The toasted gnocchi is based on a recipe from 101 cookbooks website. The pesto is from a few different books, such as the 3 ingredient cookbook.

Egg Salad Sandwich

Its the incredible, edible, Egg Salad Sandwich! This weekend while looking in the fridge I noticed I had a lot of eggs and needed to use them.

They are very good for you in moderation. I wouldn't recommend eating them every day, unless you are very active. I always think of Gaston in "Beauty in the Beast" eating all those eggs and singing. If you look like Gaston, then you can eat lots of eggs. :) They are famous because they have lots of protein for their size.

Egg Salad was something I didn't like until I had a REALLY good one. Egg Salad and Tuna Salad are similar in the sense that they can be ruined very easily. So often they are weighed down with mayonnaise and whipped too smooth. A good egg salad should be nice and chunky and have enough mayo to hold it together, but mayo shouldn't be the predominate flavor.

The most important thing is making sure you dont OVER boil the egg. You have to boil the egg enough that the center sets, but you still want it creamy. Timing the cooking of the eggs is very important. Also you MUST toast your bread. If you dont, the egg salad makes the bread mushy, and its yuck-o.

There are many ingredients you can add to egg salad, I like chives and capers. Other options are celery, onion, dill, and mustard. When I have an egg salad thats particularly tasty I always try to get the recipe. Knowing the slight variations is great so you can mix it up for yourself and those you feed.


Splish, Splash, Eggs takin a ice bath:

Note: I read that the fresher the egg the harder it is to get the shell off. I happen to have some eggs from the store(white) and some from a local farm(brown). I did find the fresher local eggs where much harder to peel than the store bought kind. All that goes to say is older eggs are great for this dish!

Egg Salad Sandwich

The Goods: Makes 2 cups, or four sandwiches

6 Large Eggs

1/4 Mayo, add more or less depending on your preference

1/2 bunch of chives, chopped (about 1/4 cup)

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1-2 tablespoons capers (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Whole Wheat Bread, toasted

Baby Spinach(optional)

The Deal:

1. Place the eggs in a pot and cover with cold water by a 1/2-inch or so. Bring to a gentle boil. Now remove from heat, cover, and let sit for exactly seven minutes. Have a big bowl of ice water ready and when the eggs are done cooking, gently place them in the ice bath for three minutes or so - long enough to stop the cooking.

2. Crack and peel each egg, and place in a medium mixing bowl. Add the mayonnaise, and a couple generous pinches of salt and pepper. Mash the eggs with a fork. Be careful here, you want the egg mixture to have some texture, think chunky. If you want to add a bit more mayo to moisten up the mixture a bit, add it slowly.

3. Add chives, capers, lemon juice, and more salt and pepper to taste. Stir just enough to mix. 

4. Place egg salad on toast with spinach(or lettuce) and enjoy!

This recipe is based on a few recipes, but predominately from the egg salad from 101 cookbooks website. Im becoming more and more obsessed with this website by the day.

Spinach Salad with Toasted Walnuts

Ever eaten a walnut and thought, MY GOODNESS that is a toasty nut! Well this week I am eating salads again, with spinach and strawberries per usual, but I am also using walnuts this week. I discovered when you toast walnuts, and most nuts, they taste SOOO much better and are not any less healthy for you. Nut score!

The trick with toasting nuts is NOT TO FORGET them. Nuts can go from toasty to burned in minutes. This is not the kind of thing you should throw in the oven and forget about. Find something in the kitchen to do while they are toasting, because while a toasted nut gives you have a happy face, a burned nut is all frowney face.

Spinach Salad with Toasted Walnuts

Serves 1, increases as needed

Ingredients: 

2-3 cups baby spinach, washed 

2-3 medium strawberries, chopped

1/4 cup walnuts, toasted(See below)

1 carrot, peeled and thinly sliced

1-2 tablespoons Annies Balsamic Vinegrette(Be VERY careful with dressings, they can make a salad bad for you with just a flick of the wrist)

Directions: 

Place all ingredients in a bowl, putting the dressing on last. Toss and enjoy! 

I usually have a whole wheat english muffin or slice of toast with a salad, just to make sure Im getting some fiber.

Toasting Walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place walnuts on a baking sheet and bake 5-10 minutes. Cooking time may vary, I find a layer of nuts covering a baking sheet takes about 6 minutes, but I ere on the side of caution. They wont look any different, unless they are burned, I often taste mine to see if they are ready. The taste, well nuttier. You'll see!

Bagel Sammich!

I struggle a lot with healthy lunches. Something portable, delicious, and healthy. I have been known to eat 3 packs of fruit snacks and a bag of chips for lunch. Yikes! I always pay for my bad lunch choices, because by days end Im exhausted, hungry, and grumpy. And then that turns into not wanting to make a healthy dinner because Im so "tired" (really Im just hungry), so I end up eating 6 slices of facon and some goldfish. I go to bed feeling awful and the cycle continues.

So I have started planning my meals for the week, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Its more work at the beginning of the week, but having my meals planned saves me stress throughout the week, and I make sure to get the nutrients I need. My challenge now that I have been planning is that after I eat something for a week, I get sick of it and have to try something new.

Salads are great, but I usually need to take a break from them after a few weeks. So this week Im trying something new, a bagel sandwich. Im using vegis I like, but this is really flexible, so use the vegis you have or look nice in the grocery store:

Healthy bagel sandwich

Ingredients: 1 serving, increase as needed

1 whole wheat bagel(ALWAYS check the bagel label and make sure 1st ingredient is WHOLE WHEAT FLOWER)

A "smear" of homemade scallion cream cheese(recipe to follow)

2-4 slices of red onion

Handful of baby spinach

12-15 Capers(if you like them,  since Im a salt-aholic, these are my guilty pleasure)

Carrots, shredded

1 slice of tomato

Any other vegis you like

HOMEMADE SCALLION CREAM CHEESE:

Making your own flavored cream cheese is super easy, and healthier because you dont get all the added chemicals most flavored cream cheese have. This should keep for 3-5 days, depending on your storage container.

8 ounces low fat or fat free cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup chopped scallions(2-3 scallions)

1 tbsp milk

pinch of salt then salt to taste.

Place cream cheese, scallions, milk, and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade and process until smooth.