Healthy Enchiladas!

We recently stumbled across the Highwood Restaurant district in a nearby neighborhood.  With a broad range of eateries including, a cute Chicago-style hotdog spot, Indian, Chinese, Italian, French, American, etc., all in a square mile radius.  We had no idea that so many published amazing restaurants were so close to us.  Nestled in that same area is a small Kosher Mexican Restaurant, La Casa De Isaac.   Below is my recipe and "interpretation" of what I think is in there dish, Issac's mom's enchiladas.  Of course it tastes totally different (but still good) as I am certain my spice blend, and enchilada sauce is prepared completely

Chicken Paillard, a Must Try Dish!

A few weeks ago my husband and I had lots of family in town.  Translation, going out to dinners almost every night since we all have jolly bellies!  Fast forward to last week and meal planning at home, I decided to try to recreate a few of my favorite dishes from my prior weeks AMAZING restaurant experience.  One of our favorite restaurants serves Chicken Paillard, Abigals on the North Shore.  Who knows what they put in it, but below is my "healthier" version of what I thought might be in it.



The bottom layer of this dish is a Sauce Gribiche (ingredients pictured left).  I first want to start out by saying the way I made this sauce is NOT the traditional way its prepared.  I'm a "cook", not a chef so technically speaking, it might not even be a sauce gribiche after I got through with it.  If you want to stick to an original I am sure you can look it up on the internet.  I am not a fan of cooking with raw egg which is needed for the base of the sauce.  In a traditional recipe you basically make a mayonnaise and then add all the other ingredients to that base.  I decided to substitute a similar texture and much healthier fat--what I used, Avocado!  It actually tasted similar to the traditional but it didn't have that extra zing that mayo gives you--but again, HEALTHY!

After the Sauce is made, its an easy dish to prepare!  The entire recipe... 

Ingredients :

For Chicken:

1 LB pounded 1/4 inch (or butterflied) chicken

1/4 cup of parmesan sprinkles

2 tablespoons breadcrumbs

(optional: egg and flower to drudge chicken so parma mixture sticks, I choose not to for healthier version)

For Salad:

2 handfuls of arugula

1/4 cup thinly shaved fennel

1 apple thinly sliced
Fresh shaved parmesan cheese 

For Sauce:

1 cornichons (or pickle) finely diced

2 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/2 medium shallot finely diced

1 1/2 tablespoons fresh minced taragon

4 capers

1 garlic clove finely diced

sprinkle of salt and pepper

1/2 avocado cubed

1 tbs olive oil

up to 4 tbs water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Meanwhile make sauce, throw all sauce ingredients up to avocado into a food processor and mix until thoroughly blended.  If sauce is to thick, add 1 tablespoon of water at a time or olive oil until it thin outs.  I added about 2 tablespoons of water to mine.  It should be about the consistency of hummus or mayo, not as thin as dressing (see picture above).  Chill in fridge until you are ready for assembly.

Mix parmesan and bread crumbs together.  Next, grab the chicken and toss in the parma/bread mixture. If you want a heavier based breaded chicken you will need to drudge with egg and flower before you toss in mixture.  Spray oven safe dish with olive oil cooking spray to eliminate sticking.  Bake the chicken for about 40-55 min (we like everything extra well done, 55 min for us).

Meanwhile while your chicken is baking, prep the salad. Make sure to slice the fennel as thin as you can as it just gives it a much better taste.  Slice the apple thin but not as paper thin as the fennel.  Chill the salad ingredients till your chicken is finished baking.

Next you are ready for assembly, first spread a layer of the sauce on each plate.  Then place the chicken on the sauce, top with Arugula, apple and fennel.  Last, add your parmesan cheese and you are ready to ENJOY!

50 Shades of Pink

Planning parties would have been a FUN career choice for me.  However, seems like these days there are endless reasons to throw a party!  I had the honor of planing my sisters Owl and Aztec themed baby shower at our home.  My favorite part, the details.  Picking out the food, the desserts, the drinks, the invites, the party favors, the linens, the decor, the games (the list goes on).  It is also great to see it all come together and of course when the friends and family show up--the party begins!

Everyone seemed to have a great time at the party, by the end of the party some behavior lead us to believe that the party was beyond a great time (good thing that guest stayed over, I am talking about major intoxication).  I think the guests had the most fun when we played "Don't Break the Water"  . An appropriately re-named childhood water balloon game where you have a partner and toss the balloon back and forth--team that doesn't break the balloon wins.  Greg and I officially one, but we just played for fun and eventually two others were named winners.  Wish I had some pictures of that!  I tried to be creative with the party favors since my sister opt'd for a Guys and Dolls shower-- A modern shower she called it!  I think it was perfect since everyone came from out of town, lets face it women do not like to drive and they enlisted the guys for that.

Stacy is clearly having a GIRL can you tell by all the shades of pink?  Her top baby names are Violet Skye  and Willow Skye.  She was okay with discussing names so she allowed me to play into it for the party, we named a drink for each.  A lemonade NA drink was named after Willow Sky and the name Violet Skye was used for a Red Sangria (I wonder if she picks the name Willow, her daughter will be more of an angel??-- because the Sangria was majorly spiked!).  For one of her baby shower gifts my husband and I hired a photographer to do a cute mom to be shoot for my sister.  She is one of the cutest prego girls out there so I wanted to make sure she had some pictures before the baby was born.  Most of the pictures in the post can be credited to Lizzie D Photography!  We are all anxiously awaiting her baby's arrival--I will make sure to add updates after birth etc!  

HOW TO: Harvest Basil

We had HUGE organic gardens growing up, back then organic was just organic (not that I am that old!!) but chemicals were not really used.  We didn't have a crazy fancy sprinkler system so we would roll out the hose every day and water our plants, luckily there were some days when mother nature took care of that for us.  When you have a huge garden, you have to do a lot of weeding.  Which I remember not enjoying, I was into the tasting part the most. My mom has a green thumb, she grew the seeds from inception and then transplanted them to the garden when they were ready to take larger roots.  ANYWAYS... fast forward 20 years I now have container gardens but have hopes to plant a garden next spring from seeds.  My plants this year were small when I bought them and now they are over growing their containers.

All of my plants are doing exceptionally well this year.  I can attribute most of that to all the heavy rain we have been getting.  Also, to my husband picking up my slack and watering the plants when I am not able to (or to lazy to do).  Amongst all my produce, what stands out the most to me is my basil.  My native Indian plant is used in my kitchen about 4 times a week, if not more!  I wanted to share with you my secrets of harvesting this yummy plant.



Harvesting and Growing Tips

Snip leaves from the top, this gives the bottom leaves a chance for more sun.
Water EVERY day!

Give plenty of sunlight 

Flowering Basil Plant

Grow outside in warmer months

Plant mid spring (bring in if gets below 40 deg) 

Keep harvesting, it helps the plant to continue to grow--Even if you don't use it dry out and use in winter. 

Deflower; if your plant flowers, this means it is at maximum growth and will go back to seed state. (I learned that from a tree expert this weekend) Just pinch off the stems that are flowering.
If you let the plant go to seed, these seeds can be collected and planted the following season, you might want to let a few go to seed and then use them for next year.
Basil is a Perennial if it doesn't freeze, cultivate for next year by bringing in doors in early winter.

Caprese Sandwich 

Ideas for Foods with Basil 

Caprese Salad

Pizza Margarita 

Salads

Turkey Meatballs

Roast Beef, Motzerella and Basil Sandwich

Chicken Parmesan

Burgers 

Pesto

Lasagna 

Sea Food

Tomato Basil Soup

Eggs
The list goes on..... !!!

Chiken Parmesean

Caprese Salad

Health Benefits:

Helps protect white blood cells and prevents them from oxygen damage

Fights unwanted bacterial growth internally in our bodies

Adding it to uncooked foods such as salads also promotes reduction in bacteria that might be found in other veggies

Anti-Inflammatory

Promotes Cardiovascular health 

Vitamin A

Beta-Carotene 

Magnesium 

Iron

Calcium 

Potassium

Vitamin C

Tastes amazing which makes you happy and produces endorphin's (I made that one up!)

Hope you reach for the fresh basil next time your cooking!! 

Light Watermelon Green Bean Salad

In the summer I love coming up new light clean salads so we are not constantly eating the same thing.  The other day,  I had green beans on hand and wanted them to be secondary in a dish.  This is how I came up with the Watermelon Green Bean Salad.  Pair with the following meatball recipe for a complete and healthy meal.  Below is the recipe and directions.

Ingredients

Handful Arugula (about 1 1/2 cups unpacked)

2 Handfuls baby lettuce mixture (about 2-3 unpacked cups)

1/4 cup feta cheese

1/2 cup cubed watermelon

3/4 cup preped green beans (cut 1-2 inches in length)

1/3 shallot onion sliced thinly

1 teaspoon fresh garlic

2 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon balsamic vinaigrette

1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Add the baby lettuce, arugula, feta, watermelon to a bowl and chill in fridge.  Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a pan (to about med temp) and add the garlic and onion, saute about 2 min until garlic becomes translucent.  Next, add the green beans to the pan and continue to saute for about 5 min.  I like my green beans to still have a little crunch to them so I saute for only 5-6 min.  Remove pan from heat and let beans cool down to room temperature (about 15 min).  Next add the entire pan to the chilled lettuce including olive oil as this is part of the dressing.  Then add the balsamic vinegar, toasted pine nuts and a pinch of salt and pepper.  Toss together and ENJOY!

Turkey Meatballs

Sometimes its hard to find a light filling summer meal.  I do a spin in the summer on my Turkey Meatballs and pair them with a salad instead of pasta because it feels lighter.  Make extra because they are even better heated up the next day on rye bread as an open faced meatball sandwich.  Here is the recipe...

Meatball Recipe

1 lb of ground turkey meat 

2 tablespoons cumin

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1/4 cup chopped basil (loosely packed)

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

3 tablespoons grated parmasean cheese

3 tablespoons bread crumbs

2 teaspoons garlic

1/4 cup finely chopped green pepper

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

Additional Ingredients 

*sauce (about 15 ounces (store bought or home-made) )

* low fat mozzarella cheese for topping (I use about 4-5 ounces)

*parmasean cheese for sprinkling

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine all ingredients (up to additional ingredients) and roll out rounded tablespoon size meat balls so they are about 1 inch thick.  Spray cookie sheet with olive oil non-stick spray.  Bake meatballs for about 45 min (until not pink in center) turning once half way through.  Next transfer meatballs into a deeper baking dish (picture I used 4 single size baking dishes) and poor sauce over meatballs so they are all covered, add the mozzarella cheese evenly over the top and continue to bake for an additional 10-15 min until cheese turns golden brown.  Remove from oven and sprinkle parmasean for additional flavor.  ENJOY 

Prepare a salad, asparagus or pasta, whatever you prefer for a complimentary side.