Supper Salad: Roasted Sweet Potato and Orange Salad

This salad combines so many flavors that I love, and includes ingredients that provide a lot of nutrients. The recipe makes a lot, too! My husband and I have been eating this one all week. (I have all of the pieces refrigerated separately and toss together individual servings for us each night.)

If you're looking for a filling, yet light, entrée salad, this one will do the trick (perfect for a warm summer night!). I roasted the onions along with the sweet potatoes, and recommend doing the same if you can't handle a lot of raw onions. Roasting brings out the sweetness of the onions and also flavors them with rosemary and garlic.

Roasted Sweet Potato and Orange Salad
(From Cooking Light, December, 2005)
Ingredients
Salad:
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, unpeeled and crushed
1 1/2 pounds peeled sweet potato, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
3 cups orange sections (about 6 oranges)
1/2 cup vertically sliced red onion
3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
1 (6-ounce) bag prewashed baby spinach

Dressing:
3 tablespoons fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon stone-ground mustard
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 garlic clove, minced

Preparation
Preheat oven to 400°F.

To prepare salad, combine first 4 ingredients (Kate also roasted the onions), tossing well. Place potato mixture on a jelly-roll pan lined with parchment paper. Bake at 400°F for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from oven; cool. Discard garlic. Combine potato mixture, orange sections, onion, pine nuts, and spinach in a large bowl.

To prepare dressing, combine orange juice and remaining ingredients in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Drizzle dressing over salad; toss gently to coat.

Back in the Saddle Again: Smoked Gouda Macaroni and Cheese

I know that I have been MIA lately. To provide full disclosure on the subject: I have honestly been much more interested in ordering pizza and watching the Olympics than lighting a fire in the kitchen. I am no avid sports fan, much to my husband’s dismay. However, I love the Olympics, particularly the Winter Olympics. When I was younger I used to dance around my parents’ house pretending to be a figure skater. In fact I did it in my own house just the other night as I was demonstrating to my husband the intricacies in identifying different skating jumps. Anyone want to see a single loop jump done on carpet?

While Sundays are typically my marathon cooking days, I awoke early today and had a jam-packed day including an excellent Pilates class, an airport run, and a delicious dinner at my parents’ house. I still managed to squeak in one recipe to make some food for a dinner or two this week.

My sister first introduced me to this recipe over a year ago. She started making this for her son when he first began eating whole foods. She made it with regular gouda cheese (instead of smoked), but she sold it on me either way. This is a mac ‘n’ cheese that you can feel good about. For the record, Cooking Light states that it has 399 calories per 1 ¼ cup serving size. It is packed full of spinach and the cream sauce is made with fat-free milk. Although the recipe calls for regular macaroni pasta, I use multigrain pasta, such as Barilla Plus. The cheese adds smoky flavor to this vegetarian dish. I use breadcrumbs sparingly in this dish, and I think that they could be omitted altogether.

Smoked Gouda Macaroni and Cheese
(From Cooking Light, March 2003)
Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter
¼ cup thinly sliced green onions
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups fat-free milk
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ cup (2 ounces) shredded smoked Gouda cheese
1/3 cup (about 1 ½ ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
5 cups coarsely chopped fresh spinach
4 cups hot cooked elbow macaroni (about 2 cups uncooked)
Cooking spray

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Place bread in a food processor, and pulse 10 times or until coarse crumbs measure ½ cup.

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and garlic; cook 1 minute. Add flour; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Gradually add milk, salt, and pepper, stirring constantly with a whisk until blended. Bring to a boil; cook until thick (about 2 minutes). Add cheeses; stir until melted. Add spinach and macaroni to cheese sauce, stirring until well blended.

Spoon mixture into a 2-quart baking dish coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes or until bubbly.

Sister's Spinach Dip: Spinach and Artichoke Dip

Happy New Year! I hope that you had an exciting New Year’s Eve, and a peaceful start to your new year. I am excited to see what 2010 will bring!

New Year’s Eve is a holiday that I have mixed feelings about. It holds a special place in my heart, as my husband proposed to me on New Year’s Eve eight years ago. Some years I feel like getting dressing up in a little black dress and attending (or hosting) a fabulous party, while other years I prefer sitting on my couch in my pajamas. This year we found a happy medium.

My sister hosted us and another couple (who are such good friends we consider them to be family) at her house. We set out a couple appetizers and played with her young kids. After we put them to bed, we dined on a lovely meal (she made surf ‘n’ turf with beef tenderloin and shrimp) followed by chocolate fondu. We wore comfy clothes and lounged around until the ball dropped.

The day before New Year’s Eve, my sister and I divided up a list of grocery items. She would be visiting a specialty grocery store to purchase the meat, seafood, and wine, while I was planning to go to a basic grocery store for everyday items. My sister was planning on making her go-to spinach dip, but as it was necessary for me to pick up practically all of her ingredients during my grocery run, she suggested that I just make it instead.

Spinach dip seams to be a well-loved appetizer in whatever form it may come in. I have many good memories with high school friends picking up a pre-made container from the grocery deli section and eating it with a loaf of Hawaiian bread. My sister’s version is from Cooking Light and is best when served bubbling hot with tortilla chips.

Spinach and Artichoke Dip
(Adapted from Cooking Light, September, 2007)
Ingredients
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
½ cup fat-free sour cream
¼ cup (1 ounce) grated fresh Parmesan cheese, divided
¼ teaspoon black pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 (14-ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1 (8-ounce) block 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
1 (8-ounce) block fat-free cream cheese, softened
1 (12-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
1 (13.5-ounce) package baked tortilla chips (about 16 cups)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350° F.

Combine 1 ½ cups mozzarella, sour cream, 2 tablespoons Parmesan, and next 6 ingredients (through spinach) in a large bowl; stir until well blended. Spoon mixture into a 1 ½-quart baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining ½ cup mozzarella and remaining 2 tablespoons Parmesan.

Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until bubbly and golden brown. Serve with tortilla chips.

Gourmet at Home: Scallop Piccata with Sautéed Spinach

What a weekend! After a long and grueling week at work, my husband and I met some dear friends for dinner on Friday night, and met their sweet little baby girl. She is a perfect little baby and slept through the whole meal! I was able to keep my own eyes open long enough to give her some hugs and kisses. It was such an uplifting end to a dismal week. On Saturday we moved my widowed, elderly mother-in-law out of her house and into an apartment. By the time my husband and I arrived home we had eaten some take-out pizza and barely finished a beer and glass of wine, respectively, before we crashed on the couch.

Today I was able to get in a few errands, a nap on the couch, and I still put together a dinner that I had been wanting to make for several weeks. I had a bag of scallops in my freezer, brown rice in my pantry, and was just waiting for the right time to try a new recipe I had seen in a recent edition of Cooking Light. I was able to test it tonight, and notwithstanding out preoccupied weekend, we were able to relish a gourmet meal at home to cap off the expeditious weekend.

This recipe makes a full meal (protein, vegetable, starch), and you can cook it all in one pan. It calls for vermicelli or brown rice as a side dish, and I opted to use a bag of precooked brown rice that I purchased at Trader Joe's, and is ready after 60 seconds in the microwave. The Vermouth is very pronounced in the sauce, with a hint of lemon. This dinner is quite healthy (particularly if you’re using brown rice instead of pasta). The trick to getting a good sear on your scallops is to dry them off first with a paper towel, have a very hot pan, and to leave them and walk away (fiddling with them in the pan is going to ruin your sear). I repeat: leave them and walk away for 2 minutes!!

While we were eating this for dinner, my husband and I were saying that it seemed like a meal we’d not only order in a restaurant, but one that we’d be talking about for the rest of the night, and that we’d go back to that restaurant for again and again. Lucky for us we only need one pan and a Sunday night to enjoy it again and again.

Scallop Piccata with Sautéed Spinach
(From Cooking Light, November 2009)

Serve on a bed of angel hair pasta, linguine, or brown rice, if desired.

Ingredients
* 1 1/2 pounds sea scallops (about 12)
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 5 teaspoons canola oil, divided
* 1 garlic clove, chopped
* 1/2 cup vermouth
* 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
* 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 4 teaspoons capers
* 1 (10-ounce) package fresh baby spinach

Directions
Heat a large cast-iron skillet over high heat. Pat scallops dry with paper towels. Sprinkle salt and freshly ground pepper over scallops. Add 1 tablespoon canola oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add scallops; cook 2 minutes on each side or until browned and done. Remove from pan; keep warm.

Reduce heat to medium. Add chopped garlic to pan; cook 10 seconds. Add vermouth, scraping pan to loosen browned bits; cook 2 minutes or until liquid is reduced by half. Remove from heat. Add parsley, fresh lemon juice, butter, and capers, stirring until butter melts. Pour sauce in a bowl.

Heat remaining 2 teaspoons oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add spinach; sauté 30 seconds or until spinach almost wilts. Drizzle sauce over scallops; serve with spinach.