Last Monday, I had a total kitchen disaster trying to make a blood orange tilapia. Meanwhile, Cate at Sweetnicks hit the culinary jackpot with her Sauteed Tilapia with Lemon-Peppercorn Sauce. Not only did she rave on her blog about it, but she raved to me about it. So, that tilapia recipe ended up at the top of my “must try” list.

On Friday, I ended up making it. I just had to try it and it’s a darn good thing I did. This recipe is beyond amazing and the sauce is just delectable. Best of all, it’s low in calories and fat so when you are clamoring for seconds, you won’t totally kill your diet. Good news all around. This is so totally going to be a frequent repeat in my house.

Looking for more delicious tilapia recipes? Try these:

• Basil and Sunflower Tilapia
• Baked Tilapia with Warm Tomato Relish

Read the rest of this entry…

I admit that my son at two and a half doesn’t eat like many other kids. His diet isn’t limited to nugget-y things and mac and cheese. Although he does enjoy those things, they aren’t staples. He happily munches on Brussels sprouts (particularly my pancetta and basil Brussels sprouts), fish of all kinds, and anything with high flavor.

My husband recently bought a cinnamon chipotle rub to use on chicken we were making. I sampled the chicken and worried that it might be a little spicy for Will’s taste. I don’t know why I worried. I should know better. After all, when I was pregnant with him I ate spicy food almost daily. The cravings for nachos with lots of jalapeños were killer (and I didn’t deny them – at all). Plus all the spicy items from the Chinese restaurant I frequented (walking there negated the calories, right?) and the Fire sauce from Taco Bell . . . hey, I never, ever said I ate healthy food. So, it should be no surprise that Will has a taste for fiery flavors too. Anyway, Will ate a lot of that chicken breast. A lot. Without a mention of it being too spicy (which he does know enough to say).

How did Will get a broad palate? He didn’t have any other option. I just don’t and won’t subscribe to the train of thought that toddler food should be bland or that they shouldn’t eat what everyone else is eating. From the time Will was old enough to chew food, he’s been sampling and eating the same things as my husband and I. Aside from the fruit and vegetable purees that I started him on — and made myself with a hint of spice — he’s been eating real food for nearly two years. And when we go to restaurants, I would rather feed him off my plate than order him chicken fingers in a pasta place or a hamburger in Japanese steak house. Seriously, why do people do that to their kids?

In the real world, breaded, fried chicken pieces are not the universal food.

So my advice? Feed your kids real food. Flavored food. Why should their taste buds be deprived?

While checking out sites when I was judging the 2007 Food Blog Awards, I stumbled on this post at Dine and Dish. I loved the idea of Adopting a Blogger. After more than two years at this, I’ve developed some great insight that I hope will be helpful to others. Anyway, I signed up and forgot about it until Kristen of Dine and Dish left me a comment last week to let me know that I had been paired with Rachel of Fairy Cake Heaven (love that blog name! how fun!). She wrote a really nice post about me and this blog — check it out here.

As part of my commitment to the program, I have to write a post too (which is what I am doing, duh!). So, I thought about what to write in my post. Then it came to me: Why write one post when I could write a series of posts that would tackle subjects that might be helpful to Rachel and other new bloggers? So here it goes:

Define Your Goals

Ask yourself: What are your goals for your blog? Why are you blogging? Who are you blogging for? Read the rest of this entry…

It’s funny how things change as you get older . . . As a child and a teen, I used to jump with joy at the prospect of snow. There was so much fun from the falling flakes – snow days, sledding, snowball fights … But when I got up this morning and saw my trees white with a thick coat of snow, my first reaction wasn’t so positive. In fact, it came in the form of a disappointed groan. Not only did I have a day of shoveling to look forward to, but it also canceled my lunch plans. A good friend was coming to visit today . . . alas, that will have to wait a few weeks.

The positive? Shoveling didn’t take as long as I thought it would.

Anyway, what better day than a snow day to share an easy recipe for a low-fat and tasty stew. Now, this one does take a while to simmer, but it’s well worth the wait. The potatoes break down a lot in the slow simmer, releasing their starches to create a thick and comforting base. And the barbecue flavor is awesome. I used Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Barbecue sauce and it was fantastic. But any bottled sauce (or homemade, if you do that sort of thing) would work . . . Read the rest of this entry…

When I was younger — probably 8 or 9 — I struggled with the limited array of fish, vegetables and fruit served around my house. While we ate a diverse selection of meats and poultry, vegetables were limited to standard salad vegetables, corn, peas, green beans, cauliflower and broccoli. Occasionally there would be a Brussels sprout or a bit of asparagus thrown in for good measure, but it was rare. And other than salad, asparagus and Brussels sprouts, vegetables usually came from one of those cardboard boxes in the freezer. No seasoning. No sauces. Just plain (and dare I say, bland).

I knew there had to be more out there. There had to be some reason why people wanted to eat vegetables. I found it hard to believe that adults would choose to eat such tasteless foods by choice. I’ve learned that vegetables don;t have to be flavorless, frozen or bland. There is more fruit to the world than apples and bananas. And, most importantly, salmon and swordfish are not the only types of fish to cook at home . . . See? I knew there was more to eating then what I was exposed to.

Read the rest of this entry…

I’ve been cooking almost daily. I love cooking so that’s a chore I totally don’t mind doing. And there are several great benefits to cooking at home, instead of getting take out or going out. For one, a meal made at home is cheaper than one in a restaurant. That’s always a good thing. For another, it’s far easier to control what you eat and how many calories you take in when you are eating at home.

Speaking of calories, there are significantly fewer calories in ground turkey than in ground beef — about 100 fewer, in fact. So, while Shawn and I love a juicy beef burger, I try to substitute turkey for beef when possible. With recipes like my Italian Turkey Meatballs and these Hawaiian Turkey Meatballs, the extra juicy sauce makes up for the dryness factor of the turkey. What dryness factor? Simply put, ground turkey doesn’t cook up as juicy as ground beef. Read the rest of this entry…

Kiwis are on sale for $0.25 each here this week at the good old Big Y supermarket, so I picked up a few. Then I ate one and I remembered how much I love the tangy sweet-sour taste. I first had kiwi – get this – when I was in kindergarten. My teacher, Miss Lynn, had us try a new food every few weeks. And they were usually an unusual food or something hands on. For instance, one week we made race cars with carrot wheels, celery bodies and peanut butter . . . of course, that was back when peanut butter wasn’t a voodoo food for schools.

These days, bringing peanut butter to school is akin to giving your kid a vodka tonic in his thermos. Seriously. (And don’t take that the wrong way, I know that the peanut allergies are very serious and can be deadly. But these allergies have appeared out of nowhere and my personal concern is mitigating the development in my kids. I certainly don’t want them growing up with that risk and fear. Fortunately, Will isn’t allergic and with any luck Paige won’t be either.)

But where have all these peanut allergies come from anyway? If you ask me, it’s a result of being too sterile. Back when I was a kid everything wasn’t super sanitized to the Nth degree (and yet, somehow we all turned out fine. Go figure.). And experts are noticing that the deadly allergy isn’t striking developing countries where houses aren’t completely germ-free like they are here … too many chemicals in the U.S., I tell you. That’s why I use natural cleaners that aren’t anti-microbial or anti-bacterial.

Anyway, this is about kiwi, not peanuts or peanut allergies. Read the rest of this entry…

Here in the Cucina Bella household, we are working on a big project: weight loss. I have a good deal of baby weight to shed and my husband has some sympathy pounds to melt away. That means exercise (wait, exercise? What’s that? Does whipping cream by hand count?) and healthier eating. Fortunately, eating healthy foods doesn’t have to mean going hungry. In my experience, I have found that bulking up on vegetables and sticking with lean proteins, like tilapia, keeps me full and satisfied for longer.

This tilapia recipe is a great example of a hearty, healthy meal that is low in calories. The tasty tomato relish really fills the stomach and it’s so heart-healthy. Tomatoes are rich in lycopene, a powerful antioxidant that is known to help ward off cancer. Cooked tomatoes are the best source of lycopene. And with three servings of vegetables and a serving of lean protein, how can you go wrong?

Baked Tilapia with Warm Tomato Relish
serves 4

4 plum tomatoes, diced
2 onions, diced
2 red peppers, diced
1 1/2 cup baby bella mushrooms, quartered
1/2 cup sliced black olives
2 tbsp olive oil
4 tilapia fillets
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp salt

Spray an oven safe casserole with cooking oil. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

In the casserole, stir together tomatoes, onions, red peppers, baby bella mushrooms and olives. Drizzle with olive oil. Place tilapia fillets on the tomato mixture. Drizzle a half tablespoon of balsamic vinegar on each fillet. Sprinkle with garlic and salt.

Cover and cook for 20-25 minutes, until fish is opaque and flakes easily with a fork.

Serve each fillet with one quarter of the relish.

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This heart-healthy recipe is a great inclusion for Weekend Herb Blogging, a weekly blogging event created by Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen. Check out Kalyn’s Kitchen tonight for a great roundup of recipes.

Me: I’m thinking of making a quiche with the leftover ham for breakfast tomorrow.
Shawn: A quiche? (crinkles nose) Am I even going to like that?
Me: I don’t see why you wouldn’t. It’s just eggs, ham and cheese.
Shawn: That’s all?
Me: Yes, that’s it. I can’t believe you’ve never had one before

My husband had never had quiche before I whipped this one up last week. Although it was a brunch staple in my household growing up, it wasn’t in his. He was particularly surprised to actually like it. It just goes to show that just because you haven’t had something doesn’t mean it isn’t totally delicious and worth eating.

Quiche is a lighter, fluffier French cousin of the frittata. It is often made in a pie crust, but can be made crustless as well. For this quiche, I used leftover ham but you could use a cubed ham steak too for this recipe too. But the possibilities for quiche are endless. Vegetables and meats of all shapes and sizes can be added. But you have to have cheese, if you ask me. Without cheese, it’s just eggs in a crust. But, traditionally, quiches didn’t typically contain cheese . . . Read the rest of this entry…

In 2007, I was fortunate to try many new things . . . snacks, gadgets, cookbooks, magazines. Some were fantastic, others were disasters. I figured it would only be fitting to pay one final farewell ode to 2007 by highlighting a few of my favorite things. Enjoy!

• The SideSwipe blade for my KitchenAid – When I sampled this for The Cook’s Kitchen, I thought it might be useful come Christmas time. How right I was! This blade, which has silicone fingers that scrape the bowl as you mix, sped up my cookie making exponentially. And anything that gives me more time is tops in my book . . .
• Ceramic and Stainless Garlic Keeper from Williams Sonoma – I used to store garlic loose in a cabinet and it always seemed to be going bad before I could use it all. This cute little container doesn’t take up much room on my countertop and it seems to be elongating the life of my garlic. Love it!
• Simple Italian Sandwiches by Jennifer and Jason Denton, with Kathryn Kellinger – When Virtual Frolic gave me this cookbook, I couldn’t wait to check out every recipe. The recipes come from ‘ino, my favorite little panini and bruschetta bar in New York. Now that I have tried a few (see Sweet Onions, Prosciutto, Mozzarella and Sweet Onion Panini, and What To Do With The Sweet Onions?). . . well, let’s just say that this cookbook is worth every single penny. Read the rest of this entry…