Stacey’s Brown Sugar Grilled Salmon and Katie’s Couscous Salad

Stacey's Brown Sugar Salmon and Katie's Couscous Salad

This is one of our absolute summer favorites and staples which pairs very well with a cold crisp bottle of white wine (or two). Stacey is definitely the grilling/fish guru among us. Often when we make salmon she whips up a simple but delicious marinade of brown sugar, salt, pepper olive oil and lemon juice (and I think sometimes she’ll add some cayenne pepper to it as well) to make this salmon delicious! She puts it on the grill and cooks it until the middle’s flaky. The asparagus was simply coated with olive oil and salt and peppered and put in the oven on a cookie sheet for 7 minutes or so at around 375.

My friend Katie Bangs sent me this recipe for couscous salad almost two years ago now and it is absolutely one of my favorite recipes for summer salads. It is such a crowd pleaser and is really quite easy to make as long as you have all of the ingredients. I don’t follow many recipes verbatim, but this one I absolutely do. It’s amazing as is. Here’s a copy of her recipe:

COUSCOUS SALAD. DISH DELISH.

Ingredients
Salad
1 cup couscous
3 cups garbanzo beans
²⁄³ cup currants
²⁄³ cup red bell pepper, diced
½ cup scallions, chopped
½ cup fresh mint, chopped
½ cup pine nuts, toasted
½ cup parsley, chopped
Dressing:
½ cup extra virgin Olive Oil
½ cup lemon juice
1 tsp. garlic, crushed
½ tsp. ground cumin
Salt and black pepper to taste
Garnish
cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
fresh mint
radish

Directions
1.  Make the dressing by combining olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, ground cumin, salt and
pepper to taste. Mix well and set aside.
2.  Soak the currents in warm water to plump up, then strain and dry them.
3.  Boil 2 cups of water and add couscous. Remove from the heat and cover for about 10            minutes. Fluff the couscous with a fork and transfer to a bowl to cool.
4.  Once the couscous has cooled, add garbanzo beans, currants, red bell pepper, scallions, fresh mint, pine nuts, and parsley. Add the dressing mix well.
5.  Cover and leave out in room temperature for 1 hour or cover and refrigerate overnight. Return salad to room temperature before serving.
6.  Garnish with cherry tomatoes, fresh mint, and radish.

This can be served as an appetizer, side dish, or add grilled chicken for a bigger meal.

Posted by Narineh at 11:50 PM

Labels: Cooking, Food, Recipe, Salad

Butternut Squash, Kale, Tomato Bake

 

Last night, living up to the name of this blog, I experimented by combining three recipes and came up with this healthy (245 calories per serving) dish. I love making healthy dishes because then I don’t feel so bad about drinking more beer! The original recipes are here: Recipe 1, Recipe 2 and Recipe 3. Stacey and Judy, my roommate, both thought it was pretty good. Especially, with some good brews. And brews were definitely in order as the IU men’s basketball squad, and their fans – us, had a pretty rough night last night.

To start the bake, I peeled and seeded a medium butternut squash. I chopped it up into 1/2 inch squares and sauteed it in olive oil until it started to brown and was getting soft. Then, I took the squash out of the pan and put it on a plate to cool. From there, I sauteed a large onion chopped in a big wok along with 4 cloves of garlic. Once they were soft, I added about 2-3 Tbs of chopped fresh sage and 4 morningstar fake sausage patties which I chopped up into small cubes. Then, I added 5 vine-ripened tomatoes which I had quartered. I let them cook for a minute or two and then put in the kale which I had chopped up and took the stem away. Here, I seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. Once the kale had cooked down I took the pan off of the heat.

In a 9 x 13 baking dish I’d sprayed with non-stick spray, I put down the squash cubes so that they covered the bottom of the dish. Then, I added the kale, tomato, onion mixture and spread it out in an even layer on top. Then, I chopped up about half a handful of fresh basil and sprinkled that over the top. Finally, I put about 7 Tbs of shredded parmigano-reggiano cheese over top along with about 3 Tbs of panko breadcrumbs. Then, I baked it at about 375 for 10 minutes- until the top became golden brown! YUM!!

 

Vegetarian Chili

Veggie Chili

This is one of my favorite recipes to make and eat. I made it last night for some lovely friends who came by to watch some football. (I wasn’t sure if it was the spice in the chili or Tebow’s performance which brought tears to their eyes.) I always put out the saracha hot sauce so that it can be made as spicy as each person likes. Personally, I like it HOT!

To make the chili, I start with putting some olive oil in a big pot. Then I add an onion chopped and 4 cloves of garlic chopped. After a few minutes, I throw in about half of a zucchini chopped into small cubes. A minute or two later, I put in about 2 bell peppers chopped into small pieces and a jalapeno. See pic below:

Onion, Garlic, Jalepeno, Zucchini, Bell Pepers

Once the veggies start to soften a little bit, I put in the spices. I add a good amount (always to taste, but in descending order according to quantity) of chili powder, cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper and salt. Once the spices are in (and they will always be adjusted as cooking progresses) I add a can of condensed tomato soup mix, like Campbell’s and two jars of drained stewed tomatoes. Then, I add a can of black beans and a can of kidney beans in their liquid. Sometimes I also add a handful of fake veggie meat. I think it gives the chili a nice texture and adds a little protein.

Last night we topped it with sour cream and cheddar cheese and enjoyed some jalapeno, cheddar cornbread along side. It was a pretty nice, comforting meal for a cold night of football watching.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Pumpkin Cupcakes

These pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting were made for a party at Stacey’s this fall. I followed Maratha Stewart’s recipe (linked to the photo above) They were sinful. I cut back on the butter; I only put in one stick I think. I cut back on the sugar putting in about 2/3 of what is called for. I also added  pecans on the top. Try them. O   M   G.

Stacey’s Baked Tilapia

Baked Tilapia with Tomatoes, Leeks, Lemon and Basil

Stacey whipped up this amazing dinner recently. She put olive oil in the bottom of the baking dish, lined it then with fresh basil leaves, and then placed two tilapia fillets on the basil leaves. She then topped the fillets with leeks, tomato slices, lemon slices and salt and pepper. This is an extremely healthy, filling and savory way to make white fish delicious. It’s nice to bake fish in the winter when grilling isn’t as appealing so the house doesn’t fill with the aroma of fried fish.

Maine Lobster

Maine Lobster in New Hampshire!

While on vacation with Stacey and good friends Emily and Joanne, we enjoyed some delicious Maine lobster. It was my first time eating lobster in the US. My first experience with lobster was a very memorable one in Iceland with Sigrun, a good friend, her grandparents, mom and good friends Emily and Evie. This lobster experience was a very special one as Stacey and I picked out our lobsters at this road-side lobster market in New Hampshire.

Here’s where the lobsters live temporarily.

Live Lobser Buffet

Stacey also got us some clams which we ate as an appetizer. Stacey cooked the lobsters and clams at the cute little cabin Joanne’s family owns in Meredith New Hampshire where we spent a week between Christmas and New Year’s this year. She boiled the clams and the lobsters in water. We ate them by removing the inedible parts (I’m very glad to have had her guidance in this activity) and dunking the edible ones in garlic butter before ingesting them. Um, this was one of the most decadent, messy and amazing dinners I’ve had in a LONG time!

Homemade Pizza with Homemade Whole Wheat Crust

Homemade pizza is one of my favorite activities/meals. Some of you may know about my mostly vegetarian tendencies with a weakness for cured meats like salami and peperoni. Some (Liz Sanders) refers to me as a Salamitarian. I don’t deny this. Homemade pizza gives me the opportunity to get my peperoni fix on a regular basis. I make the dough in my bread-maker. I love my bread-maker. It makes a batch of dough in an hour and a half. It’s super easy and really tasty (oh and cheap!). I’ll post the recipe for the dough below. This particular pie, Stacey and her roommate Beth, topped with tomato sauce (marinara from a jar), slices of mozzarella, peperoni, banana peppers and green olives. We also baked it in the oven at 400 degrees on a hot pizza stone. There’s approximately 160 calories in each slice of pizza, I think.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough Recipe for the Bread-Maker

Roasted Corn, Pepper, and Tomato Chowder

This soup was really tasty. I added a bunch of different spices to it as Stacey and I thought it was kind of bland. We added chili powder, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, red wine and some other things that I can’t quite recall at the moment. I used frozen corn kernels instead of ears of corn. Also, we substituted Gorgonzola cheese in place of the bleu cheese. We ate the soup with garlic bread. The soup was even better the next day! Yum! Oh and the best part of this recipe is that one serving is only 155 calories!

Vegan Blueberry Muffins

These muffins are fantastic! They’re really light and just as good, if not better, than any non-vegan muffins I’ve ever had. I’ve done them with all different kinds of fruit including strawberries and bananas. Note: once I didn’t have canola oil. Even though olive oil is a vegetable oil, it should not be substituted. It gives your muffins a flavor you don’t really want. I don’t put in the lemon zest or extract. I also typically use soy milk and think they turn out great. They’re a fantastic treat for Sunday mornings and contain about 200 calories apiece.

Butternut Squash Ravioli with Homemade Whole Wheat Pasta in a Brown Butter and Sage Sauce

Stacey and I tried our hands at making fresh pasta with a pasta maker I got for my birthday last year. We were a tad over ambitious and started out making whole wheat pasta (recipe) which seems a bit harder to make than regular pasta. We’ve since gone back to making the regular pasta as it is much easier. It tends to tear apart less than when using whole wheat flour. The trial and error process is still really fun especially when its assisted by a bottle (or two) of red wine.

This dinner was absolutely phenomenal despite the trials the whole wheat pasta-making introduced. The sweetness of the roasted squash and the nutty flavor of the Parmesan cheese with the brown butter and sage in the sauce was a perfect pairing.