Recipe review: Pasta with Proscuitto and Lettuce

I saw this recipe posted on Cooking Channel’s Facebook page. It’s a recipe by Mark Bittman, and to be honest with you….I will eat anything with proscuitto, although the thought of wilted lettuce scared me. You see, I’m one of those people who freaks out when I get a burger or some hot sandwich and the lettuce inside has wilted. I get grossed out by the texture.

I put my bias of wilted lettuce aside and tried this recipe out. It was merely okay to say the least. I think it  needed something extra in terms of the flavor, I’m not sure. All that said, the lettuce wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

The original website for this recipe is:

http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/mark-bittman/pasta-with-prosciutto-and-lettuce-recipe/index.html

INGREDIENTS

• Salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 to 3 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-wide strips
• 1 pound pasta
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 shallot, minced

• Freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups fresh or frozen peas
• 1 head Bibb or Boston lettuce (about 6 ounces), cored, leaves cut into 3/4-inch slices
• 1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stockor dry white wine, plus more as needed
• 1 cup finely grated Parmesan

DIRECTIONS

Bring a large pot of water to boil and salt it. Meanwhile, put 1 tablespoon oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add prosciutto and cook, turning occasionally, until crisp, about 4 to 5 minutes; set aside.When water boils, add pasta and cook until just tender; drain pasta, reserving some cooking liquid. Meanwhile, melt butter with remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add shallot and sprinkle with salt and pepper; cook until shallot begins to soften, about 5 minutes.Add peas, lettuce, and stock or wine to skillet and cook until peasturn bright green and lettuce is wilted, about 5 minutes. Add pasta to pan and continue cooking and stirring until everything is just heated through, adding extra stock or some reserved cooking liquid if needed to moisten. Toss with Parmesan cheese, garnish withprosciutto, adjust seasoning to taste and serve.

Avocado Salad

 

 

I am totally lamenting the closure of my favorite Cuban restaurant here, in Los Angeles. It was named Tropi-Cuba and it had the closest authentic Cuban food that I have found living here, thus far. Personally, I think  that the location was a negative and that’s probably why it closed. It was in a shady area in Torrance across the street from a hospital. It was too tucked away to get exposure, and I’m sure they relied heavily on the hospital staff for clientele. I would love to open up a Cuban restaurant if I had the money.

Last weekend I made a Cuban avocado salad. I have been in the mood for avocados non-stop recently (no, I’m not pregnant). This is an easy salad to make, and is light for the hot Summer months.

• I chopped an avocado into chunks, and sliced some Roma tomatoes and red onion.
• Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle with Kosher salt.
• Finally, add a squirt of fresh lime juice to the mix to add flavor, but to make sure your avocados don’t brown too quickly. You can also try it with lime for a more Authentic Cuban flavor (we love lime in everything).

 

 

 

 

 

Vinegar, Vinegar, Vinegar!

I am a huge fan of vinegars of all sorts. I have a decent collection of vinegars ranging from Barrel-Aged Balsamic, to Rice Wine Vinegar, to your plain old Apple Cider among others. Last night, I decided to make a balsamic marinated grilled pork chop with sauteed cole slaw. Both had…you guessed it, vinegar. This is a super easy dinner to make, just allow 30 minutes for the pork chops to marinate in the balsamic mixture.

For the pork chops, the marinade goes something (I never measure) like this:

In a plastic freezer bag, add your pork chops then add

1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 table spoon of seedy mustard

1 table spoon of pureed garlic

1 teaspoon salt

Let this sit for 30 minutes and make sure to flip it over 15 minutes in so that both sides get all the goodness.

The cole slaw was simple. Most supermarkets have ready bags of cole slaw handy. I bought a bag of chopped cabbage and a bag of broccoli slaw because they didn’t have the conventional cole slaw bags handy…and I love broccoli slaw.

I added the slaws in a pan and drizzled olive oil.

Let it cook down, until it is soft…about 3 minutes.

Then add about 3 tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar.

A dash of salt and pepper to taste.

For something extra, I baked some small tomatoes with olive oil and kosher salt at 350 degrees while the other things were cooking. This way we felt full from the meal without having to eat carbs.

The pork chops and the slaw took approximately 6 minutes (although I cooked my chops on my Foreman Grill, so cooking times may vary).

The 430 Calorie Burger

So we have still stuck to our calorie counting journey…and I am amazingly 4 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight 15 weeks after having given birth to SB. I have lost 26 lbs. and my husband has lost 13 lbs.

One of the things I used to crave most were hamburgers and ice cream. The girl at our local Cold Stone once commented, “You guys like to come here a lot.” Maybe she didn’t notice the gigantic baby bump standing right in front of her. Early on in my pregnancy, I had 5 burgers in one week. This was an early indicator to my husband, that I was pregnant. The burger craving never subsided throughout the  9 months, and now that I’m not pregnant, I’m not so keen on burgers that much. Today, t hough, I thought I’d have one….but make it sensible and low cal.

I decided to use turkey, swiss, mushrooms and avocado with these little thin whole wheat buns that are great.

I hate flavorless burgers, so I seasoned the patties with Mrs. Dash Steak Seasoning and Adobo (yes, that’s the Cuban part of me).

My husband grilled the patties for 10 minutes total, flipping them over after 5 mins for each side.

As for the mushrooms, I sauteed them with garlic, a dash of olive oil and a little splash of thickened barrel-aged balsamic with some salt to taste. I sauteed them for 10 minutes while the patties were cooking on the ‘que.

The total cals for this were 430 as opposed to oh…say a Carl’s Jr. Six Dollar Portobello burger which is 870 calories…and as my husband said afterwards, “Wow, this was actually filling, but it doesn’t make you feel like crap.”

So there you have it.

Fabada Asturiana

Having lived in Miami for most of my life, I grew up eating amazing Cuban food. I’m a big soup person, and this was one of my personal faves. Fabada Asturiana is actually a Spanish soup stew made with white beans originating from the Spanish area known as Asturias.

I have never made Fabada, so this was new to me. Living in Los Angeles makes it a bit difficult to find common ingredients in Cuban/Spanish cooking, so there are a few ingredients missing. On a side note: if anyone can tell me where to get blood pudding in LA, hit me up.

Back to the stew, I went to Food 4 Less, because I know they have ham hocks and salt pork…as Trader Joe’s and Fresh and Easy do not (shame on them). I got a chorizo which I thought was hard enough…you see, another problem in LA is that supermarkets sell Mexican Chorizo and not the harder Spanish Chorizo. I thought this one was hard enough that it wouldn’t fall apart in the pot. I was wrong. As I was getting the ingredients ready, I grossed out my husband by showing him the ham hocks and the salt pork. With a disgusted look on his face he said, “I don’t want to see this stuff now. Just cook it and show it to me when you’re done.”

I chopped up the salt pork (about 2 oz) and one link of chorizo and sauteed them with one ham hock, half an onion and olive oil. When I noticed the casing of the chorizo shrinking, I took them out fearing I’d get the chorizo meat all over the place (I will tell you later on what I did with it).

I added some garlic, cumin, sweet paprika, salt and pepper, along with 2 bay leaves for a few minutes before adding 10 cups of water. I then added the beans. I used a combination of 2 cans butter beans and 1 can of great northern. I have never seen a fabada with butter beans, but when I was reading a recipe in the market for fabada, it called for them.

I personally think I overdid the water, so I let the soup boil uncovered to reduce and thicken the stock for a few hours. During this process, I added a couple pieces of chorizo back into the pot for flavor. Luckily, the chorizo did not fall apart.

You can also add potatoes to this stew. I did not because I was on a time constraint and didn’t have time to peel potatoes, but I definitely will next time.

Scavenging in the kitchen

It was one of those days where you don’t really have anything for lunch, but you’re hungry, so you have to make something and you don’t want to go out and waste money on fast food. What do you do? You go into scavenge mode. You know that mode? You start looking deep in your fridge and pantry to see what you can concoct to satisfy your empty stomach. Your significant other walks into the kitchen to find your ass bent over, protruding from the fridge, your torso disappeared, and your head stuck in the vegetable crisper.

Well, it was one of those afternoons and I came up with this dish: A whole wheat penne with sauteed creminis, zucchini, grape tomatoes with feta and scallions. I sauteed the veggies with some garlic and added about 2 tablespoons (or basically what was left) of some white cooking wine. I topped the penne with the veggies and then squirted some lemon on it instead of salt and topped it with feta and scallions with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

It wasn’t too bad for using what we had, and not caving into the dreaded fast food (or pizza craving we were having).

Extreme Nachos!!!!

There comes a time in the midst of a hardcore diet, that you want to cave in and eat something really really bad. Well, this weekend was that time. I wanted some extremely loaded nachos. Saturday is our “free day” where we take a break from all of the week’s calorie counting, so we decided to give into the nacho yearning. It was a very spicy, itchy, persistent yearning…one that was so intense, that I might have had to go get checked out by the doctor.

Oh, and I’ve lost another 5 lbs this past week…which makes it 10 lbs in 2 weeks. Not too shabby!

Back to that itchy nacho craving…We went to the market and bought all of the nacho accoutrements: chips, beans, tomatoes, cheese, etc…We did give into our diet by substituting ground turkey for ground beef.

The ground turkey was cooked in a skillet with McCormick burrito seasoning.

The chips were Tostitos Multigrain.

The refried beans were also heated before they were added to the nachos.

The oven was preheated to 325 degrees and the nachos were arranged on a pan. The refried beans, ground turkey, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese were piled on, and the entire thing was baked for 12 minutes.

It was topped with scallions and avocados, and served with a side of fat free sour cream.

Tomato and Onion Frittata

So far, I’ve lost 5 lbs on our new diet and exercise regime that we fully implemented last week. Not too bad, I must say. I think it’s great that you don’t have to sacrifice the flavor of food if you’re going low cal. That said, today I decided to make a frittata for lunch. I’ve never made one before, and I wasn’t really even well equipped. I had to rush out to Target to buy a non-stick pan that was oven proof. This was one expensive frittata to make, if you add the cost of the pan!

Being the novice frittata maker that I am, I made a few mistakes here and there. I forgot to add the cheddar to the egg mixture…so I added it to the top. Sigh…I guess I can deduct a few calories from that error, at least. The original recipe states that a serving of this frittata is 170 calories.

Here is the original recipe brought to you buy the January/February Issue of Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food:

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

2 cups of grape tomatoes

1 bunch of scallions (1 cup)- I added regular chopped yellow onions, as I was feeling pretty lazy and didn’t want to chop scallions (I buy the onions already chopped to save some tears).

1/2 cup grated cheddar

8 large eggs, lightly beaten (here I added just a bit of half and half when I beat the eggs)

STEPS:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

2. In a 10-inch ovenproof nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and cook until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes.

3. Add eggs and cheddar, season with salt and pepper, and stir to combine. Cook undisturbed, until edges are set, about 2 minutes.

4. Transfer skillet to oven and bake until top of frittata is just set, 10 to 13 minutes. Invert or slide frittata onto a plate and cut into 6 wedges. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Curried Shrimp over Ginger Rice

 

I’m rarely one to actually like what I make…I find myself my biggest food critic when other people like what I make. It’s sort of like when I used to paint. I would show my art in galleries in NYC and people would come up to me saying what a great piece I had made, but I’d find all sorts of things wrong with it. It’s like that.

When I began this healthy eating voyage, my eyes turned to this dish…Why? Because I like shrimp and I love rice. It was hard to believe this dish was only 364 calories according to the writers of Everyday Food (January/February Issue).

I had to tweak the original recipe a bit because the husband could not find Coriander at our supermarket. I also added pureed ginger (from the tube) because we had it on hand already. I also made the rice in the rice cooker because I suck at making rice in a pot.

In place of the coriander, I used curry powder. This gave the shrimp an amazing kick, especially with the fresh lime juice!

The aroma that came from the rice cooker as the rice was being made was amazing…and it filled the house. I used basmati rice and added the ginger paste, the scallion whites and the peas all at once.

Needless to say, this recipe is a keeper. We will definitely be making this again.

Original recipe below:

Spiced Shrimp with Ginger Rice and Peas

4 tsp. vegetable oil
2 scallions, white and green parts separated and thinly sliced
1 Tbsp. minced peeled fresh ginger
1 cup long-grain white rice
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 cup frozen peas
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
lime wedges, for serving

In a medium saucepan, heat 2 tsp. oil over med-high heat. Add scallion whites and ginger and cook, stirring often, until soft, 3 minutes.
Add rice and 1 1/2 cups water and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce to a simmer, and cook until rice is tender, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and top with peas. Let stand, covered, 5 minutes, then add scallion greens and fluff rice with a fork.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, toss shrimp with cumin and coriander and season with salt and pepper. In a large skillet, heat 2 tsp. oil over med-high heat. Add shrimp and cook, stirring occasionally, until opaque throughout, about 4 minutes. Serve shrimp with rice and lime wedges.
Serves 4.

More salads, etc.

So since having my son in November, I’ve been trying  to exercise and lose the baby weight. There’s nothing  more horrific than stepping on a scale and seeing a  number you’ve never seen before. It makes me do  this==> D:

I’ve researched some options, and I’ve decided to go on a low calorie diet with small snacks during the day with exercise. It’s hard for me, because I’m not used to eating small snacks…I am strictly a 3 meal a day kinda person. I’ve decided to make a meal plan as well, with salads, fish, chicken and whole wheat options. I have to say, after eating hamburgers and ice cream for 9 months, it’s hard to get into a healthy state of mind, especially when you have a massive sweet tooth like me.

Anyways, here are a few salads I made today for lunch: one for me and the other for my husband (who wants to lose some weight as well). I promise to make something else other than salad! I have a few new recipes I’ll be trying out in the next week!