Green Eggs & Ham

March 4, 2015 Amanda Plott

In honor of Dr. Seuss's 111th birthday being earlier this week, and with St. Patrick's Day right around the corner, I decided to make a play on Green Eggs & Ham!

“Try them, try them, and you may! Try them and you may, I say.”
― Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham

St. Patrick's Day is actually one of my favorite holidays, and it also happens to be my dad's birthday. Happy Pre-Birthday, Daddy! My dad always thought it was fun to make Green Eggs & Ham for breakfast around his birthday. So, the idea for my take on Green Eggs & Ham was definitely inspired by him, even though I'm pretty sure that you makes his a whole lot differently...

Eggs in Pepper Rings

October 22, 2014 Amanda Plott

I know, I know... I've been doing a lot with pesto lately. My basil plant is slowly but surely taking over the back yard again this year. What better to do with it than to make some yummy Skinny Spinach & Basil Pesto?

I've done the whole Lighter Egg-in-a-Basket thing, but I've been trying to be a little more gluten conscious lately. So, I thought to myself... why not take the same idea, but use a vegetable instead of the bread? Perfect! Bell peppers work great for this. They are firm and hold up well with the cooking process, since they don't sweat or soften too awfully much in such a short amount of time.

Skinny Pesto & Mozzarella Stuffed Chicken

October 17, 2014 Amanda Plott

How could anyone resist a stuffed chicken breast? Well, certainly not me! Especially when it's stuffed with my favorite pesto and fresh melty mozzarella.

Yes. I'm allowed to say 'melty' here because it's oh-so-fitting.

A few weeks ago I had this amazingly delicious caprese style salad with smoked chicken breast and some sort of lemon pesto involved. I sort of based this stuffed chicken off that idea by adding some lemon zest into the breading mix.

The addition of the lemon definitely adds a new dimension of flavor to the chicken here, so you'll want to be sure not to leave that out!...

Skinny Spinach & Basil Pesto

September 8, 2014 Amanda Plott

My basil plant is suddenly going a little crazy. Of course it is at the very end of summer. One of my favorite things to do with my fresh basil is to make pesto! I think that I've loved pesto most of my life. The first time I ever had it was atop a pizza, and I was hooked from then on.

Pesto is an amazing blend of fresh greens, cheese, pine nuts and olive oil. It's usually a pretty fattening thing! I like to cut mine down by using a lot less oil and pine nuts. Plus, adding spinach gives an extra little boots to protein and vitamins. At least I don't feel as guilty with eating it with all of my justifications, right?

Right!...

Pesto Chickpea & Avocado Salad

August 8, 2014 Amanda Plott

I really cannot say enough about this salad. I would have never guessed that these 6-ish ingredients would have come together in such an awesome and delicious way. This mighty green salad was tossed together in less than 5 minutes and was unbelievably satisfying. Seriously. I've eaten it about four times already this week.

The lemon juice works to brighten up the pesto and together they actually end up as a rather substantial amount of flavorful 'dressing'. Yes, that's right - you don't need to add any dressing to this salad. The ingredients work together to make their own lemony pesto dressing that is de{light}ful and actually one of my newest favorite things...

Pesto & Chicken Tortellini Soup

April 24, 2014 Amanda Plott

A while back I made this Tortellini en Brodo soup, which is not only one of my favorites, but also a favorite of my mothers. I could seriously eat that soup at least once a week for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. Yes. It's that good.

With spring in full swing and with fresh basil and pesto all around... I wanted to use the same basic idea from my Tortellini en Brodo in a more spring/summer friendly version of the soup...