Tag Archives: Easy side dish recipes

Easy Peasy Cranberry Sauce

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If you’ve been following me on Instagram you know that I’ve been busy preparing for Thanksgiving and Page’s Birthday right after. We are hosting Thanksgiving , which means that I will be doing most of the cooking. I spent most of the day writing out my menu, dividing up tasks I can accomplish throughout the next few days. Today I tackled prepping my desserts which just means I weighed the dry ingredients put them in bags, labeled, and sealed them. Now all I have to do is add the wet ingredients and bake. As you can see I’ve learned over the years that cooking a large meal like this requires a lot of forethought and staggering of duties. So today one of the other things on my to do list was to make this cranberry sauce! It takes 10 minutes, you throw everything in one pot, a little bit of stirring and you’re done! So easy and super delicious and definitely an upgrade to the canned stuff. Trust me once you make this you will never go back to the canned stuff!

Here’s what you need:

Ingredients

12oz organic cranberries fresh or frozen

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

1 cinnamon stick

Zest of 1 organic orange

Juice of 1 organic orange

1/2 teaspoon of allspice (optional)

Directions:

Place cranberries, cinnamon stick, orange zest, sugar, water, and juice in a medium sized saucepan. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer, stirring as the cranberries begin to pop. The sauce is done once it thickens about 10 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool, serve immediately or place in an airtight container and refrigerate.

Pan Fried Cauliflower with Garlic and Thyme

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Pan Fried Cauliflower with Garlic and Thyme

Pan Fried Cauliflower with Garlic and Thyme

 

This recipe was born out of a pure need to get dinner on the table quickly.  I love cauliflower and on a normal day I would slice it and place it in the oven to cook, but time didn’t allow for me to do so recently.  Page was hungry and I did not have 20 minutes to spare.  The great thing about being rushed to get dinner on the table–yes there is a great thing about it–is that you need to keep it simple.  This recipe is exactly that–simple– it contains less than 5 ingredients and the best part? It only took 10 minutes!

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Ingredients:

2 cups of sliced cauliflower

2 cloves of garlic (smashed)

2 tablespoons of oil ( grape seed, or olive oil)

1 tablespoon of butter

5-6 sprigs of thyme

sea salt and black pepper to taste

 

Directions: Heat a cast iron skillet until it smokes.  Add in the 2 tablespoons of oil.  Add the cauliflower, and allow to cook for 5 minutes undisturbed.

Add the butter, thyme and garlic, take care when adding the thyme, the water in the thyme will cause the oil to pop.

Allow to cook for another 5 minutes. Once the cauliflower has browned and taken on some color,

Transfer it to a serving platter, season with salt and pepper, serve and enjoy!

 

Grilled Zucchini and Avocado with White Wine Vinaigrette

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Grilled Zucchini with Avocado and White Wine Viniagrette

Grilled Zucchini with Avocado and White Wine Vinaigrette

T’is the season–for zucchini that is.  It is at almost every stand in my farmers market, piled into beautiful towers at my local Whole Foods, and in glistening plastic packages in my local Trader Joe’s.  There is no escaping it–not that I’d want to. Zucchini is one of those vegetables that if you plant it–you will be rewarded with an enormous bounty–so it’s no wonder that it is everywhere right now. So what do you do with an enormous bounty of zucchini?  Cook it. Pickle it. Give it away–even in secret as some of my neighbors have, by leaving an anonymous  bag full of zucchini on my doorstep.  It’s a good thing that I happen to like zucchini.  This recipe happens to be something that came about as an accident.  I was planning on making my favorite saute of zucchini and mushrooms but my plans and Page’s needs sometimes collide and I had to make an adjustment.  In this case, I had some deliciously ripe avocado’s that Page insisted that I serve her for dinner.  I had already begun to slice the zucchini so I had to cook it. So I decided why not just combine the two and make a salad of sorts. Boy, am I glad I did. I used a white wine vinaigrette, but this is great with a lemon garlic vinaigrette too!

 

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Ingredients:

2 medium zucchini, sliced

2 large avocados, sliced

1/4 cup of feta cheese (optional)

1 tablespoon of parsley, finely chopped

2 tablespoons of olive oil or grape seed

2 tablespoons of butter or ghee

sea salt and black pepper to taste

For Vinaigrette

3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon of olive oil

sea salt to taste

Directions: Mix the ingredients for the vinaigrette in a small bowl and set aside. Heat the oil and butter in a saute pan.

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Once hot, add the zucchini slices to the pan and cook until brown–about 2-3 minutes on each side.

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Transfer the zucchini to a plate, season with sea salt and black pepper.

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Slice the avocado and arrange in a single layer on a plate.  Top the avocado with the grilled zucchini.  Sprinkle with feta if using, then sprinkle with parsley. Lastly top with vinaigrette, serve and enjoy!

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Sauteed Chard with Lemon, Garlic and Shallots

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Sauteed Chard with Lemon, Garlic and Shallots

Sauteed Chard with Lemon, Garlic and Shallots

Chard is an under rated vegetable.  It’s one of those vegetables that doesn’t get it’s due.  Probably because it has to contend with other vegetables that hog the spotlight, like kale, broccoli, and cauliflower.  I think that if more people knew how easy it is to cook chard, and how delicious it is, it would be a star in their dinner line up.  This recipe for chard is one of my favorite chard recipes.  It’s super easy, quick, and oh so delicious!

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Ingredients

1 bushel of chard about 4 cups chopped roughly

1 medium shallot sliced thinly

4 small cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, more if you’re so inclined

2 tablespoons of cooking oil

sea salt to taste

Directions:  Heat the oil along with the garlic and shallots over medium heat.

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Cook the shallots and garlic until shallots turn translucent, about 1-2 minutes.

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Add in the chopped chard, season with sea salt and saute until wilted.

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Turn the fire off and add lemon juice, toss then serve.  Yup that easy! AND So, so , so delicious!!

 

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Fried Cauliflower Florets with Creamy Garlic Tahini Sauce

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Fried Cauliflower Florets with Creamy Garlic Tahini Sauce

Fried Cauliflower Florets with Creamy Garlic Tahini Sauce

Whenever I eat out at a Mediterranean restaurant, I find it hard to not just compose a meal from the appetizer menu.  With things like lentil soup, lemon and garlic potatoes, hummus and pita bread, fattoush salad, grape leaves, and fried cauliflower on the appetizer menu, who needs a full entree!  I often find myself struggling not to order one of every thing on the appetizer menu.  I usually settle upon the potatoes or the fried cauliflower.  The fried cauliflower is amazingly simple.  Unlike most fried things that come dusted in flour or some other type of breaded base, this doesn’t.  This recipe calls for only one ingredient, cauliflower!  The tahini sauce is great with this, but the cauliflower is pretty amazing on its own.  Your kids will love these cauliflower florets, mine did!

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 5-7 minutes

Ingredients:

1 small head of cauliflower

2 cups of grape seed oil or another high temp oil

Sea salt to taste

Ingredients Creamy Garlic Tahini Sauce

4 tablespoons of tahini paste

8 tablespoons of water

1 tablespoon of lemon juice, more if you like

2 cloves of garlic grated

Directions: Pre-heat the oil to 320F in a deep fryer.  Add ingredients for the tahini sauce to a small bowl and mix until well combined and creamy, then set aside. If you want this to be extra creamy, place all ingredients into a food processor or blender and blend until creamy, then transfer to a bowl.

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Cut the cauliflower into florets.

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Add the cauliflower florets to the deep fryer.

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Fry until golden brown.

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Transfer to a paper towel lined plate, season with sea salt, serve and enjoy!

 

 

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Creamy Caesar Salad Dressing

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Creamy Caesar Dressing--DIY Caesar Salad Dressing

Creamy Caesar Dressing–DIY Caesar Salad Dressing

My latest obsession is salad.  Crispy and crunchy vegetables with a drizzle of oil, and a splash of citrus or vinegar–what’s not to love?  Salads are a great way to get in a few servings of fresh vegetables in their raw state.  As much as I love salads, they can become a bit boring if you don’t mix things up a bit.  The easiest way to do that is to switch out the vegetables and the dressing.  I often make caesar salads with romaine lettuce, but sometimes I switch out the romaine and replace it with baby kale, or lacinto kale.  It makes for a hearty salad and an especially delicious twist to the standard caesar  salad, we are all used to.  I’ll post the recipe I use for the kale caesar another day, but today, I’m sharing my recipe for my favorite creamy caesar salad dressing.  It’s my go to dressing, when I crave a creamy salad dressing.

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Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: none

Ingredients:

1 clove of garlic pasted

2 Tablespoons of lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon of worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon of anchovy paste

2 large egg yolks

1/4 cup grape seed oil

5 teaspoons of olive oil

3/4 cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese

black pepper to taste

Directions:  To a small bowl add the grated garlic and lemon juice, allow to sit for 10 minutes.  If you have a hand mixer like I do, add the lemon garlic mixture, (after it sits for 10 minutes), and the rest of the ingredients to a bowl and mix until the mixture thickens–about 1-2 minutes.

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Transfer to an air tight container and chill until ready to use.

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If you don’t have a hand mixer,  whisk worcestershire sauce, anchovies, and egg yolks into garlic/lemon juice mixture.



While whisking, drizzle grape seed oil and extra virgin olive oil into bowl in slow, steady stream until fully emulsified.


 Add 3/4 cup Parmesan and pepper to taste; whisk until incorporated:

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Oven-Roasted Broccolini with Lemon-Garlic Parmesan

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Oven Roasted Broccolini with Lemon-garlic Parmesan

Oven Roasted Broccolini with Lemon-garlic Parmesan

 

Going to the Farmer’s market on Sunday has become routine for my family.  My daughter gets excited about going and so do I.  I never know what my weekly meal plan will include until after I’ve forged my way through the market.  This week the pickings were slim.  I don’t know if was just extremely busy before we got to the farmer’s market, or if the farmer’s just didn’t have much to share.  Either way, I left with only two produce items–broccolini and strawberries.  Not my usual bountiful assortment.  I had no idea how I was going to prepare the broccolini, and decided just before cooking it, to roast it and top it with the lemon-garlic parmesan mixture.  The flavors sounded like they would pair well to me, so I took an chance, and I’m so glad I did.  Beside’s my Roasted Broccoli with Garlic–this is new favorite way to prepare broccoli. For my Paleo, Vegan, and Whole 30 friends leave out the cheese, this is still great without it–the lemon really makes this broccolini sing!

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 10-15 minutes

Ingredients:

1lb of organic broccolini (can sub broccoli)

1/2 cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese

1/2 teaspoon of lemon powder (can sub 1 teaspoon of lemon zest)

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 Tablespoons of oil plus an additional 2 teaspoons

sea salt to taste

Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 450F.  To a small bowl add parmesan, garlic, and 2 teaspoons of oil,

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mix well and set aside.

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Line a bake sheet with foil, add the broccolini, 2 tablespoons of oil, and sea salt and toss well.

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Place in the oven for 10 minutes.  At the 10 minute mark, remove the sheet pan from the oven, and top with the lemon-garlic parmesan mixture.

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Return the pan to the oven and cook for an additional 3-5 minutes or until the parmesan browns, remove from oven, serve and enjoy!

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If you like this recipe you might like my recipe for Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Parmesan, Lemon and red pepper flakes, or my recipe Parmesan Chicken with Roasted Romaine.

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Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Rosemary

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Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Rosemary

Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Rosemary

 

Do you like sweet potatoes?  I love them!  My husband–not so much!  Enter this recipe and he is a convert!  I just love a recipe that can convert someone, don’t you? The best part of this recipe? Three ingredients AND it’s super easy!

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

3 cups of cubed organic sweet potato

1 tablespoon of fresh or dried rosemary

2 tablespoons of coconut or olive oil

sea salt to taste

Directions: Pre-heat your oven to 425F.  In a large bowl toss together the sweet potato cubes, rosemary, sea salt, and oil–making sure that all of the potatoes get coated in oil.

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Add the potatoes to a foil lined bake sheet and cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until potatoes take on some color.  Remove from the oven, serve and enjoy!

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Sauteed Zucchini and Mushrooms

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Sauteed Zucchini and Mushrooms

Sauteed Zucchini and Mushrooms

 

My garden is overflowing with zucchini right now, zucchini and tomatoes!  The great thing about planting zucchini is that it yields a large bounty.  The not so great thing about planting zucchini is that it yields a large bounty.  This is particularly troublesome when you’re neighbors also plant zucchini in their own gardens, then giving the zucchini away becomes burdensome. The only solutions in such cases is to come up with new zucchini recipes nightly, or to freeze them.  At the moment, I’m trying to use my zucchini in any way that I can that doesn’t include freezing them–at least not yet.  This dish is so delicious and simple to make, it  makes a great addition as a side to any meal. If you’re Vegan Paleo, or on the Whole 30 diet, you can do this without the butter, it’s stilla delicious side.

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time:20 minutes

Total time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

10 ounces of Crimini mushrooms sliced

2.5 cups of zucchini cubed

2 cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons of butter

1 tablespoon of olive oil

sea salt to taste

 

Directions: Heat the oil and 1 tablespoon of butter in a saute pan.  Add in the mushrooms and garlic. Season the mushrooms with sea salt, they will begin to release water.

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Season the mushrooms with sea salt, they will begin to release water. Cook the mushrooms until the water completely evaporates (about 10 minutes) add in the rest of the butter, and cook the mushrooms until they begin to brown (about 5 minutes).

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Once the mushrooms begin to brown, add in the zucchini and saute until the zucchini becomes fork tender (about 5 minutes)

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Remove from heat, serve and enjoy!

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Eggplant Fries

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Eggplant Fries

Eggplant Fries

One of my husbands absolute favorite vegetables is eggplant. If I made it every night for dinner for three years straight that would not be enough for him. He loves it! The problem with his love for eggplant is not that I don’t love it, because I do. It’s that it’s hard for me to find organic eggplants.  Short of me growing our own private stag of organic eggplants, which I have tried, and failed at, I just have not been able to appease his love for this vegetable. Whenever, our Whole Foods has organic eggplants a buy them, no matter what they cost. Fortunately for me, my husband will eat eggplant anyway I prepare it.  Page on the other hand is just getting acquainted with eggplant, so preparation for her is a much less forgiving thing.  She loved these eggplant fries which made my heart happy. The key to cooking eggplant in any kind of oil, is to bring your oil up to temperature before adding the eggplant. If you add the eggplant to the oil before the oil is hot enough, you will get an oil logged disgusting piece of eggplant. Eggplant is like a sponge in that way, it soaks up the oil, so make sure your oil is nice and hot before you add the eggplant.

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 10 minutes

Ingredients: 1 medium sized eggplant, julienned but keep them thick

1/2 teaspoon of turmeric

sea salt to taste

4-5 tablespoons of safflower oil ( can substitute with grape seed, or another high heat oil)

Directions: Add the eggplant, turmeric and sea salt to a bowl and toss well, and set aside. image Heat the oil in a cast iron pan, once the oil is hot, add in the eggplant, make sure not to over crowd the pan. image Brown the eggplant on all sides, then transfer to a paper towel lined plate. image Season with more sea salt if necessary, then Serve and enjoy!