Category Archives: Lighten Up

Appetizers and Small Plates, Easy to Prepare, Lighten Up, Recipes, Vegan Dishes, Vegetarian Dishes

Tomato Bruschetta

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I’m hoping that by posting this recipe, I’ll be making my sister Lexi really, really, really inspired to start making this for herself.  It’s her favorite – probably in the top five things that I make that she loves the most.  And accomplished chef and baker she may be, she always cons me into making it for her.  Maybe it’s like how I feel about a good grilled cheese – I can make it for myself, but it tastes so much better when someone else makes one for me.  Come to think of it, Lexi makes my favorite grilled cheese of all time – Tilamook cheddar, feta cheese and a tomato on slices from a pullman loaf.  Maybe we were meant to be sisters.

Tomato Bruschetta © Spice or Die

There are very few ingredients in this bruschetta, so you have to use the best ingredients possible.  Fresh ripe tomatoes, leafy basil and fruity olive oil make all the difference.  This topper is killer on toasted ciabatta, baguette rounds brushed with olive oil and baked, or even focaccia.  If carbs aren’t your thing, try it atop chicken paillard (or a simply grilled chicken cutlet) and a handful of arugula.  It’s a bistro meal without a ton of calories.  You can also toss this bruschetta with boiled, cooled potatoes and blanched string beans for my absolute favorite salad of all time (similar to my Potatoes Vinaigrette).

Tomato Bruschetta © Spice or Die

This bruschetta doubles and triples easily – make enough for friends, but not enough for leftovers.  It’s best eaten the same day before the tomatoes become soggy and too acidic.  It’s a carpe diem kind of recipe, so tuck in post haste.

Tomato Bruschetta

2 c. of chopped tomatoes
1 shallot, finely diced
3/4 tsp. of salt
1/4 tsp. of black pepper
5 tbs. of olive oil
2 tbs. of red wine vinegar
7 leaves of fresh basil, stacked, rolled and thinly sliced
toasted bread or crostini

Add tomatoes, salt, pepper, shallot and basil to a bowl.  Toss with olive oil and vinegar.  Taste for seasoning.  Top crusty slices of bread with a few tablespoons of bruschetta and serve with sprigs of basil for garnish.  Or put out the bread and bruschetta and let people assemble for themselves.  For non-vegans, you can serve bruschetta topped with slices of buffala mozzarella as an added treat.

Appetizers and Small Plates, Easy to Prepare, Lighten Up, Recipes, Sauces and Condiments, Vegan Dishes, Vegetarian Dishes

Olive Tapenade

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Like a Dirty Martini. Extra Dirty. Without the Martini…

Back when I fancied myself a writer and a thinker (ha!), I wanted to write a book on similarities and trends in people’s palettes.  I found that the folks that hated olives also hated coconut, avocados and other lovely things that I couldn’t imagine not eating.  It was like a package deal or something.  While my theories have yet to be tested on a larger scale, I definitely do believe that your palette can be trained to taste and eventually love foods that you may not like right now.

Olive Tapendae © Spice or Die

For me, one of the foods that I’ve come around to over the years are green olives.  I’ve always adored black olives – I was the little kid who put the canned ones on my fingers like a fool, only to eat them off – but absolutely abhorred green olives.  In a moment of revelatory tastetastiness (sure, that’s a word), I had olive tapenade at a local tapas restaurant as an amuse bouche.  The chef served it with plantain chips – a fun spin on chips and salsa.  Needless to say, I was hooked from that moment on. Continue reading Olive Tapenade →

Lighten Up, Recipes, Salads, Vegan Dishes, Vegetarian Dishes

Sesame Mandarin Salad

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Open Sesame!

This salad is inspired by the delicious concoction that my buddy Maureen used to whip up for all of us working at my old job back in the day.  Perfectly tangy, crunchy, and sweet – it was probably the most requested item at our potlucks and parties.  Remind me to beg her for her recipe sometime.

Right around the time I left for NYC, my aunt gave me a copy of the Junior League of Yakima Cookbook, and lo and behold, they had a version of Maureen’s salad.  Their version had a few unusual additions, to include parsley, candied almonds and tabasco.  They also used a lettuce blend as opposed to the traditional iceberg.

Fast forward a bit, and out of sheer necessity and chronic cravings for interesting salad options, I came up with the following “hacked” version of the two recipes.  I ditched the candied almonds, added some splenda, and used a mix of extra crisp lettuces – frisee became the ace in the hole, adding both crunch and texture.  Topping off the whole shebang is a lovely toss of black and white sesame seeds.  The bright mix manages to make me grin just at the sight of it.  A nourishing enough meal on its own, this salad is also a great accompaniment to slices of Crispy Ginger Chicken.

Sesame Mandarin Salad

6 c. of mixed greens (iceberg, romaine, frisee, green leaf, red leaf)
4 scallions, thinly sliced
1/2 c. of celery, diced
1 15oz. can of mandarin orange segments, drained
1/3 c. of sliced almonds

1/4 c. of vegetable oil
4 tbs. of rice wine vinegar
2 packets of splenda (or 4 tsp. of sugar)
1/2 tsp. of salt
1/8 tsp. of white pepper
1 tsp of white sesame seeds
1 tsp of black sesame seeds

In a large salad bowl, toss the greens, scallions, celery, almonds and oranges.  Set aside.  Mix together in a small bowl the olive oil, rice wine vinegar, splenda, salt and white pepper.  Pour the dressing on the sides of the salad bowl (a Thomas Keller trick to perfectly saturate each green with an even amount of dressing) and toss.  Top the salad with the sesame seeds.  Serve to deserving lovelies.

Lighten Up, Main Courses, Poultry Dishes, Recipes

Crispy Ginger Chicken

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Kicking Boring Chicken to the Curb

When you are looking for something crispy and delicious, but aren’t keen on a ton of calories or frying action over hot oil, these baked chicken breasts are perfect.  I usually serve them atop some Sesame Mandarin Salad for added crunch, but you can also top them with a bit of Sweet Thai Chili Sauce for a little kick.  The technique of dredging chicken in seasoned flour, spraying with cooking spray and then baking is a nice trick anytime you want chicken cutlets without the frying.  I use this technique for a spin-off of Chicken Cordon Bleu – I’ll try to post that recipe soon as it looks gorgeous without any work at all.  For that matter, with crispy slices of this chicken over a bright green and gold salad, you’ll have the same sexy results with the same amount of work (read: none).  Let’s dredge!

Crispy Ginger Chicken

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed of fat
1 egg
1 tbs. of soy
2 tsp. of salt
1/3 c. of flour
1 tsp. of garlic powder
1 tsp of ground ginger
1/2 tsp. of white pepper
cooking spray (the olive oil version is nice)

Preheat the oven to 350°.  Set out two shallow bowls and a cookie sheet lined with foil and lightly coated with cooking spray.  In the first bowl, beat the egg and soy together.  In the second bowl, blend the flour, garlic powder, ginger, and white pepper.  Dredge the chicken breast in the flour mixture, then the egg mixture and finally the flour again.  Place on the baking sheet, and then repeat with the second chicken breast.  Gently spray the tops of the chicken breasts so as not to blow all the flour off the chicken.  Bake until the chicken is cooked all the way through and when sliced, the juices run clear, about 20 minutes.  Let rest for 2-3 minutes and then slice thinly.

Easy to Prepare, Lighten Up, Main Courses, Meat Dishes, Recipes

Grilled Lemongrass Beef

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A Sweet and Salty Affair

From chocolate covered pretzels to a salt-rimmed margarita, our palettes all crave the goodness that is sweet and salty.  This recipe tackles all the taste points, with a fair share of sweet, salty and tart.  I slather this simple marinade on beef and grill until charred on the outside and juicy pink on the inside, but you can certainly use it on pork or chicken as well.  It’s comprised of a simple kalbi sauce (a delicious combo of brown sugar, soy and mirin used in Korean BBQ), a splash of toasted sesame oil, and an aromatic bit of ground lemongrass (which can be found at Asian markets or online).  I’ve given you the lazy version below that uses a pack of Noh Korean Barbecue mix – I score the packets on Amazon along with orders of char su, the lovely crimson Chinese marinade used on roasted pork.  If you want to go homemade, though, you can certainly make it from scratch using some soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, sugar and salt and pepper.  Garnish with white and black sesame seeds for an added bit of lovely. Continue reading Grilled Lemongrass Beef →

Cheese Dishes, Lighten Up, Recipes, Salads, Side Dishes, Vegetarian Dishes

String Bean & Heirloom Tomato Salad

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Summer, Summer, Summer Time! Oooooooh, Summertime!

Ok, maybe not summer yet, but I do like it when I can get produce to do my bidding at any given season and remind me of the joys of a fruitful harvest from the garden.  This salad, based on one that I fell in love with at the restaurant The Smith, is a bright assortment of crisp and tart, sweet and salty flavors.  It’ll make you want to sit in a hammock and sway on a warm summer night.

The salad calls for heirloom cherry tomatoes, but these little gems can be hard to come by out of season.  As such, get the freshest ripest tomatoes you can find, regardless of size or color.  In the middle of the summer, stores and markets offer what they sometimes call “ugly” tomatoes – these are actually heirlooms that are truly the tastiest tomatoes you can buy.  Bumpy and abnormally shaped on the outside, they are bursting with juicy sweetness, reminding you of the joys of homegrown produce.  My favorites are an heirloom variety that I used to grow back in the day called “Black Krim’s” – they were a sickly dark green on the outside and a gorgeous purple on the inside.  I only gave them to people I liked, even when I had bumper crops of tomatoes hanging from the burdened vines. Continue reading String Bean & Heirloom Tomato Salad →

Lighten Up, Poultry Dishes, Recipes, Soups and Stews

Chicken and Rice Soup (Canja)

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Brazilian Penicillin?

This soup was a part of my collective food memories well before I had even worked behind a stove.  Both my Brazilian and Sicilian ancestors believed in the power of chicken and rice soup, so as a kid, if I was feeling punkish, this is what I got.  If I was REALLY sick, I had this soup without the veggies and chicken – just broth and either rice or pastina (itty bitty italian pasta as small as grains of rice).  To this day, if I need a comforting meal, I make a pot of this recipe for canja or some Italian Chicken Soup.

The beauty of this soup is that it’s 100% made from scratch, all with ingredients lying around the kitchen.  Sure, it takes a little longer than cracking a can of Progresso, but the resulting soup is like a giant hug.  Last time I checked, canned soups weren’t passing out hugs.  I’ve detailed the recipe below as if you were making it without any leftovers, but know that I rarely actually make it this way.  Typically, I save the bones and leftover meat from a Roast Chicken night and use that as the basis of my stock.  Also, rather than simmering uncooked rice in the stock, I toss in a carton of leftover steamed white rice from Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese takeout.  If you want to learn more about my perfect tricks for stock, take a look at this. Continue reading Chicken and Rice Soup (Canja) →

Appetizers and Small Plates, Easy to Prepare, Lighten Up, Recipes, Vegan Dishes, Vegetarian Dishes

Summer Rolls (Goi Cuon)

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Hot Fun in the Summertime

Called goi cuon in Vietnamese, these fresh rolls offer a light and refreshing alternative to their oil-laden spring roll cousins.  Although these are traditionally made with steamed shrimp and slivers of roasted pork, I like mine vegan with lots of crunchy veggies and no meat or seafood.  I even spike them with a few shitake mushrooms sauteed in a bit of oil and then cooled – this addition makes the rolls even more filling as a main dish.  Complete the non-meat meal with a tasty dip in some peanut sauce (find a version with no fish sauce) or hoisin sauce.  Welcome to the ultimate in coolness.

You’ll note that there are no amounts in this recipe – fill the rolls to your liking with the veggies of your choosing and dunk away.  It’s your show and you get to cast the characters.  That means you’re cut, bean sprouts! Continue reading Summer Rolls (Goi Cuon) →