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December 30, 2012

Chicken Sausage Patties

Sausage can be a mixed bag of tricks. Store bought it often contains a lot of fat with the flavor that we all want. But if you want to control fat and sodium content, blending up your own patties (unless you know of a great source that makes chicken sausage from just breasts) is often the only choice. It’s quick and cheap and oh so versatile! Trim all visible fat from the chicken breast prior to making these.

Ingredients

1 boneless chicken breast half, coarsely chopped (1/2 to 3/4 pounds)
1 egg white
3 tablespoons scallions or onion to taste
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika, sweet
1/4 cup fresh herbs such as parsley
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper pieces, red and green (about 1/4 pepper each)
1 tsp crushed red pepper, (optional, to add some spice)

Directions

Pulse all the ingredients except the peppers in the blender until chopped, but not pasty
Stir in the pepper pieces and using a table spoon, form into 2-3″ patties.
Cook in a hot skillet until cooked through and nicely browned. (Or bake in a 375ºF oven)
Can be made in advance and frozen. When needed just pop in the microwave or defrost and heat in the toaster oven.

Serve as a side with soup or White Bean Stew with Leeks and Thyme

December 26, 2012

Roasted Garlic Dressing

Let’s face it, most of us like creamy dressings to go with our salads, at least every once in a while. I have lately been hooked on lemongrass-mint white balsamic from Seasons and could eat salad with just that on it. Yep, nothing else, no oil, just that. It’s especially good on baby spinach with pomegranate seeds. But I digress, back to the subject: creamy dressings. The problem with salad dressing and especially the creamy kind is the caloric impact they tend to have. So you decided to have a ‘light’ lunch, a salad, but guess what, that commercial dressing you just poured on made it have more calories and in some cases more fat than a burger. So what to do? Your ticket is flavor, the more flavor your dressing has, the smaller the amount you need, plus making it at home allows you to control exactly what goes in it. For days like today, when it’s snowing and sleeting, when a cold meals just isn’t the answer you need something hearty that can stand up to a warm winter salad. Greek yogurt provides the creamy texture and garlic and Parmesan the flavor. Slow roasting the garlic makes it surprisingly mellow, totally taking any bite out of the taste. This one will keep in the fridge for about a week (it might keep longer, but it never lasts that long in my house), the only thing is the olive oil gets solid in the fridge, so let the dressing come to room temp before using, or heat like in the recipe above.

Makes about 1/2 cup

Ingredients

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp grated Parmesan
1/4 tsp salt
1 pinch white pepper
3-4 tbsp Greek yogurt
(optional) Pancetta crumbles

Directions

Gently heat oil in a small skillet or shallow pan over low (yes, trust me) add the sliced garlic in one layer. Slow roast until starting to turn golden and beginning to caramelize, about 20 minutes, turning pieces over about half way through. Set aside to cool.
In a mini food processor, combine roasted garlic and olive oil from the skillet, salt, pepper and cheese and pulse to blend, then add the Greek yogurt and vinegar and run the machine until well blended and thick.
If desired, stir crumbled roasted Pancetta pieces into the finished dressing (you can cook them in the same skillet you just used for the garlic, no need to add any oil)

December 27, 2011December 16, 2017

Chocolate Balls

Schockolade Kugeln – Chocolate Balls – Swiss Christmas Cookies

You’re not surprised that a lot of Swiss cookies involve chocolate, are you?

This is another no butter recipe. It has an intense chocolate flavor and no added fat (only fat in here is from the almonds, eggs and cocoa powder). And as an added bonus, it just so happens that it is gluten-free, tadaa!

At first I was going to translate the name of these into bullets, as in ‘death by chocolate (bullet)’ but was musing on the whole Christmas and Peace on Earth concept and thought that would seem kinda wrong, but nevertheless they are intensely chocolatey!

Ingredients

3 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups cocoa powder (I used a mix of extra dark and dutch processed)
3 3/4 cups ground almonds (sometimes called almond flour)
2-3 tbsp tapioca or potato starch

Directions

In a big bowl, mix eggs sugar and cocoa until liquid and frothy looking
Add the almonds and the starch and mix until, uniformly incorporated
Chill dough for a few hours (if it’s cold enough where you are, put it on the balcony like we did in Switzerland, if not the fridge works well too)
Form into walnut sized balls between your hands, (being careful to keep your hands cool), and place on a lined baking sheet.
Let the formed balls dry overnight, or to speed up the process, you could also place the whole cookie sheet in the freezer for at least 1 hour.
Bake in a preheated oven at 480°F for 3 to 5 minutes. The balls should only crack slightly
Let cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Check out the post on more Swiss Christmas Cookies to try other varieties!