White Bean Dip

Joelen of Joelen's Culinary Adventures is featuring the almighty food processor this month for her Tasty Tools event. Check out her blog in March for the roundup or send in your entries before Feb 28th.

The first thing I ever made using my food processor was hummus. In fact, that's the main reason I bought the thing to begin with! I've made hummus countless times now and still love the stuff.

This was supposed to be hummus, but the can of garbanzo beans and the can of white beans look awfully similar and I grabbed the wrong one. By the time I realized my mistake, it was already opened and drained, so I decided to make a white bean dip instead. And you know what? It was pretty darn tasty!

Just like with my hummus, I replaced the oil with chicken stock to make it healthy yet tasty, and dusted the top with a bit of paprika for color. I served it with tortilla chips, carrot sticks and celery sticks and plan on making this again the future (on purpose!)

Ingredients:
- 1 can of white beans (cannellini beans)
- 1 clove of garlic
- about 1/4 cup of chicken stock
- juice of 1/2 a lemon (more or less depending on your preferences)
- salt to taste

Directions:
- Drain the beans and toss them in the food processor.
- Toss all the other ingredients in the food processor too.
- Process everything until the beans are a nice, smooth consistency. You made need to stop and scrape down the sides every so often.
- Taste to decide whether or not you want more salt, lemon, etc.
- The consistency will be pretty watery, but don't fret! Cover it and stick it in the fridge for a few hours. It will set up during this time and become a nice thick, scoopable, delectable dip.
- Sprinkle some paprika or herbs for a bit of color and enjoy!

Healthier Hummus

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! We were out of town for a bit, but am back now and I'm determined to finish all the Thanksgiving posts. There are about 3 more or so after this.

Another appetizer that we made for Thanksgiving was hummus. I love hummus and its great for entertaining as well as just keeping around the house as a healthy snack. Especially if its served with carrot and celery sticks instead of pita bread or chips.

A trick that I learned a long time ago from Martha Stewart is to replace the olive oil with chicken stock. That makes it even more healthy!

Ingredients:

• 1 can of garbanzo beans
  
• 1 tablespoon of tahini (to taste)
  
• 1-2 cloves of garlic (to taste)
  
• juice from 1/2 of a lemon (to taste)
  
• 1/4 cup of chicken stock, olive oil, the liquid from the garbanzo beans, or a combo of all.
• salt to taste
  

Method:

• Drain the garbanzo beans and reserve the liquid if desired.
• Pour the beans into a food processor.
  
• If desired, add a clove or two of garlic.
  
• If desired, add some lemon juice, to taste. I used about about half a lemon.
  
• If desired, add some tahini, I used about a tablespoon.
• Turn on the food processor while slowly drizzling in the chicken stock, olive oil or liquid from the beans or a combo of any of the three until the desired consistency is reached. You may have to stop the processor and scrape down the sides during this process.
• Add salt to taste.
• Serve with anything from pita bread, to chips, to carrot and celery sticks.

You can sprinkle a bit of paprika or herbs on top for color and flavor too.

Spinach dip

I've got another "healthy alternative" and a use for the leftover yogurt from the naan and crispy yogurt chicken.

I love the spinach dip made with knorr vegetable soup mix, but it's not the healthiest of dips. Replacing the sour cream/mayo with yogurt healthens it up and doesn't change the taste much. It is a bit tarter, but still yummy. The trick, which isn't even necessary, is to drain about half of the yogurt with a cheesecloth to thicken it up. If you don't drain it, it's still perfectly fine. In fact, I always reserve the liquid I drain out in case I want to add some back later for consistency reasons.

And to make it super healthy, serve it with carrot and celery sticks instead of chips, crackers or bread!

This spinach dip makes a great snack to munch on while watching football and Melissa of Made by Melissa is hosting a fun event called Snack Food Sunday every Sunday until the Superbowl. Check out her blog to see other great football snack ideas.

Recipe:

1 pkg frozen chopped spinach, drained and squeezed dry
1 pkg Knorr's vegetable soup mix
1 small can water chestnuts, chopped (I skipped this because we aren't water chestnut fans)
1 container of yogurt (I used fat free)

This part is optional: take half of the yogurt and put it in cheesecloth over a bowl to drain some of the liquid. Save the liquid in case you want to add it back later.
Pour in the soup mix, water chestnuts and spinach. Mix thoroughly and refrigerate for at least four hours. Add back some of the liquid from the yogurt if necessary. Stir before serving.

Pesto Chicken and Green Bean Pasta

I love basil. It has so many uses and pesto is one of my favorites. I made pesto pasta with chicken and green beans and want to submit this to Presto Pasta Nights which was created by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast and is being hosted by Melissa at The Cooking Diva this week. Check it out on Friday to see everybody else's great entries! Happy early Halloween by the way!

Anyway, my basil plants flowered quite a while ago, and apparently (though I haven't tried it), after it flowers, the leaves become bitter. Does anyone know how to keep basil from flowering besides pinching them on a regular basis? Pinching is just way too labor intensive for a lazy girl like me...

Before the leaves got bitter, I took them all and made a big batch of pesto and froze it to use throughout the year. Usually, I use my food processor to make my pesto, but I decided to minimize the mess and try using my immersion stick blender. Even though it still tasted great, it made the pesto too smooth. I like a bit of chunkiness to mine, so next time, I'm switching back to my tried and true food processor method.


I also substituted chicken stock for most of the olive oil. Yes, it changes the taste a bit, but it's still good. Plus I've always found pesto sauce to be too oily anyway, so I prefer it this way. And it's healthier! Everybody wins! Yay!

As far as putting the pesto with chicken and green beans, that's something I learned from Paolo, the Italian grocer/restaurateur I met in Hong Kong who also taught me spaghetti bolognese and many other Italian goodies. According to him, the traditional way to eat pesto in Genoa is spaghetti, potatoes and green beans, and lemme tell you, it is dee-lish that way! But I figured with the pasta, I don't really need any more carbs, so I left out the potatoes and added some chicken to make a more well-rounded meal. It may not be as traditional, but it's still just as yummy.

Pesto Sauce:
(as usual, I don't actual measurements because I just eyeball things, sorry)
- Basil leaves (about 3-4 handfuls)
- Pine nuts (about 1 small handful)
- 2-3 garlic cloves
- Chicken stock/Olive oil
- grated Parmesan cheese (a healthy handful)
- Salt and pepper

This step is optional, but I like to toast my pine nuts in a dry pan to give it a bit more color and bring out the flavor and aroma.

Put the basil, pine nuts, garlic cloves and cheese in a food processor and pulse it a bit. Slowly add the chicken stock/olive oil while pulsing until it reaches the desired consistency. Try not to over-process it and leave it slightly chunky - unlike mine =(. It's less of an issue with a food processor than an immersion blender though.

Salt and pepper to taste (don't worry about this part too much because you can always adjust it when you actually use it).

Put them into small containers and freeze for future use. I find muffin tins to be a good size to freeze them in, and then transfer them to a ziploc bag after they've hardened.

Pesto Chicken and Green Bean Pasta:
- Chicken (I prefer boneless, skinless chicken thighs for this)
- Green beans
- Pasta
- Pesto sauce
- Salt and pepper
- Parmesan cheese (optional)

Salt and pepper the chicken and grill until cooked through and nicely browned. Let it rest for a few minutes and then cut it into bit size pieces. Set aside.

Boil the green beans until cooked through and drain. Set aside.

Cook pasta according to the directions on the package and drain. Set aside.

Mix the pasta, chicken, green beans and pesto sauce over low heat. Salt and pepper to taste and feel free to add a healthy dose of parmesan cheese on top too!

Corn chowder

Who says chowders have to be unhealthy? This had minimal butter, no cream, lotsa veggies, and soy milk! And it tasted great (in my opinion at least). My brother always laughs at me because I'll drink diet coke and eat french fries smothered in cheese, guacamole, and carne asada (the best thing ever by the way if you've never tried it - a San Diego hole in the wall Mexican specialty). But my argument is that if a comparable lower calorie version of carne asada french fries existed, I'd eat it. Unfortunately, there isn't, but there is one for soda, so I might as well take advantage of that, right?

I'm always about finding comparable healthy alternatives. I've baked eggrolls before, made creamless creamed spinach, baked potato wedges/chips, etc. and now I'm on to my healthy version of corn chowder, I hope you like it!


Ingredients:
- 2 tbs butter
- flour
- 1 can of corn
- 1 onion finely diced
- 2 ribs of celery chopped
- 1 potato diced
- 1 chicken breast
- 1 cup soy milk
- 1 cup chicken stock or water
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp parsley
- salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Melt the butter in a heavy pot and add flour a little a time to make a rue. Keep adding the flour until it can't hold anymore.

In a separate pan (or take the rue out and use the same pan), sweat the onions until softened. Add a pinch of salt to help with the process.

Add it to the pot (or add the rue back in). Add the can of corn, with the liquid, soy milk and chicken stock/water. Stir to break up the rue and thicken the soup.

Toss in the celery, potato and the chicken breast to poach. Bring everything to a boil then turn down to a simmer.

When the chicken is cooked, take it out and shred it and put it back in. Add the herbs and salt and pepper to taste and enjoy the comforting goodness of this healthy corn chowder.

Crispy, Juicy Carnitas

Contrary to popular belief, Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexican independence day. Sept 16th is! So in honor of it, I'm posting this today. Happy Mexican Independence Day!

I had no idea carnitas were so easy to make. I'm definitely making this a lot more in the future, especially since it was so yummy!

Having a pressure cooker really makes life a lot easier too. Pressure cookers are really amazing. Instead of braising for hours on end...I popped the meat in for half an hour and *poof* it's done! It's like magic!
On top of being so delicious and easy to make, they're healthy too. I always thought that carnitas were deep fried to get their crispy goodness, but they don't have to be. All they need a bit of time in the oven for nice crispy edges and a juicy interior.

Put it on a tortilla with some chopped onions, cilantro and hot sauce and you've got yourself a great meal!

I'm also submitting this for Joelen's TGIF Happy Hour that is featuring margaritas and other Mexican goodies.

Ingredients:
- 4 pounds of pork butt (shoulder)
- 1.5 tbs of salt (plus more to taste)
- 1 tsp cumin (plus more to taste)
- 1 tsp chili powder (plus more to taste)
- 5 grinds of ground black pepper (plus more to taste)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 onion
- 1 jalapeno
- 3 cloves of garlic

Method:
Cut the pork into ~2x2 inch cubes. I think this is a good size because it cooks quicker than not cutting it into chunks but still keeps it really juicy.

Sprinkle the seasonings on the meat and put it into a pressure cooker or large pot if you don't have a pressure cooker. Rough chop the onion and jalapeno and toss them in. Crush the garlic and throw that in the pot too. Next add water until the meat is barely submerged if using a pressure cooker, or until fully submerged if you're using a pot.

If you're using a pressure cooker, heat until fully pressurized and keep it there for 30 minutes or until tender. If you're using a regular pot, put a lid on it and put it into a 300 degree oven, or simmer on the stove top for a few hours until tender. A slow cooker would work too.

When the meat is cooked and falls apart easily, remove the onions, garlic, bay leaf and jalapeno if you can find them. Drain all but 1/2 an inch of the liquid.

Lightly smash each cube of pork so that it falls apart just a little bit, but not totally shredded. The reason I do this is to maximize the surface area that will get extra seasoning and will get crispy in the oven, but not so much so that it dries out and is no longer juicy.

Sprinkle on additional amounts (to taste) of the same seasonings you used before. Don't be scared to be generous with the seasonings.

Pop it into a 350 degree oven for about 10-20 minutes or until the tops and edges are dry and crispy and most of the liquid has evaporated.

Shred the meat with a fork or your fingers. Serve it in a tortilla with some chopped onions, cilantro, hot sauce and any other toppings of your choice.

Handmade whole wheat fettucine

Aw poop. A dud. =( And I was sooo excited about making my own pasta too! I swear I'll do better next time though.

I've been wanting a pasta machine for quite some time now and found a reasonably priced one the other day, so I snatched it up. I love pasta as is, and love fresh pasta even more! But fresh pasta is so darn expensive compared to the dried stuff that I can never justify buying it. Well, you all know what the solution to that is, right? Make your own!

sigh, I've become one of them. Before I really started liking to cook, I liked to watch cooking shows. I'd watch Martha Stewart make her own potato chips or marshmallows from scratch and enjoy the show, but all the while laughing at how ridiculous she was for going through all that trouble for something so readily available and cheap in the grocery store. Sure, I knew hers probably tasted better than the ones in the store, but all that trouble just didn't seem worth it to me. So I went about my business as usual, buying everything from the store and microwaving hot pockets for dinner (I was a college student after all).

Fast forward a few years to a gorgeous kitchen that I love, lots of great kitchen gadgets and some experience under my belt, and now I'm the ridiculous one. Pasta's so cheap and easy, why do I want to go through so much unnecessary work? I guess it's because I've hit that stage in my life where it IS worth it to me. Well, not this time (this one was a dud, remember?), but hopefully next time it will be.

I followed this recipe from allrecipes that got rated with 4.5 stars, so I thought it'd be a good place to start. Either I'm terrible at measuring and following directions (which is true), don't know what the heck I'm doing, or all the people who gave this recipe such a great rating are liars! I'll let you be the judge...

Let's go through all the things that went wrong:
- First of all, after following the directions exactly, there wasn't enough liquid to bring the dough together, no matter how long I mixed, so I kept adding a small amount of water at a time until it finally sorta did. I didn't want to add too much since I was already adding a lot more than the recipe called for, so I stopped as soon as the dough came together, which may have still been too little. I really have no idea what consistency pasta dough should be at, but it seemed kinda dry and stiff to me.

- Then the dough kept creaping up the side of my mixer and wouldn't stay in the darn bowl. I kept stopping the mixer to push the dough back down only to have it creep up over and over again.

- Next, I could hear my mixer's motor straining and a slight burning smell. OH NO! Don't you dare break my mixer, I love that thing like a fat kid loves cake! So I took the dough out and kneaded it by hand. Goodness that was freaking workout. Get that cake-loving fat kid to knead some pasta dough and he won't be fat anymore, that's for sure. I half-assed my way through the kneading since it was so difficult, so that probably played a part in the pasta's eventual failure as well.

- Then, this being the first time I've ever made my own pasta, I didn't know what thickness to stop at. My machine can be set at 1-9. I started at 1 and moved up like I'm supposed to and stopped at 6 because that seemed to be the right thickness I wanted it at. Little did I know that the pasta sucks up a ton of water when it's cooked. I knew dried pasta does, but I didn't know that fresh pasta did too. So my fettucine ended being waaay too thick.

- And lastly, the texture. Doing half whole wheat flour was too much whole wheat. It was grainy and stiff, and I could even feel the crunchy grains of whole wheat in my mouth as I ate - and no, I did not drop any egg shells into the dough if that's what you're thinking. It was not at all the nice chewy al dente I was hoping to achieve. Dried pasta from the store kicks this labor intensive pasta's butt any day!

Oh well, there's always next time, right? Anyway, here's the recipe and a few pictures of me hard at work. Try this recipe at your own risk. And if works out for you, there's really no need to tell me because I'm already feeling pretty crappy about the failure and am blaming it on the recipe and not my own incompetence. =)

Oh, and I served it with leftover bolognese.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons olive oil

DIRECTIONS

1. Stir together the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour and salt in a medium bowl, or on a clean board. Make a hollow in the center, and pour in the olive oil. Break eggs into it one at a time, while mixing quickly with a fork until the dough is wet enough to come together. Knead on a lightly floured surface until the dough is stiff and elastic. Cover, and let stand for 30 minutes to relax.
2. Roll out dough by hand with a rolling pin, or use a pasta machine to achieve the desired thickness of noodles. Cut into desired width and shapes. Allow the pasta to air dry for at least 15 minutes to avoid having it clump together.

To cook fresh pasta

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the pasta, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Fresh pasta cooks very quickly. It will float to the surface when fully cooked. Drain, and use as desired.

Baked Potato Wedges and Accidental Chips!

I looove french fries. Unfortunately, my double chin and muffin top do not. These potato wedges are usually good enough to satisfy that french fry craving when I get it, and is much healthier, and pretty easy too!

Look what I let happen to my potatoes. How embarassing!

I had a whole bag (10 pounds), untouched, all with some monstrous sprouts. Oops. Normally I just give the potatoes a good scrub and leave the skin on, but this time, I had to peel them. I peeled them down a few extra layers to get down under the sprouts, and then the potatoes were as good as new! After peeling them, I sliced, seasoned and baked all 10 pounds. We ate what we wanted, then I layed the rest in a single layer on a cooling rack, froze them, and then transferred them to a plastic storage ziploc baggy to be rebaked and enjoyed at a later date.

Ingredients:
- Potatoes
- Seasoned salt*
- Oil (optional)
* You can season it with anything you want. Garlic powder, onion salt, etc

Method:
- Peel or scrub the potatoes, then cut into wedges. I actually don't cut them into real "wedges". Instead, I cut them in half, then cut them into thin slices. The thinner the slices, the faster they cook, and the crispier they will potentially be. As you can see here, I sliced a few so thin that they turned out like those fancy kettle potato chips! (Hence my title of "Accidental potato chip") Crispy and delicious. Next time I might slice all of them that thin and make potato chips instead!

- (Optional) After cutting, you can toss them in a bit of oil and seasoning. I was being super stingy with the oil because I was trying to make them as healthy as possible. I even did a few batches with no oil at all and found that they were still tasty and still crisped up nicely, so oil is actually completely optional.
- Lay out the wedges on a silpat or parchment paper lined baking sheet in a single layer. If you want (especially if you skipped the previous step and didn't use any oil), you can sprinkle on additional seasoning now.

- Put it into a 450deg oven until browned and crisped to the consistency of your preference. The timing will also depend on how thin you cut your wedges. Mine were pretty thin and took maybe 25-30 minutes. You can probably also precook them in the microwave for a bit to cut down on baking time, but I didn't try this.
- (Optional) If you want, after one side is done, you can flip them to get both sides cripsy, but I'm too lazy for that and felt like they were good enough with only one side toasty (I'm always looking for shortcuts).
- Serve plain, or with a dipping sauce of your choice (a nice aoli would probably be good) or as a side to your main dish. When it's just me and the hubz, I just bring the baking pan straight to the table and we eat them off of that =)


* The picture above is the baked potato wedges with frozen corn that was heated in the microwave and tossed with a squeeze of lemon juice and some seasoned salt and a tri-tip that the hubz marinated and grilled. He won't tell me what he marinated it with, but I do know there was some tequila, lots of brown sugar and some paprika among other things. It was VERY tasty.

Pseudo creamed spinach

This is actually really healthy! No cream, no cheese, minimal butter and still quite tasty.

If you're expecting the super rich creamed spinach you're used to, you'll probably be disappointed, but if you want a delicious, healthy way to make spinach that feels just a bit indulgent, I think this will do the trick...


Ingredients*:
- 2 packages of frozen spinach
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1 shallot or small onion finely diced
- 2 minced garlic cloves
- 3 Tbsp all purpose flour
- 1 cup of milk (I used non-fat soy)
- 1/2 cup of milk or chicken stock
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- fresh cracked pepper
* As usual, I didn't follow any recipes or measure anything out, so these are all estimations, so do taste tests
Directions:
- Thaw the frozen spinach and squeeze out the water using your hands or cheesecloth
- Melt butter in the bottom of a saucepan
- Put in shallot/onions and sautee until softened
- Add minced garlic
- Sprinkle in flour and mix until wet. If there's not enough moisture to wet the flour, don't worry, we're adding the milk next. - Pour in the soy milk and add the seasonings
- Add the spinach and mix until warmed through and the right consistency
- Add more liquid/seasoning as needed. Flour can also be added if it's not "creamy" enough

Vietnamese egg rolls (baked)

You can definitely fry these too, but I opted to bake them because they still taste yummy baked and the taste sacrifice is worth the health benefit to me.

Serve it with lettuce and dipping sauce.

Filling:
(these are just estimates of what I used since I tend not to measure things, so you might want to cook up a small bit of the meat before rolling the egg rolls to check the flavor)



- 1 package of ground pork (20 oz) (turkey, chicken, shrimp, etc or combos of different meats will work too)
- 2 carrots (shredded)
- 1 onion diced
- 1 packet of mung bean thread noodles (soaked in water until softened, then chopped into pieces no longer than 1.5" - I used my food processor for this) *
- 3 cloves of garlic minced
- 2 green onions (optional)
- 1/2 cup of wood ear mushrooms or shitake mushrooms diced (optional)
- 2 Tbsp of fish sauce (if you don't have this, add a bit of salt or more soy)
- 1 Tbsp of soy sauce
- 2 tsp of sugar
- 1 Tbsp of sesame oil (optional)
- 2 Tbsp of oyster sauce (if you don't have this, add a bit of salt of more soy)

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. I recommend cooking up a bit of it to check for seasoning purposes before continuing.

* In case you aren't familiar with Mung Bean Thread Noodles (aka glass noodles or vermicelli) they usually come in bags with 4 small packets inside. Be sure not to get it confused with rice vermicelli or any of the other similar noodles. It should say Bean Thread somewhere on the packaging.


Wrapper & Dipping Sauce:
From the store -

Directions:

- Keep the wrappers covered with a damp paper towel to keep them from drying out while you're wrapping the rest of the egg rolls
- Place the filling across the bottom of a wrapper and shape it like a log
- Fold in the edges and roll it up like a burrito
- Place on an oiled cookie sheet or silpat or parchment paper seam side down. If you have trouble keeping it rolled up, you can brush the inside edge with an egg wash to "glue" it.**
- Brush each egg roll with a bit of oil to help with crisping and browning in the oven**
- Place it in a 400 degree oven for ~15-20 mins, or until crispy (it probably won't brown much)**
** Instead of brushing with oil and baking, you can deep fry them instead.