Tapenade Salmon with Orange Spinach en Papillote

Tapenade Salmon en Papillote over Orange Spinach before baking

This is an easy, low-carb make-ahead supper. Well, it is easy if you buy a jar of  olive spread (I used Ta’amti tapenade).

It also helps if you know how to cook “en papillote,” which is a French term for cooking something wrapped in paper. According to the dictionary, the term doesn’t come from “papier” (paper) but “papillon” (butterfly). Maybe because the paper is traditionally cut into a heart shape, folded in half, so it looks a bit like a butterfly? I don’t know . . . But, you can even more easily wrap the fish in a rectangular piece of foil and that will still accomplish the primary “en papillote” goal of trapping and infusing flavor during baking. I have made this fish in foil and in paper and both ways work.

Here is what you do: saute baby spinach with garlic and orange zest and then lay it on a piece of parchment or foil (traditionally, the paper is greased, but I didn’t bother and it was fine). Spread a piece of salmon with tapenade and place the salmon over the spinach. Squeeze over a little lemon juice. Wrap the fish up in the foil or parchment (here is how you crimp the parchment, if that is what you are using). Set the package aside in the refrigerator until about 20 minutes before you want to serve the fish. Then cook the fish and serve.

You could also make this fish without the paper or foil, just roasting it uncovered on a baking sheet. The spinach can be cooked separately on the stove instead of with the fish in the oven. The en papillote method seems to infuse the flavors more, plus you get a delicious blast of savory aromas when you open the package. Olive, orange and garlic fuse together, creating an aroma that is intense, almost meaty in its umami-ness (if that is a word).

The spinach all by itself is lovely, fragrant with garlic and a hit of orange that is both unexpected and yet absolutely right. If you want to make the spinach separately, you can just leave the spinach in the pan in which you wilt it, cover it and cook it another 20 minutes on low before serving.

Low-Carb Red Pepper, Mushroom and Feta Breakfast Casserole (or how I used up all my extra eggs from Passover)

I had some eggs that I had to use up. Well, a whole lot of eggs, actually.

I may have bought a few too many for Passover. Just maybe.

It wasn’t that I didn’t bake enough. And it wasn’t a matter of not eating enough. In fact, maybe I ate too much.

I wanted some way of using up the eggs that didn’t involve yet another cake or cookie or brownie. And no more matzoh brie. I was looking for something low-carb that could be eaten over the course of a few days (or–better yet–frozen for much later consumption).

At first I was going to make the egg muffins from Kalyn’s Kitchen, but then I saw this breakfast casserole on her site. It calls for 18 eggs (just the amount that I had to use up!), plus feta, bell pepper, and mushrooms (all ingredients that I had on hand and that I needed to use up).

According to Kalyn, these egg muffins and casseroles reheat well and can even be frozen. I divided the casserole into eight portions for reheating as needed for a quick breakfast or light supper.

Vegan Lower Carb Strawberry “Pie”

When you have handpicked strawberries, you don’t want to squander them on a less than stellar recipe. When I looked up recipes for strawberry pie, it seems lots of people like the recipe by Ruth Cousineau from Gourmet magazine (also here). Here is the thing, though. It calls for gelatin, which I don’t have. Another problem: my husband is on a diet.

So, I found a way to dramatically reduce the sugar in the recipe, use Ko-Jel (vegetarian jell), and eliminate the high-carb and high fat crust.

Vegetable Frittata with Salsa

I was paging through the cookbook Cuisine of California, by Diane Rossen Worthington and I came across this vegetable frittata recipe. I suggested it for dinner, but my husband was leery of trying something new.

“I just want comfort food,” he objected. “Comfort food,” I have found, is my husband’s favorite euphmism for “food I don’t have to pretend to like.”

“I think you will like it,”  I said.

“Mmph,” my husband replied. “I just want a plain omelet with cheese and zucchini.”

“OK. Fine”

Lower Carb Mac & Cheese

My husband is very focused on comfort food these days. He brought me a magazine with a cover shot of Mac & Cheese. “Comfort Food Tonight: Your Favorite Recipes Made Faster (and Healthier),” the cover of Real Simple promised.  “Could you please make this?” he asked.