Pip's Plate

I’ve been on a healthy food kick lately – which is a good thing. My boyfriend has lymphoedema, so he has to have an extremely low fat diet. He has challenged me recently to cook very low fat recipes that still have a lot of flavor – as if I couldn’t! Ha! Turns out, we’re eating better than we ever have AND we’re sticking to the low fat diet.

I’ve never cooked pressed chicken before, and I have no idea why because this is a really great way to cook chicken. Often when I cook chicken breasts in a skillet on the stove, it splatters all over the place. This cooking style avoids all of the splatter and it cooks the chicken evenly while adding a nice crust without having skin.

Here’s another healthy and low fat recipe that is full of flavor.

Pressed Chicken Breasts with Squash and Tomatoes

Makes: 6 servings

Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

6 boneless, skinless hormone-free chicken breasts (about 4-6 ounces each)

2 T olive oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 package cherry tomatoes, halved

3 medium yellow squash

zest from half a lemon

3 T chopped fresh marjoram or thyme

Directions

1. Cut out a circle of parchment paper that will cover a large skillet.

2. Heat 1 T oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle one side of the chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Add chicken breasts to the pan seasoned side down. Sprinkle the tops of the chicken with salt and pepper. Cover with parchment paper, then top with another heavy skillet (like a cast iron pan), and top with about 2 pounds of weight (broth cans work well).

3. Cook chicken breasts for about 8 minutes on first side, then turn. Place parchment paper, skillet and weights on chicken again. Cook for another 8 minutes or until done.

4. When chicken is fully cooked, remove from the pan and keep warm. You can either put them in a 200 degree F oven, or put them on a plate and cover with foil.

5. Heat the remaining 1 T olive oil in the same pan that you just removed the chicken from. When hot, add garlic, tomatoes, squash, lemon zest, and 2 T marjoram. Saute for about 4 to 5 minutes or until soft. Toss with remaining 1 T marjoram and pour over chicken breasts.

Recipe adapted from Epicurious

One of my favorite foods in the summer time is corn on the cob. I remember as a kid, my mom would give me and my sisters a paper bag and all the corn to sit on the back porch and shuck away.

It might be a bit early for corn on the cob and I spent a little more on it just to have it the other night. But it was totally worth it. The first nice day of 75 degrees in Minneapolis was begging for a grill out. So why not grill corn on the cob? It’s really easy and you can grill it while your burgers cook so you don’t have to go back into the house.

Chili Lime Grilled Corn on the Cob

Makes: 4 servings (easily doubled)

Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

4 corn on the cob, shucked

1/2 T adobo chili powder

1 T salt

1/2 T fresh ground pepper

1/2 stick unsalted butter (you may not use all of it)

4 slices lime

Directions

1. Heat grill to medium-high heat (around 375-400 degrees).

2. To make the seasoning, combine the adobo chili powder, salt and pepper in a small bowl. (If you have a shaker, make a lot of this and keep it for use throughout the summer.)

3. Place corn on the cob on the grill. Cook for about 8-10 minutes, turning every few minutes to ensure even cooking. The corn will blacken in some places – this is ok.

4. When the corn is done, remove from the grill and place on a serving plate. Set out the butter, limes, and seasoning. To finish the corn on the cob, butter the corn, then squeeze a lime over the corn, then sprinkle some seasoning over the corn. Now enjoy!

This recipe is a great side dish to serve with Garlicky Green Turkey Burgers and Strawberry Citrus Salad for a complete quick and easy grilling meal.

The latest issue of Bon Appetit magazine has a ton of great recipes in it, and this Strawberry Citrus Salad caught my eye and I just had to try it. It…is…AMAZING.

Talk about simple food being the best: this recipe has only 4 ingredients and it is packed with flavor. I think this would be pretty good over ice cream too…but I’m just sayin. Plus – it’s a super healthy salad.

Strawberry Citrus Salad

from Bon Appetit May 2009

Makes: enough for a small gathering (8-10 servings or so)

Time: 15 minutes prep + 30 minutes to marinade

Ingredients

2 packages strawberries, washed, cored and quartered

3 large navel oranges, segmented and cut into large chunks

3 T fresh chopped mint

1 T brown sugar

Combine everything together in a bowl, and let it sit for about 30 minutes to marinate and get mascerated goodness. I enjoy this salad by itself or as a simple dessert. In fact, it’s really good after a plate of fried eggs and turkey bacon.

This is a perfect side dish to Garlicky Green Turkey Burgers and Chili Lime Grilled Corn on the Cob for a complete quick and easy grilling meal.

With spring finally turning into summer, what better way to be outside than to grill up some spicy turkey burgers?

These turkey burgers are “green” because they have lots of delicious green ingredients added to them for extra flavor.

Garlicky Green Turkey Burgers

Makes 4

Time: under 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 pound hormone-free ground turkey breast

4 green onions, thinly sliced

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 jalapeño, minced with seeds

2 T chopped cilantro

1 t salt

1/2 t fresh ground pepper

4 hamburger buns

1 T butter, softened to room temp

4 pieces romaine

1/2 avocado, sliced lengthwise

1. In a large bowl, combine the turkey, onion, garlic, jalapeño, cilantro, salt and pepper. Form into 4 patties.

2. Heat grill to medium high heat. Put the burgers on the hot grill and close cover. Cook about 5 minutes on each side.

3. While the burgers cook, spread each half of the buns with butter. After turning the burgers, place the buns on the top shelf of the grill to slightly toast them.

4. When the burgers are done, place them on the toasted buns with a slice of romaine and some avocado.

For a complete quick and easy grilled meal, serve these turkey burgers with Chili Lime Grilled Corn on the Cob and Strawberry Citrus Salad.

I just got back from a lovely, but short, vacation to Miami Beach, FL, with my sister. She brought me along on her Pampered Chef reward trip. Lucky me!

We spent most of our time by the pool in the record-setting-93-degree day last Monday. Yikes, it was blistering hot. We stayed at the Fontainebleau in north beach Miami…it was very luxurious and reminded me a lot of Vegas hotels.

When we made it down to South Beach for some eats, we had some really delicious food at La Ventana – a Colombian restaurant. The place was teeny (maybe 20 people could fit in there) so we had to sit at the bar. It was really good food. My sister had a traditional Colombian meal of beef with tomato-onion sauce, while I had seasoned grilled fish. Yum yum!

We also had lunch at Puerto Sagua, a Cuban restaurant in South Beach, FL. It was also delicious! I had fish veracruz style served with a healthy portion of rice and fried plantains. I’m not a big fan of plantains, but these were quite good. The fish was awesome and reminded me of Thai and Indian style food with a lot of good sauce, veggies, and rice.

Remember Giorgio’s in the Uptown part of Minneapolis? Well, I never made it there (yes, I know, I really should have). There’s a new place in this uptown spot – it’s called Rinata. At first I thought their brand is very trendy and will be outdated in 2-3 years.

I met a friend at Rinata last night for dinner. I hadn’t seen her for awhile and it was very fun to catch up. Rinata has an interesting happy hour: everything on the menu is $2 off (including all drinks and food) that ends at 6pm. Cool!

We had some wine – their house white and red were very decent. We had an appetizer with octopus – we were both hoping it was better. It wasn’t nearly lemony enough, and it was served with saffron potatoes – kind of strange for an appetizer, but I’m sure some people like it.

Now, we hadn’t seen each other for a few months so we had a lot of catching up to do. Not to mention – it was 6pm – a wee bit early for us to be having dinner. Regardless, the over polite server came by about every 5 minutes for the next hour asking us if we were ready to order dinner. Yikes – give it a rest!

When we did order dinner, we were pleasantly surprised. All of the entrees at Rinata are pastas – I wish I had looked at the menu before going there since I’m not a big pasta person. Also, there is only 1 vegetarian friendly entree (unless you count the clams then it’s 2).

I had the papardelle with short rib ragu – it was simply yummy! My friend had the linguine with clams – it was also really good. I could tell that the pasta was store bought and not homemade. That was a disappointment. But the clams were really garlicky so that wins big points! (because we all know about my love affair with garlic)

In the end, I’m not sure if I’ll go back. It was decent, but not a place I would tell people they had to go to.

Rinata

2451 Hennepin Ave

Minneapolis, MN 55405

(612) 374-8998

www.rinatarestaurant.com