A month of skinnytaste

If I remember correctly, I first heard about the blog skinnytaste from my former coworker Brittany, a couple of years ago, although I didn't try any recipes from the the website at that time. I recently came across it again, and in need of kitchen inspiration - and with my trusty new/old iPhone in hand - I spent some time trolling the website and came up with a list of recipes to try out. We've been eating skinnytaste almost exclusively in the month of May; happily, we have had a number of hits and only a few near misses. Super excited to have a new bank of inspiration upon which to draw.

I'm only going to talk about the hits...


May 5th: Cheesy Jalapeño Popper Baked Stuffed Chicken and Fiesta Lime Rice

The title pretty much says it all. Create a stuffing of bacon, cream cheese, Cheddar cheese, jalapeño, and green onion, and roll it into flattened chicken breasts. Bread and bake. Cheesy, spicy, gooey goodness.

We ate this accompanied by Fiesta Lime Rice, a delicious and super healthy side dish of rice, beans, corn, tomatoes and green onions. Greg found it bland, but of course, I made his without cilantro, which added tonnes of flavour. His loss. I loved it. I doubled the corn in my version.

Mmm. I want to go make, and eat, this again right now.

On the left side of the plate are the cheesy bits that melted out of the chicken onto the pan. Mmm.
To the right of the plate is my current reading material.

May 7th: Spicy Black Bean Burgers with Chipotle Mayonnaise

Again, with the apt title. Need I say more? Yes. These are probably the best homemade bean burgers I have made to date. The recipe says it makes 4, but I was working with small buns, so I made 6 out of the mixture. I cooked 3: one each for me and Greg, one to split between O and S. I then froze the other 3, and happily ate them in later days as a quick, cook-from-frozen lunch (I found I had to cook them a little longer than suggested). Delicious every time. The burgers are a little spicy, and the mayo is spicier. I left the mayo off O's and S's, and although O said she didn't like the burger, she ate it, which makes me doubt her word. S ate hers; she loves beans.

The recipe calls for 1 jumbo egg; I used 2 large. If you decide to make these, read through all the instructions; there are some good tips there.

May 10th: Broccoli and Cheese Twice Baked Potatoes

Maybe not quite as good as bacon- and cheese-laden baked potatoes, but still good tasting and infinitely better for you. All your veggies in one spot.

May 12th: Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins

I left off the part of the title describing these as "insanely good." They were good, but I don't know if they were that good. We did, however, make short order of them in our house; they were gone in 2 days.

Olivia and I spent Mother's Day morning making these. We haven't done much baking together recently; it was good to do so again.

My girlies and my Mother's Day flowers:

Must Stop Using IPhone To Take Pictures

May 13th: Chicken and Orecchiette Soup

Delicious warm chicken soup after a couple of cold days. I found these fun-coloured carrots at the grocery store:

...but didn't realize the purple carrot would colour the soup an unappealing grey colour:

Luckily, the taste was good. I couldn't find the cavatelli pasta called for in the recipe, so instead bought orecchiette, which Olivia was excited about, because they stick to the tongue. She and Sadie both ate the soup right up.


Looking for cooking inspiration? Check out skinnytaste. More to come...

January 10th: Cheesy Rice Casserole

I first made this cheesy rice casserole on New Year’s Day for supper. We flew back from Nova Scotia on New Year’s Eve and our flight was delayed 6 hours, so that by the time we landed, all the grocery stores were closed. Having been gone for a week and having just come through Christmas prior to the trip, there was limited selection in the food department at our house. Pulling out all the resources I could think of, I picked up a few basics at Shopper’s Drug Mart, then  defrosted hamburger meat and cooked up tacos with a taco kit I had in the cupboard. We didn’t have lettuce and tomatoes to top the tacos, so I supplemented with celery fried with the meat and shredded carrots to go on top. Luckily we had cheese, and I had bought sour cream and salsa at Shopper’s, forgetting that taco kits include salsa. In any case, it wasn’t bad, all things considered.

I really really wanted to have fresh produce, but given it wasn’t a possibility, I decided to make this cheesy rice casserole to accompany the tacos. It’s a simple casserole where you throw cooked rice, whatever veggies you have on hand, and cheese into a baking dish; include a bit of broth to hold it together and bake. In my case, I used celery, onion and green onion, because that’s what I had. I used a combination of cheddar cheese and a strong hard cheese that didn’t melt, which we didn’t like. The result was so-so.

I decided to try it again this week, when I could play around a bit more with the ingredients. When I made mushroom fried rice on Sunday, I made a huge pot of rice, then put half of it in the fried rice and half in the fridge for this casserole. It was great getting home Tuesday night after work and Olivia’s haircut and knowing that the first part of the supper preparation was already done. For this week’s version, I used 1 cup of carrots (2 carrots), ½ cup each diced celery and onion (1 of each), 1 cup sliced green onions (3) and 2 cups packed baby spinach. Then I loaded on the mozzarella cheese – at least twice as much as the recipe called for. The result was, simply, awesome. I don't see any reason you couldn't throw some meat in there too, and call it a day.


[I didn't take a picture because I thought, oh, I already have a picture from the last time. Silly.]

While it baked away, I took two bone-in pork chops, sliced off and sliced up the meat, and left it to marinate in hoisin and sesame oil. Once the casserole was out, a quick broil of the meat on each side, with some sesame seeds sprinkled on top, and supper was complete. The pork was a variation on the Sesame Pork Bites I made last year, leaving out the green onions and toothpicks. With the casserole in the oven and the pork marinating, Olivia and I had time to snuggle on the couch and talk about babies in bellies, a hot topic at our house these days. A good night.

August 28th: Iranian rice & potatoes

We went to a wedding on the weekend, at which Iranian food was served for supper. It inspired me to do some research into an Iranian dish I had last fall that was fanatastic: rice & potatoes - basically a big pot of rice with potatoes at the bottom; the potatoes cook and get browned at the bottom of the pot. My version wasn't quite as good as I remembered having made for me by someone who is actually from Iran, but for a first effort, it was not bad. A little more practice, and I'll be ready for when Jian Ghomeshi inevitably comes knocking at my door. I can't wait forever, Jian.


http://www.food.com/recipe/iranian-rice-with-potato-crust-and-saffron-111813

Some of the other recipes I checked out said to put a tea towel
between the pot and the cover, and so I did.

I served this with Cajun shrimp.

January 30th: Ginger-lemon beef and broccoli

I have, for almost seven years, planned all my meals from one week to one month in advance. I usually have a rough sketch of the month done up, with vacancies that get filled in as we go along. Of course, recipes get shifted and occasionally dropped as we move through the month. My fancy planning tool is my milk calendar, of which I get two every year: one with the paper, and one with Chatelaine. On occasion, I try one of the recipes in the milk calendar, almost without fail resulting in disappointment. I don't know what it is, but those recipes tend to suck. Tonight, I got sucked in again; I thought the February 2011 recipe, Ginger-lemon beef and broccoli, looked tasty, so I made it. The result was less disappointing than some in the past, but not good enough to try again.


I made some mushroom fried rice to accompany. I know some of my readers aren't into mushrooms, but they are something we love love love and love (for all you BODYFLOW-ers). For the mushroom fried rice, I made some of my Knorr chicken broth-enhanced rice to begin with (half white rice, half brown--my concession to eating brown anything is to go halfsies). Then I fried up sliced mushrooms and diced onion in safflower oil and stirred in the hot, cooked, rice for a couple of minutes. On the side, I beat an egg, tempered it with some hot mushroom-rice mixture, then stirred it into the rice. Finally, I topped off the whole ensemble with a splash of sesame oil. The result was pretty tasty.

January 19th: Lemon chicken and feta

I was starving tonight, which does not make for the most objective opinion. This meal was so good, I kept eating past the point of being full because I wanted to keep eating it FOREVER. A retry from last year, now a keeper: from January 2010's Chatelaine: Lemon chicken and feta (and broccoli and almonds). I made rice on the side. Here's my insider secret to the best rice in the world: Knorr chicken broth powder. Yes, it has MSG. That's probably why it makes the rice taste so damn good. Sprinkle it liberally in the water while waiting for the pot to come to a boil. Also, I squeezed a tonne of lemon juice over my entire plate tonight. You may have noticed my obsession with lemon. A lemony meal makes Kirsten happy. One last note: I recommend doubling or tripling the amount of almonds called for. Then enjoy this awesome supper.

Hard to see the chicken and cheese in the sea of broccoli and almonds!

January 16th: Yemista

Yemista: Vegetables Stuffed with Onions, Beef and Rice. This meal is much like cabbage rolls, replacing the cabbage with peppers and tomatoes. The recipe was featured in the Ottawa Citizen in September 2010, and comes from a cookbook called Three Sisters Around the Greek Table. Delicious. A bit of work in the prep and long cooking time, but yummy, filling results.

Yemista

6 tomatoes
4 peppers
1 lb ground beef
2 yellow onions, minced
1 1/2 tsps salt
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 cup Arborio rice
1/2 cup fresh mint, chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
6 potatoes, peeled, cut lengthwise into 1 in pieces
1/2 tsp salt

Slice off the tops of the tomatoes to make lids. If possible, try not to cut the lids off completely. Remove the tough inner cores of the tomatoes. Scoop the soft flesh of the tomatoes and set flesh and juice aside in a bowl.

Make lids for the peppers and seed them. Place the hollowed vegetables in a large roasting pan with a fitted lid. The pan should be large enough to hold the vegetables securely with enough room for the potatoes.

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Sauté the ground beef in a large skillet over medium heat. Drain the fat if needed.

Add the onions, salt and oregano. Cook until the onions are soft, about 5 minutes.

Add the wine and cook until reduced by half. Add the reserved tomato flesh and juice and tomato sauce and heat through.

Add the rice and simmer for 15 minutes over low heat. Stir in the mint, half of the olive oil and some fresh cracked pepper.

Fill the tomatoes and peppers with the beef and rice mixture and place the lids on the vegetables.

Lightly salt the potatoes and place in the roasting pan around the stuffed vegetables.

Drizzle the remaining olive oil over top and place in the middle of the preheated oven, covered, for 50 minutes. Remove the lid and cook for 10 minutes further.

Remove the roasting pan from the oven and let is stand for 10 minutes before serving. Serve with feta cheese and sour cream.

Serves 6.

Putting lids on veggies.

Adding potatoes.

Finished product!

January 2nd: Roast beef dinner

Fear not! The vegetarian recipes for 2011 are coming. This week, though, I am heading out of town and need to leave my little family some leftovers to eat. We got in the habit of eating too much processed meat towards the end of 2010 and I'm scaling that way back now. Thus, cooking a roast to provide sandwich meat for the week. On the menu: Sirloin Roast, Caramelized Onion with Tender-Crisp Green Beans, and Parsley, Currant and Pine Nut Pilaf. This is a shortened version of the Classic Holiday Menu found in December 2010's Canadian Living. I made a few minor changes: sirloin roast in place of standing rib roast, and raisins in place of currants. My green beans were not the best, but that's what you get for buying so-called fresh green beans in January. One change to the recipe that I would make: no need to add salt to the beef gravy; I did and found it too salty. Olivia must have liked it though; she ate all the meat off her plate before touching the rest of the food; this NEVER happens. Greg swore this was the best meal he'd had in ages, and I loved it too. The rice was surprisingly delicious. All will be tried again!