I Made a Sandwich with Green Beans (!) and Here’s How I Did It

I got a giant bag of green beans (haricots verts for you fancy folks) from the LA Salad Company (where I’m a guest blogger), and immediately the gears in my head started turning. What would I do with them?

I love green beans, but they’re not a staple vegetable in my kitchen, because I

Green Beans with Anchovy Topping

I’ve been back from Michigan for a week, but I have one more recipe to share from my time there. It seems weird to use the phrase “anchovy topping,” because it sounds desserty, but this dish definitely isn’t a dessert. It starts with three very un-desserty ingredients: onion, green pepper, and red pepper.

That’s 1/2 an onion, 1/2 a green pepper, and (surprise, surprise) 1/2 a red pepper.

I should back up. The idea for this dish came about because

Paprika Chicken and Green Beans

Ready for a healthy dinner option? One with no added fat or sodium? Check out my recipe for Paprika Chicken and Green Beans!

I started with 1 pound of haricot verts (the fancy way French folks say ‘green beans’), which I

A Week of Veggies, Veggies, Veggies

Keep reading for my Baked Green Bean Fries recipe. And click here to enter my Siggi’s yogurt giveaway – the deadline is tonight! (Friday, 3/21/14 at 11:59pm)

It’s a proven, scientific fact – free vegetables taste better. So I’ve been eating like a king all week long, because my friend Andie, who works for the Los Angeles Salad Company, gifted me with a ton of extra veggies that she had brought home for a work project.  One day, I halved 2 pounds of brussels sprouts…

…and roasted them until

What’s in the RediSetGo? Part Twenty-Two

It’s been a while since I’ve done a RediSetGo post. This was pointed out to me recently, when my buddy Ryan said, in a Facebook comment, that “we’re due for a What’s in the RediSetGo post. Just sayin’.”

I hear you loud and clear, Ryan!

This is only the second What’s in the RediSetGo post of 2012 (click here to see Part Twenty-One, which I posted in Mid-Janaury), but historically speaking, I’ve done a helluva lot of these posts, and you can see all of them on the My Favorite Posts page. In fact, I suggest you click through and check a couple of them out… you’ll need to brush up, because these posts are games, after all, and I wouldn’t want you to be rusty. And, if you’ve only started reading this blog recently, then definitely check out the archives at the above link, so you can learn how the game is played.

Eh, who am I kidding? The game is easy enough. You’ll pick it up quickly. And you’ll pick it upright now, because it’s time to play!

What’s in the RediSetGo?

A HALIBUT STEAK AND GREEN BEANS are in the RediSetGo!

I probably should have started this post by mentioning, for the sake of any newcomers, that the RediSetGo is my favorite informercial product out there (hence this being my twenty-second blog post about it). It bakes and cooks and roasts and broils, and, generally speaking, it’s easy to use and easy to clean. I’ve had my issues with the RediSetGo, but it still comes in handy for quick meals, and that’s exactly what I used it for the other day.

My dinner had four ingredients:

Ingredient #1: Halibut Steak. I picked these up at Whole Foods a while ago, and they were just sitting there, in my freezer:

The day before, I had tossed one of the steaks into the fridge to defrost. Easy peasy. So the halibut steak went into one side of the RediSetGo, and I covered it with…

Ingredient #2: Dill. A very liberal amount of dried dill, to be precise.

Ingredient #3: Green Beans. Or, if you’re feeling fancy and international, you can call them Haricot Vert, which is French for… Anyone? Anyone?Green beans. I bought them washed and trimmed and neatly packaged:

I piled up the other half of the RediSetGo with the green beans, and then poured on a couple tablespoons of…

Ingredient #4: Apricot Dijon Tarragon Sauce. I first cracked this open for a delicious lunch a few weeks ago, and I really liked it, so I thought it would be a good addition to the beans. And it’s fat-free and only 15 calories per tablespoon!

Ten minutes of RediSetGo magic, and my dinner was ready! The fish was flaky and delicious, the beans were tender, and the sauce had thinned and coated all of them.

Healthy? Check!

Easy? Check!

Quick? Check!

Keep it up, David!

 

Dijon Green Beans

Some quick news and notes before getting into today’s main topic.

1) Weigh-in.  I forgot to weigh myself yesterday.  I do that on Tuesdays, but yesterday I completely forgot!  I think the main reason for my forgetfulness is that after last week’s weigh-in, I moved my scale from the bathroom floor to the top shelf of my closet so I would stop weighing myself every day, as I was becoming fixated on numbers, and it was starting to drive me cuckoo crazy.  I think I might skip my weigh-in altogether this week.  I’ve had a good week with diet and exercise, and I’m not scared of what the scale may say, but I feel like I’m on a roll with not letting numbers run my life, and I wanna see how long this roll continues.  There will be a point, I’m sure, where I’ll feel the need to step on a scale, but maybe that need won’t come for another week.  I’ll keep you posted.

2) Oreos.  I haven’t thought about Oreos in a long time, but yesterday, I felt bombarded by the damn things.  First, a friend posted on Facebook a picture of the Triple-Double Oreos he bought.  I blogged about these artery-cloggers last spring, and apparently they’re now on store shelves.  Then, 20 minutes later, I saw a Google+ link to Judith G. Klausner’s website – she’s an artist who carves amazing cameos into Oreo creme.  How amazing is this?

Source: http://www.jgklausner.com

Despite all the Oreo madness, the one thing I didn’t feel was the desire to go buy Oreos.  That’s pretty sweet, because I love Oreos.

3) Social Media.  Since I just mentioned Facebook and Google+, I wanted to quickly plug my pages.  As I type this, I’m eleven people away from having 5,000 Facebook fans (!) so help me reach that milestone by “Liking” me on Facebook!  Tell your friends!  You can also add me to your circles on Google+ and follow me on Twitter.

OKEY DOKE!  Are you ready for some Dijon Green Beans?

Like I mentioned in yesterday’s post, on Saturday night we made an all-vegan meal in Palm Springs.  As a quick catch-me-up, I was in Palm Springs with my friends Robyn and Jake, staying at Tim’s house, who is Robyn’s dad.  It was Tim’s birthday, so Robyn, Jake and I made a birthday dinner for him.  Robyn is the vegan in the group, and Jake’s vegetarian.  I love eating vegan (and going to Vegan restaurants), although I’m not vegan myself, and I was happy to be responsible for one of the dishes in the meal, and making it vegan was a fun little challenge.

Robyn made a Tofurky roast, which is a meat-free soy-based product and looks and tastes like turkey.  Jake made mashed potatoes, replacing milk and cream with almond milk.  I made the vegetable side dish: Dijon Green Beans.  I’ve been on a little green bean kick lately – they popped up in my most recent RediSetGo post – and this recipe is based on one from the Taste of Home Comfort Food Diet Cookbook, but I modified it.

It starts with 1.5 pounds of green beans, cleaned, with the ends cut off:

They got boiled in a big saucepot for 8-10 minutes, until tender.  You could also steam them if you have a big steamer.  Then I made a quick and easy sauce:  1 teaspoon olive oil, 2 heaping tablespoons dijon mustard, 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, and pinches of salt, pepper, and garlic powder, all whisked together:

While the green beans were boiling away, I got out a big bowl and sliced 1/2 of a red onion into thin strips, and halved about 2/3 of a container of cherry tomatoes:

When the green beans were done, they got drained, added to the bowl with the tomatoes and onion, and all of it was tossed with the dijon sauce:

That’s it!  Easy-peasy.  Here’s my plate with everything on it:

It was all delicious.  Everyone loved the green beans, and the mashed potatoes, Tofurky and gravy (did I mention there was vegan gravy?) were great, too.

The best part about the green bean dish is that the dijon sauce would probably taste really good on any vegetable.  I’d love to try this dish with steamed cauliflower or asparagus.  I’ll be bringing something to a dinner party this weekend, and it might be a version of this dish with brussel sprouts.  We shall see…

Keep it up, David!

What’s in the Crockpot? Part Three

I had my crockpot fired up at 9:30am yesterday.  What’s inside it, you ask?  That’s the point of today’s game!  So bone up by playing the previous installments (which you can find here and here), and get your thinking caps on, because it’s time to play!

WHAT’S IN THE CROCKPOT?

BALSAMIC CHICKEN WITH SQUASH AND PEARS is in the crockpot!

Believe me, the dish is way more appetizing than it looks!  This recipe, like the Tuscan White Bean Spread I recently made, came from the Good Housekeeping Light & Healthy cookbook that I got as a Christmas present:

And, also like the Tuscan White Bean Spread, I modified the recipe.  I like modifying recipes.  The main change this time around was that I adapted the recipe from being made in a skillet on the stove to being made in the crockpot.  I knew I was going to have a busy day today, and being able to throw everything in one vessel and not worry about it was going to be a big help.

The other notable modification was the addition of this guy:

It’s the delicata squash I picked up at Whole Foods a few weeks ago!  I’ve never had delicata before, but since it’s not uncommon for squashes to be turned into sweet dishes (by roasting them with brown sugar and cinnamon, for example), I thought it would pair nicely with pears (homophones!), and so, at 9am yesterday morning, I started hacking it apart.  First, I cut it in half, lengthwise, and scooped out the seeds:

Here’s where I started LOVING delicata even though I hadn’t tasted it yet: the skin is super thin, so you don’t have to peel it!  At all!  Peeling squashes can be a pain, so skipping this step made me a happy camper.  I then cut each half into slices, and they all went into the crockpot:

Then I added chicken.  I added both chicken breasts and the chicken thighs that were such a great deal, and ended up with 7 pieces of chicken to put in the crockpot, which was perfect, because I was having my aunt, uncle, and cousins over for dinner, and there was going to be six of us:

Next was the pears – three Bosc pears, which I quartered, cored, and sliced:

Into the crockpot they went.

Finally, a sauce.  I whisked together 1 cup of low-sodium chicken broth, 5 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar, and 2 teaspoons of flour:

I poured that over the other ingredients, popped the lid on the crockpot, and turned it on Low.  It cooked for about 8 hours, at which point it looked like the picture near the beginning of the post.  Here it is, all plated up:

The chicken ended up really tender and juicy, and the thighs (there’s one on that plate) just fell off the bone.  The squash and pears ended up a little mushy, and most things that get crocked for 8 hours do, but all in all, it was a delicious dish, with both sweet and sour notes.  I definitely look forward to getting another delicata, and soon!

Here’s what else was on the plate:  Steamed green beans.  How to make them: get green beans, then steam them.  The third component is a couscous/quinoa blend.  I intended it to be all couscous, but I didn’t think I had enough to serve 6 people.  I’m also getting a little tired of couscous, so at the store, I picked up a bag of quinoa, which I had never cooked before, and I made the couscous and quinoa in separate pots on the stove, and when they were done, I mixed them together in a serving bowl.  The couscous was cooked in low-sodium chicken broth, and I added shallot.  The quinoa was cooked with saffron and garlic (just to switch it up, and because I didn’t have enough chicken broth to go around).

My family really enjoyed the meal, as did I, and even with the various components, it was really easy to put together, and really healthy, too!  You should give it a try.

Keep it up, David!