Cooking light

It’s been a while since a posted anything I cooked lately. Right now it’s hard to me to plan my meals since I have things in two houses and don’t remember what food is in what house. I’m trying to do more light cooking and heart healthy meals since Brian now has a little high cholesterol. Granted no telling what he eats during the day, but I have gotten him to cut back on his salt intake when I’m around and we are eating more fish. I know this is just a start, but right now this is all I can manage being in 2 houses.

This week I made two meals from CookingLight that I will defiantly be making again. Both are super fast meals that take about 20 minutes to make.

Sweet Orange Salmon

2 T brown sugar
1 t chili powder
½ t grated orange rind
½ t ground cumin
½ t paprika
¼ t salt
¼ t ground coriander
1/8 t black pepper
4 (6 oz) salmon fillets
Cooking spray

Preheat broiler. Combine first 8 ingredients to make a rub. Rub the spice mixture over both sides of the salmon. Place salmon on a lightly sprayed backing pan. Broil for 8 minutes or until salmon flakes easily.

I served these with a little orange-ginger marmalade on top and orange slices. As a side, I broiled fresh asparagus seasoned with The Melting Pot Garlic and Wine Seasoning and a little drizzle of EVOO (Lisa and Casey I actually like this seasoning, we made fun of getting it, but it’s not half bad.)

Rigatoni with Green Olive-Almond Pesto and Asiago Cheese

1 lb uncooked rigatoni
1 /14 cups pitted manzanilla (or green) olives (I used green since of course Kroger didn’t carry the manzanilla ones.)
½ C sliced almonds, toased
½ C fresh flat-leaf parsley
¼ t ground black pepper
1 large garlic clove
2 T water
1 t white wine vinegar
½ c grated Asiago cheese

Cook pasta, omitting salt and oil. Drain pasta, reserving 6 T cooking liquid. Place olives, sliced almonds, parsley leaves, black pepper, and garlic in food processor, pulse until coarsely chopped. Add 2 T of water and 1 t vinegar, process until mixture is finely chopped. Combine pasta 4 T cooking liquid and olive mixture in a large bowl, toss well. Add remaining 2 T of cooking liquid to make pasta mixture moist, toss well to coat. Serve and sprinkle with cheese.

The olive mixture would make a very good olive spread, good on a muffuletta or just to eat an olive sandwich.