Warm food for a cool night

Low temperatures in the 30s and 40s bring cool-weather vegetables to the table:

Roast chicken; baby bok choy sauteed with bacon and scallions; maple-glazed roasted carrots; cranberry sauce.

A couple of dinners

Meals lately have not been very photogenic - here are a couple that weren't too bad.

Stir-fried tofu with carrots, celery, peppers and peanuts:

I often make a sort of salad bar for dinner, where I put out a bunch of vegetables, fruit, meats, etc and all may serve themselves (this cuts down on complaints a bit):

My resulting plate: greens with edamame, peppers, and tomatoes; cottage cheese; watermelon; hard boiled eggs; turkey and salami.

Mideast Style

Roast chicken spiced with coriander, cumin, and turmeric;  pita bread; feta cheese; homemade tzatziki sauce; olives; sliced tomatoes and cucumbers.

Night of the Living Eggplant

After an all-too-brief hiatus, it appears that eggplant season is once again upon us.

Eggplant parmesan with whole wheat spaghetti.

Italian style

Grilled chicken with caponata and caprese salad:

Caponata:
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 small eggplant, peeled and diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
1 tomato, diced
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup pine nuts
Vinegar and sugar to taste

Heat olive oil on medium, add eggplant and cook for 10 minutes or until eggplant starts to brown. Add remaining ingredients and cook for 20 minutes or until mixture has thickened. Let the mixture cool to room temperature and add a small amount of vinegar and/or sugar to taste. Serve at room temperature. This was good as a condiment for the chicken, but usually is served with bread as an appetizer.

Tomato Tart

Roasted tomato and goat cheese tart with green salad:

Eggplant Parmesan

Meeting the eggplant challenge head-on:

3 medium eggplants, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch slices
1/2 jar pasta sauce
8 oz. shredded low-fat mozzarella
Bake eggplant slices at 400 for 20 minutes
Layer in pan starting with sauce, then eggplant, sauce, then cheese, ending with cheese
Bake covered at 400 for 45 minutes, then remove cover and bake for 15 more minutes
4 servings, 275 calories each

Moving into fall

Turkey breast smoked on the grill, and yellow squash gratin:

That took care of the yellow squash for the week. We also used up a butternut squash in another meal, which I neglected to take pictures of. It was butternut squash soup with green salad and bread.

That's My Cue

Barbecued beef brisket, with purchased potato salad and cole slaw:

Almost Nicoise

Salad for dinner:

Salad greens, green beans, baby potatoes, white beans, hard-boiled eggs, Nicoise olives, capers, and vinaigrette.

Sunday Night Pizza

Pizza time:

3 oz. prepared Publix pizza dough
2 oz. shredded part-skim mozzarella
Arugula, mushrooms, onions, and green olives
375 calories

It's Eggplantastic!

Eggplant stuffed with lamb, tomatoes, onions, and pinenuts:

2 large eggplants
1 pound ground lamb
Olive oil
1 onion, minced
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup pine nuts
Spices to taste
Tomato and pepper for garnish

Cut eggplants in half, salt the cut halves and let stand for an hour. Rinse and pat dry. Saute eggplants in olive oil for 10 minutes. Let eggplants cool. Toast pine nuts in a dry skillet and set aside. Add some olive oil to the skillet and cook onions over low heat until they are translucent. Raise the heat to medium and add lamb. When the lamb is browned add tomatoes, spices, and pine nuts. Cook over medium heat for 20 minutes or until the mixture has thickened.

Scoop out a small amount of flesh from each eggplant half. Stuff with lamb mixture. Top with a tomato slice and a pepper slice. Cover and bake for 45 minutes at 350, then remove cover and bake for 15 more minutes.

Served with carrot-yogurt salad and tomato, cucumber and feta salad.

Mac and cheese with a kick

Macaroni and cheese with green chiles:

1/2 pound dry macaroni, boiled and drained
1 can Campbell's condensed cheddar cheese soup
5 oz. milk
1 4 oz. can diced green chiles
Mix all ingredients together in a casserole, then top with
1 tbsp melted butter mixed with 2 tbsp bread crumbs
Bake at 400 for 25 minutes or until sauce is bubbly and crumbs are brown

4 servings, 275 calories each

Barbecue time

Pulled chicken (from barbecued chicken leg quarters) on a slider bun; potato salad; cole slaw:

Out to Dinner: The Old Key Lime House

The weather's finally getting nicer here, so we ventured to a place where we could sit outside and relax. The food was nothing fancy- a turkey club with fries:

But this was the real star of the show:

Indian style

Vegetable tawa, rice, paneer tikka masala:

More eggplant

The veggie box this week was virtually identical to last week's, so no new picture. It's a challenge to use some vegetables, like eggplant, which I like but wouldn't ordinarily have two weeks in a row. This week's eggplant (served with chicken Italian sausage):

Eggplant rollatini with goat cheese and mozzarella

1 large eggplant
3 oz. goat cheese
3 oz. fresh mozzarella
Tomato sauce

Slice eggplant lengthwise into six pieces, approximately 1/3 inches wide. Spread out the slices on paper towels and salt both sides, let stand for 1 hour, then rinse and pat dry. Bake the eggplant slices for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. Mix the cheeses together. When the eggplant slices have cooled, put 1 oz. cheese mixture at the wider end of the slice, then roll up and secure with toothpicks. Put the rolls in a baking dish, cover with foil, and bake for 25 minutes. Serve with tomato sauce.

Makes six rolls, 85 calories each.

Turkish delight

Eggplant braised with tomato, onion and olive oil; yogurt and cucumber sauce; olives; steak kebabs; pita bread; borek with arugula and feta cheese.

On the plate:

Fall Flavors

Even though the temperatures here are still in the 90s, October made me want a fall-type meal.

Roast chicken with fresh herbs, maple-glazed carrots, and spaghetti squash casserole.

Spaghetti squash casserole:
1 medium spaghetti squash
1/2 cup grated onion
4 oz. grated Cheddar cheese
6 oz. 2% plain Greek yogurt
10 oz. condensed cream of chicken soup (undiluted)

Cook squash for 10 minutes in microwave, then scrape strands with a fork into a large bowl. Mix in onion, 2 oz. cheese, yogurt, and soup. Put into a casserole and top with the remaining 2 oz. of cheese. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Pretty Corny

Corn soup and grilled cheese sandwich with tomato:

Corn soup:

4 slices center cut bacon, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
3 ears of sweet corn, kernels removed
2 cups 2% milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the bacon in a large skillet until the bacon is crisp and the fat is rendered. Remove bacon and set aside.

Add the celery and onion to the skillet and saute in the bacon fat for about 10 minutes, then add corn kernels, reserving 1 cup of kernels, and saute for 10 minutes more.

While the vegetables are sauteeing, simmer the corn cobs in the milk (break cobs in half if necessary to fit in pot.)

Discard corn cobs, and add sauteed vegetables, bacon, and milk to blender. Puree until smooth. Pour the soup into a pot, add the reserved corn kernels, and simmer until heated through. Season to taste.

Makes 4 servings, 175 calories each