Pork Medallions with Dijon Cream Sauce

This is a recipe we've made so many times that I can pretty much make it with my eyes closed...it's such a great 'comfort food' type of dish and was fantastic this week with all the snow and ice that hit Pittsburgh. We had this with some mashed cauliflower (the sauce was yummy on the cauliflower!) and a salad. Sadly, my photography skills are severely lacking, the picture doesn't do the food justice.

This was originally found in Light & Tasty magazine a couple of years ago. We normally only make about 1/2 lb of pork since it's just us, but keep the original amount of sauce. I love me some good sauce, and in my opinion, the recipe doesn't make enough sauce!!! We have changed it up a bit to be more in line with the South Beach Diet by omitting the flour altogether. We used a Smithfield marinated pork loin cut into about 1/3 inch thick medallions.

Pork Medallions with Dijon Cream Sauce
(Source: Light & Tasty)

1 pork tenderloin (1 pound)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon butter
3 green onions
1/3 cup white wine or chicken broth
1/2 cup fat-free evaporated milk (used fat-free half & half instead)
4 teaspoons Dijon mustard

Cut pork widthwise into 6 pieces; flatten to 1/4-in. thickness. In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the flour, salt and pepper. Add pork, a few pieces at a time, and shake to coat. In a large nonstick skillet, brown pork in butter over medium-high heat. Remove and keep warm.

Slice green onions, separating the white and green portions; reserve green portion for garnish. In the same skillet, saute the white portion of green onions for 1 minute. Add wine or broth. Bring to a boil; cook until liquid is reduced to about 2 tablespoons. Add milk. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 1-2 minutes or until slightly thickened. Whisk in mustard.

Serve pork with Dijon sauce. Garnish with reserved green onions. Yield: 3 servings.

Margarita Cupcakes With Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

I was hosting our monthly alumnae meeting this past weekend. We had a rep come from Beauti Control to do some spa treatments and other fun stuff for us. The "theme" of the evening was supposed to be a fiesta, so I had made some fresh guacamole, and a monteray jack queso dip with some fresh peppers and baby carrots and multi-grain tortilla chips for dipping.

At the last minute, I decided to make something sweet, too. I think I take after my mom in the fact that I am always afraid of running out of food, so I tend to make way more than necessary. In this case, there was supposed to be 8 people attending (including me!), but only 2 ladies showed up. Kind of a bummer, but this just meant that I had lots of guac and cupcakes all to myself!

So onto the cupcakes, I needed something that I could throw together quickly, and this fit the bill. I made the cupcakes the night before in between cleaning the house, and watching 'Lost'. As much as I like making things from scratch - when I have the time - I am all for shortcuts! I made the cupcakes as directed, but I knew I was going to pressed for time between when I could leave work and when the first guests arrived, so I opted to just use canned cream cheese frosting with some fresh lime juice and a little bit of lime zest. I garnished with itsy bitsy lime wedges. They were so cute!

Margarita Cupcakes with Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

Source: recipezaar.com

CUPCAKES
1 (18 1/4 ounce) box white cake mix (no pudding in the mix)
1 (10 ounce) can frozen margarita mix, thawed (undiluted)
3 egg whites
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon grated lime zest

ICING
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons key lime juice
1 teaspoon key lime zest or lemon zest
4-5 cups confectioners' sugar

*1 lime, cut into mini wedges for garnish

In large bowl, combine cake mix, Margarita mix, egg whites and vegetable oil using electric mixer.
Stir in lime zest; mix completely. Fill prepared pans 2/3 full. Bake according to box dirctions 22-24 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cupcake comes out clean.

Cool in pan on cooling rack 5-8 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan; cool completely.

FOR ICING:.
In large bowl, cream butter, cream cheese, juice and zest with electric mixer until light and fluffy.
Add 4 cups confectioners' sugar, one cup at a time; continue beating until light and fluffy.
If icing is too thin add additional confectioners' sugar 1 tablespoon at a time.

Spicy Black Bean Cakes with Lime Sour Cream Sauce

It's Monday...dart night!!! Which means another quiet evening to myself, to make whatever I want for dinner. I was at Trader Joe's this weekend and picked up a bag of fresh sweet potato that was peeled and cut-up into spears. Much to my dismay, I found out my husband is not a sweet potato fan. Since white potatoes are pretty much persona non grata on the South Beach diet. So we settled for some Alexia Frozen sweet potato fries to go along with our burgers for the Super Bowl..All the while thinking that now the sweet potatoes were ALL MINE, and I had "kitchen time" coming up that I could experiment with the spears..

I found this today on allrecipes.com and boy was it tasty! The lime cream sauce really makes the dish. The potatoes were easy to chop up with my handy-dandy pampered chef chopper. I halved the recipe since it was just for me, and ended up with 4 pretty big cakes. I only had one jalapeno on hand, and thank God, because it was a hottie! I used 1/3 in the lime sauce, and the rest in the cakes. I took the advice of some of the reviewers and added more spice (coriander, more cumin, chili powder and cilantro) and just pan-fried them instead of broiling.

I will definitely make these again. Not to mention that I can't wait for lunch tomorrow for the leftover cakes! I had this with a small arugula salad with a chopped tomato and goat cheese dressed with lime juice, balsamic vinegar and a little olive oil and extra lime juice for the cakes.

Spicy Black Bean Cakes
Source: allrecipes.com


Lime Sour Cream:
1/2 cup reduced fat sour cream
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1 small fresh jalapeno pepper, minced
salt to taste

Bean Cakes:
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
4 green onions, thinly sliced
6 cloves garlic, pressed
2 fresh jalapeno peppers, finely diced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 (14.5 ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
salt and black pepper to taste
2 cups grated raw sweet potato
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup plain dried bread crumbs

To prepare lime sour cream, mix the sour cream, lime juice, 1 small minced jalapeno, and salt together in a small bowl. Cover, and refrigerate.

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Cook green onions until softened, about 1 minute. Stir in garlic, 2 diced jalapenos, and cumin; cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Transfer contents of skillet to a large bowl. Stir in black beans, and mash with a fork. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix in sweet potatoes, egg, and bread crumbs. Divide into 8 balls, and flatten into patties.

In the oven, set cooking rack about 4 inches from heat source. Set oven to broil. Lightly grease baking sheet with 1 tablespoon oil.

Place bean patties on baking sheet, and broil 8 to 10 minutes. Turn cakes over, and broil until crispy, about 3 minutes more. Serve with lime sour cream.

Veggie-Stuffed Portabellos

I needed a veggie-licious side to go with the tilapia. We've been having every sort of sauteed, steamed, stir-fried and roasted veggie. (Not to mention mashed cauliflower.) So I was in the mood for something different. I found these HUGE mushroom caps at the store. They were so thick (like 2 inches) and perfectly round, there was no way I could pass them up.

I marinated them in a little balsamic vinegar, and low-fat italian dressing for 10-15 minutes before I cooked them, just to give them a little more flavor. No real recipe, just tossed a bunch of things together that I had on hand. This was a good South Beach recipe, to boot and very filling.

Portobello mushroom caps, cleaned and stems removed

Italian dressing

Balsamic vinegar

Onion, chopped

Red bell pepper, chopped

garlic, minced

spinach (I had frozen)

artichoke hearts, chopped

white wine

parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. After marinating the mushrooms, heat a pan over medium-high heat. Spray with cooking spray, add mushroom caps (marinade and all; gill side up) cook for a minute or two, until it starts to get tender. Flip and cook another minute or so. Remove to a baking dish, sprayed with cooking spray, gill side up. Add all of the veggies to the pan and sautee until spinach is thawed and liquid has cooked off. Divide filling between the mushroom caps. Top with cheese. Bake for 10-15 minutes until cheese is melted and mushrooms are cooked thru.

Baked Tilapia with Tomatoes and Olives

We have been eating alot of fish lately, mostly salmon and tuna steaks, so I bought some tilapia to mix it up a bit. This was a fast and South Beach Diet friendly, easy dinner to throw together, and we had almost everything on hand, so it made it even better!!! Adapted from a Cooking Light recipe...it was ok, not a home-run, but was a decent alternative to our same-ol' same-ol'. We had it with these friggin' huge portobello mushrooms (recipe to follow).

Tilapia with Tomatoes and Olives


Tilapia filets

1 tomato, chopped

10 green olives, chopped coarsely (we had huge green olives, some stuffed with minced garlic, some marinated with crushed red pepper)

1 clove garlic

2 T fresh parsley, chopped

1 T low-fat italian dressing

salt and pepper




Preheat oven to 400 degree. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray. Season fish fillets with salt and pepper and lay on the sheet. Mix tomatoes, olives, garlic, parsley, dressing and arrange around fish filets on the baking sheet. Roast in oven for 15 minutes or until fish flakes easily.

Beefy Enchiladas

We've been looking for a really good enchilada recipe...we've had a couple of disasters in the past, but I figured I'd give it one more shot. After searching around a bit, I found this on Elizabeth's Cooking Experiments, and though what the heck! This was pretty tasty! Even Norm gave it the thumbs up and said it was a keeper. We topped them with shredded lettuce, avocado, diced tomato, green onion, black beans and limes (yum!). I might tweak it a little bit the next time, but all in all a great alternative to our usual taco night!

I changed it up and subbed in extra lean ground beef, and added some jalapenos. My changes are noted below.

Cottage Cheese Chicken Enchiladas

Source: allrecipes.com
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (skipped this and just used cooking spray)

2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - boiled and shredded (about 3/4 lb of ground beef)

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper (not in the original recipe)

1 chopped jalapeno (not in the original recipe)

1 (7 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers

1 (1 ounce) package taco seasoning mix

1/2 cup sour cream

2 cups cottage cheese

1 teaspoon salt

1 pinch ground black pepper

12 (6 inch) corn tortillas (I used 5 whole wheat larger tortillas)

2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese (reduced fat shredded mexican blend)

1 (10 ounce) can red enchilada sauce

To Make Meat Mixture: Heat oil in medium skillet over medium high heat. Add chicken, onion and green chile peppers and saute until browned, then add taco seasoning and prepare meat mixture according to package directions.

To Make Cheese Mixture: In a medium bowl mix sour cream with cottage cheese and season with salt and pepper; stir until well blended.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

To Assemble Enchiladas: Heat tortillas until soft. In each tortilla place a spoonful of meat mixture, a spoonful of cheese mixture and a bit of shredded cheese. Roll tortillas and place in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish. Top with any remaining meat and cheese mixture, enchilada sauce and remaining shredded cheese.

Bake for 30 minutes or until cheese is melted & bubbly.

Spicy Chickpea Curry

I love the nights that Norm is at his dart league, which means I get the kitchen to myself, and get to make whatever my little heart desires....which revolves around everything that Norm won't eat willingly. Like tofu...or sweet potatoes...or things like my vegetarian curries that I'm so fond of. I tease him that being half-Indian, he thinks an Italian girl from J-town can't do it justice. He won't even sample it just to humor me. Little does he know what he's missing!!!

We had a little leftover brown basmati rice that I tossed with a little lemon jucie and cilantro. Yummy!

Chickpea Curry

1 tsp olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 red bell pepper, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons ground coriander

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon garam masala

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 can chickpeas, drained
1 (15-ounce) cans diced tomatoes

2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped

Heat a pan over medium-high heat. Add oil and swirl to coat the pan. Add onion and pepper, cook under just tender. Add garlic, coriander, cumin, garam masala, tumeric, salt and pepper. Cook until fragrent (about 30 seconds to 1 minute). Add chickpeas and tomatoes, stir to combine. Reduce heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. Sprikle with cilatro before serving.