Category: Healthy Things

Easy Crispy Goat Cheese Salad

Sadie1 Comment

I often see posts on food blogs about recreating dishes from restaurants at home.  While I’m definitely jealous of this kind of ambition, I typically don’t try to duplicate restaurant dishes.  My philosophy is that the reason that I want to go to a restaurant is because I want something that I don’t want to make at home.

But as we know, there is an exception to every rule.  Every summer my family’s favorite vacation spot is Block Island, RI.  Most of the restaurants on this island are the typical burger places or seafood spots.  There is, however, one standout place that is a small hole in the wall on a side street.  The food is a step above everything else on the island, and you can usually tell by the hour long wait for a table any night of the week.

They have a great warm goat cheese salad.  It is an arugula salad with toasted sliced almonds, dried cranberries, sliced piquillo peppers, and warm crispy round of goat cheese on top.  I didn’t try to duplicate this salad exactly because I didn’t have all of the components on hand.  But I aimed to recreate the warm goat cheese and put together a good mix of textures and tastes to make a comprehensive side salad.  This is a great way to dress up your daily does of greens!

Crispy Goat Cheese Arugula Salad

Scale ingredients to number of servings required

Ingredients

  • Arugula
  • Traditional bread crumbs
  • Goat cheese (3 inch disc per serving, about 1/2 inch thick)
  • Dried cranberries
  • Spiced pecans
  • Olive oil (for goat cheese and dressing)
  • Balsamic Vinegar
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Spread about a half cup of bread crumbs on a baking sheet (1/2 cup is enough for about four servings). Drizzle a little olive oil on the breadcrumbs, and toast in oven for about 5 minutes until golden brown.
  3. Allow bread crumbs to cool.  Cut goat cheese into discs that are about 1/2 inch think.  Form patties that are about 3 inches in diameter.  Brush a little olive oil on the goat cheese.  Coat the goat cheese discs completely with the cooled breadcrumbs.crispy
  4. Assemble the salad by combining the arugula, dried cranberries, and chopped pecans.  Season with salt and pepper and dress with oil and vinegar.
  5. When the salad is almost ready to be served, warm the goat cheese up in the oven again for about 5 minutes until warmed through.
  6. Plate the salads, and place a crispy goat cheese disc on top of each salad (it’s easier to serve this plated in individual portions instead of in a big salad bowl).ready for the table

Easy Vegetarian Soup

Sadie3 Comments

A few years ago, the concept of cooking a soup at home intimidated me.  Soup recipes seemed to have so many ingredients and be such a long process.  I actually used to not be a big soup fan in general.  Then I slowly started to come around to soup and I developed a few favorites.  I love a good minestrone (Whole Foods makes a great one), a great french onion, or chicken tortilla (Panera has a good one).

Eventually, I decided that I would tackle soup for the first time.  I found a great recipe for an easier version of a chicken tortilla soup from Martha Stewart.  Easier meaning that it’s minus the chicken, so I wouldn’t have to worry about the meat component (I don’t eat much meat in general).   It has easy to find, easy to prep ingredients, and it’s a quick process.

Recently, one of my friends had minor surgery so I thought it would be a nice gesture to bring them some soup.  They are a vegetarian so I made this soup and made sure to use vegetable broth to keep it vegetarian friendly.  He said he loved it!

Vegetarian Black Bean Tortilla Soup

Yields 6-8 servings, Adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients

  • 1/2 medium onion, diced
  • 1 Tbs oil
  • 4 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 2  cans diced tomatoes (14 oz., I use no salt added)
  • 2 cans black beans (15 oz, again, low sodium)
  • 1 can vegetable broth (or chicken broth if you want)
  • 10 oz package of corn kernels
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • tortilla chips to garnish
  • lime to garnish

Method

  1. Warm up the oil in a soup pot on the stove on medium heat.  Add in diced onions and cooks about 5 minutes until translucent.  Reduce the heat slightly and add garlic and chili powder.  Make sure the garlic doesn’t burn.  Cook until fragrant.onions and garlic
  2. Add tomatoes with juice.  Add drained black beans, broth, and 1 cup of water.  Finally add corn.  Cook on medium heat to bring it up to a boil. Reduce it to a simmer and add lime and tortilla chips as desired for garish or wait until you plate the soup.all done

    Packing it up to bring to my friend
    Packing it up to bring to my friend

Goals for 2013

Sadie4 Comments

Happy New Year!  So I know it’s completely cliche to do the whole New Year’s resolution thing, but who cares, I’m going to anyway!  I realize that it’s hard to stick to resolutions, but I do think it’s important to take a few minutes every now and then to define your personal goals.  I find defining goals makes it easier for me to focus and make tangible progress.

2013 is a little scary for me because I’m poised to graduate business school with my MBA in May (fingers crossed, because it’s not over yet!).  So I’m not sure where I will end up after graduation(this is my theme song and favorite song right now).  It makes it hard to make specific goals because I actually don’t know where I will be living or what I will be doing after I graduate.  That being said, here are some of my goals for this year:

Personal Goals

  • Graduate with my MBA
  • Find a great full-time job
  • Make at least one international trip
  • Read more books (like maybe 10 for the year)

Fitness Goals

  • Run another half marathon
  • Push myself to run faster
  • Lead a successful Yorktown Victory Run (I’m the race director)
  • Learn the Pilates Reformer (I already love Mat Pilates so I want to take the next step)
  • Add more variety to my fitness routine (try CrossFit? Yoga?)
  • Continue to make weight loss progress, and continue to stabalize my nutrional routine

Cooking Goals

  • Make a successful challah bread
  • Broaden my savory dish repitoire
  • Try at least 3 new techniques like making marshmallows or risotto, or cooking with a new ingredient like tofu
  • Cook more dinners at home rather than using places like Panera as my dinner option too often

Carrie and I are both Virgos, so I thought I would include part of our 2013 horoscope outlook, courtesy of Yahoo Horoscopes.  I have always been amazed by how accurate my horoscope is, and I hope this year is no different:

2013 brings you sweeping change and intensity, Virgo. The biggest transformation takes place in the realm of the mind. Communication, correspondence and courses of new study carry great importance. Saturn, the cosmic taskmaster, is spending a good chunk of time in the sector of your chart ruling the mental realms and communication. If you’re not already a powerful public speaker, teacher or writer, get ready to discover your latent potential to sway the masses with your power of speech! You’re also hungry for knowledge in 2013, and will want to strengthen your skill set and beef up your resume with even more knowledge than you possess naturally.

What are your goals for 2013?  Anything else you think I should add?