Top 5 side-dish recipes

As a quasi-vegetarian, my meals usually consist primarily of side dishes. I just don't find meat thrilling enough to waste my time with it (unless it's filet mignon). But I've always thought that sides are the best part of a meal anyway. Unfortunately, they often contain a lot of butter, cheese, cream, and/or white starchy stuff. And if they don't, they might be bland. I for one love a good bunch of steamed broccoli, but not everyone has my plain jane tastebuds. So, I am going to highlight my 5 favorite healthy (and delicious!) side-dish recipes. Some are my own and some I have gotten from other sources. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Yukon Gold Potatoes: Jacques Pepin stye.

I made these for the first time on Christmas, after reading the rave reviews online, and was AMAZED by how delicious they were! The technique is very simple and the recipe requires very few ingredients: baby Yukon Gold potatoes, chicken stock, butter (I used Smart Balance to improve the nutritional profile), parsley, salt & pepper. But these are not ordinary potatoes. They are soft and moist inside with a salty, flavorful crust on the outside. Better than saturated-fat-laden au gratin potatoes any day.

2. Anise-Roasted Green Beans.

Who would have thought to roast green beans with anise seeds?? It sounds strange, but they are SO good! This recipe calls for 1/2 cup of oil, but I just use about a tablespoon. Olive oil may be healthy, but it still has lots of calories, so I don't see the point in using more than I need to. And you definitely don't need much here.

3. Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes

I had these for the first time at a restaurant and fell in love. It may seem like an odd pairing, but the smoky-spicy flavor of the chipotle works very well with the sweet potatoes. And making them couldn't be easier! Microwave or bake a sweet potato, pull the flesh out of the skin and mash it with a little salt, and as much chopped chipotle (canned in adobo sauce) as you want. A little goes a long way, so start with maybe 1/4 or 1/2 a pepper for a large potato. Then, add a little low-fat milk or fat free half and half to desired creaminess.

4. Italian-style Broccoli Rabe

One of my favorite foods growing up was broccoli rabe with sausage. It was garlicky with a little spice from the sausage, and like most things Italian, enough oil to endanger aquatic life if it were ever spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. My grown-up nutritionist take on this dish is a lot lighter on the oil, but still heavy on taste.

1 bunch broccoli rabe

sliced garlic cloves (to taste)

red pepper flakes (to taste)

2 tbs freshly grated parmigianno reggiano cheese (it's worth the expense)

1 tbs olive oil

Serves: 2-4 (1-2 in my house)

Rinse the broccoli rabe and chop into medium-ish pieces

Steam until just tender in vegetable steamer

Remove steamer from heat and add olive oil to a pan on med/high heat

When oil is hot, add garlic and pepper flakes

When garlic is just browned (not burnt!), add broccoli rabe and toss to coat

Remove from heat. Add salt/pepper and cheese.

To make this side dish an entree, you could add turkey or chicken sausage, lean beef or turkey meatballs, chicken breast, and/or cannelini beans.

5. Herbed Spaghetti Squash

I came up with this idea last Thanksgiving. I love spaghetti squash because it is a great low-calorie substitute for pasta or rice. Instead of having one cup of pasta, you could have 3 cups of this stuff! And, it just happens to be fantastic. Bear with me with this "recipe" because I really don't measure things when I'm making them. Here is the general gist:

1 spaghetti squash

1-2 tbs. smart balance (or butter, if you must)

handful chopped basil

handful chopped tarragon

handful chopped sage

1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Serves 4-6

Cut the spaghetti squash in half and remove the seeds

Place halves cut side down in a microwave-safe dish with a little water in the bottom and cover with plastic wrap

Microwave on high for 10-12 minutes or until squash is very soft and can be easily pulled out of the skin like spaghetti. You can't really over-cook, but you can under-cook so it's better to cook longer if you aren't sure

When the squash is cool enough to handle, use a fork to pull the strands out into a serving bowl

Add all of the other ingredients and mix to combine

So there you have them. If you try any of these recipes, please post a review!

Food I am loving right now: Baked Kettle chips

This post will be brief. I just want to share one of my new food finds. These baked chips, by Kettle, are a big improvement on the baked Lays chips that I once ate on a regular basis. They are not mashed up potato mixed with extra starch and formed into chip-like shapes that break into shards at the smallest disturbance. No, these are actual slices of real potato, baked with just a small amount of oil and sea salt. And they are delicious! They taste like real potato chips, but without all the grease.

And another bonus: because they are thick and extra crunchy, they hardly ever break! I put a ziploc bag of these in my schoolbag, mashed up against my laptop and notebooks all day, and I still end up with hardly any small pieces. It's great because even a small serving seems like a lot of chips! If you are a salty snack fiend looking for a low-calorie and relatively unprocessed food to satisfy your cravings, I highly recommend giving these a try!