Category Archives: Quick & Easy

December 11, 2012 · 7:36 pm

Drunken Fig and Pear Pockets

Is this not the perfect name for a holiday appetizer?

In addition to the parties lined up over the coming weeks, I’m happily anticipating the conclusion of my final semester of graduate school. In the middle of all the chaos of finals, prepping for the clinical rotations, and holiday travel, I also just ran my first 5k race. There’s plenty to celebrate.

Screen shot 2012-12-11 at 6.08.27 PMMy first 5K was the Winter Classic in Cambridge, MA, and it was a blast. Although I run consistently for fun, I’d never tackled a road race, so I was a little nervous going in to it. At a little over 3.1 miles, I was confident I’d be able to handle the distance, but it was the mass start and the drive to constantly push myself. I finished in just over 23 minutes, which I was excited about. I’m already looking forward to signing up for more. You definitely get bitten by the bug after your first one.

So, back to the drunken pears. As someone whose name starts at the beginning of the alphabet, I always get assigned to the appetizer group for potlucks, and I sometimes struggle figuring out what to bring. I came up with this recipe a few weeks ago when I thought the November Recipe Redux challenge was for holiday appetizers. It ended up that the real challenge was for vintage appetizers (or remakes of childhood favorites), but oh well. I’m glad I made this, and I’m looking forward to the next chance to make this again.

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Filed under Appetizer, Baking, Fall, Healthy, Holiday, Quick & Easy, Snacks & Party Food, Vegetarian, Winter

December 8, 2012 · 9:38 pm

Crisp Vegetables & Pasta Smothered with Satay Sauce

Would it surprise anyone to know that my fall has been filled with quick, simple dinners that translate well into leftovers that I can tote to work or school the next day?  Life has been intensely busy with school, work at the clinic, and wedding planning. Most of it has been challenging and fun, but it hasn’t left a lot of time for the cooking projects I’d like to do. The transition from fall to winter is one of my favorite seasons in part because of all the produce and comfort foods that are great this time of year. It isn’t quite winter here yet in Boston, so hopefully I’ll get to showcase a few more of my ideas. And I only have two more weeks left in my Master’s program before my internship starts, so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel work-wise. 

But for now, I’m really focusing on simple, cheap, and delicious. Which, luckily, this satay pasta is. It’s got the crunch and brightness of fresh vegetables cooked to just tender, with a luscious peanut sauce on top. I’ve made the pasta + tofu + peanut sauce combination before, and I think it’s a great introduction to new flavors and ingredients (like tofu or bok choy). Continue reading →

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September 30, 2012 · 10:26 pm

Sliced Tomato Salad

September and August have been enveloped by two of the most expensive and time-consuming tasks I’ve ever taken on: wedding planning and graduate school. It’s been fun and challenging, and it’s so exciting to think about how different my life might be in a year from now, but it doesn’t leave a lot of time for cooking,  no matter how well-intentioned my weekends are.

Luckily, the fall lends itself to easily prepared lunches, snacks, and dinners. I’ve relied heavily on afternoon noshes of this simple tomato salad and multiple batches of homemade guacamole on the weekend. I’ve bought a bundle of tomatoes from the grocery store, slice them, de-seed them (if necessary), and drizzle them with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basil, and salt. It’s so easy, there really isn’t an accompanying recipe. It’s just the clean, fresh flavors of the season, simply prepared, and eaten in the middle of a Saturday study session or in between researching vendors.

Happily, I’ve got the first exam of the semester under my belt, and we’ve squared away contracts with most of the key vendors involved in our wedding. It feels great to get so much accomplished, but at the same time, I can’t wait to get back into more cooking. Hearty, flavorful pasta dishes, warming soups, and roasted vegetables will all hopefully be on the table (and on this blog) in the progressively cooler months to come. Undoubtedly, I’ll focus on some make-ahead meals that I’ve been taking to lunch and some weeknight favorites that have been quick and inexpensive to make (as we’re now solidly in saving mode). But for now, I’ll leave you with the best of summer’s last produce, to enjoy while it lasts.

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Filed under Appetizer, Fall, Healthy, Quick & Easy, Salads, Seasonal, Summer, Vegetarian

August 21, 2012 · 10:45 pm

Creamy Lemon Pasta

As I mentioned last time, I spent a wonderful weekend in New York City with my sister, and one of the highlights of that trip was a meal we had at a restaurant in TriBeCa called Pepolino’s. I ordered cinghiale, a dish I’d tried before, and my sister ordered a simple but delicious creamy lemony pasta. It was the kind of night where we closed the place down. So when the Recipe Redux group announced that our challenge this month was to describe your favorite summer vacation meal (and pair it with a recipe for a slightly healthier version of the dish), I thought back to that celebratory weekend in NYC. This was a bit of a challenge because 1) creamy pasta can be the be-all and end-all of luxurious meals (at least I think so), and sometimes trying to make it healthy just changes it into a different beast altogether, and 2) cream + lemon often just equals a curdled mess. So how did this restaurant get such luscious creamy pasta that was so absolutely infused with the flavor of lemon without breaking the rules of cooking?

The answer, most likely, is fat and lots of it. In the past, I’ve made soups and pastas with “lighter” ingredients that can’t stand up to the heat of cooking let alone the acidity of lemons. And using high-fat ingredients, like heavy cream instead of milk or low-fat yogurt, provides enough of a buffer to prevent the protein from curdling. So, knowing that the challenge to making a healthy version of this creamy pasta would focus on cutting out the cream, I turned to eggs. Adding eggs to cooked pasta (a la carbonara) can result in a surprisingly creamy and rich dish without adding cream (you’re still adding calories, cholesterol, and some saturated fat, but it’s a win overall).

Then the challenge was the lemon flavor. The first time around, I added 4 Tablespoons of lemon juice and the zest of 1 1/2 lemons, which really delivered on the lemon flavor, but I thought it was way too tart, verging on bitter. David loved it, so if you’re someone who can’t get enough lemon, add some lemon zest even though the recipe below leaves it out. In the final rendition that I made just this last weekend, I added a bit of white wine to complement the flavors and cut the over-zealous flavor of the lemon and added a bit of half and half to make sure the dish really did deliver with the promise of a creamy texture.

The results? This is close: it absolutely has a fantastic lemon flavor, it’s creamy, and it’s satisfying. But I think nothing can quite capture the magic of dinner out in New York City with family or friends. But for an at-home recreation, I think this is quite a success.

Creamy Lemon Pasta
Inspired by Pepolino’s in NYC

Ingredients
3/4 lb. spaghetti
2 whole eggs + 1 egg yolk
4 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup half and half
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

Steps
1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until done (according to package directions or to taste). Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water. Drain and return the pasta to the pot immediately.
2. While pasta cooks, separate one egg yolk and whisk it together with the two remaining eggs. As soon as the cooked pasta is returned to the pot, pour in the eggs and stir vigorously. The goal is to coat the strands of spaghetti evenly without letting clumps of eggs cook into chunks of scrambled egg in the middle of your pasta.
3. Once the eggs have been thoroughly incorporated and coat the pasta evenly, add the peas, then add the lemon juice and stir again. Finally, had the wine, then the half and half, stirring after each addition. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and serve.



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August 13, 2012 · 2:28 pm

Simple Chopped Summer Salad

On a Saturday morning back in July, my Recipe Redux post was supposed to go up along with other dietitians’ and healthy cooking bloggers’ recipes. Instead, I spent my weekend in New York City celebrating with my sister. We spent our afternoons noshing on sushi and Italian food (not at the same time), exploring her new neighborhood, and sipping red wine while watching Say Yes to the Dress and scoping out dresses online. And that was all just icing on the cake; the exciting news is that David and I got engaged! The past few weeks have been a fabulous whirlwind of excitement, so I’m confident the Reduxers will forgive my absence.

If I hadn’t been wrapped up in the all the excitement, and if I’d posted what I was supposed to be posting, it would have been this simple summer salad. The theme this time around was no-cook summer meals. I find it amusing that all through July I posted recipes that required cranking the oven in the middle of a summer heat wave, and when the Recipe Redux challenge rolled around I didn’t put together a no-cook meal for all of you. But this is actually a recipe that’s been popping up frequently in my summer rotation, especially for lunches and dinners when we get a late start or have nothing else immediately on hand. The last two weeks have been a constant string of meeting friends for after-work drinks and dining out, so I’ve been grateful for this dish as a healthy fall-back recipe to eat at work or later in the evening.

This recipe, which isn’t so much a recipe as it is a combination of my favorite simple ingredients at the moment, is very much in keeping with my Southwestern-flavored summer. I’ve been on a huge avocado kick lately, and topping this salad off with chunks of ripe avocado is what makes it one of my favorites. A blend of cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, and avocado is mixed with chopped romaine hearts and arugula.  I finished it all finished off with a drizzle of a tangy, punchy, mustard vinaigrette. I sometimes think salads are hard to eat if all the individual ingredients are clumped in isolated piles rather than mixed in, so I think it’s a must that all the ingredients get chopped and thoroughly tossed together. It makes it so much more accessible. It is simple and satisfying. But I hesitated a bit before posting a salad as a no-cook meal. After all, the combination of ingredients isn’t exactly a new idea. But in the course of my day working at at diabetes clinic and speaking with a wide variety of people, I’ve found that it isn’t always an easy thing to just combine a bunch of ingredients in a bowl and have it turn out well. A lot of people need direction in taking salads from being mere “rabbit food” to a meal that’s worth making and worth eating. So I put this dish forward as a recipe I love and make over and over again. To keep it simple, I buy a bag of three romaine hearts and some arugula, a pint of cherry tomatoes, two red bell peppers, and two avocados, I use it all to make two salads, and it gets me through a whole week’s worth of lunches (with a tuna sandwich on the side). I make a big batch in our huge yellow bowl, toss everything together so all the ingredients are evenly incorporated throughout, and then parse the whole salad into four different plastic containers.
Simple Chopped Summer Salad

Salad Ingredients
2 romaine lettuce hearts
3 oz. arugula
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 red bell pepper
1 avocado

Steps
1) Wash and dry both the romaine hearts and the arugula. Chop off the end of the romaine heart and cut the leaves into thin slices. Roughly chop the arugula, then combine the lettuce in a large bowl.
2) Wash the cherry tomatoes and the bell pepper. Halve or quarter the cherry tomatoes and toss into the large bowl along with the lettuce. Cut the red pepper open, remove the ribs and seeds, then chop into thin, short strips. Add to the salad and toss to combine.
3) Using a sharp knife, slice the avocado in half, working around the pit. Twist the two halves apart and remove the pit by firmly lodging the knife in the center and lifting out. Peel the rough outer skin off the avocado, then slice the flesh into chunks. Add to the salad bowl.

Vinaigrette
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
4 Tablespoons olive oil
salt & pepper, to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a small high-walled bowl. Whisk quickly to thoroughly combine. Drizzle over the salad and serve.

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August 4, 2012 · 10:40 am

Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Chorizo & Avocado


I thought I’d share this recipe for stuffed poblano peppers as a follow-up to my post on what to do with all the extra cilantro I had on hand from making Southwestern-inspired dinners. Although it was an absurd idea to roast stuffed peppers in the oven in the middle of July, that’s exactly what I did. This recipe just highlights some of the flavor combinations I’ve really been enjoying lately: black beans, corn, onions sauteed in cumin, and fresh diced tomatoes are stirred in with chorizo sausage and topped with chopped avocado and cilantro.

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July 18, 2012 · 4:19 pm

Spaghetti with Cilantro-Peanut Pesto

I’ve been on a bit of a Southwestern kick lately. Over the last year, I’ve made more and more dishes that involve the classic combination of cilantro, lime, corn, tomatoes, and beans. Part of it has to do with the fact that so many of the things you can make with a Southwestern bent are actually super healthy. Whole wheat quesadillas filled with cumin-scented black beans, onions, and cheese; stuffed peppers with corn and avocado, cheesy enchiladas with beans and tomatoes. These are all things that I’ve been making over and over again throughout the spring and into the summer. Even though it’s been crazy hot out lately, I managed to crank up my oven to 400-degrees for the sake of those enchiladas.

Part of the equation is that all of these dishes can be made with a few staple ingredients, cycling through the different recipes so you’re eating a different meal with slightly different flavors every night, yet nothing goes to waste because it’s languishing, unused, in your fridge.

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June 27, 2012 · 8:14 am

Red Lentil Dal with Asparagus with Perfect Roasted Potatoes

This August, I’ll be coming up on the 1-year benchmark for posting regularly on this blog. I actually started the blog a year earlier, in 2010, but it took awhile to find my rhythm and figure out what I actually wanted this space to be. It took another three months or so to figure out what good photos and lighting could do for food shots. Remember the tomato cobbler? It’s probably one of the best dishes I’ve made in the past year, but back in September, I was still surmounting the steep learning curve of DSLR and coming to grips with the fact that Photoshop can’t transform harsh 70-watt overhead lighting into soft natural light. Now, all of my shots are done in natural day light with some thought to food styling and composition. I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve made some good progress.

And then something like this red lentil dal comes along which absolutely resists having a good photograph taken. From any angle, it still looks like what it is: Red lentils cooked to bursting with some wiggly red onions and asparagus. The photos don’t help brag about the flavor, how the red lentils cook down to what turns out to be an excellent sauce for the asparagus and onions and how the Indian spice blend infuses the onions to perfection.

Not everything can be as beautiful as strawberries or melted, oozy cheese.

So without the help of photos, how can I convince you that you absolutely must make this recipe? That in the course of a few weeks, this dish has made many appearances on our dinner table, and it’s been a delight each time?

How about this: Once you buy the few spices needed which may not already be in your spice rack, this is one the absolute cheapest dinners you can cobble together, and you can do it again and again without needing to hit the grocery store each time. Continue reading →

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June 16, 2012 · 10:00 am

Open-faced Caramelized Onion and Fontina Grilled Cheese Sandwich

It’s almost summer in Boston, but sometimes it doesn’t quite feel like it. Luckily, we’re seeing the seasons change with fresh summer produce turning up in the grocery stores, and the farmer’s markets have opened across the city. Sometimes it’s warm enough to grab a drink outside after work. But as I’m sitting here writing, it’s barely over 60 degrees outside, and I need to wear long sleeves to stay warm with the windows open.

About a week or so ago, it was a chilly, rainy day with the temperature down into the 50s. I’ve started a more ambitious running routine since my semester ended in May, and my good friend Jodi introduced me to running on the Esplanade along the Charles River. I do either a 4 or 5 mile loop most days of the week, and I’d been doing such a good job sticking to my routine that I didn’t want to let the rain and the chill be what broke my good streak. So I wore a fleece pullover and hit the road, got wet, but wound up back home after an otherwise normal run. I spent the rest of the day feeling like the damp had seeped into my bones and couldn’t get quite warm enough no matter what I did.

And so this sandwich was born: Standing by the stove slow-cooking some onions for about an hour and roasting tomatoes for soup would be the only thing to break the chill.

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May 27, 2012 · 3:05 pm

Strawberry & Tomato Bruschetta with Goat Cheese

This is a twist on a dish I’ve been making for years, and it’s a perfect accompaniment to a Memorial Day party. Here, strawberries are paired with the classic combination of tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and basil, resulting in a fresh and summery dish. A smear of goat cheese lends the bruschetta a hearty,  tangy flavor to contrast with the strawberries’ and tomatoes’ sweetness.

I’ve been making the sans-strawberry version of bruschetta for years (since college, at least), and it’s a reliable appetizer to serve when I have friends over for dinner. For this version, the strawberries are a unique addition to my reliable original recipe. About a week ago, I picked up Ted Allen’s new cookbook, In My Kitchen. He’s the host of Chopped, one of my favorite shows on TV right now, and the recent recipient of a James Beard award. As David says, “the James Beard Awards are like the Oscars for you,” so the fact that he recently won one is very exciting (for me, at least, and I’m sure for him, too). The idea for adding strawberries came from one of his recipes, and it’s a fabulous idea.

It’s a crowd-pleaser: I’ve had the opportunity to serve these to three different groups of friends, most recently some of David’s relatives and a friend & former coworker from Pearson just yesterday.

The recipe can also be adapted in a few ways for Memorial Day celebrations. The tomato-strawberry blend can be made awhile ahead, as the flavors will blend together and meld over time. The preparation outline below is what I do in my apartment, but if you’re bringing a dish to share to a Memorial Day party or grilling, this can easily be converted to an outdoor dish. If that’s the case, brush the baguette slices with olive oil and place on the grill. Once it’s toasted and somewhat crispy, take a clove of raw garlic and rub it on the flat surface of the bread. Then top with a thin layer of goat cheese and the raw tomato-strawberry combo and garnish with basil.

The goat cheese can also be omitted entirely to keep make it a vegan recipe.

Strawberry & Tomato Bruschetta with Goat Cheese
Adapted from Ted Allen’s “In My Kitchen”

Ingredients
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2 pint strawberries
3 garlic cloves, chopped
3 Tablespoons olive oil
salt & pepper
3 oz. soft goat cheese
1 baguette, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
4 large basil leaves, sliced

1) Slice the grape tomatoes down the center length-wise, then chop into thirds. Chop the stems off the strawberries and slice into smaller pieces. Combine the olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, and strawberries in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

2) Preheat the oven to 400-degrees. Smear an even layer of goat cheese across each slice of baguette and arrange on a rimmed baking sheet. Spoon the strawberry-tomato mixture over each slice. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the edge of the baguette get toasty and brown and the strawberries and tomatoes are warmed through. Garnish with sliced basil leaves and serve immediately.

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