I owe this recipe to my son Jacob.  He told me my Pistachio Crusted Salmon recipe is the best Salmon recipe I make.  Since I always have extra Salmon at the end of dinner, his comment got me thinking and  I came up with this little doozy.  It’s simple to pull together and is a healthy and delicious appetizer or lunch.

• 1 pound of skinned salmon, baked (directions below)
• 1 lime, juiced
• 2 tablespoon Dijon Mustard
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup salted Pistachio, shelled and crushed
• 1 tablespoon chopped Parsley
• 1 tablespoon chopped chives
• 1/8 teaspoon chili powder
• Sprinkling of garlic salt
• Sprinkling of lemon pepper seasoning
• Water Crackers

To prepare Salmon:  Place on lined baking sheet.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and juiced lemon.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Place baked Salmon in bowl with all the remaining ingredients and stir with fork to flake fish and combine evenly.

Lay crackers out on plate you plan to serve them on and then use a 1 tablespoon measurer and place on each cracker.  Serve.

You can serve this warm or cold.  You can also eat this for lunch on a great toasted bread or a bed of lettuce.

Quinoa, can you pronounce it?  I couldn’t, but its become part of our diet so I figured it would be good idea to pronounce it correctly when the boys asked what was on their plate, KEEn-wha is how it sounds.

What is Quinoa?  It looks like a pasta, but it’s a seed and is related to spinach, chard and beets.

Quinoa is a complete protein, which means that it contains all the amino acids necessary for our nutritional needs. Complete proteins are rare in the plant world, making quinoa an excellent food for vegetarians and vegans, or for anyone looking for healthy protein source. It’s also high in iron and calcium, and is a good source of manganese, magnesium and copper, as well as fiber.

If you are looking for a delicious and healthy side to serve with fish or chicken, this is your dish, a superfood bonanza, loaded with uber healthy goodness. I preferred it as a salad by itself and I served it with sweet potato tortilla chips that I am addicted too.

Have you tried the Food Should Taste Good Tortilla Chips yet?  If not, you must, must, must try these!  They are Gluten free and so darn yummy.  When you are craving a chip, reach for these!  I have tried several of their flavors, but right now the Sweet Potato Tortilla Chips are my favorite and with this Quinoa dish they were a marriage made in heaven.  They tasted great and I kept the whole dish Gluten Free.  Check out the bottom of this post for a free giveaway.

From: Emily Malone at Daily Garnish

Ingredients (4 servings)

• 1 cup dry quinoa, rinsed
• 2 tbsp coconut oil, divided
• 1 large white onion, diced
• 1 cup dried mushrooms, reconstitute in hot water and dice
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup tomatoes, diced
• 2 small avocados, peeled and diced
• 2 tbsp lime juice (or more to taste)
• salt to taste

Instructions

Start by cooking quinoa on the stove-top.  Add 1 cup dry quinoa (rinsed) to 1 3/4 cups of water, cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until cooked. When finished add 1 tbsp coconut oil to the quinoa pot for extra flavor and nutrition.

Meanwhile, dice the onions and mushrooms and cook over medium heat until lightly browned, and all moisture has cooked out of the mushrooms.

Once the quinoa has finished cooking, add fluffed quinoa and black beans to the pan with mushrooms and onions, and stir to combine and heat through.

Add 2 tbsp lime juice (or more to taste), and reduce heat to low.

Stir in sliced cherry or grape tomatoes and avocado, and season to taste with salt.

Serve with Tortilla Chips and a dollop of sour cream or Greek yogurt

FREE GIVEAWAY!  What’s up for grabs?

A care package from Food Should Taste Good filled with an assortment of their top flavors.

All of chip varieties are free of cholesterol, preservatives and trans fat.  They are also certified Kosher and Gluten Free, lower in sodium, and are a good source of dietary fiber.  They currently have over 23 flavors consisting of our tortilla chip line as well as a NEW line of Kettle Cooked Sweet Potato Chips with 4 classic flavors: Original, Barbeque, Salt & Pepper, and Salt & Vinegar.

To get your package of chips you must:

1. Subscribe via email to A Healthy Life For Me for 1 entry. Leave a separate comment letting me know you did so.  If you are already a member leave a comment.

2. Like A Healthy Life for Me on Facebook for 1 entry. Leave a separate comment letting me know you did so.

RULES: This giveaway opens Monday, October 8th at 4 am EST and will close Monday, October 22nd at 11:59 p.m. EST. The giveaway is only open to U.S. residents. Be sure a valid email address is included with your comment(s). Winner will be chosen randomly and contacted via email. If winner doesn’t respond in 48 hours, a new winner will be chosen. Good luck!

Disclosure: This giveaway is provided by Food Should Taste Good, but my opinions are completely my own.

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Mexican Quinoa Salad and Free Giveaway

Prep time:  5 mins

Cook time:  25 mins

Total time:  30 mins

Serves: 4

 

Ingredients

• Ingredients (4 servings)
• 1 cup dry quinoa, rinsed
• 2 tbsp coconut oil, divided
• 1 large white onion, diced
• 1 cup dried mushrooms, reconstitute in hot water and dice
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup tomatoes, diced
• 2 small avocados, peeled and diced
• 2 tbsp lime juice (or more to taste)
• salt to taste

Instructions

1. Start by cooking quinoa on the stove-top. Add 1 cup dry quinoa (rinsed) to 1¾ cups of water, cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until cooked.
2. When finished add 1 tbsp coconut oil to the quinoa pot for extra flavor and nutrition.
3. Meanwhile, dice the onions and mushrooms and cook over medium heat until lightly browned, and all moisture has cooked out of the mushrooms.
4. Once the quinoa has finished cooking, add fluffed quinoa and black beans to the pan with mushrooms and onions, and stir to combine and heat through.
5. Add 2 tbsp lime juice (or more to taste), and reduce heat to low.
6. Stir in sliced cherry or grape tomatoes and avocado, and season to taste with salt.
7. Serve with Tortilla Chips and a dollop of sour cream or Greek yogurt

Me and the hubs went to Florida to celebrate our anniversary a few weeks ago.  While we were there, I ordered this dish for lunch and then at a different restaurant a few nights later he ordered it for dinner.  Neither one of us had ever seen this dish before, but we both loved it.  I don’t know if its becoming a new popular dish or if we have been living under a rock, either way, who cares I know all about it now and it is SUPER healthy, easy and delicious!  Plus, it takes 20 minutes to prepare.

This is my version and  the hubby said its better than both the ones from our trip.  Awe, isn’t he sweet.  Did you just gag?  So not nice! 

• 2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 4 cups trimmed arugula-spinach mixed salad
• 4  skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• Organic Cooking spray
• 1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

Directions:

Combine lemon rind, juice, oil, and garlic in a large bowl. Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

When ready to serve add arugula and toss well, making sure to coat leaves evenly.

Place each chicken breast half between 2 sheets of heavy-duty plastic wrap; pound each piece to 1/4-inch thickness using a meat mallet or small heavy skillet. Sprinkle both sides of chicken with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper.  You can do this earlier in the day and cover and refrigerrate if needed.

Heat a grill pan or a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add chicken, and cook for 4 minutes on each side or until done. Remove chicken from pan, and keep warm.

On a plate, place one chicken breast top with a heaping of salad and top with a handful of tomatoes.

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Chicken Paillard with Lemon Salad

Author: Amy

Recipe type: Entree

Cuisine: Chicken

Prep time:  15 mins

Cook time:  24 mins

Total time:  39 mins

Serves: 4

 

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• ½ teaspoon salt, divided
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 4 cups trimmed arugula-spinach mixed salad
• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• Organic Cooking spray
• 1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

Instructions

1. Combine lemon rind, juice, oil, and garlic in a large bowl. Sprinkle with ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper.
2. When ready to serve add arugula and toss well, making sure to coat leaves evenly.
3. Place each chicken breast half between 2 sheets of heavy-duty plastic wrap; pound each piece to ¼-inch thickness using a meat mallet or small heavy skillet. Sprinkle both sides of chicken with remaining ¼ teaspoon salt and remaining ¼ teaspoon pepper. You can do this earlier in the day and cover and refrigerrate if needed.
4. Heat a grill pan or a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add chicken, and cook for 4 minutes on each side or until done. Remove chicken from pan, and keep warm.
5. On a plate, place one chicken breast top with a heaping of salad and top with a handful of tomatoes.

Tis the Season, here is a great cocktail for you to enjoy and a giveaway to help make your holiday a little brighter!

A grapefruit and vodka cocktail is called a Greyhound, if you add a salt-rimmed glass it’s now called a Salty Dog. How did I come up with this cocktail, it was all about the salt.

I stumbled upon Hepp’s Salt Barrel Co. Gourmet Salts, and I ordered up a batch, fell in love, contacted them told them how much I loved their salts and asked them to do a giveaway for my readers.  They agreed.  WOO-HOO!

You so want to win this giveaway.  I used their Vanilla Bean sea salt to rim this cocktail, but I am envisioning it on some dark chocolate brownies, or my holiday chocolate bark. YUMMY!

I also tried their Hickory Flavor on my Baked Salmon- it added a TON of flavor!  They sell so many flavors I had a heck of a time picking the ones I wanted.  Let me tell you any foodie on your holiday list would LOVE a package of Hepp’s Salt!  It is as beautiful and it is delicious!  So get your butt signed up to win!  details below

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 ounces vodka
• 1 1/2 ounces red grapfruit juice
• Vanilla Bean flavored salt
• Grapefruit wedge

Directions:

Cut a grapefruit in half, juicing one half.  In a martini shaker add ice, juice, vodka and shake to mix.

Rub rim of glass over other 1/2 of grapefruit and then sit glass onto salt to coat rim.

Pour cocktail in glass, add Grapefruit wedge and enjoy!

Well, my friends at Hepp’s Salt want you to try 5 of their gourmet salts at a $50+ value and threw in a $25.00 American Express Gift Card for your last minute holiday needs. Awesome prize pack up for grabs! If you want to take this home with you, find out the ways you can enter in the Rafflecopter widget below.

12 Dec 2012 (KK)

Rendimento: 1 parfait

 

Ingredientes:

• 1 copo de iogurte natural ou sabor baunilha
• ⅓ de xícara de aveia
• 1 colher de sopa de mel
• 6-8 morangos fatiados

Passos:

Preaqueça o forno a 180°C. Em uma forma, espalhe a aveia e leve ao forno por uns 15 minutos, mexendo algumas vezes. Retire do forno e misture com o mel. Em uma taça ou copo pequeno, coloque ⅓ do iogurte, ⅓ dos morangos fatiados e ⅓ da aveia com mel. Repita a operação mais duas vezes e está pronto o seu café da manhã.

I can’t begin to tell you how sad I am that this is the final week, fine three days of #CookforJulia. 

I’ve been having a blast the past week cooking up Julia Child recipes, reliving Julia recipes and reading tributes to her on PBS food and at various food bloggers sites. 

PBS was even nice enough to put a few The French Chef episodes on their website for us to watch.  Since I don’t have cable, it’s been forever since I’ve watched an episode.  I look a lazy weekend for myself this past one and sat at home and watched a few.  

My final two Julia recipes this week are in the sweet category.  I had enough savory last week.  I’m not calling this dessert because in all honesty clafoutis can be served for breakfast, brunch or dessert.

It is isn’t so sweet, that you feel like a complete sugar bomb first thing in the morning.  The custardy center and crisp edges are reminiscent of a dutch baby pancakes.  Plus any sweetness we have is offset by the tartness of your cherries. 

Recipe type: Breakfast, Dessert, Fruit

Cook time:  1 hour

Total time:  1 hour

Serves: 6-8

 

Ingredients

• 3 cups fresh Bing cherries, pitted
• 1¼ cup whole milk
• ⅔ cup granulated sugar, divided
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• ⅛ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ tablespoon unsalted butter
• confections sugar for decoration

Instructions

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a blender, place in the order listed above the milk, ⅓ cup sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt and flour and blend on high for 1 minute.
3. With a flame proof 7 to 8 cup baking dish (I used my skillet), butter the dish, making sure to cover all sides. You may not need the entire ½ tablespoon of butter.
4. Pour a ¼ inch layer of batter into the baking dish, set over a moderate flame. Cook for a minute or two until the batter just begins to set.
5. Remove from heat and evenly spread the cherries over the bottom. Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the cherries.
6. Pour the remaining batter into the dish and smooth the surface if necessary.
7. Bake for one hour, in the the middle of your oven. The clafoutis is done when it has puffed and is nicely browned. You can check for doneness by inserted a knife into the middle, if it is clean, it is finished cooking.
8. Sprinkle the top with some confectioners sugar just before serving.

Notes

The clafoutis does not need to be served hot, it is just as delicious warm, or at room temperature. It will also sink down slightly after cooling.

 

Ummm. . can someone please tell me where the summer went? How is it almost Labor Day?
Seriously, I’m looking through my archives and somehow I’ve gotten through all of June, July and mostly August with nary a peach, zucchini or corn recipe in sight.
Okay fine, I might have gotten a little crazy with the pesto recipes, as well as all the ice creams, and then Julia Child’s birthday celebration had to get thrown into the mix!
I’ve got your corn and zucchini recipe coming up, but for today let’s talk peaches.
Not just peaches though, I’m throwing my new favorite fruit of the summer into the mix too – PLUOTS!!  I briefly touched on my discovery of the fruit last week, and I’m so obsessed with them, that I purchased 3 out of the 4 varieties I found last week.

 

 

Once again, pluots are a plum and apricot hybrid.  They have a relatively short season, can be found in the late summer and are sweet and less acidic.  You get the tart taste when you first bite into the skin but the rest is pure sweet joy.  They come in many varieties, and each more delicious than the next.
For this crisp, I decided to skip removing the skin.  It’s the end of the summer, it’s time to be lazy and rustic.  If you don’t care for fruit skin in your tarts – a tutorial can be found here.  Can’t find pluots near you? Throw a few apricots into the mixture of plums and peaches then, like I said we are being rustic – lazy – no one will notice and everything will still taste just as fabulous.

 

Peach and Pluot Biscoff Crisp

Author: Susan Palmer

Recipe type: Dessert, Fruit

 

For my crisp topping, I swapped out my standard brown sugar/cinnamon mixture for crushed Biscoff cookies. The end result was a slightly spicier (due to the cookie) and more crisp topping.

Ingredients

• 3 large yellow peaches, cut into ¼- 1/2 inch slices
• 8 assorted variety pluots, cut into ¼ -1/2 inch slices
• ⅓ cup granulated white sugar
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• juice from ½ lemon

For the crisp topping

• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into ½ inch pieces
• 1 cup Biscoff cookies, crushed

Instructions

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, toss together your peaches, pluots, ⅓ cup sugar, ¼ flour and lemon juice. Let sit for 5 minutes.
3. In a small bowl, mix together the remaining flour, butter and crushed Biscoff until well combined and the texture looks like sand.
4. In a 3 quart baking dish, pour in the fruit, including any juices that might have accumulated at the bottom of the bowl. Smooth out the top and sprinkle an even layer of the Biscoff crisp topping.
5. Bake for 30 minutes until the fruit is soft, bubbling and the crisp topping is lightly brown.
6. Let cool slightly before serving.
7. Suggested serving is with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Notes

An alternate preparation is to bake the crisp in individual servings. I would suggest you would need about 8-10 baking dishes depending on the size. Baking time would remain the same.