Healthy Recipe Ecstasy Has Moved!

Hi all – I just changed blogging platforms from wordpress.com to wordpress.org. In doing that, I’ve lost some of my followers. If you’ve enjoyed HRX so far, I know you’re going to love what’s to come. So please, re-subscribe at my new site. Here’s the direct link: http://www.healthyrecipeecstasy.com/. All you have to do is enter your email and hit subscribe! Thanks so much, and I promise to keep checking on my favorite wordpress.com blogs!

Michelle

Italian-Style Omelet

I think my subconscious felt the need for redemption after the beef stir fry failure because I woke up this morning, headed to the kitchen and, without thinking, made a delicious omelet. Normally, I wouldn’t write a post about my daily egg breakfast, which usually consists of whatever veggies are in the fridge, but I felt like this one deserved some time in the spotlight.

It may or may not be obvious by now that I’m a little bit obsessed with Prosciutto. To make my addiction worse, my grocery started carrying little packets of diced Prosciutto for only $2.99. See below the packet that I greedily ripped into this morning.

What goes better with Prosciutto than Mozzarella? Not much. And I had just enough Mozzarella left in my fridge for this omelet. Thus, the Italian-Style Omelet was born. I think I learned an important lesson – as long as you make recipes using your favorite ingredients then all will be well in the world. Beef and veggie stir fry rarely makes me weak in the knees so I don’t know what I was thinking trying to make an HRX-worthy stir fry. I mean who gets excited over Bok choy?? (No offense if you do!) I may not be a super successful stir fryer but I am the queen of eggs!

INGREDIENTS (for one omelet):

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 eggs

1 tablespoon diced Prosciutto

A few slices of fresh Mozzarella cheese (about 1/4 of a cup)

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon fresh basil, torn and divided

Kosher salt

Freshly-ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Whisk eggs in a bowl.

Heat olive oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat. Add Prosciutto and cook for one minute or until Prosciutto starts to brown. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds, moving constantly so garlic doesn’t burn.

Turn the heat down to low and add the eggs to the pan. Use a rubber spatula to keep the eggs moving – pull them towards the center of the pan and tilt the pan around so the eggs run to the sides. This helps your omelet cook evenly and keeps it from getting rubbery.

Once the eggs start to set, add a pinch of salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste. Add the Mozzarella slices and half of the basil. Cook for another 30 seconds to let the Mozzarella melt a bit.

Flip one side of the omelet over to cover the other side. Top with the rest of the torn basil.

Healthy Recipe Ecstasy? Yes! This is an easy breakfast to make but it looks and feels gourmet. The salty Prosciutto and the creamy Mozzarella are such a treat in the morning. It’s gluten-free and low-carb so its perfect for anyone with gluten issues or if you’re trying to lose weight. This actually reminds me of one of my favorite appetizers which I will have to make soon – Prosciutto-Wrapped Mozzarella. It sounds simple, like, what’s the big deal? IT’S A BIG DEAL.

Beef and Veggie Stir Fry with a Spicy Clementine Sauce

Sounds amazing, right? Lots of fresh veggies and a sweet and spicy sauce. Look at those ingredients. How could you go wrong? Well, it did. This is a lessons learned recipe.

Here’s how it came about. After a weekend of indulgence, my “I don’t eat plants” fiance actually asked me to feed him some vegetables. You know it’s time for veggies when Alasdair is requesting them. So, I thought, what’s a good way to sneak a bunch of vegetables into dinner? Stir fry! It’s easy, it’s quick and you can toss in a few servings of veggies without feeling like you’re eating a plate of greens. The sauce idea stemmed from the fact that I had a 3-lb bag of clementines. I love when clementines are in season and you can get a huge box or bag of the sweet, juicy little buggers for $3. As much as I try though, I can rarely finish the entire bag before they start to go bad. So, I decided to use them for cooking. I’d heard of orange beef so why not clementine beef? I think it was a great idea, but it just didn’t translate to the plate very well. I mean, it was a decent healthy meal but not the explosion of flavor I imagined. Probably because I accidentally poured some of the water from the steamed vegetables into the stir fry so the flavors were diluted.

BUT I still think it has potential. It just needs a little tweaking. We had it for leftovers tonight and added a bit more spice which made it better but also overpowered some of the sweetness. If I were a patient cook, I would try again and test the recipe until it was perfect. But I’m not patient. I will try again sometime in the future, but tomorrow’s a new day and a new recipe, so, I would like to challenge those who read this blog to try to improve upon this recipe. If you have success, please let me know!

INGREDIENTS:

1.5 beef sirloin, chopped into 1-inch cubes

1 package soba noodles

1 bunch Bok choy, chopped (about 2 cups)

1 bundle asparagus, chopped (about 2 cups)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon ginger, minced

1 tablespoon chili pepper, minced (I used a Hatch chili pepper because it was on sale at the grocery store – it was a lot less spicy than I expected which was one of the issues with this dish)

4 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons honey

1 tsp chili garlic sauce

1/3 cup clementine juice (6-7 clementines)

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

DIRECTIONS:

Combine the soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, chili garlic sauce, and clementine juice in a medium bowl. Add the beef and mix with the sauce.

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large saute pan. Add beef mixture and cook until no longer pink – about 3-4 minutes.

In a different pant, heat 1 tablespoon olive in a medium pan. Add the garlic and ginger. Saute for 30 seconds. Add the chili peppers and saute for another 30 seconds. Add the Bok choy and asparagus. Add a tablespoon of water to help the vegetables steam down (I added too much water which was another problem).

Cook for about 2 minutes then add the vegetables to the beef mixture. Turn the heat down to simmer and cook the beef and veggies together for five minutes.

Cook the noodles according to the package and then add them to the pan with the beef and veggies. Cook for another minute. You can add a squeeze of clementine and a bit of shaved ginger at this point.

Healthy Recipe Ecstasy? Like I said, this recipe was less impressive than I hoped. But with a few tweaks — maybe spicier chili peppers, less diluted sauce — I think this could be a really good stir fry. Regardless of the flavor, it’s definitely healthy!