A Recipe Samping for Dinner

I had a bright and early start to my morning with the Hot Yoga class at 7:30, so you'd think I'd be out and about doing things all day...well not so much. I caught up on some blogs, picked up a tad, did two loads of laundry and then finally showered and got dressed...by that time I was hungry for lunch!!I made a mini pita stacked sandwich. This was a mini pita opened up and topped with:

• hummus
• feta
• grilled chicken
• red onion
• cucumber
• yellow and red pepper
• sprouts
• mixed greens
• more hummus
• then close!
  

It may be small, but it's FULL and very much a TWO hand sandwich. For "dessert" I had half of a container of 0% Plain Chobani, sliced strawberries, and some of my free sample of Bare Naked Granola!I liked this granola a lot! Very simple ingredients:

Whole grain oats, Honey, canola oil, almonds, Raisins (raisins, glycerin), Sweetened dried cranberries (cranberries, sugar, glycerin, sunflower oil), coconut, walnuts, pecans, maple syrup, oat bran, Ground flax seed, Toasted sesame seedsFinally Brian arrived and we set out on some errands. First we decided to try one of the route options from our wedding church to reception to see how confusing it may be and how long it took!

Then we hit up my FAVORITE grocery store that I have mentioned here before, Russo's!, it was more crowded than I have ever seen it. Lines went all the way to the back of the store!! The cashiers are pretty fast, but it made it very difficult to get around the store.

We braved the crowds because I had a few recipes I really wanted to make for dinner! The first came from my newest Food and Wine Magazine...
(it's actually the soup pictured on the cover)

I mean, how could you NOT make this!!!

This was very simple, first I cut in half 1 butternut squash, placed cut side down in a buttered baking dish, and baked at 375 for a little over 1 hour. This was then blended with 1/2 c. creme fresh, 1 cup water, and dash of cinnamon!
Mine came out thicker, more like a puree than a soup, but equally delicious. The best part of this soup, however, is the topping!1/2 cup of toasted pecans, chopped, and 1 banana, sliced...all mixed with 1 Tablespoon of real maple syrup!!!

This soup was the appetizer...in my new Athropologie bowls I got for Christmas!The soup itself isn't very sweet, but has a really great roast butternut squash flavor! I think this recipe could easily be made a tad lighter by adding less creme fresh and a little milk instead. I think I may add a bit more cinnamon and perhaps some other spices as well next time. The prep is SO simple though...and the combination with the topping is incredible.

For the main course I wanted fish and I recalled seeing a recipe recently on epicurious.com for a red snapped, simply baked in a foil pouch: Red Snapper with Thyme, Tomatoes, and Olives.

We went to whole foods to look for the fish. I was maybe going to get a different fish...maybe Halibut or trout, but they had neither. They did have WHOLE red snappers though! We bought 1 and had the fish guy remove the scales, head and tail. Since Brian is the fisher in this soon-to-be family, I let him tackle the filleting...ewww fish skin!! Yeah I can't say I am a fan of fishing!Not too bad if I do say so myself!No worse than I would of done :)

I prepared the fish per recipe, and let it sit in the fridge while I finished the soup and prepped everything for the side dish!

For a side I knew I wanted Kale

Then I perused some cookbooks and stumbled upon this recipe in my NEW Giada cookbook.Note the new cook book is in the new cook book holder :) You can also find this recipe online here!

Onions, green beans and mushrooms sauteing...I chopped the mushrooms up real small because I love the flavor but hate the texture!Added the kale!The final step was the add lemon juice (which made it so awesome), and Parmesan. Then I took the fish out of the oven, let it sit a few minutes and opened the packet!
Yummm!!! Plus you gotta love easy foil clean up when cooking fish. I think next time I'd add some capers to this mixture.

My first plate
I went back for a tiny bit more fish, and some more greens.

For me, the fish was great but the green beans and Kale were SO AWESOME!!! The veggies were just SO flavorful, and that last splash of lemon juice at the end really made it into an amazing side dish.

Even though there were many aspects to this meal, each portion was so simple that it didn't even seem like that much work...which I liked, obviously.

You know what goes great after a delicious dinner...

An amazing homemade dessert...yeah not so much. Sometimes I wish warm chocolate chip cookies would just appear. The roomie and I just sat there talking about delicious desserts that would taste incredible if we had them...

waffle sundaes, crepes with nutella, brownie sundaes...you know the usual.

We settled withFast mock-cheesecake/danish wannabes. Graham cracker, reduced fat Neufchatel cheese, and raspberry fruit spread!

I foresee myself falling asleep real soon because of my early morning. Tomorrow the roomie and I are meeting one of our other friends who is getting married and her maid of honor (roomie and I are bridesmaids), and we are trying on bridesmaid dresses! Then seeing Bride Wars!! There's nothing better than combining wedding related activities in the same day as wedding movies!!! I live for days like that haha.

Good Night My People!