The Simplicity of Soup and Salad

I love soup and salad.

My challenge with soup is that buying it means it’s usually laden with sodium. Yet it can be hard to find recipes that don’t taste the same but also don’t use a long list of ingredients. And for salad, it’s achieving the right combo of ingredients in the salad with a dressing that isn’t too heavy (or calorie laden).

I think I tore out about half the April issue of Cooking Light magazine, finding a slew of recipes that looked good and would be easy to make. Recently we tried the roasted red pepper and ricotta soup (twice!) and the spinach and arugula salad with creamy parmesan dressing.

I used radishes in the soup instead of turnip, basically because of personal preference (and I’m on a bit of a radish kick lately) but pretty much followed the recipes otherwise. My first trip to Australia almost ten years ago introduced me to arugula– also known as rocket. I love the combo of putting it with another more mild green.

We’re trying to eat more simply at our house. I don’t need to cook big elaborate meals every night although I do enjoy it once or twice a week. And we’re trying to cut down on the calories we consume as we move closer to summer (pool weather has begun at our house!). Both of these recipes accomplish just that and work well together.

Lamb Burgers and Sweet Potato Fries

I haven't cooked with lamb in years and I was pleasantly surprised at the taste of these burgers (from a Cookling Light recipe) when lamb is combined with sirloin. The star of the burger was the feta-mint spread which adds a nice flavor.

However, I have been experimenting with sweet potato fries and I finally feel like I've got a good recipe and a method for cutting them. They are much harder than regular potatoes and the key is to microwave them for about 7 to 10 minutes (depending on how many you want to make fries from). But I also received a mandoline slicer as a bridal shower gift on Sunday which I have yet to test. My current recipe for the sweet potato fries is below.

Sweet Potato Fries

Serves four

4 sweet potatoes

1 tablespoon cumin

1 tablespoon olive oil (or vegetable oil)

Salt, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Wash the sweet potatoes and prick them several times with a fork. Microwave them for 10 minutes, however, the time will depend on your microwave and the size of the sweet potatoes. What you want is for the sweet potatoes to be soft which makes them easier to cut. Give them a few minutes to cool off before cutting and then slice into strips that resemble fries.

In a bowl, combine the slices with the cumin, salt, and oil. Bake the slices on a greased cookie sheet for approximately an hour. Sweet potatoes are tricky because they don't get as crispy as regular potatoes but you also don't want them to burn. I have a tendency to cook mine longer than shorter because we like them more crispy but that also means we have a few burned fries.

Red Velvet Cake with...Beets? Carob?

Periodically I will talk about the challenge I always faced when I was very into running in high school and trying to eat better: I wanted to use better ingredients and find more nutritional density to my food but it was almost impossible in the late 1980s. 

My fiancé and I were talking about this a little while ago. He said, "It wasn't just that you didn't have the access to ingredients but you also didn't have access to the recipes."

While I would make pizza using wheat flour, I knew of all most no one else who did that (outside of Rocky Rococo Pizza, a Wisconsin chain that had opened in the next town over from mine in Illinois).

Now there is so much out there and I'm willing to explore all sorts of ways to make my food not just be nutritionally better but also have unique flavors.

For a dinner party across the street yesterday, I used the Cooking Light recipe for red velvet cake that uses beets for the color. However, instead of using cocoa, I put carob powder in my version. While I had some issues with the recipe (I don't believe there was enough frosting or filling), I was very happy with the outcome and the taste which wasn't overly sweet but brought together several foods one might not consider before. I also like the lightened calories and fat content- including using Greek yogurt in the filling.