cook something new every week

This is what I made last night for healthy lunching during the week. I’m eating some now and it turned out super yummy.

5 cloves garlic (or garlic to taste)
3 chicken turkey basil/pine nut sausages – sliced (from Trader Joe’s)
1 can Tuscan beans or white kidney beans
2 zucchini (sliced)
1 large can crushed tomatoes
parsely, oregano, red pepper, basil
1/4 cup dried tomato (Trader Joe’s product)
32 oz chicken broth
1 tsp olive oil
splash of white wine

So, I sauted the garlic in the olive oil to start for 2-3 minutes and then added the chopped up sausage to brown. I needed to add a splash of wine at this point as the sausage was very low fat. After browning for about 5 minutes, I added the chicken broth and additional incredients, brought to a boil, and then simmered for 30 minutes.

This turned out really well and I especially like the light tomato-y chicken broth base of this soup. Health wise it’s low fat, high fiber, nice level of protien and a solid serving of vegetables.

A lot actually!

Yesterday I made a baked apple, acorn squash and onion veggie side dish that was really yummy!

This past weekend I also made a wild rice stew with shiitake mushrooms, leeks and carrots. I made it specifically for lunches/dinners for this week and haven’t tried any of it yet, but it smelled great and only took about four hours in the slow cooker.

For Thanksgiving, by contribution to dinner was slow cooker candied yams and jeeze they were yummy – even better as leftovers with just the right hint of orange in them.

A few weeks ago I had some random veggies to use up – snap peas, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, etc. so I dumped them in some chicken stock with garlic, ginger, soba noodles and a splash of soy sauce and sesame oil and made a great chinese soup!

Oh, also, a while back I got a ton of asparagus and to use it up, got creative with some roasted vegetable and bean burrito filling and made a great mushroom and asparagus fritatta.

I’ve been pretty productive on this front the past couple of weeks. Here’s what I’ve made, some of these recipes come from a detox book I purchased recently from Rodale.

Breakfast Berry Crunch
Tofu-based rice pudding
Mexican Red beans and rice
Butternut squash ravioli with garlic becan butter sauce
tomato and greenbean salad

I feel like there’s something else I’ve made, but I can’t really remember it right now.

Okay, this is what I’ve thrown in the slowcooker. We’ll see how it turns out.

Three chicken breasts, cubed
1 yam potato, cubed
2 gold russet potatoes, cubed
1 lb of white mushrooms
2 carrots, chopped
2 Tb olive oil
2 cups white wine
1 white onion, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cub chopped fresh basil
1 Tb dried oregano
1/8 cup fresh parsely
fresh ground pepper to taste

Put all chopped items in crock pot, place herbs on top of the pile in the pot, add the olive oil, pour the wine over to help wash some of the herbage down.

My plan is to cook it on low setting for two hours, move it to high for another two. We’ll see!

I’ve been coming up with some good stuff, but haven’t been posting. Not sure if it’s really 23 weeks worth of items (has it been that long?) But I’ll take a shot…

Spicy pumkin soup
Ratatouille
Chinese cabbage salad
Apple and Berry bakes
Pumkin muffins
Cola Chicken (sounds weird, but good)
Pesto, walnut and parmesan pizza
Sugar free hot chocolate (regular and mexican varieties)
Garlic, Fig and Balsamic Chicken

This is all I can remember, I think there are more, but it’s been a long time!

Are my new favorite thing to make. Asparagus stalks and baby red and golden carrots on a foil lined cookie sheet drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20/30 minutes are awesome!

I also did a butternut squash, red bell pepper and zuchinni medly. I cubed all of the veggies and used the same approach with olive oil and some herbs, but put them in a casserole dish as well and turned every so often at the same temperature for about 30-40 minutes. YUMMY!

I had some tomatoes that I needed to use up before I head east, as well as two green peppers. I carmelized some onions, added the rest of the veggies, a splash of red wine and some herbs and I had a great, homemade pasta sauce!

Not sure if that’s the right spelling, but I made my own version of it last night and it was easy and yummy. All I did was combine about two cups green beans, one package of firm tofu, 1TB of chopped ginger, 1 TB of minced garlic, 1/2 cup chopped onions, olive oil, light soy sauce and red chili sauce to tase, then baked it in the oven at 350, stirring every 10 minutes, for about 30 minutes.

Made two servings. Would be great over brown rice.