What I Really Think

I thought the girls and I would have a nice Friday night dinner, so I decided to make a big lasagna (also had some noodles I wanted to use up in the pantry). Anyway, as it turned out, Becky went to a friend's house to "study" and Sammi doesn't appreciate "lumps" in her lasagna (aka ground beef), so she and I had a bit of this huge tray while watching Wheel of Fortune - so much for a nice dinner - I watched as Sammi scraped the sauce off the noodles and ate noodles and cheese.

Anyway, I liked it and would make it again. It is a bit of work because you start off making the sauce. I assembled the entire thing in the afternoon, and stuck it in the oven before going to a swim meet. I called Sammi to turn the oven on at 5:00 and dinner was ready about 6:30.

I'm hoping to freeze a chunk of the leftovers. Give it a shot though; it comes in at 8 WW points per slice.

I have a few dozen recipes I've bookmarked in Dolce Italiano but unfortunately got a bit side-tracked during the holidays. But I'm back now. Last night I went to a friend's house for dinner and I thought I'd bring a little something from the book for dessert. Angela from A Spoonful of Sugar had baked the Venetian Apple Cake back in November and had given it high marks so I thought I'd give it a go.

It comes together pretty easily once you grate the apple. Which I must say, I've never done before and I didn't get much out of it, even after scraping the grater down, but I didn't worry. I knew from reading Angela's blog that the cake had the essence of apple, not big chunks, like most of the apple cakes I've made in the past. The only other thing I noted was that after grating the apple, while assembling the other ingredients, the apple turned, not unexpected but I wondered if it would affect the coloring of the cake. It doesn't. The cake is golden and the apple fits right in - you don't really see it. Lastly, the spices used (a combination of ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg) give it a real autumnal flavor - yum!

Last week I needed a quick easy weeknight meal. My friend, Lisa, gave me the Weight Watchers Turnaround book a few months ago (she ended up with two), so having just rediscovered it I decided to give it a try.

Using the already cooked chicken (Perdue short cuts) this came together pretty easily. It was tasty too. Becky had hers as indicated (i.e., in the taco shells), but I had mine over a big bowl of mixed greens which was good too.

Much updates to the blog must occur (for example, getting rid of the March Madness bloggers - bye friends and replacing them with our new group, Sunday Slow Bakers (we're really not slow, we're just all affiliated with SlowTrav in some way and like to bake). I throw the links up shortly but basically, there's a group of us, who each week will bake the same recipe from a specific source, and post our results on Sunday. For the first round, our source will be Dolce Italiano, Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen - each person selecting a recipe from there. Next go around, a different source - can't wait to see how long we can keep this going for.

Krista initiated the Sunday Slow Bakers and had the honor of choosing the first recipe, Italian Crumbly Cake. I baked it yesterday and here are some results and observations.

So this week I got to choose what our Sunday Slow Bakers made. I wanted something slightly challenging, different, and with produce I knew I could easily find this time of year. I would have chosen the zucchini cake but I was hoping to do it this summer (with the glut of zucchini I get from the farm - though now I think it's what we're making next week, but I need to check). Gelato was another definite possibility, but we're supposed to be baking, so I ignored those too. There was also an apple tart - but again, to me, a fall dish, which is how I ended up with grapes (nine weeks out of ten I can find decent grapes at the market).

First off, I got these big, sweet black grapes from Whole Foods, so that part was easy. I had some left over hazelnuts from when I made the chocolate hazelnut cookies, no grappa (for soaking the grapes), so I substituted some Frangelico and the rest of the ingredients were pretty straightforward (e.g., butter, flour, cream, eggs, sugar).

I had already made two tarts using the Sweet Pastry Crust, a Fresh Fig Tart and the cover recipe, Pine Nut Tart, so I didn't have any nerves about assembling it this third time. I still love this crust recipe. It comes together easily, isn't delicate, so if it breaks while I'm rolling, or moving to the tart shell, it's easily repairable, and this time, if someone doesn't forget to close the freezer drawer and defrost my freezer, I should hopefully have some crust left for another tart real soon.

Likewise, the filling was pretty easy too - though it did require three different bowls, one on the food processor for chopping the nuts, one for the egg yolks and one for the egg whites. The recipe suggests using the same bowl for the yolks and whites, and just cleaning between, but since I needed a bowl to mix the hazelnuts and egg yolks together in, I didn't do that. I just used my hand mixer for the egg yolks, added the hazelnuts, and my stand mixer to beat the egg whites.

Leave plenty of time for this recipe though, both active and inactive. Inactive because the tart dough requires an hour or two of chilling before rolling, and then another hour once it's rolled out and in the shell. Active because slicing and then placing those grapes could be a bit time consuming.

It baked up fine in the specified time and looked pretty puffy when it first came out of the oven but then settled nicely. The grapes did spread some, so don't be afraid to place them close together.

Cooked again last night and this time I tapped into some of Cooking Light's Pasta Presto recipes from 2003 (must remember to bookmark these puppies for the next few weeks). This was another delicious dish that will take you as long to make as it takes you to cook the orecchiette (plus two minutes).

Orecchiette with Sausage, Peppers and Feta

This week Candi of Candi's Corner: Wanderlust and Passions suggested our recipe for this week. She based this stir fry on a recipe she first learned during a cooking class in Chiang Mai Thailand (though she chose to add more vegetables to it). It's delicious - and the cooking is easy though there's a lot of chopping for prep.

Ingredients chopped and ready to go

Note: as the picture above shows, I do like laying out all the ingredients for a stir fry before I start cooking. Stir fries come together so quickly that often there isn't time to do any more prep, while something cooks.

We'd never eaten fish tacos in all our years though we've heard our California friends rave about them over and over. Then in Hawaii last June, while staying at the Kanapali Hyatt we finally ordered them at their pool side restaurant Oovo. Gotta tell you, we'd been totally missing out all these years. Now at Oovo they had grilled fish and fried fish, and as you can guess Chris went for the latter while I enjoyed the former (you know, for health reasons).

So it completely took me by surprise when I saw a recipe in Cooking Light of all places for Baja Fish Tacos with fried fish and we decided to give it a go.

Now first off, they warn you to maintain the oil at the correct temperature otherwise the fish absorbs to much fat (who knew that was the secret to healthy frying?). We did ours in Chris's Deep Fat Fryer (since it has a temperature gauge) and had to use more oil as a result but I think an electric fry pan would work as well too (just remember don't overcrowd the fish).

The original recipe called for corn tortillas but we used the lowfat mission tortillas because it's what I keep in the house and they're less fattening. It also called for halibut but we prefer Mahi Mahi, so that's what we used.

I still prefer grilled, as I found the fish a tad greasy but overall we definitely like them and would make them again.

Baja Fish Tacos

I'm cleaning out stuff from my inbox (which contains lots of photos for restaurants and recipes I've tried) and you all are going to be the "beneficiaries" over the next few days (at least until I start to blog from Italy). So here's the first thing.

Last March (yes, I have things in my inbox from last March - no mocking allowed), I made this recipe from Cooking Light. It's really not very light (or very low fat) considering that it's Cooking Light but both girls like coconut shrimp (and so do I), so I thought I'd give it a try. Funny thing, though we all liked it, I haven't made it since. But now that I remember it. I will.

Coconut Shrimp

I've been hankering for a long weekend in Boston this summer but we just can't seem to work out the dates. So instead, I decided to make one of our favorite Boston treats, lobster rolls, for dinner at home (and luckily the weather gods cooperated and we got a beautiful night on the deck in which to enjoy it). As usual, got this recipe from Cooking Light, well actually, their recipe site (for all their publications), My Recipes. It's really an easy to put together recipe (well, other than de-meating the lobster), when you're local grocer/fish monger steams the lobsters for you ahead of time. We had 3 1.3 lb lobsters and were probably shy of the quantity of meat required.

Lobster Rolls

4 cups cooked lobster meat, cut into bite-size pieces
1/2 cup low-fat mayonnaise
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1 tablespoon chopped celery
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dash hot sauce
4 hot dog buns (we prefer ours toasted, either in the toaster oven, or on the grill, if already lit)

Combine first 7 ingredients. Spoon 3/4 cup salad into each bun.

This comes in at 8 Weight Watchers PPV.

Lobster Roll w/ Korean Cucumber Salad - apologies for iPhone picture quality

Korean Cucumber Salad

To go along with the lobster, I used one of our plethora of cucumbers to make this dish. Again, easy peasy to come together, can be made ahead, and really great for a hot summer evening. The recipe calls for an English Cucumber but I used our regular garden variety, slit in half, with the seeds scooped out. It's got a bit of a kick, so be careful.

Korean Cucumber Salad

3 1/2 cups (1/16-inch-thick) slices English cucumber (about 1 large - see note above about cucumber)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons minced green onions
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/2 teaspoon dark sesame oil

Combine cucumber and salt, tossing well. Let stand at room temperature 20 minutes. Drain and squeeze dry.
Combine cucumber, onions, rice vinegar, sugar, crushed red pepper, and sesame oil. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Honestly, I didn't bother counting even 1 Weight Watcher PPV for this, but you probably could/should count it as 1 because of the sugar/oil.