Mushroomy Meat Sauce atop Roasted Eggplant with Spicy Cottage Cheese Puree

Mission empty the fridge/freezer/pantry continues, and it's got my creative juices flowing.

I also may be slightly obsessed with pureeing cottage cheese.  But, hey, there are worse obsessions.  

As are the rules of the emptying the kitchen game, last night's creation was constructed only of ingredients I already had.  If I were to make this same sort of thing some other time, I would likely modify a few things: add garlic cloves, use crushed tomatoes instead of jarred sauce (and then add more of my own seasonings), make the cottage cheese puree with roasted garlic, maybe add some fresh basil...  I'm going to write down the ingredients for what I actually did, which turned out great, but you might want to keep these modification ideas in mind. 

This'll make about four servings.

What you need:

Mushroomy Meat Sauce:

1 pound lean ground beef (I used 96/4... if you can't find that, just make sure to drain out the grease after browning)

1 medium onion, chopped

8 ounces cremini or baby bella mushrooms, diced

1/2 cup red wine

1 1/2 cup pasta sauce, no sugar added if possible (I used arrabiata)

1 teaspoon garlic powder

2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (or your own mixture of dried oregano, basil, thyme)

salt and black pepper

Spicy Cottage Cheese Puree:

1 1/2 cups low fat cottage cheese

2 tablespoons pickled hot crushed peppers*

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

*If you don't have hot pickled crushed peppers, you could sub a bit (definitely not 2 tablespoons) red pepper flakes and a splash of vinegar.  Or use chili-garlic sauce.  

Roasted eggplant:

Olive or coconut oil spray

2 medium eggplants, cut into 1/2-3/4 inch thick rounds

salt and pepper

Start by making the sauce:  Brown the ground beef in a large saucepan or pot over medium-high heat.  Drain if necessary.  Add the onions and mushrooms.  Saute for a 3-4 minutes.  Add the red wine and scrape up anything that was sticking to the bottom.  Add the pasta sauce, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning.  Stir, bring to a boil, and then reduce to low heat.  Cover.  Let simmer for AT LEAST 30 minutes, and up to an hour or so.  If sauce is too watery, remove cover to let it reduce.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Make the cottage cheese puree:  Add all ingredients to a small blender or a food processor and blend until smooth, scraping down and stirring as necessary.  You may need to add a small splash of water to get things going, depending on the power of your blender.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

Roast the eggplant:  Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray a baking sheet with olive or coconut oil spray.  Arrange eggplant rounds on the sheet so that they are not overlapping (touching is fine).  Lightly spray the tops with oil.  Season lightly with salt and pepper.  Roast for 30 minutes, or until eggplant is lightly browned and soft.  

To serve:  Arrange a few slices of eggplant on plate, top with meat sauce, and drizzle the cottage cheese puree over the top.  Enjoy!

Blueberry Salsa with Cilantro and Jalapeno

We've got just a few days left here in Florida, and I'm still trying to empty out my fridge/freezer and resist buying anything new from the store.  And there was a bag of frozen blueberries that I bought for smoothies, but I'm a creature of habit and always go for the frozen banana instead.  I already knew I was making fish for dinner, and figured a blueberry salsa would go nicely.  Whipped this up real quick with a few other pantry staples.

As mentioned, I used frozen blueberries, and I think these would be preferable to fresh because they get all juicy when they thaw.  However, fresh would still work, you just might want to do a little extra muddling and maybe cut in half if you have larger berries.  You could also try cooking fresh berries for 10 minutes or so on the stove to break them down a little more.

I also really wanted to use lime or lemon juice in this, but didn't have any.  So I made do with a little rice vinegar, and I think it turned out great. If you have lime or lemon juice, though, you might want to give that a try!

I served this on top of broiled flounder fillets seasoned with salt, pepper, and cumin.  Thought about adding cumin to the salsa as well, but went with it just on the fish.  If I were serving this with something like plain chips, I'd probably add the cumin to the salsa to boost the flavor.

What you need:

1 1/2-2 cups frozen blueberries, thawed (I recommend Trader Joe's wild Boreal blueberries... they are so much better than any other frozen blueberries I've ever bought!)

1/2 cup packed chopped cilantro, thickest stem end removed

2 jalapenos, diced, seeds and pith removed

2-3 tablespoons diced onion

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

salt and pepper to taste (I probably added somewhere around 1/2 teaspoon of each)


Simply mix all ingredients together, mashing lightly to help the blueberries break down a little.  Let sit for at least 30 minutes, and preferably for a couple hours, before serving to allow flavors to meld.

Enjoy!

Spinach, Tomato, and Jalapeno Curry with Broiled Salmon and Dill-Cottage Cheese Puree

We've got a week left in Florida, so I'm starting to rummage through the groceries I've bought and get things used up.  It's a fun little game of piecing together different ingredients so I can avoid buying anything new.  I get to play pretty often due to our nomadic lifestyle.  This is last night's outcome.  It's great for anyone else who doesn't feel like going to the store, too, as it primarily uses pantry staples.  

If you're looking at the title and thinking "cottage cheese puree... umm, ewww...", just trust me on this one.  Cottage cheese actually makes awesomely creamy and super healthy sauces.  You can also make dips for veggies out of it.  It's the same idea as substituting Greek yogurt to make creamy dressing or sauce, but minus the tangy flavor.  Sometimes I use Greek yogurt for such things, sometimes I use cottage cheese.  Actually, more specifically, I use Greek yogurt for such things when I'm lazy and cottage cheese when I want my husband to like it better.  Or when I'm trying not to go to the store and we only have cottage cheese and no Greek yogurt.  I made the sauce for the salmon, but ended up using a little on the veggies too, just because.  

This whole dinner takes less than an hour from start to finish, and part of that time in just the curry simmering on the stove sans (much) supervision.   This makes enough for 3-4 servings, depending on your appetite and whether or not you choose to make some sort of grain to round things out.

What you need:

Curry:

1 teaspoon coconut oil

1 medium onion, chopped

~10 garlic cloves, roughly chopped (or less if you're not a garlic fiend)

2 jalapenos, seeds and pith removed, sliced

10 ounces frozen spinach

1 14 ounce can fire-roasted diced tomatoes 

2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon coriander powder

1/2 cup water or broth of choice

1 teaspoon black pepper

salt to taste

Salmon:

16 ounce fillet salmon (I used Coho, Sockeye would also be delicious)

1 teaspoon coconut oil

Salt and pepper

Dill-Cottage Cheese Puree:

1 cup low fat cottage cheese

1 teaspoon garlic powder

~1/2 cup packed fresh dill OR 2 tablespoons dried dill (or basically to taste, but that is roughly what I used)

Curry: 

Start by heating the coconut oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the onion, garlic, and jalapeno.  Saute for a few minutes, or until they are lightly browned.  Add the spinach, tomatoes, bay leaves, coriander, and black pepper.  Stir around for another minute or two, until the spinach is thawed.  Add 1/2 cup water or broth reduce heat to medium.  Cover partially and let simmer for 30 minutes (or if you don't have a cover, just add a little more water if things start sticking).  Season with salt to taste.

Salmon:

After the curry has been simmering for about 15 minutes, preheat oven to a high broil. Grease a baking sheet with coconut oil.  Place salmon on the baking sheet.  Season lightly with salt and pepper.  Broil for 10-15 minutes, or until salmon is cooked through.  Time will vary depending on how thick your salmon is and how hot your broiler gets, but you can test it by seeing if it flakes easily in the thickest part of the fish.  If you have a large piece of salmon, you may want to cut in half before cooking so that the thinner edges do not overcook.

Dill-Cottage Cheese Puree:

While the salmon is in the oven, make the puree.  Simply add all puree ingredients to a food processor or blend and blend until smooth.  If your blender is struggling, add a little water and a pinch of salt to get things going (the salt is so that the water doesn't make it too watery tasting).

And enjoy!

Sauteed Calamari with Jalapeno, Cilantro, and Lime

When people hear "calamari", they think battered and fried diet saboteurs.  But it has a bad rep!  Calamari can be delicious AND super healthy when grilled or sauteed with minimal added oil.

And, don't get me wrong- I LOVE some me deep-fried calamari, especially if it's done properly.  And I've even made it myself (done properly, of course ;-)).  But for a weeknight, it doesn't make the cut in the health department.

This time around I sauteed a bag of pre-cut rings.  You can also buy the bag with mixed rings and tentacles, or the whole pieces and cut them yourself.  Make sure to clean and remove any hard pieces of cartilage or whatever it is that is sometimes still in the whole pieces.

I had a cast-iron skillet to use this time, and it really did make a difference for the better.  Can't wait until we're not moving all over the place so that my kitchen can be fully stocked with all of the goodies I want.  You can use a different kind of skillet still- it'll just be very difficult to get the nice crisp browning without overcooking.  But they don't need to be brown.

You can also grill these.  I've done them in a grill basket before with great results.  In that case, add the lime juice and cilantro after you've put the grilled calamari into a non-holey dish. ;-)

What you need:

2 teaspoons coconut oil
1 pound calamari, cut into rings
1 jalapeno, sliced and seeds removed unless you like it hot
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
juice of one lime
salt and pepper to taste

Start by squeezing the excess moisture out of your calamari.  Literally squeezing with (multiple) paper towel.  This is very important!  Too much liquid will make it hard to get a sear on them.

Next, heat a large cast-iron skillet over high heat.  Add the coconut oil.  Once the oil is hot, add the calamari rings.  Saute for 1-2 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add the jalapeno.  Continue to saute for another 1-2 minutes, or until complelely opaque.  You may not get any color on your rings depending on how hot your stove gets and what kind of pan you use.  Do not overcook.  Remove from heat and add cilantro and lime juice.  Season with salt and pepper, if desired- I added salt to mine once it was on my plate, husband waved it away.

I served mine over a bed of greens and chopped tomato with a Roasted Red Pepper Sauce on the side (see below for that recipe).




Roasted Red Pepper Sauce:

1 roasted red pepper, seeds and stem removed (I left the skin on)
1 cup Greek yogurt
juice of 1/2 lime
4-5 cloves roasted garlic
pinch of salt

Puree all ingredients in a blender or food processor.  That's it!

Summer Squash with Onions, Garlic, Jalapeno, and Bacon

My first experience cooking summer squash was when I was 14 years old and obsessed with calories.  My mom told me how my grandmother used to make it-cooked way down with onions and a lot of butter- and that it was one of the simplest yet most delicious vegetable dishes.  I wasn't a fan of using butter, but used a little cooking spray and topped it afterwards with "buttery spray", which is as artificial as it sounds.  Delicious as promised, even made my low-cal way.

Fast forward 10+ years, and a variation on this is still my favorite way to cook summer squash.  I still want to keep it on the light side, but now know that leaving a tad bit of bacon grease in my pan will add a ton of flavor without compromising the healthiness of my dish (and no more buttery spray involved!).  And you can definitely skip the bacon and use a little bit of some other fat (olive oil, butter, or coconut oil).  Sometimes I add a tiny drizzle of truffle oil at the end.

The key to this dish is letting it cook for a bit.  The method is sort of a combination of sauteing and stewing.  There is plenty of moisture as the squash breaks down, but the heat is higher than a traditional stewing process and there is more browning.  The heat is low enough, though, that some moisture does build up and you don't have to stir as often as during traditional sautes.

The end result should have some nice golden color and also reduce down to almost create a mush (I was actually a little impatient this time around... my squash wasn't quite mush enough! :-/). This is what really lets the natural sweetness shine and eliminates the need for additional seasoning.  The bacon adds a little salt, so you won't need to add extra unless you don't use bacon.

4-5 strips bacon
1 medium onion (I used a sweet onion), sliced or diced
3 small summer squash, sliced thinly
1 head garlic, peeled and cloves cut into slices
1 jalapeno
4 green onions


Start by frying the bacon in a large frying pan over medium/medium-high heat.  Once the bacon is fully cooked (the crispier you make it, the more you render the fat out), remove the strips from the pan and drain over paper towel.  Discard all but 1-2 teaspoons of the bacon grease.  There should be a very thin coating on the bottom of the pan.

Add the onion, squash, garlic, and jalapeno to the pan.  Saute/stew, stirring only every couple minutes, until the squash breaks down and all vegetables have a lovely golden color.  If things are sticking too much, reduce heat a little.  This should take at least 20-25 minutes and you can keep cooking it beyond that to deepen the flavor.  You can baby it if you want and stir more often, but I find that stirring less often works perfectly well and that way you can wash some dishes or prep other parts of dinner at the same time.  Once you've achieved a suitably mushy state, add the green onions and crumble in the reserved bacon strips.

And enjoy!  This would be a perfect accompaniment to some salmon or barbecued chicken.

Spicy Salmon Soup with Escarole and Mushrooms

I finally made it to the Public Market in Rochester last weekend and came away with a wonderful find: salmon pieces for $2 a pound!  They were the scraps that were too small to be sold as nice looking pieces of fish, but they looked very fresh and came from a reputable fish vendor, so I couldn't pass up the deal (and it ended up being the best salmon I've bought in a long time!).

And what does one do with scraps of salmon?  Make soup!  ...Or just broil and serve small pieces- it's not like we're particularly fancy around here.  But the soup idea came to me and I ran with it.  I spied some escarole at a neighboring vendor and knew it'd pair perfectly with the salmon.  Add some mushrooms, onion, and garlic form my supply at home, and I was set!

I give a wide range on the soy sauce amount- start by adding a little and add more to taste.  I kept our batch pretty low on it, but added more to my individual servings.  If you have fish sauce and/or sesame oil, feel free to add a little of both to add a little more oomph to the flavor.   Also, bok choy could definitely be subbed in for the escarole, or spinach would work too!

This makes four large servings, and you can make them heartier by adding a fried egg on top.  Serve with extra chili-garlic and green onions as a garnish.

What you need:

1 teaspoon coconut oil
1 small-medium onion, thinly sliced
10 ounces mushrooms, sliced
4-5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 bunch escarole, washed and torn into pieces
1 pound salmon, cut into chunks or strips
2-5 tablespoons soy sauce
~6 cups water
1 tablespoon chili-garlic sauce, plus more for garnish if desired
green onions for garnish


Start by heating a large pot over medium-high heat.  Add the coconut oil.  Add the onion and garlic, and saute for 2-3 minutes.  Add the mushrooms and saute for another 2-3 minutes.  Add the escarole and continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes.  Add the water, soy sauce, and chili-garlic sauce.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat to medium.  Add the salmon. pieces, making sure all pieces are fully submerged.  Bring back to a boil, and then reduce heat to a low simmer.  Let cook for 3-4 minutes, or until salmon is cooked through.  When it is fully cooked, it will be opaque and flake apart.

Add additional soy sauce and chili-garlic sauce to taste.  Serve with a fried egg and chopped green onion on top if you're feeling it. :-)  Enjoy!

Roasted Beet Stacks with Garlicky Cottage Cheese "Cream" and Pumpkin Seed Parsley Pesto

We're on day 2 of the 21 Day Fix, but that doesn't mean we can't have delicious food!  I was reading Fitness magazine earlier today and saw an amazing looking recipe for "Beet Napoleans".  I might have to try their actual recipe sometime (mine is very roughly inspired by it), but right now it doesn't fit with my meal plan (way too much oil, goal cheese, cream cheese, honey, too many nuts...).

I made these for my husband and I.  The amount of beets I used was not nearly enough to accompany the "Cream", so I will probably up those next time.  I wanted us to eat all of the "Cream" because it is full of protein and that helps give this meal its fill factor. I purposely made extra pesto so that I could use it again, so only 1/8 of the recipe is one serving.  As I made them this time, they count as 11/8 green, 1 red, 1/2 orange, and 1/2 teaspoon per person.  The amounts below for the beets and the "Cream" make two servings, but the pesto makes a lot extra.

You can make the pesto ahead of time (even a day or two before!) and the cottage cheese mixture can be made a few hours ahead.  Or maybe even earlier, but I haven't tried that.  I made the beets so that they finished cooking right before we ate, but they could be reheated or eaten cold, and they'd still be tasty.

Also, feel free to mix up the pesto!  You could use basil or maybe cilantro instead of the parsley, or a blend of herbs.  The beet greens could be substituted with spinach, baby kale, or arugula.  The pumpkin seeds could be replaced with walnuts or pine nuts.  I just did it this way because 1) I already had pumpkin seeds 2) my beets came with greens that actually looked good 3) parsley is cheaper than basil and I had already been adding cilantro to too many things lately.

The Components:

Pumpkin Seed Parsley Pesto (makes eight servings, 3 Tablespoons each, counts as 1/2 orange, about 1/8 green, and 1/2 teaspoon per serving)

1 packed cup of beet greens-or any other greens you want to use (1 packed green)
1/2 packed cup of Italian parsley (1/2 packed green)
1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds (4 orange containers)

4 teaspoons oil olive
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon Champagne vinegar, or a white wine vinegar
Pinch of sea salt
Water to mix

If you are using beet greens, make sure to wash THOROUGHLY.  They tend to be very dirty.  Cut or tear the greens and parsley into blendable pieces.  Throw these and all other ingredients, excluding the water, into your blender or food processor.  Pulse while slowly adding water until the mixture blends into a pesto.  Be careful not to add too much water- it may take a little time to get things going (depending on your blender), but be patient and keep pulsing.  Let sit for at least 2 hours.  Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Garlicky Cottage Cheese Cream (makes 2 GENEROUS servings, 3/4 cup and 1 red each)

1% or 2% Cottage Cheese

1 head of garlic

Splash of lemon juice

Roast the garlic head first: Simply place the whole thing in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes, or until soft.  If you aren't 21 Day Fixin' you could cut the very top off before roasting and add some olive oil, but I skipped that this time.

Next, peel your garlic.  Add all of the cloves plus the cottage cheese and lemon juice to your blender or food processor and puree until smooth.  Done!  Store in the fridge until you're ready to use.

*Note: This would make an AWESOME super healthy dip too... maybe add some roasted onions and black pepper.  Serve with crudites or some healthy chips!

Roasted Beet Slices (2 servings, 1 green each- you might want to double... the beets shrink A LOT)

4 medium beets, scrubbed, ends cut off, and cut into 1/8-1/4 inch thick slices.

Cooking spray

Salt and pepper

Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Spray a baking sheet lightly with cooking spray.  Arrange beet slices across pan, being careful not to overlap.  You will need more than one pan if you are doubling the amount.  Spray the tops of the slices VERY lightly.   Season with black pepper and a pinch of salt.  Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until tender and lightly browned.  If you used two pans, make sure to switch top and bottom halfway through.

The Assembly:

Now that you've got your parts made, it's time to serve this stuff up!  I wanted to be all fancy since this was my first time displaying my creation- hence the tidy little stacks.  You can be fancy too, or you can just plop the correct amount of each component onto each plate and create the mixture as you eat.  They make cute (though messy) little tacos with the beets as the shell.

If you are doing the Fix and want to keep to a serving of 1 red, 1 1/8 green, 1/2 orange, and 1/2 teaspoon, then you get half of the Cottage Cheese Cream, half of the Roasted Beets, and 1/8 of the Pesto,  If you're not doing the Fix, then you can have however much and whatever proportions you want. :-)

So, if you want to make the stacks, start by divvying up your portions. Then, place a larger beet slice on your plate. Top with a little of the "cream" and then a little of the pesto.  Top with a medium beet slice, repeat with the "cream" and pesto.  And top with a smaller beet slice, repeat with the "cream" and pesto.  That's one stack!  You'll probably be making 3-5 per serving, depending on the size of your beets were.  Serve with the extra "cream" and any extra pesto left in your serving.  Enjoy!