All Day Grilled Cheese

One of my all time favorite comfort foods is a simple grilled cheese sandwich. I doubt I will ever outgrow my love for it, but as I get older and my tastes change, I have come to enjoy more creative takes on traditional recipes. Case in point: while vacationing in Chicago I ordered a very similar sandwich from the hotel's restaurant one morning...and again the next morning...and the morning after that. My husband just shook his head at me but I couldn't help myself, it was heaven! When we made it home the first meal I cooked was this, and once my husband tried it he gave me a telling look that he immediately understood why I had ordered this so many times. This is not much of a recipe, more of a fresh take on the classic grilled cheese.

Veggie Marrakesh

This recipe was actually my husband's discovery and together we have been working on perfecting it ever since. It's hard to explain what marrakesh is, I've seen it likened to curries and tagines, but I think it's more consistent with what I consider a stew. Using spices traditional to Moroccan cuisine including cumin, turmeric and cinnamon, this dish certainly packs a lot of flavor and is perfect for those cool fall and early winter evenings when vegetables are plentiful at the market but you find yourself craving something warm and hearty.

Black Bean Tacos with Fresh Mango Salsa

Cooking for picky eaters is really tough. I think we all know someone who is very set in their taste preferences and completely unwilling to even taste something new.  My family seems to have more than it's fair share of picky eaters, and conversations at the dinner table include echoes of the same theme:  I don't eat that.  When you are a home cook trying to be health-conscious and increase the amount of vegetables and fruits in your family's diet while sticking to a budget, what can you do?  I say, get creative and get sneaky.

Quinoa Pancakes with Coconut Walnut Syrup

Whether you know me personally or you only know me from this blog, you probably learned that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, and the undisputed ruler of my breakfast table is the humble pancake. While they are delicious, unless you eat a pretty sizeable stack, they don't tend to have the "staying power" to get me through to lunch. Enter quinoa, my new secret satiety weapon.

Avocado Pear and Gorgonzola Salad

I know I've said this before, and I'm sure I will say it again about a different recipe, but this salad is absolutely amazing and I don't think I'm overstating my point. My go-to bag lunch is a salad, because it's easy to pull the ingredients together in my lunch bag, quickly chop toppings just before serving, and it helps me get in my veggie servings early in the day. And I could eat this salad every single day.

Mixed Greens Caesar

Salads are one of those diet foods that tend to get dieters into a lot of trouble rather quickly. Sure, it's vegetables, but once you start adding dressing, cheese, croutons, and other crispy toppings you can easily find yourself with a plate of vegetables that tops 1000 calories. They say true love lasts a lifetime, and I LOVE Caesar salad. So to ensure I can enjoy Caesar salad anytime I want for the rest of my life, I created a better Caesar salad.

Root Vegetable Chowder

If I could give one universal cooking tip to every single patient I see in clinic it would be this: master the art of making homemade soup. Homemade soups are a wonderful way to incorporate vegetables into your diet, prepare a satisfying meal that everyone in your family will enjoy, and also reduce the amount of fat, calories, and sodium you consume. Beyond that, soup is simple to make at home, can be prepared in as little as 30 minutes, is inexpensive, and makes wonderful leftovers for later in the week or to stock the freezer. This recipe is a rich vegetable chowder perfect for cold winter nights and to help you utilize extra vegetables sitting in the bottom of your refrigerator's crisper.

Spicy Thai Basil Stir Fry with Tofu and Cashews

Who doesn't love a fast dinner that utilizes the best of what you have growing in your garden (or local farmer's market)? That about sums up this dish that I put together  for dinner with the hubs last week. We love stir fry, but I feel there's only so many ways you can mix together citrus, soy sauce, cilantro and veggies before it gets boring. So to spice things up literally and figuratively, I pulled a few ingredients that are at right at their peak in my Minnesota garden to create a fresh take on classic stir fry.

Roasted Vegetable Pizza with Lemon Ricotta Sauce

Sorry for the long hiatus, but the past two months have been about just getting by one day at a time. The good news is I am finally done with boards and have started clinical rotations which means I actually have a little free time on the weekends to get back in the kitchen!  To start, I have a fresh take on a house staple using seasonal ingredients for a delicious summertime dish.

Spicy Cilantro Pesto Pizza

It's rare for me to get bored with foods, but for me pizza is one of those things that gets old fast. I also tend to be a minimalist when it comes to pizza, my favorite being a traditional neopolitan-style pie on a thin crust fired in a brick oven. A few months ago I stumbled upon a frozen pizza that used a cilantro pesto in place of traditional red sauce, and it was absolutely delicious! Of course that means my grocery store promptly stopped carrying it. In protest of losing access to a favorite go-to quick dinner option from the freezer section, I decided to rewrite the book on frozen pizza.

Pasta Caprese

Arguably one of the best flavor combinations in the vast culinary universe are the flavors found in insalata caprese. Fresh mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes slices in a light vinaigrette are always a delicious combination which is probably why we see these same ingredients together in everything from salads and sandwiches to pasta and pizza. This recipe is a simple pasta that can be made in just 20 minutes and is delicious served hot or cold making, it a perfect dish for the spring and summer months.

Pumpkin Curry

Thanks to a traumatizing experience in third grade involving coconut milk, I have avoided all foods that use it as an ingredient. But recent trips to Thai restaurants have changed my perspective, opening up a whole new world of flavors and combinations perfectly suited for my vegetarian ways. For my first venture into Thai cooking, I started with a vegetarian version of a classic Thai dish, pumpkin curry.

Moroccan Stuffed Squash

I just returned from a much needed mini-vacation from school and studying for boards. After several days of dining at some of the best restaurants in Minneapolis, I'm refreshed, inspired, and back in the kitchen with several new recipes to share in the coming weeks. Hopefully you have found a little time to test out some new recipes too. If they're one of mine, please post your comments - I love to hear from you! For now, here's a recipe that gets top ratings from the hubs.

Baked Onion Rings

A long time ago I remember giving a restaurant server a very hard time for putting onion rings on top of my burger. At the time, I failed to recognize the genius behind taking one of the world's most delicious foods and using it as a topping instead of a side dish. No one needs a lecture on how deliciouly unhealthy deep fried onion rings are for the body, so instead I'll tell you about my quest to perfect the baked onion ring.

Cowboy Burgers

Last summer at a family BBQ when everyone else was enjoying grilled chicken, I had grilled tofu burgers from my grocer's freezer section. I had overcooked them (okay, I epically cooked the snot out of them thereby inventing tofu briquettes). Not exactly appetizing. My aunt fed the leftover patty to her dog who proceeded to spit it out, scratch at it, bury it in the garden, and then peed on it. I promise I am not making that up! After that experience I lost my appreciation for frozen veggie burgers, which is a good thing because fresh homemade veggie burgers are simple, cheap and delicious.

Roasted Squash and Caramelized Onion Lasagna

Earlier this year we had a guest lecturer at the medical school who proposed that  if we strictly adhere to our daily caloric intake every day of the year, we could come to holidays and special occasions and enjoy those special foods without a significant consequence. After giving it some thought this idea makes a lot of sense, because those 100-200 calories extra 360 days of the year adds up quickly when compared to the 1000-2000 extra calories 5 days a year. So here's a recipe perfect for those special occasions, with a few healthy conventions to help ease the guilt a little.

Bechamel Sauce

Generally I'm not one to get overly excited about French cooking, but this sauce is a delicious winner! Despite it's fancy name, bechamel is a simple sauce made by whisking scalded milk into a roux and then seasoned with nutmeg. It's one of the five mother sauces of French cuisine, and is often used as a base for other dishes like mac and cheese, casseroles, and creamy soups. After researching the origins of a true bechamel I learned that this is actually a Mornay sauce because of the Parmesan cheese, but I'll be true to the original spirit of the recipe and call it a bechamel.

Lo Mein with Bok Choy and Tofu

My Chinese takeout order of choice as of late has been veggie lo mein with a side of cream cheese wontons.  But it is exceedingly rare to find a decent veggie lo mein that tastes fresh, isn't covered with oil, and has a good ratio of veggies to noodles. And more often than not, twenty minutes after dinner I will end up with a ripping MSG-induced headache. After years of disappointment, I concluded my love of Chinese takeout was not worth the headache (pun intended) and began researching recipes for my favorite takeout meals.  After years of experimenting, this has become one of my favorite recipes.

Four Bean Chili

If you think chili needs meat, then you don't know beans! Unlike meats, beans are naturally low in fat, they're saturated and trans fat free, and are a cholesterol-free source of protein. They're an excellent source of fiber and complex carbohydrates giving them a low glycemic index which is perfect for anyone managing their blood sugar. Beans are also loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals including folate, potassium, iron, copper and magnesium. A purely bean chili makes a protein-packed meal without the added fat and cholesterol that gives a good recipe a bad nutritional reputation.

Baked Falafel

In the words of novelist Roald Dahl, "we all have our moments of brilliance and glory, and this was mine." Definitely one of the tastiest things you can do with chickpeas, falafel is one of my favorite foods of all time. It's a traditional middle-eastern street food made from chickpeas and spices, deep fried and served with tzatziki sauce wrapped in pita bread. I know, right?  But there is a certain amount of guilt that accompanies any dish that has been fried, so I decided to invest some time in perfecting a lighter falafel. I tried mixes, pan-searing, browning the patties in a skillet before finishing them the oven, even a version where I skipped cooked chickpeas and just soaked dry chickpeas in water and baking soda. At the end of the day, the easiest methods turned out the best quality product. Now that's my kind of cooking!