Meatless Monday! Lentils with Sauteed Veggies over Quinoa

There has been a lot of press about how eating less meat is better for your health as well as the earth.  Meatless Mondays are promoted as a way to reduce how much meat you eat on a regular basis, and as such every Monday I receive many emails about vegetarian cooking.
I do like to cook vegetarian dishes, but have not gotten into doing it with much consistency.  However, yesterday I wanted to cook mostly with ingredients I had on hand.  I also wanted to go only to the local store (which will remain nameless), and which does not have such a good selection for meats.  So, Meatless Monday it was!  It also helped that Corey was going out after work.  Whenever I cook a main dish without meat, he usually says it would taste better with chicken haha.
My inspiration for my dinner came from a dish I saw on the blog Liberty London Girl.  I made quite a few changes and additions, and was very happy with the results.  With 5 ingredients from the list of the 30 healthiest foods (see my previous post Healthy Ideas - 30 Healthiest Foods), this dish is packed with vitamins and protein, and low in carbs.
Here's how it looked-

Ingredients:
Green lentils
Quinoa
Olive Oil
Red onion - diced
Garlic - chopped
Mushrooms - sliced (I used baby bellas)
Chicken or veggie broth, or water if needed
Spinach (I used baby spinach)
Feta
Salt & Pepper
Lemon juice

Preparation:
1. Cook the lentils (I had some precooked in the freezer).
2. Rinse and cook the quinoa - I used about 3/4C, added to 1 1/2C boiling water and simmered for 15 minutes.
3. In a large saute pan, heat 1T olive oil on medium.  Add 1/2 of a red onion, diced.  Cook for about 10 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook for another minute.  Add the sliced mushrooms, sprinkle with salt, and cook for another 10 minutes.

It needed a little moisture while cooking, so I'll admit I added a little chicken broth here, but I think it still counts as meatless.  Remove to a bowl.
4. Add the spinach to the same pan and cook, covered, until wilted.  Stir while cooking to help the process.

Before

After

Add the lentils (I used maybe 1C) and cook until heated.

Return the mushroom mixture to the pan, stir to combine, and cook for a few minutes.  Season with pepper.  Add the feta (I used about 3oz, diced) and stir in so it will start to melt.
5. Spoon quinoa onto a plate and make a well in the center.  Spoon the veggies over the quinoa.
6. In a small bowl, whisk together a little olive oil and lemon juice (I used about 2T each).  Drizzle a little over the vegetables.
I'll admit I did have some toasted naan with this, which did up the carbs, as you can see it the 1st photo.
The whole meal was delicious!

Do you observe Meatless Mondays?
What is your favorite meatless main dish?

Chocolate!

This is what I made for dessert when Jen & Doug came for dinner, during her extremely brief stop at home between Bolivia and Guatemala.
It's a warm cookie bar with lots of gooey chocolate chunks.  I served it with vanilla gelato (store bought - Talenti Tahitian vanilla bean) and warm chocolate sauce (also store bought - Fudge Fatale Ultimate Chocolate Sauce).
I forgot to get a photo that night, so this is a smaller version from the following night.  I just had to have it again in order to get a photo ;-).
The recipe for the cookie bar is a secret.  If you want to try it, you'll have to come over.  Otherwise, I'm accepting orders.

How to Eat Sushi - Tips

Not that anyone is thinking about sushi this early in the morning (or maybe you are - kanpai to you), but here is a video with some tips on how to do it correctly.
http://www.chow.com/videos/show/youre-doing-it-all-wrong/63065/how-to-properly-eat-sushi-with-trevor-corson
Incidentally, Chow is a very useful source for recipes, commentary, and tips like this.

Pan Seared Scallops with Quinoa and Grapefruit Salad

This is a meal I thought about making on Thursday night, since Corey was out to dinner with his coworkers.  However, I decided to be lazy, and got some frozen shrimp spring rolls from the freezer at Whole Foods, which I enjoyed with some chardonnay and a couple of chick flicks I knew I could never subject Corey to.
Finally, last night, I made it.  I love sea scallops, and haven't cooked them at home in a long, long time.  I made a quinoa and grapefruit salad to go with them, a recipe I saw on foodnetwork.com.   The recipe shows the salad with salmon, but it was delicious with the scallops.
There are several steps involved in making this salad - infusing the olive oil, segmenting the grapefruit, cooking the quinoa, etc.  It is certainly not something to make when you are short on time (or patience, so I was glad I didn't do it on Thursday).  It was perfect for me yesterday, since I was able to do most of it in the afternoon before Corey got home from work, so we could go for a walk before dinner, and finish it afterwards.
Here are the instructions for making the salad.  I made the whole recipe, so that I would have leftovers.

Ingredients:
1 medium grapefruit
8 thin slices fresh ginger
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 cup quinoa
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus additional for seasoning
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar (I used champagne vinegar)
2 teaspoons honey
1 small serrano or jalapeno chile, minced (with seeds for maximum heat)
2 scallions (both white and green parts), minced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Freshly ground black pepper
Preparation:
1. Make the infused olive oil:
Strip the peel from the grapefruit with a vegetable peeler, taking care not to include the bitter white pith.  (This requires a very light hand.)

Warm the grapefruit peel, ginger, and olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Remove from the heat as soon as the oil starts to bubble.  Set the oil aside to steep for 30 minutes.  Strain and reserve the oil.  Discard the solids.
2. Cook the quinoa:
Rinse the quinoa in a fine mesh sieve and drain.  Put the quinoa in a small saucepan with the water and 1/2 teaspoon salt.  Boil over high heat, and then reduce heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook, uncovered, for 15 minutes.  Set aside off the heat, undisturbed, for 5 minutes.  Transfer the quinoa to a bowl and fluff with a fork.  Cool.
3. Prepare the grapefruit and juice:
Segment the grapefruit over a bowl, reserving the segments and juice separately. Squeeze the juice out of the membrane into the bowl with the juice.

Cut the peel and white pith away

Cut the flesh away from the membranes over a bowl

4. Prepare the dressing:
Whisk 3 tablespoons of the grapefruit juice with the vinegar, honey, and salt to taste in a medium bowl. Gradually whisk in 3 tablespoons of the reserved grapefruit oil, starting with a few drops and then adding the rest in a stream to make a slightly thick dressing. Season with pepper to taste.
5. Mix the salad:
Add the dressing, chiles, scallions, and cilantro to the quinoa in the bowl and stir to combine.  Season with pepper.

Scallops:
These cook very quickly, so do this last.
1. Pat scallops dry and remove the foot muscle.  Drizzle lightly with olive oil and mix to coat.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2. Heat a saute pan over medium-high heat.  (I again used 1 of our Calphalon anodized pans - great for searing and easy to clean.)
3. Add the scallops and cook until a nice brown crust is formed, about 2 minutes.  Turn and cook until browned on the other side, another 2 minutes.

Spoon some salad onto a plate, top with some grapefruit sections and the scallops, and enjoy!

This was delicious and healthy, with plenty of protein thanks to the quinoa.  I would have liked the salad to be a little spicier.  I scraped the seeds out of 1/2 of the jalapeno, so next time I might get a larger jalapeno, and would use all of the seeds.

A Quick and Easy Marinade for Steak

Last night we decided to celebrate the weather with a nice, juicy grilled steak and vegetables.  We got a sirloin steak, and to dress it up a bit I used my go-to steak marinade.
Ingredients:
3T low-sodium soy sauce
3T balsamic vinegar
3T real maple syrup
4 garlic cloves, chopped
Preparation:
I like to use my immersion blender for this.  In blender cup, add all ingredients. Blend on high until smooth.  Put steak into a large ziploc bag, and add marinade. Seal and leave on the counter (at room temp) for about 15 minutes or while you prepare everything else.
Remove steak from marinade, and grill as desired.
We had grilled asparagus and yellow squash with this.
Simple, quick and delicious!
What is your favorite marinade for steak?

Here's the link for the original recipe:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Grilled-Marinated-Sirloin-Flap-Steaks-350252

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Last night I made Chicken Vesuvio, which is chicken with potatoes and artichoke hearts in a white wine sauce.  This is a favorite of mine which for some reason I had made only a few times before, and never for Corey.  This is definitely something that will go on our "favorites" list.
The original recipe is courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis, and I made only a few changes.  I made 2 servings, and used bone-in chicken breast.  I also used canned artichoke hearts instead of frozen as per the recipe.  I love to cook with Whole Foods' 365 brand canned artichokes which are canned in water rather than the usual jarred kind which are in oil.  I like to always have a can on hand, and happened to have some in the fridge leftover I wanted to use up, which was why I wanted to make this dish.
I love to cook this way - browning everything on the stovetop, and then cooking everything together in the same pan in the oven.  I love to use our Calphalon pans for this, which are anodized with a nonstick interior.  You will see these black pans in a lot of my photos here.  They allow for perfect browning on the stovetop, are oven safe, and are so easy to clean, without any scrubbing.  Because of the material, I use less oil or a light spray of my 100% olive oil spray.  These pans brown so much better than other nonstick pans I've used before, and the nonstick interior does not peel off or scratch.

Here's a photo of the finished product:

Mmmmm

Here's how I made it-
Ingredients:
1T olive oil
2 chicken breasts with skin and bones
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 small red-skinned potatoes, halved
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2C dry white wine
1/2C low sodium chicken broth
1t dried oregano
3/4t dried thyme
4 whole canned artichoke hearts, excess water squeezed out, and quartered
1T unsalted butter

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 450.
Heat the oil in large ovenproof pan over medium-high heat.
Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper.
Add the chicken to the saute pan and cook until golden brown on all sides, about 10 minutes.
Remove the chicken to a bowl.
Carefully add the potatoes to the same pot and cook until they are golden brown, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.
Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute.

Cute little potatoes

Add the wine and stir to scrape up any brown bits on the bottom of the pot.
Add the broth, oregano, and thyme.
Return the chicken to the pot, along with any juices from the bowl, and arrange the potatoes around the chicken.
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

Lookin' good

Cover, put the pan in the oven and bake until the chicken is cooked through, about 25 minutes.
Transfer the chicken and potatoes to plates.
Add the artichoke hearts to the sauce in the pot.
Cover and simmer over medium-high heat until the artichokes are tender, stirring often, about 4 minutes. Turn heat to low and stir in the butter.
Pour the sauce over chicken and potatoes, and serve.

It was really delicious.  Corey's only comment was that he wanted more artichokes, and in fact he tried to steal some of mine...OK I relented.  I used a Chardonnay from Argentina for this, which worked perfectly.  A winner!

Here's the link for the original recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/chicken-vesuvio-recipe/index.html

I also made some baby spinach to go along with this.
I heated a little olive oil over medium heat, about 1t, in another 1 of these pans, added some sliced garlic and cooked for 1 minute.  Then I added some baby spinach to the pan and cooked it, turning with tongs, until wilted.  I added some grated lemon zest and a sprinkle of sea salt.

Are you going to try this? Let me know what you think!

1 Pot meals are great, but how about a No Pot meal? Cook your dinner in a packet!

Cook your entire meal in individual foil or parchment packets, and cleanup is a snap!  This is a great way to cook fish because it seals in the moisture, requires little or no oil, and the fish is blanketed in the flavors of the other ingredients.
Last night I made hake fillets cooked in foil packets together with several different vegetables, pesto and pearl couscous.   It was a delicious and healthy meal, and easy to put together.
The idea for this dinner started because I wanted to use some of my own pesto I have in the freezer, and also I have been a bit of a slacker regarding my resolution to eat more fish.
I thought I had tried basically every fish there is, until I saw hake at Whole Foods yesterday.  It was half the price of cod, and the fish man said it is similar (the recipe uses red snapper, but that was not available).  Since hake is pretty thick, it required more cooking time than the snapper would have.
I have this recipe from Bon Appetit:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Fish-and-Vegetables-with-Pesto-Baked-in-Foil-Packets-102647
Based on the reviews and my own ideas I decided to make a couple of changes, and only 2 servings.
I wanted couscous but didn't want to have to cook it separately, so I added it to the packets.  I toasted it beforehand, so I did use 1 pan, but only for a minute so I'm still calling it a no pot meal.  I wasn't sure how it would come out, if it would cook without being mushy, but it turned out just perfect.  Also, this gave me an opportunity to use my new walnut oil (thanks Diane!).
The finished product came out great, here's a look:

Perfect!

Fish & Vegetables with Pesto Baked in Foil Packets

Ingredients:
1t walnut oil
1/4C pearl couscous
1/3C pesto
1T fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon sriracha hot pepper sauce
Olive oil spray
2 handfuls baby spinach
2 6-ounce hake fillets
8 asparagus spears, each trimmed to 4-inch length
2 plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 yellow squash, thinly sliced on diagonal

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350°F.
Heat walnut oil in a saute pan over medium heat.
Add couscous and cook, stirring, until lightly toasted.

Blend pesto, lemon juice and hot pepper sauce in small bowl.
Prepare the vegetables.

Arrange two 12x12-inch pieces of heavy-duty foil on work surface.
Lightly spray center of both pieces of foil with olive oil.
Mound a handful of spinach over the sprayed foil.
Place 1 fish fillet on top of the spinach.
Sprinkle fish lightly with salt and pepper and spread with 1T pesto mixture.
Top with asparagus, tomatoes and squash, and then spoon remaining pesto mixture over the vegetables.
Spoon the couscous around the fish.

With colors like this, it has to be good right?

Fold sides of foil over fish and vegetables, covering completely; seal packets closed.
Transfer foil packets to a large baking sheet.

Bake until fish is just opaque in center and vegetables are crisp-tender, about 40 minutes.  To check if the fish is done, open the packet a little, push the veggies over to the side, and stick a fork in the fish.  If it flakes easily, it's done.  If not, seal it back up and put the tray back in the oven for a few minutes.
Place each packet on a dinner plate, open up, and enjoy!

Those of you who know Corey know he doesn't eat fish...he did not eat this.  He was excited to come home and see some of his favorite foods on the counter - squash, asparagus, couscous, but then the fish.  I am happy to have the 2nd packet for leftovers today.  I know people use this  method for cooking chicken, but I'm not sure I would like it that way.  Maybe I'll try it sometime.

Have you ever cooked with this method?  Let me know!