Spiralized Greek Cucumber Salad with Lemon and Feta

This light cucumber Greek salad is the perfect meatless summer dish. Trust me, you're going to want to make this all summer long! Fresh cucumber, tomatoes, bell pepper, olives, red onion, oregano, lemon juice, olive oil, and fresh feta – it's filling, high in fiber and protein, perfect for lunch or dinner!

I had some fresh Feta leftover from my Lemon Feta Drumsticks, and I've been craving a good Greek Salad, but I wanted to make it without the lettuce and make cucumber the star of the show. This turned out better than I could have imagined! I used my favorite cooking gadget – my the Paderno Spiral Vegetable Slicer with the chipper blade to quickly whip this up into beautiful spirals and the results were a salad that's crunchy and bright, and not weighed down by a heavy dressing. This took me less than 10 minutes start to finish – win!

If you don't own a spiralizer you can just dice the cucumbers with knife and make it a chopped Greek salad instead. I highly recommend using a decent Feta cheese, not a fat free Feta.

A great Meatless Monday meal. If you are making this ahead for lunch for work, you can leave the lemon juice and olive oil out, and pack it on the side, then just add it when you're ready to eat. Enjoy!

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Grilled Cumin Spiced Pork Tenderloin

Summer parties and dining al fresco doesn't get more convenient than this – lean pork tenderloin seasoned with a quick, flavorful rub then grilled to perfection served with the easiest salad ever!!

I love having my friends over in the summer for BBQs, but I don't love spending hours in the kitchen. Instead I prefer to keep things simple so I can actually enjoy my company, which is why I love these new DeLallo SaladSavors.

If you're not familiar with DeLallo; I first discovered them last year. They are the only brand of whole wheat pasta my family will actually eat, but they sell tons of other quality ingredients like olive oils, vinegars, olives, roasted peppers, marinated artichokes and more. So it only makes sense that they took those ingredients and conveniently packaged them to create quick and easy salads – all you do is add the lettuce!

Whatever you throw on the grill; whether it's pork tenderloin, shrimp kabobs, pesto chicken kabobs, harissa lamb chops or even just burgers – making a salad with one of these salad toppings takes minutes to put together – EASY!

These are brand spanking new so at the moment they're only available in select supermarkets, but I'm sure you'll be seeing them everywhere soon! And here's the BEST news – I've partnered with DeLallo Foods and a few of my food blogging friends: Sommer from A Spicy Perspective, Lindsay from Love and Olive Oil, Ali from Gimme Some Oven, Maria from Two Peas and Their Pod and myself to host the Ultimate Al Fresco Dining Giveaway!

You could win A YEAR of SaladSavors (10 SaladSavors® sent monthly), plus tons of stuff from Crate & Barrel and West Elm: a beautiful patio set, a salad bowl, platter, serving tub, flatware serving set and more!! If you love entertaining outdoors in the summer as much as I do, click here for a chance to win this giveaway.

And back to the pork tenderloin – it's super lean, a serving is under 175 calories (4 points plus) and is gluten-free, clean, paleo-friendly, & takes 25 minutes to make. You can easily double the recipe to serve more. Enjoy!

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Lemon Feta Chicken with Oregano

Mediterranean ingredients such as lemon, oregano and feta cheese turn ordinary chicken into a spectacular dinner. The cheese forms a light crust on top when broiled – you won't even miss the skin!

This is sooo easy to make with only a few ingredients; simply marinate the legs with lemon juice and oregano and bake. Once it's done, top it with fresh grated feta cheese and broil until golden.

I keep this simple and serve it with a salad on the side or you can make this with one of my favorite summer sides, Sauteed Zucchini with Summer Tomatoes.

I first published this recipe back in 2009 using skinless chicken thighs, but a year or two ago the USDA changed the data for chicken thighs and the calories, fat and points increased so much, I started using drumsticks instead. There's a part of me that hopes they made a mistake but until then I use thighs less often.

The drumsticks I used were pretty small, so if yours are really large the points may increase slightly.  Hope you enjoy!

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Aloha Teriyaki Shrimp Burgers

If I can't be in paradise, at least I can bring a little paradise to my backyard with these grilled shrimp burgers topped with grilled pineapple and a homemade pineapple teriyaki sauce – just under 300 calories!

It's June and the weather is getting hot out there, which means most of my dinners are being cooked outside on the grill. Last year I created a shrimp jalapeno patty which I modified slightly to come up with this Hawaiian inspired burger. I found making the burgers ahead of time and keeping them refrigerated before grilling helped them maintain their shape perfectly and I had no issues with them sticking to the grill.

They only take a few minutes to grill on each side and you can grill the pineapples at the same time. This recipes makes 8, but if you want to halve it, you can certainly make enough for 4, although I would probably keep the teriyaki sauce as is and use it for another day.

I served these on whole wheat potato buns but you can skip the bun and serve it over lettuce if you wish to go low-carb.

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Vegan Eggplant Meatballs

These amazing meatless meatballs are made with eggplant, white beans and breadcrumbs to hold them together – if I was a vegan, I would have no problem eating this for dinner every night! They almost remind me of eggplant parmesan, in the form of a meatball.

I've had my eye on this recipes since I got a copy of Mark Bittman's VB6 Cookbook, and it did not disappoint! I love finding new ways to incorporate more veggies into my diet, and I try to eat meatless two to three times a week, so Mark's concept of eating vegan by day and flexitarian by night is quite appealing to me. And this week, I'm giving away 3 signed copies of the VB6 Cookbook on Skinny Bits. Click here for a chance to win your signed copy of the VB6 Cookbook.

Mark suggests serving this on a whole wheat roll, over pasta, rice or vegetables, but I thought I would make some zoodles (zucchini noodles) for a veggie play on spaghetti and meatballs. To make the zucchini noodles, you'll need a spiralizer (I use the Paderno Spiral Vegetable Slicer) or a mandolin fitted with a julienne blade. I use 1 medium zucchini per person and saute each zucchini with 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil and garlic for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes tops. To see a more detailed zucchini noodle recipe, click here for my Zucchini Noodles with Lemon and Shrimp.

These meatballs are perfect for all types of diets; vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, clean eating, and gluten-free if you swap the crumbs for gluten-free breadcrumbs.

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Spiralized Raw Zucchini Salad with Avocado and Edamame

Fresh, quick and delicious – this salad takes less than 5 minutes to make, start to finish and there's no cooking involved, so it's perfect for the summer because you won't heat up your kitchen!

This salad was inspired by an amazing vegan appetizer I had in Seaside Florida prepared for me by the staff at Raw and Juicy. It was so fresh and simple, I knew I was going to recreate it at home. Rather than dicing the zucchini into perfect little squares, I used my Paderno Spiral Vegetable Slicer  (my all time FAVORITE cooking gadget) and spiralized it instead plus I added some cooked shelled edamame sold in the salad section of my supermarket for protein. The results were fresh and fantastic – a MUST try!

And speaking of summer, as shorter hemlines and bathing suit weather approaches, I want to introduce you to my friend Erin Stutland – a life and fitness coach and the creator of Shrink Session: Tone Your Body, Expand Your Mind. She has been featured in Glamour Magazine, Shape, Daily Candy and more and people all over the world are currently experiencing her work.

Erin and I got together last week in her little NYC kitchen to shoot a quick, fun cooking video to demonstrate just how easy this recipe is. Can you believe this is my FIRST cooking video on Skinnytaste? It's not perfect, but I don't think it's terrible for my first time. I plan on doing some more in the future to get more practice, you check it out here...



Erin is a seasoned pro at making videos, and she has also created a workout that is unlike ANYTHING I have ever experienced before. I say that, because frankly, it doesn’t feel like a workout at all. What makes Shrink Session so DIFFERENT from your average workout is that it will definitely tone your bod, amp up your metabolism and burn fat. But it also helps you step into a more a confident, powerful, rock star part of yourself that you may not be in touch with on a daily basis.

Erin is running a FREE 5 day Say it, Sweat it, Get it Challenge that starts June 2nd. You can sign up HERE. Don't miss it. I have no doubt that you are going to fall in love with the workouts and your body!

Hope you enjoy the recipe – it's vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, gluten-free, clean, and delicious!


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Naked Turkey Bruschetta Burger

Lean, delicious, juicy turkey burgers made with zucchini and topped with a summer garden tomato bruschetta topping over a bed of baby arugula – no bun required!

I thought I would share this fabulous turkey burger recipe from the archives for those of you who may not have tried this.

This dish was inspired by a meal my girlfriend ordered during a girl's night out. I always get inspired when I go out to eat, and created this lighter version which turned out delicious. For the turkey burger, I went with my skinny turkey burger recipe I posted a few years back, it's made with shredded zucchini which gives it lots of moisture and great flavor. They are delicate, so I prefer to make them on a skillet instead of the grill.

This is the perfect summer meal for under 300 calories, especially if you have lots of tomatoes in your garden. You can easily make these vegetarian by using a boca burger or veggie burger of your choice. By the way the lovely fork is by For Such A Time Designs. Hope you enjoy!

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Grilled Shrimp and Watermelon Chopped Salad

Chopped romaine tossed with sweet, juicy watermelon, grilled shrimp and goat cheese and a golden balsamic vinaigrette – I'll be making this salad all summer!!

I'm so excited to share this recipe with you, it's so good I plan on making it again for dinner tonight so my husband gets to try it. I put this together in about 20 minutes, so it's perfect for busy weeknights. The dressing is DEE-LICIOUS, I used DeLallo's golden balsamic vinegar, which is made from white grapes rather than red and has a sweetly rich taste – it's fabulous! They sell it at my local supermarket, or you can buy it online, but if you want to use regular balsamic, that would work fine too.

I love watermelon in my salad, mostly because I'm not much of a tomato lover. A few weeks ago while in the airport headed to Seaside Fl, I stopped to grab a bite at Marcus Samuelsson's new restaurant Uptown Brasserie located at the new JFK Delta terminal 4, and ordered a salad just like this. Eating healthier while traveling is getting so much easier these days, a good thing although they also have a Shake Shack which after seeing the calories on the menu, I opted not to try.

Hope you enjoy this salad, I'll be making this one all summer!

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Skillet Harissa Turkey Meatloaf

Making meatloaf in the skillet is perfect for busy weeknights – it's ready in less than 30 minutes!

I took my basic turkey meatloaf recipe, swapped the ketchup for jarred Mina Harrisa (or you can use homemade), added shredded zucchini and made them in the skillet. The results were juicy, quick, delicious round meatloaves with a little kick! I served it with a simple chopped cucumber and tomato salad which I tossed with a little olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper.

You can purchase Mina Harissa on Amazon and I think Whole Foods carries it, it's a bright red Moroccan condiment that can be used with couscous, vegetables, meats or whatever you want. You can also make it from scratch which I often do, but for this recipe, Mina was perfect.

If you prefer to make this in the oven as a large loaf, you can! Bake it at 350°F for 1 hour.

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Greek Nachos

A lighter, healthier Greek twist on traditional nachos – made with whole wheat pita chips, hummus, cucumbers, tomatoes and feta.

I was asked to do a book review for the paperback book Snack Girl To The Rescue: Easy, Delicious Food for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner. This book is a weight loss book as well as a cookbook, and although there are no photos, Lisa gives practical advice on getting healthy along with a bit of humor. The book has 100 recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but I thought I would try one of her snacks, because after all, she's Snack Girl, right?

This was super easy to make would even work as a light vegetarian lunch. Next time I make this, I might even add some Kalamata olives and bell peppers. Enjoy!

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Sea Scallops Arugula and Beet Salad

Sweet yellow beets, arugula, goat cheese and sauteed scallops tossed with a honey vinaigrette – this salad is delicious!

A day trip out East inspired this wonderful salad. We spent the day out in Riverhead, Long Island and stopped to eat at a quaint little restaurant overlooking the river called Farm Country Kitchen.  I ordered the scallop and beet salad that was sooo good, I knew I had to recreate it. Sea scallops are really easy to make and take only minutes to prepare. You can use precooked beets to make this quicker, but I just boiled them ahead until they softened. If you prefer roasting the beets, that of coarse would work out fine as well. Once the beets are cooked and cooled, the rest of the salad comes together in less than 15 minutes. You can easily halve the recipe if you are cooking for two!

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PB2 Flourless Chocolate Brownies

These brownies are pretty amazing! Made with PB2 (powdered peanut butter) instead of flour plus cocoa powder, raw honey and chocolate chips – moist and delicious, you won't believe they're only around 130 calories each!

I'm not a baker. Baking is an edible science that requires accuracy and precision. It requires the perfect balance between flours, leaveners, fats, and liquids. When I bake, I feel more like a mad scientist because I break all the rules. So when something actually works and turns out awesome, I'll be honest, I'm often surprised! These brownies are the perfect example – no flour, no oil or butter, but they are amazing (happy dance)! And the best part, you don't need a fancy mixer. I mixed this all by hand in a large bowl with a whisk and a spatula.

If you've never heard of PB2, it's basically a powdered peanut butter with 85% less fat. You add a little water to make it a spreadable peanut butter. I personally prefer real peanut butter if I'm spreading it on toast, but for baking and adding to smoothies, PB2 is excellent. I used to buy it on Amazon, but now I see it in my local supermarket. Here's the Amazon link if you can't find it near you.

Moist, chocolatey and delicious, you will LOVE them! They also happen to be gluten-free, and if you use dairy-free chips they can be dairy-free as well. If you have nut allergies however, these are not for you. But my other brownie recipe called: Amazing Flourless Brownies are your nut-free answer. Those are made with black beans instead of flour but I swear, you'll never know! Both recipes are great yet different. Curious to see which you like best!

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Carrot "Rice" Leek Risotto with Bacon

While you dig your fork into this fluffy bowl of “rice,” you won’t believe it’s not real rice. Made of spiralized carrots with leeks and bacon – it's quick, gluten-free, paleo-friendly and dairy-free. If you just bought a spiralizer and need new recipe ideas, look no further! Ali, from Inspiralized loved her spiralizer so much, she created a blog dedicated to spiralized vegetables. (By the way, this is my favorite spiralizer, Paderno Spiral Vegetable Slicer which you can buy on Amazon or Williams Sonoma) Please welcome her....

First off, ever since I started food blogging, I’ve been a fan of Skinnytaste. Now, I’m not just saying that because Gina kindly let me share a recipe here today. When you first start off as a healthy food blogger, you can’t help but discover Skinnytaste and immediately start drooling. Needless to say, she’s been an inspiration to me from the beginning. In June 2013, I started my food blog, Inspiralized. Inspiralized is a blog dedicated to cooking with spiralized vegetables. Yes, that’s right. All of my recipes use vegetable noodles! Imagine my happy surprise when I saw Gina’s Zoodles and Meatballs, her Asian Turkey Meatballs and Zoodles with Lime Sesame Dipping Sauce and her Zoodles with Lemon Garlic Shrimp. Somewhere along those lines, she mentioned that she was on a “zoodle kick.” Welcome to my world, Gina!

Like me, Gina wanted to share that spiralized veggies (noodles made of vegetables using a spiralizer) are a healthy, Paleo, gluten-free, unprocessed alternative to regular pasta. Of course, these noodles can also similarly be made with a mandolin or julienne, if you don’t happen to own a spiralizer. Aside from spiralizing zucchinis, there are many other vegetables that can be turned into noodles. Actually, spiralizing is a great way to eat seasonally. For example, over at Inspiralized, I made a lot of butternut squash and sweet potato noodles this winter. While these veggie noodles allow us to make hearty bowls of low-calorie and low-carb pasta, they can also be turned into rice! By simply placing your spiralized vegetables into a food processor and pulsing for a few seconds, the noodles are transformed into rice-like “bits,” perfect for using as rice.

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Zucchini Noodles (Zoodles) with Lemon-Garlic Spicy Shrimp

Spicy shrimp with garlic, zucchini noodles, tomatoes and a squeeze of lemon juice – I just inhaled this EASY low-carb, gluten-free, paleo-friendly dish for lunch which took less than 20 minutes to make, start to finish and it was DELICIOUS!

Today it's finally starting to feel like Spring! Before you know it, summer will be here and you know what that means.... bathing suit season! I've been diligent about working out a few times a week, but you know what they say – great abs start in the kitchen and this so true so now that winter is over, I've been cutting back on my carbs (not eliminating, don't worry!) and really making my calories count.

In this dish, rather than using pasta, I swapped it for zucchini noodles. My Paderno Spiral Vegetable Slicer is my all time FAVORITE cooking gadget. It's the easiest way to make zucchini noodles, sweet potato spirals, carrot ribbons and more! Prior to owning one, I used my mandolin but it's so much quicker and easier (and safer) with this fun gadget – you NEED one!!

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Healthy Baked Fish Sticks with Lemon Caper Sauce

 
Making fish sticks from scratch is quick and easy. Once you try them, you'll never go back to prepackaged frozen sticks again!

Firm meaty cod fish holds it's shape perfectly during baking, and to get a crisp golden flavorful crust I combined panko crumbs with a little Old Bay and spices to get a faux-fried coating without the need to deep fry. I'm a dipper, I love dipping my food in condiments, and was really happy with how this lemon caper sauce turned out – you can really taste the fresh chives and lemon, which is the perfect compliment to the fish.

Although there's nothing like catching your own fish, that's not always possible. So when purchasing seafood, I always look for sustainable options, whether it's fresh or frozen. The first time I heard the term "sustainable seafood" was a few years back in San Francisco at an Alaska Seafood cooking demonstration where I learned that unlike many of the world’s other fish populations, Alaska’s are managed for protection against overfishing ensuring a healthy, wild and sustainable harvest for our future generations. So when I see the Alaskan Seafood label, I know I'm making a sustainable choice. I also have the (free) Seafood Watch App on my phone which I LOVE and always refer to before purchasing fish. It's simple to follow – you simply type the name of the fish and it gives you a green, yellow or red dot, plus suggestions for good alternatives. It's also a great idea to talk to your fish monger!

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Roasted Strawberry Protein Smoothie and a Vitamix Giveaway

Roasting strawberries in this smoothie brings out their amazing natural flavor in this creamy, protein packed smoothie – what a great way to start the day!

I discovered a new way to add protein to my smoothies... cottage cheese! This is a great discovery for me because I'm not a fan of the tang of yogurt in my smoothies. Cottage cheese makes it creamy with no tang, and has more protein than yogurt so it's perfect! I also love adding chia seeds to my smoothies which is an excellent source of fiber and omega-3's which is available at Target.

I'm sooo excited to review my new Vitamix blender for the first time. Wow, what power this blender has. And guess what… it's now available at Target! And Target is giving one away to a lucky winner!! All you have to do is leave a comment here and share your favorite smoothie recipe along with a way I can reach you if you win (email, twitter, Instagram). That's it, easy!! Good luck!!

RULES:  Giveaway is provided by Target and the Target Inner Circle and will run until Monday evening, March 31, 2014 open to all U.S. residents 18 years and older. A winner will be chosen at random using Random.org. Chosen winner must respond within 48 hours of notification to claim their prize or another shall be chosen. Good luck! 



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Kenyan Braised Collard Greens and Ground Beef (Sukuma Wiki)

This Kenyan dish is quick and sooo easy to make – perfect if you're craving something a little more exotic with pretty common ingredients. Sukuma wiki is the Swahili name for collard greens which translates to "push/stretch the week". In East Africa they use collards to stretch out a meal so it lasts the whole week, so as you can imagine this dish is very economical.

I'm super excited to share this recipe from my friend Russ's new cookbook, The Ancestral Table: Traditional Recipes for a Paleo Lifestyle. His cookbook has tons of great International recipes each with a bit of history to go along for each dish as well as stunning photography.

Many of you asked me if I am now going Paleo, and the answer is no. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy meals that are Paleo-friendly and his book has so many exotic dishes I plan on trying soon. I met Russ of the Domestic Man on a tour of the Culinary Institute in the Fall where we cooked side by side in one of their classrooms. We were both working on our first cookbooks, so while we shared our experience together a kitchen together, we also shared stories of food, writing and more. Hope you enjoy this dish!

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Cauliflower "Fried Rice"

I LOVE fried rice, and often make my own fried rice at home with brown rice which is delicious. But sometimes when I want to cut down on my carbs, I opt for cauliflower rice.

I posted this Cilantro Lime Cauliflower "Rice" a while back, and it was a huge hit. So I decided to play around with that recipe and make this Asian version to go with the Orange Chicken I posted yesterday, and my husband (who detests cauliflower) was pretty amazed how the meal turned out. The portions are generous and you get a serving or two of vegetables into your diet.

If you like this, you may also like:

Brown Fried Rice
Asian Edamame Fried Rice
Pineapple Shrimp Fried Rice
Spicy Shrimp Fried Rice


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Orange Chicken Makeover

Sweet, spicy and flavorful – a lighter alternative to the popular Chinese fast food take-out dish and it's quick and easy to make!

I had a request a few weeks ago to make over this popular American-Chinese fast food dish which is usually battered and deep fried. To be honest, this is not a dish I would order because I'm not a fan of battered sweet Chinese dishes, but I was happy to tackle a lighter version. My solution was skip all that frying, and make a flavorful orange sauce. The outcome was great, and my husband even gave it two thumbs up!

I served this over cauliflower "fried rice" which I will post tomorrow but you could even saute some bell peppers, snow peas, broccoli or asparagus and add them at the end. Enjoy!

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Flounder Milanese with Arugula and Tomatoes

Breaded flounder lightly pan sauteed and topped with an arugula, lemon and tomato salad – a simple yet delicious way to prepare fish. Perfect for Lent, or any night you're in the mood for fish.

I was on a cruise a few weeks ago aboard the Norwegian and one of the meals I ordered more than once was the Flounder Milanese. I was able to recreate a lighter version of that meal; rather than deep frying it, I generously sprayed the fish with olive oil and pan sauteed it until golden. I love everything about this dish, it's light, quick and satisfying all for under 225 calories. You can use any white fish fillet you wish, and if you rather make this in the oven, I would broil it instead. Hope you enjoy!

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