Moroccan Couscous!!

Today I am coming to you with one of my favorites dishes of all time: Moroccan Couscous!!! I just love the taste of couscous with all the vegetables cooked in the beef broth and flavored with fresh herbs and ginger. I am using instant couscous which makes this recipe super easy to make. The traditional recipe calls for 7 kinds of vegetables: carrots, zucchini, squash, cabbage, onions, turnip and potatoes. Also, the caramelized raisins are usually served separately, or when served with the couscous it is another dish cooked without the veggies. I like the taste of both so I just serve them together, the sweetness from the raisins with the taste of the veggies goes perfectly together!! Now I did not use all 7 kinds of veggies simply because I didn't have all of them in hand but it

Brochettes: Baked Ground Beef And Veggies Skewers!!

This is a super easy and fun meal idea!! It's a great way to eat veggies as well, and have a balanced meal, specially if you serve these skewers over brown rice and more veggies (green beans and cauliflower in my case). It is really quick, it doesn't require any prep time, and the skewers are ready in about 20 minutes! I do recommend to bake over low heat (300F) so that the ground beef stays juicy, specially if you're using low fat ground beef. The taste of the grilled beef and the crisp veggies is just delicious! You won't regret giving this recipe a try!!

Lentil Soup!!

Lentils (like beets) are another one of my favorite super foods!! I am a huge fan of lentils regardless of their health benefits and how rich they are in fiber and iron. Plus, with this technique that I have developed throughout the years, they are also one of the quickest and easiest side dish or even meal I can have. This recipe, doesn't call for preparation at all and the lentils are ready in about 20 minutes. All you have to do is pretty much patiently wait for them to cook!! Sounds pretty easy right? Also, all you need is lentils (of course), one chopped onion, a few garlic gloves, chopped parsley and salt. Drizzle with a little

Béchamel Sauce/ White Sauce

This is a classic Béchamel sauce Recipe except that I give out the secret to a perfectly smooth sauce, lump free. No the secret is not to add the milk a little at a time. And nope, it's not to keep stirring.. Sorry you have been mislead for all this time... 


The Secret is to let the butter and flour get really hot and bubbly before adding the COLD milk!!

Spinach Lasagna

Lasagna is my favorite food of all time... 
Here is a healthier, lighter and to my taste more delicious version of it.

I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves and dive right into the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 6.5 oz Lasagna (about 8 CREAMETTE noodles)
• 8 oz fresh spinach

Ginger Garlic Salmon

This a really quick, healthy and delicious meal idea!! Aside from the health benefits of this dish, it is extremely easy to make and it takes 5 minutes to prepare. Apart from the marinating time, the salmon can be ready in 15 minutes, as it cooks pretty fast as well.


I am a butternut squash lover I could eat it all day everyday without even adding salt to it (I know, I’m weird), so I steamed some as a side. I also thought that wasting all those flavors from the salmon and the marinating sauce would be a sin, so I shredded up a couple zucchinis and the residue after removing the salmon. I sautéed them for a few minutes in all the goodness and voila! 
Of course you can have any side you’d like with this. Mashed potatoes, pilaf rice, broccoli, to name a few. I’d love to hear what kind of side dishes you’d serve this salmon, so let me know in a comment.


Ingredients:

• 1 lbs salmon fillet

Eggplant And Potato Gratin

This a super easy, fast and definitely a family favorite side dish. This gratin is loaded with vegetables and relatively low in fat. You can add ground beef to it, but I don’t think it’s necessary as I find it very rich and flavorful as it is.


For the gluten free version, simply substitute the flour with rice flour and a little bit of corn starch, Voila! Or for a lactose free version, simple use almond milk instead of regular. So this is a really delicious alternative to eating vegetables in a fancy way.





Also, the taste of the the browned eggplant with the caramelized onions and potatoes goes amazingly good together. Add to that a hint of nutmeg spiced béchamel/ white sauce and you have a perfect food heaven in your mouth!!


Ingredients:

• 2 eggplants

Roasted Chicken

Have you ever wondered how to roast a chicken? 

In this post I am sharing with you the secret of a super easy and relatively quick way for a perfectly tender and flavored chicken with a golden brown crispy skin.

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken
• salt
• 1 lemon
• 2 chopped onions
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ginger powder

Chicken Stuffed Pastry

This recipe is inspired from a traditional Moroccan recipe called "Rghayef dial lferran" which is pastry stuffed with ground beef and a tomato based sauce. I attempted this version of the traditional recipe a few months ago, simply because the beef stuffing recipe made these layered crepes very calorie-dense and not very weight-loss friendly. They have become a family favorite ever since.
These pastries make for a great appetizer when you have family or friends over, and a balanced a quick meal, specially if you have them ready to go in the
 freezer. My toddler loves them and would prefer

How I roasted my first Thanksgiving Turkey

We have a family tradition of having roasted chicken and fries every weekend for a late lunch/ early dinner. So I am familiar with roasting when it comes to smaller birds. However, I always cook my whole chicken in a mixture of spices, herbs and vegetables which give it its aroma and yummy taste before I put it in the oven for a quick roast just to give it the golden brown sheen and crunchy skin. Since a 17 lbs turkey was nowhere close to fitting into any of pans, cooking it first in an aromatic sauce was not an option. So I was worried about how to make the blunt turkey meat delicious.

Eggplant Pasta

Ingredients:

• 1 Medium Eggplant
• 2 onions finely diced
• 2 garlic gloves fined chopped
• 2 tomatoes diced
• 6 oz of spaghetti noodles (I used whole grain)
• 2-3 tbsp of dried basil
• Salt to taste
• Cheese of your choice

Preparation:

Homemade Pizza in 30 minutes!!

INGREDIENTS>> Toppings

• 1 medium onion
• 1/2 orange pepper
• 1/2 yellow pepper
• 1/2 red pepper
• 1 zucchini
• 2 tomatoes
• 1/2 lbs of fresh spinach
• turkey pepperoni
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 cup shredded mozarella 
• 2 tbsp extra virgin  olive oil
• thyme

INGREDIENTS>> Dough

Hot Oven-Baked Chicken Wings

     My husband LOVES chicken wings and I, well, I started liking them as well.  Yes, I was not a big fan of chicken wings at first because I did not find it appealing to eat fried chicken with its skin still on. However, everything changed the day I asked my husband that next time he craved chicken wings to buy them raw instead of stopping by the local buffalo wings sports bar's take-out. Needless to say, the next day he came back from work with 3 lbs. of raw chicken wings. 

    To my surprise and more importantly to my husband's astonishment my first

Healthy Lasagna (loaded with vegetables)

Do you have a little one who doesn't enjoy eating vegetables? Or maybe you are not a big vegetable eater yourself. This recipe is a great way to eat those vegetables and actually enjoy them!! Otherwise if you LOVE your vegetable then this recipe has your name on it. The favors blend perfectly together so you don't taste one vegetable over the other. By the way, you can keep the secret of using carrots and zucchini in your lasagna between you and I and I assure you nobody will notice it. 

All and all you get a delicious, nutritional, unique, creative and under 200 calories/ serving lasagna!!

Ingredients:

Homemade Beans

Are you a Mexican food fanatic? Or just into eating healthy and getting in the right amount of proteins?! Have you been obliged to buy canned beans simply because you didn't know how to cook them yourself or thought it was too hard and just gave up on the idea?! Well then, this post is for you!







Ingredients And Preparation:

Spinach Lasagna!!

As promised, here is my spinach lasagna recipe! =)

Lasagna is my favorite food of all time... Here is a healthier, lighter and to my taste more delicious version of it.

I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves and dive right into the recipe.


INGREDIENTS:

• 8 oz Lasagna (about 10 CREAMETTE noodles)
• 16 oz fresh