Category Archives: Vegetables & Salads

Recipes, Vegetables & Salads

A Creamy Side Dish for Any Occasion

Asparagus & Riced Palm

Need a quick and delicious side dish to go with a pork chop, salmon, or chicken? To be honest, this one goes with just about any protein dish or stands on its own. In place of rice, I used Natural Heaven Hearts of Palm rice, but you can use any palm rice or cauliflower rice. If you don’t care about the carbs, you can also use cooked rice.

Even though it’s called a risotto, it isn’t cooked in the same way, so it becomes a quick side dish instead of one that takes quite a lot longer and uses a lot more liquid.

Asparasgu & Riced Palm with Chipotle Salmon

Asparagus and Riced Palm Risotto

2 tablespoons Butter, melted
3 tablespoons Onion Flakes or minced Onion
1 tablespoon Garlic, minced
1 bunch Asparagus, washed, trimmed, & cut into 1″ pieces
1 package Natural Heaven Hearts of Palm rice or Cauliflower rice
1 teaspoon Chicken Better Than Bullion
1/4 cup boiling Water
1/4 cup Heavy Cream
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese, shredded
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1/8 teaspoon Pepper
1/8 teaspoon Nutmeg, ground
2 pieces Bacon , cooked & crumbled

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until starting to brown. Add asparagus and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, then add riced palm and stir together.

Combine hot water with bullion and stir until mixed, then add to skillet. And stir.

Add cream, seasoning, and Parmesan cheese. Stir together and cook over medium low heat until the asparagus is tender. About 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in bacon pieces and cook 1 minute.

Makes 4 creamy and delicious servings.

Disclaimer: All nutrition information is calculated on my measurements and ingredients so may differ from what you use when cooking. They will be probably be close to these unless you vary drastically.

Seafood, Vegetables & Salads

Changing Web Hosts & a Recipe

Avocado and Tuna Salad

Greetings everyone and Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

I just changed web hosts and finally moved Skinny Girl Bistro to its own domain name instead of bumming off my basic one. So the new place to find Skinny Girl Bistro is www.skinnygirlbistro.online. Could that be easier? I don’t think so. Please change your bookmarks to this new address.

Since the temperature is beginning to climb in various parts of the world, I thought a tasty salad recipe would be welcome about now. This one uses avocado along with apples, onions, celery, nuts and a tuna to make a delicious combination. You can also use chopped or shredded chicken in place of the tuna.

Tuna Salad with Avocado

1 ripe Haas Avocado
2 (5 ounce) cans or packets of flaked Light Tuna
½ medium Red Apple, chopped
½ cup chopped Red Onion
½ cup chopped Celery
¼ cup chopped toasted Walnuts or Pecans (optional)
2 tablespoons Mayonnaise
1 tablespoon sugar-free Sweet Pickle Juice
1 teaspoon dried Dill Weed (optional)
½ teaspoon Dijon Mustard
¼ teaspoon ground Cumin
Salt and Pepper to taste

Cut the avocado in half and use a spoon to scoop out the flesh into a large bowl. Mash the avocado with the back of a fork.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Adjust the salt and pepper to your own taste. Put in the refrigerator to chill for at least an hour to three hours. The longer it sits, the more the flavors will merge and increase the flavor.

Use a big scoop on top of lettuce for a tuna salad or put it on a low carb sandwich roll.

Makes about 6 servings.

Nutrition Information Avocado Tuna Salad

Recipes, Vegetables & Salads

Savory Acorn Squash

Photo: Herb roasted acorn squash

If you’re like me, you haven’t thought about using acorn squash or butternut squash with savory seasonings. I grew up with it being covered in butter and brown sugar with cinnamon, so it was more of a sweet treat. It’s still a favorite way to eat the squash, but others are also delicious.

The herbs and butter mix on this one is wonderful, bringing a delightful flavor to the squash. It pairs well with ham, pork roast, or chicken.

This recipe is adapted from one at therealfoodrds.com and is slightly easier, mainly because I use a pre-packaged mix of herbs rather than mixing several together myself. For this recipe, I used Mrs. Dash Garlic Herb Seasoning, one of the staples in my kitchen. Any garlic herb mix will work.

Herb-Roasted Acorn Squash with Parmesan

1 large acorn squash (about 4″ in diameter)
⅓ cup shredded or grated parmesan cheese
2–3 tablespoon Mrs. Dash Garlic Herb Seasoning
1 tablespoon Butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon salt or more to taste
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Preheat oven to 400℉. Prepare 2 baking sheets by covering with either aluminum foil or parchment paper.

Cut acorn squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Then slice each half into ½-inch thick slices.

In a small bowl, mix the spices, cheese, salt, and pepper.

Arrange the acorn slices on the baking pans with flat sides down. Spread the melted butter over each piece with a cooking brush. Use a spoon to sprinkle the herb and cheese mixture over the squash liberally. Coat the entire top of each slice.
.
Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until a fork easily pierces the squash, and the parmesan cheese is crispy and slightly browned.

Serve hot. Makes 6 servings.

Image: Nutrition Information

Mexican/Spanish Recipes, Recipes, Vegetables & Salads

A surprising rice substitute

Photo: Riced Turnips with chiles.

Turnips are often overlooked when people think about vegetables. While we turn to cauliflower to provide for many low carb vegetable substitutes, we don’t think about some of the other low carb vegetables that can work as well. Among them are kohlrabi, celery root, zucchini, beets, and turnips. All of these can be riced and used as a rice substitute.

Turnips can also be cubed and shredded to stand in for potatoes in hash or home cooked hash browns.

When I made stuffed Mexican chicken a few months ago, I substituted turnips in my rice with chiles. It was wonderful! I love the flavor and was thrilled with how well it worked.

One key to working with turnips is to use them as soon as you can. Although they keep a long time, they tend to get bitter the longer they sit.

Riced Turnips with Chile

1 large Turnip, peeled and cut into cubes
1 tablespoon Butter
1 tablespoon Green Chiles, diced
1/4 cup hot Water
1/2 teaspoon Better than Chicken Bullion
1/4 cup Onions, chopped
1/2 teaspoon Mrs. Dash Chipotle Seasoning
1/4 teaspoon Salt

Boil water, pour into a 1/4 cup measure and add the bullion, stirring to dissolve.

Put turnip cubes into a food processor and pulse until it is chopped to the size of rice. In a medium-sized skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter, then add the riced turnips and onions. Sauté for about five minutes, add the bullion water and stir it in. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Add chiles, salt and seasoning, stir and cook for another 10 minutes until the turnips are tender and most of the water has evaporated.

If the water cooks out before the turnips are tender, add more water. It should be about the same texture as cooked rice. Fluff up the turnips before serving.

Makes two 1/2-cup servings.

Image: Nutrition for Turnips with chile

 

Breads, Desserts, Recipes, Vegetables & Salads

Thanksgiving is Upon Us

Amazingly, we have arrived at Thanksgiving in the USA. Canada celebrated a month ago. For everyone else, think of it as a prelude to the end of the current season. Here, in Reno, Nevada, our non-evergreen trees have dropped the last of their leaves signaling that Winter is coming. Snow is already on the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I can recall more than one snowy Thanksgiving here, so it could be a possibility.

Hope all of you are well. This has been a particularly tough year for everyone, but we are still surviving and are so thankful for it. For me and the friends I cherish, this is the one thing I am so grateful to say. Our hopes are to have a resolution to the pandemic soon, but until then, to continue to stay safe and healthy.

This message is a little late getting out, but if you are looking to keep your carbohydrates down over Thanksgiving, here are a few recipes I’ve published to help you do that:

 Happy Thanksgiving 2013 – Pumpkin Panna Cotta – has links to Smashed Turnips with Leeks, Irish Style Celery and Kohlrabi, and Butternut Turnip Mash.

 

Easy Low Carb Stuffing Bread

Use it in your favorite stuffing.

 

Traditional Pumpkin Pie 

Includes crust recipe.

 

 

 

 No Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake

 

 

 

 

Got leftovers?

Try this Turkey and Stuffing Pie

 

 

Use the search feature to find even more recipes for vegetables and desserts to compliment your feast.

I don’t have a new recipe for today because I’m scurrying to get everything prepped for Thanksgiving and doing NaNoWriMo (for those who don’t know, that is National Novel Writing Month, so I am writing as many words on a new novel as I can). I will have a recipe on Friday for low carb Pecan Pie. You won’t miss those carbs at all. Trust me.

Until then, have a very good Thanksgiving and stay safe.

Rene