Category: Side Dish

Pesto Pinwheels

If you love pesto, you’re gonna fall head over heels for these pinwheels. I mean, who doesn’t love anything made from puff pastry? The light and flaky dough paired with sharp cheddar cheese and delicious pesto makes the perfect appetizer for your dairy Shavuous meal. You can even fill them with marinara sauce and shredded mozzarella to make pizza pinwheels, and serve a duo on the table.

The best part about making these is that you can prepare them in advance. Just freeze the puff pastry after you’ve rolled in the ingredients. When you’re ready to make them, just thaw, slice, bake and serve!

Pesto Pinwheels

1 sheet puff pastry dough, thawed
1 egg, lightly beaten mixed with 1 tbsp water
2/3 cup pesto
1/3 cup cheddar cheese

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry dough to form a large rectangle. Brush lightly with eggwash. Spread the pesto on the dough, leaving a 1″ border all around. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese. Starting from the short side of the rectangle, roll the puff pastry to form a log. Make sure the log is tightly sealed at the seam. Refrigerate for 1 hour (this will make it easier to slice). Brush with eggwash and using a sharp knife, cut into 1/2″ slices. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden.

NOTE: You may prepare the pinwheels in advance and freeze the log. Just remove from the freezer when you are ready to use, thaw, slice and bake as above.

1 year ago: quick & easy individual trifles

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Rice Vermicelli

Is your pantry filled with little bags of assorted leftover pasta? That extra orzo from when you only made half the box?  Or the scraps from the 10 oz. bag of egg noodles (whose recipe only called for 7 oz.)? Well luckily, I have a great recipe to use up your leftovers before Pesach! This Shabbos, you can turn your simple plate of rice into a two-toned pilaf that is just as pleasing on the palate as it is on the eyes! It’s simple, easy, and kids love it!

 

Rice Pilaf

2 cups white rice
3/4 cup fine egg noodles, spaghetti cut into pieces, orzo or other fine pasta
4 cups water or chicken stock
3-4 tbsp oil
2 tsp salt

Method:

Heat up oil in a saute pan and add pasta. Saute over medium heat, stirring constantly, until pasta is fragrant and golden. Watch the pasta carefully because it can quickly go from golden to burnt. Add the rice and stir for a minute or two. Add water or stock and salt and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

1 year ago: sesame linguini with marinated chicken breast

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Stuffed Roasted Butternut Squash

It’s been almost a week since my last post, and I just couldn’t push off blogging any longer. I know a week doesn’t sound like much, but I know myself. If I go for a week, I’ll go for two, maybe three, and before you know it, It’ll be a month without blogging.

And I have reasons too. For one, I’ve been working on Purim recipes. More importantly, my internet connection has been out of whack lately. I’ll be just in the middle of pinning an amazing recipe onto my drooling board on Pinterest when my internet goes down on me. Up and down, and up and down. And you know what the embarrassing part it is? My husband is a computer technician. But you know how it goes. The shoemakers kids and their shoes. That’s me.

So now that I’ve braved my unreliable connection (my cable has gone down about 10 times since I started working on this post), let’s get to why you’re really all here. The food.

This is one of those recipes that I dreamed up one night…literally. Does anyone else develop recipes in their sleep, or am I the only crazy one? The worst part is, I usually forget them once I wake up, but this time, it stuck with me. Maybe that’s because it’s not that complicated, and there aren’t that many ingredients.  Jack’s Gourmet sweet Italian sausages are so full of flavor, you just don’t need to add much for the recipe to sing.

OK people, I’m gonna be honest here. We’re talking full disclosure. I haven’t blogged because I’m too busy on Pinterest. I’m obsessed. If you haven’t checked it out yet, go to http://www.pinterest.com/busyinbrooklyn and follow me!

 

Stuffed Roasted Butternut Squash

2 small butternut squashes
2 Jacks Gourmet sweet italian sausages, finely diced
2 apples, cored and thinly sliced
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
3 tbsp brown sugar
salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

Place butternut squashes on a baking sheet and bake at 425 degrees until it pierces easily with a fork, about 1 hour. Saute the sausage for a few minutes until it has browned and rendered some of its fat. Remove the sausage from the pan, but leave the drippings. Add the apples and saute until softened. Add maple syrup and continue to saute until golden and caramelized. Return the sausage to the pan and mix into the apples.

When the squash is ready, leave it to cool for several minutes. Cut it in half, lengthwise, and remove the pits. Scoop out most of the flesh, leaving about 1/2″ of squash all around. Add squash pulp, brown sugar, salt and pepper to the pan and mix to combine (dont overstir the squash, you want it to be lumpy). Lower the oven temperature to 400 degrees. Return the squash to the oven and bake, uncovered, until browned around the edges, about 15 minutes.

1 year ago: organic oven baked sweet potatoes

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Cheesy Stuffed Mini Peppers


At one of our Chanukah parties recently (was Chanukah really that recent? It feels like ages ago!), my sister in-law decided to bring over some food for the low-carb dieters at the party. I was really intrigued by her idea of making stuffed shells without the pasta. Mini peppers stand in as a great replacement, adding color and sweetness to the dish. I decided to whip up my own variation by peppering up (pun intended!) a version of my mom’s famous lasagna recipe. Truth be told – I still made some stuffed shells for my pasta-loving kids, but I was more than satisfied with my lighter and lower-carb variation.

Cheesy Stuffed Mini Peppers

1 15 oz. container ricotta or reduced fat cottage cheese
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 egg
1/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp oregano
pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper, to taste
1 10 oz. box frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed to remove water
1 bag sweet mini peppers
1 jar marinara sauce
1 8 oz. bag shredded mozzarella cheese

Method:

Preheat oven to 375. In a bowl, mix cheeses, egg, spices and 1/2 of the spinach. Pour half of the marinara sauce into a 9×13 pan. Dot with remaining spinach. Cut the tops off the mini peppers and remove the veins and seeds. Fill with cheese mixture and place in the pan on top of the marinara sauce. Pour remaining 1/2 jar of sauce over the peppers and sprinkle with mozzarella. Bake, covered, for 30 minutes, or until peppers begin to soften. Uncover and bake for an additional 10 minutes, until the cheese is browned and crisped around the edges.

VARIATION: For traditional stuffed shells, use large shell pasta in place of the mini peppers.

1 year ago: spinach pasta

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Crunchy Shriveled Green Beans

I first tried the South Beach Diet a couple of years ago while working for an ecommerce company. My colleague, Chumie, watched as I struggled to get through the first Phase of the diet. After completing it successfully and losing ample weight, Chumie decided to try out the diet for herself. So there we were, eating hard boiled eggs and avocados, and it wasn’t Pesach :)

One day, Chumie shared this easy recipe for shriveled up green beans. I couldnt imagine why anyone would want to shrivel up perfectly fresh, crunchy beans, but I decided to give it a try and boy am I glad I did. The green beans turned out chewy and crunchy, with a few prized crispy ones around the edges of the pan.

Recently, I joined my husband for lunch at a cafe near his office. With my diet in mind, I ordered grilled salmon with a side of green beans. I was super excited to see that the green beans were shriveled, but my excitement soon turned to dissapointment when I tasted the soggy mess. The key to crispy shriveled green beans is baking them uncovered for a long period of time. Covering them builds up steam causing them to become soft.

When I got home, I couldn’t wait to revisit this quick and easy recipe. They were even better than I remembered. So, when the hard boiled eggs and avocado get the best of you, go ahead and give them a try!

Crunchy Shriveled Green Beans

2 lbs. green beans
olive oil
garlic powder
salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rinse green beans and drain on paper towels. Trim the edges with a paring knife. Add beans to a pan and drizzle liberally with oil. Sprinkle generously with garlic powder and add salt, to taste. Bake for 45 minutes-1 hour until shriveled and browned at the edges.

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