Quiche with Filo Dough Crust

I've never made quiche before, but my friend Marci explained how to do it, so I gave it a try.  Wow...it was delicious!  I chopped 2 cloves of garlic, 1 large shallot, and about 5 or 6 slices of deli ham.  I took about half of an 8 ounce roll of filo dough and placed three sheets at a time, at different angles, into a pie pan sprayed with pam.  Then I sprayed each layer, and brushed a little melted margarine on them, folding the ends under to make a pretty crust.  Baked it about 15-20 minutes at 275 until it was looking crunchier, but not browned.  Once it was out I put the oven to 350.  I sauteed the shallots and garlic in some of the leftover margarine, then added the ham and a bunch of frozen spinach (the kind from a bag that's already little pieces).  While those were hanging out in the pan I beat four eggs and about a cup of milk in a bowl.  Put the filling in the pie shell, then the egg mixture and grated about 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar and mixed it all together in the pie shell.  Baked for about 40-45 minutes and serve! 

I also served some honey glazed carrots with this.  I cut the carrots into round slices and boiled them for about 5 minutes.  Mixed a couple tbps of margarine in a small skillet, added a BIG spoonful of raw honey, a little splash of lemon juice, and a pinch of ginger.  Once it was boiling I added the carrot slices and sauteed until the juices were all absorbed.  WOW were those carrots good!  A nice sweet compliment to the savory quiche.  :)

Moroccan Salmon Cakes

Tonight we had something that I made a few years ago, and had a hankering to make again.  It uses canned salmon, couscous cooked in orange juice, frozen spinach (thawed and squeezed dry), egg yolks, garlic, cumin, salt and pepper.  Mix them all together, make them into patties and saute in a little bit of olive oil.  That made 13 good sized cakes.

Serve them with nonfat Greek yogurt that you make into a dip by adding some paprika and cayenne pepper.  I also made some broccoli and roasted sweet potatoes.  I cut the potatoes into cubes, brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and baked at 425 for about 40 minutes.  This was really healthy, and REALLY delicious.  Totally satisfying, and full of flavor.  I need to make this more often!

Chicken Spinach Gnocchi

I had all these ingredients I wanted to use up tonight, and no recipe.  So I searched the interwebs and couldn't find exactly what I wanted.  So I just made one myself!  Basically here's what I did:

1 Chicken Breast
2-3 shallots
2 cloves garlic
1-2 tbs olive oil
1/2-3/4 cup frozen chopped spinach (from a bag)
1/2 a 25 oz (1lb 9 oz) bag of frozen gnocchi
7 strips of turkey bacon
3 tbsp cream cheese
1/3 cup fat free greek yogurt
splash of milk...maybe....1/8 cup?
1/4 cup shredded parm cheese

boil water for gnocchi and preheat oven to 350
microwave turkey bacon until crispy, about 5 minutes
sautee shallot in pan with olive oil
slice chicken breast in half lenghtwise, then slice each side into thin strips
once shallots start to soften, add chicken and garlic
put gnocchi in to boil once water is up, cook until they all float to the top, then drain and set aside
sprinkle frozen chopped spinach into pan.  Crumble bacon.
once spinach is thawed and incorporated, add bacon.  add cream cheese and yogurt
add splash of milk and stir until everything is creamy and incorporated
add gnocchi and stir until well combined.  add to square baking dish (glass), sprinkle with parm cheese and bake for 10-15 minutes

I didn't add any salt of pepper (the bacon is salty all on its own), and I think next time I'll make the sauce a little thinner by adding some more milk, because the gnocchi sucks it all up pretty fast!  I might even add some chicken stock.  Ooh!  Yeah I like that idea.  Oh, and maybe some sundried tomatoes, or diced grape tomatoes....mmm possibilities of deliciousness.....mmmmm..... :)

Lemon Chicken with Rice

This was our dinner tonight, and it was really good!  Started by putting rice in the rice cooker and getting that going.  Cut two chicken breasts into smaller pieces, coated in a bit of flour, salt, pepper, and paprika.  Sauteed in a nonstick pan with a pad of margarine until brown on both sides.  Put about a cup of chicken stock in the pan (or enough to cover chicken) with the juice of one lemon and half a tsp-1tsp minced garlic and a tbsp or 2 of parsley flakes.  Simmered for about 10 minutes.  To thicken the sauce up a bit I took about a tsp of corn starch and a couple little spoonfuls of the sauce in the pan and mixed them together until smooth.  stir it in the bubbling sauce in the pan until it thickens.  Return the chicken to the pan and heat through.  In the meantime I microwaved some corn and plated the rice.  Put everything else on the plates and mmmm...dinner!

Chicken with Lemon-Leek Fettuccine

I'm always taking pictures of the food I eat, but I keep falling behind editing them.  So I might just make a bunch of retroactive posts, to make up for lost time.  This was our dinner last night.  I've been trying to incorporate more veggies, and things I haven't tried before into our cooking.  Lately I've fallen in love with Leeks.  Like a giant green onion with a light mild flavor. I think they're fabulous!  I used this recipe from Cooking Light.  It's supposed to be linguine, but since I didn't have that I used fettuccine.  I used a little olive oil when I cooked my chicken, and didn't add more butter when I sauteed the leeks and garlic.  It brings all the brown bits up off the bottom and makes a wonderful light sauce.

  

This was really really good!  I indulged and just had pasta, but in the future I can make less pasta and add a veggie.  It's not as much as it looks like, because we usually eat dinner on luncheon plates.  It makes you feel like your plate is full so you can get away with smaller portions without feeling skimped.  I think I'm going to make this a part of my regular meal rotation

Whole Grain Mediterranean Pasta

We had some leftover pasta today for lunch from our dinner yesterday, and wow! It was just as good the second time around. Whole grain pasta (which was REALLY good to my surprise) with spinache, tomatoes, feta cheese, pine nuts in a white wine olive oil sauce with shallots. It was amazing. I sprinkled a little more feta on the top today, and it was really delicious.

Homemade Pizzas

Today I have a lot more than my normal one picture per post, which won't be the norm. I just had to include before and afters.

My mother-in-law doesn't know much about American food, but she does know she loves pizza. So while they were visiting us in the US I decided to try out making homemade pizza. Well, almost. Confession, the dough is from a can. But it was still really good. One was a veggie pizza with roma tomatoes, fresh basil from my herb garden, and yellow bell peppers. The other one is a hawaiian with pineapple, ham, with a little bit of that basil and some tomatoes for good measure. I took pictures of them before I popped them in the oven, and they were so good that I forgot to take a picture before we all dug in. So these pics are of half demolished pizzas. I was really happy with how they came out, and more importantly, my mother-in-law said it was her favorite pizza!

Mushroom Chicken over Rice

Alright! First post, here we go! I thought I'd kick things off with something simple. Tonight's dinner. An easy chicken over a bed of rice in a cream of mushroom gravy with veggies. Don't get ideas that I was super duper healthy today. Not pictured is the moosetracks ice cream right out of the carton that I had for dessert.