Tag Archives: pasta

Easiest Pasta and Broccoli Recipe

3 Jan

I made a new dish for dinner tonight knowing it was going to be a risky one. No one in my family is a fan of vegetables, but especially broccoli and this one had a lot of it.

The recipe was super easy and I thought it was delicious. Nicholas ate almost his entire bowl. Good signs right? My husband picked around the broccoli (claiming I gave him way more than everyone else) and then…. (insert ominous music) he didn’t go back for seconds. He ALWAYS goes back for seconds!

Looks like I may have to reserve this one for either (a) lunch or (b) evenings when my husband isn’t home for dinner.

I ♥ Zucchini!

14 Aug

I’m still amazed when we go to the grocery store and find we spend a lot of our time in the produce section. A year ago that was not the case, but since we starting focusing on eating more light, healthy meals that’s naturally where we’ve gravitated.

On Monday, dinner was all about zucchini. Just a few short months ago my husband wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pool – no way, no how. Unfortunately, my son still won’t eat it, but we make do and hopefully he’ll come around.

I had planned for us to have this Mediterranean Baked Fish with Olives & Artichokes dish from the Kraft Foods website for dinner that night. This was the dish that kicked off my new-found love for cooking. It couldn’t possibly be any easier to make and rates a 3 out of 4 in our family. Don’t be fooled by the photo on the Kraft website. Although I forgot to take a picture of our finished product, it looks nothing like their photo. It’s basically a big jumbled mess of fish, feta cheese, tomatoes, olives and zucchini. It’s not pretty but it sure is good.

Personal notes on this recipe:

  • If you don’t like olives, don’t sweat it. Neither do I, but it’s easy to eat around them and the flavor doesn’t overwhelm the rest of the dish at all.
  • If you can’t find the Lemon, Garlic & Oregano flavored feta cheese just use whatever crumbled feta you can find. We’ve used plain as well as other flavors. It still tastes great. You can always add the same flavors with fresh ingredients.
  • I find it hard to find pitted kalamata olives. My husband prefers the flavor of the kalamata olives even if they have pits in them. You could also substitute for other olives or pit them yourself, which is wear I draw the line.

I also discovered a new cooking site on Monday called Smitten Kitchen and the first recipe that came up was this Zucchini and Almond Pasta. It sounded delicious in this hot weather so I decided to make it too. It only ranked a 2 out of 4 with my family. Nicholas of course wouldn’t eat the zucchini. Emily doesn’t count this week because she’s been sick so hasn’t eaten even some of her favorite foods. It was super easy and, although not great for dinner, would be perfect for a light lunch. I also had it for lunch the next day and it was still good.

Just one personal note on this one… be sure to let the zucchini sit in the strainer for 20 minutes like the recipe says. I didn’t because I didn’t see the point. That is until after I’d finished making it when I immediately realized it’s meant to dry the zucchini so it doesn’t all stick together. Lesson learned. Follow…the…recipe!

Let me know what you think.

Photo courtesy of iLoveButter on Flickr.

Pasta Anyone?

10 Aug

I’ve never been much of a cook. Sadly, even following recipes didn’t seem to work out for me. And if the recipe involved ANY chopping at all, I would automatically rule it out, which severely limited my options. About the only thing I could do well was pasta dishes and that gets old quick. Especially when your husband decides he’s going on a low carb diet. Ugh! pasta

Needless to say, I was extremely grateful when it turned out that my husband not only liked to cook, but was pretty darn good at it. Over the years I’ve felt a little guilty at times so we have a deal – if he cooks, I have to clean and vice versa. It’s lessened the guilt a little bit but not completely.

A few weeks ago I was home all day on a Monday so I decided to surprise him and have dinner ready when he got home. I found a really simple, healthy fish recipe that sounded like something he and I would both like. I went out early for the groceries and started the dish early enough that it would be ready around 6pm. For the first time EVER my husband came home to dinner on the table. I actually enjoyed making it and loved his reaction when he came home to a home-cooked meal.

I’ve tried to keep the momentum going, so every Monday and Tuesday I cook dinner. Uh-oh, did I say that out loud? I plan the menu and do the shopping in advance so I have the everything ready to go. I also don’t get in over my head. Nothing that’s overly complicated or takes too long since it is a weeknight. So far nothing has been a complete bust, but there are certainly things we like more than others.

I thought I would share a few of our favorite meals here on my blog. I will provide links to the recipes, plus let you know if we made any changes to it and how my family likes it.

A 4 out of 4 means we ALL liked it, which is not easy in our house. Every once in a while you may even get Nicholas’ rating which usually goes something like this, “I think it’s about 60% good and 40% bad.” I don’t know why he uses percentages but he also likes to say things like, “I like the taste but I don’t like the texture.” Is it possible we watch too much of The Food Network around our house? Yes, but ironically we don’t very often cook Food Network recipes since they rarely provide healthy meal options.

I’m always looking for good places to find healthy recipes so if you have any good websites or cookbooks let me know. I hope you’ll occasionally find something here you enjoy cooking AND eating. Who knew that was possible? Certainly not me.

Photo courtesy of Kanco on Flickr.

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