Broiled Haddock with Tomatoes & Capers

Courtesy of Plated Perfection

Who doesn't love a quick and easy weeknight meal? This dinner was very easy to make and healthy at the same time! You can use a variety of fish in this dish as well, but I'd probably recommend a white fish. The sauce was also great on the side of green beans I made (just heated up canned green beans from my family's garden with some salt and pepper). Enjoy!

Ingredients:
~ 4 servings of fish filets (I had 2 very large filets of haddock)
1 can Hunt's Fire-Roasted diced tomatoes, with garlic
1 handful of capers (adjusted based on your liking)
1/4 cup white wine (I'd recommend something dry)
dash of salt and pepper
olive oil, enough to brush on the filets

Directions:
Salt and pepper the fish and brush with olive oil. Set the oven to Broil and place the rack about 6 inches from the broiler. While the fish is broiling, heat the tomatoes in a pan with the capers. Add the wine and reduce until the sauce thickens a bit. Depending on your taste, you may want to add a tb of sugar into the mixture or use a sweeter wine to mix in. Simmer a couple of minutes and top the fish once the fish is done broiling. The fish should take around 10-15 minutes depending on the thickness.

Healthy Turkey (or Beef) Chili

Adapted from www.ambitiouskitchen.com

We live in the Northern VA area, and this past weekend we experienced the Blizzard of 2016! The question is - will there be others this winter?! It was quite the blizzard and we got about two feet of snow. My first thought was that I needed to make chili! I found this recipe and it caught my eye because it used ground turkey. However, the store was running out of everything, so I used lean ground beef instead -- so we'll still consider this healthy. This really turned out well - we topped ours with some unhealthy toppings, but we couldn't resist! Definitely give this one a try!

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 medium red bell pepper, chopped

1 pound extra lean ground turkey, chicken, or lean ground beef (I used 93/7 beef)

4 tablespoons chili powder

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes

1 1/4 cups chicken broth

1 (15 oz) can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 (15 oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 (15 oz) can sweet corn, rinsed and drained

For topping: cheese, tortilla chips, and sour cream

Directions:

Place oil in a large pot and place over medium high heat. Add in onion, garlic and red pepper and saute for 5-7 minutes, stirring frequently. Next add in ground meat and break it up; cooking until no longer pink. Next add in chili powder, cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper and salt; stir for about 20 seconds. Next add in tomatoes, chicken broth, kidney beans, black beans and corn. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until chili thickens and flavors come together. Taste and adjust seasonings and salt as necessary. Garnish with anything you'd like.

Cajun Catfish

Courtesy of Plated Perfection 

Obviously, I'm not done with New Orleans flavors yet! One of my closest friends, all the way back to college, came over for dinner. We were looking for a healthy dinner, so I immediately thought of fish and veggies of course. Whole Foods had some fresh, local catfish that looked outstanding. I bought about 1.25 pounds, which served 3 nice servings (can't wait to have the 3rd for lunch this week). This was super easy to make - definitely give it a shot. You could switch out the fish no problem, and even the seasoning blend. To make this a simple weeknight meal, I bought some of the prepared vegetables from Whole Foods which I love. Enjoy!

Servings: 3 (6oz-8oz servings)

Ingredients:
fresh catfish filets (I cut mine into 3 servings)
~3-4 tb cajun seasoning (I eyeballed this, so use as much as you want)
~2 tb garlic chive butter (purchased from seafood counter at Whole Foods)
~1 cup flour
~1tb vegetable oil
juice of lime to top fish, optional

Directions:
Mix the cajun spice into the flour in a shallow bowl. Dredge the fish on both sides in the flour mixture and set aside. Heat the oil and butter in a saute pan over high heat. Brown one side of the fish for approximately 4 minutes. Turn the fish and cook on the other side for about 4-5 minutes, turning the heat down to medium-low after both sides are brown. Top with juice of a lime or lemon and serve with vegetables.

Seafood Cioppino

Modified from Giada de Laurentiis

Seafood cioppino is this amazing soup/stew that you can find in San Francisco, among other places, but that's the best I've had - specifically at Scoma's! They partner it with delicious sourdough and it comes in a massive bowl with oodles of fresh seafood. I decided to try and mimic this and found a recipe by Giada, one of my favorite celebrity chefs! This recipe came out great - it was faster than I thought to make as well, maybe because I chopped up some of the vegetables the night before to save some time. I modified the seafood that was used and a few of the ingredient measurements, but followed it otherwise. Below is my version of the recipe. Her original can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/cioppino-recipe.html. The great thing about this is that you can freeze the leftover broth and throw in some fresh seafood at a later time - can't wait to have this again! Enjoy! 

Note: The below recipe was for 2 people, saving two batches of the broth. If you'd like to serve it all to a group of 4 or so, I'd double the amount of seafood.

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tb split out for scallops

1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced

1 onion, chopped

2 large shallots, chopped

2 teaspoons salt

4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped

3/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper flakes, plus more to taste

1/3 cup tomato paste

1 (26 ounce) can diced tomatoes in juice (I used San Marzano)

1 1/2 cups dry white wine

5 cups seafood stock

1 bay leaf

1/3 lb fresh halibut, cut into chunks (I cut into approx 1-2 inch chunks)

1/2 lb uncooked large shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/3 lb fresh sea scallops, cut in half if large

Directions:

Heat 3 tb oil in a very large pot over medium heat. Add the fennel, onion, shallots, and salt and saute until the onion is translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and 3/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, and saute 2 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste. Add tomatoes with their juices, wine, seafood stock and bay leaf. Cover and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer until the flavors blend, about 30 minutes. 

In the meantime, I decided to brown my scallops to give them more flavor. In a small saute pan, use the 1 tb olive oil and set it to high heat. Salt and pepper the scallops and place in the pan. Brown the scallops on each side about 3 minutes, and then set aside on a plate to cool.

Add the shrimp and fish. Simmer gently until the fish and shrimp are just cooked through, stirring gently, about 5 minutes. Add the scallops and stir for another minute. Remove bay leaf. Season the soup, to taste, with more salt and red pepper flakes.

Ladle the soup into bowls and serve. After eating all of the seafood, you can freeze the remainder of the broth.

Lemon Basil Grilled Pork Chops

Adapted from BitznGiggles.com

I made this recipe back in late August when it was a great night to grill out. I love thick cut pork chops, so that's what I decided on after seeing some beauties at Whole Foods. This recipe looked fairly simple for a weeknight meal, and it ended up being so tasty and full of flavor. We cooked these perfectly, so the cooking time below is what we used personally. Definitely give this a go while we're still enjoying great grilling weather! Note: I halved the recipe and changed a couple of things up, so the below is my adaptation.

Ingredients:
2 pork chops, thick cut and bone-in (you can use boneless if you prefer)
1 cup fresh basil, chopped
3 tb garlic, chopped
3-4 tb lemon juice (I used approximately 4 tb since I love lemon juice)
3/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
2 tb olive oil

Directions:
Mix all of the ingredients, besides the pork chops, and remove the pork chops from the refrigerator. Slather the pork chops with the mixture on both sides and bring to room temperature for approximately 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile, heat your grill to medium heat (or medium high depending on your grill). Grill the pork chops approximately 7 minutes per side. This was the perfect time for us, as ours were extremely thick cut and we don't like them very pink in the middle. Let rest for approximately 10 minutes. Enjoy! I served these with Whole Foods Asparagus and Roasted Veggie Salad.

Venetian Shrimp and Scallops

Courtesy of Rachael Ray

Shrimp and scallops go very well together! I decided to make a new recipe Monday night using both of these delicious seafood items. I found fresh scallops, but the shrimp were frozen, as they usually are. I cut this recipe in half and combined this with zucchini/squash noodles, so I think it threw off the sauce a little, but it was still tasty. Next time I think I'd change it up and use chicken stock instead of broth, and also use more of a tomato sauce instead of just diced tomatoes. Give it a go though - healthy and good!

Ingredients:
1 pound sea scallops
1/4 cup flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 tablespoon (1 turn around the pan) extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken broth or stock
1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes in juice
1/4 teaspoon saffron threads
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
12 leaves fresh basil, shredded or torn
1 lemon, zested
Hot, crusty bread, for plate mopping (or zucchini noodles for a healthy option)

Directions:
Lightly coat the sea scallops in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Discard remaining flour.

Preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add oil (1 turn around the pan) and butter. When butter melts into oil, add scallops. Brown scallops 2 minutes on each side, then remove from pan.

Add an additional drizzle of olive oil to the pan and add the garlic, shallots, and crushed red pepper flakes. Reduce heat a little and saute garlic and shallots 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add wine to the pan and free up any pan drippings. Reduce wine 1 minute, then add stock, tomatoes and saffron threads. When liquids come to a bubble, add shrimp and cook 3 minutes. Return scallops to the pan and cook shrimp and scallops 2 to 3 minutes longer. Transfer shrimp and scallops to a warm serving dish and top with basil and lemon zest. Pass plenty of bread to enjoy the juices.

Pan-Roasted Chicken with Lemon Garlic Green Beans

Adapted from Real Simple

Tonight I had to come up with a quick back-up plan for dinner -- my original plan failed due to me not having half of the ingredients on hand that I thought I did! So, I had to come up with something involving chicken breasts and green beans -- so here we go! I found this on Real Simple, which was also posted on Pinterest. It's a really basic, fool proof recipe in my opinion. I made a few adjustments, so the below is my take on this recipe. For the original recipe, you can visit http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/pan-roasted-chicken-lemon-garlic-green-beans. This was tasty, but really heavy on the lemon flavor. I don't mind that, but some people might. I'd just keep that under consideration when making this dish. It's a nice go-to weeknight meal though - next time I think I would add the potatoes like the original called for.

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons olive oil 

2 lemons, 1 thinly sliced, 1 juiced 

4 cloves garlic, minced 

4 sprigs of thyme, to place on top of the lemon slices

1 teaspoon kosher salt 

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 

1/2 teaspoon salt-free Table Blend seasoning

3/4 pound trimmed green beans 

4 chicken breasts (I used boneless, but bone-in would be great)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450°F. Coat a large baking dish or cast-iron skillet with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Arrange the lemon slices in a single layer in the bottom of the dish or skillet. Top with the sprigs of thyme.

In a large bowl, combine the remaining oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper; add the green beans and toss to coat. Using a slotted spoon or tongs, remove the green beans and arrange them on top of the lemon slices. Place the chicken in the same bowl with the olive-oil mixture and coat thoroughly. Place the chicken in the dish or skillet. Pour any of the remaining olive-oil mixture over the chicken.

Roast for 45-50 minutes. Remove the chicken from the dish or skillet. Place a chicken breast on each of 4 serving plates; divide the green beans equally. Serve warm.