Tag Archives: onion

Escarole, Spicy Sausage & Cannellini Bean Stew

I’ve been trying to come up with a recipe today and my mind just keeps getting sidetracked. It’s Thursday, I have an hour left before I go to “Happy Hour” with the neighborhood ladies and I am still sitting here wondering what to use in today’s blog. First I thought about doing a “happy hour” recipe, then changed my mind. I am clueless today. Good thing I don’t have to drive anywhere! We have it at our homes, we take turns once a month. So I just have to walk a few houses away.  But I still want to make sure this is done BEFORE I go meet the ladies. So I was just looking everywhere for anything. It’s been one of those days today. Not much sun out and under 80 degrees for a change. It is fall after all! Then I came across an email I got from Fine Cooking. The recipe looked pretty simple and it’s pretty quick to make too. That is always a plus. If I had escarole in the house I’d make this tonight. But I don’t so I will make it next week. Hopefully I will get another cool “fall” day in Florida!

The recipe calls for regular hot Italian sausage. I have not used regular sausage in my cooking at home in a very long time. I have used pre-cooked or uncooked chicken sausages. They come in all kinds of flavors these days and are really tasty. They have Italian style also and spicy versions as well. So that’s what I will use. Whenever they are on sale or I have coupons I stock up. They freeze extremely well. Always good for a quick snack too if you get company. Just nuke em and slice em up. Stick a few toothpicks in and serve with mustard or whatever you have for dipping. Voila! If you don’t like spicy, use regular. No worries! I will also up the amount of garlic, hey, I’m Italian, I need my garlic! For now the photo is the one I got with the recipe, but as soon as I make this myself I will swap it for my own. Seems like I take pictures of every meal these days, just in case! If anybody makes it let me know!

INGREDIENTS:

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

¾ pound of spicy/hot uncooked Italian chicken sausages, casings removed

4 large cloves garlic, minced

2 (15 ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 small head escarole, chopped into 1-2″ pieces, washed and lightly dried (a salad spinner is great for this)

1 cup low-sodium chicken broth/stock

1½ teaspoons red-wine vinegar; more to taste if needed

¼ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese (more if you want)

Kosher salt

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat the oil in a heavy 5-6 quart Dutch oven or large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 5-6 minutes.

2. Add the sausage, raise the heat to medium high and cook, stirring and breaking up the sausage with a wooden spoon or spatula until lightly browned and broken into small (1″) pieces, 5-6 minutes.

3. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute, stir in the beans. Add the escarole to the pot in batches; using tongs, toss with the sausage mixture to wilt the escarole and make room for more.

4. When all the escarole is in, add the chicken broth, cover the pot and cook until the beans are heated through and the escarole is tender, about 8 minutes. Season to taste with the vinegar and salt. Transfer to bowls and sprinkle each portion with the parmesan cheese.

Serves 3-4

Onion-Horseradish Dip

I am always looking for new and different dips. You get tired of the same old onion dip, same old guacamole, same old veggie dip and so on. I have a stack of magazines that I need to go through for recipes and tips etc. for the blog. One weekend I was going through the Better Homes and Gardens and came across some recipes that all used an immersion blender. You know, the little boat motor thing. This recipe can actually be made in a food processor as well but I followed the directions and used my immersion blender. After splattering myself as I always do, the dip was finished. It was delicious! I would also say it was better the next day. First day the flavors were a bit strong. So if you can wait a few hours or even overnight, it will be worth the wait. I also tweaked it as I always do. It calls for ¼ of a medium red onion. But as you will see in the pictures, I didn’t quite have it so I added a chopped shallot as well. (The pic shows 2 shallots, but I only added one) The garlic clove I used is pretty big, it probably equals 2 normal cloves but we like garlic! I also used heavy whipping cream, calories weren’t that much different from the light so I went for the extra flavor. You can serve with veggies which we did the second night but I had just found these incredible chips at BJ’s Wholesale Club. OMG! They are incredibly light and crisp, salty and just plain delicious! (110 calories in 33 chips!) This recipe also makes a great topping for a nice steak, chops or even chicken!

INGREDIENTS:

4 oz. wedge blue cheese (cheaper than buying crumbled)

4 oz. light sour cream (you can use regular if you want)

¼ cup whipping cream

¼ of a medium red onion, roughly chopped (or a large slice like I have above)

1 medium shallot, roughly chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

½ – 1 teaspoon prepared horseradish (I used 1 teaspoon- we love horseradish)

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a medium bowl crumble about ¾ of the blue cheese. Add the sour cream, whipping cream, red onion, shallot, garlic, and horseradish. Use an immersion blender* to blend cheese mixture until almost smooth.

2. Transfer to small bowl. Crumble remaining blue cheese and sprinkle over the top. Serve with veggies or chips!

* If you don’t have an immersion blender put ingredients in food processor and blend till smooth.

Makes 10 servings (2 TBSP): Each serving has about 85 calories, 8 grams of fat, 23 mg cholesterol, 170 mg sodium, 1 gram carbs, 3 grams protein

Greek Green Beans

Ok as promised here is the recipe for the green beans I made with the orange roughy yesterday. I used frozen green beans. I actually use frozen veggies quite a bit. This way I always have something in the freezer to go to when I’m out of fresh stuff. I usually have those ‘steamer’ bags of veggies but this time I had bought one of the larger bags, 16 ounces. For two of us that is too much to make at once so for this recipe I used half the bag or 2 cups. This is also a quick and easy side dish for any entrée. It is also a low-calorie side dish. While the beans were being nuked I sautéed the onions and garlic and it worked out great. So without any further ado here is the recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups frozen green beans (any kind you like)

2 tablespoons water

1 small onion, chopped small

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tablespoons olive oil

¼ cup crumbled reduced fat feta cheese

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons butter substitute (you can use real butter if you want)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Place green beans in a small microwave container with lid. Add the water. Cook on HIGH for 6 minutes.

2. Meantime in a small pan sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil. Cook until soft and just starting to brown a little. About 6 minutes. Add the basil, oregano and pepper flakes. Stir well.

3. The beans should be done now. Drain the excess water from container. Add the butter/butter substitute and onion mixture. Mix well.

4. Microwave on HIGH for 2 minutes.

5. Stir in feta cheese and serve.

Makes 2 servings (1 cup each)

Escargot Bourgignonne

Cruises are a wonderful thing. In the last 19 years I’ve been on 14, so far. Most of them on Carnival Cruise Lines. John and I take cruise vacations over all others for the most part. Sure we go up to my family’s summer place in Maine but that’s different. Cruises are wonderful. You get treated like royalty. No making your beds or cleaning your room! It’s wonderful. Someone cooks for you 24/7 and cleans up! Gotta love that! But one of the best things about cruising is that you get to try all kinds of food that you would normally not have. Escargot for instance. I had them on my very first cruise and I’ve been hooked ever since! I don’t care that they are really fancy slugs. It’s my way of payback for all damage slugs have done to my gardens over the years!

Anyway, I’ve had them in many different styles. This version is pretty popular. On the cruise ships you get them this way or even covered in cheese! Cheese, garlic, wine, oil…All very tasty! Every cruise we take we always look forward to the night we get to eat snails! I would eat them more if they served them more. This recipe is actually from Carnival Cruise Lines. I bought their cookbook on my 2nd cruise, which was actually my first Carnival Cruise. I’ve been on Carnival eight times now. Two more and I become a VIP! Woo hoo! The last cruise was in December 2009 and we went to the Panama Canal. Incredible! But I digress…Escargot! This recipe isn’t very hard and you can get cans of the little buggers in pretty much every supermarket. They are in the tuna aisle.

INGREDIENTS:

¾ cup butter

2 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon finely chopped onion

2 tablespoons white wine

1 tsp Pernod or anise-flavored liqueur (omit if you don’t like anise)

Pinch grated nutmeg

1 can escargot, well-drained

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Cheesy Escargot on the Carnival Miracle Dec. 2009

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large frying pan, melt butter over high heat; stir in garlic and onion. Cook until tender but not brown.

2. Stir in wine, liqueur, nutmeg and escargot; season to taste with salt and pepper.

3. Reduce heat to low; simmer 10-15 minutes or until flavors are blended. Sprinkle with parsley.

Serves 6

Tex Mex Calzone

Ok everyone, I am cheating again today. I got so far behind with doing other stuff today that the blog just got buried. I’m supposed to be making dinner right now and that will be late as well. Don’t even know for sure what it will be! Anyway, this is a recipe video on a Tex Mex Calzone. It’s ‘redone’ which means it’s made a little on the healthier side. Hope you enjoy it!

Smothered Chicken

I feel like today is a Monday! The job hunting takes up most of my mornings these days, leaving the rest of the day to do my endless list of “house” chores. Today I was supposed to clean up the office buried underneath the rubble. I started this finally at 6pm! And now I just remembered I forgot to post a blog recipe! So here I am, 7:23pm, starting my blog, and watching an episode of Roswell on Hulu.com (I love Hulu by the way!) I have an iMac and the screen is 21.5″ so watching a show and working is easy! So here goes.

Today’s recipe is another recipe from Dom DeLuise’s book “Eat This Too!” Normally when I see a recipe that has the word “smothered” in it I try and avoid it. Though this recipe is low-calorie and high in protein. It’s actually a very easy recipe to make and it won’t take up all your night cooking! Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

2 teaspoons olive oil

pepper to taste

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 onion, minced

¼ teaspoon paprika

2 tablespoons flour

1½ cups chicken broth

1 tablespoon soy sauce

18-20 mushrooms, sliced

4 cups cooked brown or white rice (I prefer jasmine brown rice)

2 teaspoons sesame seeds

DIRECTIONS:

1. Set chicken in deep broiling pan. Season with olive oil, pepper, garlic, onion and paprika.

2. Set broiler about 5 inches from heat. Broil chicken 3 minutes on one side, turn and broil one minute on the other side. Remove and set aside.

3. In a mixing bowl, stir flour into broth and soy sauce until flour dissolves. Add mushrooms. Pour the broth mixture into a saucepan and cook over medium heat while stirring constantly until sauce thickens.

4. Slice and arrange the chicken breasts on the rice and “smother” everything with the mushroom sauce. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Serves 4

Escarole and Beans

Such a delicious hearty peasant dish. Love it on a cold fall day or anytime for that matter. It’s a cross between a soup and a stew. You can even add some cooked ditalini macaroni to this if you want to stretch it. Any small pasta will do. If I wasn’t so lazy I’d run out to the store right now and buy some escarole and make this tonight. Maybe tomorrow night. This is such an easy dish to make and so good for you as well. Escarole is overlooked at times, people are afraid of it. It is actually part of the endive family but is less bitter. With the right spices and sauce it is just heavenly. Mangia!

INGREDIENTS:

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 small onion, chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 head escarole, washed very well and cut into pieces

1 carrot, sliced

1 cup chicken broth

1 15-16oz. can cannellini beans

grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS:

1. Saute the garlic and onion in the olive oil in a saucepan until translucent. Add the escarole, carrot and broth, bring to a boil. Once it boils simmer for 20 minutes.

2. Add the beans but do not stir them in. Cook for another 5 minutes. Stir gently to mix, then serve with grated cheese and if you like, a nice hot loaf of crusty Italian bread.

Serves 4

Baked Shrimp Balls

Ok I can hear the comments now, even from my husband. “I didn’t know Shrimp had balls! And why would we want to eat them?” Funny! Ha ha! This recipe does not have bread crumbs or other heavy filler in it either. Baking them also cuts down on the calories but not the taste. The picture I put in is not of my own, yet. But if anyone makes them, take a picture and send me a copy and I will post it! Send to my website email at agenua@cucinadiandrea.com. These are also very easy to make so give it a try and let me know how they come out! I will do the same!

Ok, the picture has been updated to my own photo. I made these over the weekend. I cut the recipe in half as it was too much for just two of us. Has anyone made them? Ok, all I have to say is maybe they left out something in the recipe. They were easy to make, smelled good, looked good but taste? Hmmm not so much. They fell apart for the most part.  I made a quick honey mustard sauce to go with it. (¼ cup light mayo, ¼ cup Dijon mustard and 1 tablespoon agave nectar) Sauce was great! Shrimp balls needed something for sure. So I made them into a crustless Quiche the next night for dinner! Broke them all up and added egg beaters, half and half, spinach, cheese, dill and some hot sauce.  I will post the outcome tomorrow!

INGREDIENTS:

2 pounds shelled, deveined shrimp, minced

6 canned water chestnuts, finely chopped

2 tablespoons fresh ginger, finely chopped

1 small onion, chopped

2 egg whites

1 teaspoon cornstarch

3 teaspoons olive oil

Pepper to taste

lemon wedges

DIRECTIONS:

1. Place everything but the lemon wedges into a bowl and mix together.

2. Shape mixture into small balls (about 1 teaspoon). Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Spray balls with olive oil and bake at 350º for 20 minutes. Serve hot with lemon wedges.

They reheat well also!

Makes about 50-60 shrimp balls depending on how large you make them. Mangia!

Delicious Creole Gumbo

On May 4, 2009 the world became a lot less funny. Comedic genius and actor Dom DeLuise passed away at the age of 75. I don’t know of anyone who can’t name at least one favorite Dom  DeLuise movie. One of my faves is “Fatso”. The food in this movie was incredible and you got hungry just watching it. Especially the scene with the huge pot of sauce and meatballs. He dunks a little Italian bread into to taste it and it’s all down hill from there. Funny. He was one of my favorite actors and you always smiled when you watched him. Smiled or laughed hysterically.

Dom was not a skinny man by any means but over the years he realized he had to do something. I bought his first cookbook “Eat This…It’ll Make You Feel Better!” back in 1988. It was full of funny and wonderful stories of his family and friends. It was and still is an awesome cookbook. When I got married my father wouldn’t let me leave the house with the copy I had so I had to go and buy another one to take with me! The book is full of his mother’s Italian home cooking as well as recipes from his family and friends. It’s actually my “go to” Italian cookbook.  As the years went on and Dom got larger and larger he decided to start eating better and came out with a second book in 1997. Another hit. This one is called “Eat This Too!”. It’s a low-fat cookbook of all his favorites along with more pics and stories of his family and friends. I will never part with either cookbook. All of the recipes are delicious.

Dom & Julia on Good Morning America in 1984

Today’s recipe is from “Eat This Too!” Gumbo can be very fattening but his version is loaded with vegetables and a seafood. Serve it over brown rice instead of the usual white rice.  Don’t be afraid of the long list of ingredients either. It’s not too scary, really! It will take longer to cut up and prep all of the veggies (where’s that private sous chef when you need one?) than to cook so be brave! You won’t be disappointed!

INGREDIENTS:

2 pounds shrimp/scallops, lobster, or other seafood, shelled, cleaned

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, sliced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 28-oz can tomatoes

1 6-oz can tomato paste

1 red pepper and 1 green pepper, coarsely chopped

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon parsley

1 teaspoon paprika

10 mushrooms, sliced

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon thyme

½ teaspoon Tabasco sauce

12 fresh okra, sliced

2 zucchini, sliced

1 stalk celery, chopped

3 tablespoons flour mixed with ½ cup cold water

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large pot sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil, until golden brown. Add the remaining ingredients except the seafood.

2. Cook over medium-low heat until flavors intermingle, about 30 minutes. Add the shrimp/scallops or other seafood. Cook just a few minutes until seafood is just done. Serve while still tender.

Serves 8-12

Stroganoff Genua Style

I know I have already posted a beef stroganoff recipe but this is a different version of that recipe. Most stroganoff uses stew meat and heavy cream and noodles. Not this recipe. In my version I substitute lean ground beef for the stew meat, fat-free half and half instead of cream and my favorite low-calorie noodle, Tofu Shirataki Noodles! It sort of looks like hamburger helper but tastes so much better. It is easy and doesn’t take a very long time to cook. I’m always looking for ground beef recipes other than meatloaf and chili and I found one.

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

2-3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 -15 ounce can cream of mushroom soup (or fat-free)

1 package Tofu Shirataki Noodles (Fettucine style) (prepare as package directs)

2 French Onion Laughing Cow Light cheese wedges, cut up

¼ cup light or fat-free sour cream

¼-½ cup fat-free half and half, use as needed to thin the sauce a little.

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon dried parsley

salt and pepper to taste


DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large saucepan sauté the onions in olive oil till they start to soften. Add the garlic and continue to sauté till light brown. Remove onions and garlic from pan and set aside.

2. Add ground beef to same pan and cook until brown. Drain off excess fat. Return the onion and garlic to pan as well as the basil, oregano, and parsley. Stir thoroughly.

3. Stir in cream of mushroom soup and the Laughing Cow cheese. Stir till the cheese is melted.

4. Add the sour cream and stir till mixed in. Add ¼ cup of the half and half. If needed add more of the half and half until sauce is thinned a little. It shouldn’t be too thick.

5. Add the prepared noodles and stir in thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 2-4

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