Garlic Chives Pesto

When you have garlic chives, don’t have time and still want a yummy dinner.
Source: Everyday Mom blog

Difficulty: 1 (out of 5)

Taste: 5 (out of 5)

Ingredients
• 10 (approximately) garlic chives (or garlic scapes), roughly chopped (10 cal)
• 1/4 cup walnuts, lightly roasted (170 cal)
• 1/2 cup olive oil (960 cal)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmigiano cheese (80 cal)
Total: 1 cup of pesto, 4 servings, 1220 calories, 305 cal / serving

Directions
1. In a food processor combine garlic chives and walnuts. Blend until smooth and combined.
2. With the processor still running slowly add the olive oil forming a paste.
3. Scoop pesto into mixing bowl, gently mix in cheese.
4. Serve with your favorite pasta, adding a little pasta water to help coat the pasta, as the pesto is a little thick. Chicken or mushrooms go great with this pesto.

Afterthoughts
• This was my November Secret Recipe Club assignment. My Secret Blog was Everyday Mom, a great site with lots of delicious and simple recipes, that I’ve been following for a while now. And since this month is very busy for me, I chose a really simple recipe, which turned out super-delicious! Thanks, Kim :-).
• The original recipe calls for garlic scapes, the garlic equivalent of green onions. I have only seen those in farmers’ markets during the summer months, and now it’s late autumn. But I recently discovered garlic chives that are sold in our local Asian grocery stores, and I suspect taste quite similar. So that’s what I used.
• I froze half of the pesto and plan to use it as a pizza topping... What will that taste like? That is still a mystery, to keep the future full of good surprises ;-)

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Chickpeas Feta Salad and Tahina

This month my Secret Recipe Club assignment was a perfect match for my first attempts at home made pitas: Katherine Martinelli’s blog has lots of great Middle Eastern recipes (among other things), so I made two great dishes instead of one :-)

This recipe is featured on RecipeNewZ

Source: Katherine Martinelli blog

GARLICKY ROASTED CHICKPEAS WITH FETA AND MINT
Taste 4 (out of 5)
Difficulty 2 (out of 5)

Ingredients
• 1 15-oz can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained (540 cal)
• 1 tbsp olive oil (120 cal)
• 3 cloves garlic, finely minced (15 cal)
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
• Salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• ¾ cup crumbled Feta (295 cal)
• ½ cup chopped fresh mint
• Lemon wedges
Total: 970 cal, 2 servings, 485 cal / serving

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 375F/190C.
2. Mix together the olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.
3. Put chickpeas into baking dish and toss with olive oil mixture until the chickpeas are well coated with oil. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Put chickpeas in the oven and roast for 15 to 20 minutes, until chickpeas are slightly browned and barely beginning to crisp.
5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Transfer to a serving dish and stir in the feta and mint. Season with additional salt and pepper as needed. Serve with lemon wedges.

Afterthoughts
• This is a very simple, filling and healthy dish, a great accompaniment to any Middle Eastern meal.
• If you don’t have fresh mint, use dried.

TAHINA DIP

Source: Katherine Martinelli blog

Taste 4 (out of 5)
Difficulty 1 (out of 5)

Ingredients
• ½ cup tahini (710 cal)
• 4 tbsp lemon juice (15 cal)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (10 cal)
• ½ cup water
• ½ cup chopped parsley
• Salt
Total: ¾ cups, 735 cal

Directions
Mix all the ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Serve at room temperature.

Afterthoughts
Katherine’s original directions have more steps, but I combined them all. Check out her post if you don’t want your tahina to be all green :-)

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Prickly Pear Dressing

Prickly pear is basically a fruit of a cactus (aka cactus figs, Indian fig or tuna). It makes a simple wonderful festive dressing and even though it’s sweet, it’s good for your blood sugar and only has 25 calories.

Source

Improvised

Taste 5 (out of 5)

Difficulty 2 (out of 5)

Ingredients

- 1 prickly pear (40 cal)

- 1/4 tsp balsamic vinegar

- 1/2 tsp agave nectar (10 cal)

Total 50 cal, 2 servings, 25 cal/ serving

Instructions

1. Peel the prickly pear and process in a blender until smooth. Put through strainer. 

2. Add the agave nectar and the balsamic vinegar to the prickly pear juice and mix well. 

3. Serve with green (or any other) salad.

Afterthoughts

- Rich red color and sweet tangy taste. Looks and taste very festive. 

- And it’s good for you, especially if you are worried about blood sugar, because both agave nectar and prickly pears have very low glycemic indexes.

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Persian Eggplant Spread - Kashk-E-Bademjan

Source

Here

Taste (out of 5)

Difficulty 3 (out of 5)

Ingredients

- 2 large eggplants (260 cal)

- 4 tbsp olive oil (480 cal)

- 1 medium onion, chopped fine (60 cal)

- 4-5 garlic cloves, chopped fine (20 cal)

- 1/2 cup sour cream (250 cal)

- dried mint

- salt and pepper

Total 1070 cal, 4 servings, 270 cal/serving

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Peel the eggplant, and cut a slit along the side. Salt it, and let it sit and drain for half an hour. Rinse salt off.

3. Slice the two eggplants thin lengthwise into 5 or 6 pieces each.

4. Baste in 2 tbsp olive oil on both sides.

5. Lay these in an oven proof dish. Cook until golden brown.

6. Chop the onion and garlic cloves, and fry in a pan with 1 tbsp olive oil.

7. Remove eggplants from oven, add to onion/garlic mix. Puree mix in a food processor until chunky but smooth. Return to pan. 8. Add sour cream, simmer for fifteen minutes. Place in serving dish. 9. In a smaller pan, fry the mint in 1 tbsp oil. Drizzle or spoon over the eggplant as garnish.

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Cranberry Sauce

Source

Somewhere on the internet, can’t find the link

Taste 5 (out of 5)

Difficulty 1 (out of 5) - the hardest part is slicing the cranberries in halves :-)

Ingredients

- 2 cups cranberries (sliced in halves)

- 1 cup light brown sugar (lightly packed)

- 1/2 tsp grated orange (or mixed citrus) zest

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 1 tsp orange extract

Instructions

1. Place in a medium casserole dish 2 cups cranberries (sliced in two), 1 cup light brown sugar (lightly packed), 1/2 teaspoon orange zest (grated rind of an orange, no white pith). Stir together well. Cover. Bake 1 hour in an oven pre-heated to 250F.

2. After baking, remove from oven, add 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. You’ll notice some of the sugar will have collected on the bottom. A good stir will fix this and nicely incorporate the final vanilla flavoring.

3. Serve with an orange loaf, chocolate mousse, ice cream or anything else you can think of.

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Simply Ming Kung Pao Sauce

Source: Simply Ming

Can be used to make Kung Pao Chicken

Taste 3 (out of 5)

Difficulty 3 (out of 5)

Ingredients

- 3 tablespoons minced garlic

- 2 tablespoon minced ginger

- 2 tablespoons sambal oelek

- 1 cup dark soy sauce

- 3 tablespoons sugar

- 1/2 cup rice vinegar

- 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 1 tablespoon water for a slurry

- grapeseed or canola oil for cooking

- salt and black pepper

Makes about 2 1/2 cups

Instructions

1. In a wok or saute pan coated lightly with oil over high heat, add garlic and ginger and saute for 1 minute, just to soften.

2. Add sambal, taking care not to inhale the chile, and saute until well-blended.

3. Add soy sauce to deglaze, then add sugar and rice vinegar.

4. Bring to a boil and slowly whisk in slurry to thicken. Check for flavor and season if necessary.

5. Keep warm to use in recipes or cool to room temperature, store in an air-tight jar and place in the fridge.

Afterthoughts

- Way too spicy for me - I would cut the sambal oelek in half, at least.

- I made half the amount (but I used 1 tbsp of cornstarch and 1 tbsp of water for the slurry), and it turned out way too thick and much less than 1 cup, when it was supposed to be 1 1/4 cups. Maybe I should have used the right measure of slurry or maybe I cooked it too long.

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