Recipe for Baby Arugula Chopped Salad with Chicken, Fresh Mozzarella, and Tomatoes

This baby arugula chopped salad was one of the main reasons that arugula kept disappearing from my fridge the last few weeks. I'd never thought of using arugula in a chopped salad until I had the Italiana Chopped Salad at Vinto, a beautifully designed restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City. This salad isn't exactly the same as the Vinto salad, but I loved the combination of chopped baby arugula, chicken, fresh mozzarella, and tomatoes with a zesty dressing. I used leftover rotisserie chicken in this salad, but grilling a chicken breast and then cutting it up would make it even better. At my house there are still a few red tomatoes coming from the garden, but if it's not garden tomato season when you're craving arugula, grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes would be great in this.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Roasted Figs with Goat Cheese and Balsamic-Agave Glaze

Last Friday I talked about nice people giving me things from their gardens, and the garden windfalls included a container of fresh figs my brother Rand picked from his tree. Figs don't grow in Utah so I haven't eaten them that often, but I think these are Mission Figs, named for the Fathers who settled California. This was my first time cooking figs, so I used Food Blog Search to find interesting things that other food bloggers had done with them. I wanted a dish without added sugar, and I'm a fan of savory-sweet combinations, so I adapted a couple of roasted figs ideas into something that was perfect for me. I loved the Roasted Figs with Goat Cheese and Balsamic-Agave Glaze, which I think would make a lovely appetizer or not-too-sweet dessert for a dinner party if you're lucky enough to have fresh figs where you live.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Indian Spiced Lentils

(Updated and added to Recipe Favorites September 2010) I remember the first time I ever tasted lentils, in a soup that was served at a Mexican restaurant where I had my first job. Certainly my mother never cooked them so I have no idea how I became such a lentil fan, but if a recipe contains lentils, it's pretty much a sure thing I'll like it. This favorite recipe is a lentil side dish that I first posted nearly five years ago, almost as an after-thought added to another recipe. I've made this many times since then, and this dish is so tasty and easy-to-make that I finally decided it deserves a post of its own. This week I made it again and took some photos, and I'm officially adding it to recipe favorites on the blog.

Click to continue reading

Friday Night Photos: The Garden in Fall and Garden Windfalls (2010 Garden Update #15)

It's definitely fall weather in Utah, but I'm one of those people who hangs on to the garden as long as possible, and most of my garden plants are still (barely) surviving. This is the produce I got this morning after no pickings for 5 days. Still, even though they aren't overly plentiful, I savor these late vegetables, especially the tomatoes which I'm still using to make tomato sandwiches and slow roasted tomatoes.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Chard and Chickpea Soup with Sausage and Green Pepper

For a few years now I've been trying to eat more greens, and I've discovered that dishes like this Chard and Garbanzo Soup with Sausage and Green Peppers are a tasty way to get a healthy serving of greens without much effort. And since by the time most of you see this post it will officially be the first day of Autumn, it seemed like soup was a good thing to put on the menu this week. This recipe was inspired by Chard and Garbanzo soup in From Asparagus to Zucchini, a very useful cookbook about cooking with garden produce This recipe made me happy that my garden center had given me good advice on saving the swiss chard, because I used a generous portion of the rescued chard in the soup.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Whole Wheat Spaghetti with No-Cook Sauce of Tomatoes, Arugula, Olives, and Capers

More than a month ago I vowed to try this recipe for spaghetti topped with no-cook pasta sauce of tomatoes, arugula, Kalamata olives, and capers that I'd found in the August 2006 issue of Bon Appetit magazine. I had tomatoes, and twice I bought arugula to make the sauce, and twice I ate the arugula before any sauce got made. A few weeks passed, and now we're approaching the end of the fresh tomato season and the third time must be the charm, because last week I bought arugula again and finally made the recipe. I've become a huge fan of this type of no-cook sauce, and this sauce with chopped arugula and a touch of spiciness might be my favorite one yet. If you like arugula, get your hands on a few fresh tomatoes before it's too late, and I promise you'll love this great summer-into-fall dish.

Click to continue reading

Friday Night Photos: Eggplant, Tomatoes, Peppers, and a Basil Surprise! (2010 Garden Update #14)

The garden production has slowed, but I'm still getting veggies every few days, and some of my plants are barely starting to produce, like these Thai Kermit Eggplants, which I definitely planted where there wasn't enough sun. This is my first time growing these, and the photos I find online all show green eggplants, so I'm wondering if I've wasted the ones that turned yellow. If anyone knows anything about this type of eggplant, please enlighten me in the comments!

Click to continue reading

Kalyn's Kitchen Picks: Uncle Ben's Brown Rice

Every so often I add to my list of Kalyn's Kitchen Picks, the blog feature where I talk about products I use myself that I'd happily buy over and over again. This week I realized I'm long overdue in giving an official pick to my very favorite brown rice, Uncle Ben's Brown Rice. Brown rice has always been considered a healthful food, but last year the FDA added brown rice to the list of foods that can officially categorized as whole grains. I've always liked brown rice, and Uncle Ben's uses long-grain brown rice which separates nicely into grains when it's cooked and is never sticky or clumpy. This is the brown rice for people who think they only like white rice!

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Grilled Garlic Chicken with Roasted Red Pepper Aioli Sauce

Yesterday I talked about how I've become infatuated with the Roasted Red Pepper Aioli Sauce that my friend Margarethe introduced me to. I've been eating that sauce on just about everything the last few days, but this recipe is the garlic chicken I made especially to go with the sauce. This is a simple marinade and you can even put chicken in the fridge to marinate when you go to bed at night, and then cook it after work the next day. The chicken is tasty, but most of all, it's a great vehicle for delivering the sauce to your mouth!

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic Aioli Sauce

Say hello to my new favorite sauce. I first tried this Roasted Pepper and Garlic Aioli when my friend Margarethe made it for a party, and now I'm eating it on everything! The sauce isn't spicy, but it's full of flavor from the roasted red bell peppers and garlic, and slightly creamy from the mayo and olive oil. Margarethe found the recipe in Giada's Family Dinners, where it was served with toasted garlic bread, but as soon as I tasted the aioli that Margarethe made I started thinking of low-glycemic things you could eat with it. So far I've enjoyed it on garlic chicken (recipe tomorrow), frittata, scrambled eggs, and tomato sandwiches with crusty whole wheat bread. Look after the recipe for links to other things I think would be good with this as well as red-pepper sauce ideas from other bloggers.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Stuffed Green Peppers with Brown Rice, Italian Sausage, and Parmesan

I've been a long-time fan of stuffed bell peppers, but what inspired me to create this new stuffed peppers recipe was the gorgeous large green bell peppers my grocery store had last week for only $.50 each. (Well, that and the fact that my dad loves stuffed peppers and I hadn't made them for him for quite a while.) I planned to make a meatless stuffed pepper but then I found two links of turkey Italian sausage in the fridge. I couldn't resist adding that to the mix, but you could easily make this vegetarian by substituting sauteed mushrooms for the sausage. I enjoyed a couple of these flavorful stuffed peppers with my dad, who gave them a very enthusiastic thumbs up!

Click to continue reading

Five Fun Things on Friday (9-10-10)

I've been so busy sharing garden photos on Fridays for the last few months that it seems like forever since I've posted a list of five fun things, so some of these mentions are long overdue. Don't let that stop you from enjoying them though, starting with one of my favorite spots on the web who gave some recognition to my list of zucchini recipes more than a month ago!

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Raw Kale Salad with Pecorino (or Parmesan) and Lemon

For a few years now I've been growing kale. I started with Red Russian Kale, a milder variety that's good for salads, and I loved it in Red Russian Kale and Red Cabbage Slaw. This year I grew dark green Curly Leaf Kale, and after I heard about raw kale salads with dark green kale on several food blogs, I decided to try it. I mentioned to my neighbor Brooke that I'd made a salad with raw kale that's marinated for an hour before you eat it, and she had the idea of serving this mixed with some other types of lettuce, which I think would also be good, but I ate the raw kale salad just like you see it in the photo, and really enjoyed it.

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Frittata with Zucchini, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, and Sausage

(Updated and added to Recipe Favorites, September 2010.) Right now it's garden veggies in every meal at my house, and I've been making a lot of breakfast creations with zucchini, chard, tomatoes, and even kale. While the zucchini is so abundant, it seemed like a good time to update this recipe inspired by my brother Rand, who was making frittata with zucchini, sun-dried tomatoes, and turkey ham when I called one day a few years ago. I switched the ham for chicken sausage when I first posted this back in 2005 (with a photo that I'm truly glad to be getting rid of!) If you have a lot of zucchini and you're running out of ways to use them, give this tasty frittata combination a try!

Click to continue reading

Recipe for Kiwi, Mango, and Cucumber Salsa with Lime and Jalapeno

A few weeks ago I was e-mailing back and forth with my friend Lydia and mentioned that I had mangos and kiwis and was wondering what to make. Lydia immediately suggested salsa, and this ultra-simple salsa recipe was the happy result. Although the salsa doesn't have a lot of ingredients, it's extra flavorful from the mango, kiwi, and lime juice, with a slight touch of spiciness from the jalapeno, and the cucumber adds a nice savory note. I ate this over grilled chicken breasts, (although I didn't remember to take a photo of the chicken plated with the salsa, sorry!) Check after the recipe for more chicken, meat, and fish I think would be good with the salsa. If you have serving suggestions for a fruit salsa like this, I'd love to hear them in the comments.

Click to continue reading

How to Preserve Fresh Basil (2010 Garden Update #13)

For years I've been freezing fresh basil, to use in soups, stews, and pasta sauce all winter long. Then a few years ago I started to hear about a way of preserving basil when you wanted to use it fresh, but had more than you needed right then. I don't know where I first heard that stems of basil in a cup or jar of water would stay good for days, but it may have been from Pam at Sidewalk Shoes (go see the fresh basil in water in her blog header.) Recently I cut several buckets of basil and froze some, used some to make basil pesto, and kept out a generous handful of basil stalks for a little experiment. So, just how long do you think a jar of basil will stay good on the kitchen counter if you keep adding water?

Click to continue reading

South Beach Diet Phase One Recipes Round-Up for August 2010 (Low-Glycemic Recipes)

Kalyn's favorite Phase One Recipe for August 2010
was Grilled Zucchini Greek Salad.

Each time the calendar turns over to a new month I add another post to the archives of Phase One Recipe Round-ups, spotlighting the phase one recipes I've posted on Kalyn's Kitchen or spotted on other food blogs during that months. I always pick my favorite phase one recipe for the month to lead the post, but this time I had a very hard time choosing. I loved the Grilled Zucchini Pizza Slices, I made the Spicy Cannellini Bean Salad with Tuna, Peperoncini, and Parsley many times this summer, and I loved the Green Goddess Tomato Mozzarella Stacks. In fact, I posted ten Phase One Recipes this month, and loved them all, but I picked the Grilled Zucchini Greek Salad for the photo, because it's a recipe I'd never get tired of, no matter how many times I ate it.

(You can use the label Low-Glycemic Recipe Round-Ups to see all the posts like this one.)

Click to continue reading