Sauteed Chicken with Zucchini & Summer Squash

Summer's a great time to play with produce, whether you grow it in your own backyard, hit up the local market, or head to the farmer's market to pick up something that somebody else grew in their backyard.

Here's an easy dish with lots of flavor that combines the tastes of fresh zucchini, summer squash, and tomatoes. You can grill the chicken instead of cooking it in a skillet if you like.

Savory Beef and Root Vegetable Stew

The chilly weather is moving in here in the Northeast, and that means it's the season for soups and stews. Beef stew is a winter staple in our house, but I decided I wanted to play around a little bit to see if I could come up with something with some different flavors.

This stew is pretty versatile, as you can adjust the herbs and spices to your liking, as well as play with which root vegetables you include.

Read on to see what I did.

Spicy Sicilian Style Sauce (Meat Free for Lenten Fridays)

Since I'm finally getting back the energy and drive to cook again, it felt good to be in the kitchen, putzing with one of my favorite recipes. This was something I experimented with a couple summers ago when we had a boom year for tomatoes, and it was so tasty, this spicy Sicilian style sauce has become something of a standard in our house.

I'm not 100% sure if it's accurate to call this "Sicilian style", but based on what I saw and ate when I was actually in Sicily a few years ago, I think it's close enough.

Stuffed French Toast

My holiday hiatus lasted way longer than I intended, and for good reasons. But now I'm back, and I have a delicious recipe to share with you today.

So what can you make with all of this?

Stuffed French Toast!

I've been sitting on this recipe for a while, partly because I forgot about it. But since I have a snow day and just made myself some "regular" French toast, it seemed a nice treat to post about.

There are many versions of this treat out there. I've even indulged in the version served at Cinderella's Royal Table in Disney World, which honestly was the best stuffed French toast I've ever had, despite not actually involving toast as far as I could tell. This particular version comes from What to Expect: Eating Well When You're Expecting.

(And since some of you out there may now be asking the obvious question, the answer is yes.)

Sweet & Spicy Shrimp

Some of my best stir fry happens when I'm just playing around in the kitchen. A while back, I came up with this shrimp dish that rated "highly edible" on my husband's food-tastiness scale.

It's very easy and, like most stir fries, quick to cook and serve.  Here's how.

Mexican Grilled Chicken with Spicy Black Beans & Rice

This past week, the thermometer decided to test the "above 90 degrees" thing, which meant by Saturday I was in no mood to heat up the kitchen in order to provide dinner.

Thankfully, we got our grill working.

This recipe was so easy, I'm a little surprised I hadn't figured it out before this.

Korean-Style Beef Bowl from Pampered Chef

I'm a big fan of stir fry style foods, mostly because they tend to be healthy, quick, and relatively easy to put together.  Cook up some meat, add some veggies, throw on a tasty sauce, put it all over some steamed rice, and often in less than 45 minutes (less if you plan ahead and cut everything up the day before). I usually end up doing some type of stir fry dinner once a week on average, and it usually tends to be chicken. But sometimes I mix it up.

Last year, I acquired a copy of the Pampered Chef 29 Minutes to Dinner recipe book, and have since bought the second and third volumes, and there's a pretty excellent recipe for a Korean-style beef bowl.  I gave it a whirl a while back.

I deviated a little bit from the recipe to accommodate the available ingredients, but that's one of the nice things about a stir fry dish - you can adjust to your likes and whatever happens to be in the fridge at the time.

Fresh Lemon & Rosemary Tilapia (Meat-Free for Lenten Fridays)

This recipe started off as an experiment in making lemon pepper tilapia after discovering that *gasp* I had no lemon pepper seasoning mix in the house.  So I started playing around and came up with something even better!

Aside from being meat-free and super simple, there's no salt at all in this recipe, so it's even healthier for you.

Honey & Yogurt Blueberry Muffins

As we hunkered down last night during the worst of Winter Storm Nemo (the storm dropped about 6 inches on us, which honestly isn't that big of a deal considering that we got almost three times that during Monday's lake effect storm), I decided I should start our Saturday with muffins.

I read somewhere that muffins are just an excuse to have cupcakes for breakfast.  But these are pretty healthy.

The original recipe from The Cookie and Biscuit Bible didn't call for the blueberries, but I have a couple quarts still frozen from this summer and decided they'd be a welcome addition.  I also upped the amount of nutmeg in the recipe and used all lemon juice instead of juice and zest.

Avocado Quesadillas

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with avocados.  I think they're interesting, and I know they're very good for you.  But I have a hard time just eating avocado.  They really don't have a particularly strong flavor, at least not the ones I've encountered.  Some people profess to just sprinkling a bit of salt and/or lemon juice over half an avocado and eating straight from the skin with a spoon.

I need to doctor up my avocados.

These avocado quesadillas are easy and quick, and you can adjust the heat level to make it as mild or as spicy as you like.

Tex-Mex Venison Chili

Winter has returned to the Northeast, and it's great weather for hot and spicy foods like chili.

Our neighbor across the street was kind enough to give us some venison (neatly sealed in airtight packages), but having had no experience up to this point with cooking this particular meat, I was at a bit of a loss for what to do with it.  I figured my best bet would be to start with something simple using the ground venison.

I decided on chili.  And since I had a package of McCormick's Tex-Mex chili seasoning (which appears to be a relatively new product), I thought I'd give it a go.

Unfortunately, I have no in-process pictures, because I'd been home sick from work for a day and a half and really didn't feel like doing much fussing with the camera.  My only goal was to feed my husband.

I made this batch the "old fashioned" way on the stove, but it would easily translate to a slow cooker.  It's also really low in calories - a 1 cup serving has about 140 calories.  Plus, venison is a really lean meat.

TurboFire Chicken Cacciatore

People seem to love slow cooker meals.  I do too.  Relatively little prep work, easy clean up - especially if your slow cooker has a removable insert that you can put in the dishwasher - and your house smells great all day.

Here's a great, healthy chicken cacciatore recipe from the TurboFire cookbook that went over well with my family.  I did some adjustments to meet my taste preferences from the original recipe. Here's what I did.

Slow Cooker Chicken and Black Bean Chili

Normally, people think of slow cookers as an easy way to create warm, delicious meals in the middle of winter.  There's nothing quite like the smell of hearty beef stew or chicken soup filling your house on a cold winter day, and knowing you'll get to dig in after those luscious flavors have simmered for up to ten hours.

So why am I blogging about a slow cooker recipe in June?

Well, just as slow cookers are life-and-dinner-savers in the wintertime, they are great for summer as well.  Think about it for a minute - sometimes you just don't want to grill (hold off on the horrified gasps for a minute, friends), but you want a hearty meal.  Now where I live, we don't usually get super hot summer days until, oh, end of July (this past week's heat wave notwithstanding).  So even though my dear husband likes to fire up the grill, I usually have no qualms about stirring something up on the stove or baking in the oven.

But slow cookers are great for summer.  Minimal fuss, you're not heating up a single element on your stove top, and they don't add much heat to your kitchen.  Do I recommend them for a 95+ degree day?  Not unless you have central air.  (Which I now have, and I'm looking forward to a summer of baking and canning in cool, air-conditioned comfort.)  On the hottest of hot days, a spinach and tomato salad alongside a couple hot dogs is as fancy as we'll get around here.

But I'm digressing terribly.

Chili is definitely a winter food.  But thanks to your slow cooker, you can enjoy it in the summer with minimal fuss and discomfort.  This particular chili recipe has the added bonus of being low calorie and low fat, thanks to the use of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

And your hands-on time is maybe ten minutes, tops, depending on your dexterity with two forks.

This recipe doesn't have to be made in a slow cooker.  You can make it on the stove as well.  Use a large (three to four quart) pot, and simmer for about a half hour before shredding the chicken.

Chinese Chicken Salad with Honey-Sesame Dressing

Up until about six months ago, I'd never heard of napa cabbage.  Sometimes it's called Chinese cabbage or celery cabbage.

When I read the recipe for this Chinese chicken salad in my Turbo Fire recipe book, I was leery.  I don't care for cabbage in the least.  But I figured it was worth a shot.  If nothing else, I could pick out the chicken and other ingredients, and leave the cabbage for my husband to eat.

But napa cabbage isn't terribly cabbage-y.  It tastes a lot like celery, which is probably why it's sometimes called celery cabbage.

Isn't that a pretty salad?  

I thought so too, and it's so easy to make. Here's how I made mine.

Apple Cinnamon Yogurt Pancakes

It boggles my mind to know there are people out there who don't like pancakes. It's true!  I recently made pancakes - the Bisquik in a bottle kind - with my second graders as part of a lesson about changes in matter (we called it "matter batter").  One of my students actually didn't like them!

I generally don't use pancake mixes if I can help it.  Homemade pancake batter is very easy and, in my humble opinion, is way better than any mixes you can buy.

If you're a fan of pancakes, here is a homemade batter recipe that no only tastes good but is low in fat and really good for you.  It came out of the Turbo Fire recipe book, and is great for a weekend breakfast or a mid-week dinner.  (I eat breakfast for dinner all the time.  Don't you?)  They have a light, sweet flavor because of the honey in the pancake batter.

The original instructions say to make the batter in a blender, but I just mix it in a bowl with a wire whisk.  Because that's just how I roll.

If you don't want to use chunks of apples, you could also thinly slice them.  Interested in winning an OXO Good Grips Hand-Held Mandoline Slicer to do the job?  Check out this post for directions to enter the giveaway - the deadline to enter is Monday, May 21st at midnight EST.

Beautiful Baked Ratatouille **OXO GIVEAWAY (U.S. Readers only!)*

A few months ago, I was combing the internet for ratatouille recipes, and came across Smitten Kitchen's version of the baked ratatouille featured in Disney's Ratatouille.  You know the one: the spirals of colorful eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red peppers that cause the cynical food critic to recall the carefree days of his childhood, when a dish of warm ratatouille, made by his mother, had the power to sooth all ills.

Thanks to the acquisition of an OXO Good Grips Hand-Held Mandoline Slicer (for free from OXO, I might add) and the opportunity to test said mandoline slicer as part of OXO's Healthy Eating product promotion, I had the perfect tool to make the thin slices required for this baked ratatouille dish.

I was pretty excited to get my OXO hand-held mandoline slicer in the mail.  I love my chef's knives and am very proud over my steadily improving skill with chopping and slicing.  But I'm not very good at uniformity, and had been sort of wanting a mandoline slicer for a while now.  I hope my readers are excited about this product, too, because OXO actually sent me TWO slicers - one for me to test and keep, and one to giveaway to a reader in the United States (more on the giveaway in a moment).

There are a lot of great things about the OXO hand-held slicer.  It has an ergonomic handle to reduce strain and fatigue in your wrist.  There's a non-slip edge on the top of the slicer, so it won't go sliding around your cutting surface - plus there's a little "notch" in this edge so you can set it over a bowl and slice directly into salads, sauces, or what ever else you might be making.  It has a food holder to protect your fingers.  There are three settings for the cutting edge, and you can lock the slicer so the sharp blade isn't hanging out for all and sundry to accidentally cut themselves on.

Perhaps my favorite part is the fact that it's dishwasher safe.  After my foray into ratatouille, and later sweet potato fries, there was a little bit of staining on the white plastic, but it came off pretty easily with just a touch of "elbow grease."

While the pros of this product are vast (easier to store than a traditional mandoline slicer, the non-slip features, the bent handle to reduce wrist fatigue), it's not a perfect product.  Though, to be perfectly honest, I only had one major complaint.  The food holder has plastic pegs that don't really stick very well in the food you're trying to slice, so unless you're using somewhat small pieces of vegetables or fruit, you're going to have trouble keeping the holder on the food.  It would have been a better design to have stainless steel pegs that would actually puncture the flesh of the vegetables I was trying to slice.  I had to hold the vegetables in my hand until they were small enough to use the food holder.

Check out this little YouTube video of mine (I apologize for the somewhat bad sound and video, my microphone and camera aren't the best quality) for a demonstration.

I'll get to the recipe for my ratatouille after the jump break, but first, let me tell you about the giveaway!

One lucky reader in the United States (sorry, international fans!) will become the owner of the second OXO Good Grips Hand-Held Mandoline Slicer in my possession!  All you have to do is leave a comment on this post, telling me what you like about the mandoline slicer and what you would use it for if you won.

The winner will be chosen via a random integer generator.  The giveaway will end at midnight, Eastern standard time, on Monday, May 21st.  Only residents of the continental United States are eligible for this particular giveaway.

Now, keep reading for the scoop on that ratatouille!

Whole Wheat Penne Primavera (Meat-Free for Lenten Fridays)

I tried out another recipe from my Turbo Fire recipe book a while back, and sort of forgot about it.  But since we're about halfway through Lent, and it happens to be a meatless dish, I thought I'd share it in case anyone needs a tasty meat-free meal idea for this coming Friday.

Now, the way I prepared this meal is a bit differently from the original recipe, mostly because of what I had on hand in my refrigerator.  So I'll give you the run down of what I did when I made it.

High Fiber Breakfast Muffins

I'm sort of on a bit of a healthy food kick, or at least I'm trying to be (don't let all the dessert posts fool you).  The other day I decided to try making the high fiber breakfast muffins from the recipe book that comes with the Chalene Extreme workout program, to use up some ingredients I had around the house and to switch it up from the fiber bars I've been munching on for a week or so now.

Easy Healthy Eggplant Parmigiana

Did you know eggplants are technically berries?

I found an adorable little eggplant at the local farm market last week when I was out getting fruits and veggies, and it just cried out, "Turn me into eggplant parmigiana!" in its little purple eggplant voice.

Okay, maybe I was just wiped out from a busy day with 24 second graders....

But I did make this into a small batch of eggplant parmigiana.  Normally this is a recipe I serve up as a side dish, but with some rolls and a side salad, this was a perfect meal for my husband and me.

Now, if you've done any research into the making of eggplant parmigiana, you'll find that the instructions call for breading the eggplant, frying it in hot oil, then baking it.  Well, that's all fine and good and very traditional, but it's also a lot more time consuming than I think is necessary, especially for a weeknight meal. And all that frying can't be good for you.

And honestly, my mother has never fried her eggplant parmigiana.  So I don't either.  My way is a lot easier, a lot quicker, and, I think, a lot healthier overall.