Vegetarian

Layered Bean Dip

Dips are usually a necessity for game day and in the middle of winter, what’s better than a baked, warm dip? This Layered Bean Dip will appeal to vegetarians and meat eaters alike. It has layers of refried beans, black beans, sour cream, salsa, and Mexican cheese and baked until bubbly. This recipe calls for reduced-fat cream cheese, sour cream and cheddar cheese but obviously you can use whatever full-fat ingredients you want (I mean, at a party, who cares?!).

If you are heading to a friend’s house, this is an easy dip to assemble at home and bake later. Serve this with corn chips, tortilla chips, baked chips or pita chips (I made my own pita chips out of leftover whole wheat pitas cut into small wedges and baked for 10 minutes at 375°F). Kids will surely love this too!

The ingredients:

Mix the refried beans and drained black beans in a bowl.

Spread bean mixture at the bottom of an 8×8 or 8x6x2 baking dish.

Top bean mixture with sour cream.

Layer on a cup of your favorite salsa.

Sprinkle Mexican cheese over the salsa and cover in foil.

Bake in a 375°F oven for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Serve with your favorite chips.

Additions: None

Omissions: None

Substitutions: None

Overall Rating: Love It

Source: Cooking Light Magazine

Enlightened Egg Salad Pitas

I’m a sucker for hard-boiled eggs. Whether it’s deviled eggs or egg salad sandwiches, I’m all over it. Eggs were a big source of protein for me when I was a vegetarian and egg salad was a staple for me. But, as we all know, any kind of “salad” sandwich – egg salad, chicken salad, pasta salad – usually means tons of mayonnaise and tons of calories. So, I was intrigued when I came across Shape Magazine’s Enlightened Egg Salad Pita. Sounds light and lovely, right?

This recipe uses a tablespoon of light mayonnaise and two tablespoons of fat-free plain Greek yogurt which keeps this salad creamy. I have to say that I enjoyed the yogurt in this and didn’t feel like I was missing out on any flavor. But I have to say that I don’t think they got the measurements of the spices right. I’m not a huge salt fan and this was extremely salty to me. Also, I like curry but I think that a little less would have been a lot more. Overall, this had too much curry and too much salt. A little less of both and I think this would have been a much better sandwich. I usually add cayenne to my egg salad so I didn’t mind the flavor of the curry here since I’m used to a little extra something mixed in. But I might experiment with this recipe since I like the addition of the yogurt. If I can get it just right, this will be a mighty fine egg salad sandwich!

The ingredients:

Place eggs in a small pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, remove from heat and cover. Allow to sit for 11-12 minutes. Cool in ice water.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine light mayonnaise, Greek yogurt, Dijon mustard, curry powder, salt, and pepper.

Add in onion, celery, and chives (I omitted the onion and celery).

Peel the eggs, rinse, and discard the yolks from two eggs.

Chop the remaining eggs and add to the yogurt mixture.

Serve in a pita with greens and cucumber slices.

Additions: None

Omissions:

Onion
Celery
Cucumbers

Substitutions:

Spinach for baby greens

Overall Rating: So-So

Source: Shape Magazine

Zucchini Bread

Never tried Zucchini Bread? That’s just too bad. I grew up eating zucchini bread and just assumed it was as popular as banana bread until I mentioned it to a few people and they looked at me in horror and asked “zucchini bread?” All I can say is, you have to try it!

It really isn’t any different than banana bread (besides the obvious) – it’s moist, hearty, nutty, and flavorful. Think about it like this – if you like carrot cake, do you really taste the carrots? Not really. This is the same way. It’s a delicious quick bread that gets a nutritional boost from zucchini which melts into the bread. This is a great way to use up any leftover zucchini tucked away in your veggie drawer. Trust me. Don’t knock it until you try it!