Faux Huevos Rancheros South Beach Style

I really don't know exactly what to call this concoction that I made and we immediately devoured on Saturday morning. I was reading a 20 minute recipe thread and E (also known as the bean lady) posted a link to a couple of fabulous looking recipes for shaksouka. I started salivating and then considering how to prepare them South Beach phase 1 friendly. THEN, AdK posted that she used a similar method while cooking huevos rancheros. The light bulb instantly went off. I could remove the bread from the shaksouka and the tortillas from the huevos rancheros and, with the beans, still have a very balanced South Beach Diet  friendly meal.

Get ready for the yumminess.

Faux Huevos Rancheros
1 anaheim or poblano pepper, seeded and chopped
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 can of pinto beans, drained and rinsed (you could totally use black beans here)
1 can of fire roasted tomatoes
splash of chicken stock
eggs (1-2 per person)
Salt and pepper to taste

The most time consuming part of this recipe is dicing the pepper and onions, so that tells you how quickly this comes together.

First spray a skillet with non-stick spray (please use a skillet that you have a lid for, you'll need the lid) and heat. Once the skillet is hot, add the onion, pepper and garlic and saute for about 5 minutes.

Here comes the hard part, please pay attention. Ready? Dump the beans and tomatoes into the skillet and stir. Yep, I lost you didn't I? Seriously folks, it's that easy. Add a splash of chicken stock and cover and heat about 10 minutes or until everything is heated through.

Once everything is heated, crack your eggs on top of the mixture. Put the cover back on and cook for 4 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand another 1-2 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve in a shallow bowl. If you're feeling really festive, top it with a little lowfat cheese, avocado slices and/or cilantro!

Dig in and thank me later.

Make Ahead Breakfast Casserole - Sausage, Squash and Green Chiles.

Now that summer is winding down in our household, it's time to get back to the basics of our South Beach Diet eating plan. I have a couple of friends who are starting South Beach Diet today, and to be supportive to them I decided to go back to Phase 1 myself this week.

First things first! For us, the key to success starts with the first meal of the day. Unfortunately, my hard working husband leaves the house at o'dark thirty in the morning. That equals a time way too early for me to get up and cook him breakfast every morning. So instead, I make breakfast once at the beginning of the week and he can take a portion each morning and pop it in the microwave for a hot, homemade breakfast each day.

So, today's post is going to be quick and simple because that's what this dish is. It's a quick and simple way to have a delicious, hot breakfast each morning and only having to cook it once!

Sausage, Squash and Green Chile Breakfast Casserole

What you'll need:
1lb Low fat ground turkey breakfast sausage
1T olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
1 yellow squash diced (zucchini works too)
1 can (4 oz) green chiles (I used hot instead of mild)
1 cup low fat jack or cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste
2C egg beaters
1/3c fat free half and half

First coat a large skillet with non stick spray and heat that bad boy up! Add the olive oil and the  chopped onion and saute until onion becomes translucent. Then add the ground turkey sausage and cook until done. At this time you can cadd the squash and the green chiles. Stir and cook an additional five or so minutes. Add half of the cheese, salt and pepper and stir. Once that is combined add eggs and half and half and reduce heat to low. Stir frequently until the egg just begins to set up. Now, you'll remove the pan from the heat and empty contents into a 9x11 dish that has been coated with non stick cooking spray. Sprinkle the remainder of the cheese on top.

Cook for 35-45 minutes at 325 or until eggs have set up and cheese is a little browned.

Tomato and Goat Cheese Frittata

If I haven't had a case of the Monday's today, then none ever existed! But, in spite of my challenges today, I managed to end the day with an extraordinary, quite healthy  (South Beach Diet friendly) dinner and a couple of glasses of good wine. I'm going to apologize in advance for the lack of photographs of my meal preparation. The boys were on a roll and I was playing referee at the same time that I was making dinner. It happens.

Tonight I made a simple, yet elegant, tomato and goat cheese frittata. The elegance, in my opinion, comes from incredible succulent and very much in season tomatoes....and goat cheese. It was juicy and creamy and just amazingly fresh. I'm not going to waste time with words, I'm just going to get straight to dinner.

Tomato and Goat Cheese Frittata

Olive oil
4 slices (aprox 3"x8") prosciutto chopped
1 sweet white (or Spanish) onion, diced.
2 large cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste
Mediterranean blend of spices (I used Global Garden Caliterranean Blend)
1 large heirloom tomato, thinly sliced
3-4 oz goat cheese crumbled.
1/3c half and half
2C egg beaters
2T Parmigiano Reggiano

Heat olive oil in pan and cook prosciutto until browned. While prosciutto is cooking, take 4 slices of the tomato and slice it in half creating a half circle. Dice the rest of the tomato slices. Remove prosciutto from  pan and set on a paper towel. Add chopped onion to pan, sprinkle with salt, pepper and mediterranean seasoning and saute. Once onions start to become translucent, add garlic and cook for about two minutes. Add diced tomato slices and cook another two minutes. Add half of the goat cheese and half of the prosciutto to the onion and tomato mixture and stir. Add half and half and stir again. Now add the egg beaters. Mix everything well for about 30 seconds and then transfer to a pie or tart pan that has been well coated with cooking spray. Then top frittata with the remaining 8 tomato half slices, remaining chopped prosciutto and remaining crumbled goat cheese. Then sprinkle with parmigiano reggiano.

Bake for 30-40 minutes at 350, until golden brown.

This dish paired very nicely with a glass of dry Rose. I'm typically not a Rose drinker, but it went very well and it was very refreshing for this hot summer night.

10 Minutes 'Til Dinner

Alright, this is going to be a super quick post for a super quick, super healthy week night meal. It's so quick that it will probably take me longer to type up this blog post than it will take you to make this dish! It's South Beach Diet friendly and Gluten Free! This is less of a recipe and more of a meal idea.

Chipotle Black Bean Lettuce Wraps

You'll need the following:

• Four black bean patties (I used frozen this time, if you want to prepare your own use my pinto bean burger recipe in my burger and fries post)
• 1 head of butter leaf lettuce
• 1avocado
• 1 tomato
• 2T chopped red onion
• 4T chopped cilantro
• juice of one lime
• garlic salt
• Sour cream (optional)
• Cheese (optional)

While the black bean patties are cooking in a large skillet, chop the avocado, tomato, onion and cilantro and mix together with garlic salt and lime juice. Clean the lettuce and gently remove each leaf and set on a platter. When the patties are cooked, break them up with a spatula like you would ground meat.

Top a leaf of lettuce with some of the black bean patty mixture, avocado salsa fresca and sour cream and cheese if desired.

That's it! ENJOY!

Margherita Pasta

With summer definitely upon us here in Southern California, my weekly CSA shipments have taken transformation. I'm so happy to see the summer produce that the warmer temperatures have been providing! I used four items from my weekly Harvest2U shipment in my dinner tonight.

This dinner really couldn't have been easier. It's definitely a week night meal and it's South Beach (phase 2 and 3) friendly.

Margherita Pizza

Here's what you'll need:

1/2 box organic whole grain pasta (I used thin spaghetti) cooked

Olive oil (I used meyer lemon olive oil)

The stalk of one large onion (you may substitute a leek if you cannot find a onion stalk)

1 dozen med-large cherry tomatoes, halved

fresh basil (about 2T chopped)

garlic chives (about 1Tchopped)

salt and pepper to taste

parmesan cheese (optional)

Cook your pasta and set aside

Clean and slice your onion stalk. Once it's sliced, place in large skillet with 1T olive oil and a dash of salt. Cook just until barely softened, you don't want to cook them too much. Turn off the burner and toss the tomatoes into the pan. 

Toss pasta into the pan, as well as basil and garlic chives.

Add 2T of meyer lemon olive oil to pan and toss. Salt and pepper to taste.

Plate and serve! See, couldn't be easier!

Getting my cake on....Oh BABY!

One of my oldest friends is expecting her first child next month and I was honored to create her baby shower cake. She provided me with a napkin as a sample of the shower theme, told me what flavors she wanted and left the rest to me. Of course, I never do cakes completely alone. I'm so blessed to have a husband who is not only incredibly talented, but also enjoys helping me create my cakes.

So, we set out to design the cake. For some reason I kept hitting creative road blocks. Perhaps it's because I wanted so badly for it to be perfect and for the mommy-to-be to totally and completely love it. Who knows, all I can tell you is that I was stumped in a huge way. I had WEEKS to plan this cake and I didn't even really decide on my design until one week before the baby shower.

Alright, before I get to photos of the finished product, I wanted to share a few photos of the cake that I snapped in the process of building the cake. Here we go.....

Once the cakes are baked, I crumb coated them. My next step was to fill the cakes and then stack them. This particular cake was the bottom tier and it was chocolate cake with bittersweet chocolate ganache filling.

While I was filling and stacking the cakes, Dan was busy working away on the little animals. He was molding them out of gum paste.

Once I had the cakes filled and stacked, I put another thin coating of buttercream frosting on them and put them back in the fridge. The next step was to make the fondant and cover the cakes in fondant.

I divided the leftover green fondant into two pieces. I knew that I would need a little bit of green again later. The piece I wasn't using right away I double wrapped it in saran wrap and placed it into a ziplock bag.

After the cakes were covered in fondant we stacked them using dowels for support. Once the cakes were stacked I piped the borders and piped the wording on the cake as well as placed the leaves (this is where I used that green fondant again) and the stars.

While I was working on the piping and the embellishments, Dan was busy working on making those adorable little animals come to life. 

Now, the moment you've been waiting for.....The finished cake! Happy Baby Shower Day Dominique and welcome baby Aidan!

Recipe of the Month Club: May Review

I've mentioned before that I subscribe to a message board online, and one of the threads on this message board is a recipe of the month thread. This post is going to be short as it's only a review of a recipe that was chosen as the May recipe of the month.

The recipe is Lemon-Mint Cake with Lemon Syrup. It can be found here on the Foodnetwork.com website at http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/lemon-mint-cake-with-lemon-syrup-recipe/index.html.

The recipe was relatively easy to make and came together quickly. The instructions were straight forward and simple to follow. The result was a delicious summery cake with a definite lemon zing and a subtle hint of mint in the background. So subtle that you might miss it if you didn't know it was there. I believe it did bring something fresh to the recipe.