Sharing Plate – Your Cooking Coach |

This salad is perfect for summer time- no cooking involved. Just put some ingredients together and make your vinaigrette and you have a great side dish to complement anything at all. It is even great as a light meal at the end of the day or for lunch with a fried egg on top.

I made it with the fish tacos (recipe to follow tomorrow). I was going to make a simple green salad but then thought of doing a bean salad instead. I had mangoes and sweet peppers in my fridge and paired them with green onions and cilantro. I always have different kinds of canned beans in my pantry. Beans are super healthy and add great texture to any dish.

The dressing was simply, lime juice, honey, roasted cumin and olive oil. You can’t get this delicious vinaigrette out of a bottle and yet it is so simple to make. I added the dressing to the salad and let it sit for a few hours before serving it with the delicious tacos.

It was a big hit- super healthy and delicious- and best of all, very easy to make.
Click here for the recipe… »

As I was thinking about making the chicken taco salad super flavorful, I was also wondering what to serve with it…

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was disappointed with my lunch at Restaurant Serenade and was in the process of replicating it. The original entree was served with a mixed salad. I wanted to serve rice with it as well as a tomato salad. To save time, I thought of combining the two and came up with this rice dish- it is yummy.

I started with cooking rice in chicken broth with salt and smoked paprika. I wanted to infuse tons of flavor into the rice even before it finished cooking. As the rice cooked, I prepared the rest. I chopped the tomatoes, green onions, cilantro, etc and mixed them with some lime juice. I also had queso fresco in the fridge which as a great salty flavor and is used in many Mexican and Latin dishes. I decided to slice some and add it to the mix.

Once the rice was cooled off- I added all the veggies and the cheese and I had a delicious, flavorful side dish to serve with the taco salad.

Definitely try this one- it is great to make with any entree!
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You have to admit- this salad (like yesterdays) looks gorgeous. Like the carrot salad, this one has most spices used in Moroccan cuisine. I did use smoked paprika- which is more of a Spanish ingredient- but since I love this spice on potatoes- I decided to use it in this salad.

The good thing about this dish, besides the taste, is that it can be made in advance. In fact it tastes better as the potatoes bathe in the delicious dressing for a few hours. The main ingredient in the dressing is a lot of powdered cumin. I always have lots of cumin seeds at hand but never buy the powdered variety since powdered spices loose their flavor very quickly. I ground the cumin and added it to the oil, cilantro, parsley and lemon juice. The smoky dressing was a great compliment to the creamy potatoes.

I grilled the potatoes the same way I did the carrots. It was very easy to make and the dish went perfectly with the lamb burgers and the carrot salad. It was a delicious, simple and healthy barbecue to prepare.

We all had a wonderful time and washed the delicious food down with some fabulous pomegranate mojitos. How do you make them- you ask??? Stay tuned tomorrow and I will share my husband’s fabulous recipe.
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I consider this my quick, easy, go to meal when I have no idea what to make. It is also a pantry dish since I always have potatoes outside in my basket, peas in the freezer and carrots in the fridge. It is an instant side vegetable or even a whole meal.

I decided to make this vegetable with some lentils and fresh rotis. As I was making this vegetarian dish, my daughter’s friend who was visiting asked if she could stay for dinner. I told her it was fine with me but would she be okay with Indian food?? She nodded and said ‘no problem’. Just to make sure I showed her what I had- and her answer was still the same.

I was a bit skeptical if the friend is going to like what she eats only because it would be new to her. I decided to make the fresh rotis and stuff them with the vegetable and roll them up. I asked the girls if they wanted a vegetable roll and they got very excited. I was still quite skeptical about the whole thing and wasn’t sure what I would feed her if she decided not to have what I had cooked.

As I served them the meal, they picked up the rolled rotis and began eating them promptly. It wasn’t a problem at all and I am extremely happy that I was able to introduce a new cuisine to my daughter’s friend. Most of all it is very sweet to see how much they love spending time with each other- especially eating together…

Try this quick dish next time you run out of ideas….
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This is a great way to transform your left overs and create a wonderful, quick lunch. I made this for myself with the leftover mushroom mixture from the enchilada dinner.

Smoked salmon is always in my fridge. I try to eat it as much as possible especially since the other two people in my family don’t care for the fish at all.

I wanted to make a substantial yet healthy lunch for myself. I took out the mushroom filling and the salmon. I decided to add some spicy low fat cheese- just a few, very thin slices to add some creaminess to the dish. I also always have whole-wheat tortillas in the fridge- and that was it- a quesadilla was born. I added the mushroom filling, salmon, cheese and baby spinach- also, always in my fridge. It was a well-balanced, quick and delicious lunch. Best of all, I ate it with some delicious homemade salsa.

Try the quesadilla next time you run out of ideas for a healthy lunch…
Click here for the recipe… »