Saturday, January 23, 2010

Today's Special: 30 Minutes or Less

Sunday: Baked Trout with Basil Pesto Pasta- Place whole trout in a baking dish (or wrap in tin foil) and bake for 20 min. per inch of thickness in a 400 deg. oven. Season with salt and pepper and lemon juice if desired. I just used up the leftover pesto sauce from last week's pizza for the pasta. Nothing fancy.




Monday: Grilled Steak Salad with Caper Vinaigrette-New Recipe. This turned out really good. I was worried about being hungry after eating just a salad but the serving size was huge and still had a lower calorie count than anything I've made for a while. I completely forgot to put watercress on my shopping list, but luckily I'd bought a tub of mixed salad greens, so I just used those. This tasted great as leftovers too, especially because I didn't mix the steak/tomato/veggie mixture with the salad greens until ready to eat (so the lettuce didn't wilt). I have to admit it was tough to slice up Seth's perfectly grilled steak and put it in a salad. We really had to restrain ourselves from eating the whole thing plain.




Tuesday: Brothy Chinese Noodles-New Recipe. This was a really fast and easy recipe. If you have never used fresh ginger and/or sesame oil you are missing out. Whenever I smell sesame oil I just want to drink it. This recipe called for bok choy and ground turkey, both of which I've never used before, so it was fun to try some new ingredients. You may have to add additional liquid to this (I just used water) to make it more "brothy," my noodles kept soaking it all up.




Wednesday: Leftovers (For the record, microwaved trout isn't that great. Always remember "fresh is best.")

Thursday: Vegetarian Reubens with Russian Dressing-This recipe is a repeat. I've made it once before and was surprised at how good it was. The recipe desciption said something about it being "so good you won't miss the corned beef" and I was like, yeah right. But, it was true! Seth was raving again tonight about how much he liked it and requested seconds!




Friday: Broccoli, Cannellini Bean and Cheddar Soup-New Recipe. This was yet another fast & easy recipe. Sadly the new pitcher I'd ordered for my out-of-commission blender hasn't arrived yet, so I had to blend this up in the food processor, which worked, but probably not as well as the blender. I thought this tasted like a fresh mild broccoli cheese soup. The recipe says it makes 6 servings. I think 4 small servings is more like it, and 2 if it's the main dish. Seth and I had no problem polishing this off in one sitting. Very good and a great healthy alternative to regular broccoli cheese soup.



Bonus: Fresh Berry Gratin- New Recipe. So after we ate the Broccoli soup I had a hankering for something sweet. We didn't really have much around in the way of desserts, so I decided to make this! I used frozen mixed berries and I thought they worked just fine. This whole dessert took less than a half hour to make and that includes the 15-20 minute bake time. I was a little skeptical of this but was very pleasantly surprised. My new favorite fast dessert.


6 comments:

heidi said...

MAN, KAREN! This post makes me want to spend the whole day in the kitchen, cookin'! (And, as you know with me, that's REALLY saying something!) Seriously--I just ate, and all I'm thinking is FOOD FOOD FOOD. Not just to eat but to prep and look at, too. (You know there's people who don't much like to eat? I saw Barry Manilow on one of the last of Conan's shows and he FORGETS to eat! Amazing. I guess it'd be good for dieting... but just sounds sad to me. Even worse than not liking to read.)

Karen said...

Ha! I don't ever forget to eat. I like food way too much! Seth was like Barry Manilow back in the day... always forgetting to eat and/or not eating much. He just didn't know he liked food until he started eat the good stuff! Sounds like old Barry needs a new chef :D

Holly said...

You and Seth eat such a variety of foods! I'm jealous - it's hard finding things both Mitch and I will enjoy. Perhpas there is a way I could sneak mushrooms, beans, etc. into the meals so he doesn't notice. :)

By the way, your food pictures are looking fabulous!

Karen said...

Thanks! Yeah, I'm pretty lucky. Seth will eat just about anything I put in front of him. Unless it's a small live animal.

heidi said...

I think Barry DOES need a new chef! Just think all the moolah you could make as a Personal Chef to the Stars. Anybody famous live in SLC?

Hey, I forgot to ask about the Brothy Chinese Noodles, which intrigue me. What ARE "chinese noodles"? (There are multiple kinds, right? When I've eaten Chinese I've noticed different-sized noodles. And they're made from different flours, right? I've had rice noodles in Asian food, and, my dad's always talking about how good these one particular Japanese Buckwheat noodles that he cooks with are. Anyway, what did YOU use and how did you know which "chinese noodle" would be gooderest?)

Inquiring minds want to know. :) H.J.

Karen said...

Heidi, I thought "Chinese noodles" was a little vague myself, so I just used some "stir-fry noodles." Wasn't much else on the package than that. I'm sure you could use whatever noodles you wanted to. In fact, if I ever make that again, I'll probably try some different ones.