Tag Archives: healthy

appetizers, Cooking, Holiday, salad, side dishes

Farro and Arugula Salad with dried Cranberries

November 22, 2019 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

My friend Katelyn is a grain salad person. She’s always serving the tastiest salads with barley or wheat berries mixed together with other delicious morsels.

Last week my sister hosted dinner and served a tasty orzo and arugula salad that I absolutely loved. I decided to adapt her recipe by using farro and it turned out wonderfully. I served it to Katelyn alongside this Chicken Piccata recipe from Homemade Italian Cooking. She asked for the recipe, so here we are. 🙂

The magic ingredient in my salad (that’s completely optional) is reconstituted porcini mushrooms chopped up finely. It adds depth to the dish and the lemon, feta and dried cranberries bring in a brightness that complement the spiciness of the arugula.

This is a wonderful side dish to serve at Thanksgiving as it incorporates cranberries, grains, and has a look of good cheer on your plate.

You can of course replace the farro with any grain such as brown rice or couscous.

Farro and Arugula salad with Feta, Cranberries and Porcini

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms (optional)
2.5 cups cooked farro, cooled
A few big handfuls of baby arugula (or baby spinach/arugula mix)
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/3 cup grated pecorino Romano cheese
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup Craisins
2 tablespoons olive oil
juice from 1/4 of a lemon
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
Splash of white wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Place dried porcini in a small bowl and cover completely with boiling water. Place a plate on top of the bowl and let sit for 20 minutes until mushrooms are soft. Chop finely.

Add all the ingredients to a salad bowl and toss until everything is well coated. Add more olive oil if it needs to be loosened up a little.

alaska, appetizers, Cooking, recipes, salad, seafood, snacks, South Beach

Salmon salad lettuce wraps

January 7, 2015 alaskaknitnat 2 Comments

With a new year comes New Year’s resolutions, and I’ve decided to join the countless others who resolve to eat more healthily. As a contributor to Anchorage Food Mosaic Project, I was recently asked what my Food Year’s Resolution was. Fewer cheeseburgers was the first thing that came to mind, but also to cut down on carbs and to eat more healthily in general.

My husband and I are trying out the South Beach Diet, which is a low sugar and carb regimen. The first phase is pretty strict, but that doesn’t limit my ability to cook delicious food.

Today’s lunch was quick to prepare and pretty dang delicious. I love me some smoked salmon, but that stuff is expensive. I wanted to make a dish that had the flavor of smoked salmon, but was a little easier on the pocketbook.

This salad recipe is chock full of nutrients and with the use of smoked paprika, it fulfilled my craving for smoked salmon. I purchased my canned salmon at Costco, but if you’re lucky to have an Alaska fisherman friend, you could certainly make this with fresh-cooked salmon!

Smokey salmon lettuce wraps — A South Beach Diet phase 1 recipe

Makes about 6 wraps

Continue reading Salmon salad lettuce wraps →

alaska, appetizers, asian, seafood

Wild Alaska Salmon Poke

July 15, 2014 alaskaknitnat 2 Comments

If you live in Southcentral Alaska then you’re probably keenly aware it is sockeye salmon season. My husband is getting his hipwaders and dipnets all ready for the coming week where he will camp out on the shores of the Kenai River and make the most of the everlasting daylight by fishing into the wee hours of the night.

We still have some vacuum-packed filets in the freezer from last year so to make way for this year’s bounty we are trying to find creative ways to use it up. Sure, there’s nothing better than simple grilled salmon with a drizzle of lemon, but my dad started preparing poke out of the frozen filets that tops any store bought ahi poke.

Poke is a Hawaiian salad made of cubed sashimi such as ahi tuna, soy sauce, sesame oil, onions and hot chili sauce. It’s a bit like spicy tuna sushi without the rice and seaweed.

Here’s my dad’s recipe, which uses fresh-frozen sockeye, a.k.a. red, salmon. Keep in mind that the Food and Drug Administration recommends freezing fresh fish and thawing it before consuming it raw because this kills any parasites. This is how sushi-grade fish is prepared in America. The FDA also says cooking seafood is the safest way to consume it, so prepare poke at your own risk. If you are pregnant or are at risk for food-borne illness, then please be cautious about consuming fresh-frozen fish.

With that disclaimer out of the way, here’s my dad’s recipe!

Wild Alaska Salmon Poke

As featured on Anchorage Food Mosaic

makes about 4 cups

Ingredients:

2 pounds red salmon, previously frozen and thawed in the fridge overnight

1 bunch of green onions, finely chopped

1/2 cup finely chopped white onion

2 Tbs. Nori Komi Furikake rice seasoning (optional)

2 Tbs. soy sauce

3 Tbs. sesame oil

2 Tbs. chili garlic sauce

2 tsp. sugar

1 Tbs. sesame seeds

Directions:

Using a sharp filet knife, remove the skin from the salmon filets. If there are any pin bones, carefully remove them with needle nose pliers. Cut the salmon into bite-sized cubes.

Add all the ingredients in a medium bowl and mix thoroughly. If you are not using the rice seasoning, add salt to taste. If you like a little more kick, add an extra tablespoon of the chili garlic sauce.

Serve immediately or refrigerate for later. Serve with sesame or rice crackers.

For more tasty Alaska recipes, check out my dad’s website.

breakfast, Cooking, recipes

Overnight Refrigerator Oatmeal

May 14, 2014 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

I’m trying to eat more healthily these days and thanks to Quaker Oatmeal’s relentless heart-healthy advertising campaigns I am pretty sure oatmeal is on the good-foods list.

I tire of oatmeal. It’s texture and flavor rarely vary and since I don’t own a microwave these days (only because mine broke), oatmeal makes for a crusty, annoying pot to clean every morning.

So, I decided to try out the healthy hipster refrigerated oatmeal trend. Look it up on Pinterest and you’ll find endless recipes for this dish, beautifully displayed in glimmering Mason jars. I used a plastic Rubbermaid container, but what I discovered was a simple way to prepare breakfast that was creamy, tasty and healthy. It doesn’t have the same texture as traditional oatmeal, but I was surprised how soft the oats became and how much liquid they ended up absorbing.

Feel free to substitute whatever milkish liquid you prefer, but I went with good ol’ milk.

Overnight Refrigerated Oatmeal

Serves 1

Ingredients:

1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats (not the quick-cook kind)

2/3 cup milk

1 single-serving container of Chobani greek yogurt, flavor of your choice.

Agave nectar or honey to taste

Directions:

In a container combine the oats, milk and yogurt. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, stir in sweetener of your choice and any other toppings you like such as cinnamon, bananas or berries. Healthy yum!

What is your favorite way to prepare oatmeal? Leave me a comment!

-Natasha

Cooking, recipes, side dishes

Braised Red Cabbage

April 8, 2014 alaskaknitnat 5 Comments

Around my birthday last month I went to the garage to find something in the chest freezer only to see it full of Omaha Steak Company boxes. Turns out my mother-in-law sent us five meaty meals to cook up with very little prep. One hunk of meat was corned beef brisket. Mmm…corned beef with mustard and cabbage.

I prefer red cabbage not only for its vibrant color, but it’s packed with tons more vitamin A than green. I once had Thanksgiving with a Hungarian guest. She brought a red cabbage dish that was tangy and sweet. She said it was a traditional recipe in her country.

I never got the recipe, but I decided to use Bon Appétit’s as a guideline. The dish was tender, tangy and sweet, just as I anticipated. The julienned granny smith apple rounds out the flavors. This braised red cabbage went perfectly with our corned beef and mashed potatoes.

Braised Red Cabbage

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

2 Tbs. olive oil

1/2 head red cabbage, cored and sliced

1/2 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic

3/4 cup chicken broth

1/4 tsp. allspice

2 tsp. sugar

2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar

1 granny smith apple, cut into matchsticks

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat olive oil over medium-high flame in a large pan. Add the onion and garlic and cook till onions are soft and starting to brown, about 8 minutes. Add the cabbage, salt, pepper, allspice, and sugar and toss to evenly coat with oil. Cook till cabbage is wilted, about 5 minutes. Add the stock, cover and turn down the heat. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add the apples and vinegar, recover and simmer another 15 minutes.

recipes

Easy homemade cocoa

April 7, 2014 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

One of my son’s favorite winter treats is hot cocoa. He learned the words when he was about 18 months old. I prefer hot cocoa made with milk but there’s so much sugar and other junk in store bought cocoa, plus usually you are supposed to use water.

So I made my own. And it’s super good! I also never have whipping cream so to make it extra special I use my Nescafe milk frother to top off the cocoa with a thick layer of foam. It makes me feel like I’m in a fancy cafe.