Recipe for Homemade Southwestern Chicken Pot Pie-Secret Recipe Club

This recipe is courtesy of Lynne at Café Lynnylu, my SecretRecipe Club assignment for February.  Lynne is a photographer and lives in Savannah, Georgia.  She attended school at the University of Georgia.  I think I was meant to have Lynne’s blog as I also attended the University of Georgia and lived just south of Savannah on St. Simons Island growing up-my Mom, brother, and niece all live there still.  Small world, huh?

Recipe for No Bake Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars-Secret Recipe Club

Warning...dangerous.  Yes, these little goodies are very good and hard to resist.  

Chunky Greek Hummus Plate-Secret Recipe Club

My first recipe post in a while (see yesterday's post for why) and it's for Secret Recipe Club reveal day!  This month I was assigned Linday's blog, The Lean Green Bean.  Not only does her website have fun recipes, healthy ones at that (she studying to be a Registered Dietitian) but also inspirational workouts and fitness information.


I chose Lindsay's recipe for Chunky Greek Hummus Plate, a recipe from one of Lindsay and her husband's favorite restaurants.  I love hummus and I love Greek salad so this was an easy recipe to get excited about.  It was also easy to throw together on the road, using prepared ingredients.  I will definitely do it again making my own hummus and Greek salad!  


Time: 5 minutes (using prepared ingredients)
Serves: 4 for an appetizer


Ingredients:

• 1 cup prepared hummus
• 1 cup finely chopped Greek salad ingredients
• Sprinkles of feta cheese, or (as I used) a tzatziki/feta dip)
• Chips or veggies for serving (I used pretzel chips)

Method:

• Spread hummus on plate.
• Top with chopped Greek salad and feta (or sauce).
• Serve with chips of your choice.

Thanks Lindsay for a fun appetizer!

To see all the Secret Recipe Club recipes for July, see below.

Recipe for Quick and Easy Chicken Piccata-Secret Recipe Club

I was a little nervous when I got Barbara Bakes for my assignment for this month's Secret Recipe Club.  We'd just finished off the amazing Armenian Coffee Cake I made and really didn't want or need to have anything else tempting in the house for a while.  


I needn't have feared though.  Barbara has, in addition to all her mouth watering baked goods, a great selection of savory dishes.  Her chicken piccata recipe got my attention right away since it is a "quick and easy" recipe and one of our favorite chicken dishes to order at a restaurant. However, I'd never made it at home, which won't be an issue now I have her recipe in my files!


Barbara, like many of us, started her blog to share her favorite family recipes and her adventures in the kitchen. She also enjoys the Daring Bakers recipes as I do (where the Coffee Cake came from!).

Recipe for Scallops with Creamy Pesto Pasta-Secret Recipe Club

The blog I got to snoop around on this month for the Secret Recipe Club was Lisa's Cook Lisa Cook.  Lisa and her family (husband and daughter) live in the Atlanta area, near where I used to live and where I still have family.  She's a transplant from New England, her hubby from across the Atlantic, and their daughter all the way from China.  Lisa also writes another blog about their life as an adoptive family.  But on to this recipe-it comes together pretty quickly so best to be organized.  I used a commercial pesto sauce and it was fine but I do think this would be amazing with the fresh taste of homemade pesto-next time!  Lisa also used lemon pepper pasta which I could not find so I used my favorite multi-grain and added a generous squirt of lemon to the sauce.

Recipe for Moussaka-Secret Recipe Club

Moussaka-something I love ordering in restaurants but have failed miserably the few times I've tried to make it. Not this time!  Thanks to Evelyne at Cheap Ethnic Eatz, I now have a great recipe.  Evelyne's blog was my March Secret Recipe Club assignment.  It is a nice experience each month to really spend some dedicated time on a fellow bloggers site.  You can read more and see all of this months recipes on the Secret Recipe Club site.

Recipe for Stuffed Portabellas-Secret Recipe Club

It is that time again!  I look forward each month to my assignment for the Secret Recipe Club.  This is a large group of bloggers who cook from one another's blogs each month.  We don't know who is cooking from our blog or what they are cooking until the big reveal day.  That would be today!

Recipe for Simply Baked Pasta-Secret Recipe Club

Mmmm.  Little pillows of ricotta cheese (no not mashed potatoes!) on top of whole grain pasta, sauce, pepper jack cheese, beef - what's not to like?  That's what I thought when I was browsing through Stacy's blog Every Little Thing and saw her "wing it" recipe for baked pasta.  She was in the midst of an exercise to eat on $60/week and threw this together based on what she had on hand.  Perfect-I do that a lot too, probably why I was drawn to this recipe.  It's Secret Recipe Club time!  

Recipe for Cheesy Chicken Penne Pasta. Secret Recipe Club!

It's that time again!  I'm really enjoying the opportunity to participate in the Secret Recipe Club.  It is a collection of bloggers who secretly pick a recipe from another's blog and cook and post about it.  Not only is it fun to spook around on someone else's blog but it is also a treat to see who had your blog for the month and what they picked to cook.

Recipe for Indian Spiced Beans

A few months ago I saw a couple of mentions of the Secret Recipe Club but didn’t really have time to look into exactly what it was all about.  Until now.  How it works in a nutshell is you sign up to join and are assigned a different blog each month (from another participating blogger).  Once you receive your assignment, you choose any recipe to make from that blog.  The secret part is that participating bloggers don’t know who is cooking from their blog or what is being made until the assigned day. 

Today is the day, and I am featuring a recipe from the blog Beantown Baker.  Jen is the author and lives in Boston with her hubby and two cats.  She loves to bake as you could probably guess but also features other recipes on her blog.  Since Mr. ELEB and I are still trying to recover (ie lose the weight we gained) from our (not so) recent SF/NY/Atlanta trip, and because I’m trying to cook more Indian food, I chose this interesting bean recipe rather than one of her delicious sounding desserts.  However, I’d encourage you to check out Jen’s blog for some decadent cupcakes!

Yield: 3 servings

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 large onion, minced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon garam masala
• 1 can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 inch fresh ginger, grated
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup light coconut milk
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves

Method:

• Heat oil in a medium skillet over med-high heat.
• Add onion and sauté until translucent.
• Stir in the minced garlic and garam masala.
• Cook for one minute. 
• Stir in the beans, tomatoes, ginger, and salt.
• Simmer for fifteen minutes. 
• Pour in coconut milk.
• Heat until warmed.
• Sprinkle with cilantro and serve.

This is a great, quick recipe for when you want something flavorful but easy to put together, especially if you are on an Indian food kick like I am!  I stayed pretty true to the original recipe.  I used cannellini rather than pinto beans but as Jen noted, any bean will work.  I also omitted the small amount of sugar in the original recipe, used fresh instead of ground ginger, and used light instead of regular coconut milk. 

Check out all the other recipes that were made as part of the Secret Recipe Club.  I can’t wait to see what someone picked to make from Eat Little, Eat Big!  

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