Tag Archives: side dishes

Cucumber Salad

Posted on by Erin

I really struggle in the winter to come up with something fresh to serve as a salad. Those tasty baby greens get kind of pricey in January, and I can only serve so much spinach salad. This cucumber salad was something new and tasty for our dinner table, and we all loved it.

I used mayo in this version, which was yummy. But I know some people are put off by mayo, so you could also use sour cream (as suggested in the recipe) or you could use plain yogurt (whole milk yogurt is going to give you the best results). I also used about a teaspoon of dried dill in place of the fresh, because we lost the garden dill to the snow many weeks ago.

When I tasted this after mixing it up, it tasted way too salty and I made a note to decrease the salt next time. But once it sat for about an hour in the fridge, it was actually just perfect. I’m not sure what the science is behind that, but either reduce the salt to 1/2 teaspoon, or make sure to give yourself time to let it sit before dinner-time.

We had a small amount of cucumbers leftover and I was suspicious that it wouldn’t keep until the next day. Surprisingly, it was just as tasty. I mixed the remaining cucumbers and all of the dressing with some spinach and made a small salad to go with lunch. It was fabulous.

Plan to Eat users, click on the recipe title to import the ingredient list into your account.

Cucumber Salad

Source: More with Less, by Doris Janzen Longacre

Ingredients

  • 1 large cucumber, thinly sliced
  • 1-2 Tbs fresh dill, chopped
  • 2 Tbs mayonnaise, sour cream, or yogurt
  • 1 Tbs vinegar
  • 2 Tbs oil
  • 1⁄2-1 tsp salt
  • pepper

Method

See page 249 in More with Less. **

** While it’s technically legal to repost recipes, we don’t feel it’s ethical to post copyrighted recipes from the same source for weeks at a time. I’m providing the ingredient list to use in creating a shopping list. We here at the Plan to Eat blog apologize for any inconvenience. If you don’t already own the cookbook, and don’t wish to buy it, most libraries have a copy on their shelves. Thanks for your understanding.

 

Whole Wheat Cornbread

Posted on by Erin

It seems like every culture has their own special dishes that they eat on New Year’s Day to ensure a prosperous year. I grew up in the south, and there we eat a dish called hoppin’ john, with collard greens, and of course, cornbread. This whole wheat version isn’t the authentic southern variety, with lots of butter (or lard) and tangy buttermilk. But it is tasty, and made with whole wheat flour.

I made a few ingredient changes from the original recipe. I substituted honey for the brown sugar (just as delicious, and slightly more nutritious), and I left out the dry milk powder. I understand some folks might want this to increase the protein content, which is fine. I don’t prefer to use powdered milk because it feels too far removed from what it once was–real milk. And I tend to not use ingredients that don’t resemble what they once were or are supposed to be.

I also like to bake my cornbread in a cast iron skillet. It develops such a nice brown crust in there. You can absolutely bake it in a 9×9 pan if you don’t have a cast iron skillet.

In our house, we serve up cornbread with a generous pat of butter and a drizzle of honey. You can consider both to be golden additions to your New Year’s table–a sure means of guaranteeing a prosperous 2012!

Plan to Eat users, click on the recipe title to import the ingredient list into your account. Note that the recipe here lists the ingredients that I used to make this recipe.

Whole Wheat Cornbread

Source: More with Less, by Doris Janzen Longacre

Ingredients

  • 1 cup organic cornmeal
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 1⁄2 tsp salt
  • 2 Tbs honey
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1⁄4 cup butter, melted

Method

See page 78 in More with Less. **

** While it’s technically legal to repost recipes, we don’t feel it’s ethical to post copyrighted recipes from the same source for weeks at a time. I’m providing the ingredient list to use in creating a shopping list. We here at the Plan to Eat blog apologize for any inconvenience. If you don’t already own the cookbook, and don’t wish to buy it, most libraries have a copy on their shelves. Thanks for your understanding.

Green Beans with Orange Allspice Glaze

Posted on by Erin

I know that photo doesn’t excite you. But I assure you, this is an exciting recipe. When you’re sitting down to your meal on Thursday, so tired from cooking that you can barely eat, do you really want to be bargaining with your five-year-old about eating his beans before he can have pumpkin pie? Yeah. Me neither.

Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. My kids say these beans taste like candy, and even ask for seconds.

Not only do they taste yummy, but they come together in a jiffy. If you prep the beans the day ahead, and mix up your sauce beforehand, you’ll have them on the table in less time than it takes the kids to get washed up.

For the month of November we’ve been talking allergen-friendly Thanksgiving dishes. Here’s the complete round-up, just in case you missed something:

Add a turkey (make sure it’s gluten-free) and a fruit pie with an almond meal crust and, my friends, you have just put together an allergen-friendly Thanksgiving feast. And I assure you that the allergen-eaters won’t miss the gluten and dairy.

Green Beans with Orange Allspice Glaze

Source: long forgotten, but maybe it was this one?

Serves: 6

Ingredients

  • 1 pound fresh green beans
  • 1⁄2 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice
  • 2 Tbs dry sherry
  • 1 tsp maple syrup
  • 1⁄8 tsp ground allspice
  • 1⁄4 tsp salt
  • black pepper
  • 1 tsp arrowroot powder (or other thickener)

Method

  1. Rinse and trim the green beans. Steam in a vegetable steamer until tender, about 5-7 minutes.
  2. Combine the orange juice through the pepper in a small saucepan and heat. Mix the arrowroot powder with 1 Tbs of water. When the orange juice mixture is simmering, whisk in the arrowroot mixture. Cook for only a minute or two longer, until the sauce is smooth and slightly thickened.
  3. Place the beans in a serving dish and toss with the sauce.

Cherry Pecan Stuffing

Posted on by Erin

I do really enjoy a good stuffing, but I’ll be honest. I prefer to have a dish that is naturally allergen-friendly over something that has to be adapted. For those of you who prefer to go “au naturale” route, I suggest Wild Rice Casserole (with or without the Pemmican addition). To make this allergen-friendly you can substitute lemon juice for the whey, oil for the butter, and any nuts you can tolerate (or leave them out). This will give you a tasty starch for your Thanksgiving table, along with plenty of nutrition and no allergens.

That said, this stuffing dish is really tasty. And I’ve been eating (and enjoying) it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the past two days. So if stuffing is central to your Thanksgiving table, here’s your dish.

I began by searching for the perfect bread. I didn’t want to use regular sandwich bread because I thought it would get too dry. I looked around a bit for an allergen-free baguette or boule, but no luck. So I used the closest thing I could get–allergen free hamburger buns. They worked terrific. I used Ener-G brand, but you can use whatever bread works for your diet. You’ll need two packages to make this recipe.

If you need to make this dish egg-free, try using egg replacer. I haven’t trialed it with egg replacer, so can’t guarantee the results, but I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work. If you try it, leave a note in the comments and let us know how it turns out.

You can swap out the fruit and nuts and herbs for whatever suits your fancy. You could try apricots and almonds, or even tomatoes and bacon. Use whatever works with the rest of your menu. And please share any tasty combos you invent!

Plan to Eat users, click on the recipe title to import it into your account.

Cherry Pecan Stuffing

Source: adapted from Everyday Food

Ingredients

  • 8 cups bread (whatever suits your diet) cut into 3/4″ pieces
  • 3 tbs oil
  • allergen-free shortening for greasing dish
  • 1 organic onion diced
  • 2 stalks organic celery diced
  • 4 garlic cloves minced
  • 1 cup dried cherries
  • 1 cup toasted pecans chopped
  • 2 Tbs fresh sage chopped
  • 1 Tbs crushed fennel seed
  • salt and pepper
  • 1⁄2 cup fresh parsley chopped
  • 3 eggs lightly beaten
  • 3 cups chicken or vegetable broth

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 400. Arrange bread cubes on two rimmed baking sheets. Drizzle with olive oil and toast until dry and golden brown (10-12 minutes). Let cool.
  2. Meanwhile, grease a 9×13 pan with the shortening. Heat oil in a large skillet and add onion, celery and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, until veggies are softened. Add cherries, pecans, sage and fennel seeds and cook for one minute more. Transfer to a large bowl and season with salt and pepper.
  3. Add parsley, eggs, and bread; stir to combine. Add broth in two additions, stirring well after each addition until broth is absorbed. Season again with salt and pepper and transfer to baking dish.
  4. Bake on middle rack until golden brown on top, 25-30 minutes. Let sit 5 minutes before serving.

Classic Orange Ginger Cranberries

Posted on by Erin

Isn’t it strange when you get to an age where you realize you have “classic” recipes? In order to be classic, something has to have stood the test of time and held up through various fads and diet changes. Which implies that the recipe has been around a while. Which in turn implies that I’ve been around a while. And I just feel too young to have anything in my repertoire described as “classic”. Anyway….

Whether or not I’m classic, these cranberries are. I pulled the recipe out of a passed-down issue of Taste of Home when I was in college, because I knew that the Sweetie Pie loved cranberry sauce. Being newly engaged, I was looking to my future of cooking for my husband and family.

These cranberries were a perfect dish for me as a young cook–super easy, keeps in the fridge forever, and with all that sweetener how can you really mess it up?? These, by the way, are also the things that make it the perfect dish for Thanksgiving. If you’re looking to lower your stress level, but still want to have a fresh and tasty dinner table, this dish is for you.

The recipe has evolved over the years. The sugar got replaced with honey, and then with agave syrup, and then I reduced the quantity by half altogether. Sometimes I throw in apples, or clementine wedges or candied ginger. Sometimes I simmer it with cinnamon sticks, or star anise. Every year it’s on the table, but it’s never quite the same. This, by the way, drives the Sweetie Pie crazy. Because he knows that although it’s “the best cranberry sauce ever”, he’s never going to taste it exactly the same way again–partly because I didn’t write down what I did to it, and partly because even if I had, I wouldn’t follow my own directions anyway.

The recipe says it makes 10 servings. That must be for people who like their cranberries as a condiment. My family eats cranberries out of a bowl, with a spoon…preferably a big spoon. If I’m making these berries for my family of six, I have to double it. This feeds us well and leaves us just a bit for leftovers.

I’m posting the original recipe here, and you can let loose your own creativity on it. If you come up with any stellar improvements, be sure to share about it in the comments. I could use a few fresh ideas for this year’s Thanksgiving table.

Classic Orange Ginger Cranberries

Source: Taste of Home magazine

Ingredients

  • 16 oz fresh cranberries
  • 2 cups sugar (or honey, or agave syrup)
  • 1 cup fresh orange juice
  • 1 Tbs organic orange rind grated
  • 1 Tbs fresh ginger finely minced

Method

  1. Combine everything in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the berries pop open, about 10 minutes. Cool.
  2. Cover and refrigerate.