Chicken Ragout with Potatoes & Olives – Tasty Chicken Heaven
When I made this I thought, "they will hate it". I have no idea why I thought that, I think it was the odd mixture of onions, garlic and olives and how those simply do not mix with children. Then, as I was making this dish, and the wonderful aromas were wafting from my kitchen kingdom through the rest of our house, I heard the peep every chef loves to hear, "hey what’s that smell, it smells sooo good". Well, my confidence shored up, I drove ahead in making this dish. The recipe is courtesy of "Make it in Minutes" a Weight Watchers cookbook (you can check out the cookbook at this link here). A ragout, for your general cooking trivia knowledge, is French for "A well-seasoned meat or fish stew, usually with vegetables". This one uses chicken and it is heavenly (especially on a cold night).
Click on for the fabulous taste treat!
String Bean & Feta Delight
There’s nothing better than a light dinner with someone you love on a Sunday night, try this original recipe from Beck’s Cafe to hit the spot.
Ingredients
1 lb of fresh string beans (also known as green beans – depending on where you live)
4 whole eggs
1 Tablespoon (T) Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/4 cup Feta Cheese
1 to 2 teaspoons (t) of Garlic Powder
How to do it
Place the 4 eggs in a medium pot that has been filled 1/2 way with cold water. Turn the burner on and bring to a boil, then boil till hard-boiled, about 10 or so minutes. When the eggs are hard boiled, take the eggs in the pot off the stove, then rinse in cold water, let them cool while you make the rest of the meal.
While the eggs are boiling, prepare the string beans by cutting the tips off either end of the green beans, then placing them in a large pot that you’ve put about 1 cup of water into. Once you’ve cut the tips off all the sting beans, and placed them into the pot, cover the pot and steam lightly. You should be able to reach that point by turning the stove top on medium then cooking them about 10 minutes or less. You don’t want to overcook them, but you don’t want them crunchy either. They should feel fresh when you bite into one, but not overcooked. When the string beans are cooked take them out of the pot and place them on a large serving plate. I love blue in my cafe, but pink, purple, red, or any color you like would be just fine 
With the string beans down on the plate, dribble 1T of extra virgin olive oil over the top of the string beans. Then, sprinkle 1 to 2 teaspoons of the garlic powder on top of the green beans. When you’ve done that, sprinkle 1/4 cup of feta cheese on top of the green beans. Finally, peel the eggs, slice, and place around the bed of prepared green beans.
While you could eat this right away, it tastes best when you let this cool at room temp for about 10 minutes or so. If you have time to further cool it in the fridge for about 15 minutes, the taste is enhanced, but it’s really good at room temperature too.
Serve with a glass of chilled white wine or ice water and you are in for a wonderful delight!
Serves 2 as a main dish, or 4 as a side dish.
Calories per person is about 300.
If you’ve got a little issue with cholesterol, just take the egg yolks out.
Takes about 30 minutes to make.
Middle Eastern Pita Pizza
This recipe my spouse found and though she fretted about the fat I said “who CARES this tastes great!” oh and it’s easy to make too 
Ingredients:
4 Pita breads (6 inches in diameter)
1/2 cup roasted garlic-flavored or regular humus (depends on who your kissing afterwards I’d reckon)
1 Cup crumbled feta cheese (4 ounces)
1 Small Onion, sliced
2 Cups shredded spinach
1 Large Tomato, seeded & chopped (1 cup)
1/4 cup sliced ripe or Kalamata OlivesOlive Oil
- Heat over to 400 F. Place pita breads in ungreased jelly roll pan, 15 1/2×10 1/2×1 inch
- Drizel some olive oil onto the pita’s surface
- Spread hummus on each pita bread. Sprinkle with cheese.
- Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until cheese is melted. Top each pizza with onions, spinach, tomoto and olives
Get a nice glass of wine, and enjoy!
Potato Salad Showdown
My spouse makes hellacious potato salad. In fact, her potato salad is so hellacious that it is a hit with anyone who eats it. But, being the health conscience parent that I am, I needed to figure out a better potato salad. Salad of love (my honey’s potato salad)
wins hands down. Salad of Science (my potato salad) tastes like it was made in a food science lab. I’ll let you guess which one tastes
best.
Salad of Love (also known a pile ofstuff whipped into a pot that magically produces potatoessalad)
* 1 bag potatoes boiled, then peeled (boiling ‘em first makes the peeling easier)
* Throw in two eggs while potatoes are cooking, to make them hardboiled
* Take peeled potatoes, cube ‘em and then toss into a bowl
* Shell eggs, dice, toss in same bowl with potatoes
* Finely chop &5 carrots and toss in
* Finely chop about 6 celery stocks & toss in
* Finely chop one onion, dice it up, toss it in to the same bowl
* Toss in some extra macaroni, or any other edible substance that has not grown mold or generated a smell reminiscent of your local waste management station.
* Toss it all together – if you use your bare hands it’s best.
* Take your fav mayo and put in about 5 big spoonfuls (big being your definition of big spoon)
* Add in some Italian dressing – just make it go around in a circle on top….your guess is as good as anyone’s as to how much is the best amount
* cover, refrigerate overnight – then whip out the next day at lunch and eat!
Calories? who the heck knows, and who’s counting! Serving size? By the plate! Taste? all children give this a thumbs up.
Salad of Science
(From page 107, Weight Watchers, “Simply The Best” recipe book)
Ingredients
(measurements are precise)
- 1/4 Cup plain non-fat yogurt
- 2 tablespoons reduced-calorie mayonnaise
- 2 teaspoons minced dill
- 1 teaspoon cider vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 celery stalk, diced up
- 1/2 red bell pepper, seeded & diced
- 2 hard cooked eggs chopped
- 2 scallions thinly sliced
- 2 small red potatoes, cooked and cubed
In a medium bowl, combine the yogurt, mayonnaise, dill, vinegar and black pepper. Add the celery, bell pepper, eggs and scallions; toss with a pair of salad tongs to lightly coat. Ad the potatoes and toss gently, again with the tongs.
Calories? 130
Service Size? One third of the batch as listed, serves 3. Taste? All children look at me questioning if this is potatoe salad, egg salad, or craft paste.
Pancakes
Alton Brown’s Good Eats on The Food Network is THE best show. I love his cooking style and how he so imaginatively talks about food, and teaches about how to cook. It’s really fun. On tonight’s episode he talked about French Toast. I don’t make much French Toast any more since my children are grown. We did go through a spate there where French Toast was all the rave in my kitchen. I don’t do it up nearly as good as Mr. Brown does, bu it was edible (and yeah, the bread was like over a week stale not a day!).
Though French Toast was fun for a "season" the real draw in my kitchen was (and still is) PANCAKES. Pancakes are the ONE thing I can trust to get my brood up and around the kitchen table TOGETHER. They may mutter something vaguely distinguishable as English when they ask for "coffee", or look at each other through bloodshot eyes and grunt, acknowledging there is another body in the room. But the key is we are all together around the table. Pancakes get us there.
Here’s the recipe I’ve used for years, and just thought I’d share the pancake love with ya’ll:
