A Healthy, Colorful Pasta Salad

I made this salad for lunch this afternoon and let me tell you it was fabulous.  Pasta salads can get a little bit blah so I made it interesting (and healthy) by adding some broccoli florets, cherry tomatoes and red peppers... All the different colors involved made it a feast for the eyes as well as for the tummy (I don't know about you, but I am so much more likely to enjoy something if it looks pretty).

I used a lemon and honey vinaigrette for this recipe and it resulted in the perfect tangy-but-sweet combination.

Pair this salad with a creamy tomato soup and you're all set for your light Sunday brunch this weekend.

Arugula and Mushroom Salad

There are so many things I love about arugula… it has a wonderfully spicy taste that makes even the simplest salads fantastic. Even better, arugula is super healthy and full of vitamins, iron and phytonutrients which supposedly have cancer-fighting properties. What’s not to love about these greens?

Green Rice

Another rice recipe!  I honestly am not purposely trying to post rice recipes that cover the entire color spectrum, I'm just cooking a lot of rice these days :).  This recipe uses dill, parsley and coriander to give this dish its color and beautiful flavor.


Ingredients:

A large handful each of coriander, parsley and dill
2 tsp butter
3 bay leaves
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
3 cardamom pods
4 dried cloves
1 cube vegetable bullion
2 cups basmati rice
1 cup broad beans (previously soaked in water with skin removed)

In a small saucepan, bring about 2 cups of water to a boil and add the coriander, parsley and dill. Boil the herbs for about 10 minutes. Set the herbs aside to cool and then remove from the water and then transfer them to a blender and blend into a smooth paste.

Turn on your stove to a medium heat and in a saucepan melt the butter. Add the herb mix and stir constantly to avoid burning it. Add the black pepper, the bay leaves, cardamom pods, cloves, bullion and salt. Next, add 2 cups of hot water and bring the mixture to a boil.

Once the water is boiling add the broad beans and let cook for about 4-5 minutes. Finally, add the rice, lower the heat and cover the saucepan. Let cook for 10-15 minutes or until rice is cooked through.

Serves 6

If you like this recipe you should also try:

Yellow Rice
Potato and Fetta Patties
Lebanese Tebbouleh

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Yellow Rice

Here's a recipe for yellow rice which is a wonderful alternative to plain old white rice. It goes beautifully with the chicken tikka masala recipe I posted the other day and it instantly brightens up any dinner table. It looks much more complicated than it really is and is an easy way to impress your guests.

Ingredients:

4 cups rice
4 cups hot water
2 tablespoons turmeric
2 tsp vegetable oil
4 cardamom pods
2 bay-leaves
4 pods black paper
2 pieces dry cloves
1 tsp salt

For the garnish:
A mixed cup (more if you desire) of unsalted cashews, almonds, pine nuts and raisins.

In a saucepan heat the oil over a medium flame and add the cardamom pods. bay-leaf, pepper and cloves. After a minute or two add the turmeric powder and mix thoroughly. Next add the rice, hot water and salt. Bring to a boil then, lower the heat and cover the saucepan with a lid. Cook for about 10 minutes until the rice is fully cooked.

For the garnish:

In a separate saucepan, heat up 1/4 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Add the cashews, almonds, pine nuts and rasins and heat for a minute or two. Add them onto the rice before serving.

Serves about 6 people.

If you enjoyed this recipe you should also try:

Chicken Tikka Masala
Turkish Ground Beef and Yogurt Pasta
Lebanese Tebbouleh

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Hommos Dip with Yogurt

I love everything about a hommos dip: a) it tastes wonderful, b) you can eat it with ANYTHING (with bread, veggies, in a sandwich... the sky is the limit), c) it is ridiculously easy to make, and d) it's so healthy! I promise to post the original authentic hommos recipe sometime soon, but I tried this modified recipe the other day so I thought I would share it with you.

The original recipe calls for tehini paste (sesame paste), but here I substitute that with plain yogurt, which is a refreshing change (and is useful for those days when you are out of tehini and want to make this dip in a hurry).  I still love it the traditional way, but this was a nice change.

Ingredients:

2 cups chickpeas

1 garlic clove

Juice 1 lemon
1 cup yogurt
1/4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

If you are using dried chickpeas, make sure to soak them overnight.

In a blender, combine the ingredients until they become a smooth consistency. Taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary. Serve and garnish with mint or parsley leaves and sprinkle with either paprika or a little bit of cumin (I told you this was ridiculously easy to make!)

If you like this recipe, you may want to also try:

Baba Ghanouj Dip

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Baba Ghanouj Dip

Here's a recipe for baba ghanouj, a popular Middle Eastern eggplant dip. Serve this definite crowd pleaser with pita bread and trust me it will be gone in minutes.


This recipe, like almost everything else I make, is extremely simple. All you have to do is bake the eggplants and then put all the ingredients into a blender.

Ingredients:

2 eggplants
1 heaping teaspoon tehina (sesame seed paste)
Juice of 2 lemons
1 garlic glove
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp coriander
2 tsp olive oil

Heat your oven to 350 degrees F. Place the eggplants on a baking sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes or until cooked through.

Remove the eggplants from the oven, allow them to cool and then proceed with peeling their skin.

Place the peeled eggplant into a blender with the rest of the ingredients (except the olive oil) and blend until the dip becomes a uniform consistency.

Place in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil.

Serves 4

Potato and Feta Patties

I know these aren't the prettiest snacks in the world, but they sure are delicious. I love feta cheese and adore anything with potatoes (I'm a carbohydrate addict) so I found these patties to be absolutely perfect.

If you are looking for a great tasting, no-hassle appetizer or snack then this recipe is for you.

Enjoy and happy cooking :)


Ingredients:
1 lb potatoes
1 small onion
3 tsp parsley
1 1/2 cups feta cheese
1 cup flour
2 eggs
1 tsp coriander
salt and pepper to taste
3 tsp olive oil


First, grate the potato and onion and mix them together into a bowl. Next, squeeze the water out of the potato and onion mix with your hands -- I squeezed a handful at a time and transferred the squeezed mixture into a second bowl.


Add the parsley, eggs, flour, cardamon and cheese. Season with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Do not add too much salt -- keep in mind that the feta cheese is pretty salty.


In a frying pan, heat the olive oil and add 1-2 large tablespoons of the batter at a time (make the batter into as neat a circle as you can). Heat each side for about 2 minutes until cooked through. Repeat with the rest of the batter, adding more olive oil if necessary.


Garnish with parsley.


Serves 8

Easy Vegetable Curry

I loooove anything curry but always shied away from making it because I always imagined that it would be this horribly complicated endeavor and that I would need a million spices and ingredients to make it... To my delight, I found a recipe that allows me to make a homemade version of one of my favorite dishes in no time at all.

I was in the mood to make a plain vegetable curry, but if you want you can use the same recipe to make chicken or shrimp curry as well (just add the meat in before the potatoes). This dish is sure to impress your dinner guests and no one needs to know how easy it is to make :)

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

2 potatoes, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1/2 cup peas
1 cup cauliflower
1 - 2 cups green beans (I used fresh beans, but canned is fine)
1 tomato
3 tsp curry powder
1 cube vegetable bullion
salt to taste
1/4 tsp black pepper
Red pepper (the amount depends on how spicy you want this dish)
1/4 cup cream
1/2 cup yogurt
1 - 2 cups of water (to make sure the dish doesn't get dry)
4 tsp olive oil
1 onion, very finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, very finely chopped

Before you start, make sure that all your vegetables are cut in equal-sized pieces so that they cook at the same time and you don't end up with a half-raw, half-burnt dish.

Heat the olive oil in a large pan. Add the onions, cook till brown. Add the garlic. The key to making this is to continiously stir all the ingredients together so that nothing burns.

Next, add the curry powder, the vegetable bullion and the potatoes. Keep stirring. Add the tomatoes. Add a little bit of water and yes, keep stirring. After about 5 minutes, add the carrots and 5 minutes later or when the potatoes and carrots are almost cooked, add all the remaining vegetables EXCEPT the cauliflower. Add about a cup of water to the vegetables, cover, and let cook for 5-7 minutes until all the ingredients are cooked through.

Add more water if you feel the dish is dry, and add the cream and yogurt. Season with salt and black pepper. Add as much red pepper as you like, depending on how spicy you want your dish to be. Finally, add the cauliflower, stir everything together, cover and let cook for 5 minutes more.

I like to serve these veggies with plain white basmati rice.

Serves 4

Homemade Pesto Sauce

There are two ways to make this recipe: the labor intensive way, and the lazy way. I'm usually the laziest of cooks, but for some reason today I was inspired to make some pesto the old fashioned way: by chop, chop chopping and then chopping some more. Under normal circumstances I would just throw all the ingredients into a food processor and then viola, PESTO!

Both methods are extremely straightforward and call for the exact same ingredients. I think you would all agree that there is nothing more satisfying than a light meal of pesto pasta. For alterations to this recipe, you can add grilled shrimp or chicken. If by any chance you have some leftovers, you can make a panini sandwich with mozarella cheese, pesto and tomatoes. Alternatively, you can add a dollop of pesto to a vegetable soup such as minestrone for a burst of flavor.




Ingredients:



Large bunch of basil
Handful of pine nuts
3 cloves garlic
4 teaspoons of olive oil (you may need more if you want more of a "watery" consistency)
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese (its really important to have good quality parmesan for this recipe)
Salt, to taste


If you aren't using a food processor, the key to this recipe is a good-quality sharp knife.


Sit down at a kitchen table with a large chopping board, and begin chopping the basil. I divided them into 4 bunches to make it easier. You want the basil to be chopped into extremely small pieces, so that it begins to look like a paste. Next, add the pinenuts to the basil and chop them in so that the 2 ingredients blend together and the whole mixture has a uniform consistency. Add the garlic, and do the same (I told you this is a bit labor intensive)... Finally, add the grated parmesan, chop a little more.


Transfer the paste into a bowl, add the olive oil and salt to taste (I barely add any salt because the parmesan makes the mixture salty enough for me),


Enjoy!!! It was worth it wasn't it? :)


Note to the lazy cook: Just add all the above ingredients into a food processor; the taste will be more or less the same, but the texture won't be as authentic...


Serves 4