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Posts Tagged ‘spinach’

Quinoa and Spinach Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Posted in Appetizers, Healthy, Sides, Vegetables, Vegetarian, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2013 | 22 Comments »

quinoa stuffed portobello mushrooms 1

Let’s talk about a pet peeve of mine. I probably mentioned this here before, but it’s my blog, and I’ll kvetch if I want to.

Why in the world to people have this idea that healthy food and good food are mutually exclusive?

Listen to me folks. Let me say it loud and clear (or type it nice and bold. Work with me here):

Good food can and should taste good!

I think I have proven this a bunch of times here. Take my Spicy Zucchini Sticks, for example. They are healthy, but they are also boldly flavored, insanely delicious and kinda addictive. Or what about my Healthy Breaded Cauliflower? Ok, so they have some whole wheat bread crumbs, so some of you might not find them healthy enough, but for those who aren’t opposed to some bread crumbs, this dish is the ultimate way to fulfill a craving without going crazy unhealthy. And have you tasted my Orange Carrot Muffins? They’re delicious! For a healthy and protein-loaded breakfast, check out my Cottage Cheese Pancakes! Want pizza, but not the load of calories? Quinoa Pizza is going to be your new favorite food!

Are you getting my point yet? You don’t have to give up good food to be healthy.

Take these appetizers, for example. They are delicious and gorgeous – enough that I would happily serve them to anyone, dieting or otherwise. However, at the same time, this is the kind of dish you will feel good about eating – or serving!

quinoa stuffed portobello mushrooms 2

Quinoa and Spinach Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms:

Ingredients:

for the mushrooms:

4-6 Portobello mushrooms

Olive oil

Kosher salt

Black Pepper

for the stuffing:

1 large onion, finely diced

2 cups chopped spinach (frozen and defrosted spinach works nicely)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375.

Drizzle olive oil over the mushrooms and sprinkle with some salt and pepper. Place in the oven and bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

While mushrooms are cooking, prepare the stuffing.

Sautee the diced onions in a bit of olive oil (or Pam) until translucent. Add the spinach, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Stir and cook for a couple of minutes. Remove the mixture from the heat and add the cooked quinoa. Stir to combine everything equally.

Once mushrooms have finished roasting, remove from oven. Distribute the spinach mixture among them. Return to oven and bake at 375 for an additional 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and serve hot.

Tip: for a different presentation, cook the mushrooms fully, then dice and toss with the spinach/quinoa mixture for a delicious warm quinoa salad.

Enjoy!

quinoa stuffed portobello mushrooms 3

Thanks for stopping by folks, and enjoy! -Miriam

 

 

 

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Spaghetti Cheese and Spinach Pie

Posted in Dairy, Healthy, Main Courses, Super-Easy, Vegetables, tagged , , , , on July 23, 2012 | 9 Comments »

You know how they say that you don’t fully appreciate what you have until you don’t have it anymore?

Well I eat chicken for supper pretty much every night of my life, and I only really think about it once a year, during the nine days. (For my non Jewish readers, we are currently in a time period called The Nine Days (of mourning) in which many observant Jews traditionally don’t eat meat or chicken, among other restrictions.)

For most people, this isn’t a huge deal. They pull out the fish dishes and eat those for a week. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but I despise fish. Seriously, can’t touch it, can’t serve it, can’t even smell it. Dairy? Well sure, I love pasta as much as the next gal, but diets and pasta generally don’t go very well together. Same for pizza. Are you seeing the problem?

I’ve been scrambling to come up with some good ideas. Naturally, legumes come to mind, and I assure you I will be making some great bean recipes from the archives, such as this Roasted Vegetable and Chick Pea salad, these Black Bean Veggie Burgers, these Spinach and Chick Pea Veggie Burgers, this Black Bean Quinoa salad, and any number of these great soups.

But sometimes you want a little variety, and that’s where this spaghetti pie comes in. It’s pasta, but it’s pretty healthy. It’s got whole wheat spaghetti, low fat cheese, and a whole bunch of spinach. Sounds good? It gets better! It takes minutes to put it together. Pop it in the oven and come back a while later to find an entire meal in one pan.

Awesome, right? Try it, thank me later.

Spaghetti Cheese and Spinach Pie:

Ingredients:
**+Edited to add the eggs***

1/2 lb spaghetti (I used whole wheat)

1 lb chopped spinach (frozen and thawed, okay)

8 ounces (1/2 container) low-fat cottage cheese

4 eggs

1/2 cup shredded cheese (I used a combination of mozzarella and cheddar)

1 cup tomato sauce

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried basil

for topping:

1/4 cup tomato sauce

shredded cheese

Instructions:

Cook spaghetti in salted boiling water according to package directions. Drain and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix together the remaining ingredients and stir until smooth. Mix the noodles into the cheese mixture and stir to combine.

Grease a 9 inch round baking pan and pour the mixture into it. Spread the tomato sauce and shredded cheese over the top. Cover loosely with foil and bake at 350 for an hour.

Raise oven temperature to 400 degrees and remove the foil from the pan. Bake an additional 15-20 minutes.

Remove from oven and serve hot.

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend, and I hope you come back soon for some more great recipes, a cookbook review, and those party pictures I keep promising you! Oh, and did you all check out my new series? I look forward to hearing what you all want to learn! -Miriam

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Spinach and Chick Pea Veggie Burgers

Posted in Healthy, Main Courses, Vegetables, Vegetarian, tagged , , , , on June 10, 2012 | 7 Comments »

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you will know that I adore making desserts of every kind. Cakes? Cookies? Cupcakes? Check, check and check. Want to make candy? We’ve got you covered there too. (Teaser: stay tuned for another candy recipe coming up soon!) And of course, my chocolate category is kinda overloaded. And I know that people love my dessert treats, so I keep baking them. But I get such overwhelmingly positive feedback on real food recipes, that I can’t neglect that aspect of this blog either.

Remember how I made these awesome veggie burgers a while ago? Well so many people told me how they loved them, so I knew I had to make some more veggie burgers.

Ever had an idea that buzzed around in your brain for what felt like forever, until you finally found the time to give it a try? Well that’s what happened to me with this recipe. The worst part is that it came out amazing, but now I am kicking myself for not bringing this into the world sooner. You just can’t win, ya know?

Let’s discuss this recipe for a bit.

The idea that floated around the outer recesses of my brain for forever was “spinach and chick peas.” More specifically, I wanted to bake them into a patty, or perhaps fry them up as a nice little burger. I’m all about the chicken and meat, but for times when you want something lighter and healthier, or perhaps vegetarian, this is a must try recipe. It’s filling, healthy, pretty easy to make, and (this is totally important) looks really nice when you serve it. If those aren’t enough reasons to try these, I don’t know if I can help you.

Spinach and Chick Pea Veggie Burgers:

Ingredients:

2 cans chick peas, drained and rinsed

2 cups chopped spinach, drained and firmly packed

4 eggs

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1 Tablespoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon parsley flakes

1 big pinch cayenne pepper

cooking spray, for frying

Instructions:

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with an “s” blade, puree the chick peas, spinach, eggs and oil until almost smooth, but still somewhat chunky. (A little texture will add a lot to the finished product.)  Remove the mixture from the food processor and place in a small bowl. Add the breadcrumbs and spices and stir until evenly distributed.

Heat a large non-stick skillet to low-medium heat. Spray well with cooking spray. Form small balls of the mixture and place on the frying pan. Press down a little bit to form a round, patty shape. Fry on low-medium heat for about 10-15 minutes, then turn over and fry on the other side. Important note: Spinach gets dark very easily, so to prevent these from getting black, fry over a very low flame. It will take longer than you might expect, but just leave it alone for 10 minutes and it will work really nicely.

Serve warm, with hummus. Enjoy!

Hope your weekend was great! Thanks for stopping by, and come back soon! -Miriam

 

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Spinach Stuffed Roasted Chicken

Posted in Chicken, Healthy, Main Courses, Super-Easy, Uncategorized, Vegetables, tagged , on February 24, 2012 | 8 Comments »

Let’s talk for a couple of minutes about memory.

No, not memories, as in I spent quality time with my family and formed lovely memories. I mean digital memory.

I know I’m quite young, but no topic in the world does more to make me feel like an old grandma than this one. Let’s go back and talk about my first encounter with digital media.

It was seven years ago when I first purchased a digital camera. By today’s standards it was a piece of junk, but in those days it was a top of the line camera. It had 5 megapixels and came with a 32 megabyte card.

After spending a bundle on a camera, I didn’t want to drop the additional cash on a larger card. I opted instead to use my 32 MB card and delete after every 13 pictures. I went on that way for a while, until I decided to splurge. I went and bought a “large capacity” memory card. It had 256 megabytes and cost ninety six dollars.

And I thought it was huge, practically a miracle.

I remember that thrill all over again when I got my first 1 gigabyte card. And the thrill increased each time I got a larger card, one that could hold more pictures. When I got my new camera recently, I got a 16 gigabyte card to go with it. Not huge by today’s standards, but definitely sufficient. It cost me twenty bucks.

Why am I thinking about digital memory today? I guess it started when I had a customer purchase a 12 terabyte hard drive.

Let’s do a little math now.

A terabyte is one thousand gigabytes. A gigabyte is one thousand megabytes. That means one terabyte is the same as a million megabytes. And therefore, a 12 terabyte hard drive (12 million megabytes) is the equivalent of 187,500 32 megabyte cards such as the first one I used. At the rate I paid for my first (256 MB) card, this hard drive would have cost two and a quarter million dollars. Today, however, I sold that 12 million megabyte drive for just over a thousand dollars.

Pretty amazing, huh? Next time you buy an 8 gigabyte card for 12 bucks, think about this.

Now onto this chicken. I don’t have much to say about it, other than that it’s delicious. And almost too easy. Plus it’s got a veggie built right into it, so it’s pretty much my new favorite supper recipe.

Spinach Stuffed Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:

1 large onion

1 lb frozen spinach, defrosted and drained

3 cloves garlic, minced

juice of 1/2 lemon

4 Tablespoons olive oil

3-4 teaspoons Kosher salt, plus extra for sprinkling

1/4-1/2 teaspoon black pepper, plus extra for sprinkling

1 chicken, cut in pieces (1/4′s or 1/8′s)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375.

Finely dice the onion. Mix together with the chopped spinach, crushed garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Set aside.

Clean the chicken and pat dry. Spread some of the onion and spinach mixture between the skin and the meat of the chicken. Spread the remaining mixture on the bottom of a large roasting pan. Place the stuffed pieces of chicken on top of the spinach mixture in the pan. Sprinkle salt and black pepper over the chicken.

Cover the pan with foil and bake for 1 hour at 375. After an hour, remove the foil and raise the temperature of the oven to 425. Bake for an additional 30 minutes.

Serve with rice.

Enjoy!

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you enjoy! -Miriam

 

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