With warm weather finally on the horizon, I made this easy black bean and garbanzo (chickpea) salad. It takes about five minutes to assemble and once it has been refrigerated for 30 minutes or so it is ready to be enjoyed! Not only is this hearty salad full of fiber and good for you, it tastes fantastic.
This is a great dish to make for a pot-luck get-together – the guests will eat it up!
For years I’ve been buying what Brad and I refer to as “oven fish” from Whole Foods or Fresh Market. “Oven fish” is simply fish filets such as tilapia, trout or flounder, encrusted in some sort of bread crumb mixture that may include Parmesan cheese and/or nuts such as pecans, pistachios or almonds. Simply bake for 20 minutes or so, and voilà, you have an easy and delicious main dish to serve for dinner. But the breaded fish usually comes at a price, as most prepared “fresh” foods do – the other day it was $10.99/lb.
So I decided to save some money and make my own encrusted fish. I found some great tilapia filets for $6.99/lb. Sliced almonds were also on sale and became my nut of choice.
I’m not 100% sure what the stores use to make the crust stick on the fish, but decided to give mine a bit of a kick with Dijon mustard. Excellent choice! It gave the filets a nice depth of flavor that the store-bought fish does not have. It takes a little bit longer to prepare this fish instead of buying the store-bought, but not by much and what you save makes it all worthwhile!
I recently made some turkey meatballs (see Kel’s Tasty Turkey Meatballs for Pasta, Pizza and Pitas) and promised I would share my recipe for homemade Italian pizza. These meatballs have the right balance of seasonings and the addition of the paprika gives them a nice, smoky kick.
The savory meatballs, sweet onions, slight bitterness of the green peppers and the mild black olives are a perfect combination on my homemade herb and garlic crust.
I’ve been making this simple and delicious sautéed cabbage for years, long before I met Brad. Brad hates cooked cabbage, but I bet he would change his mind if he would just give this a try. It has some crunch to it, plus the garlic and olive oil give it a wonderful flavor. If you have any cabbage left over from your St. Patrick’s Day feast, instead of steaming or boiling it, try it this way — you’ll be glad you did!
St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Sunday this year, so if you don’t want to go out and celebrate the night before the work week begins, or are like me and just want to avoid the crowds, there are some good Irish beers readily available in the Triangle, either in grocery stores or places like Peace Street Market, Bottle Mixx, Bottle Revolution, Total Wine, etc. You can choose among lagers, red ales, cream ales and stouts. Pick up some Irish cheese (such as yummy Kerrygold cheddar) and crackers and drink to Ireland’s most famous patron saint in the comfort of your home, no driving required! Sláinte agus táinte!
For the record, I am no beer expert by any means – I just know what I like and what I don’t. So please keep that in mind as you read my short descriptions of these Irish beers, and check out Beeradvocate’s website if you’d like to see how the experts rate them. Just know I had a lot of fun researching this post!
With St. Patrick’s Day quickly approaching, I thought I’d share my recipe for this awesome soup for those of you who may have leftover corned beef. This is so easy to assemble and a breeze to make in your Ninja® 3-in-1 cooking system. Don’t have a Ninja yet? I have included instructions on how to make this on your stovetop in the “Preparation” section below.
One of the things I love about this festive soup is that it’s something that you don’t run across every day in stores or restaurants. That’s a shame because it is so delicious. Plus, since March can be quite blustery and cold depending on where you live, a nice hot bowl of this hearty soup is just the ticket. Even if you only make this once a year, you will be glad you did! Savor every drop.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” ~ old English idiom
I probably drove by the Community Deli (901 Oberlin Rd., Raleigh, N.C.) a thousand times before finally stopping in a couple of weeks ago. The building itself is fairly nondescript – nothing really special to entice me to try it. Community Deli is close to Cameron Village Shopping Center, so if I’m hungry, I usually go to one of the many good restaurants there. But I kept noticing the daily special sign, with sandwiches, burgers or hot dogs at great prices. So I finally decided to give it a try and have been back several times in the past couple of weeks for the good deli food and the friendly, friendly service.
Ever since Sally gave me cute little red ramekins for Christmas, I’ve been thinking of meals to make in them. The first thing I made was some delicious breakfast casseroles, so I knew I was ready to move on to a dinner recipe. Luckily, the March issue of “Every Day with Rachel Ray” arrived, with a mini pot pie on the cover. Perfect! I opted to use my own recipe instead of Rachel’s (sorry, Rach) because I already know how tasty it is and thought it would be easy to go from a full-sized pot pie to mini ones.
I only made 4 mini pot pies, so I had some of the filling left. I didn’t want to throw it away, so I saved it for chicken pot pie soup. Yum! I just added a little bit of water and some pepper, for a tasty mug of homemade soup.
The recipe below will easily make 6 mini pot pies, and probably eight of them. I use fresh chicken breasts, but you can easily substitute one of those roasted chickens you get at the store. You will need about 2 cups of cooked meat. Also, feel free to add some cooked potatoes to the mix, as I sometimes do. With or without potatoes, this is comfort food at some of its finest!
My tip of the month for February 2013 was to buy Food Network Magazine’s Cheese issue. The first thing that I made? These addictive smoked paprika Parmesan crisps (see p. 63 of the issue.) They were incredibly easy to make and impossible to keep around – absolutely fantastic! But then I knew they would be, with cheese as the main ingredient and hot paprika providing just the right amount of smoky spice.
I did modify Food Network’s recipe a bit. Since I bought Parmesan that was already shredded, I added a little bit of water to help hold the cheese mixture together. I’m not sure if you would need to do that if you grate your own cheese, but imagine that it would be moister so you would not need to add the water. I also mixed in some garlic salt, but next time will switch to garlic powder or minced garlic – the cheese is salty enough. as is.
I normally buy ground turkey breast that is at least 99% fat free, but the other day Harris Teeter had 93% lean ground turkey on sale for $3.98 per pound, which was a great deal and saved me a little more than $1.00 per pound. Yaaay! Immediately I thought I’d make turkey burgers for dinner because with the extra little bit of fat they would be juicier. However, for some reason when I got home I asked Brad what he would prefer – turkey burgers or meatballs, and he quickly responded, “Meatballs.”
Actually, meatballs turned out to be a great choice, since I got three meals for two out of one pound of meat: turkey meatballs in marinara sauce over pasta; meatball-stuffed pita sandwiches; and homemade garlic-herb crusted pizza with meatballs, green peppers, olives and onions (recipe to be posted soon.)
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