Kale Salad with Quinoa, Acorn Squash and Apples

Apologies for the rather unappetizing salad photo, but I swear it's good. I threw in a few photos of the fresh ingredients to convince you that this salad is legit.

This feels like a good time and place to tell you about an event my (first blog, now real life!) friend Kit is hosting in a few weeks on food photography for bloggers in Chicago. Search here for the free class on November 10 at Next Door Chicago. 

So, I vowed to make my lunch last week and stop spending $13/lunch/day. I made a huge batch of salad that would hold up all week and hold up it did. As in, I ate this salad every. single. day. last week.

So, while I'm totally sick of it, I still thought it was awesome at least days 1-3 and thought I'd share.

This isn't really a recipe because the proportions are up to you.

But! I will be a little more detailed in the dressing because this sauce is the BOSS. (Did I just quote a BBQ commercial?)

Kale Salad with Quinoa, Acorn Squash and Apples

Cook up a few cups of quinoa. When you've taken it off the heat but its still hot, mix half of a diced red onion into it while it's cooling -- this will soften the onion just enough without having to get another dish dirty. #genius

Cook and dice your acorn squash. (I like the microwave method - stab it a few times with a fork so that it doesn't explode, then cook it for about 3 minutes until it's soft enough to significantly lessen the risk of losing a finger when cutting it in half. Cut it in half. Put each half upside down in a low dish of water and microwave for about 5 more minutes. It is now extremely hot and cooked through. Let it cool a bit, scoop the stuff out, you're done!)

Dice up an apple or two and squirt a lemon over it. This is a two-birds-one-stone move for both taste and aesthetics!

Mix up the quinoa, squash, apples with a few cups of chopped kale. The Tuscan variety is prettier and everywhere right now.

Now, make your salad dressing!

Dressing

• 1/2 C olive oil
• 1/4 C soy sauce
• 3 Tb apple cider vinegar
• 1-2 Tb brown sugar, to taste
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp red chili flakes

Whisk everything together... it'll emulsify better with about a teaspoon of water at the end.

Pour your dressing over the salad and lightly toss everything together. The squash is rather delicate so don't squish it like I did!

Cheers to your health and eating seasonally.

Butternut Squash and Kale Pasta Bake with Chicken Sausage

Hey Chicago friends, remember how we didn't have a spring? I'm pretty sure this insane, ridiculous, story-book perfect fall we are having totally makes up for it. I'm head over heels for autumn, and my love affair is manifesting itself in embarassingly stereotypical ways. I'm exclusively drinking pumpkin spice lattes. I bought tiny pumpkins for my dining room table. I'm instagramming pictures of the changing leaves. I BOILED A FREAKING CINNAMON STICK. I know! I'm a tragic victim of Pinterest-fueled autumnal hype.

So, I'm just going with it. Tonight, I made a VERY seasonal dinner and it turned out prettyyyy great, so I thought I'd share. 

It was also very easy. Embrace the frozen organic veggies, my friends! Chopping up a butternut squash is one of my top ten least favorite things to do, and I'm pretty sure cleaning kale is up there too. 

And if the goat cheese gives you pause, don't worry. It melts together with everything else and there's only a hint of that sharp, tangy flavor when its all said and done. This is not an overly gooey, stringy, cheesy dish. Instead, the cream sauce just sort of sticks everything together enough so that you taste everything at once and everything on its own ALL AT THE SAME TIME. That makes no sense, you say? Blame the cinnamon fumes.

Recipe below!

Butternut Squash and Kale Pasta Bake with Chicken Sausage

Serves about 6 hungry adults

Prep time - 20 minutes
Bake time - 30  minutes

• 4 links cooked Italian chicken sausage
• 1 C onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2.5-3 C cubed cooked butternut squash (I used frozen)
• 2.5-3 C chopped kale (I used frozen)
• 1 box of whole wheat penne
• 1 Tb olive oil + more for drizzlin
• 1 C Italian seasoned panko bread crumbs
• Goat cheese cream sauce, below

Goat Cheese Cream Sauce

• 4 oz goat cheese
• 15 oz container of light ricotta
• 1 C chicken stock
• 1/4 C milk
• 1 Tb salted butter
• Cracked black pepper to taste
• Salt to taste
• 1 tsp sage
• 1 tsp flour

To start, preheat your oven to 350, boil your (salted!) water and prepare the pasta until it's cooked to al dente. Drain the pasta and return to the pot.

While your  pasta is cooking, dice your onion and mince up the garlic, then saute it all over medium heat in the olive oil until your mixture is translucent. When the onion and garlic are cooked through, add the kale and butternut squash and mix everything together. Let it cook uncovered for about 10 minutes or until the frozen vegetables have heated through and all of the liquid has evaporated.

To prepare your sauce, combine all ingredients over medium-low heat in a saucepan and slowly whisk together until its totally combined and smooth. Allow the sauce to come to a boil and then take it off the heat from heat. (Note: if it seems VERY thin, add a bit of flour, but you want it to be more liquid-y than less so that as it bakes it stays really creamy!)

Dice the chicken sausage into small pieces.

To the pasta, add your chicken sausage and vegetable mixture. Toss it all together then add your sauce to the pot -- mix lightly, don't squish it all up!

Spray a 13x9" pan with olive oil or canola oil spray, then scoop in your pasta. Smooth it all out into an even layer then sprinkle the panko bread crumbs over the top. Drizzle olive oil lightly over the top, then cover the whole pan with foil.

Bake for 20 minutes covered, then remove the foil for an additional 10 minutes to brown the top.

Eat and enjoy!

Life and Soba Noodles

Life. Oh man. So crazy!

In the last 4 months I:

Moved
Went to Alaska (hey there bears)
Quit my job
Went to Europe (hey there gelato)
Started an awesome new job

So, yeah. Life! Crazy indeed.

I'm not busy-complaining. (<< Read that!) I am one lucky lady and I know it. Just... makin' excuses for neglecting the blog.

(Seriously, how do you ladies with children and jobs and husbands and pets do this? I bow down. My plant died yesterday, I am hopeless.)

I am DETERMINED to write about Europe because it was beyond awesome and I want a written record of all of the fun details... but until then, I present you with...

A HEALTHY RECIPE.

Lame? Totally, I know. But guys, I gained 5 pounds in Europe, and I can't even call it vacation weight anymore. I made my brother pretzel crust brownies the other day. Then I had to physically drag myself downstairs to give the extras I couldn't fit in the box to the doorman so the little Italian fat kid that now lives inside me wouldn't win and eat them all at once.

So yep, we're getting vegan here.

But I promise, it's good too!

Soba Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing

Spicy Peanut Dressing

Make this first to marinate for a bit while you're chopping and boiling, and make it to taste! Here's how I did it, but make it spicier/saltier/sweeter to your own preferences. Whisk these ingredients together with a fork until its very smooth, like the consistency of salad dressing:

• 1/2 C peanut butter
• 1/4 C rice wine vinegar
• 2 Tb toasted sesame oil
• 3 Tb reduced sodium soy sauce
• 2 Tb sriracha sauce
• 2 Tb honey
• 1 Tb warm water

Noodles and Vegetable Salad

• 1 cucumber
• 1 red pepper
• 1 orange pepper
• 4 C spinach (roughly!)
• 4 stalks green onion (again... roughly!)
• 1 8 oz package of soba noodles*
• pinch of sesame seeds

1. Wash your veggies! 
2. Julienne cucumber, red and yellow peppers 
3. Dice green onions (the green AND white parts) into very small pieces
4. Put all of your spinach into a colander over the sink
5. Cook your soba noodles - boil them for about 3 minutes and then pour them over the spinach in the colander to flash steam/boil the spinach
6. Shake the spinach and noodles to get rid of all excess water, and then refrigerate for 30 minutes or so until the noodles and spinach are relatively cool
7. Add the chopped vegetables and spicy peanut dressing to the bowl of noodles and spinach and mix everything up really well to combine
8. Sprinkle with sesame seeds (totally unnecessary, just fun!) and enjoy!

*Soba noodles sound really exotic but aren't that hard to find or love. You'll probably find them with the other Asian foods in your local grocery store... I got mine at Dominick's! They're noodles made out of buckwheat flour -- lots of protein, whole grain and a really great nutty flavor. 

Apologies for the underwhelming photo. I think I need to read up on food styling... 

When a few last minute things popped up and I couldn't make it to CBN's Oscar party at Nellcote, to say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. So I did what any rational girl would do with a night alone, a mile-long list of things to take care of, and plans to be out of town the whole week: I baked a cake.

And not just any cake, a flourless chocolate cake that I topped with almond butter frosting. I think I could start an entire cookbook of recipes entitled, "Recipe Alterations That Don't Require Me To Leave My Apartment", because I made some interesting substitutions in the name of laziness that somehow resulted in a really good end product. It was fudgy, dense, and not too sweet (until I covered the whole thing with a sugary almond butter frosting.)

This was very loosely adapted from Nigella Lawson's chocolate olive oil cake.

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Coconut Oil

• 1 3/4 C + 2 Tb cocoa powder


• 1/2 tsp baking soda


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 1 C coffee, cooled


• 3 eggs


• 2/3 cup coconut oil, melted


• 1 C white sugar


• 1 1/2 Tb vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and prepare an 8x8" pan by lining it with parchment paper. If you don't usually use parchment paper, tear a piece big enough so that it hangs over the edges of the pan a bit so that you'll be able to lift the cake out by pulling up the edges of the paper later. Parchment paper makes baking infinitely easier both in terms of cleanup and in the dreaded step of removing baked goods from the pan!


2. Sift together your salt, baking soda and cocoa powder, then set it aside.


3. In a new bowl, whisk together the eggs, coconut oil and vanilla, then add your sugar and mix until its smooth, creamy and custardy.


4. Now pour the coffee into the egg and sugar mixture, and stir until its completely combined.


5. Next, slowly add the cocoa powder into the wet ingredients, stirring it in bit by bit. Take your time or it'll get clumpy and harder smooth out!


6. Once it's all mixed together and very smooth (it'll be really liquid-y!), pour the batter into your pan. Bake for about 35-40 minutes, or until you can stick a toothpick in the middle and it comes out clean.


7. Lift the cake out of the pan by the parchment paper and set it aside to cool. Once it's cooled for about 20 minutes (be patient!), you're ready to frost! You could eat it plain, but what's the fun in that?

For my frosting, I combined 1/2 cup of almond butter with 1/4 cup of melted coconut oil, 1 cup of sugar and 1 tsp of salt. Powdered sugar would have resulted in a smoother frosting, similar to a buttercream, but I didn't have it and didn't mind the grainier texture... it reminded me a bit of Reeses filling!

Off to put my sugar high to good use and finish up my work.

This isn't really so much of a recipe as "put them in the oven" isn't exactly a novel concept. But I thought it might be worth sharing, anyway, since sometimes something so simple as putting them in the oven makes the painfully ordinary surprisingly good.

With the particularly evil combo of negative windchills and post-vacation food guilt, cold salads are not exactly cutting it when I literally dreamed of macaroni and cheese last night. I can't roast cheese for you (OR CAN I?), but I can improve on the cold salad business.

Roasted Tomatoes

• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.


• Cut your tomatoes into evenly-sized pieces and place on a foil covered pan for easy clean-up.


• Sprinkle to taste with salt, pepper, sugar, and seasoning. On 5 tomatoes, I used about 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp pepper, and one Tb of sugar. Skip anything else, but don't skip the sugar -- it's what'll make your tomatoes caramelize a bit!


• Drizzle with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and sprinkle with any other seasonings you like - I used a bit of oregano.


• Roast for 30 minutes. If you'd like them a bit extra crunchy and black on top, pop them in the broiler for 2 minutes at the end for charred edges.


• Serve with other roasted vegetables, on top of your salad to warm it up, or as a side dish.

Chicken and Kale Burgers

I had two cans of chicken breast on hand this weekend, and to save myself from myself and the extremely strong temptation to throw some mayonnaise in there and call it a day, I decided to get creative.

I added sauteed kale to the mix with organic breadcrumbs, an egg and seasoning, then pan fried the patties for a quick and healthy lunch with lots of flavor.

Chicken & Kale Burgers

Makes 4 burgers

• 2 10-oz. cans chicken breast


• 1 Egg


• 1/4 Cup breadcrumbs


• 1 Cup kale leaves, stems discarded


• 1 Tb worcestershire sauce


• 1 tsp chili pepper flakes


• 1 Tb lemon juice

*This may be the only recipe you'll ever see from me that does not include adding salt, but I strongly recommend against it -- the chicken is already salty! 

1. Sautee kale leaves in olive oil until soft. Alternatively, you could steam the kale. Set aside to cool.


2. Drain chicken breast, then add to a bowl with egg, breadcrumbs, and kale.


3. Use your hands to mix all of the ingredients together - there's really no way around getting in there and getting your hands dirty! A spoon won't cut it.


4. Add worcestershire sauce, chili peppers, and lemon juice.


5. Mix it all up again, then divide mixture into four sections. Form one burger out of each section, rolling it into a ball and then flattening.


6. Fry in a pan prepared with olive oil spray over low heat, flipping once until heated through and golden brown on each side.


7. Eat! This would be great on a bun with condiments and extra veggies, but was juuust fine on a plate with spicy ketchup.

I'm currently redeeming one free week of yoga as a beginning at CorePower Yoga, which means that at least for the remainder of this week, I'll be annoyingly healthy. Oh, except for that prime rib I devoured last night at Crosby's Kitchen.

On a mission to atone for last night's medium-rare and horseradish-cream covered sins, I insisted on Sunday brunch in this morning, and made an extremely healthy version of JB's standard brunch order - a Greek omelette. Frankly, this could just as easily be an omelette but I've yet to make an omelette without it breaking/burning/running so I spared myself the stress, threw it in the oven and called it a very happy day.

Making a few of these would be a great option for entertaining. They're almost embarassingly easy and totally fit into my new, yoga-enhanced healthy lifestyle! (This week.)  I've pasted in the nutritional stats below the recipe... kind of unbelievable, no?

What's up, aperture priority mode? Forgive the pointless pictures while I play with my camera. Slowly but steadily workin' towards 10,000!

Did you know there was such a thing as a tomato knife? I did not, and I have spent the past 28 years squishing tomato after tomato.

Perfectly chopped!

Breakfast feasting with AmyLu chicken sausage - the best.

Healthy Greek Frittata

Serves 4

• 4 whole eggs


• 5 egg whites


• Large handful of spinach


• 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, chopped


• 6 green onions, finely chopped


• 1/2 cup fat free feta*


• 1 tsp oregano


• black pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.


2. Saute chopped tomatoes and green onions in a non-stick pan, coated with cooking spray. Add spinach and cover to wilt.


3. Transfer cooked vegetables into a pie dish prepared with cooking spray and allow to cool.


4. Whisk together eggs, egg whites, and oregano, then pour the egg mixture over cooled vegetables.


5. Sprinkle feta on top, then add pepper to taste. You don't need salt, the feta is already salty!


6. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until egg is completely set.


7. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes. Slice and serve!

*fat free feta is the least scary fat free cheese, and personally, I don't mind it. However, you could easily substitute in reduced fat or even full fat feta here and still have a very healthy dish!

From myfitnesspal.com

*Lives are officially changed after receiving fancy new knives from our parents for Christmas - can't.stop.chopping!

Dinner dates with my sister are always the highlight of my week. We're pretty good at catching up about once a week, but in the whirlwind of the holidays, it had been too long since we caught up over some vino and cooked dinner together.

We remedied that last night but wanted to keep it relatively healthy -- new years resolutions, you know the drill. We made Asian-inspired lettuce wraps and they definitely fit the "healthy" requirement, and happily were also really, REALLY good.

Sadly, we don't have a picture of the actual wrap because I literally ripped every single piece of lettuce in half trying to make the "cups" (does someone have a trick for this?! Pinterest? Mom?) so they were morbidly less than attractive. It was somewhat like eating a salad with your hands. We wish you better luck on the wrapping front but can promise you that the filling, at least, will be out of this world.

Asian Lettuce Wraps

This makes enough for two starving people with some leftovers or four reasonable adults.

• 1  medium onion, diced


• 1 yellow or pepper, diced


• 1 Tb olive oil


• 1 lb package ground turkey or chicken


• 1 Tb five spice seasoning


• 1 Tb brown sugar


• 1/4 C reduced sodium soy sauce


• 1 Tb chili garlic paste or to taste


• Peanuts, chopped


• Cilantro, chopped


• Iceberg lettuce leaves for wrapping

1. Sautee diced onion and pepper in olive oil until soft. Drain any liquid and set aside.


2. Mix soy sauce, brown sugar, chili paste, and five spice in a bowl and stir well until combined.


3. In a separate pan, brown turkey meat until cooked through.


4. Add the sauce mixture and vegetables, mixing to coat.


5. Spoon meat into lettuce cups, adding chopped peanuts and cilantro. Wrap, and feast!

Recipe: Baked Ham and Egg Cups

How was your Thanksgiving? Ours was great-- as predicted, lots of games and too much food. In other words, perfect.

As we mentioned, we were really looking forward to making Thanksgiving brunch to our family. Our choice needed to fit two main criteria: fairly light (Thanksgiving dinner later!) and easy enough to assemble for 7 people.

After seeing a few variations floating around Pinterest, we made egg cups for brunch earlier this year and decided that they'd fit the bill nicely for  our Thanksgiving morning brunch. We made two variations and were happy with both results, so we thought we'd share! They are so cute and really, really easy... plus, the world is your oyster when it comes to the toppings -- you can really add any combination of ingredients your little heart desires.

Laura went the traditional route and made Denver-esque cups by adding diced peppers and onions with cheddar cheese to each cup. Ali got creative and made the clear winner of the day - she blanched asparagus and added two spears to each cup with a tiny bit of cheddar in the base, then served them with a Hollandaise sauce.

We left the crispy edges but you could trim them or get really crazy and cover them with foil while baking.

In our opinion, this is a handy staple to have in our back pockets for brunch with the girls, for family, or after a particularly long night out. Cheers! (with our ham and egg cups.)

Ham and Egg Cups -

1. Preheat oven to 375.


2. Spray a muffin pan with cooking spray or lightly oil. (We used popover cups this time because we wanted more room for add-ins, but have previously used muffin tins and it works just as well!)


3. Line each cup with two slices of ham, pressing into the bottom of each cup.


4. Add desired toppings, then carefully crack one egg into each cup.


5. Bake for 25 minutes or until egg is cooked through. Each cup should easily lift from the tin.

Slutty Brownies

Happy Saturday!

The Londoner is basically a genius with the best hair ever. I love all of her posts and recipes, but I've had her Slutty Brownies bookmarked for a long time to make for my baby bro. He's away at college, studying hard at nuclear engineering (proud sister alert!) and I thought today would be the perfect day to whip up a batch. Nothing like a triple dose of sugar to fuel his late night cram sessions studying, um, whatever it is that nuclear engineers do.

His incredible metabolism annoyingly balances out his incredible sweet tooth quite nicely, and I'm grateful that I have somewhere to send these off to so that I don't eat them all by myself. I did taste test just one (swear) and oh my goodness.

These are ridiculously easy, hence the name. I followed her recipe to a T, springing for the Double-Stuf version AND Ghirardelli brownie mix - nothing but the best for you, bro!

Mussels in Basil White Wine Sauce

Happy Labor Day!

I spent the majority of my weekend hanging out with two of my favorite people - my mama and stepdad, who we call "Big" to differentiate between him and my little brother as they coincidentally share the same name. After feasting on my mom's amazing big-as-your-head burgers on Friday night, we were feeling like something a little lighter for dinner on Saturday. The stars aligned and my mom happened to flip to a cooking show on a local station called Secrets of a Chef by Hubert Keller.

I hadn't heard of Chef Keller before, but I definitely bookmarked his site and will be going back for recipe inspiration as soon as possible. On this particular rainy Saturday afternoon, Hubert was whipping up a batch of mussels in basil white wine sauce, and we knew what we had to do for dinner.

Oh my goodness.

However good we thought these mussels were going to be - and we had sky-high expectations! - they were about a billion times better. And really easy to make, too!

Seafood can be a bit intimidating for me and I had never made mussels before, but this was a breeze and I can't wait to make it again... though I'm sure I won't be over my squeamishness at the fact that they're alive when you get them. (The seafood monger at Mariano's informed me that all I had to do was knock on them to make sure they were alive - they squish their shells shut just a little bit tighter. I knocked on practically every shell. Thanks, sir!)

We doubled the recipe for the sauce because we had a TON of mussels (hey, they were our whole dinner, don't judge!) and the only change we made was to omit the tomatoes... but the recipe only calls for a whopping 6 cherry tomatoes, so I can't imagine that really made much of a difference.

Make sure you get lots of French bread to sop up as much of the sauce as possible... it manages to taste both rich and fresh at the same time between the cream and the fresh basil, and Big may or may not have caught me slurping the last bit of mine straight from the bowl.

Image via Voice-Tribune.com

*I somehow managed to accidentally delete all of my own pictures of this, but this picture is almost exactly how they looked, except I had about three times this many!

Mussels in Basil White Wine Sauce

From Hubert Keller's Secrets of a Chef

Ingredients:

(Yields: 4 servings)

•   3 ounces fresh basil leaves
•   1 cup olive oil
•   2 tablespoons butter
•   2 shallots, peeled & finely chopped
•   7 cloves garlic, peeled & finely chopped
•   1 cup dry white wine
•   1/3 cup clam juice
•   1/2 teaspoon salt
•   1/4 teaspoon black pepper
•   30 Mediterranean mussels
•   ½ cup heavy cream
•   2 tablespoons lemon juice
•   2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
•   6-8 cherry tomatoes, halved
•   4 slices country bread, toasted

Directions:

TO MAKE THE BASIL OIL:
Fill a medium saucepan halfway with water and bring to a boil. Lower the basil leaves into the water, and boil for 30 seconds.
With a slotted spoon, remove the basil from the boiling water and plunge them into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Immediately remove the basil from the ice water and pat dry on paper towels.
Transfer the basil into a blender. Add the olive oil, and blend until basil is very finely chopped and oil is bright green. Remove from blender and set aside.

TO MAKE THE MUSSELS:
In a 12" skillet, melt the butter on medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic, and sauté just until translucent, about 1-2 minutes.
Add the white wine to the pan and let it come to a boil.
Add the clam juice, and season with salt and pepper.
Gently add the mussels, cover, and let cook 1 to 1 ½ minutes, or until mussels have fully opened.
Once the mussels are cooked, remove them from the liquid with a slotted spoon and cover with foil.
Finish the sauce by adding the cream and lemon juice to the boiling wine mixture. Whisk until combined and let mixture boil for 2 minutes, or until slightly thickened.
Add 3 tablespoons of the basil oil and stir until combined.
Gently stir in the Parmesan cheese and cherry tomatoes.
Uncover the mussels and gently spoon them into the serving dish and pour sauce on top. Serve with toasted country bread.

Secrets of a Chef:
•   Check the mussels when they are raw to make sure that they are closed, or that they close on their own if you tap them. If any are open and will not close on their own, discard them because they are no longer alive.
•   Chef Keller likes to serve this in cast iron dishes to keep it hot, or he suggests that it is served straight out of the pot in the middle of the table
•   The extra basil oil can be refrigerated and used later. It is great for any seafood dish.

Four Ingredient Fat Free Stir Fry Sauce

I make some variation of stir fry roughly once a week. Its healthy, so good, and can be accomplished in about 5 minutes flat (especially if you're willing to invest in some Trader Joe's frozen stir-fry veggie mixes for the occasional emergency).

I am, by the way, totally aware that stir fry typically involves flash-frying the vegetables in a hot pan with oil, so the title of this is slightly misleading. And I'll admit, a heavier sauce with sesame oil or peanuts really can't be beat.

BUT! If I'm looking for an uber-healthy dinner option that doesn't taste like Fiber One after a long weekend of eating and drinking (ahem), I'll make this pseudo-stir fry and happily dig into a spicy, sweet and salty bowl of vegetables over brown rice. I steam my vegetables of choice until they're perfectly crispy and juicy, then top with this sauce.

Four Ingredient Fat-Free Stir Fry Sauce

• Honey or agave nectar


• Reduced sodium soy sauce


• Chili garlic sauce


• Sesame seeds*

Combine 1 part honey to two parts soy sauce. Add chili garlic sauce to taste, then mix and add sesame seeds.

*Sesame seeds add a nominal amount of fat: 1.5 grams in 1 tsp. Omit if you'd like!

Turkey & Feta Burgers

I don’t know about you, but every time my windows are open and I get a whiff of that glorious grill smell from one of my 2,695,597 Chicago neighbors, I’m guaranteed to spend the remainder of the day majorly craving a big fat burger. (Sorry, veggie friends!) However, since I don’t want to be a big fat anything, especially during bathing suit season, I save the burgers for special occasions. Our mama happens to make the best burgers in the world, so it’s worth waiting for. Or, you know, that one I ate last night after a few Corona Lights at a friend’s pool. Summer Sunday night totally = special occasion, right? :)

I feel like a lot of flavor can make up for a lack of finger-licking grease pretty darn well, so I make some version of turkey burgers just about once a week with various combinations of spices and add-ins. Last week, I made turkey burgers with reduced-fat feta mixed in, topped them with green olive tapenade and served with arugula and tomato salad. They were pretty awesome, if I do say so myself, so I thought I’d share.

Fancy cell phone photo via moi

---

Turkey & Feta Burgers

Makes 4 huge or 6 normal sized burgers

• 1 package of ground turkey (I use 93/7 – but do 99/1 if you’re feeling extra healthy!)


• 4 oz. crumbled reduced-fat feta cheese


• ½ cup finely diced onion


• 1 tsp garlic


• 1 tsp salt


• ½ tsp red pepper flakes (or to taste)


• 1 egg, beaten


• 3/4 cup panko bread crumbs

• Green olive tapenade (optional)

1. Combine all ingredients, mix with your hands. Form into patties. Grill over medium heat until cooked through.


2. Top with green olive tapenade if you’re into that kind of thing.


3. Enjoy!