Search Results for: blog heart healthy vegetarian dishes

Unique Italian Dishes—Pine Nuts and Pizza

If you are like my brother then you are probably asking yourself (or in his case, his wife) why anyone would want to ruin a perfectly good pizza by topping it with pine nuts. Well, it’s not. (At least not in these recipes, click here for a pine nut pizza.) The pine nuts are for a vegetarian ravioli and the pizza… well, the pizza gets a healthy dose of cheese, chicken, bacon, artichoke hearts and baby spinach. As you can tell neither dish is particularly traditional, but that’s what makes them so uniquely delicious. If you are tired of serving … Continue reading →

Hearty Vegetarian Lasagna

This is not a dish you could easily whip up after working overtime at the office and had five hungry (an impatient) mouths to feed. It’s best made on a lazy Sunday or any other time when you have few interruptions. Despite the disclaimer I can tell you that the end result is well worth the effort. When I was first served this particular lasagna at a friend’s home in Hawaii I couldn’t believe it was vegetarian. There’s no mistaking that it lacks ground beef, but the dish was so hearty and the addition of the macadamia nuts gave it … Continue reading →

Heart Healthy Vegetarian Dishes

Cooking for a mother who is on a low calorie, low cholesterol diet PLUS a husband who has diabetes and needs to eat foods that are low in fat, salt and sugar can be challenging to say the least. However, it is a task that my best friend has met full on… and succeeds at in ways that never cease to amaze me. The following recipes are ones she prepares for her family on a regular basis. I had a chance to sample them during my recent visit home. Because neither one of them calls for meat they were great … Continue reading →

Making Healthy Choices at the Thanksgiving Dinner Table

For many people who watch what they eat on a daily basis Thanksgiving is the one day of the year that they throw caution to the wind and devour whatever their stomachs desire. Not my sister-in-law. In fact, she won’t eat a bite of turkey (or ham) today. Rather, she’ll fill her plate with samples of all of the fabulous side dishes that surround the sliced up bird. It’s not because she’s a vegetarian; rather she believes that she’s doing her body good by skipping the meat dishes and eating the lower calorie menu options. (To each her own I … Continue reading →

Have Fun During Lent

Today is the first Sunday of Lent—-the season of self-reflection and self-denial. Not exactly fun stuff, right? Compared to the raucous revelry and face-stuffing silliness associated with Mardi Gras, the solemn season can appear downright depressing. However, it doesn’t have to be. This Lent, I am trying to teach my young daughter that the season should be marked with anticipation. The 40-day period that begins on Ash Wednesday and runs through Holy Thursday is typically a time when people give up bad habits and participate in prayer, penance and repentance. It’s also a time Christians are mandated to abstain from … Continue reading →

Affordable Asparagus Recipes

Tis the season for affordable asparagus. Spring is when asparagus harvest begins, which means you can find the vitamin packed veggie in your local market for very reasonable prices right now. Our local market is selling bundles of fresh asparagus for $1.05. Just over a buck for a bundle of asparagus–now that’s a bargain. I stocked up on asparagus yesterday and am anxious to add the spears to some of my favorite recipes, including: CHICKEN AND ASPARAGUS CASSEROLE Ingredients: 1 box wild rice 2 tablespoons butter 1 cup diced onion 4 stalks diced celery 1 teaspoon garlic salt 1/2 teaspoon … Continue reading →

Gimmie that Fish!

Like millions of others around the world, my 5-year-old is hooked on McDonald’s catchy commercial for its Filet-o-Fish sandwich. Unless you’ve been living under the sea, then you’ve probably seen the ad, which features Big Mouth Billy Bass belting out: Gimme back that Filet-O-Fish. Gimme that fish! Gimme back that Filet-O-Fish. Gimme me that fish! What if it were you hanging up on this wall? If it were you in that sandwich, you wouldn’t be laughing at all! So give me back that Filet-O-Fish, give me that fish! Yes, nothing says, “Welcome to Lent,” more effectively than a stuffed fish … Continue reading →

Non-Seafood Lenten Meals

What’s for dinner during Lent? Two words: Fish fry. Some families live and die by Fish Fry Fridays during Lent, but my clan is not one of them. Heck, my young daughter refuses to eat fish more than once a month, so weekly doses of seafood often result in hunger strikes (which, I suppose is not entirely inappropriate during Lent). If your family is tiring of the same ol’ Friday night fish stick dinner, then consider the following non-seafood Lenten recipes. Not only are they simple to make, they are also incredibly inexpensive: VEGETARIAN PIZZA POCKETS Ingredients: 12 Rhodes Texas … Continue reading →

More Meatless Meals for Lent

Another “Fish Friday” is upon us, and if you are tired of sipping calm chowder, heating up frozen fish sticks, or eating breakfast for dinner in an effort to make meatless meals more palatable, then you might find the following recipes helpful. The Baked Tilapia and Seafood Stuffed Haddock are not only easy to make, but they may just make Friday night dinners during Lent something to look forward to, rather than dread. SIMPLE BAKED TILAPIA Ingredients: 2 Tilapia fillets (you could also substitute with red snapper, haddock, halibut, or orange roughy) 1 fresh lime 2 tablespoons olive oil 1/4 … Continue reading →

Shrimptastic Friday Dinners

With Lent in full swing, many home cooks are looking for tasty meatless dinner options. When you get to the point where you simply can’t bring yourself to choke down another piece of fried fish, then consider whipping up these easy shrimp dishes: SIMPLE SHRIMP LINGUINI Ingredients: 1 pound linguine noodles 1 pound large peeled and deveined shrimp 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons olive oil 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt Juice of half fresh lemon 1 small jar marinated artichoke hearts in oil, roughly chopped 1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, halved 1/2 cup chicken broth 3 cloves garlic, chopped well 1/4 cup … Continue reading →