Weekend Cooking- Cooking Light Recipe

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Flipping through the January/February edition of Cooking Light, I bookmarked several recipes that looked tempting to me.

The first one is a Pumpkin Soup with Almonds and Sage that looks similar to Rachael Ray's Pumpkin Soup recipe that I made for Thanksgiving; it was a big fan favorite. I may try this one to see which we prefer. The recipe is here.

Next is a Turkey and Swiss Sloppy Joe Sandwich that I may pair with the Pumpkin Soup for a Sunday lunch. The recipe is here.

My husband wants to eat more vegetables this year, so we decided that soups would be a good way to accomplish this as he is not a big vegetable fan overall. There is an Immunity Soup recipe with onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms, kale, chickpeas and chicken that looks like it will fit the bill. The recipe is here.

I tried brussel sprouts for the first time on our Florida vacation (I know, I know) and liked them, and the Broiled Flat Iron Steak with Brussel Sprouts and Sweet Potatoes is a recipe I might have avoided but now will try. The recipe is here.

Pork tenderloin is a good weeknight meal because it is a quick cooking meat, and that makes the Pork Tenderloin with Mushrooms and Onions recipe that takes 23 minutes one I will be making on a workday. The recipe is here.

My husband loves beef stroganoff, so to mix it up, I will try the Chicken Stroganoff recipe. That recipe is here. He likes Chicken Cacciatore and I like slow cookers (another good weeknight meal), so the Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore is also going to get a look. The video for that dish is here.

I did manage to make one recipe from the magazine this week- BBQ Beef-Stuffed Potatoes. It was pretty easy, but I did have an issue. You make a brown sugar/tomato paste rub for the boneless chuck roast and place baking potatoes wrapped in parchment paper on top and cook for 8 hours.

BBQ Stuffed Potatoes- from Cooking Light 

I have never cooked baking potatoes in the slow cooker and I think my potatoes may have been too large because they were not cooked enough after 8 hours. Next time I may cook the potatoes in the microwave.

The dish was tasty, full of flavor and at only 385 calories, it's a terrific lower-calorie dinner. You top the potatoes with the beef that you shred, shredded cheese, sour cream, and green onions. It's similar to the Taco Potato we used to sell at our Taco Maker restaurant. We'll have it again. The recipe is here.

Did you try any new recipes this week? Let me know in comments.

Weekend Cooking- New Holiday Recipes

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

This is the time of year when my mailbox is stuffed full of catalogs for companies that I am not entirely sure how I got on their list- Little Princess catalog, really? I don't have a young daughter as a matter of fact, I don't have any daughters. I'm not quite sure how that one happened.

What I do enjoy showing up in my mailbox are the holiday issues of food magazines. The covers are so cheery and bright, and there are always great recipes that I want to add to my holiday repertoire.

Cooking Light has a lovely little mini raspberry cheesecake on the cover that just screams Christmas. Last year we celebrated New Year's Eve with a dinner at our home in Longboat Key, Florida. We bought a huge beef tenderloin from Costco, seasoned it up and grilled it outside. (We never used to be able to do that in Central New York in December!)

This December issue has a Holiday Survival Guide section, and a recipe for the Perfect Beef Tenderloin is there, along with a Board Dressing that you place on the cutting board for your roast. You mix the herbs, oil and vinegar, then place the roast on top after it cooks, roll it and then slice. We are definitely trying this one on New Year's Eve. The link for the recipe is here.

Photo by Jennifer Causey- Cooking Light magazine

food network magazine has a special pullout Favorite Holiday Party Foods section that takes you from appetizers like Party Peppers (stuffed jalapenos) and Spinach-Artichoke Soup Shooters to drinks like Apple Cider Floats to desserts like Pear-White Pepper Tiramisu.

The main issue has 120 holiday recipes, 25 cookie recipes, and 100 gift ideas for the food lovers on your list, with price points from $8 to $100. There is also a cute section on ideas for gingerbread houses- roofs made of Crispix cereal and Necco wafers, doors made of spearmint gum, windows from Oreo cookies. You'll ace any Gingerbread House competition with these clever ideas.

The link for food network, with pages of holiday food ideas, is here.

Do you have any favorite food magazines? Let me know in comments.

Weekend Cooking- Two Weeknight Recipes

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

It's always a chore to find recipes that I can make on weeknights when I work. This week I made a quick 20 minute lamb chop dinner and a slow cooker beef stroganoff. Two different methods that resulted in two terrific meals.

One of the perks of working at the Book Cellar is that I stock the $1 non-fiction shelf and when the cookbooks get moved there, I often find an interesting new one. (And I mean, how can you go wrong for a $1? You can't even buy a candy bar for a $1 anymore.)

I picked up Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast Weeknight Meals which promises 5 ingredient, 15 minute recipes, perfect for whipping up on a weeknight after work.  The first recipe I made was Lamb Chops with Minted Yogurt Sauce. It was so easy and delicious! I don't make lamb too often, so this was a real treat. I will be making this again very soon.

They paired the chops with a Couscous Salad and since I had a box of Near East Roasted Garlic and Olive Oil Couscous in the pantry, I just cooked the couscous according to the directions on the box and added 3/4 cup chopped plum tomatoes, 1/3 cup minced fresh mint,  2 Tbsp. lemon juice and 1 Tbsp. olive oil like the recipe called for. I don't use mint too often, but it really brightened up the couscous and didn't overpower it at all.

Lamb Chops with Minted Yogurt Sauce
1/2 cup plain fat-free yogurt
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh mint
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp. salt, divided
1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper, divided
8 (4-oz) lamb loin chops, trimmed
Cooking spray

Prepare grill. Combine yogurt and next three ingredients. Stir in 1/8 tsp. salt and 1/8 tsp. pepper. Chill.
Sprinkle lamb evenly with remaining 3/8 tsp. each salt and pepper. Place lamb on grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 3 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness. Serve with yogurt sauce and couscous.

Lamb Chops with Minted Yogurt Sauce- photo from book

On another day I had to work, I pulled out the slow cooker and made a new recipe I found on Pinterest- No-Canned Soup Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff. I don't like using canned soup in recipes, so this one appealed to me. I had most of the ingredients, I just needed to get the stew beef. The recipe came from Going Reno, and it can be found here.

My slow cooker has a saute feature, so I browned the stew beef, took that out of the cooker, then added thinly sliced onion and sliced mushrooms to brown for a few minutes. After adding a few tablespoons of red wine to deglaze the pot, you toss the beef back in with the onions and mushrooms and add a cup of beef broth. I set the timer and went to work.

Six hours later, I returned and mixed together sour cream, dijon mustard, paprika, bits of cream cheese and added that to the slow cooker for another 20 minutes. And while that finished up, I boiled the egg noodles. I did add some corn starch mixed with water to the beef sauce to thicken it up, and that worked just fine.

The stroganoff was fantastic, and the addition of dijon mustard and paprika gave the sauce a nice little kick. This is a perfect fall weather dinner and we had enough left over for the next night, which I may put over polenta or mashed potatoes to change it up.

What are your favorite weeknight recipes? Share them in comments.

Weekend Cooking- Cooking Light Magazine

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Years ago, we had a subscription to Cooking Light magazine. I found so many great recipes there that I used many times (including one of my all-time favorites, a caramel cake that was so delicious!). When we moved to New York, I gave up the subscription.

I got an email with a great deal on Cooking Light, so I ordered it and the first issue arrived last week. The cover featured this beautiful looking Chicken with Mushrooms and Onions photo and I knew I had to make this one right away.

It's a perfect weeknight dish, one that you can have on the table in thirty minutes. I added a box of Trader Joe's Rice with Orzo and a salad and we had a light, tasty dinner. I pinned to my The Lighter Side Pinterest board because this is one recipe I will use again and again.

Photo: Jennifer Causey; Styling: Ginny Branch  

The link to this recipe on Cooking Light's website is here.

I also like that this recipe is part of Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative, encouraging people to move more, drink more water and eat healthier.

Some other recipes in this issue that I want to try are:

Cheesy BBQ Chicken Pizzas- link is here

Cherry Almond Ricotta Drop Scones- link is here

Mini Philly Cheeseburgers- link is here

Now that we live in a smaller space, I will try to be diligent about going through my cooking magazines and tearing out the recipes that I have tried and liked and then filing them right away.

Do you have any cooking magazines that you go to time and again? Let me know in Comments.