The "heart" of my family and my table

Hi guys. I’ve been feeling a little under the weather lately and haven’t been up for blogging so much. However, I promise I’ll have a whole bunch of new content this week starting with this great lunch/snack/side dish item.

Artichokes. Yum.

Let me begin by telling you why I love this vegetable. My mother, a pure-blooded Italian-American, is generally more of the Semi-Homemade Sandra Lee School of Cooking, as opposed to the Pancia Mia Fatti Capanna Italian Nonna School of Cooking. She’s a good cook but like many mothers, she likes her short cuts and recipes her mother used to make rarely made it to the dinner table (They did occasionally make it to the holiday table which is why I was blessed to eat Calamari and Anguilla as a child…right up until my cousin told me they were eel and squid! Forgiveness for this is impossible.).

Also like most mothers, Mom tried not to buy pricier items until they came on sale. This accounted for the “extreme cereal binges” of my youth in which my mother would purchase multiple boxes of my favorite cereals and then vigorously encourage me to eat them all before they expired (To this day I have difficulty opening that cabinet in her kitchen).

There were a few family dishes that my mom did make for us and steamed artichokes is one of them. Due to the high price of artichokes, this precious commodity only came around when there was a sale, which made them a delicious treat for my sister and I to enjoy.

Tasty Tuna Skewers

I don’t know if you caught it in the news (granted, there has been much heavier issues on there lately), but New Jersey is partially….underwater. This week has been a little crazy but I finally got a chance to get back to the blog.

I was searching though Hors d’Oeuvres (it is the reason I started this blog!) for a recipe I could blog about that still fit in with my diet and I stumbled upon a tuna skewer recipe that I never paid much attention to….boy, will I now!

These tuna skewers were delicious! The marinade is fresh, light and citrusy with a real sharp note from the garlic and stays that way with each bite. It’s a perfect dish for winter because roasting is a great way to bring out the flavor of out-of-season tomatoes. But don’t discount this for spring or summer either, those bright flavors will really sing with a pitcher of lemonade on your patio!

So many salads in so little time...

Sorry for the cell phone picture!

You may have noticed a string of healthy posts on my blog in the past week. There's a reason for that. I'm on a diet (insert melodramatic music here). Specifically, I'm on the 17 Day Diet, a diet that involves tricking your body's metabolism into burning more fat, thus creating weight loss. All kidding aside, it's fairly strict but not all that difficult to follow. I'm actually quite happy with the results so far.

Anyway, the worst part of this diet is all the salads! I hate salads! I like my lettuce stuffed in sandwiches or buried under a pile of pulled pork. On this diet, I may have gotten used to salads but that doesn't mean I have to like them. Enter the 17 Day Diet Eggplant Parmesan.

This is a great meal to break up the monotony of most diets. It may not be your grandma's eggplant, but it's a healthy, simple, and surprisingly tasty alternative. I've had it a few times and been very happy with the results.

 

Kale Chips? Did we run out of potatoes?

That's the question you might be asking yourself as you sit down for the big game and someone sets a heaping bowl of these babies in front of you.
But trust me, they're worth it.
These little crisps are a healthy, tasty, innovative (and trendy!) alternative to classic potato chips and really easy to make.
There are a few different versions floating around the internet, some with vinegar and others with seasonings like chili powder, but I think simple is the best way to go (at least to start).