Roasted Artichoke Hearts

I tried a little experiment today and it worked out great! Take a box of frozen artichoke heart and let them defrost. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. On a baking sheet pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Press one large clove of garlic through a garlic press and onto the baking sheet. Add 1/2 of a teaspoon of kosher salt and several turns of pepper from a pepper mill. Mix everything together on the baking sheet and the add the artichoke hearts and toss them around so that they become coated with the olive oil mixture. Turn the artichoke hearts so that the cut edge faces down. Put in oven. Check them after 10 minutes, if they are nicely brown on the bottom surface then turn them over and put back in the oven another 5 minutes. If they are not brown enough when you check them, continue to cook until they are. You really can't overcook them so let them get a toasty as you'd like them.
These would be a tasty tapas item served with roasted garlic mayo.
You could also toss the artichokes and olive oil mixture with some grated Parmesan cheese before baking. This will make them a little crunchy.
I used them in the pasta dish shown below-
Whole Wheat Rotelli with Ricotta, Pesto, Roasted Artichoke Hearts and Parmesan.
Cook a package of whole wheat rotelli according to package, making sure not to overcook. Drain and remove from heat. Add in one small container of ricotta cheese (can be part skim if you are trying to stay lower calorie) and one container of fresh pesto (you can make your own, but I cheated). Add one package of artichoke heart, roasted and fold all ingredients together. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve topped with a chiffonade of fresh basil and grated parmesan cheese.

White Bean Salad with Basil and Vegetables

Drain and rinse one 15oz can of Great Northern beans. Pour in a bowl. Dice one large plum tomato and add to bowl.

Dice finely one small zucchini and one medium carrot. Place these in a pan over meduim high heat with a couple of teaspoons of olive oil and saute for a few minutes until just beginning to get soft. Remove from heat and pour in bowl with beans.

Here's a fancy word for you- chiffonade two tablespoons of basil and add to bean mixture. What's chiffonade you ask? It's actually an easy way to chop basil so that it looks pretty, like small strands of ribbon. Here's how you do it:

Pick large whole leaves from a bunch of fresh basil. About eight will probably be plenty. Make sure they are well washed because basil can be very sandy. Making sure they are dry before you start, stack the leaves one on top of the other.
Then, roll the stack up like a, um, cigarette. Now slice thinly down the length of your basil cigarette.

Voila!

So, add the chiffonade of basil to your beans. Pour in two tablespoons of olive oil and two teaspoons of red wine vinegar. Mix together the salad and salt and pepper to taste.

This salad can be served cold or warm.

Roasted Cod with Zucchini and Plum Tomato "Scales"

This is one of those dishes that look complicated and impress guests, but really it's quite simple.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Using a firm white fish (I used Cod) cut evenly sized fillets (between 6 and 8 oz. is standard). Place the fillets on a baking sheet that has a light coat of olive oil on it. Salt and pepper the fillets and drizzle a small amount of olive oil over the surface.
Next, slice a small zucchini and a couple small plum tomatoes into thin discs as shown below.

Then arrange the discs, overlapping each piece, in neat rows.

Lay down a row of zucchini, and then a row of tomato and repeat until the whole fillet is covered.

Now sprinkle a small amount of fresh thyme over each decorated fillet and drizzle a little more olive oil over the fillets. Salt and pepper the vegetables on top of the fillets.
The fish will look something like this. Now put in the oven and bake for around 15 minutes. Pull out and place under a broiler for a few more minutes until the vegetables get a little browned. Be sure to watch very carefully at this point.

Here they are all packed and ready to go out to my delivery client. It's been served with a white bean salad and few drops of pesto. You could use store bought pesto, or make some basil oil by just food processing some basil and olive oil together.

Food Delivery Week 6

Low Fat, Low Calorie, Vegetarian (fish allowed)

Organic Whole Wheat Rotelli with Part Skim Ricotta, Pesto and Roasted Artichoke Hearts
Served with a Garden Salad and Organic Red Wine Vinegar Dressing

Roasted Cod with Organic Zucchini and Organic Plum Tomato "Scales"
Organic White Bean Salad with Fresh Basil and Organic Tomato, Carrot, and Zucchini

Organic Egg White and Whole Egg Omelet with Reduced Fat Boursin Cheese, Organic Diced Tomato and Kalamata Olives

Creamy Organic Spinach Dip with Organic Crudite

Low Fat Chocolate Chip Muffins

Western Omelette with Sunflower Sprouts

Vegetable Stew with Quinoa and Corn

In a large saute pan with two tablespoons of olive oil saute over high heat one sliced onion, two sliced bell peppers (any color) until the onions and peppers are nice and soft. It is fine if they brown a little. Add to the pan 2 sliced medium zuchinni, two crushed cloves of garlic and 2 teaspoons of chopped fresh oregano and continue to cook over medium heat until the zuchinni are cooked through. Add in one large can of whole tomatoes, roughly chopped up and let simmer for 5 minutes. Be sure to put in salt and pepper while cooking and to adjust the seasoning before taking the stew off the heat.

For the quinoa simply boil the grain in ample water for aboout 10 minutes with salt, then dump in 1 cup of frozen corn and continue to boil for about 5 more minutes and then drain

Soba Noodles with Tofu and Roasted Broccoli

To roast broccoli just follow the same intstructions as for roasted asparagus. Be sure to turn it over once during the roasting because it's the part resting on the pan that gets the nice brown color.

For soba noodles, follow the directions on the package but watch very closely on the timing because they will turn to mush if they are just a minute over. Drain and rinse in cold water. Pour on noodles: a couple of teaspoons of toasted sesame oil, a couple of teaspoons of soy sauce, and if you like, a few dashes of fish sauce. Chop one bunch of scallions and cube one package of firm tofu and gently toss together with the noodles. Check the seasoning and adjust to taste (i.e. add more soy or fish sauce if it's not salty enough).