Cooking Light Mondays: Skillet Fillets with Cilantro Butter

So, Shrink My Butt Cooking Light Mondays haven't been going too well. Namely because I haven't bothered to cook any food for a million years or so. However, I did manage to throw something together way back in June and actually take pictures of it. Miraculous, I know. This recipe was super easy and very tasty. Definitely a do-again. Here's what transpired as far as I can remember.

Any recipe that has a big hunk of butter in it has to be a winner, right? To the softened butter I added some fresh cilantro, lemon rind, paprika and salt. I think it goes without saying that you have to be a cilantro fan to enjoy this. But I guess I just said it anyway.

Smoosh everything all up together. I suppose I should have wiped down the sides of the cup for this picture. Honestly, I'm just happy I found my camera.

You can use any "mild white fish" for this dish. I believe this is cod. Let's just say it is, okay? It gets sprinkled with a mixture of salt, cumin and ground red pepper. Don't worry, it wasn't too spicy. I am the poster child for the Spicy Food Destroys Tastebuds foundation and I thought it was fine. So it is SFDT approved. I may have put in less of the red pepper than called for, but I can't remember. You'll have to cut me some slack--this was two and a half months ago.

Anyway, the fillets and the nonstick pan both get a good dose of cooking spray and then fry for about 3 minutes on each side. (Fry the fish, not the pan.) I seem to recall leaving the thicker piece in longer because it didn't seem done. I'm always a little iffy about using cooking spray because I feel like I'm eating chemicals. But I've managed to down my fair share of Pop Tarts in my life, and those are probably worse, so I just get over it.

That was pretty much it. I stuck some Cilantro Butter on top and served it with a baked sweet potato and sauteed spinach. (Baked meaning microwaved for 5 minutes.) This was the money shot. Ooo. Ahhh. Ohhhhh.

Then I realized the fish really had very little flavor on its own. So I squeezed the lemon over it and spread out the butter so it would melt into the fish. MUCH better. Not as pretty, but pretty tasty!

So if you need a quick meal and want to get more fish into your diet, we have a winner! Hop on over to Cooking Light if you'd like to make this recipe. And let me know how it turns out. I'll pass the findings on to the SFDT. The tastebud you save may be your own!

Cooking Light Mondays: Pomegranate-Avocado Salsa

This is one of the appetizers I brought for Thanksgiving. We always have snacks before hand, but I'm not sure why since we eat freakishly early, so I'm rarely actually hungry for dinner. But somehow I managed to eat plenty anyway.

The first time I ever had this, my friend Jill made it for a cookie swap she was hosting. I don't remember much about the cookies we had, but I remember this salsa, so that says a lot. It actually has "spicy chips" that you can make to go with it, but I wasn't feeling it. Also, remember: broken oven. We had baked Tostitos scoops and they worked great and tasted yummy. Couldn't really tell they were the baked kind, so that's good.

This is fairly easy. The hardest part is seeding the pomegranate. I used the underwater method to keep from spraying juice all over the place. It was kind of tedious, but it got the job done. The rest of this is just chopping stuff up; oranges, avocados, cilantro, green onion and jalapeno. You throw it all together with some honey, lime juice and salt. That's it. Easy as pie. Actually, pie's much harder to make, so I'm going to say Easy as salsa. So there.

Here's the recipe if you would like to make your own. It's a really popular dish, there was nothing left of it. So I highly recommend it for any holiday parties you might be attending. I think I'm going to make it again for our upcoming staff party in December. If you make the chips let me know how they turn out. Once I have a working oven I might give them a try. Enjoy!

p.s. Isn't the dish pretty? I just love Polish Pottery!!

Cooking Light Mondays: Lentil Stew with Ham and Greens

image from www.myrecipes.com

Whoopee! Back with Shrink My Butt Cooking Light Mondays! You didn't think I'd forget my strikethrough name did ya?

So I was feeling all Autumn-like and decided to make a stick to your ribs kind of meal. For some strange reason I've been craving lentils lately. Weird, especially since I rarely eat them. I also needed a stovetop meal, as my oven currently only heats up to about 200 degrees. "Hey," you say, "your landlord should fix that!" To which I say, "I'm sure he would if I could manage to tell him it's broken." I'm just lazy like that sometimes.

Which brings us to another long Cooking Light recipe name. Not just Lentil Stew, but Lentil Stew with Ham and Greens. Only mine doesn't have ham in it. I decided to use turkey kielbasa instead because the online reviews said it had more flavor. It's also a heck of a lot cheaper than buying a big hunk of ham for $12.00. I also used sweet potatoes since I had them in my house. And the little reviewer people said I could. And what they say goes.

This was a really easy meal to put together and was way yummy. I ate some for lunch today and then wasn't even hungry for the pudding cup I brought. It was nice to have a hearty meal to get me through the afternoon, which also made me want to snack less...always good.

So let's get to it!

Technically, the hardest part of this was all the chopping since, as we know, I am a ridiculously slow chopper. But some things went in the pot and then cooked for a while, so it gave me time to keep chopping as things simmered. Anyway, first you heat up some olive oil, then throw in a chopped onion and 3 cloves of minced garlic. Mmmm, garlic! Let it cook down for about 5 minutes. Make sure to close your bedroom door so your clothes don't smell like garlic and onions. All. Day. Long. (sigh)

At which point it will look a little like the picture above. See my new Pampered Chef bamboo spoon? Not just wood, but bamboo! Ooooo. Ahhhh. Ohhhh. The pandas will be jealous! (Because pandas eat bamboo. Get it?)

Next we throw in flavorless Swanson's chicken broth, chopped up carrot, dried lentils and a few bay leaves. Bring to a boil. It will look like this. (If you stir it and take a picture at the same time while trying not to drop your camera into the pot.)

After it boils, let it simmer for 20 minutes. Which is when you can chop up the rest of the stuff you were too slow to get done earlier. Throw in the ham (or whatever), potato and greens. Use red swiss chard if you are cool and adventurous like me, especially if they don't have the regular green kind of greens at the store. Just red ones. Which makes them reds, I guess.

Again with the boil, then simmer. 15 minutes this time. When it looks like this...

...throw in diced tomatoes and some basil, thyme and pepper. Then, you guessed it,  once more bring to a boil and simmer. And following the 5 minutes less every time pattern, only simmer for 10 minutes.

Ooo, simmering. With tomatoes. And little flecks of dried up stuff. Oh, so very unattractive!

When it's all said and done, you get a yummy bowl of hearty stew that just isn't that pretty. You could sprinkle some parsley on it, but that won't help much with the looks factor. Still, it's really good, so make some soon, and just close your eyes when you eat it.

Um, I guess with all my alterations it needs to be called "Lentil Stew with Kielbasa and Reds." Doesn't really work, though. Oh well. Here's the recipe. Except for pre-chopping, this should take around an hour. And it's pretty hard to screw it up. So enjoy, and let me know what you think if you make this homely (but still yummy!) dish.

Cooking Light Mondays: Cod Poached in Spicy Tomato Broth

That's right, Shrink My Butt Cooking Light Mondays are back! Mostly because I made this one literally months ago and just never got around to posting it. But never mind. Here it is in all its easy-as-pie glory!

Put together all the stuff you need. Here we have garlic, kalamata olives, crushed red pepper, Italian Recipe diced tomatoes (yay, S&W!), olive oil, capers and some white wine hiding in the back. You can't get away from ME, wine! And thanks to The Pioneer Woman for giving me the idea of putting all the ingredients in one photo so I don't have to go on about them individually. Unless I want to.

So let's go! Heat up the oil and throw in some garlic you smooshed up. The recipe calls for bottled minced garlic, but I usually have fresh stuff on hand, and I love using my Pampered Chef garlic smoosher.

After a minute or so, throw in water, some of the wine, some of the crushed red pepper (not all of it. hot is bad) and capers. Drink some of the leftover wine.

Realize you were supposed to put the tomatoes in there, too. Oops. Darn wine. Anyway, put the tomatoes in and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Doesn't it look pretty? See all the steam? Ooooo. Tomato stuff.

Throw in your fish fillets cut up into chunks. It just dawned on me that the recipe doesn't say to cut up the fish. I guess that came out of my little brain. Oh well.

Put the lid on the great Calphalon pan your mom gave you. Let fish simmer for 5 minutes. Notice how dirty and beat up the ancient stove in your apartment is. Wish you had a new one. Realize you forgot to chop up the olives.

While fish is cooking, chop up the olives. Try to get a picture that doesn't make them look like raisins on crack. Drink some more wine.

Serve fish with some of the broth and a crusty french roll you heated up in the toaster oven. Sprinkle olives on top. Take pictures. Realize the roll soaked up a LOT of the broth and is now soggy. Swear a little. Eat it anyway. Say "Mmmm, this is good."

And there you have it. The VERY easy poached cod recipe from Cooking Light. Really, if it was any easier, I could have drunk the whole bottle of wine with it. Instead of just half.

Okay, three-quarters.

Cooking Light Mondays: Diner Meatloaf Muffins

Hey everyone! It's time again for Shrink My Butt Cooking Light Monday! Maybe I should just officially change its name to that. Anyway, this week's recipe is Diner Meatloaf Muffins. In the March, 2006 issue, they did a "cooking class" segment on lots of ways to make meatloaf. I've been feeling the need for some comfort food lately with our freezing temperatures out here, and plus I've been craving hamburger. I know there are lots of better types of beef out there, but I am a hamburger girl. Love it!

This was a very simple recipe and luckily it came out VERY good. This is definitely a keeper. Not only did I love the flavor and texture, but I also managed to make it in under an hour. Even with chopping time involved. Let's make meatloaf!

Chop up a cup of onions and half a cup of carrots. This is a fine dice. Heat up a little olive oil and saute them with 2 garlic cloves mushed (I am too lazy to mince) and a teaspoon of oregano for two minutes. This smelled heavenly. I wanted to take a bath in this stuff. However, that would get me lots of alone time. Or institutional time. Whatever.

Set that aside to cool down a little bit. Then pull out your fat free Saltine Crackers which you forgot to buy and had to run to the store for had sitting in your cabinet. I know I could have bought store brand for this, but now I have 3 other sleeves of crackers that I will have to deal with. So I spent the big bucks and got the Nabisco ones. Expect more Saltine Cracker recipes in the near future.

Now for the fun part. Take 20 crackers (says the recipe...I needed 25) and smash them up until you have a cup of finely smooshed crackers. That's an official cooking term. Finely smooshed.

Okay, I'm lying. But you knew that.

My favorite method of smooshing is to put the smooshable object in a big Ziplock bag and have at it with a rolling pin. Anything heavy will do, but I try to use my rolling pin more than once a year for SOMETHING. Plus it's really fun to roll it all over the bag.

That's pretty much all the hard work for this dealie. Next, stick all of the ingredients in a big bowl. Here we have the one and a half pounds hamburger (93% lean), the vegie mix, crackers, ketchup, mustard, a couple of eggs, some Worcestershire sauce (wooster? wistersheer? how do you say this?) and a little bit of freshly ground pepper. Only a little because pepper is hot. It is too. I always seem to bite into a big piece of pepper. Ick. So add more if you like that kind of thing. Notice there's no added salt? It was totally fine without it. But I guess you could put some in at this point if you wanted to.

Make sure you use this kind of ketchup. It is the best. All others suck.

Heinz, need a spokesperson? Call me!

Now for the dirty part. Stick your hands in there and mush it around. Do this as little as possible, just until it's all blended. I speak from experience. Hamburger that has been overly mixed comes out dense and tough. And gross.

I know this looks yucky. But trust me, it's yummy!

No, I didn't taste it. I just know. I'm smart like that.

Now take a muffin tin and spray some cooking spray on there. Fill each tin with some of the meatloaf mix. I had to pat it in pretty good to get it all to fit. Then spread a few teaspoons of ketchup onto each one. You could skip this step if you don't like it, but it helps keep the top from drying out. Some of the reviewers on the Cooking Light website suggested using BBQ sauce instead. That would be good, too. Stick in the oven for 25 minutes at 350*.

Here are the cooked ones. I let them stand for 5 minutes while I took the pictures. I was worried that maybe they would overflow or grease would come out or something, so I cooked this on top of a rimmed cookie sheet and some foil. You know, like I was supposed to do for the Sticky Buns? But I didn't need to. I had no problems or drippage at all. I think the key here is to use the lowest possible amount of fat in your hamburger. These might be pretty nasty and greasy otherwise.

One serving of these is 2 "muffins." I served it with steamed zucchini and some orzo that I cooked in chicken broth. You know, Swanson's flavorless, healthy chicken broth. It worked fine for this and added a subtle flavor to the pasta.

Some of the website reviewers thought these were too moist. They are definitely very wet, but if you've ever had overmixed, dried out meatloaf you will appreciate these all the more. And the flavor actually tasted like sausage, I think because of the garlic and oregano. I wolfed these down and am looking forward to lunch tomorrow. This makes 6 servings, so I plan to freeze the leftovers individually and then put them in a Ziplock so I can pull them out when needed.

Oh, and why do these have the word "diner" in the title? Probably because they were doing a feature on meatloaf and needed different names for each one and that was the best they could do. Regardless of the name, make this recipe and enjoy!

Cooking Light Mondays: Chicken Biryani

Today's recipe is an Indian dish. Biryani (beer-YAH-nee according to my food dictionary) can be all sorts of combinations of meat (or not), spices, some vegetables and rice. I love to order this when I go to Gateway to India. Almost as much as I love the Chicken Korma. Almost. Anyway, when I saw a recipe for it in this month's issue of Cooking Light, I knew it would be up next for Shrink My Butt Cooking Light Mondays. Yes, I know the strike through is getting old. But it still makes me laugh. So it stays.

Standard disclaimer: My photos are out of focus. Sorry. Still waiting for the Birthday Fairy to bring me a camera like my friend Kathy's. Or until I steal hers.

This is supposed to be a 30 minute recipe. HA HA HA. They have obviously never met me and my pedantic chopping skills. It took me an hour to chop everything. I'm not kidding. I am the slowest chopper in the world. I think I'm too picky on how it looks. Not that it matters, since it all gets cooked up, but that doesn't cause me to go any faster. So here's all the stuff I chopped.

Onions

Plum tomatoes

Chicken breast (bawk bawk!)

Ginger (the spoon works great to scrape off the skin)

Cilantro (these Pampered Chef shears work great for this)

Garlic (okay, I didn't so much chop as squish)

Jalapeno

I use this little trick that I picked up somewhere for cutting peppers when you don't need the seeds or membranes. First of all, I put on one of these:

I learned the hard way a few years ago. If you get jalapeno juice on your hands, even if you've washed that hand thoroughly, rubbing your eye with said hand is a horrible idea. So now I'm better safe than sorry. Can you tell that I'm wearing it backwards? I must of lost/ruined the leftie. This is the righty turned around. Looks like my hand is on wrong.

I hold vertically and slice off the sides.

I get this without ever touching the seeds. My eyes are safe.

After all the chopping, I assembled the other ingredients.

Golden raisins

Garam masala

This is a mix of many different spices. Every one is different.

This is the first time I've purchased this so I wanted to know what it smelled like. I swear, I started salivating when I got a whiff. It smells exactly like an Indian restaurant. I wanted to eat some, but decided against it. I guess if I ever need a little pick me up, I will report to the spice rack.

Flavorless chicken broth (I don't want to be a spokesperson for Swanson)

The other ingredients were basmati rice, cumin, salt and sliced almonds and a lime for garnish. Here's how it all came together (once I finally finished all the chopping.)

Saute chicken for 3 minutes.

Add onion and jalapeno. Saute 3 more minutes.

Add ginger, garlic, garam masala, and cumin. Saute 30 seconds. Inhale deeply.

Add raisins, tomatoes, rice and broth. Stir up. Bring to a boil.

Cover, lower heat, simmer 15 minutes.

Stir in cilanto. Then you have this.

Unfortunately, this is not exactly what I was hoping for. If you see the picture of the recipe in the magazine, the rice is all fluffy and separated, the way rice is supposed to be. Mine was very, very mushy. There wasn't any water in the bottom, but the rice just wasn't the right texture. I ALWAYS have problems with rice. I either burn it or get it mushy, like this. Maybe I somehow insulted a gypsy, and she has put a rice cooking curse on me. Or maybe I just suck at something that couldn't be much easier.

On the whole, I liked this. However, it had much less flavor than I was expecting, especially with all those yummy spices. I've decided to blame the chicken broth for sucking up all the good flavor with its healthy flavorlessness. (Wow, I can't believe spell check is not screaming over the word "flavorlessness.") Sorry, Swanson, no love for you.

The recipe for Chicken Biryani is on the CL website if you'd like to try your hand at this dish. When I make it again, I will try chicken thighs even though I know they have more fat. The breast was just too dry for me. And maybe I can get lucky on the rice. I'm not sure what to do about the flavor problem. Maybe add another shot of spices after it cooks. You'd never know there was a jalapeno in there. I couldn't even taste the cilantro I added at the end, so I might up that, too. I really think this has potential. I'll work on it and get back to you. Or maybe I'll just get take out!