Author: Smart Green Gourmet

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Menu: Chicken with Coriander and Fennel, Roasted Cauliflower, Baked Sweet Potatoes with Lime, and Salad with Roasted Fennel, Oranges, and Mint

Serves: 4
Prep Time: 25 Minutes
Total Time: 1 Hour; or make sweet potatoes ahead and make everything else in 1/2 hour on day of meal
Make ahead: Chicken, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, and fennel can be made ahead. Salad can be tossed quickly on day of meal.
Special equipment needed: 2 ovens, or 1 oven and 1 toaster oven for the chicken

Ingredients:
1-2 heads cauliflower
4 sweet potatoes
1-2 bulbs fennel
2 oranges
Ingredients for Chicken (or other protein) with Coriander and Fennel (recipe below)
lime wedges
extra-virgin olive oil
balsalmic vinegar
handful of mint leaves, coarsely chopped
sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and another (toaster oven?) to 350 degrees
2. Scrub sweet potatoes, pat dry, and prick each several times with fork. Place in a baking pan lined with foil and roast for 1 hour, or until tender when pricked with fork. Serve with lime wedges.
3. Remove leaves and base from cauliflower. Rinse and pat dry. Drizzle with 1-2T olive oil and roast in oven with sweet potatoes for 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned.
4. Remove fennel stalks and reserve for garnish. Cut fennel into 1/4″ slices and drizzle with 1T olive oil. Roast in oven with other veggies for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned.
5. Prepare chicken according to recipe below.
6. Zest orange(s) and reserve zest for garnishing chicken (optional)
7. Slice down sides of oranges and then carve oranges away from inner core to remove the bitter white pith and seeds. (Alternatively, just section oranges) Toss with roasted fennel and mint and reserved chopped feathery fennel fronds. Splash with balsamic vinegar to taste. Serve alone or on a bed of greens.

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Whole Wheat Pasta with Sardine and Tomato Sauce

Quick, easy, delicious, and nutritious. Sardines are a low-mercury fish and are great for heart health. Sardines packed in oil have zero carbs and 24 grams of protein per tin, plus lots of essential omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, and niacin. This dish can be made in less than the time it takes the pasta to cook.

Serves: 2 (easily multiplied)
Total time: About 15 minutes
Work time: About 15 minutes

2 T olive oil
1 onion, diced
pinch dried or fresh thyme leaves
pinch red pepper flakes
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
3 tins sardines packed in olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 lb whole wheat pasta shapes or spirals

1. Cook the pasta al dente according to package instructions, but undercook by 1 minute. You can prepare steps 2-? while waiting for the water to boil.
2. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add olive oil (or just use olive oil from sardine tins), diced onion, and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions begin to caramelize (soften and brown, but not burn).
3. Add a thyme and red pepper flakes.
4. Add sardines and tomatoes. Break up sardines with cooking utensil. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
5. Add lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste.
6. Stir pasta into skillet and cook for 1 minute with sauce. Serve.

Variation: Try cumin or rosemary in place of the thyme. Serve over brown rice or a whole grain instead of pasta.

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Make-Ahead or Weeknight Menu: Maple Chicken (or Non-Chicken), Simple Cranberry Sauce, Baked Sweets, and Roasted Broccoli

A veritable weeknight feast that’s even good enough for entertaining. Like having a bit of Thanksgiving anytime. Highly flexible. Can be done all in one night, made ahead, or some of each. Whatever you have time for. Roast the veggies while baking the potatoes, and while you’re at it, fill your oven with colorful veggies to roast for the rest of the week!

Total Time: 1 hour
Prep Time: 1/2 hour
Serves: 4
Make-ahead (optional): The sweet potatoes and broccoli can be roasted ahead of time and refrigerated for up to 4 days. The chicken (or other protein) can be marinated overnight and/or baked up to 4 days ahead.
Clean-up Tip: When baking sweet potatoes, save your pans by lining them with foil. Sweet potatoes contain a gooey substance that is nearly impossible to clean up otherwise.

Ingredients:
1 recipe Simple Cranberry Sauce
1 recipe Simple Maple-Mustard Marinade
4 chicken breasts (or other chicken parts, or 6 oz pieces of salmon, or seitan or tempeh)
4 sweet potatoes or yams (I prefer yams because they are easier to work with), scrubbed
1-2 bunches broccoli
1-3 cloves garlic (to taste)
Salt (to taste)
Olive Oil (to taste)
Lime wedges for the sweet potatoes (optional, but really delicious)

Game Plan:
1. Preheat Oven to 400 degrees.
2. Prick sweet potatoes with fork to let steam escape during baking. Wrap in foil or place in foil-wrapped pan. Bake for approximately 1 hour, until a fork goes in easily. Serve with lime wedges.
3. Marinate the chicken (or other protein) for 15+ minutes and start the cranberry sauce.
4. Cut broccoli into florets. Shave the stem with a vegetable peeler and cut into pieces (approximately 1/2″). Toss with olive oil, salt and garlic in an ovenproof baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes.
5. Saute, grill, or broil chicken, 4-6 minutes/side. If you’ve used oil in the marinade, you shouldn’t need to add extra to the pan, or can use just a bit of olive oil cooking spray.
6. Assemble a gorgeous and colorful plate of chicken cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, lime wedges, and broccoli. Try oranges for dessert!

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Recipe: Simple Maple-Mustard Marinade

Try it with chicken, fish (especially salmon), seitan or tempeh. Use it for delicious make-ahead meals.

Total Time: 5 minutes

3 T Maple Syrup
1-3 T Dijon Mustard (to taste)
1 T Balsalmic Vinegar
Salt and Pepper to taste
Optional: 1-2T olive oil (you may wish to add this here rather than adding oil to the cooking pan)
Optional: 1 t dried rosemary

Combine. To use, add to protein of choice, and mix well. Marinate for 15 minutes to overnight. Broil, grill, sear, or saute protein.

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Recipe: Salad with Arugula, Cranberries, Oranges, and Walnuts

Colorful and fragrant, this salad will liven up any fall or winter meal. The dressing is made right in the pan, making cleanup simple. Great way to use leftover Simple Cranberry Sauce.

Total Time: <10 minutes with prepared Simple Cranberry Sauce; <20 minutes from scratch
Prep Time: <10 minutes with prepared Simple Cranberry Sauce; ~15 minutes from scratch
Substitutions: Any nuts may be substituted for the walnuts. Any salad green may be substituted for the arugula. Salad can easily be made without the nuts. Those looking to replace nuts with something crunchy might try sesame seeds, panko bread crumbs plain or sauteed briefly with garlic, croutons (see my homemade crouton recipe to follow), water chestnuts, radishes, baby corn, or fresh or canned corn.

1/4-1 batch simple cranberry sauce (see
1/4 lb (at least) of arugula per person
1-2 oranges or clementines for every 2 people
3 T olive oil or walnut oil
balsalmic vinegar
maple syrup
pinch of salt

Heat olive or walnut oil in a large saute pan. When oil is hot, turn heat down to low and add arugula and a pinch of salt. When arugula begins to wilt, add oranges or clementines. To make the dressing right in the pan, add a few tablespoons each of balsalmic vinegar and maple syrup, to taste. Sprinkle with walnuts and serve immediately.

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Recipe: Simple Cranberry Sauce

So good, and so easy, it will make you wonder why canned red glop was ever invented. A delicious and unexpected way to get your daily fruit.

Total Time: ~15 minutes
Work time: <5 minutes
Makes: 2 1/4 cups
Freezes well.

4 cups fresh cranberries
1 cup water
white or brown sugar, maple syrup, maple sugar, or other sweetener to taste

Method 1:

Combine cranberries and sweetener in saucepan. Bring to a boil. Add cranberries, reduce heat, and Simmer ~10-15 minutes until cranberries begin to break apart. Adjust sweetener to taste.

Method 2:

Bring cranberries and water to boil. Simmer ~10-15 minutes until cranberries begin to break apart. Add sweetener to taste.

Variations: add nuts, dried fruit, orange zest, orange slices, apples, pears, cinnamon (stick or powdered) and/or nutmeg with the cranberries