gratuitous food post
After several weeks of partying and dining out and living extravagantly, we figured it was time for a return to healthier eating here at Chez Erin & Mary. Never fear! We haven't given up our love of completely decadent desserts-- that is, after all, why they invented Cheat Day, and next Saturday I'm pretty sure I'm making a three-layer cream cake, so stay tuned-- but this particular round of the GFP does showcase lower-cal food than does, say, a whole tray of (delicious, totally worth it) hand pies. Please don't be fooled when I say "lower-cal," because (I think, and Mary thinks) that the quality of a particular food item isn't really in its caloric value, but in its ability to make you close your eyes and say, "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm," the first time you take a bite. Every single one of these dishes does that for me. Especially the sea bass. Oh my, yes, the sea bass.
This GFP has many foods! Here is a handy index:
01. Steamed sea bass*
02. Roasted vegetables
03. Roasted cabbage*
04. Sweet Potato & Turnip Mash with Sage Butter
05. Creole-poached chicken*
06. Red Quinoa Salad & Skillet Veggies
07. Seared Scallops & Crispy Leeks*
08. Meatballs & Marinara with Spaghetti Squash*
* Contains meat
01. Steamed sea bass
I've been wanting to try this recipe since I bought this cookbook in 2006, because it has several of my favorite things (scallions, ginger, dark sesame oil) but I haven't had the occasion. Living in a land-locked state makes good fresh fish hard to come by, not to mention, fresh fish is expensive when you're on a budget. I confess that there have been several times that I've thought about giving in and finding frozen fish instead, or substituting another kind of fish for the sea bass (the recipe says that if you just can't find it, you can try snapper). The wait for fresh sea bass was entirely worth it, and I think that making this recipe any other way may constitute some kind of punishable offense under the Uniform Code of Cooking. Seriously, it's that good. (And as a bonus: our local seafood market gets this fish from a sustainable supplier! Hurrah!)
The best part about this is that it's incredibly easy to make (especially if you're not overly ambitious like me and you don't decide to serve it with a whole tray of oven-roasted veggies and oven-roasted cabbage, which you're trying not to burn). Chop some scallions, layer them on top of the fish, add ginger, soy sauce and dark sesame oil, then wrap it all up in aluminum foil and steam!
I will tell you what the wise lady who owns our seafood market told us when we asked: in terms of side dishes, light veggies are your friends! I don't regret my decision to roast a tray of vegetables to go alongside this-- and really, that's not difficult, unless you are aiming for 100% perfection in your timing and want piping hot veggies that come out of the oven right as your fish is done steaming. I would never be that way. Really. *_* Anyway, as delicious as the vegetables we used were, next time, I think I'm just going to do a very simple stir fry with some snow peas, water chestnuts, carrots and a red bell pepper, maybe some baby corn. As it was, I feel like the asparagus was competing with our fish for flavor of the meal, and seriously, asparagus, just sit down. The sea bass was the rockstar of this dinner party. The Hedonism Bot would have wept.
02. Roasted vegetables
I have a confession. I used to hate vegetables. Well, let me qualify that for you: I used to hate vegetables, unless you served them to me in some kind of soup or sauce (or unless they were fried, and really, frying covers all manner of sins). Salads? My god, why? Bring on the dressing, if you want me to eat that awful stuff. I thought. This disdain for veggies is something I have grown out of. I learned to love vegetables, all on their very own, partly because I learned that there was such a thing as a roasted vegetable. It was like a whole new world. (Speaking of whole new worlds, leiascully bought us a mandoline, and our lives are magical now.)
As you can see, these vegetables are not, strictly speaking, alone in the world. They've been tossed with a little (four teaspoons, to be precise) olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper, but the rest of the work is all done by the bell pepper, asparagus, onion, zucchini and yellow squash. They do great work.
03. Roasted cabbage
The cabbage, now, it gets its own segment.
I did not know the joy of oven-roasted cabbage until very recently, when I came across a recipe for it, saw how incredibly low-cal it was, realized we had a cabbage sitting around, and POOF! A roasted cabbage. The humble cabbage has a world of flavor concealed in its many leaves, and roasting it really brings those out. This cabbage got a little help, flavor-wise, from pretty much the same ingredients as the other veggies, with the addition of bacon bits, because I hear that bacon is always the answer. It would be just as good without them, though.
04. Sweet Potato & Turnip Mash with Sage Butter
I don't really know what to tell you about this one. We were looking for a side dish to go with the scallop & leek dinner you see below (I am insistent that it isn't a meal unless there's a side dish, among other things, and Mary has been very kind in putting up with my passionate pleas for more side dishes), and we remembered that some time in the last two years, we've had a really good mashed turnip dish at one of our fancier local restaurants. So I poked around on the internet, found this recipe, and we had a side dish!
I have adapted the recipe from Eating Well to suit my own tastebuds. I thought my addition of random spices with no particular attention to measurements went well, but I can't rightly remember what I added. I'm fairly certain that I added a very small amount of cumin to this, along with some nutmeg. It worked for us, but I encourage spice-experimentation! You never know what might happen.
05. Creole poached chicken
Every time I poach chicken, I swear that I will do it again, immediately if not sooner, and then invariably I find some tempting oven-baked or pan-seared goodness and forget all about my renewed promise to poach. I can't say that this time will be any different, honestly, but let me say that if you haven't poached any chicken breast, go now and do it (provided, you know, that you eat chicken). It's an easy (and low-cal!) way to cook your chicken, plus, poaching in sauce gives the meat an extra kick of flavor, which is really what sells me on it.
06. Quinoa & Skillet Veggies
Let it be known that I love quinoa. This may explain why I went a little overboard at the natural foods store a few months ago and BOUGHT ALL THE THINGS QUINOA. Okay, not all the quinoa, but a good amount, including this red quinoa, because it was so pretty.
Moreover, I remembered that several months ago, I stumbled across this recipe for quinoa salad and skillet veggies, and though we had already made (and quickly devoured) it, we'd only had regular quinoa at the time, and I wanted to make it with the red, just to see.
In terms of flavor, if you blindfolded me and gave me a spoonful of two kinds of quinoa, well, I probably couldn't tell you the difference, so I won't wax philosophical about the flavor of the red quinoa, at least not in comparison to regular old quinoa. (It's supposed to taste earthier, I'm told. It tasted yummy, especially with all these veggies in it.) What I will do is tell you that quinoa + skillet veggies (and a little feta or goat cheese) is always going to be a winner in our house.
07. Seared Scallops & Crispy Leeks
These leeks were supposed to be part of something else entirely. They were supposed to go in a risotto. They did not. They got crispified in the oven and tossed onto some scallops, and I have no regrets.
08. Meatballs & Marinara with Spaghetti Squash
One of my new favorite ways to eat pasta is to not eat pasta at all, but to bake a spaghetti squash and let the delicious, warm, flavorful freshness of the vegetable stand in for the noodles. (And, bonus: the drastic calorie reduction means that I will be having a couple extra meatballs, and there's no bad there.)
I'm very fond of this Spicy Spaghetti Squash recipe, and we've made it a few times now: once with lean turkey and once with soy crumbles (and man, was that a low-cal meal). I think the first time we made that recipe, it was during a Weekend of Italian Cooking-- I seem to recall that the day before, we had potato gnocchi with an oxtail ragu, which I really will make again one day and take pictures, because yum. But I digress.
Baking the squash couldn't be easier: preheat your oven to 350, cut the squash in half lengthwise, scoop out all the seeds, then put it in the oven for about an hour. When a fork goes through the skin easily, you're all done! This is the point that we at Chez Erin & Mary each take one half of the squash and spoon out all the lovely baked deliciousness onto our plates.
This week, the squash went with homemade meatballs & marinara.
Let me just take a moment to revel in how much I love making meatballs. It really indulges the five-year old in me, the little girl who still loves to make messes and still giggles at Halloween when they tell her to close her eyes and stick her hands in the bowl of peeled grapes. Right. Meatballs. There are a million different ways to make them. I have a wide variety of meatball recipes, but most of them have the following ingredients in common: meat (obv.), an egg, and some kind of grain. I've used breadcrumbs, rice, and oats before with great success. I hear that bulghur works equally well. I'm intrigued by the idea of quinoa, to be honest, and one of these days I may have to give that a whirl.
These particular meatballs have a pound of very lean turkey, 1/4 cup of oats, one slice of whole wheat bread, a little Parmesan, some basil, some oregano, salt, pepper, an egg, and one large shallot. These were browned for a few minutes, then they cooked for about six hours in my delicious homemade marinara before being ladled over baked spaghetti squash. Best part? There were leftovers, which means meatball sandwiches for lunch!
This GFP has many foods! Here is a handy index:
01. Steamed sea bass*
02. Roasted vegetables
03. Roasted cabbage*
04. Sweet Potato & Turnip Mash with Sage Butter
05. Creole-poached chicken*
06. Red Quinoa Salad & Skillet Veggies
07. Seared Scallops & Crispy Leeks*
08. Meatballs & Marinara with Spaghetti Squash*
* Contains meat
01. Steamed sea bass
I've been wanting to try this recipe since I bought this cookbook in 2006, because it has several of my favorite things (scallions, ginger, dark sesame oil) but I haven't had the occasion. Living in a land-locked state makes good fresh fish hard to come by, not to mention, fresh fish is expensive when you're on a budget. I confess that there have been several times that I've thought about giving in and finding frozen fish instead, or substituting another kind of fish for the sea bass (the recipe says that if you just can't find it, you can try snapper). The wait for fresh sea bass was entirely worth it, and I think that making this recipe any other way may constitute some kind of punishable offense under the Uniform Code of Cooking. Seriously, it's that good. (And as a bonus: our local seafood market gets this fish from a sustainable supplier! Hurrah!)
The best part about this is that it's incredibly easy to make (especially if you're not overly ambitious like me and you don't decide to serve it with a whole tray of oven-roasted veggies and oven-roasted cabbage, which you're trying not to burn). Chop some scallions, layer them on top of the fish, add ginger, soy sauce and dark sesame oil, then wrap it all up in aluminum foil and steam!
I will tell you what the wise lady who owns our seafood market told us when we asked: in terms of side dishes, light veggies are your friends! I don't regret my decision to roast a tray of vegetables to go alongside this-- and really, that's not difficult, unless you are aiming for 100% perfection in your timing and want piping hot veggies that come out of the oven right as your fish is done steaming. I would never be that way. Really. *_* Anyway, as delicious as the vegetables we used were, next time, I think I'm just going to do a very simple stir fry with some snow peas, water chestnuts, carrots and a red bell pepper, maybe some baby corn. As it was, I feel like the asparagus was competing with our fish for flavor of the meal, and seriously, asparagus, just sit down. The sea bass was the rockstar of this dinner party. The Hedonism Bot would have wept.
02. Roasted vegetables
I have a confession. I used to hate vegetables. Well, let me qualify that for you: I used to hate vegetables, unless you served them to me in some kind of soup or sauce (or unless they were fried, and really, frying covers all manner of sins). Salads? My god, why? Bring on the dressing, if you want me to eat that awful stuff. I thought. This disdain for veggies is something I have grown out of. I learned to love vegetables, all on their very own, partly because I learned that there was such a thing as a roasted vegetable. It was like a whole new world. (Speaking of whole new worlds, leiascully bought us a mandoline, and our lives are magical now.)
As you can see, these vegetables are not, strictly speaking, alone in the world. They've been tossed with a little (four teaspoons, to be precise) olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper, but the rest of the work is all done by the bell pepper, asparagus, onion, zucchini and yellow squash. They do great work.
03. Roasted cabbage
The cabbage, now, it gets its own segment.
I did not know the joy of oven-roasted cabbage until very recently, when I came across a recipe for it, saw how incredibly low-cal it was, realized we had a cabbage sitting around, and POOF! A roasted cabbage. The humble cabbage has a world of flavor concealed in its many leaves, and roasting it really brings those out. This cabbage got a little help, flavor-wise, from pretty much the same ingredients as the other veggies, with the addition of bacon bits, because I hear that bacon is always the answer. It would be just as good without them, though.
04. Sweet Potato & Turnip Mash with Sage Butter
I don't really know what to tell you about this one. We were looking for a side dish to go with the scallop & leek dinner you see below (I am insistent that it isn't a meal unless there's a side dish, among other things, and Mary has been very kind in putting up with my passionate pleas for more side dishes), and we remembered that some time in the last two years, we've had a really good mashed turnip dish at one of our fancier local restaurants. So I poked around on the internet, found this recipe, and we had a side dish!
I have adapted the recipe from Eating Well to suit my own tastebuds. I thought my addition of random spices with no particular attention to measurements went well, but I can't rightly remember what I added. I'm fairly certain that I added a very small amount of cumin to this, along with some nutmeg. It worked for us, but I encourage spice-experimentation! You never know what might happen.
05. Creole poached chicken
Every time I poach chicken, I swear that I will do it again, immediately if not sooner, and then invariably I find some tempting oven-baked or pan-seared goodness and forget all about my renewed promise to poach. I can't say that this time will be any different, honestly, but let me say that if you haven't poached any chicken breast, go now and do it (provided, you know, that you eat chicken). It's an easy (and low-cal!) way to cook your chicken, plus, poaching in sauce gives the meat an extra kick of flavor, which is really what sells me on it.
06. Quinoa & Skillet Veggies
Let it be known that I love quinoa. This may explain why I went a little overboard at the natural foods store a few months ago and BOUGHT ALL THE THINGS QUINOA. Okay, not all the quinoa, but a good amount, including this red quinoa, because it was so pretty.
Moreover, I remembered that several months ago, I stumbled across this recipe for quinoa salad and skillet veggies, and though we had already made (and quickly devoured) it, we'd only had regular quinoa at the time, and I wanted to make it with the red, just to see.
In terms of flavor, if you blindfolded me and gave me a spoonful of two kinds of quinoa, well, I probably couldn't tell you the difference, so I won't wax philosophical about the flavor of the red quinoa, at least not in comparison to regular old quinoa. (It's supposed to taste earthier, I'm told. It tasted yummy, especially with all these veggies in it.) What I will do is tell you that quinoa + skillet veggies (and a little feta or goat cheese) is always going to be a winner in our house.
07. Seared Scallops & Crispy Leeks
These leeks were supposed to be part of something else entirely. They were supposed to go in a risotto. They did not. They got crispified in the oven and tossed onto some scallops, and I have no regrets.
08. Meatballs & Marinara with Spaghetti Squash
One of my new favorite ways to eat pasta is to not eat pasta at all, but to bake a spaghetti squash and let the delicious, warm, flavorful freshness of the vegetable stand in for the noodles. (And, bonus: the drastic calorie reduction means that I will be having a couple extra meatballs, and there's no bad there.)
I'm very fond of this Spicy Spaghetti Squash recipe, and we've made it a few times now: once with lean turkey and once with soy crumbles (and man, was that a low-cal meal). I think the first time we made that recipe, it was during a Weekend of Italian Cooking-- I seem to recall that the day before, we had potato gnocchi with an oxtail ragu, which I really will make again one day and take pictures, because yum. But I digress.
Baking the squash couldn't be easier: preheat your oven to 350, cut the squash in half lengthwise, scoop out all the seeds, then put it in the oven for about an hour. When a fork goes through the skin easily, you're all done! This is the point that we at Chez Erin & Mary each take one half of the squash and spoon out all the lovely baked deliciousness onto our plates.
This week, the squash went with homemade meatballs & marinara.
Let me just take a moment to revel in how much I love making meatballs. It really indulges the five-year old in me, the little girl who still loves to make messes and still giggles at Halloween when they tell her to close her eyes and stick her hands in the bowl of peeled grapes. Right. Meatballs. There are a million different ways to make them. I have a wide variety of meatball recipes, but most of them have the following ingredients in common: meat (obv.), an egg, and some kind of grain. I've used breadcrumbs, rice, and oats before with great success. I hear that bulghur works equally well. I'm intrigued by the idea of quinoa, to be honest, and one of these days I may have to give that a whirl.
These particular meatballs have a pound of very lean turkey, 1/4 cup of oats, one slice of whole wheat bread, a little Parmesan, some basil, some oregano, salt, pepper, an egg, and one large shallot. These were browned for a few minutes, then they cooked for about six hours in my delicious homemade marinara before being ladled over baked spaghetti squash. Best part? There were leftovers, which means meatball sandwiches for lunch!