When it comes to dinner, Mexican food is my big weakness. I don’t go out to eat too much anymore, especially compared to five plus years ago when Brandon and I dined out more days than we ate at home, but I can’t give up my Mexican food. I go to my favorite Mexican restaurant at least every other week, sometimes more often. Whenever we move to a new town, finding a Mexican restaurant with a decent chimichanga and good queso blanco is my number one priority. And there have been some places (*cough* Jacksonville) where that meant trying out pretty much every Mexican restaurant in town.

I know I shouldn’t eat at the Mexican restaurant so much, though. It’s probably one of unhealthiest meals you can have. So whenever I see a Mexican-ish recipe in one of my many low fat/light cookbooks I always try it in the hopes of finding something satisfying that’s not totally unhealthy. Most of the time I’m disappointed. I got this recipe from Martha Stewart’s new Light cookbook and I was expecting it to be disappointing up front. Not only is it low fat, but it doesn’t even have meat in it. I gave it a chance anyway, mostly because of how easy it was, and I’m happy to say this recipe totally surprised me.

These are called “pies” because there is a layer of polenta at the bottom that forms a soft crust. I’d never had polenta before, but it’s basically just cornmeal and it acts as a nice base for the filling which is a mixture of cooked pinto and black beans, tomatoes and onions. I added corn to the recipe because you really can’t go wrong with more vegetables. (Plus it adds some nice color to the brownish filling.) Everything is topped with spicy pepper Jack cheese and baked until bubbly and melt-y. Basically, it’s comfort food without any of that annoying guilt!

I’ve made this recipe 3 or 4 times now. The last two times were in the span of a few weeks because it’s just so easy to whip up and it seems to taste better and better the more I make it. I know I’ve found a keeper when I make something that doesn’t have meat in it and Brandon doesn’t complain at all. In fact, he likes this dish just as much as I do. I especially know I’ve found a keeper when I’m craving it instead of a chimichanga. I’ll never completely give up going to my favorite Mexican restaurant, but this recipe makes it okay to skip a couple of weeks.

Get the recipe for Mini Bean and Corn Tamale Pies »

I enjoy cooking but since I only taught myself to cook through sheer force of will, a bookshelf full of cookbooks and lots of food blogs some of my technical cooking skills are pretty lacking. Baking comes to me pretty naturally but I still struggle a lot with cooking. I think it’s because baking is mostly linear: you mix all the dry ingredients, then you mix all the wet ingredients, then you mix them all together, etc. Cooking seems to have a lot more multitasking: cook this in a pot and while you’re doing that saute this other stuff in the skillet and while you’re doing that chop this stuff up and on and on. I cannot tell you how much that stresses me out! That’s why I’m a much more adventurous baker than cook. My favorite dinner recipes are the ones that are as simple as possible. But just because something is simple doesn’t mean it can’t be great. That’s definitely the case for this roasted shrimp recipe.

I’ve made several different versions of this recipe in the past — always cooking the shrimp in a skillet — but it’s not until recently that I found this method of actually roasting the shrimp. I love roasting things, especially vegetables, but I didn’t know you could roast seafood like this. But it turns out you can and it’s quick, too. The key to this recipe is to first make an infused oil by cooking it with other ingredients and then roasting the shrimp in that oil. The oil in the original recipe was just infused with herbs, but I added garlic and some red chili flakes to spice it up. Not only does the oil coat the shrimp and make them absolutely delicious, but it tastes just as good by itself. You’ll definitely want to buy a big loaf of French bread for dipping!

I wanted to serve the roasted shrimp on top of pasta and one of my favorite kinds of pasta is Orzo. If you’ve never had it before, Orzo is small and oval-shaped sort of like rice. This Orzo recipe has become one of my go-to recipes for serving with seafood and other meats. It’s easy to make, you just mix in a few ingredients like garlic, lemon zest and cheese and you’re done. The lemon zest in the pasta compliments the lemon juice that’s added to the shrimp at the end. The red chili flakes in the infused oil add a nice bit of spiciness to everything.

To complete the meal (and because I’ve been making an effort to add some kind of green vegetable to every dinner) I made a simple side of lemon-butter broccoli. It adds a little bit of that multitasking that I hate so much, but the broccoli only needs to be steamed and then mixed with lemon and butter so it’s not complicated at all. It makes a quick, healthy side to go along with the shrimp and pasta.

Get the recipe for Spicy Garlic Roasted Shrimp on Lemon-Parmesan Orzo »

Ok, it’s confession time. While my eating habits have improved a lot over the past couple of years, I still have a lot of weaknesses for the unhealthy processed food I used to eat all the time. Things like corn dogs and snack cakes and store bought cookies. But the good thing about learning to cook is that you can learn to make all the “bad” stuff you love. Yes, it may still be unhealthy, but at least you know every single ingredient that went into it and you aren’t consuming any weird chemicals or preservatives. I’ve learned to make Oatmeal Cream Pies and Oreos and chewy Granola Bars and while I can’t say I totally gave up the processed versions of those things, more often than not when I really want them I’ll make them at home.

Spaghetti-Os are another one of my weaknesses. I’m calling them Spaghetti-Os because I think that’s how they are best known, but those are actually made by Campbells. The kind I grew up on was from Chef Boyardee and they were called ABCs & 123s or Dinosaurs. Sadly, they stopped making them in the 90s and I had to settle for Spaghetti-Os which are, in my opinion, inferior. I’m mentioning this to illustrate how deep my love for this—admittedly gross-looking—canned soup goes. I figure many people may have liked it as a child as well, but you grew out of it. I never did. It’s thick and warm and comforting and most of all, simple. It’s almost like a tomato-y macaroni and cheese, actually. I was surprised to learn it had cheese in it at all, but it thickens the tomato sauce and gives it more flavor so it makes sense.

In my effort to try to reduce my exposure to BPA I’ve given up a lot of canned foods. I tried to give up my soup but after being tempted by the cans of it on the grocery store shelf one too many times I decided to make my own homemade Spaghetti-Os. It’s taken me several attempts but I finally figured it out! The recipes I tried didn’t taste right but with a few adjustments I came up a satisfying version. It turns out you need to add a little bit of sugar to remove some of the acidity from the tomato sauce. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason the Campbells version has never tasted “right” to me. I’m sure the original Chef Boyardee version had tons of unnecessary sugar—which is probably one of the reasons I liked it so much as a kid—but I found just a few teaspoons is fine.

The recipe calls for canned tomato sauce, which is what I use despite what I said about staying away from canned stuff. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, it’s winter and tomatoes aren’t going to taste very good right now. For another, it’s just easier. If you want to make your own tomato sauce, I solute you. But I’m going to keep buying my Muir Glen organic tomato sauce since I know it tastes good and their cans are BPA free. (Note: this is not a paid anything, I’m just recommending what I like to use!) And one of the reasons I always reached for canned soup in the first place was out of pure laziness, so I didn’t see any point in complicating the recipe. I like that it’s simple and that I already have all the ingredients in my kitchen. I like that it only takes 30 minutes. It’s nice to be able to enjoy this soup again, without the guilt, just like I did when I was a kid.

Get the recipe for Tomato Noodle Soup (Homemade Spaghetti-Os!) »

I almost didn’t think I’d make it, but it looks like I’ll be able to squeeze in one final post in 2011. I was in crazy work deadline mode the week before Christmas and barely had time to cook anything much less photograph and post it here. After I got all my work done, I went a little cooking crazy figuring something I make over the weekend would be worth posting but it turns out everything has already been posted! I made Chicken and Dumplings and Honey Cornbread on Christmas Eve. The next day, we had our traditional Christmas dinner of glazed ham and my mom’s famous “Pineapple Stuff.” For dessert I made mini Oreo and Peppermint Bark cheesecakes and we snacked on my favorite Mint-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies all weekend long.

It was definitely a satisfying Christmas, food and gift-wise, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit panicked on Monday morning when I realized I didn’t have any new recipes. And after cooking and baking so much over the weekend I was feeling too lazy to make much else, especially anything else with a ton of sugar. So I did what I always do (at least in the past few months) when I feel too lazy to cook: I made grits. And then as I was spooning them into my mouth, straight from the pot (why bother having to wash another bowl!) I realized this was the perfect thing to post this week.

Since I grew up in Mississippi and Tennessee grits were always a staple at our breakfast table, but I kind of forgot about them when I started cooking for myself. I was reminded of how much I like grits when I made Shrimp and Grits awhile back and I’ve been eating them regularly again ever since. Grits are wonderfully warm and comforting and they are dead easy to make. Perfect for after a major holiday when you don’t want to cook or anytime when you need a quick, easy breakfast or dinner.

Grits don’t really have much of a taste on their own, they are basically a, well, grittier form of cornmeal. Most of the time I eat my grits plain with butter, salt and pepper. It’s simple, but it’s still delicious. But grits are also a great vehicle for different meats and cheeses and it’s fun to experiment with them when I’m feeling adventurous. We still had tons of ham leftover from Christmas so this turned out to be a great way to use some of it up. And you can’t wrong by adding cheese to anything.

If you follow the instructions on the back of the grits container, you’d think grits were made with all water. But anyone who does that is missing out! I always use half water and half milk in my grits. The milk makes them smoother and creamier and just plain better. And since it’s still December and I’m not in “diet mode” yet, I splurged and used half & half instead of my usual 1% milk to make these grits extra creamy and rich.

This is a really flexible recipe, obviously bacon or pancetta would work just as well as ham and you can substitute any number of cheeses. Or you can omit all that stuff and just make plain ol’ grits. Whatever version you settle on, it’s the perfect comfort food for a cold winter day.

Get the recipe for Creamy White Cheddar Grits with Ham »

It’s nearing the end of the year which means that I only have a few more deliveries from my CSA and I’m starting to get sad when I think about not getting that box every Wednesday. But I’ll definitely be signing up for another year and, thankfully, I only have to wait about two months since they pick back up in March.

I started this blog several years ago to become a better cook and put more effort into developing healthy eating habits, but joining this CSA has really been the final kick in the pants I needed to make that happen. I’ve probably tried more new vegetables in just the last 6 months than in all of the last 10 years. It’s been great and has helped me to finally convert my inner picky eater into someone who will try anything at least once. There’s still quite a few things I don’t like (mushrooms…yuck) but at least I tried them and I’ve even found ways to hide the stuff I don’t like so it doesn’t go to waste (mushrooms always go into my favorite spaghetti sauce).

Squash is one of those things that I used to hate and completely avoided pretty much up until I was greeted with all of the yellow squash in my CSA boxes this summer. It’s still not my favorite vegetable but the more varieties of it I try, the more I like it. I was looking for recipes to use up a butternut squash and this one caught my eye because it combines all of my favorite things into one. First of all, it’s a soup and in the Fall and Winter I’m more than happy to eat soup every day of the week. Second, it has apples and you may have noticed I’ve been kind of obsessed with apples this fall. Finally, the squash and apples are roasted first and as I’ve said before, roasting make everything better.

All of those things combine into one really nice soup. Roasting the squash and apples with sage gives it a deeper, slightly smokey flavor and the apples add a subtle sweetness. It’s a very healthy soup so it’s great for lunch or a light dinner. Plus it’s dead easy to prepare. You just need to roast the squash and apples, puree and then stir in some broth. I think it may be the easiest soup I’ve ever made!

I like to eat most soups with some kind of bread and since this soup reminded me of a tomato soup, grilled cheese was the first thing that came to mind. I’ve been eating grilled cheese sandwiches forever and I always used those yellow squares of American cheese. I’m not gonna lie, I like that stuff but is it even cheese? My CSA has made me look at all food in a different way and eating super processed stuff like that makes me feel a little dirty now. So I came up with a new version of a grilled cheese that I didn’t have to feel bad about, I like to refer to it as a “grown-up” grilled cheese sandwich.

It all starts with the cheese. I just discovered smoked gouda cheese in the past year and now I like to put it on everything, so this grilled cheese has white cheddar and smoked gouda on it. Both of these cheeses are from the deli section of my grocery store so they’re more expensive than those yellow squares but I’ve learned there are some things you shouldn’t be cheap with and cheese is one of them. And if you have good cheese you also need fresh baked bread. I know I should make it myself, but the bakery in my grocery store already does a great job of it and I’m lazy, so store bought it is. I mix in a little rosemary with my butter and then spread it on the each slice of bread. You can use thyme or sage if you like them better but the herbs (even dried herbs) add nice flavor to the bread and I think rosemary pairs especially well with smoked gouda. It’s still a grilled cheese so it’s not complicated, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t class it up a bit!

Since the sandwich packs in a lot of flavor with the cheddar, gouda and rosemary, it’s a nice compliment to the roasted squash-apple soup with its more subtle flavors. The soup (which can be made with pumpkin, too) can be made ahead of time so it’s great to heat up for lunch or dinner. It would also make a great starter on Thanksgiving or to go along with those leftover turkey sandwiches the next day!

Get the recipe for Butternut Squash-Apple Soup & Gouda Grilled Cheese »

Remember when I said I was excited about making soup this fall? Well, the prospect of soup sounded so good that I may have jumped the gun a little. But that’s ok because this might as well be called “Summer’s Almost Over Soup.” It’s full of fresh and bright summer produce but it’s warm and hearty and creamy and perfect for those late summer evenings when the temperatures are finally starting to drop.

I really wasn’t expecting this soup to be so good, I was just trying to use up the two weeks worth of yellow tomatoes from my CSA and this recipe fit the bill. I wound up changing the original recipe quite a bit, though. That’s what I love about soup, you can almost always add your own spin to it without risking messing it up completely. For instance, if you can’t get your hands on yellow tomatoes, I’m sure regular tomatoes would work just fine.

My main change was to roast the tomatoes. Roasted vegetables are my favorite side dish, I can’t think of any vegetable that isn’t improved by oven roasting so the thought of concentrating all those flavors into a soup practically had me salivating. I roasted the tomatoes along with a yellow bell pepper, onion, garlic and a red jalapeno. The original recipe calls for canned chipotle chilies, which are just red jalapenos that have been smoked so all I had to do was add a little liquid smoke to get the same flavor.

I have to warn you: this soup is really spicy. But I’m a total wimp when it comes to spicy stuff and I loved it. The heat is what takes this soup above and beyond any tomato soup I’ve ever had and I think it would be pretty boring without it. But if you’re worried, I used the whole jalapeno including the seeds; you can remove the seeds for a less spicy soup.

How have I gotten this far and not mentioned the bacon?! Oh yes, lots of delicious bacon. And this soup is really easy to make. The roasted vegetables are pureed (a lot or a little depending on how chunky you like your soup) and then added to the pot with the bacon, some broth and a little wine. After the ingredients have simmered for a little while and all the flavors have come together heavy cream is stirred in to give the soup that perfect creamy texture. This tomato soup is not for the faint of heart, but it’s worth every spoonful. And spicy foods make you burn more calories, right? It practically makes up for itself in the end. (Ok, not really, but it’s so good you won’t care.)

Update: I got orange tomatoes in my CSA box this week and my first thought was to make more of this soup. I used a mix of large orange tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and red peppers. It tastes just as good and it’s actually a much prettier color than the yellow tomato soup. So feel free to use whatever color tomatoes you want!

Get the recipe for Roasted Yellow Tomato Soup »

It’s still pretty hot out, but I can’t put off posting this recipe anymore. It’s worth heating up your kitchen on a hot summer day to make this for dinner. If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile you may remember last year when I posted a recipe for thyme-roasted chicken and I said it was the best roast chicken I’ve ever had. I’m not going back on that, in fact I still stand by that statement and I still make it regularly. But. Even the best recipes can get stale if you make them over and over again. That’s where this chili-roasted chicken comes in to save the day. Now I alternate between the two recipes so we never get tired of eating either of them!

The thing that attracted me to this recipe in the first place is that the method is really similar to the other recipe but the flavors are completely different. The key in both recipes is to rub the herb/spice mixture underneath the skin, directly onto the meat. That makes the chicken extra tender and flavorful. This recipe uses a spice rub with chili powder, paprika, cumin, oregano and garlic which gives the chicken tons of flavor, even if you don’t eat the skin. But don’t worry if you’re sensitive to spicy foods, it’s not overpowering at all.

I said this in my last roasted chicken post, but it’s worth repeating: don’t be intimidated by the thought of making a whole chicken. I used to be that way when I first started cooking, but now it’s my favorite thing to make. Roasted chicken is one of the easiest dinners there is. It takes about an hour and there’s no basting or really much of any hands-on times at all. The potatoes are sprinkled with smoked paprika and roasted right along with the chicken. To round out the meal, I’m also including the recipe for southwest green beans which involves nothing more than steaming the beans and then tossing them with some tomatilla salsa and cilantro. The beans are ready in less than 10 minutes and the flavors in the salsa perfectly compliment the spices on the chicken and potatoes. In the end you have a delicious, healthy and fulfilling meal with very little effort. My favorite kind of dinner!

Get the recipe for Chili-Roasted Chicken and Potatoes »

Most of the time I don’t have the forethought to plan recipes related to holidays that aren’t Thanksgiving or Christmas, but I happened to make this for dinner a few days ago and I knew it would be perfect to post on Cinco de Mayo. And in fact, this dish is sort of a celebration for me because it signifies that I’ve finally graduated from the realm of the picky eaters! Chile peppers were my last big food phobia and I’m very happy to say this recipe has put all my fears to rest. And, even crazier, as I was shoveling a stuffed poblano into my mouth my main thought was that I wanted it to be spicier. Five years ago, I wouldn’t even touch bell peppers, so eating a dish with not one, but two kinds of chile peppers in it would have been crazy talk.

This recipe is like a healthier version of chile rellenos. It uses poblano chiles that don’t need to be charred or peeled or anything fussy like that. They’re hollowed out and stuffed with a mixture of black beans and cheese and then placed into a spicy tomato sauce, topped with more cheese and baked until tender and melty and perfect.

Even with all the cheese these are surprisingly low in fat. I try to have at least one meal a week that doesn’t have meat and this is the kind of recipe where I didn’t miss it one bit. I had thought about making a Mexican rice to go on the side, but Brandon and I were stuffed afterward. (Though we did have two servings…we couldn’t resist going back for seconds!)

Even if you’re not that into spicy food, I would still recommend this recipe because it’s pretty mild. But if you do like spicy food it’s really easy to customize the recipe to your own tastes. The tomato sauce has a jalapeno in it, so you can either remove all the seeds to keep it milder or keep them in for a spicier sauce. Next time I’m definitely using the whole thing. I will also try adding some red pepper and maybe some other spices to the filling.

My only real issue with this dish is that it takes a whole hour to cook. It smells so good that you don’t want to wait, but it’s totally worth it. The actual time preparing the recipe is less than 30 minutes and takes very little effort. Half of the work is done by your blender or food processor. And I hate having to buy special ingredients that I don’t ever use again (which happens a lot with regional food) so I love that other than the chiles, I had most of the other ingredients in my pantry already. This recipe is definitely going into my regular rotation and it just proves that giving up all my stupid eating (or rather, not eating) habits was the best thing I ever did.

Get the recipe for Stuffed Poblanos »

It feels weird to be posting a soup recipe when it’s almost April, but it actually snowed in Charlottesville this past weekend so Spring isn’t quite here yet, at least for many of us in the top half of the country. And you know what? That’s kind of okay with me. Spring is beautiful time of year up here, but I actually prefer cold weather. Plus I get to eat more soup! I don’t think there’s anything I love more than soup (well anything that doesn’t have sugar in it, anyway).

During the colder months I make soup at least once a week, but I’ve been making it less in the past few months. So last week when the temperature dropped and brought rain and snow with it, I knew I had to make some soup. I figure it’s my last chance before it gets too warm. I recently had some potato soup at Panera Bread and it made me remember how much I love it, so I decided to improvise my own version at home. I love spicy soup like my favorite Chicken Tortilla Soup and I love cheesy potato soup, so I figured I would combine those two into a single Tex-Mex inspired potato soup.

I looked up other potato soup recipes for reference and many were made with ingredients like cream and eggs. I wanted to keep things lighter since I knew I would be adding cheese and bacon, so I made a very thick base by blending up potatoes, carrots (you can’t taste them, but they make the soup a pretty color!) and chicken broth and then I used non-fat evaporated milk and melted 2% cheese to make it creamy. You would never be able to tell this is a “light” potato soup, though. It’s just as thick and creamy as any of the higher fat versions of it I’ve ever had.

The soup is filled with hearty vegetables like onions, garlic, carrots, bell pepper, jalapeno pepper and of course lots of potato. Add to that some bacon, cheese, cilantro and little lime juice for good measure. At first I was worried that all this stuff wouldn’t work well in a potato soup, but in the end I think this the best potato soup I’ve ever eaten! It’s thick and creamy, spicy and cheesy and so very satisfying.

Get the recipe for Tex-Mex Potato Soup »

I generally put a lot of effort into making dinner. I comb through my cookbooks and bookmarks to come up with a meal plan every week and I try to make dinner most nights so that we won’t go out to eat instead. Brandon is a good sous chef and helps me prep everything, but sometimes I’m just not in the mood to put in all the effort, so over the past couple of years I have gathered a bunch of go-to recipes just for this occasion. I keep the ingredients in stock so that if I’m tired or I forgot to defrost the meat for my planned recipe or whatever else goes wrong, I can pull them out and have dinner within an hour. This is one such meal and probably the one I default to the most. I realized I had never blogged about it, which felt weird since we eat it so much. But I think it’s because these chicken tenders are so good that I’ve never wanted to bother with photographing them when I could be eating them instead.

I have somewhat of a weakness for chicken tenders and I believe I have tried every version of baked tenders with breadcrumbs, crackers, crushed up cornflakes and whatever else. These are hands-down my favorite version and it’s because of the panko. If you’ve never heard of it, panko is a light and crispy type of breadcrumb, traditionally used in Japanese food. But it’s become much more common over here and I’ve never had any problems finding it at a grocery store (along with the rest of the breadcrumbs and also in the Asian food section). Over time, I started adding a spice mixture to the panko to give the tenders some extra kick, but they are just as good without it.

The crunchy panko, combined with this method of oven “frying” the tenders makes for perfectly crispy chicken and I don’t get that gross feeling afterward like I do when I eat fried food. The method mainly involves preheating your pan so that it’s really hot before you add the chicken; it’s not complicated but it is very effective.

I almost always make these sweet potato sticks along with with the tenders because A) sweet potatoes are my favorite vegetable and B) these are dead easy to make. I don’t even bother with silly things like measurements anymore. Just cut up the potatoes, sprinkle with a little butter and a handful of brown sugar (and cinnamon if you like) and roast until tender. How’s that’s for no effort? Despite being so simple, these glazed sweet potatoes are so good that they might as well be a dessert.

Both of these are light recipes (nutrition info is included below), but to be extra healthy you may want cook up something green along with this meal. Roasted vegetables like broccoli, green beans, brussel sprouts or kale are simple to prepare and can easily be cooked along with the sweet potatoes and chicken.

Get the recipe for Spicy “Fried” Chicken Tenders with Glazed Sweet Potato Sticks »