Category Archives: Vegetables

Healthy fettuccine alfredo with cauliflower sauce and sweet peas

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Julia

When I first saw the recipe for healthy fettuccine alfredo with cauliflower sauce by Pinch of Yum on Foodgawker, I immediately fell in love with the idea of making a perfectly healthy alternative to my favorite alfredo sauce. Plus, seeing this sauce immediately brought back the memories of a few years back, during Atkins diet craze, when I used to make “fake” mashed potatoes using cauliflower and how much I enjoyed it!

Making this healthy alfredo sauce has long been on my mind but what stopped me from making it was simple logistics: I would forget to buy cauliflower at the store! Finally, here we are – with several cauliflower florets in the refrigerator, I was ready to go! Continue reading →

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Posted in Cauliflower, Cheese, Dinner, Parmesan, Pasta, Recipe, Sweet peas, Vegetables, Vegetarian | 18 Comments

White fish with salsa: black cod with tropical fruit

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Julia

I’ve been making a lot of tropical fruit salsa lately. You could say I am on a tropical fruit salsa kick. Fruits and veggies mixed with the lime juice and spices are so good, and there are so many possible variations – I can eat it with anything! The salsa goes especially well with seafood: I’ve made mango salsa with salmon, pineapple salsa with shrimp, and now it’s time for white fish with salsa.

In this recipe, I am entering a new fruit – cantaloupe! Who knew that cantaloupe could be a delicious addition to tropical fruit salsa! It’s sweet, it’s soft, it’s colorful! It balances perfectly with the rest of ingredients: tomatoes, pineapple, red onion, cilantro, lime juice, and spices. Continue reading →

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Posted in Black cod, Cantaloupe, Dinner, Fish, Fruit, Pineapple, Recipe, Tomatoes, Vegetables | 17 Comments

Southwestern shrimp with pineapple salsa

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Julia

Yes, I have a lot of fresh pineapple at my disposal right now. Thus, this is the second time this week I am making a recipe using pineapple – and I don’t mind it in the least! I love fresh pineapple!!! I could snack on plain pineapple all day long, but I also like to use it as an ingredient to enhance recipes, such as making this pineapple salsa to accompany fish or shrimp.

I love southwestern flavors and I love seafood – the two concepts I combine in this simple dish. The shrimp is coated in southwestern spices: cumin, oregano, chili powder, paprika, garlic, plus salt and pepper. It is cooked on the stove top on high heat for a short time – I don’t want to overcook the shrimp! It can also be grilled, but this is a weeknight dish for me, so I don’t have time for the grill.

The pineapple salsa is simply delicious! Fresh and bright in color, it’s full of anti-oxidants, fiber, and other nutrients. I have a hard time staying away from it, so usually very little of this salsa makes it to the actual dinner table, and I simply have to make a double batch. You might have to double the salsa recipe – it’s too addicting! Continue reading →

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Posted in Black beans, Fish, Fruit, Pineapple, Recipe, Shrimp, Tomatoes, Vegetables, Vegetarian | 17 Comments

Broiled salmon with mango salsa and rice

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Julia

Right now, April-May, is the best time to buy fresh mangoes and pineapple – a self-imposed mission my husband has successfully accomplished for the past 3 weeks. I now always have a fresh pineapple (or two, or even three!) on my counter, and a couple of mangoes sitting in the refrigerator or ripening quietly in the pantry. Velvety fleshed and tasting like honey, mangoes are especially my current favorite! I only like to use them raw as mangoes seem to lose their flavor if cooked.

So, with the abundance of mangoes and pineapples at the market (and the abundance of salmon in my freezer), it was only a matter of time before I made a dinner combining broiled salmon with mango salsa. Continue reading →

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Posted in Fish, Fruit, Mangoes, Pineapple, Recipe, Rice, Salmon, Tomatoes, Vegetables | 21 Comments

Easy Fettuccine Alfredo

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Julia

A good basic Alfredo sauce has long been a staple in my kitchen. Not only is it delicious, creamy and cheesy, the sauce is simple to prepare, and it uses the ingredients that can be easily found in any pantry. This ridiculously easy Fettuccine Alfredo dish can be served plain as-is, or alongside some add-ins, such as leftover roasted chicken, grilled vegetables, bacon. It’s one of those great weeknight dinners that will take you at most 30 minutes to make, and what you get in return is a restaurant quality dish.

So, if you’re looking for a simple, straight-forward, not overly complicated recipe, without too many steps, a recipe that is practical for a weeknight after a long busy day, this recipe from Emeril fits the bill.

In addition to grilled chicken and roasted vegetables, this Fettuccine Alfredo also goes great with seafood: grilled or sauteed shrimp, scallops, or lobster. Definitely a keeper! Continue reading →

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Posted in Cheese, Dinner, Parmesan, Pasta, Recipe, Shallots, Vegetarian | 26 Comments

Asian salmon and noodles

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Julia

This week turned out to be quite busy again, and it’s during the weeks like this one that I love simple weeknight dinners, such as this Asian salmon and noodles. You might have noticed that this pasta dish is strikingly similar to my recent recipe for spicy Asian noodles with mushrooms and snow peas, including the trivia that I manually counted 60 snow peas. In fact, the only difference between these two recipes is the presence of salmon in our today’s dish. The fact that I am this non-creative with the today’s recipe underscores how tired and short on time I am this week.

The salmon and noodles cooked Asian style that you see on the photos are so flavorful, that this dish quickly became a favorite in and outside of our home! And, it take such a short time to make this that I’ve been feeding this dish to my family LOTS of times. I am surprised they are still not tired of it. So, I know your family will love this recipe if you like good Asian food! And, like it should be on a busy weeknight, the recipe is quick, easy and requires no mental power! Continue reading →

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Posted in Dinner, Fish, Mushrooms, Pasta, Recipe, Salmon, Snow peas, Vegetables | 22 Comments

Stuffed sweet potatoes for breakfast – with sausage and eggs

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Julia

Who knew that sweet potatoes could make a great breakfast? My husband was skeptical. Well, after trying these stuffed sweet potatoes for breakfast, he is skeptical no more. I was myself surprised how well all flavors mixed in here: scrambled eggs and sausage mixed in with a little bit of cheese sauce and pureed sweet potatoes.

To me, this is the perfect breakfast with favorite breakfast ingredients: sausage, eggs, and potatoes. Fat, protein, and carbs – all together. And, I like how it looks: little boats of potato halves filled with a delicious breakfast mixture. I won’t be very verbose in this post and will get down right to the recipe. Continue reading →

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Posted in Breakfast, Breakfast sausage, Cheddar cheese, Cheese, Eggs, Recipe, Sweet Potatoes, Vegetables | 31 Comments

Spicy Asian noodles and mushrooms, with snow peas

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Julia

For the last several weeks, these spicy Asian noodles and mushrooms became my staple dish on Monday nights (or any other days that are similar to my hectic Mondays). It’s very easy to prepare; takes at most 40 minutes from start to finish, and it’s very tasty. The dish is versatile – you can eat it as a vegetarian version, or you can add already cooked fish or meat to it.

This is my perfect recipe for Monday nights. If your Mondays are anything like mine (busy from 9 to 5 with reports and excel spreadsheets at work, plus everybody is trying to catch up with me at the same time), then you will thank me for this recipe. It’s mindless, simple, you can do this dish on an auto-pilot, because this recipe does not require much thinking or fiddling. And, in the end, you’ll surprise yourself with the dish that’s quite excellent in flavor. Continue reading →

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Posted in Green onions, Mushrooms, Pasta, Recipe, Snow peas, Vegetables, Vegetarian | 25 Comments

Pumpkin ravioli with brown butter sauce and pecans

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Julia

Pumpkin ravioli was the first recipe idea that came to my mind after I found an unopened can of organic pumpkin sitting in my pantry, leftover, forgotten and unused from this past Thanksgiving / Christmas season. I’ve already posted two ravioli recipes on this site, and both of them involved cheese and greens. I thought it would be a nice departure to make ravioli without any cheese in the filling – somewhat different from the norm. The use of the brown butter and toasted pecans as a ravioli sauce is also not as common as the white cream sauce or the red tomato based sauce that usually accompany ravioli.

To make ravioli filling, I just used organic pumpkin puree straight from the can, with only a couple of spices added, and the filling was more runny than what I was used to. I used my ravioli mold again and was pleasantly surprised how well the mold worked (once again!) even with a more watery and runny ravioli filling, such as pumpkin puree. Thanks to the mold, I was able to make perfect shapes, and none of ravioli burst or opened up during boiling/cooking. It’s key, though, not to overfill the holes in the ravioli mold with too much pumpkin filling – put just enough filling so that it’s at the same level as the top of the mold. Continue reading →

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Posted in Dinner, Nuts, Pasta, Pecan, Pumpkin, Ravioli, Recipe, Vegetables, Vegetarian | 17 Comments

Garlic spicy shrimp and asparagus pasta

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Julia

Do you need a recipe for a simple and delicious weeknight meal that is easy to make? Enter this very flavorful garlic shrimp and asparagus pasta. Of course, nothing is wrong with using this recipe for a nice meal on the weekend, too: it surely looks and tastes sophisticated, with shrimp coated in colorful spices and looking all scarlet next to the white short pasta and green roasted asparagus.

I cooked the shrimp in a shell, mainly because I was curious of the outcome. Cooking the shrimp in a shell certainly has advantages: it’s harder to overcook the shrimp, the presentation is nice, and the flavor is seemingly better. There is just something about cooking shrimp in a shell that adds dimension to the flavor. I am not surprised that in many restaurants, after the shells are removed from the shrimp, the chefs actually save the shells and cook them separately for the sauce or some kind of stock. I’ll try that someday. Continue reading →

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