Foil-Baked Salmon Recipe with Basil Pesto and Tomatoes

I'm learning new things all the time as a food blogger, and this week I learned that shiny aluminum foil can really make it challenging to get a good photo of lovely baked salmon with pesto and tomatoes! I actually made this twice (the sacrifices I make for my readers!) and these were the photos that came out best. I hope it looks appetizing, because this was truly drop dead delicious when I ate it! The recipe was adapted from Mark Bittman's Quick and Easy Recipes from the New York Times, where Bittman had used tomatoes and fresh basil to top salmon that was baked in foil. I didn't have any fresh basil but I had lots of frozen basil pesto, which I think might have even been an improvement on the original recipe.

Diet Friendly Ranch-Style Dip: Greek Yogurt and Cottage Cheese Dip with Dill

When I was a kid, everyone in my family went crazy over my Grandma's Vegetable Dip. We had it as an appetizer for every family party, and everyone simply called it "vegetable dip." This was long before Hidden Valley Ranch Buttermilk Dressing had burst upon the American culinary scene to become the salad dressing of choice for so many American families, but my grandma's "vegetable dip" did taste a lot like the ranch dressing or dip you can make with the Hidden Valley Ranch packaged mix.

Recipe Favorites: Baked Chicken Stuffed with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto, Basil, and Goat Cheese

(Updated January 2008) If you're looking for a fancy chicken recipe for dinner guests, try this recipe for Baked Chicken Stuffed with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto, Basil, and Goat Cheese that I'm adding to the Recipe Favorites category today. I've had so many people tell me they've tried this recipe and like it, and it's one I've personally made over and over since I came up with this combination. I'm using whole wheat pastry flour and 100% whole wheat bread crumbs here to make the recipe more South Beach Diet approved, but if you don't care about that you could use any flour or bread crumbs. There's also a phase one version of Baked Chicken Stuffed with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto, Basil, and Goat Cheese, for anyone who's interested in that. The phase one version omits the flour and bread crumbs, but it's equally delicious.

Cannellini Bean Soup Recipe with Roasted Italian Sausage and Escarole

Why oh why did it take me so long to try escarole? Back in Feburary of 2007 I wrote about escarole for BlogHer and brought some home, with good intentions of using it in a soup like this. I'm not sure why, but I never managed to cook that escarole, and it's taken me all this while to buy it again. This is the soup I planned to make nearly a year ago, one of those classic soups of beans, sausage, and escarole, and what a great combination! It only took one spoonful for me to realize I absolutely adore escarole, with its unique flavor that's subtly different from any other green I've tried.

Recipe for Tuna Mousse or Spuma di Tonno

Tuna packed in olive oil was one of the tastes of 2007 that I went completely nuts over. I found Tonno Genova brand which was inexpensive compared to the Italian imports, and pretty soon I was using it regularly. I liked this tuna every time I tried it in a recipe, so when I saw a post on Sweetnicks where she was using tuna packed in olive oil to make a type of spread for crackers, I was sure Tuna Mousse was something I'd absolutely love. Besides my favorite tuna, there were some other flavors added to the mix that I thought sounded interesting. I made it during the holidays this year, and thought it was completely delicious.

Spinach Salad Recipe with Warm Ginger Vinaigrette

I love to buy one-pound tubs of baby spinach from Earthbound Farms, since spinach is one of the Superfoods, and I really enjoy the flavor of fresh spinach. Still, using up those huge tubs of spinach can be a challenge, and I'm always happy when I find another good spinach salad recipe. I found this idea for warm ginger vinaigrette for spinach salad in Fine Cooking Annual, a cookbook that's one of my all-time favorites. What's special here is using finely grated fresh ginger root in the dressing, and warming the dressing before it's drizzled over the salad. I'm not a purist about using fresh ginger, but in this recipe the slight bite of the fresh ginger really bumps up the flavor. If you only have ginger in a jar, the thick paste labeled ground ginger and sold near the Asian foods, will come closest to capturing the fresh ginger flavor.

Recipe Favorites: Taco Soup Recipe from A Pinch of Salt Lake

(updated January 2008) This recipe for Taco Soup was adapted from A Pinch of Salt Lake, a classic cookbook by the Junior League of Salt Lake, and my copy is one I got as a gift from a student. I'd always wanted the book, and when Nathan showed up with it one day, I was quite excited. In the honest way kids have he said, "My mom didn't think she'd ever use it," which made me smile.

Garbanzo and White Bean Soup Recipe with Lamb and Rosemary

Yes, I'm still making soup! I hope readers from warmer climates aren't getting bored with all my soup posts, but in Utah the temperature has been below freezing for literally weeks. When it's cold like that I get obsessed with making soup, and my freezer is full of various soups all winter long. For this latest one I used lamb, paired with rosemary and beans, three ingredients I think are just meant to hang out together. Lamb is definitely one of my favorite meats, but it's something I don't cook that often because it's so expensive. I had a tiny piece of leg of lamb in the freezer leftover from Lamb Shish Kabobs, and it was fun turning it into a delicious soup.

Jelled Ricotta Pudding: A Reader Shares a South Beach Diet Phase One Dessert!

I'm aware that many people read my blog who aren't dieters, but I do get a fair amount of e-mail from readers using the South Beach Diet to lose some weight. Back in October I heard from Janet, a garden writer and photographer from Toronto who told me that she and her husband had recently started South Beach. Janet said they did miss having something a little sweet after dinner, so she'd been experimenting with phase one desserts. She'd been surprised like I was how good the sugar-free Jello tasted, and she'd also tried the phase one ricotta creme desserts in the original South Beach Diet Book too. Combining those ideas, she mixed low-fat ricotta cheese with sugar-free jello and came up with a dessert she thought was pretty good.

CrockPot Recipe for Southwestern Pot Roast

For some reason I'm just starting to use my crockpot slow cooker this winter, and this easy pot roast recipe which uses salsa and canned beef broth is something I made last weekend and loved how it turned out. The recipe is easy enough qualify for Easy South Beach Recipes (less than 5 ingredients) and with some Black Beans with Cilantro served on the side, this could be a delicious phase one meal for South Beach Dieters. Even if you have no interest whatsoever in dieting, I can promise you this tastes great!

Menu for Hope Winners Announced

You've probably heard by now about how the fabulous food blogger fundraiser, A Menu for Hope, raised the amazing sum of $91,188 to benefit the UN World Food Program. Thanks to all the generous people who donated prizes or bought raffle tickets! Also, much thanks to Chez Pim, organizer of the event, and other regional hosts: Serious Eats, Vinography, Rasa Malaysia, The Domestic Goddess, Food Beam, Grab Your Fork, Cooksister, and The Passionate Cook. The central U.S. region, was hosted by Kalyn's Kitchen, so keep reading below to see the list of winners from our region, then if your name is listed, contact the blogger who sponsored the prize to let them know you were the winner. To see if you won a prize from one of the other regions, check out the complete list of prizes at Chez Pim.

Menu for Hope Winners Will be Announced Friday

If you're one of the many uber-generous people who bought raffle tickets to support A Menu for Hope and helped raise over $90,000 this year, you'll have to wait a couple more days to see if you've won a prize. Pim is having slight technical difficulties, but she'll be announcing the winners on Friday, January 11, at Chez Pim. Winners will receive an e-mail from Pim, but truthfully, isn't scanning the list with heart beating rapidly, looking for your name, half the fun? If you're lucky enough to be a winner, you should contact the blogger who sponsored the prize to send your mailing address.

Happy New Herbs, Plants, Veggies, and Flowers

It's a brand shiny new year, and apparently lots of people are on diets. If you're someone just getting started on the South Beach Diet who's found Kalyn's Kitchen through Google, you might not even know about Weekend Herb Blogging. I'll be back soon with more South Beach Diet friendly recipes, meanwhile, this is a recap of interesting things other bloggers were writing about last week. I was completely amazed at the number of unique ingredients people featured, so grab a snack and something to drink because you'll want to read them all. There were quite a few things I'd never heard of, and I've been reading the WHB posts for more than two years!

Kalyn's Kitchen Picks: Kirkland Herbed Seafood Rub

(Edit: Sadly, it appears this product is not longer being made by Costco.  If anyone does see it again, please let us know.) If you're one of the people who's just getting started on the South Beach Diet and is new to this blog, you don't know how I'm completely nuts over Costco food products. I haven't checked, but I'd guess that a huge percentage of the ingredients I've raved about for Kalyn's Kitchen Picks are from there. No, Costco has never paid me to advertise their products (don't I wish they would hire me to be the official Costco blogger!) I just keep finding tasty food products at Costco, and Costco is such a progressive company that I'm also proud to shop there!

Recipe For Egg Muffins (Revisited again)

These little "muffins" made of egg, veggies, cheese and optional meat are a perfect grab-and-go breakfast!

(First posted in 2005, updated January 2008; I now almost always use the individual silicone cups pictured above to bake my egg muffins.)  Egg "Muffins" are what I call these little little mini-quiches that are baked in muffin cups to create a grab-and-go breakfast that you can make on the weekends and then quickly reheat in the microwave for a hot breakfast on the go.  I've been making these for years!  During that time, I've gone through a few versions to get the recipe just right and picked up a few tricks that I think you'll like.

Crunchy Cruciferous Chopped Salad Recipe

Most people who are at least a bit interested in healthful eating have heard about cruciferous vegetables, sometimes called Super Veggies. This is the category that includes veggies such as broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, brussels sprouts, and cabbage, as well as less common ones like as collards, arugula, chard, mustard greens, rapini, and many more, including many types of greens. Cruciferous vegetables are high in vitamin C and soluble fiber, and they contain nutrients with proven cancer-fighting properties. We all should be eating cruciferous vegetables every day!

Baked Chicken Strips Recipe with Mustard, Almond, and Parmesan

Welcome to anyone who started the South Beach Diet yesterday, and now you're trying to think of something more interesting than lettuce to eat for phase one! These chicken strips coated with almond meal (ground almonds) and parmesan instead of bread crumbs are delicious, plus you can prep them the night before, marinate all day while you're at work, and cook them when you get home.