Side

You’ll notice the cooking time of the mushrooms may be as short as 5 minutes or as long as 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the sliced mushrooms you buy. If your mushrooms are thinner, they’ll take less time. Thicker slices will obviously take a bit longer. However, thick or thin, this recipe will cooperate nicely. Just make sure to pay attention to the cooking time.

Asparagus tends to be expensive when it’s not in season and is ridiculously affordable when it is. Though it’s usually available year round, the best time to seek asparagus is from February through June, with April being the prime month. During the peak of asparagus season, I’ve seen it for as little as 97 cents per pound even in Los Angeles and New York City, where grocery prices are far from ideal. Be sure to chop the garlic very finely (aka: mince) in this recipe in order to achieve the perfect balance. If it’s too coarse you may find the garlic to be overpowering.

Green beans are such a versatile vegetable. I love coming up with different flavor combinations for them. They steam quickly, so they are always a great throw-together side dish. I love jarred roasted red peppers for the same reason—they are a flavorful, convenient ingredient to have on hand. So it made sense to combine the two to create this simple and tasty side dish. Note that, as the recipe is written, these green beans are very crisp, which is how I like them. Feel free to cook them longer if you like softer beans.

This simple recipe actually makes quite an elegant side dish. Though the sauce contains only two ingredients, it has a complex flavor. Your guests will think you spent a ton of time, but you can have the dish ready in the few minutes it takes to steam the green beans.

These beans are a great prepare-ahead option. They reheat well, and the flavor is even better after a couple of hours. Try them chilled with a few baked tortilla chips for an excellent high-fiber snack. Or heat them up—they’re fantastic stirred into brown rice for a tasty side dish to accompany Luau London Broil (see page 105). Or simply toss the chilled beans into a salad.

Have you ever tried using fancy sea salts in your cooking? This recipe is a great place to try a special salt. Because the flavors are so simple, a nice salt really stands out and pairs perfectly with the beans and lime juice. If you happen to have little girls, it’s always fun to use pink sea salt that you shave yourself—they’re likely to think it looks like a jewel. That said, traditional sea salt tastes great, too. If you’re entertaining with this dish, be sure to toss the beans in the lime juice and salt just before serving your guests. The acid in the lime juice may cause the beans to eventually turn brown (though even if this happens, they’ll still taste great).

I love using goat cheese in my healthy cooking. Although it has 6 grams of fat per ounce, I find I don’t need to use nearly as much as I do of other cheeses since it has such a great strong punch of flavor. I’ve served this asparagus side at many a dinner party, and guests have always raved.

As with other nuts, you may find a variety of pine nuts available in your local grocery store. Toasted, salted, dry-roasted, raw, and even seasoned varieties are available in markets today. Be sure to look for pine nuts that are raw or dry-roasted, which means they’ve been roasted without any added oils or fats. Though I normally prefer dry-roasted, here they’ll toast in the pan, which will give the dish great flavor. To trim peas, just break off the stem end and strip the string away from the edge. It’s a great project for the kids.

Please note the thickness of asparagus spears varies widely. Thinner spears take only a few minutes to cook, while thicker spears easily take 6 minutes or even longer with this preparation. So plan based on the thickness of the spears you have, and make sure to stop cooking them as soon as they reach desired doneness.

Snow peas with tomatoes—it may seem an odd combination at first, but everyone in my office was really excited about this dish. Between the crisp peas and juicy tomatoes, it has a great texture and flavor, and it’s definitely different from the traditional veggie sides we’re used to.

For this recipe, it’s best to cut the basil into fine slivers. Though it seems like that might take some time, it doesn’t have to. Just stack a few basil leaves, then roll the stack from the stem end to the tip. Then make fine cuts across the miniature “log” of leaves. You’ll have a pile of long slivers that create the perfect flavor burst in this recipe and are excellent for garnishing other dishes in seconds.

It’s important to avoid buying spaghetti squash that isn’t fully ripe. A spaghetti squash that isn’t ready will be extremely difficult to cut in half and won’t yield a nice, soft texture when cooked. Look for a squash that is a bright, solid yellow (not pale yellow or white in parts). Once the rind is penetrated with a knife, a ripe squash is fairly easy to cut in half. Also, be sure you have all the ingredients ready to go once the squash is cooked. You’ll want to toss everything together when the squash is still hot.

The exotic flavor of this dish was really surprising to me, considering it uses only a few very basic ingredients. Just note that the rice noodles do stick together slightly (rice noodles are very starchy so they can be a bit sticky). Adding a touch of olive oil keeps them manageable. Sticky or not, I love them, especially used here in this delicious Asian-inspired dish, reminiscent of those super popular boxed noodles. It’s sophisticated enough for guests, yet your kids will love it, too! Note that though these noodles might seem scary to the novice, they’re incredibly easy to work with. Try to keep them as intact as possible when pulling them apart. Pull them the long way, so the noodles stay longer, instead of being broken in half. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, just estimate and use about 1/4 of a 16-ounce package.

Make a big batch of brown rice at the beginning of the week and have it ready for reheating in your refrigerator, or buy precooked brown rice in the freezer section of the grocery store. Though this likely sounds odd, we much preferred the Laughing Cow Light Gourmet Cheese Bites over the Light Original Swiss Cheese wedges in this recipe. When you compare the packages, you’ll see they are similar, but everyone in my test kitchen agreed the squares taste better. So trust us when we say it’s worth opening the ten squares instead of using a smaller number of wedges.

The key to good mac and cheese is gooey cheese and the perfect creamy sauce. Here, I’ve simplified things to create this twist on a classic. Instead of thickening cream or milk, I grabbed a natural cheese sauce, then simply added a Mexican cheese blend to give it that must-have gooeyness.

After The Biggest Loser Season 6 finale, I went to dinner at a steakhouse with some of the contestants and Alison Sweeney’s husband, Dave. We were all, of course, trying to order healthy, but it was definitely a challenge. I wound up getting a grilled chicken breast with salsa and “potato smashers.” I was expecting lumpy mashed potatoes. Instead, I was served something similar to this yummy potato . . . only it was doused in more butter than all of us combined had probably eaten in years. But it was so simple, and even tastier with just a small amount of light butter, that I knew I had to include it here.

It may seem odd to figure out how to slice a tube of polenta into fries, but it’s actually quite simple. Just follow the directions below, imagining the polenta halves are large potatoes. Then cut the fries as if you’re cutting them from potatoes.

Most mashed potatoes are full of butter, cream, and other added fats. But this dish pairs wing sauce with blue cheese, packing tons of flavor and thus eliminating the need for added fats or butter.

If you can’t find 6-ounce potatoes or don’t have them on hand, you can simply use one 12-ounce potato. Add 1 minute to the microwave cook time if the potato isn’t tender after the 5 to 6 minutes, or an additional 10 to 15 minutes in the oven, and use all of the butter and brown sugar for the one large potato. A 12-ounce potato will make two servings, so the recommendation is to eat only half.

Potatoes have gotten a bad rap in recent years, but the hype is just that—hype. A 5-ounce potato with skin has only 110 calories and more potassium than a medium banana. It also contains 45 percent of the daily recommended value of vitamin C and is a significant source of dietary fiber. It’s the toppings that are the problem, not the potatoes themselves. If you don’t love steak fries as much as I do, feel free to make your fries any size—just be sure to watch them carefully, as the cooking time will vary.