Tuna Salad Makeover

This is my favorite healthier version of tuna salad. The mayo in traditional tuna salad is replaced with red wine vinegar and a little olive oil, and the white beans add some fiber. The olives and capers remind me of the fantastic food I ate on a trip to the French Riviera last summer. It is great on a bed of lettuce, or on some toasted whole grain bread. This recipe has a fraction of the fat and calories of regular mayo tuna salad.

Mediterranean Tuna Salad
serves about 4

2 6 ounce cans tuna
1 15 ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 of a large red onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon capers
1/2 cup black olives, chopped
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper

Gently mix together the tuna, beans, onion, capers, olives, red wine vinegar, and olive oil. Add salt and pepper to your taste. Serve with lettuce or on toasted bread.

Smoked Mozzarella and Apple Bites

One of my New Years resolutions for 2010 was to go to the farmers market more often. I love the idea of supporting local businesses and reducing my carbon footprint by not purchasing produce that was shipped from thousands of miles away. There is a great market less than a mile from my place so I really have no excuses not to go. Unfortunately, the DC region was bombarded by the worst winter weather in history, so the first two months of my resolution did not go so well. Now that glorious, beautiful Spring is here, I am a regular at my neighborhood market, where everything sold must be grown or made within 100 miles.

A few visits ago, I got a ball of smoked mozzarella from a cheese stand that had such a delicious, smoky flavor. It reminded me of a crisp, Fall day, which gave me the idea to put it on an apple slice (also from the market). I topped it with a bit of fig jam and sprinkle of sea salt and I just fell in love with the flavor combination. It's now my favorite post-farmers market shopping snack.

Smoked Mozzarella and Apple Bites

apples (use a crisp variety - I like Fuji's) - thinly sliced
smoked mozzarella, thinly sliced
fig jam (this is sometimes hard to find in the supermarket - try apricot jam if you can't find it)
sea salt

Put a slice of the mozzarella on an apple slice and top with a spoonful of the jam, and sprinkle the top with sea salt.

Slow Cooker Thai Noodle Soup

I recently spent a long weekend in Charleston, SC with some of my best girlfriends from college. It was so great hanging out my old friends, who I miss dearly. I just haven't made friendships after college quite like the friendships I have with those girls. Anyways, I promised my friend Terri I would put this recipe up for her. She and I spent a lot of the weekend talking about food and cooking, and we have a mutual obsession with Thai food. This is an easy Thai soup to throw together in the slow cooker and it has all those wonderful Thai flavors, like ginger, lime, chili, and coconut. Terri, I hope you and Doug enjoy this recipe and I can't wait for our girls trip next year!

Slow Cooker Thai Noodle Soup

1 onion, chopped
2 bell peppers (any colors - I used a red and a green), chopped
4 ounces mushrooms (I got a variety pack of baby bella, shitake, and crimini)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp fresh ginger, minced
1/2 tsp chili paste (see note #1)
13.5 ounce can coconut milk (see note #2)
4 cups chicken broth
3 limes, juiced
1 tsp lime zest
4 ounces rice noodles

Put everything except the noodles in the slow cooker and cook on low for 4 hours or high for 2 hours, until veggies are softened. You can also cook it on the stove top by sauteeing the onion, pepper, mushrooms, ginger, and garlic for about 10 minutes, then adding the remainder of the ingredients except the noodles and simmering on low heat for about 30 minutes. Before serving, add the rice noodles and allow them to soak until they are soft (the package should say how long this will take - mine took about 5 minutes).

Note #1: the chili paste is deceptively spicy. You can add more than 1/2 tsp if you like it spicy, but be careful, this stuff is potent! Add a tiny bit at a time and be sure to taste it.

Note #2: you can use regular coconut milk, or low fat if you are watching your fat intake. The regular stuff has a better flavor. The coconut flavor gets a little lost if you use the low fat.

Spaghetti Squash

If you are looking for a low-carb alternative to pasta, give spaghetti squash a try. It's a large, yellow, oval, winter squash that falls apart like thin spaghetti when you bake it. Per cup, it has only 75 calories and 10 grams of carbs, compared to 220 calories and 43 grams of carbs in regular cooked spaghetti. It has a mild flavor, perfect for topping with your favorite sauce. Baking it is very easy - the hardest part is cutting it in half. I included my favorite marinara sauce recipe, courtesy of Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa), which goes great with spaghetti squash, as well as with regular spaghetti, and pizza. I double or triple the recipe and freeze the extras.

Spaghetti Squash
serves 2-4, depending on the size of the squash

1 spaghetti squash
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven at 400. Cut the squash in a half lengthwise (use a large, sharp knife) and scrape out the seeds and pulp in the center. Coat the inside with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place on baking sheet with raised edges or in a large baking dish and put in the center rack of the oven. Baking time will depend on the size of your squash, anywhere from 30 minutes for the small guys to an hour or more for the big guys. It's done when it easily comes apart from the skin when you pull it with a fork. Let cool for a few minutes, then scrape out the squash with a fork. Season to taste with more salt and pepper and top with your favorite sauce.

Marinara Sauce
recipe courtesy Ina Garten

1 tablespoon good olive oil
1 chopped yellow onion
1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 cup Chianti red wine
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes (I like to splurge on the San Marzano brand - it's the best!)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onion and saute over medium heat until translucent, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the wine and cook on high heat, scraping up all the brown bits in the pan, until almost all the liquid evaporates, about 3 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, parsley, salt, and pepper. Cover, and simmer on the lowest heat for 15 minutes.

Portobello Mushroom "Pizzas"

If you love mushrooms on your pizza, you will love this low carb alternative to pizza. You use a portobello mushroom cap in place of pizza crust and top it with sauce, cheese, and your favorite pizza toppings. It's fast, easy, and tasty!


Portobello Mushroom "Pizzas"

portobello mushroom caps (1 per person if serving as a side dish, 2 per person for a main dish)
your favorite pizza sauce, see note #1 below
grated mozzarella cheese
your favorite pizza toppings (optional - I don't think they need toppings because the mushrooms are so flavorful. Sometimes I add fresh basil.)

Pop the stems off the mushrooms and clean the caps by brushing them with a damp paper towel. Cut slits in the non-gill side of the caps (see note #2 below). Brush the caps with extra virgin olive oil and lightly salt them. Roast the mushrooms on a baking sheet gill side up in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes. Then, flip the mushrooms over and roast for another 10 minutes. Use a spatula to carefully remove the mushrooms from the baking sheet and discard the excess moisture from the baking sheet. Place the mushrooms back on the baking sheet, gill side up, and top them with the pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings (unless you are using fresh herbs, like basil - add these at the end), if using. Pop them back in the oven and bake until the cheese is melted. If you like browned cheese, turn on the broiler for a minute or so but be careful not to burn them. Use a fork and knife to eat these "pizzas" - they are a little too messy to be eaten with your hands like regular pizza.

Note 1: You can use your favorite jarred pizza sauce, or make your own simple sauce - sautee 1/4 of a large onion, finely diced, and 2 cloves of garlic in a tablespoon of olive oil in a sauce pan for about 3-5 minutes until soft. Add a can of crushed tomatoes, salt, pepper, and oregano to taste, and let simmer for about 20 minutes, while your portobellos are baking. This is a very simple and inexpensive sauce that you can also use on pasta.

Note 2: Mushrooms have a ton of moisture in them. I learned this trick from Cooks Illustrated, my favorite food magazine, to extract the moisture from the mushrooms so you don't have a watery mess when you cut into them - score the caps on the non-gill side with a sharp knife by cutting 1/4 inch deep slits, spaced 1/2 inch apart, in a criss-cross pattern. Most of the moisture will come out while you are cooking the mushrooms. Make sure your baking sheet has raised edges so the moisture does not drip in your oven.

Kale - a Delicious Superfood!

Kale is always on those lists of top 10 ten superfoods in health articles. It's a dark leafy green vegetable that is high in calcium, Vitamin C, vitamin K, and phytonutrients. You can tell it is healthy just by looking at it! I've always been a little intimidated by it, but in the past year I've forced myself to be more adventurous with vegetables so I started buying it and experimenting with recipes. This recipe is my favorite. It's very easy and I think it will make you fall in love with kale.

Kale Sauteed with Mushrooms and Onions
serves 2 small or 4 large side dishes

one bunch of kale
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped
10 or so white button mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil

Prep the kale - rinse it, then cut out the rib in the center (see photo below), and chop into large pieces. In a wok or very large sautee pan on medium heat, add the sesame oil, ginger, and onion and sautee until the onions start to get soft, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for another 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce to deglaze the pan and scrape the bits off the bottom. Add the kale (it is a huge fluffy pile, but don't worry, it will cook down a lot) and drizzle another tablespoon of soy sauce on top. Every few minutes, use tongs to move the kale at the bottom of the pan to the top of the pile so that all the kale wilts down. It takes about 10-15 minutes for the kale to finish cooking. Give it a taste and add another tablespoon of soy sauce, if desired.

Low Carb Eggplant Lasagna

I will be posting a lot of low carb recipes in the next 6 weeks or so. My boyfriend does what he calls his "lent diet" every year at this time - he does not eat any bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, or anything made with those ingredients for the duration of Lent. This was a bit frustrating for me our first 2 Lents together but now I enjoy the challenge of finding new recipes and ways to alter existing recipes to make them low carb. We both love Italian food, which is typically very high in carbs but I've experimented with some variations so that we can still enjoy it. For example, you can replace the noodles in lasagna with thin slices of baked or grilled eggplant.
Use your favorite lasagna recipe with eggplant prepared as follows instead of noodles. Start with a large eggplant and slice it into circles as thinly as you can. Put them on a baking sheet sprayed with non-stick cooking spray and lightly brush with them with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake at 400 for about 2-4 minutes (depending on how thick your slices are), then flip them over, season the other side, and bake for another 2-4 minutes. The eggplant slices should be slightly brown and soft. Layer them in your lasagna like you would noodles. You can grill the eggplant instead of baking it, which adds a hint of smokiness.