BBQ Party

We had a couple of friends over to celebrate BIL's birthday. The weather was warm and breezy... perfect for a "summer is almost here" BBQ.

We made Carne Asada with flank steak we picked up at Costco. We got 2 heaping bags full of white corn that we bbq'd in the husk that was delic. We warmed tortillas on the bbq and grilled up foil packet with onion and red peppers cut into thin strips.

Carne Asada
2 pounds marinated flank or skirt steak (serves 6)
10-12 flour tortillas
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup orange juice
6 cloves garlic crushed
1 medium white onion chopped
2 Tbs ground black pepper
1 teaspoon Tabasco

Place steak in center of cooking grate. Grill 15 to 19 minutes for medium, turning and brushing with reserved marinade once halfway through grilling time.

Place foil packet of vegetables on the cooking grate beside steak during the last 10 minutes of grilling time.

Wrap tortillas in heavy-duty aluminium foil; place on cooking grate beside steak during the last 5 minutes of grilling time. Turn tortilla packet once halfway through grilling.

Slice steak diagonally across the grain into thin slices. Serve in tortillas with peppers and onions, salsa and guacamole. Enjoy!

Cheesy Spinach Bowtie Pasta

A great healthy side dish that we served with BBQ teriyaki chicken and a raspberry vinaigrette salad. Everything can be done ahead and popped into the oven when you're ready for dinner. And because this makes a lot you have leftovers another night.

Ingredients
8 oz package bow tie pasta
small can fat free cream of soup (mushroom, asparagus, etc...)
1 cup low fat milk
8 oz low fat ricotta cheese
4 oz low fat mozzarella cheese
bag steamed spinach, water drained

Steps
1. preheat oven 350 and grease 9x13 baking dish.
2. cook pasta.
3. mix together cream soup, milk, ricotta and mozzarella cheese.
4. mix in pasta and spinach, and spread out on baking dish.
5. sprinkle top with parmesan cheese.
6. bake for about 45 minutes. pasta should be hot and cheese melted.

Cream Cheese Bread Pudding

How many ways can you serve up leftover bread?

Ingredients
cooking spray
Bread like french loaf, tear off into small 1" pieces
cream cheese (I used pumpkin flavored for this one)
1/2 cup cranberries
4 eggs
2-1/2 cups non-fat milk
3/4 cup Splenda
1-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Steps
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spray small glass dish.
3. Spread cream cheese on bread slices.
4. Place bread single layer with cream cheese side up in bottom of dish.
5. Sprinkle with cranberries.
6. Mix together eggs, milk, Splenda, and cinnamon.
7. Pour mix on top of bread and cranberries.
8. Bake about 50 - 60 minutes. The bread pudding is ready when you can stick a fork or toothpick in and it comes out clean.
8. Let cool for 5 minutes.

Variations
Monte Cristo bread pudding: Same as above, only no Splenda, regular cream cheese and slices of ham and turkey.

Baked Penne

Easy dinner and wonderfully delicious.

Ingredients
1/2 box (8 oz) whole wheat penne pasta, cooked
1/2 eggplant, cubed
basket diced mushrooms
16oz container skim cottage cheese
2 small cans tomato paste
1 can diced tomato w/ chiles
seasonings to taste - generous ground pepper, generous basil, oregano, parsley, crushed red dried onion flakes, dried garlic flakes and chili peppers.
Parmesan
mozzarella

steps
1. spray 9"x13" baking dish and preheat over 350.
2. mix in bowl cottage cheese, tomato sauces and seasonings.
3. add veggies and pasta.
4. pour into baking dish and sprinkle top with Parmesan and mozzarella.
5. bake about 50 min. top with fried onions 5 min before done (optional).

Baked Cinna-Cranberry French Toast

So yummy and easy. I made this for New Year's Day brunch.

INGREDIENTS
French bread, cut diagonally in 1 inch slices
8 eggs
2-1/2 cups skim milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoon Splenda

DIRECTIONS
1. Spray 9"x13" baking dish. Arrange the slices of bread in the bottom. Do not overlap bread.
2. Sprinkle with cranberries.
3. In a large bowl, beat eggs, milk, vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon. Pour over bread slices, cover, and refrigerate overnight.
4. The next morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake in preheated oven, uncovered, for 40 minutes.

Apfel Kugel

I made this for Chanukkah.

Ingredients
1 lb wide cooked whole wheat egg noodles
1 lb low fat cottage cheese
4 eggs
8 oz reduced fat sour cream
1 cup skim milk
1 large apple, chopped without the skin
1/2 cup cranberries
1 cup cornflakes

Steps
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9 x 13-inch glass baking dish in oven.
Cook noodles.
Mix cottage cheese eggs, sour cream, and milk.
Mix noodle with cheese mixture and pour into dish.
Sprinkle top with corn flake crumbs.
Bake 1 hour.

---------------------

(I found this one later on the Internet that I'm planing to try next time.)

MY MOTHER'S APFEL KUGEL
2 pounds finely sliced appels
1-1/2 cup flour
1-1/4 cup lukewarm milk
1 cup sugar + 2 tablespoons for the top
4 eggs
1 cup ground hazelnuts
1 cup skinless almonds finely sliced
1 cup raisins golden or black
A few drops of vanilla extract or vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg or clove
1 pinch ginger
2 tablespoons rum or brandy - less if you don't like it.
Juice of two lemons
Pinch of salt
Butter flakes

Put the sliced apples and the raisins in a bowl, add the lemon juice; set aside.

In an other large bowl mix well the flour, lukewarm milk. Add the eggs one by one, sugar, vanilla, rum or brandy, spices, salt and the ground hazelnuts. Mix well to make a lightly thick sauce.

Drain apples and raisins in a colander and add them in the sauce. Mix.

Pour the mixture in a baking pan. Sprinkle the sliced almonds, 2 tbsp sugar and some butter flakes on the top.

One hour in a preheated oven 180 degrees Centigrade (350 degrees Fahrenheit). Try with a knife.

You can eat it cold or warm. We like warm with vanilla ice cream.

Sometimes my mother added chopped nuts, chunk of dried figs and/or dried apricots.

Pumpkin Ginger Bread

Nothing says fall like pumpkin anything - pie, cake, muffin and of course bread. I love the hint of ginger and spices in this recipe.

Ingredients
3 cups Splenda
1 cup applesauce
4 eggs
2/3 cup water
2 can 15oz. pumpkin
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp all spice
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
3-1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 boxes of raisins

Steps
1. Preheat over 350 and grease 2 9"x5" pans
2. Mix Splenda, applesauce, eggs
3. Add water
4. Add pumpkin and spices
5. In separate bowl mix flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder
6. Combine dry to wet
7. Bake 1 hour or until toothpick test that they're cooked inside
8. Let cool about 10 minutes then transer to a wire rack

We served this with some pumpkin cream cheese we had left over from a bagel brunch we had the other day.

Campbell's Chicken & Rice Casserole

Easy to make and feeds a family. Campbell's, mmm mmm good.

Ingredients
1 can Campbell's creame of... soup (I prefer mushroom)
1-1/2 cup water
3/4 cup uncooked rice
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 cup fresh or frozen vegetables (brocolli, cauliflower, peas, diced carrots, etc...)
4 skinless, boneless chiicken breast halves
1/2 cup shredded cheese (horseradish cheddar is wonderful)
1/3 cup French's fried onions

Steps
1. Preheat oven 375.
2. Stir soup, water, rice, onion powder, pepper and veggies in an 11"x8"shallow baking dish.
3. Flatten chicken a bit to help it cooken evenly.
4. Top with chicken. Season chicken as desired.
5. Cover with foil and bake 45-50 minutes or unitl chicken and rice are done.
6. Uncover, top with fried onions and bake for another 5 minutes.
7. Top with cheese and let stand 10 min. Stir rice before serving.

Streusel In-Between Pumpkin Cake

This recipe came from my hiking buddy Michelle in Washington D.C. She says this is one of her favorite cakes to bake in the fall. I put my usual healthy/crazy spin and it came out quite nice. My crazy substitutions are in (parenthesis). Hope you Enjoy.

Streusel
½ cup brown sugar (Splenda)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (nutmeg because I didn't have this)
2 teaspoons softened butter
(generous handful of cranberries)

Cake
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened (1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup homemade applesauce)
2 cups sugar (Splenda)
4 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin (puree from a sweet pumpkin)
1 cup sour cream (about 10 oz non-fat white chocolate raspberry yogurt)
1 teaspoon vanilla (skipped because I ran out)

1. Heat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 12-cup bundt pan.
(round spring foam pan because I still haven't bought a bundt pan)
2. Stir all streusel ingredients together in a small bowl.
3. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
4. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add eggs 2 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in pumpkin, sour cream (or yogurt) and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture.
5. Spread ½ of batter in pan. Sprinkle streusel over batter, without letting streusel touch sides of pan. Top with remaining batter.
6. Bake 55-60 minutes.


Let it cool completely before disassembling. Also make sure you have plenty of batter covering the bottom before adding the streusel. I was a little excited and the cake split a little when I unhinged the pan. But the cake was very moist and tasted wonderful.

In fact there's no picture because it was gone before I could grab my camera. I'll just have to make this again.

Easy BBQ Skewers, Pasta Salad & Grilled Corn

Coupled with a simple pasta salad and grilled corn cooked in the husk, these colorful skewers top off the perfect bbq... delish!

Skewers
short rib flanken meat, cubed
chicken steak, cubed
green pepper, cut into square pieces
red onion, cut into square piences
small red vine tomotoes
whole white mushrooms

Dry Rub Marinade
(about 2 tablespoons of each depending on the amount of meat)
ground black pepper
cumin
chili powder
paprika
Chinese 5 spice

steps
1. Soak skewers in water at least 30-60 minutes before preparing ingredients.
2. Place meat in shallow dish and sprinkle with seasonings making sure to coat pieces.

3. Let marinate in the fridge at least 30-60 minutes.

4. Skewer ingredients get a good mix of veggies and meat.

(Yes, veggies are good naked without any seasonings.)

5. BBQ about 15 minutes over low heat until meat is cooked through and veggies aren't falling off the skewer.

Pasta Salad

package of elbow pasta

small bag of brocolli and carrots

bunch of asparagus

steps

1. Cook small elbow pasta according to package.
2. Blanche brocolli and asparagus cut into small bite size pieces and carrot cut into thin lengthwise slivers.
3. Mix together pasta and veggies.
4. Pour on a light dressing or marinade. I used about 2 tablespoons of an apricot chiopotle marinade I had handy but I've also used a rasperry vinagrette which works nice.

Banana Cranberry Bread

This week's leftover ingredient is bananas. This was so easy to make and so yummy that Marc may start buying extra bananas on purpose. This bread comes out super moist.

Ingredients

2 eggs
2/3 cup Splenda
2 very ripe bananas
1/4 cup applesauce
1/3 cup skim milk

2 eggs
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
2 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cranberries

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray bread pan and lightly dust with flour.
2. Mix eggs and Splenda.
3. Mash bananas until there's only small pieces and add to mix.
4. Add applesauce, milk, eggs, oil, cinnamon and poppy seeds.
5. In separate bowl mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
6. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet, mixing them together as you go.
7. Add cranberries being careful not to over mix.
8. Bake for about 40 minutes until top is golden brown and toothpick comes out clean.

9. Cool on wire rack.

White Chocolate Cranberry Bites

These cookies are like mini-scones but not dry and crumbly. The white chocolate and cranberries give it a sweet taste. Ingredients
1/4 cup butter spread (Smart Balance)

1/2 cup canola oil

3 cups Splenda

4 large eggs (or egg whites)

1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
5-1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white chocolate chips

1-1/2 cups dried cranberries

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Cover cookie sheets with wax paper sprayed with cooking spray.
2. Mix flour, baking soda and salt.

3. In seperate bowl mix butter, oil and Splenda. Gradually add eggs and vanilla.

4. Add flour mixture slowly to well combined. Add chocolate chips and cranberries.

5. Roll into 2" cookies and place onto sheet.

6. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Apple Bread Pudding

Easy & healthy. And perfect for using up stale bread.

Ingredients
cooking spray
1 apple, cut into thin slices
Bread like french loaf, tear off into small 1" pieces
4 eggs
2-1/2 cups non-fat milk
3/4 cup Splenda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
non-fat vanilla yogurt

Steps
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spray pan and saute apple about 5 minutes for apples to get soft.
3. Spray small glass dish.
4. Place bread in bottom of dish and top with apples.
5. Mix together eggs, milk, Splenda, cinnamon and nutmeg.
6. Pour mix on top of bread and apples.
7. Bake about 50 - 60 minutes. The bread pudding is ready when you can stick a fork or toothpick in and it comes out clean.
8. Let cool for 5 minutes and then serve with cold non-fat vanilla yogurt.

Chicken Fajita Enchiladas

I'd been hankering enchiladas for awhile and having some left over bell peppers in the house from a fabulous stir fry Marc made the other night I decided to try make Chicken Fajita Enchiladas. If you haven't noticed "left overs" is how my dishes get created. Have I mentioned yet how Marc will say "Wow, this one is fantastic... only we'll never have it again will we?"

What I love about enchiladas, which ponders the question why I haven't made them, is that they're simple and a change from what we're usually have. Growing up, Mom made these - although ours were cheese enchiladas since we were picky-eaters. I ran across a great story on the Internet that brought back memories of her making them with me standing by her helping (or getting in the way depending on who you ask). Although we're Jewish she took the time to pre-cook the tortillas just like the Mother below.

Enchiladas were a family staple growing up, though thankfully this cheese enchilada recipe has much less fat in it these days. Mom tells the story about how in the Sixties my Aunt Josephine went out to eat at a new supposedly Mexican food restaurant in Boston, only to be fed enchiladas where the corn tortillas had been taken out of a package and had not been fried before being cooked with cheese and sauce. (You have to pre-cook the tortillas to soften them up and give them more flavor.) She then went into the restaurant's kitchen and taught the chef how to properly make an enchilada. My aunt and my mother, both fifth generation Hispanic Arizonians, learned this recipe from my grandmother.

Ingredients
Cooking spray
12 whole wheat tortillas
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 cup of salsa
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1 14.5-oz can crushed tomatoes
1/4 cup water
cooked shredded chicken
bell peppers (red, yellow and green), diced
small eggplant, bite size pieces
1 lb of fat-fat cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 cup fat-free mozzarella cheese
fat-fat sour cream

Steps
1. Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
2. Spray a large pan and at high heat add a tortilla. Cook 2-3 seconds, lift up the tortilla with a fork and add another tortilla underneath. Cook 2-3 seconds, lift again both tortillas and add another tortilla underneath. Repeat the process with all the tortillas, adding a little more oil as needed. As the tortillas brown a little, remove from the pan one by one. This allows the tortillas to brown and soften, developing the flavor of the tortillas without adding fat.
3. Sauté the chopped onion and garlic in a medium size pot. Lower heat to medium and add salsa, tomato paste, crushed tomatoes and water.
4. In the pan used for pre-heating the tortillas, sauté the peppers and eggplant until tender. Add chicken and cook another7 minutes.
5. Spray the bottom of a large casserole pan. Take a tortilla, lightly cover with chicken mix then cheddar cheese. Roll up tortilla and place in casserole pan, seem side down. Continue until all the tortillas are filled and rolled. Add sauce to the top of the tortillas in the the casserole pan, making sure all are covered. Cover enchilada with the mozzarella cheese.
6. Put the casserole in the oven for 10 minutes or until the cheese melts.
7. Garnish with sour cream.

Preparation time: 30 minutes. Serves 4.

Orange Poppy Bread

This month's word is oranges. My parents have a couple of orange trees in their backyard that provide a bounty of oranges starting this time of year. We saw them last weekend and they brought over the first bag filled with oranges. Feeling inspired to bake something easy that I can give out to others I thought of making a bread. Which are great for breakfast, desert and snacking.


Ingredients:
4 cups All-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups Splenda
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1-1/2 cups orange juice
3 tablespoon grated orange zest
1 cup oil
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 cup dried cranberries

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Spray and flour 2 9x5 loaf pans.
2. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
3. In separate bowl mix eggs, juice, zest and oil. Add poppy seeds, cinnamon and cranberries.
4. Slowly add flour mix until just combined.
5. Divide batter among pans and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
6. Cool on wire rack.

Wrap in plastic wrap or foil. The breads keep well chilled for 1 week or frozen for 1 month. Makes 2 loaves.

Smoked Salmon Lasagna

Sometimes it's not just left overs that inspire a dish. Since we had a Cost Plus credit we decided to use the money toward some of their food items - Alaskan cracked pepper smoked salmon and Gia Russa oven ready Italian whole wheat lasagna. We still have a bit of cottage cheese and mozzarella cheese we're trying to use up so this sounded good.

Ingredients
whole wheat lasagna noodles*
can crushed tomatoes
can tomato paste
seasonings to taste - basil, oregeno, crushed red pepper, garlic, salt, pepper
2 eggs
2 cups low-fat cottage cheese
2 cups low-fat mozzarella cheese
1 Tablespoon parsley
smoked salmon

Steps
1. Preheat oven 400 and spray 9x13 glass baking dish.
2. Mix tomatoes, paste and seasonings.
3. In another bowl mix eggs, cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, parsley and salmon.
4. Spread thin layer of sauce to cover baking dish.
5. Add lasagna noodles followed by a layer of cheese mix.
6. Repeat layering, ending with cheese mix and a dribble of remaining sauce.
7. Cover with foil and cook 45 - 50 minutes. Let cool about 10 minutes before serving.

Since I had left over lasagna noodles I made an extra with mushroom instead of smoked salmon for my sister and brother-in-law. Since they're caring for newborn twins this is a great dish for reheating for future meals.

*whole wheat cancels the fact that you're eating pasta... at least that's what I tell myself.

Turkey Cranberry Pizza

You may have spotted in my last post one our favorite cooking techniques for using up left overs. That is pizza!

Our pantry, or freezer as in this one, typically contains something for whipping up a pizza. Last week used left over bagels with our 'Sweet & Sour Chicken' for a delicious meal in minutes. Today we were low on bread so we went for our "in case of emergency" Boboli pizza shell to use with our left over turkey and cranberry from yesterday's Christmas Eve feast - which my parents picked up from Ralphs ready-to-go boxed meals to make cooking a breeze. Not to digress to much but this has been a long standing Christmas tradition in Mammoth because it afforded us a gourmet meal that was easy to cook after skiing all day and easily fed a group of hungry skiers for an incredible deal, about $40 bucks.

So to make the very yummy Turkey Cranberry pizza we preheated our oven to 425 and took our thin crust wheat Boboli pizza shell out of the freezer and scraped off the ice. I'm not sure how long they can be kept in the freezer but ours has probably been there about 3 months and still tasted ok.

After de-icing the pizza I spread low-fat cream cheese for the base then shredded turkey followed by the mashed cranberry sauce. A few extra small pieces of turkey and a sprinkle of low-fat mozzarella cheese for the topping. Baked about 15 minutes, the pizza was superb! The cream cheese melted nicely and the mix of turkey, cranberry and cheese was wonderful. The cream cheese and cranberry sauce also gave the pizza a perfect sauce so that it wouldn't be dry. I'm thinking this might make a good combination for a bread pudding. So keep an eye out for Turkey Cranberry Bread Pudding next.

Here's to creative cooking with left overs. By the way the cream cheese and mozzarella cheese had also been left over of course. The only problem as Marc likes to say is you never know when we'll have this set of ingredients again to try to repeat this. But you can always count on the pizza.

Apple Cake

For Chanukah, I made a traditional apple cake with lots of apples. A little less traditional I added cranberries and because I didn't have any honey in our pantry I used maple syrup for the sticky sweet glaze on top.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup Splenda
3 extra large eggs
1/2 cup apple butter
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2 very large apples (I believe I used janigold)
1/2 cup Splenda
3 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup cranberries (optional)

Maple Glaze:
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons Splenda
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Steps
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch springform pan with cooking spray.
2. Mix flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Mix together 1 cup Splenda, beaten eggs, apple butter, oil and vanilla.
4. Peel and slice apples into chunks.
5. Sprinkle apples with 1/2 cup Splenda and cinnamon.
6. Stir dry mixture into wet mixture and apples. Add cranberries.
7. Pour into pan.
8. Bake about 60 minutes. Lightly cover pan with foil after 30 minutes.
9. Cool in pan. When it's cool place cake on wire rack.

For glaze: microwave 1/2 cup maple syrup, 2 tablespoons Splenda and 2 teaspoons cinammon.

Sweet & Sour Chicken

Using a Crockpot slow cooks the ingredients, making it very tender. A Crockpot also makes a big pot for serving a lot of people, or leftovers another day. And speaking of leftovers, we made some tasty 'Sweet & Sour Chicken' bagel pizzas with the ingredients accompanied with the sauce which made an excellent tomato-like soup.

Ingredients
2/3 chicken breast, 1/3 chicken thigh - browned
carrots, onions and celery
can vegetable broth
can stewed tomatoes
4 T soy sauce
2 T all spice
2 T pepper
chopped ginger
pineapple
red pepper

Steps
1. Place chicken on bottom of crockpot and top with carrots, onions and celery.
2. Top with broth, tomatoes, soy sauce, all spice, pepper and ginger.
3. Cook on low 8 hours, high 4 hours.
4. When ready, add cut up pineapple and red peppers and cook another 15 minutes.
5. Server over rice.

Egg Bake

This is a great brunch dish for serving lots of people.

Mix together:
8 eggs
1/2 cup non-fat milk
1 cup low-fat cottage cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup shredded smoked salmon
1 cup blanched spinach
basil and pepper to taste

Grease baking dish and bake 425 for 40 min.