The Nifty Foodie

You know, the crazy thing about starting this diet is that when I work-out, I find that I want to eat better. I’m slowly introducing myself to healthier foods that I haven’t tried before. My grocery cart has been full of fresh foods, which is so not like me. It’s a wonderful change, because every week, my clothes are getting looser and my body just feels stronger. It’s amazing how quickly your body can change in a few short months!

Quinoa has been one of those ingredients that I’ve been very curious about, but as long as I had rice and pasta, I felt like I didn’t need to try quinoa. I was actually worried it would taste terrible, but when I went to Whole Foods one weekend, I found quinoa in their bulk aisle and bought a couple of cups worth. I love that about their bulk aisle. You can buy just a little bit to try, and there isn’t much waste if you end up hating whatever you get there.

Now, the challenge was to find a recipe for my first try with this grain. I was surprised to find so many recipes featuring quinoa, so I searched for a recipe based on what I had in the fridge. Since spinach and mushrooms are usually in my fridge, this was a no brainer. The original recipe calls for shiitake mushrooms, but I had a feeling regular white mushrooms wouldn’t make much of a difference. I also halved this recipe, and I still had a good bit left for leftovers.

For those of you who are wondering, quinoa (to me) tastes a lot like a nutty brown rice. It has a bit of a bite to it (texture wise), but really, I think I could easily sub this for rice in most recipes I make. As for this dish, the salad was very simple to throw together, and it tasted really great! It would be perfect to enjoy this summer, since it’s such a light dish!

Warm Spinach, Quinoa & Mushroom Salad
Source: mildly adapted from Everyday Food

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup red-wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 2 pounds fresh sliced mushrooms
• 1 1/2 cups quinoa (well rinsed in a strainer)
• 1 pound baby spinach
• 8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a small bowl, vigorously whisk the vinegar, oil, 1 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper together until the dressing is well combined.
2. On a foil-lined baking sheet, toss the mushrooms with half of the dressing and roast the mushrooms for about 20-25 minutes (tossing occasionally).
3. While the mushrooms are roasting, combine the rinsed quinoa with 3 cups of water and 1.5 tsp. salt in a small saucepan. Bring everything to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium. Cover the saucepan and simmer the quinoa until the liquid has absorbed, for about 15-20 minutes.
4. To assemble the salad, place the spinach in a large bowl and top it with the warm mushrooms, quinoa and the rest of the dressing. Toss the salad until everything is combined (the spinach will wilt) and top with the crumbled feta before serving.

My husband is not a big pasta person. He could eat rice for days, but pasta? He has to be in the mood for it. I’m the opposite. If you told me I had to eat pasta every day for the rest of my life, I would think I died and went to heaven. I LOVE pasta. I’m all about it. So, when crawfish went on sale on weekend, instead of making the usual etouffee, I hoped that my husband would be in a pasta-loving mood that day, because crawfish fettuccine was on my mind.

Well, as you can see, we had crawfish fettuccine that evening. And it was every bit as delicious as I had hoped. We ended up halving the recipe, since the original recipe would make way too much food for just my husband and I.

I do want to note that this recipe does contain Velveeta. If you aren’t OK with using processed foods, you may be able to substitute freshly grated cheese, since this recipe’s directions reminded me a lot of making a bechamel sauce. However, I personally didn’t try that to tell you if it works out the same way.

Crawfish Fettuccine
Source: adapted from Holly Clegg

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb. fettuccine
• 2 tbsp. butter
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup skim milk
• 1 lb. light Velveeta, cut into small cubes
• 1 lb. crawfish tails (make sure they are cleaned)
• 1 tbsp. chopped parsley
• 1/4 cup green onions, chopped
• 1 1/2 tsp. worcestershire sauce
• pinch cayenne pepper

Directions:

1. Cook the fettuccine in boiling water until al dente. Do not add oil or salt to the pot. Drain the pasta, wash in cool water to make sure the pasta doesn’t stick together as it sits, and set aside.
2. In a large pot, melt the butter and saute the onions, green bell peppers, and garlic until translucent and tender. Add the flour and stir well until everything is mixed.
3. Gradually add the milk, stirring at the same time, until the mixture is smooth. Add the cheese cubes, stirring the sauce until all of the cheese has melted.
4. Add in the crawfish tails, parsley, green onions, worcestershire sauce and cayenne pepper and mix everything together gently.
5. Add in the pasta, and using tongs, toss everything together until well-combined. Heat the fettuccine well and serve.
   
   

Am I the only person who is shocked that Christmas just passed? I can’t believe it. Neighbors are taking down lights, and our tree looks SO empty without gifts under it. My favorite holiday is over, and crazy enough, it’s time for a new year. 2012.

Time to take the shrink wrap off of the new planner and get used to writing “2012″ on papers/emails/etc. This is just crazy.

Also crazy…sometime in 2012, my 4 year blogiversary is happening and my 3 year wedding anniversary is happening too. WHAT?

It’s a lot to look forward to, but before everyone rings in the new year, I just wanted to share with y’all the top 10 posts of 2011.

10. Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream – This was my first time making SMBC, and I swear, if you haven’t tried SMBC before, just do it. Please?

9. Pecan Pie Macarons – Gotta love macarons. These were really a huge favorite for Thanksgiving, and the star shape (which was a happy accident) made them super cute and festive!

8. Restaurant Style Queso Blanco – This is it. The ultimate queso blanco. If you’re as addicted to queso as me, you’d understand how wonderful it is to FINALLY have a recipe for this!

7. Strawberry Cream Cake – I’m actually glad I compiled this top 10, because I sort of forgot about this cake. Since it’s currently strawberry season in Louisiana, I think I MUST make this cake again. Yum!

6. Peppermint Bark Cheesecake Truffles – This is the recipe that made my year, basically. I still can’t believe I won that recipe contest, and I’ve been told by a few friends who made this that these little truffles were a hit at their holiday parties! So happy to hear that!

5. Banana Nutella “Ice Cream” – Two ingredient “ice cream”. It’s basically awesome and couldn’t be any easier. Your food processor does all the work!

4. Grilled Corn Grits – I can’t be from the South, and not have a post about grits. I promise you if you make this, your hips may never be the same again, but your taste buds will tell you it’s completely worth it!

3. Easy Pasta Salad – My first (and so far, only) vlog. I might get the courage to make one again, since you guys seemed to like it so much!

2. Cooking For Kids – The infamous post. Yup, who’da thought that a soda cupcake would get so much response from you guys (both good and bad)…yikes!

1. S’mores for a Shower – Nutella S’mores. I can see why you guys loved this one so much. I’m sort of craving s’mores right now, actually.

I hope you have a wonderful New Year with your family and friends, and thank you so much for reading The Nifty Foodie! See y’all in 2012!

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate y’alls support during Project Food Blog so far. You better believe I was jumping in my chair when I saw that I get to compete in round 2! So, thank you very much. You guys are the best!

Round 2′s challenge is called The Classics.
Ready to tackle a classic dish from another culture? Pick an ethnic classic that is outside your comfort zone or are not as familiar with. You should include how you arrived at this decision in your post. Do your research then try to pull off successfully creating this challenge. Try to keep the dish as authentic as the real deal, and document your experience through a compelling post.

So, with absolutely no clue what to do, I went to my local library and picked up 4 books. 3 of them were Asian inspired and the other one, which was a direct opposite, featured German cuisine. Not exactly sure why I picked that one up, but heck, why not? I flipped through pages and pages, bookmarking some recipes, but none of them felt like it should be the dish for this challenge. I walked away from the books for a while, feeling pretty bummed. What dish was I going to make?

I wanted to find a recipe that was different, featuring ingredients that normally make me turn the other way. I ended up finding this dessert recipe featuring couscous. Can you believe I’ve never tried couscous before? I was intimidated by it..completely.

This recipe also has sour cream, which is an ingredient that does not appeal to me at all. I rarely use it in recipes, because it’s a personal food aversion of mine. So, why not go all out with an ingredient I’ve never tried and an ingredient I really don’t like? Challenge enough, no?

I’m sure you want to know where this dish is from. Ultimately, I ended up going to a whole different continent for this challenge: Africa!

The dish is called Caakiri, which is a yogurt based couscous dessert, originating in Western Africa. The dish tastes a lot like rice pudding, but with a very different texture. I found the dish to be a little too tart for me, probably due to the high amounts of yogurt and sour cream. However, more sugar seemed to help that issue.

Couscous and yogurt mixture pictured.

The best thing about this dish was that the ingredients weren’t too hard to find, and it introduced me to couscous. I’m pretty sure I’m going to make this grain again really soon.

Note: this recipe is halved from the original source and it still made PLENTY!

Caakiri
Source: The Congo Cookbook

Ingredients:

• 1 cup couscous
• 2 cups water
• pat of  butter
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 1 cup vanilla or plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
• pinch of nutmeg
• 1/2 can of crushed pineapple, drained

Directions:

1. Bring water to boil in a medium pot. Add couscous, butter and salt. Stir, cover and remove from heat. Allow to sit for 10 minutes. Then stir and let couscous cool.
2. Combine all of the other ingredients in a bowl.
3. Add couscous to yogurt mixture and add sugar to taste. Serve warm or cold.

It’s very rare that we go out for Italian food. While I absolutely LOVE Italian cuisine, the hubs isn’t a really huge fan and totally has to be in the right mood for it. When I was thinking of a new recipe to try in the house, I thought, well, why not make the hubs’ favorite dish: chicken parmesan?

However, I really despise frying. Everytime I try to fry something, I can’t quite control the oil and it either ends up undercooked or burnt. Plus, I end up burnt too from the oil splatters..it’s a crappy situation. Oh yeah, and since I’m trying to lose weight, well, frying isn’t in my vocabulary for the moment.

So, I found a Cooks Illustrated recipe, which really has never steered me wrong when it comes to baking food dishes that are traditionally fried, and I tried this. It really didn’t take that long to throw together, and the hubs really enjoyed it. Yay!

Lighter Chicken Parmesan
Source: Cooks Illustrated 

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups panko (Japanese-style bread crumbs)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 ounce grated Parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup), plus extra for serving
• 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
• Table salt and ground black pepper
• 3 large egg whites
• 1 tablespoon water
• Vegetable cooking spray
• 3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 8 ounces each), trimmed of excess fat and sliced into cutlets
• 2 cups tomato sauce , warmed (see below)
• 3 ounces shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese (about 3/4 cup)
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh basil

Tomato Sauce

• 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 4 medium cloves garlic , minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 4 teaspoons)
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh basil leaves
• Table salt and ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Pulse the tomatoes in a food processor until mostly smooth, about ten 1-second pulses; set aside. Cook the garlic, tomato paste, oil, and pepper flakes in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the tomato paste begins to brown, about 2 minutes. Stir in the pureed tomatoes and cook until the sauce is thickened and measures 2 cups, about 20 minutes. Off the heat, stir in the basil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and set aside until needed.
2. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 475 degrees. Combine the bread crumbs and oil in a 12-inch skillet and toast over medium heat, stirring often, until golden, about 10 minutes. Spread the bread crumbs in a shallow dish and cool slightly; when cool, stir in the Parmesan.
3. In a second shallow dish, combine the flour, garlic powder, 1 tablespoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper together. In a third shallow dish, whisk the egg whites and water together.
4. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil, place a wire rack on top, and spray the rack with vegetable oil spray. Pat the chicken dry with paper towels, then season with salt and pepper. Lightly dredge the cutlets in the flour, shaking off the excess, then dip into the egg whites, and finally coat with the bread crumbs, Press on the bread crumbs to make sure they adhere. Lay the chicken on the wire rack.
5. Spray the tops of the chicken with vegetable oil spray. Bake until the meat is no longer pink in the center and feels firm when pressed with a finger, about 15 minutes.