Features, Food Memories, My Favs, Recipes

200 Calorie Tuna Salad Recipe

April 20, 2012 3 Comments

Growing up with divorced parents, my brother, sister, and I split our time between week nights at dad’s and weekends at mom’s. Everyone once in a while, we’d have to flip flop our schedule, and it seemed when those rare occasions popped up both mom and dad had an unspoken urge to make them special. On those weekends, dad would make breakfast: dippy eggs, buttery toast, and his breakfast potatoes. I do believe my love affair with potatoes started with these very ones around the age of eight. Sure I’d take an egg and a small piece of toast, but the remainder of that 10-inch plate was devoted solely to those piping hot slightly crunchy potatoes and the biggest squirt of Heinz 57 my kid muscles could muster. Recently, I texted my dad to finally, after all these years, ask what he put in his breakfast potatoes. (By the way, it still makes me giggle to think of him texting.)

His response?

“I dono.”

After our bodies worked through the haze of early morning overeating, dad would move on to lunch. Lunches were varied, but one of my favorites were the tuna melts he’d make on cold days, rainy days, or days that otherwise demanded a comforting hot melty sandwich. After the recent potato-text heartbreak, I didn’t bother asking dad what he put in those tuna melts. Rather, I choose to focus solely on the memory: jumbo kaiser rolls loaded with mayonnaise-laden tuna, hunks of fresh cheddar cheese, and chopped up dill pickles. He’d wrap those giant sandwiches in foil and toss them right into the oven—no cookie sheet needed (which I remember wordlessly opposing). After a half hour or so, he’d reach into the oven with a giant pot holder. We’d line up, plates held tightly in our little hands, and dad would plop a massive foil pack on each one.

Food Memories, My Favs, Recipes

Pants-friendly Paella {recipe}

March 29, 2012 10 Comments

I vividly remember my mom sitting cross-legged in the pantry, furiously flipping through cookbooks and earmarked magazines, her disheveled auburn curls in disarray around her face as she searched for that one recipe she’d seen months ago and mentally filed away. As far back as I remember, my mom was adventurous in the kitchen. I helped her bake bread in recycled tin cans, wrinkled my nose as she savored caviar loaded crackers, and hesitantly obliged to mandarin oranges in our dinner salad (which was UNHEARD of at the time). I remember raising my eyebrow and dramatically cocking my head to the side as she scraped this mysterious spaghetti squash onto her plate. I gagged at the anchovies on her pizza, and I cried, yes cried, when she urged me to try her sushi.

Mom was always cooking something big, and when she made her Spanish paella she’d use this absurdly large dish–big enough to feed a family of four twice and a half over. It took her hours to prep and cook the meal–well, at least it seemed that way to her teenage “mom, I swear to god I’m dying of starvation” daughter.

I hated peas and hated shrimp, but man did I love her paella. How could I not with those huge hunks of sausage and pieces of chicken poking through the steaming bed of orange rice?

This is not my mom’s paella recipe because, according to her, she “doesn’t have one.” Uh huh. Surrrrrre mom. This is my lightened-up version of paella, which uses chicken sausage rather than Spanish chorizo, simply because I wasn’t able to find any at the grocery store. Traditional? No. Pants friendly? Absolutely.

Pants-friendly Paella Recipe

Recipe inspired by my mom and Tyler Florence’s Ultimate Paella

Serves 8

1.5lb chicken breast (cut into 1/2 inch chunks)
3 Links hot chicken or turkey sausage (casings removed) (for more authentic flavor, use Spanish chorizo)
2 cups yellow onion (diced)
1 cup red bell pepper (diced)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley (chopped, plus extra for garnish)
14oz can whole tomatoes (drained)
2 cups short-grain brown minute rice
2.5 cups fat-free low sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup dry white cooking wine
1 large pinch Spanish saffron
4oz shrimp (peeled, deveined)
1 cup sweet peas (defrosted)
S&P (to taste)

Chicken rub

1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Note: This pants-friendly paella uses chicken sausage. For a more authentic flavor, sub in a link or two of Spanish chorizo. Spanish saffron can be quite expensive. I’ve seen bottles for as little as $6 at Trader Joe’s, TJ Maxx, and Marshalls.

Step 1: Combine chicken rub ingredients in a medium size bowl or large zip top bag. Add chicken breast, and toss or shake to coat evenly. Cover and marinate in the fridge for one hour.

Step 2: Heat a large pot coated with cooking spray over medium high heat. Once hot, add the sausage. Break apart sausage with your spatula, and cook until no longer pink. Remove sausage from pot and set aside. Add additional cooking spray to pot, if needed, then add chicken pieces. Sear chicken on all sides then remove from pot and set aside.

Step 3: Add onions, red pepper, garlic, and parsley to the pot, season with S&P, to taste, reduce heat to medium. Cook for 3 minutes, using your spatula to scrape up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the tomatoes and crush with your spatula. Season with S&P. Add uncooked rice to the pot and stir to combine. Once the liquid is absorbed, add chicken broth and cooking wine. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Step 4: Add the sausage, chicken, and saffron to the pot and stir to combine. Add the shrimp, pushing them down into the rice. Simmer for 15 minutes then add the peas. Garnish with remaining parsley.

Per serving: 274 calories, 27g carbs, 4g fat, 31g protein, 3g fiber

Food Memories, My Favs, Recipes

Sausage Stuffed Peppers

January 19, 2012 3 Comments

During my kid years, stuffed peppers were in the regular dinner rotation at my dad’s house. I hated them. My step mom would fill crisp green peppers with a beef mixture in the morning, pop them into the slow cooker with some tomato sauce, and when we got home in the evening we’d find the crunchy green peppers had been transformed into a slimy mushy mess. Back then, I had deep-rooted hatred for lots of cooked veggies—carrots, celery, and tomatoes to name a few—but cooked green peppers took the medal for most loathed cooked vegetable. To my young taste buds, cooked green peppers had this toxic unnatural taste to them—like they’d been marinating in a puddle of Windex for a few hours. It just wasn’t right. Luckily, peppers were pricy so my step mom was more than happy to make me a meatball sans pepper for dinner while the rest of the family subjected themselves to green pepper poisoning. I love a good meatball.

To this day, I’m still not a huge fan of stuffed green peppers. As I aged and grew wiser, I discovered that other types of peppers could be stuffed just as easily and infinitely more deliciously than green peppers ever could.

Case in point:

Some of my favorite peppers to stuff are banana peppers, cubanelles, and Anaheims. I usually buy whichever variety is the biggest (i.e., most stuffable) at the grocery store that day.

Food Memories, Giveaway, Ramblings

Pizza randomness

August 3, 2011 37 Comments

Soon after first meeting the BF, we bonded over our mutual love of cheesy niblets. After perfecting our buffalo chicken dip recipe, we moved on to make THIS our favorite Friday night feast:

DSCF2338

As a kid, pizza was one of my favorite dinners. When mom or dad would come home exhausted from their days, too tired to cook, with just enough energy to utter the words “let’s just order pizza for dinner” my heart would pitter patter with excitement as an uncontrollable cheshire-cat style smile spread across my face.

Pizza was cause for celebration in my family, and back in the day I was a straight up pepperoni and cheese gal.

Red heart Pepperoni and Cheese

I remember the day I got my braces. I was 13 years ripe, and I think my dad felt bad that I was in so much pain… Or perhaps he felt bad because he had just assisted in adding more metal to his poor teenage daughters head (as if my GIANT glasses were not enough).

So, in an attempt to cheer up his little girl, he decided we’d order pizza from our favorite hole in the wall pizzeria for dinner. I remember opening that steaming box and seeing the thick pepperonis all curled up into little cups of grease heaven, and that amazing pizza smell that made the pain suddenly start to melt away. I was so excited, so high from the pizza induced endorphins, that I grabbed a slice and chomped down without hesitation.

I remember the horror that immediately washed over me as I ripped my hand back from my mouth like a kid who’d just high-fived a hot stove as I burst into tears. My newly bedazzled mouth was too sore to eat the pizza. Too sore to enjoy the crunch of that buttery crust or the spice of the pepperoni. Too sore to even nibble on the oozing cheese. Through my tears, my dad and I painstakingly cut the pizza into pebble sized swallowable bites and I proceeded to toss them into my mouth followed by long swigs of Coke like a real pizza pill poppin addict.

Why was adolescence so cruel?!

Yes… that just happened.

But let us focus on what’s important here.

Pizza.

It brings people together.

It puts a sparkle of happiness in your eyes and warm and fuzzies in your belly.

Heck, it even puts hair on your face.

Hahahaha… That’s my nephew Dylan. LOVE that pic. He’s almost 13 now… and sadly, no longer a pirate.

I can count on one hand — strike that — one FINGER the number of people I’ve met in my life who did not adore pizza. (crazy man, that Tim is)

Pizza is the jam. The cat’s meow. The shiznit, if you will.

A couple years back, my sister and I were brainstorming ideas for a Father’s Day present for our dad. We decided we would take dad out to lunch to the restaurant of his choice. Mexican or seafood or a big Italian feast. Whatever his heart desired.

When we presented him with his present, he got a big smile of his face and then told us where he’d like to go.

Cici’s Pizza Buffet.

Yes.

Sometimes all a father really wants is to pig out with his children at the pizza buffet Smile

I haven’t been to CiCis Pizza Buffet since then, which is very sad given how enamored I was with their macaroni and cheese pizza… So wrong, but SO right!

When I was contacted a couple weeks back about doing a giveaway for Cici’s, I HAD to jump on it (in secret hopes that my one of my siblings will win a free pizza buffet for my pa, of course).

Here’s the scoop: CiCi’s Pizza Family Funtacular summer scratch and win contest runs through August 28. The scratch off tickets give you the opportunity to win movie tickets, family fun packs, children’s movie tickets, CiCi’s gift cards, free buffets, carry-out pizzas and beverages.

Oh man… my dad would LOVE LOOOOVE to win this….

Grand prize for two lucky families: an all-expense paid trip for four to Universal Orlando Resort Vacation…. Ok… Shut the front door!!! Now I really REALLY hope one of my siblings win!

I have SIX scratch off tickets to give away, and I’ll send them ALL to the winner. TWO ways to enter: 1.) leave a comment (or link) on this post with your favorite pizza topping or recipe AND 2.) Follow me on Twitter @Fervent_Foodie!

I’ll use a random # generator to select a winner Sunday at midnight!

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