Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki from Kevin at Closet Cooking

If you want to see the most delectable, drool-inducing food photo you've ever seen...take a look at Kevin's Okonomiyaki. I'd never heard of a "Japanese pancake," but as soon as I saw his photo, I knew I had to make it.


This dish is pretty easy to prepare...not a lot of ingredients required, and it cooks quickly. I did have a little trouble maneuvering the pan around so I could flip the pancake (which is made mostly of cabbage and other vegetables), but I think it just takes practice. I made two versions: one with turkey bacon and one vegetarian. I have to say, the bacon version won hands down over the veggie.

I have sort of an aversion to mayonnaise, but I decided to try a little bit anyway for the sauce. I mixed some low-fat sour cream with Worchester and about a TB of mayonnaise. And you know what.....it was still too mayonnaise-y for me. So next time I'll have to figure out a different sauce. Any ideas?

Anyway, in spite of the mayo, I really liked this! It's definitely a healthy and unique meal and I would recommend it! :)

Spinach soup and sourdough

Spinach & Zucchini Soup from 101 Cookbooks

Finally got around to making this soup... It was different than I expected. I mean, it was good, but I guess I expected it to be creamier....even though it doesn't have cream in it. I don't know, ok!? But it was very good, and I added some red pepper flakes and jalapeno to give it some oomph. Sourdough slices were dusted with olive oil and Italian spices and broiled.

The recipe makes 6 servings, with about 90 calories a piece. (Awesome!)

Zucchini Potato Bake

Here's a recipe I tried last night from Allrecipes - Zucchini Potato Bake.
Potatoes, zucchini, red bell pepper, and I threw in some spinach too: 245 calories.
I also made some "lean pockets" from scratch...spinach and turkey pepperoni. I'll get to postin those soon.

It's so pretty...




Right out of the oven...

Polenta Lasagna and Oven-fried Squash

Last night I made a polenta lasagna for the first time. I was so excited to make it, because you use polenta slices instead of lasagna sheets. It was from a Pesto Lasagna on Allrecipes that I changed up. Instead of pesto and pinenuts, I put in lots of sauteed onions and red bell pepper, and added some spinach. It was very tasty, lemme tell you. I think next time I'll add some ricotta cheese to make it taste more lasagna-y.

I also found a recipe for Oven-Fried Courgette. Courgette is just the fancy British word for zucchini. (And zucchini is the fancy American word for courgette.) Well, we had a bunch of yellow squash so I used that instead, and I whipped up some honey mustard, and voila: squash fries. We actually used wheat flour and wheat bread crumbs to coat them, and they still turned out really good.

It looks really decadent in the pictures, doesn't it? But it's not....the lasagna has only 270 calories for a big ol' piece, and the zucchini is about 120 calories. The only fattening thing on that plate is the honey mustard, and we barely used any of it.

Polenta lasagna




Oven-fried squash




YUM