Squash Gratin

When it comes to culinary inspiration, one of my favorite muses is most definitely my beloved sister-in-law Barb. In addition to her extensive repertoire, she has a great collection of cookbooks. I recently thumbed through one that featured entrees under 300 calories per serving, and was excited to find a recipe for butternut gratin.

Having never made a squash dish before (or a gratin, for that matter), this was uncharted territory for me. I didn’t realize how large a butternut squash in until I saw it in the supermarket, at which point I happily made the suggested substitute for acorn squash instead.

One of the things I love about this recipe is how easy it is. You nuke the squash and then the gratin mixture, and prep time is about 30 minutes. The flavor combination of squash, pork chops, onions, bread crumbs and reduced-fat cheddar cheese is delicious. A satisfying entrée that scrimps on calories and not taste. Here’s how to make it:

Baked Chicken Cutlets In Olive Oil, Acorn Squash With Buttered Maple Syrup

Now that I’ve been cooking regularly for a couple of months, I’m feeling more confident about creating dishes without the help of a recipe. This week, during a girls night in with my beloved twentysomething cousin Alexandra, that’s exactly what I did.

For our entrée, I made baked chicken cutlets. In a bowl, I mixed together 3 tablespoons of olive oil, and 1 tablespoon each of chopped basil and onions. After dredging the cutlets in the oil, I placed them on a Pyrex dish lined with aluminum foil, topping them off with sliced tomatoes. I cooked the cutlets for about an hour at 400 degrees.

As a side dish, it doesn’t get any easier or tastier than acorn squash. After piercing one squash several times, I nuked it in the microwave for ten minutes until it was tender. Cutting the squash in half lengthwise, I removed the seeds and drizzled buttered maple syrup -- here, I turned to Paula Deen for guidance -- and cinnamon over the sides and cavities.

Alexandra said the meal was yummy. If I do say so myself, I agree with her!

Chicken With Tomato-Vermouth Sauce

Now that I’m a neophyte chef, I find myself paying more attention to -- and getting excited by -- recipes that come with cooking products you buy. I always keep Holland House cooking wine on hand, so I was happy to give their chicken with tomato-vermouth sauce a try.

What I love about this dish, along with the easy 20-25 total prep time, is it uses basic staples I always have on hand -- flour, paprika, ground pepper, olive oil, onions, tomato and garlic. I made a few modifications, omitting the recommendation for capers or anchovy fillets and subbing canned chopped tomatoes for the real thing.

Here’s how to do it:

Ingredients:
4 boneless chicken breasts (since I’m cooking for one, I only made two, so there was plenty of sauce!)
¼ cup flour
½ tsp. each paprika and ground pepper
1 ½ tbsp. olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
2/3 cup Holland House vermouth cooking wine
2/3 cup tomatoes, chopped or pureed
2 tbsp. fresh basil

Prep:
Dredge chicken lightly on both sides in flour mixed with paprika and pepper. Heat oil in skillet over medium-hugh heat. Add chicken and saute for 4 minutes on each side. Remove chicken. Adjust heat to medium, saute onion and garlic until soft. Deglaze with vermouth and bring to boil. Add tomatoes and basil. Stir 5 minutes and spoon over sauce.

Quick Chicken Parmesan

When you live to eat like I do, finding healthy variations of decadent favorites isn't always easy. So I was excited to stumble upon Ellen Haas' low-cal quick chicken parmesan recipe in Fit Food: Eating Well For Life.

Easy to make in just 30 minutes, the recipe includes most of what everyone loves about chicken parm -- tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese (low-fat, of course), olive oil and oregano. Sauteeing and baking the chicken gives it a great flavor. The purist in me, though, must admit I missed having bread crumbs on my cutlet.

Still, for less than 300 calories and 10 grams of fat per serving, it more than satisfied.

Click on the image below for full ingredient and prep details.

Pasta Hodgepodge

When it comes to easy comfort food, one of my favorite things is pasta. Last night, I kept it simple and dressed up whole wheat penne and shells with a hodgepodge of ingredients I had on hand.

In a skillet, I sautéed green bell peppers and mushrooms in olive oil. Once the penne was cooked, I poured it into the mixture, along with a few tablespoons of Ragu’s traditional sauce. I probably could have used a spice or two (and definitely a little more sauce), but the mushrooms and olive oil stood out to my taste buds.

Not bad for only 20 minutes in the kitchen!

Super Veggie-stuffed Peppers

For my latest culinary foray, I once again turned to Lisa Lillien’s Hungry Girl 200 Under 200. Lillien has a knack for healthy dishes that manage to taste good too -- as I discovered yet again when I made her super veggie-stuffed peppers.

The dish offers a flavorful blend of vegetables and toppings --- mushrooms, onions, tomato sauce, low-fat cheese, garlic and taco seasoning mix. I substituted Morningstar Farm’s griller recipe crumbles for the recommended soy crumbles, which I think gave it a little more zest. Total cooking and prep time was an hour, and I agree with URBakin’MeCrazy blogger Megan that peppers could stand to be cooked longer than 25 minutes before stuffing them.

Delish!

Ingredients:
1 large red bell pepper
1 plum tomato, chopped
1/2 cup frozen ground-beef soy crumbles
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/4 cup canned tomato sauce
2 Tablespoons Shredded Cheese
1/2 teaspoon taco seasoning mix
1/4 teaspoon minced garlic

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Saute mushrooms, onion, soy crumbles and chopped bell pepper for 3-5 minutes, or until veggies are slightly softened. Add Garlic and cook for an additional minute or two. Transfer to a medium bowl. To the bowl add tomato, tomato sauce, and taco seasoning. Mix thoroughly and set aside. Slice off the top of the bell pepper, slice in half lengthwise and remove seeds. Spray a small baking dish lightly with non-stick spray. Place pepper halves in the dish cut side up, and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Remove pepper halves from oven and reduce temperature of oven to 350 degrees F. Once pepper halves are cool enough to handle, use paper towel to soak up any excess moisture on the peppers. Evenly spoon veggie mixture into pepper halves. Return to the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Add Shredded Cheese on top, and put under broiler until the cheese begins to bubble!

Matzo Meal Lemon Chicken

When you’re learning how to cook, you’re bound to make a few missteps in the kitchen. So it was with a recent chicken dish I made.

Inspired by the delicious honey and matzo meal covered chicken that my good friend Caroline whipped up for Passover, I decided to make a variation of it. After dipping a chicken breast in lemon juice, I covered it in matzo meal -- a healthy and tasty alternative to bread crumbs -- and placed it on the oven at 375 degrees.

Though chicken is one of my frequent go-to entrees, I’m still getting the hang of what constitutes enough cooking time. As you can see from the photo above, 45 minutes isn’t it, especially when you’ve got matzo meal in the mix. I ended up with an unevenly coated chicken that didn’t have much flavor.

Lesson learned -- spare at least an hour if you’re cooking poultry in the oven.

What are some of your favorite chicken recipes? This neophyte chef could use a few suggestions!

Grandma’s Cracker Cereal

When I think of favorite family recipes from my childhood, my beloved Grandmother’s cracker cereal is always on the shortlist.

A far tastier alternative to oatmeal, Cream of Wheat and the like, the cereal is great comfort food -- and delightfully easy to make.

Ingredients:
*2 cups of milk (skim or regular, either works)
*8-10 saltine crackers
*Cinnamon and sugar to taste

In a pot, crumble up saltine crackers. Add milk and cook on low heat, stirring regularly for about five minutes or until mixture reaches porridge-like consistency. Pour contents in bowl and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

A perfect breakfast!

Chicken And Rice With Lemon, Pepper and Celery

One of my favorite things about learning to cook is throwing a few kitchen staples together with no muss or fuss. I always keep chicken breasts and white rice at the ready, so it’s fun to try out different ingredients with the two.

After slicing up one chicken breast, I soaked the strips in a bowl of lemon juice. While sautéing them in the pan, I boiled a cup of rice in a pot. Adding the mostly-cooked rice to the chicken, I threw in some chopped celery and sprinkled a teaspoon of ground pepper.

All in all, about twenty minutes from preparation to table. My kind of home cooking!

Simple Sauteed Pork Chops

I’m a big fan of simple recipes that pack a tasty wallop. So I was especially pleased with what I came up with for pork chops.

My recipe calls for just three ingredients -- olive oil, tomato paste and chopped onions. After mixing together equal parts olive oil and tomato paste in a bowl, I soaked the pork chops in it for a few minutes. Then, on a low heat, I sauteed the pork chops and onions for about 5-7 minutes, drizzling the extra sauce over them.

The result was absolutely delicious. And a happy reminder that you don’t have to consult a cookbook to create something special in the kitchen.

BBQ Mango Tilapia

When you’re a neophyte chef like me, sometimes even the simplest dishes can be fraught with peril. So I recently discovered when I turned to Hungry Girl’s 200 Under 200 recipe for bbq mango tilapia.

As a big fan of both barbecue and mango, I was beyond excited to try this out. Until I found myself in the fruit section of my neighborhood supermarket in a bit of quandary. What color mango to select? Not realizing that, like bananas (my all-time favorite fruit), green does not equal ripe, I made the wrong choice. Which I discovered as I struggled to slice the stubbornly brittle mango -- and nearly broke a knife in the process.

Hungry Girl’s recipe calls for two teaspoons of brown sugar and one teaspoon of molasses. I faced another dilemma here. Should I modify the ingredients? After all, I’m the amateur and the cookbook is the expert, right?

I opted not to make any changes and, sure enough, found the finished product to be a little too sweet for my taste. Lesson learned -- it’s okay to trust one’s instincts when it comes to making sure a home cooked dish pleases your palette.

Tasty Turkey Burgers

I’m a big fan of turkey burgers -- they’re an ideal compromise between the indulgence of beef burgers and the often bland alternative of the veggie variety. That said, it takes a little something extra to make a turkey burger truly flavorful.

My personal trick -- packing the patties with sautéed onions and shredded cheese before cooking. A little Worcestershire sauce also adds a little zest.

After preparation, I throw the burgers on my venerable T-Fal healthy grill, a favorite cooking gadget since its purchase 13 years ago. Five minutes on thermostat setting three and presto! Tasty turkey burger done.

Spinach And Mozzarella Cheese Supreme

When I think of casseroles, I automatically think calories -- and complicated. Thanks to a great recipe in Hungry Girl’s 200 Under 200 by Lisa Lillien, I’ve discovered casseroles don’t have to be either.

In keeping with the cookbook’s theme, each serving is less than 200 calories (106 calories for 1/6th of the casserole, to be exact). Apart from defrosting the two bags of frozen spinach required, total prep time is under an hour. Recipe calls for three wedges of light-flavored Laughing Cow cheese, and I went with garlic and herb which added a nice flavor to it. Hungry Girl also says to bake in the oven for only 25 to 30 minutes, but I found the casserole wasn’t quite crispy so I would try 35-40 minutes next time.

I was so excited about making my first casserole that I forgot to pick up one of the recipe’s ingredients -- mushrooms. Definitely still delicious, probably even more so with them. Click here and scroll down for the complete recipe.