Chopped Vegetable Salad

2 cups chopped cucumber
2 cups mixed bell peppers, chopped
1 cup chopped red onion
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
Meyer lemon sea salt (to taste)
Freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl.

*(The recipe for the Chicken Shawarma is from this month’s issue of Cooking Light, and is quite delicious!)

Chicken Tequila Fettuccine — This is a lightened version of a popular pasta dish at California Pizza Kitchen.

Fettuccine with Alfredo Sauce

1 pound uncooked fettuccine
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/4 cups half-and-half
3/4 cup (3 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Italian parsley, chopped (optional)

Cook the pasta, drain and keep hot. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the half-and-half, Parmesan, salt and pepper. Cook until hot, about 1 minute, stirring constantly.

With a pair of tongs, dip the hot pasta into the sauce in batches just until lightly coated. Place in a serving bowl, top with chopped parsley.

Serves 6.

Nutrition (per 1 1/2 cup serving): 427 cal, 15g fat, 17g protein, 57g carb, 2g fiber

Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad with Roasted Peppers and Tomatoes

Ingredients
3 cups cooked (6 oz. uncooked) whole grain or brown rice pasta
2 cups shredded roasted chicken, skin removed (We bought a small lemon-pepper rotisserie chicken from Trader Joe’s for this and it was perfect.)
1/3 cup light Caesar dressing (store-bought or make your own)
4 oz feta cheese, crumbled
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
2 cups torn romaine lettuce
1 cup arugula
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 cup roasted tomatoes and red peppers (recipe below)

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss to coat.

Serves 4.
Serving size: 2 cups
Nutrition Info: 265 cal, 6g fat, 37g carb, 16g protein

Roasted Peppers and Tomatoes

Ingredients
2-3 red, green, orange or yellow bell peppers or combination of–cleaned, seeded & sliced
2-3 plum or roma tomatoes–sliced
2 TBSP. olive oil (the good stuff)
1/2 tsp. salt
Crushed red pepper (as desired)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place sliced peppers and tomatoes in shallow baking dish. Sprinkle olive oil and salt over the vegetables and mix well. Bake for approximately 30-40 minutes. Serve in pasta, salads or as an accompaniment to beef and pork. If serving as side dish sprinkle with crushed red pepper to taste.

In that spirit, here are a few of the more interesting posts we did during the last series of bootcamps — including a lot of discussion on how to successfully be a foodie and still look good in your favorite jeans:

* Countdown to Summer — The first bootcamp post of 2007
* “Don’t eat that. It’ll spoil your supper.” — Menus and strategies for dealing with the long dark teatime between getting home from work and actually putting dinner on the table.
* “She is crying out for a makeover.” — Your favorite resturant and home-cooked classics, transformed.
* A world without cookies — No one wants to live in one

Most of the bootcamp-worthy posts can be found under the tag “Healthy Stuff” (The creation of that tag last year caused my co-bloggers to retaliate by creating a category for “Unhealthy Stuff,” for those of us who like the occasional cocktail, cigar or handful of Bacon Salt.)

(A beer oriented approach to google maps, via Metafilter)

Fried Brown Rice with Teriyaki Tofu and Vegetables

1 package of Trader Joe’s Organic Baked Tofu (Teriyaki flavor)
1 package of Trader Joe’s Fried Brown Rice with Mushrooms and Vegetables
2 cups pre-prepped stir-fry vegatables (including broccoli, carrots and cabbage)
2 teaspoons soy sauce

Toss the vegetables with a little soy sauce. Slice the tofu. Divide all ingredients between two plates. Microwave.

Voila.

We had this the other night with a Spicy Caesar Salad and a bottle of Maryhill’s Winemaker’s Red, and it was magnificent.

Ingredients

Sauce:
Cooking spray
1 tbsp granulated onion or onion powder
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (14-ounce) can chicken broth
1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes with basil

Meatballs:
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
4 oz mild or sweet Italian turkey sausage
1 tbsp granulated onion or onion powder
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons egg substitute
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 large egg
1/4 cup shredded Italian cheese blend (I used Trader Joe’s Quattro Fromagio blend.)
1 pound ground turkey

Pasta:
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
1 pound hot cooked spaghetti
1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated parmesan

Toast:
1 garlic mini-baguette (I used New Seasons’s Garlic-Romano bread)
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp grated parmesan

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion powder and 3 garlic cloves, sauté 1 minute. Add tomato paste; cook 1 minute. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon salt and broth. Cook 4 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes. Reduce heat, and simmer 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Preheat broiler.

Combine the breadcrumbs, sausage, onion powder, and next 9 ingredients (through turkey) in a bowl. With wet hands, shape turkey mixture into 32 meatballs. Place meatballs on a broiler pan. Broil 15 minutes or until done. Add meatballs to sauce; simmer 15 minutes.

While the meatballs simmer, reduce the oven’s heat to 425. Slice the baguette into four thin pieces. Top each with 1/2 tbsp butter and 1/2 tbsp parmesan. Bake until the butter is melted and the cheese is golden-brown.

Sprinkle the sauce with 1/2 cup parsley and 1/3 cup basil. Serve over spaghetti. Sprinkle with cheese; garnish each with one slice of garlic toast and any leftover parsley and/or basil.

Yield
8 servings (serving size: 1 cup spaghetti, about 1/2 cup sauce, 4 meatballs, 1 tablespoon cheese and one slice garlic toast)

(Modified from a recipe found in Cooking Light.)

Frozen Gnocchi - waiting for action (in a pot of boiling water and perhaps some pesto)

I’ve made a couple of batches of potato gnocchi this weekend. The first batch, made for a dinner party (it was a big hit) and I realized that gnocchi is a.) Easy to make b.) Deeelicious.

I made a second batch just so I could have some later. Uncooked Gnocchi freezes well, and can be popped into some boiling water for a quick meal at the drop of a hat.

You will need

Ingredients

• 2 lbs of cooked, peeled, potatoes (about 8 medium-ish)
• 2 1/2 cups of flour
• 2 tbsp salt

Equipment

• A large pot (for boiling potatoes)
• A large bowl (for mixing in)
• A wooden spoon (for mixing with)
• A food mill (or a grater)

How to

To make potato gnocchi, you will basically make a simple dough from potatoes and flour, rolled out into a snake, and cut into little little tasty dumplings.

Start by rinsing off your potatoes, and tossing them into a pot with a tablespoon of salt and enough cold water to cover. Potatoes are done when you can easily push a knife through the center. This should take about 20 minutes, but keep an eye on them.

When boiling potatoes, always start with cold water. If you try to save time by using hot water from the tap, you’ll end up with mushy, overcooked potatoes. (The hot water starts cooking the outside of the potato before the inside begins to cook at all).

If you want to cook (and eat) your gnocchi right you’ll want to have a large pot of generously salted water ready to put on the boil once the potatoes are finished. By the time you’ve made your first batch of dumplings you can cook them immediately.

Once the potatoes are done, drain and rinse them with cold water and then peel.

It is much easier to peel a hot potato by using a dish towel. Place a potato in the towel and gently rub it. The peel will slide right off.

To create the dough, you will need to grate the potato into small pieces. A food mill does a great job of this (it’s my favorite new toy that doesn’t have batteries)

The model I purchased has neat little feet which fit it on the top of a bowl or pot so you can mill your food into someplace useful instead the floor.

Turn the crank, and the potatoes are reduced to a rice-like pile of pre-dough.

You can use a grater to break down your potatoes, or gently use a potato masher to break the potatoes down into smaller bits. Don’t mash to much. Don’t use a blender (or you’ll have paste).

Ideally, you’ve grated your potatoes into large bowl so now you can add about a cup and a half flour. Using a large (preferably) wooden spoon, gently mix the flour and potato together until it all comes together into sort of a ball. If it seems too loose, add a little more flour.

Flour a work space, turn the dough out, and then knead the dough, adding flour as needed, for about 5 minutes, or until the dough makes a nice soft ball (not to firm, not sticky). Cut the dough into fourths, and cut each fourth in half to create 8 pieces.

Using your preschool clay skills, roll out each piece into a snake (about 3/4 of an inch), and cut it into pieces, about an inch wide each.

If you are hungry now, and you set your salted water to boil already, toss the gnocchi from each snake into the water. The gnocchi are cooked once they float to the surface of the water.

This will give you just enough time to roll out your next snake.

Use a slotted spoon to lift the gnocchi out of the water, and place in a bowl and cover with a lid or towel to keep warm (you may want to warm your bowl in the oven to help keep the gnocchi warm).

Dress your gnocchi in a little olive oil, lemon juice, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper (or some ugly pre-made red sauce from a jar).

If you want to stash gnocchi away for a pasta emergency, as you cut up the gnocchi, arrange them onto cookie sheets so they are close, but not touching (otherwise they’ll all stick together and you’ll have one giant mono-gnocchi). Place the cookie sheets in the freezer for about 2 or 3 hours.

After the gnocchi are frozen, pop them off the cookie sheet, double-bag and place them back in the freezer for up to a month.

(I think we should institute a Thanksgiving-esque holiday where you get some time off work, have a big meal, but only invite friends over for drama free food and wine. Maybe in February, a week after Valentine’s Day or something.)

Here some pics of dinner and preparation.

Staging and preparing the vittles

Taters and beans ready to go.

Dinner is served.

I did the usual brining technique to prepare the bird this year. My brine is created from a base of apple juice (any old jug of apple juice from the store will work). I add to this about a cup of salt, sliced apples, celery, onions, lemons, bay leaf, pepper corns, and garlic cloves. I brought all this to a boil in a large pot and let it cook until the salt was dissolved and it started to smell good. I took the pot off the heat, and let the mixture cool to room temperature before pouring it over the turkey in a great big bowl. I let this sit in the fridge over night.

Brining greatly reduces the cooking time of the turkey. There’s a science-y explanation that has to do with the salt changing the chemical properties of the meat…blah blah blah. Just keep an eye on the temperature.

I roasted pears along side the bird. They came out soft, sweet, and delicious. They make a good complement to the turkey and look awfully pretty too.