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Tomato Carrot Soup with Bacon Croutons

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Tomato Carrot Soup with Bacon Croutons

Diet food. Two words that make me shudder. I’ve always thought it better to take an extra walk or run an extra mile rather than give up the things I love to eat. I guess it’s good that I don’t like junk food, ailment but a life without full-fat cheese and pasta is no life at all. Even so, I find myself heavier than I’d like 6 weeks after pregnancy. I guess a pint or two of Ben & Jerry’s a week for 9 months will do that to you. So, it’s time to buckle down and diet. For me, that means more vegetables and more workouts, but no less flavor.

Tomato Carrot Soup with Bacon Croutons

This soup is packed with good-for-you stuff and lots of taste. Bacon on a diet? I say yes! A little bacon goes a long and delicious way. It’s an easy soup – carrots, diced tomatoes, onions and garlic. Some spicy smoked paprika and saffron give it loads of flavor, and everything is brightened with lemon juice. Torn bread toasted in bacon fat makes some nice bacon croutons that add just the right amount of crunch and interest. With diet food like this, I should be skinny in no time! That is, if I can stay away from the Ben & Jerry’s…

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Heirloom Tomato, Olive & Goat Cheese Tart

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Heirloom Tomato, <a href=nurse Olive & Goat Cheese Tart” />

I was going to call this a “rustic” or “freeform” tart, store but let’s be honest here. This is the tart of a lazy person. A person without one of those cute tart pans with the scalloped edges. Someone who has no patience for trimming dough or crimping edges. This is a haphazard, decease thrown-together kind of tart. And it doesn’t matter one tiny little bit. It’s still delicious.

Tomatoes have always been one of my favorite foods. Growing up, I’d sneak the them from the cutting board while my mom prepped the salad. I can eat simple, naked tomato slices all day long. Especially the juicy heirloom varieties piled up at Whole Foods this time of year. So, imagine my dismay when I discovered that my boyfriend (now husband) was no fan of tomatoes. Inconceivable! Over the years I’ve managed to sneak him enough good tomatoes to change his mind. They’re still not his favorite food, but he doesn’t pick them out of salads and sandwiches anymore.

Heirloom Tomato, Olive & Goat Cheese Tart

And he most definitely wouldn’t pick them out of this tart. The tomatoes practically melt into a sauce over the goat cheese and the olives add just the right amount of briny contrast. Sprinkled with basil ribbons and drizzled with really good olive oil, this is just about the most perfect summer tart. It’s not fussy or finicky or time-consuming. The hardest part is waiting for it to come out of the oven. This is the tart recipe for those of you without the fancy tart pan, but who still crave a flaky, buttery crust filled with summer’s best.

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Easy Mediterranean Pasta Salad

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Easy Mediterranean Pasta Salad

I could use this space to complain about my crazy busy week, generic but I won’t do that. Isn’t it more fun to wax poetic about the wonders of pasta salad? I think so. A lot of you have asked me for quick and easy dishes. The kind that you can throw together with little preparation and pack for lunch. You also wanted more vegetarian dishes and less sausage. Unfortunately, sales I can’t promise less sausage. Chorizo is my fifth food group.

This pasta salad is a really easy dish, but still super flavorful. Because I gotta be me, it also has a little Portuguese Linguica sausage in it, easily left out or substituted with chickpeas for those of you going meatless. I also used cherry tomatoes, oil-cured black olives, fresh arugula and feta cheese. I made a simple smoked paprika vinaigrette which gives the dish more depth, and is especially nice if you omit the sausage.

This salad proves that even on the craziest days, you can throw something together that’s good and healthy and puts a smile on your face.

Easy Mediterranean Pasta Salad

And now on to some fun news about the site. I’m happy to announce that next Tuesday (my birthday) I’ll be partnering with OpenSky to launch my very own Bitchin’ Camero store! I’ll sell products that I use in my own kitchen and think you should use, too. If you haven’t heard about OpenSky, head on over to their site and see what they’re about, especially if you’re a fellow blogger who wants a store of her (or his) own. Exciting things are happening here and I’m glad you can all be a part of it!

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Refreshing Gazpacho Soup

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Refreshing Gazpacho Soup

Ah, anesthetist Summertime in Miami. The thermostat hits 80 before the sun rises and the air wraps around you the second you step outside. It’s so hot and sticky, buy you don’t want to do much other than sit on the beach enjoying the ocean breeze and a cold beer. But of course, more about I have these silly things called responsibilities. Like going to work. And since I bring my lunch to work every day, I want something refreshing, a respite from the sweltering Miami heat. Something like Gazpacho.

Gazpacho is the perfect soup when it’s too hot outside. Made from tomatoes and bread, topped with crisp, fresh vegetables and croutons – it’s refreshment in a bowl. Not only is it a chilled soup, but (with a teensy tiny exception here) you don’t even cook it. I know I brag about my central air conditioning all the time, but I remember how darn hot my kitchens in NYC and Boston got in August. You don’t want to be turning on the stove, least of all to make soup.

The base is a tart and tangy blend of tomatoes, stale bread, garlic, lime juice, jalapeno, olive oil, vegetable stock and sherry vinegar blended into a creamy soup. This is your base, but the beauty of gazpacho is in the toppings. Sweet and crunchy, they contrast with the tomato soup perfectly – diced cucumbers, red and green bell peppers and toasted croutons. (If you don’t toast your croutons, you will from now on. Homemade toasted croutons are life-changing. I promise.)

Refreshing Gazpacho Soup

This is a more traditional recipe for Gazpacho, but feel free to experiment with your favorite crunchy toppings. I really want to try some perfectly grilled corn, but I have to wait until sweet corn is in season. Maybe some bacon, too. Maybe I’ll report back later this summer with a grilled corn and bacon gazpacho. Just think of the possibilities!

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Wheat Berry Greek Salad

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Wheat Berry Greek Salad

Earlier this week, diagnosis I asked you guys what you wanted to see more of on the blog. I got quite a few requests for salads, anabolics in-season produce and vegetarian dishes among others. It’s a total coincidence, sale but I already had this recipe ready to go. It’s a salad, cucumbers and tomatoes are in season and it’s vegetarian – 3 for 3.

I hope this one makes it into the rotation for a lot of you. For me, it’s the perfect salad to pack for lunch. It’s easy to make, travels well and keeps for a few days. It’s your basic Greek salad: tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and feta, but I used wheat berries instead of lettuce and added chickpeas to make it even more hearty. I didn’t have any olives, but they would be a very welcome addition and I recommend you add them if you’ve got them.

The dressing is made with fruity olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, oregano and tahini. It’s light and bright and refreshing. I also sprinkled the top with Za’atar, a Middle Eastern condiment made with sumac, thyme and sesame seeds, for a little bit of that exotic flavor, but that’s totally optional.

This salad is also versatile. Use your favorite grain – spelt, wheat berries, farro, couscous – or a combination of your those. It’s a dish that Tom and I both love and I think you’ll love too. It also makes you feel better about eating way too many of those Banana, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip cookies.

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Easter Brunch: Baked Eggs with Gruyere

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Easter Brunch: Baked Eggs with Gruyere

Whoever came up with brunch is a genius. Sure, hygiene it just a late breakfast, sickness but it’s a late breakfast with Mimosas. And if you’re at my house, website it’s a late breakfast with Guamosas. That’s not a typo or some weird baby talk. Guamosas are Mimosas made with guava juice instead of orange juice and they are absolutely amazing. Nothing says celebration on a Sunday quite like a Guamosa. If you can get your hands on some guava juice (or guava nectar), I highly recommend you make some as soon as possible. And if you share them with friends, they’ll love you forever.

Now, onto the more sensible and commonplace part of brunch – eggs. If you’ve ever made brunch for a crowd, you know how impossible it is to get the eggs just right. Everyone’s crowding around drinking Guamosas while you tend to a pan of eggs, making sure not to overcook them. I’d rather be drinking Guamosas than standing in the kitchen tending to a skillet, so I usually make a strata, which is basically a very eggy bread pudding with cheese on top. Everyone loves it and your oven does all the tending while you socialize. The only thing missing for me is a beautiful soft yolk. I do like my drippy, glistening yolk. So I tried combining the awesomeness of a poached egg with the easiness of a strata in these baked eggs.

This is experimentation gone right. These little ramekins are pure delicious brunch-iness. Bread, heirloom tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, spicy Spanish chorizo (or ham or bacon or sausage), a little cream, a cracked egg and a generous pile of Gruyere. The tomatoes and cream soak the bread and make it the perfectly creamy, tangy base for chorizo and drippy yellow yolk. And the cheese is browned and melted and there’s nothing better than that.

These will definitely be making an appearance at Easter Brunch on Sunday and they just might outshine the Guamosas!

ps. Last day to vote!

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Summery Baked Tomatoes

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Summery Baked Tomatoes

What happens when you take everything that’s fresh and colorful about summer and stuff it in a tomato? This amazingly light and flavorful dish – baked tomatoes stuffed with fresh corn, one health black beans, sovaldi zucchini and cilantro. I also added a little coriander and cumin for flavor and some lemon juice to brighten it all up. Finally, no baked dish is complete without breadcrumbs and a dusting of cheese, Cotija cheese in this case.

Summery Baked Tomatoes

They’re as comforting as a casserole, but still fresh and healthy. They’re also really pretty, all red and green and yellow with a crusty top.

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Baked Turkey and Chorizo Meatballs

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Baked Turkey and Chorizo Meatballs

I wonder how many variations of the meatball exist. Of course, physiotherapy there’s the traditional meatball with marinara that’s ladled over spaghetti – a classic. There are meatballs made of beef, neuropathologist pork, advice veal, lamb, chicken and turkey. Even meatballs made without any meat at all. You can have them fried, braised, steamed, baked, poached and probably confit-ed and sous-vided too, though I’ve yet to see that.

Baked Turkey and Chorizo Meatballs

I found a recipe for baked Chicken meatballs in last month’s Gourmet that promised to be super moist and delicious. Thinking they’d make a great weeknight meal, I immediately bookmarked it. I started out with the best intentions of following the recipe to a T. I swear I did. But of course I didn’t. Anyhow, these meatballs are really quite tasty – moist and flavorful and they hold their shape well. Everything I want out of a meatball and everything you should want too.

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Pasta Salad w/Steak & Blue Cheese Avocado Dressing

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Pasta Salad w/Steak & Blue Cheese Avocado Dressing

I don’t want to get into a whole thing about girly foods versus manly foods. As a woman, read more I do love my salads, food dainty cheese tarts and chocolate. But not any more than I love big, beefy burgers, buffalo wings and nachos. Food is delicious and I will not take sides!

Even after all that, I have to say, this pasta salad is a manly salad. It’s hearty and bold and full of freshly grilled steak. It is not a side dish. It’s an aggressive, filling entree. The first time I made this, I tossed everything with a little vinaigrette and topped it with diced avocado and crumbled blue cheese. It was good, but it was missing something to tie it together.

I tried again, this time making a creamy dressing with the avocado and blue cheese and … success! The dressing pulled everything together like mayonnaise usually does. The rest of the ingredients – pasta, tomatoes, red onion and steak – completed the salad.

I loved it, Tom loved it. This is a salad for all the sexes.

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Grilled Summer Squash Caprese

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Grilled Summer Squash Caprese

Right around this time every year, click people start scouring around for new zucchini recipes to get through what is usually an abundance of summer squash. Zucchini muffins, zucchini bread, ratatouille and zucchini pasta abound. Fortunately for me, I love the stuff and can’t get enough.

One of my favorite preparations is on the grill. Marinated and grilled summer vegetables are so good in pasta, salad or as a simple side. This time, I sliced some zucchini and yellow squash very thin, sprinkled with salt and pepper and quick-grilled them. Stacked with fat tomato slices and topped with a thick hunk of fresh mozzarella cheese, they made a very delicious and very pretty caprese salad.

But what really made it special was the good olive oil and and balsamic reduction I drizzled over the top. I’d never made a balsamic reduction and was pleasantly pleased by how utterly delicious and simple it was. I just simmered some aged balsamic vinegar in a little pot for awhile and it became an intense, slightly sweet syrup that’s insanely good with vegetables and creamy mozzarella.

A beautiful appetizer and an even better sandwich squished into a fresh baguette. Yum, yum and yum!

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Grilled Red Pepper Salsa

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Grilled Red Pepper Salsa

Ah, price summer! Let me tell you, it’s hot down here. Really hot. Humidly, stiflingly, ridiculously hot. Still, despite the absurd heat, I love the summer because it means all-day stints at the beach. We get there early and set up tents, chairs and umbrellas. We haul out coolers full of beer and soda. Everyone brings tons of food, which we load up on plates and float in the ocean. In the afternoon, I usually nap under the shade of the umbrella. Beach days are perfect days.

And this grilled red pepper salsa is perfect beach food. It’s bright and sunny, a little spicy and very refreshing. I also love that subtle char flavor that the grilled peppers give it. Though it’s great with the standard corn tortillas chips, it’s also makes a delicious condiment for grilled chicken or pork chops. This time, my salsa made brightened up some melty bean quesadillas with sliced avocado.

Summer officially begins on Sunday. Welcome it with open arms, chips and salsa and a chilly bottle of beer.

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arepas w/crab & avocado salad

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arepas w/crab & avocado salad

Wikipedia says that “The arepa is a corn-based bread from the northern Andes in South America …” In reality, pregnancy an arepa is more similar to a savory corn pancake, ask and depending on who’s making it, more about it’s sometimes filled with gooey cheese. Down here, every street festival has an arepa cart which sells very greasy, very cheesy Colombian-style arepas. There’s even a semi-permanent arepa stand at Hobie Beach on Virginia Key that I’m sure gets lots of business from the multitude of hungry cyclists, runners and beach-goers that crowd the area during the summer.

Anyway, there are infinite recipes out there, all using different amounts of butter, cheese, milk and oil. I opted for a lighter version of the original, omitting the butter and cheese and keeping it as simple as possible to let the corn-ness (is that a word?) really shine. The result was just as flavorful, but way less greasy than the arepa cart.

Since I was trying to keep this meal light — it was lunchtime after all — I served my warm arepas with a refreshing crab and avocado salad. I loved the crab salad as an alternative to tuna and egg salads for the summer months. It would make a perfect lunch with some whole grain toast and leafy greens. It also elevates the arepas from small and snack-like to a full-blown meal, perfect for hot and humid evenings.

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