Italian Vegetable Stew

Italian Vegetable Stew

Another "excellent" dinner option for a quick and flavorful mean.  Be sure to read the Why This Recipe Works section prior to starting the prep work on this stew.  The recommendation is to not peel the eggplant.  It not only adds color to the stew, not peeling the eggplant makes prep go really fast. Huge serving size, I had plenty of left overs to bring in my lunch.  I would cut the vegetables a little bit smaller next time.  I think it would make it a bit easier to eat at lunchtime.  

Crispy Sesame Pork Chops with Wilted Napa Cabbage Salad

Crispy Sesame Pork Chops with Wilted Napa Cabbage SaladI had to use the left over Napa Cabbage from Friday night's Skillet Pork Lo Mein, so we tried this recipe, Crispy Sesame Pork Chops with Wilted Napa Cabbage Salad.   The recipe called for  four cups of the cabbage, a carrot, some garlic, ginger and rice vinegar for the cabbage salad.  It was easy to make the wilted salad and it tasted "Excellent."   I used really thin pork chops.  They cooked in about five minutes.  The hardest part of the recipe was finding the sesame seeds in the store.  They were located in the Asia food section, not near the nuts or spices like I expected.  Fast and tasty, again an "Excellent" rating for any night of the week.  

Skillet Pork Lo Mein

Skillet Pork Lo Mein

Wow, a great entree.  "Excellent" was the overall rating.  To make the recipe gluten-free, I used rice noodles instead of the dried linguine. The rice noodles cooked a bit faster than the linguine.  I also used gluten free soy sauce.  The recipe called for 4 ounces of shitake muhrooms.  This was the first time I remember using shitake mushrooms.  I didn't buy quite enough.  I didn't realize that the stems of the mushrooms are really tough and must be discarded (or used in a stock).  "Excellent" rating on the Skillet Pork Lo Mein.  

Skillet-Braised Cod Provencal

Skillet-Braised Cod Provencal 

Just 320 calories in this "Excellent" rated light entree.  This was a fast and easy to prepare dinner that would allow a couple to practice two or three dance steps, if they so desired.  The only substitute that I made to the America's Test Kitchen Skillet-Braised Cod Provencal was that I used canned, diced tomatoes instead of the fresh tomato called for in the recipe.  I served the cod with zucchini noodles.  I sauteed the zucchini with a little oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes to make it a bit more "pasta" like.

Braised Cod Peperonata

Braised Cod Peperonata

"Following the success of our Provencal-style braised cod, we wanted to make an Italian-inspired verison with peperonata, a flavorful condiment made from tomatoes, red bell pepper, onion, and garlic" (The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook).  Rick and I rated this entree a "very good."  This is another of the light entrees featured in America's Test Kitchen:  The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook.  Each serving had only 260 calories plus the 100 calories for the spicy rice that I served it with.  This would also be a great recipe to serve with zucchini noodles or zucchini ribbons. Zucchini ribbons are featured on page 262 in the cookbook.