Recipes Discovered

Greek Style Stuffed Peppers Recipe
Stuffed Dates Recipe
Greek House Dressing Recipe

Tonight’s dinner was definitely a Greek delight. Greek Style Stuffed Peppers, Stuffed Dates wrapped in Prosciutto, and a Greek House Salad with homemade dressing.

Have you ever seen a recipe that just seemed to healthy to be good? This recipe for Stuffed Peppers is one of those recipes. Lean ground beef, spinach, zucchini, and bulgur stuffed into a red pepper half and topped with tomatoes. I do like all of the ingredients though, so I tried it out. The recipe really couldn’t be any easier. Squeeze the water out of a package of frozen (but thawed out) spinach, grate a zucchini and mince an onion. Mix all the veggies together with lean ground beef (I used 93/7), bulgur, an egg and some seasonings. Cut some red peppers in half, seed them, and then stuff some of the meat mixture inside. Top the peppers with canned tomatoes and feta cheese. Simple. It takes a long time to bake though – 30 minutes covered and another 30 – 45 minutes uncovered. Theresults are so good though, it’s worth the wait. >> Read more

Apple Pecan Muffin Recipe

Oatmeal Peach Muffin Recipe

I got a request the other day for a healthy dessert. It had to be something that Seth could take with him to work though, so fresh fruit desserts were out of the question. I decided to try muffins. I found a few different recipes that used different ingredients to make them “healthy”, so I figured I would make a couple batches of mini muffins and see which ones turned out the best.

The first recipes I tried was an Apple Pecan Muffin. The recipe used half whole-wheat flour and half all-purpose flour, applesauce, low-fat buttermilk and canola oil to lighten them up. A Golden Delicious apple is diced up and added to the batter (I’ve never had a Golden Delicious apple before, but they are really good!). I did make some substitutions in the recipe. It called for whole wheat pastry flour, which I couldn’t find, so I just used regular whole wheat flour. I also don’t keep buttermilk on hand, so I just added a tablespoon of lemon juice to a cup of milk and let it sit for 5 minutes. Works just as well. Since I was making mini muffins, I only baked them about 10 minutes. The muffins turned out really good. They had a great flavor without being too sweet. I think the pecan and sugar topping really enhanced the muffins. They were a little dense (maybe the pastry flour would have made them lighter?) but they were very moist for only having a little bit of oil in them. So far, so good. >> Read more

Mango Dressing Recipe

This is a very simple dressing to make. Cut up a mango and put it in the blender with plain yogurt, vinegar and some salt and pepper. I served it over spinach and mixed lettuce greens. The taste was a bit off, but I think it was because the mango I used wasn’t ripe enough. I’ll probably try making this again when I can find a good mango.

Steel Cut Oatmeal: Version 1 Recipe

Steel Cut Oatmeal: Version 2 Recipe

Steel Cut Oatmeal: Version 3 Recipe

I have tried making oatmeal a lot of different ways but generally with the same results. It’s always okay, but nothing spectacular. I told myself that it’s oatmeal, it’s not supposed to be spectacular, it’s just good for you. Until I saw an episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown made oatmeal. He used Steel Cut Oats instead of rolled oats (like Quaker) because he said the Steel Cut Oats produce a nuttier flavor and more of a chewy texture. After intensive searching of the grocery stores in my area, I finally find Steel Cut Oats and started my quest again to make the best Oatmeal.

Alton’s recipe begins by toasting the oats in some butter. Then he adds water and simmers the oatmeal without stirring for 25 minutes. After that, he adds a combination of milk and buttermilk and simmers for another 10 minutes. When he serves the oatmeal, he tops it with more buttermilk, brown sugar and cinnamon. Honestly, I didn’t really care for the oatmeal. Since it’s not stirred at all, it doesn’t get creamy and the buttermilk gave it a tang that I didn’t like. The oats were chewy though, which was good, but it just wasn’t the oatmeal I imagined. >> Read more

Sweet Potato Pancakes Recipe

I love sweet potatoes – grilled, baked, mashed- anyway is good with me. We grilled a couple huge sweet potatoes over the weekend, so I searched for some recipes to use the leftovers we had. I found a recipe for sweet potato pancakes, which sounded like a good breakfast to me, so this morning I tried it out.

Let me start by saying that I have a problem with following recipes. It all goes back to my mom saying, “A little bit of this, a little of that. There, it looks right now”. Not to say my mom isn’t a good cook, because she definitely is, I just don’t think I have the knack for knowing when something looks right yet. For this recipe, it called for a 1 pound sweet potato. I don’t weight my sweet potatoes when I buy them and have no idea how much a pound would be, so I just used about half of a large sweet potato (I quartered the recipe). I didn’t bother with the egg white either, I just used one whole egg. I added some honey instead of the molasses and skips the oil altogether. The batter was really thick and adding more yogurt didn’t seem to thin it out, so I added a little bit of milk. I cooked them until they got brown on one side (it took awhile) and then flipped them until they were brown on the other side. The result of all of this (at a very early hour in the morning by the way), pancake mush! They may have looked like they were done, but they were just mushy. I don’t think any length of cooking could have fixed the problem either, I just screwed the recipe up that badly. I’m guessing too much sweet potato. Seth really liked the flavor though, so I guess I will have to try them again and actually follow the recipe.